The Plankton of E-commerce: Product Metafields & Data with Ole Thorup

Picking Up Shopify Editions, Sidekick Apps & Uber Eats for Shopify with Emili Horncastle of Zapiet

Shopify Editions is basically tech's twice-yearly keynote moment now. The Everywhere Edition dropped 150+ updates, and landed on the same day I'd booked Emili Horncastle of Zapiet, so we hit record three hours later and got the early takes while the dust was still settling. Emili's the real deal: Zapiet invented store pickup and local delivery on Shopify! She now runs six apps including Zapiet Eats (you guessed it, basically Uber Eats for Shopify). We get into what Editions actually means for developers - why Sidekick makes good UX more important, not less, the gap between cool catalogue-API demos and genuinely useful experiences, and the glaring silence around the online store and themes. Then we go deep on Zapiet Eats: how it lets restaurants ditch the brutal Uber/DoorDash margins for their own loyal customers, why one app became six, the new Shopify billing API and per-order pricing, and the Zapietosaurus - the dragon-meets-T-Rex mascot Emili designed that kids now drag everywhere. If you build apps and you're trying to work out where to actually point your energy after Editions - and after the Mantle news - this one's for you. This episode is sponsored by The Support Heroes [https://thesupportheroes.com] - dedicated Shopify support agents who actually know what they're doing. Head to thesupportheroes.com [http://thesupportheroes.com]. In this episode: * Editions three hours in - Sidekick, the catalogue API, and why "everywhere" is the whole point * The Sidekick paradox: why AI-driven setup makes clean UX and consistent terminology more critical * What Editions left out - nothing for the online store or the theme ecosystem that's still most merchants' lifeblood * The Mantle wind-down, the scramble to replace it, and rebuilding reporting in-house with AI * The new billing API - per-order vs percentage, and why Zapiet won't take a cut of every order * How one app became six, and why merchants need a bike, not a rocket ship * Zapiet Eats: restaurant ordering on Shopify, ditching aggregator fees, and pulling Wendy's onto the platform * The Zapietosaurus - and why a dragon-T-Rex mascot matters more than you'd think YouTube Chapters 00:00 — Editions drops: early takes, and why we recorded three hours later 02:17 — Emili joins: 150+ updates and what excites a developer 04:47 — Inventory, catalogues and metafields: faster data processing 06:23 — The Sidekick paradox: why UX and terminology matter more, not less 09:30 — Getting app data into Shopify reports (so Sidekick can find it) 10:48 — The Mantle wind-down and what app developers do now 14:43 — Mantle, the dev dashboard, and rebuilding reporting in-house 15:40 — The new billing API: per-order vs percentage pricing 18:43 — Why Zapiet won't take a percentage of every order 20:31 — Zapiet's origins: pioneering pickup and delivery on Shopify 23:07 — One app becomes six: giving merchants a bike, not a rocket ship 26:03 — Zapiet Eats: restaurant ordering and ditching aggregator fees 30:55 — The real cost of Uber Eats fees for restaurants and diners 33:54 — The Shop app, Shop Minis and untapped potential 36:00 — Token bills, vibe coding and racing your co-founder 36:26 — The Zapietosaurus: designing a dragon-T-Rex mascot 39:38 — A 300-year-old store, kids, and a mascot that took on a life of its own 41:27 — Wrapping up

The Plankton of E-commerce: Product Metafields & Data with Ole Thorup

Product data is the plankton of ecommerce — the bottom of the food chain that everything else feeds on. Your content, your search rankings, the LLMs, the marketplaces: they're all eating what's at the bottom. Feed them junk, get AI slop. Few people understand this better than Ole Thorup, who built Accentuate Custom Fields as a solo developer back in 2016 — when metafields were just strings and booleans. Ole's also just launched Kairos Protect [https://www.kairosprotect.com/#] — bot detection and checkout protection that keeps card testers and price scrapers out of your store and out of your analytics. If you've ever fought with a 30,000-product catalog, managed product data in a spreadsheet you're scared to open, or wondered how the merchandising teams at big stores actually do it — this one's for you. We've put together a playbook to go with this episode: Your Shopify Products Are Being Read By Machines [https://theshopifyappshow.substack.com/p/your-shopify-products-are-being-read]. Find it on Substack, and if you're not subscribed yet — do the thing. This episode is sponsored by The Support Heroes — dedicated Shopify support agents who actually know what they're doing. Head to thesupportheroes.com [http://thesupportheroes.com]. And if you're talking product data, you should be managing yours properly. Product Pelican [https://apps.shopify.com/product-pelican] is a native PIM for Shopify — manage and audit your entire catalog at scale, with missing data, broken images and SEO gaps flagged before your customers find them. Install it from the Shopify App Store. In this episode: * Building Accentuate in 2016, when metafields were strings and not much else * Growing to 20,000+ merchants and the Shop Circle exit * How Live Metafields works (and the lesson about not over-engineering) * Conversion and merchandising use cases merchants love * Metafields as the trigger for Shopify Flow automations * Inventory, ERPs, PIMs and getting data into the right shape * AI, MCPs and where apps still win * Kairos Protect: bots, card testing and checkout protection Chapters: 00:00 — Why product data is the plankton of ecommerce 02:27 — Building Accentuate in 2016: strings, booleans and stringified JSON 07:12 — 20,000 merchants and the Shop Circle exit 07:59 — Live Metafields: data that updates itself 11:37 — Use cases: bestseller collections, conversion data, review filtering 14:21 — Metafields as Shopify Flow's biggest unlock 16:38 — Warehouse stock vs store stock: the inventory puzzle 18:37 — The Omnibus directive: boring stuff, solved for you 20:05 — ERPs, PIMs and 30,000-product catalogs 22:09 — Shopify's Claude and ChatGPT apps: threat or opportunity? 24:35 — A crowded App Store and why service wins 30:02 — Kairos Protect: bots, card testing and checkout protection 33:00 — Wrapping up

Accept All Cookies: Making Compliance Fun With Elena Tsacheva from ConsentMo

Compliance. It's the 4PM Friday conference slot that clears the room faster than a fire alarm. But get the right person talking about it and suddenly it's actually kind of fascinating. Elena Tsacheva from ConsentMo is that person — she makes cookie banners and GDPR regulations genuinely watchable, and she's built one of the most sophisticated consent platforms in the Shopify ecosystem to back it up. We get into why 20 US states now have their own privacy laws (and why that number keeps climbing), what's actually broken about the vibe-coded cookie banner approach, and why Shopify's built-in banner is fine right up until it isn't. We also discuss * the Digital Omnibus directive * why compliance and AI are increasingly at odds with each other * why the future of consent might not involve cookie banners at all. Outside the product, we hear about running team brainstorms in a toddler café, dressing for Paris Fashion Week at an e-commerce conference, and getting surprised with a birthday cake by the Zapier team in the middle of the Wide event. We've put together a Compliance Playbook [https://open.substack.com/pub/theshopifyappshow/p/why-compliance-in-e-commerce-is-good?r=4s8na6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true] to go with this episode. Search for The Shopify App Show on Substack. And if you're not already subscribed, do the thing — like, subscribe, share, all of it. This episode is sponsored by The Support Heroes — dedicated Shopify support agents who actually know what they're doing. Head to thesupportheroes.com [http://thesupportheroes.com]. Checkout Consentmo [https://www.consentmo.com/] for your privacy compliance needs, and for Price Tracking compliance, check out one of my apps, Omnibus Owl [https://omnibusowl.com/en/]. And most importantly, we featured my daughter's cookie business, Sophies Cookies [https://sophiescookies.shop/], on this episode. YouTube Chapters: 00:00 — Introduction 01:29 — Making compliance content people actually watch 03:12 — What ConsentMo actually does (it's a lot) 06:56 — What drives the roadmap — and what gets a hard no 10:02 — Saying no: the art of not shipping everything 13:34 — Will merchants just vibe code their own cookie banner? 16:19 — Why hasn't Shopify just built all of this? 20:35 — Why human support still matters (especially in compliance) 21:32 — What's next: Germany's cancel law and the Digital Omnibus 25:16 — Will cookie banners eventually disappear? 27:00 — Martin's daughter's cookie website makes an appearance 27:38 — The Wide Paris event: fashion week for e-commerce 31:12 — Wrapping up

Going Deep on Subscriptions with Gavin Ballard of Submarine

Subscriptions are the holy grail if you get them right: recurring revenue from your best customers. Gavin Ballard has spent 15 years tackling the hardest problems in the Shopify ecosystem, founded Disco Labs, and now runs Submarine — the platform powering subscriptions, memberships and pre-orders for some of the most complex Shopify brands out there. This chat's timely - Gavin just got back from Sub Summit in Kansas City (the only conference dedicated entirely to subscription commerce), and Recharge just aquired Skio for $100M, a massive deal in thhe Shopify Subscriptions space. We get into why slapping a "subscribe" button next to "add to cart" doesn't work anymore, what AI is actually unlocking (A/B testing your cancellation flows in real time, infinite personalisation segments that used to be impossible), and why you're not just competing with other Shopify subs — you're competing with Netflix, Spotify and every other line on your customer's recurring bill. If you run a store, build apps, or you're an agency talking to merchants about retention — this one's loaded. Bonus: The Shopify Subscriptions Playbook [https://theshopifyappshow.substack.com/p/the-shopify-subscriptions-playbook] goes with this episode. Sponsor: The Support Heroes [https://www.thesupportheroes.com/] — trained Shopify support specialists who plug into your help desk, learn your brand voice, and handle your tickets like they actually give a shit. Tell them I sent you. And one from me — Product Pelican [https://apps.shopify.com/product-pelican]. Audits your whole product catalog, finds the gaps — missing alt text, weak descriptions, uncategorised products, FAQ generation — and helps you fix them in bulk. Free to try or HMU for a demo! In this episode * What Gavin learned at Sub Summit in Kansas City * Why "add subscribe button" isn't a subscription strategy * You're competing with Netflix, not just other Shopify stores * AI unlocking infinite personalisation segments * A/B testing your cancellation flows in real time * The Recharge–Skio deal and what it means * Build vs buy your own subscription platform * Memberships — the Qantas and Costco model * How to actually get a subscription program off the roadmap Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:37 Recap of SubSummit Kansas City 4:34 Why merchants get subscriptions wrong 6:39 You're competing with Netflix, not other stores 8:04 AI in the subscription space 8:57 The personalisation segments AI unlocks 12:01 A/B testing your cancellation flows 13:39 Sponsor — The Support Heroes 13:59 The Recharge–Skio acquisition 15:49 Where Submarine sits in the new landscape 18:36 Build vs buy your subscription platform 21:29 Where AI actually adds value — connectors and custom logic 23:23 Membership programs vs subscriptions 24:03 The Costco & Qantas models 26:13 What makes a membership program actually work 27:55 How to get started if it's been on your roadmap for years 30:34 Wrap up 31:46 Product Pelican Promo

Spilling the Beans on Shopify POS for Cafes with Adam & Carmel Wooding

Shopify POS is one of the biggest unlocks on the platform, but most merchants are scared to make the move — and honestly, a lot of POS apps are half-arsed. So this episode I'm going proper niche: POS Cafe, built by Carmel and Adam, who run the whole thing out of remote Queensland and service merchants all over the world. We get into how two ex-agency operators stumbled into a gap nobody was filling (a merchant wanted to open a coffee shop inside their store), why the "do one thing well" advice broke down for them almost immediately, and how they've ended up with what's basically 5–10 apps in one, including an Uber Eats–style online ordering extension. If you run a retail or food business, build apps, or you're weighing up a POS migration — this one's worth your time. Bonus: I've put together a Mastering the Move to Shopify POS Playbook [https://open.substack.com/pub/theshopifyappshow/p/the-shopify-pos-playbook-one-source?r=4s8na6&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true] drawing on this chat plus my earlier ones with Josh Bitossi and Jordan Finneran. Sponsor The Support Heroes [https://www.thesupportheroes.com/] — trained Shopify support specialists who plug into your help desk, learn your brand voice, and handle your tickets like they actually give a shit. Carmel and Adam set night alarms to check their tickets — they could use these guys. Tell them I sent you. And one from me — Product Pelican [https://productpelican.nativeappco.com]. Audits your whole product catalog, finds the gaps — missing alt text, weak descriptions, uncategorised products — and helps you fix them in bulk. Free to try. In this episode * How an agency side hustle became a Shopify POS app * The cafe gap nobody was filling * Why "do one thing well" didn't work for POS Cafe * Modifiers, KDS, print servers and online ordering * Building the "Shopify way" — metafields, metaobjects, draft orders * Why POS apps have to be stable 100% of the time * The POS APIs they're still waiting on * Where Shopify POS caps out (and why they think it doesn't) * The other niche POS devs worth knowing Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:05 From custom furniture to Shopify — Adam's origin story 3:40 The cafe request that started it all 4:22 What a food service business actually needs 5:00 Launching POS Cafe and 18 months of feedback 6:13 What POS Cafe does that Shopify POS can't 6:57 Modifiers done properly 7:26 KDS, print servers and receipt printing 8:30 Native discounts and online ordering 9:33 Why "do one thing well" broke down 10:58 Sponsor — The Support Heroes 11:27 Product Pelican 12:07 Why good service is what makes the product 13:08 Building for scale and stability 14:30 The "Shopify way" — metafields, metaobjects, draft orders 16:07 What's still hard to do on Shopify POS 18:42 Bringing merchants into the feedback loop 20:00 Where does Shopify POS cap out? 21:14 POS as the front door to Shopify 22:04 Other niche POS devs worth knowing 23:54 The Shopify dev community 25:08 Marketing a product from remote Queensland 25:25 Building trust from the other side of the world 27:17 Why passion cuts through 28:26 Wrap up