Shopify
Quick take
Storefront, checkout, and first-party customer data in one stack — a stable base for lifecycle, retention, and LTV growth.
What it is
Shopify is an e-commerce platform for launching and operating online stores. It centralizes catalog, orders, customers, and payments, and connects to your ESP/CRM so lifecycle programs can target by behavior, purchase history, and predicted value.
Why it stands out
Reliable checkout, a deep app ecosystem, and clean APIs make it easy to sync first-party data to your marketing stack and personalize by lifecycle stage without heavy engineering.
Key features
- Customer & order data — unified profiles for segments, revenue per recipient, and LTV analysis
- Checkout & payments — optimized flows with extensibility and discounts
- Segments & analytics — filter by behavior, products, and recency/frequency
- Automation hooks — webhooks/events for ESP, SMS, and onsite personalization
- App ecosystem — subscriptions, loyalty, reviews, and post-purchase offers
Best fit
- Verticals: DTC across categories (apparel, beauty, wellness, consumables)
- Company size: Starter to mid-market; scales with higher tiers
- Team maturity: Brands building lifecycle programs around first-party data
Pricing snapshot
Tiers by features and payment rates. Apps and add-ons (subscriptions, loyalty, analytics) may add cost; value comes from faster launches and better lifecycle targeting.
Integrations to know
- ESP/CRM — Klaviyo, Iterable for event-driven flows and segments
- Attribution/BI — Triple Whale, Northbeam for LTV, cohorts, and MER
- Loyalty & reviews — Smile, Yotpo to reinforce retention loops
Quick setup tips
- Map core events to ESP (order, refund, first purchase, product) and build VIP/winback segments
- Enable post-purchase offers and capture channels (email/SMS) at checkout
- Define discount governance by cohort (VIP, at-risk, new) to protect margin
Good alternatives
- BigCommerce — flexible catalog and B2B features
- Magento/OpenMage — heavy customization for complex catalogs
