Shop moves to shop.com. Plus: Sidekick can redesign an entire store, and an eight-step plan before you wake up your old email list.

With an address like shop.com, Shop could become a more common starting point for a purchase, before a shopper has a particular store in mind.

Shopify moved the web experience from shop.app on September 29. The new address is easier to remember and share, and shoppers can browse without installing the app.

For store owners, that could mean more customers finding a product before they’ve heard of the brand behind it, as can happen on Amazon Marketplace. I’d expect more orders to come through Shop over time, though a new address alone won’t tell us how much that will grow.

Not every store qualifies. Shop’s requirements include an active Starter plan or higher, Shopify Payments, a chargeback rate below 1% over the past six months, at least one eligible product and a public Online Store. Certain password-control and age-verification apps can also affect eligibility.

Eligible stores are searchable automatically, even without the Shop sales channel installed. The channel gives you access to more settings for how your store appears there.

I’d take a look at how your store appears in Shop and keep an eye on the orders coming through it. If more shoppers start there, you’ll want to know what they’re seeing and whether they’re buying.

Shopify is also changing how you work on the store itself. It’s rolling out Canvas, a visual workspace that shows your storefront’s pages together. You can edit elements directly or ask Sidekick to make changes in plain language.

Sidekick works with the theme files themselves. It can change a section, coordinate edits across pages or handle a wider redesign. Shopify says it validates the code and reviews screenshots while it works.

Canvas does not replace the existing theme editor yet. Shopify says the product is still early and has gaps to close.

Test it on a duplicate theme first. Check mobile, product variants, apps, tracking and the main buying path before moving the changes to the live store.

An old email list can be tempting when you have something new to sell. Before sending a win-back, check which contacts you can still reach safely.

Work through these eight steps before sending.

1. Confirm the source and permission.
Document where the contacts came from, when they opted in and what they agreed to receive.

2. Recover the suppression history.
Bring across previous unsubscribes, complaints and hard bounces before importing the list.

3. Segment by recency.
Separate recent customers and recent engagement from contacts that have been untouched for years.

4. Clean the file.
Remove duplicates, malformed addresses and known hard bounces. Address verification can help with validity; it cannot establish permission.

5. Check the sending setup.
Verify SPF, DKIM, DMARC, domain alignment and unsubscribe handling. Gmail’s guidelines require bulk senders to keep reported spam below 0.3%.

6. Start with the strongest segment.
Send first to the most recent customers or contacts with the clearest recent signal. Increase volume gradually and monitor bounces, deferrals, complaints and domain reputation.

7. Reconfirm before selling.
Remind people who you are, why they are receiving the email and what you plan to send. Give them a clear way to stay subscribed.

8. Suppress the non-responders.
Keep the contacts who actively reconfirm and leave the rest out of normal campaigns. Klaviyo also recommends suppressing contacts who do not respond to a final re-engagement attempt.

Consent rules differ by country. If the original permission is unclear, resolve that before sending.

A smaller list with current permission is more useful than a large list you cannot mail safely.

Shop and Canvas could make it easier to reach customers and improve your store. What happens after that first purchase still needs your attention.

Before your next campaign, take ten minutes to look at what a recent customer actually received from you. Fix one thing that feels missing or out of place.

Corné
Emercify