In this episode we sit down with Max Rolon, VP Engineering at leading Shopify agency Half Helix to discuss his experience of building headless Shopify solutions and migration to the new checkout.
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Tl;dr
- A leading Shopify agency’s take on Components
- Front-end approaches on Shopify: themes vs. headless storefronts
- Understanding the new checkout and migration path for existing merchants
Shopify continues its stellar growth, with revenue up significantly YoY, key features like Markets fully rolled-out and capabilities like POS and Payments extended into new countries. At the same time, it has had to divest unprofitable parts of the business like the fulfilment network to focus on the core product.
The Shopify marketing team has been busy promoting new releases and there has been a lot of talk in the industry about the impact of its evolution into enterprise with Components, as well as the benefits to customers of the new checkout solution. In this episode we get the insider view from a highly experienced Shopify developer who has worked with a wide range of brands including Peloton, Ulla Johnson, Laura Mercier and Bare Minerals.
Discussion notes
- Let’s get straight into it: what’s your initial view of Shopify Components, a marketing move against competitors or key new direction for the product?
- How do you see things changing for Shopify agencies like Half Helix. You already do quite a bit with headless as far as we understand, but how do you see the introduction of additional microservices changing projects, do you see it making a big difference?
- Have you done much work with Hydrogen (headless framework) and Oxygen (hosting) yet? What’s your view on the right use case for these products?
- From a client business perspective, what’s your view on using Shopify’s own front-end tooling over alternative routes, being less tied into platform and using React/VueJS etc.?
- One remaining unknown with components is how it’ll be priced, with many expecting it to be based around service usage in places. Do you have a view on this or any inside info?
- You obviously work on some large Shopify projects, do you think Shopify is ready for the enterprise? Where do you see the biggest gaps currently?
- Can you talk us through the new checkout and the migration path for existing merchants, pros/cons, benefits etc. and when’s the right time to migrate to the new checkout?
- Where do you think Shopify is headed for B2B, as it’s always been behind leading platforms like Adobe and BigCommerce from a SaSS POV: it strikes me they work well for simple B2C2B brands with trade customers but not aimed at B2B focused businesses where features like advanced quotation management are key, what’s your view?
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