On Thursday, April 9, we hosted a Shopify + Dribbble Meetup in our Toronto office. We opened our doors to nearly 200 designers for drinks, discussions, and a design challenge.
Dribbble co-founders Dan Cederholm and Rich Thornett made the journey north to join in! They assured us that Salem, Mass. (where they'd come from) was just as cold and drizzly. More than a dozen of Shopify's designers came out for the evening, proud to show off the creative environment they get to work in every day.
Read on to find out more about our design challenge, see a compilation of all entries, and view our photo gallery for a highlight reel of the evening.
In this free webinar hosted by Rebecca Maiorino — Commercial Manager of Shipping and Fulfillment at Shopify — will walk you through the Shopify Shipping solution, and give you a first glimpse at some of the new features we’re introducing to make shipping better for our merchants.
During this session, we will cover:
A Shopify Shipping walkthrough to get you familiar with the product.
Who can use Shopify Shipping.
Carrier calculated shipping — what it is, and why your clients want it.
Other important shipping information you need to know.
So you want to build a business to work with ecommerce clients?
Introducing Grow Vol. I: A beginner’s guide to growing your design or development business. This book contains 10 chapters from 10 authors, each an industry expert with years of experience working with clients. They share insights, templates, and advice that you’ll need to effectively grow your own business. Find out how to get your free copy!
It’s official! We’re one of Dribbble’s three global Meetup Sponsors for the year.
Last year, we signed on as Dribbble’s official meetup sponsor and it allowed us to meet with talented and innovative web designers from all over the world. In Toronto in particular, we’ve helped to build up one of the largest Dribbble communities, and we want to continue to do so at home and all over.
Dribbble is all about supporting the show-and-tell of designers’ work – helping them learn from one another, grow in their craft, build out their graphic and web design portfolio, and even earn clients. Many of our Shopify Partners are designers that can (and do) benefit from the open collaboration that takes place through Dribbble.
Today, we launched the 2014-2015 Shopify Ecommerce Design Awards. We’re throwing down a challenge to submit your best builds for the design battle of the year. Our goal is to celebrate the talented designers and developers that create and customize themes for the Shopify platform, and to showcase ecommerce sites that display exceptional design, creativity, and usability. You can win a $5,000 cash prize by sharing the beautiful websites you’ve built for your clients. Follow the hashtag #shopifydesignawards to find out competition updates and tips for success.
The end result was 238 rebounds from vastly different perspectives. Our entrants played around with type, icons and illustrations. Some graphics were self-explanatory. Some required a detailed explanation. All showed the passion designers have for what they do.
It was a difficult task, but our judges evaluated each entry based on multiple factors: how well it answered our prompt; creativity and originality; demonstration of technical skill; and popular vote. Our judging panel included Dribbble’s co-founder Dan Cederholm, Shopify’s Director of Design Verne Ho, and Shopify’s Director of Product Design Greg Beldam.
Without further ado, let’s announce the grand prize winner, followed by our two runner-ups and 10 honourable mentions.
From bartering to Buy Buttons, people have always relied on commerce. When the internet came along, online commerce was a natural evolution. Online stores were the first frontier of ecommerce, but think of all the ways that people use the internet to connect, discover, and learn.
What if there was a way to introduce commerce to any and all of those online experiences? There are thousands of unexplored touchpoints and interactions that commerce has never been a part of — and it’s time to start exploring.
We’d like to introduce you to our new Sales Channel SDK: a collection of APIs and a UI kit that you can use to add commerce to any site, app, or platform.
Now, anything you’ve ever built can be turned into a sales channel. This will create new possibilities and endless opportunities for you to build, and for merchants to sell.
Our new software development kit will allow you to get your app into the heart of our 243,000+ merchants’ businesses. We’re taking the technology we used for our integrations with Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and Amazon, and we’re handing it over to you.
Here’s what you’ll get from our new SDK:
Product Listings
Create a catalog of products to sell, plus let merchants choose to publish entire collections, individual products, or both.
Real-Time Checkouts
Build a fully customized checkout experience with the ability to create a cart, reserve inventory, calculate shipping and taxes, and process payments for merchants.
UI Kit
Design an integrated onboarding experience and account dashboard within Shopify so merchants can manage and grow their business with you.
You can monetize your channels with our latest Billings API on a one-time, monthly, or per-order basis. Read more about our new Billing API here.
The Sales Channel SDK will be available in the coming weeks — sign up to be among the first to test it out or explore our documentation.
A few years ago, we started asking ourselves: “What would commerce look like on Pinterest? On Twitter? On Facebook?”
In 2015, we became pioneers of contextual commerce, creating industry-leading partnerships with those very three companies. This allowed any business on Shopify to sell through those channels.
Since then, we’ve seen first-hand how these important shifts have helped Shopify merchants stay ahead of their competition and succeed. Over 50% of Shopify merchants are now selling on more than one sales channels.
And we’re just getting started.
Here are some examples of how people are already using our Sales Channel SDK:
Wanelo:Users can discover and buy products from thousands of Shopify merchants without leaving Wanelo.
Ebates: Customers can check out directly within the Ebates app improving the conversion rate.
Houzz: Merchants can start selling in the Houzz marketplace, putting their products in front of 35 million monthly users.
Build with us
Our mission statement is to make commerce better for everyone. That includes our merchants, shoppers, and you – our partners.
This is an invitation to start building the future of commerce. What will you build first?
If you’ve seen us at any conferences lately or follow us on Twitter, you’ve likely seen our beautifully designed t-shirt reading, “Design is at the heart of everything we do.”
This has become the motto of the Shopify Partner Program, and we teamed up with Mike Kus to design an exclusive t-shirt depicting these words.
Perhaps you’ve seen the video that Mike Kus put together documenting his design process. If not, it’s definitely worth taking a look:
We’ve seen growing demand from entrepreneurs around the globe who are looking for ways to connect with other Shopify Partners. That’s why today, we’re excited to introduce you to the next generation of the Shopify Partner Accelerator — a digital cohort of Shopify Partners in strategic regions who will undergo a 10-week program to elevate their freelance business or agency to new levels.
In this article, you will learn:
How to apply and participate in the Shopify Partner Accelerator.
Which countries are eligible for this program.
What key areas the program will focus on, in order to grow your technical and entrepreneurial skills.
![[Free Webinar] Shopify Shipping 101: How to Pitch Shopify Shipping to Clients](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0533/2089/files/shopify_shipping_409cd90c-f134-4780-9d6d-99a865ce6d93_large.jpg?v=1506960224)
