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Month: October 2023

Fractional CTOs

Posted on by Taylor

I had a sales call today with a promotional products company and it was clear they weren’t looking for development help right away. What they really needed was someone to come in and do the following:

  1. Be their advocate when talking with other tech companies about integrations.
  2. Help them with build vs buy decisions: do we use Shopify for our business even though it’s not a perfect fit or build something custom.
  3. Provide guidance to the sales team when they are solutioning new opportunities.
  4. Backstop all of the CTO work with a development team.

For a long time at Ambaum we’ve provided these services, but we’ve done a poor job of telling our story. We’re fixing that and it was rewarding to get on a call and have it resonate with a potential client.

Chad Fisher

CEO/Founder

Let’s talk more about how we can support the growth of your success today.

The Power of B2B eCommerce on Shopify

Posted on by Taylor

I’m headed to Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) at the end of the month so it’s a perfect time to dive in to the details of how B2B works on Shopify.

Shopify has entirely revamped their B2B offering and it’s important to note that you must be on Shopify Plus to take advantage of the features that I’m going to cover here. Also at the Shopify Enterprise Summit a couple of weeks ago I got a sneak peak at Shopify Editions 2024 and even more B2B features are headed our way.

If you aren’t on Shopify Plus you can look into Shopify apps or write custom Liquid code (using tags and metafields) to create your own wholesale like experience. You can also contact us to have chat.

Here is an overview of the B2B features in the Shopify Plus solution:

  1. Companies: Create wholesale company profiles with multiple locations and associated buyers.
  2. Product publishing and pricing: Offer a personalized buying experience with curated product selections and price lists. This includes flexible purchasing rules, percentage-based pricing, and discounts, all assigned to a specific buyer or location.
  3. Flexible payment options: Create automated net payment terms, draft orders, vaulted credit cards and invoicing to streamline the order process.
  4. B2B checkout: Show wholesale pricing during accelerated checkout based on company profile.
  5. Customer accounts: Authenticate buyers before they can access wholesale products and pricing, and view and manage account information and order history.
  6. You can also take advantage of custom themes, discounts, Shopify Functions, and Shopify APIs

To summarize, you now have a ton of flexibility in creating your wholesale experience in your Plus store. You can seamlessly embed everything into your primary theme or you can create a stand-alone store. You can vault supplier credit cards by company and set payment terms tailored to different customers. I’m going to explore the details of all this in future posts, but from where I sit it’s an exciting time for B2B commerce on Shopify.

Chad Fisher

CEO/Founder

Ready to talk shop? Drop us a line here to set up a complimentary consultation today.

What’s Happening with Shopify Checkout?

Posted on by Taylor

Shopify is upgrading the checkout experience and giving merchants more control. Here are the big developments you need to know about:

  1. Shopify Checkout Extensibility – Checkout.liquid will be fully deprecated for the Information, Shipping, and Payment pages in your checkout on August 13, 2024. Shopify Plus merchants can now use checkout extensibility to customize these pages instead (Shopify has created a handy upgrade guide if you are interested). Shopify Plus stores can use checkout extensibility to add apps and advanced branding customizations right now.
  2. One Page Checkout – On September 25, Shopify launched a new one-page checkout to all Shopify merchants who have upgraded to checkout extensibility. It’s a redesigned experience that’s shorter, faster, and more intuitive for buyers. We are seeing a lot of Shopify Plus merchants interested in testing out one page checkout and it is important to reiterate that your store has to be upgraded to checkout extensibility first.
  3. Shopify Functions – As of August 28, 2025 Shopify Scripts will be fully deprecated and replaced by Shopify Functions. Merchants that leverage Shopify Scripts will need to migrate to apps powered by Shopify Functions before this date. For example, you will be able to use Shopify Functions to create cart and checkout validations to ensure that purchases meet certain criteria before checking out, or completing an order.

There is a lot happening in the checkout space and it’s fantastic for Shopify merchants that want more control over their purchase funnel. In the short term it can be confusing with all the different feature updates and upgrades required, but long term this will give more functionality to Shopify merchants.

Is now the time to take your eCommerce business to the next level? Let’s talk today.

Ambaum and Shopify: Ready for Enterprise eCommerce

Posted on by Taylor

Sitting outside here at Shopify Enterprise Partner Summit enjoying the LA warmth and reflecting on my Shopify journey. Ambaum joined the Shopify Plus partner program in 2016, very thankful for Mac King as he was the Shopify Partner Manager that got us in. Mac’s agency Half Helix just merged with Tomorrow and got a big shoutout from Bobby Morrison yesterday as the conference kicked off.

Shopify has grown up since we joined the Plus program and the emphasis on Enterprise reminds me of my work at PwC. All the large consulting companies are here in LA, especially Accenture and E&Y, they both came out strong for the conference.

Seven years ago Shopify wasn’t ready to tackle Enterprise e-commerce (arguably not even three years ago), but they are now. Here’s why Shopify is poised to excel in Enterprise:

  1. Shopify is a founder led company. Tobias Lütke is a deep thinker who is trying to bring commerce to the entire world. I don’t work for Shopify, but just doing my part for the ecosystem gives me an immense amount of pride. Even Chamath Palihapitiya is in love with Tobi after his talk at the All-In Summit.
  2. Almost two years ago, the first Shopify Editions launched and I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. Tobi was inspired by the apparel industry and their fall and summer releases. He took that concept and created a six month cadence for new product features. All of a sudden the pace of development on the core Shopify platform went up dramatically and there is now an expectation for future releases, absolutely love it!
  3. Shopify has 4,000 developers working on infrastructure, core platform features, Hydrogen, POS and more. The other e-commerce platforms have nowhere near this level of firepower.
  4. Shopify spends 50% of it’s budget on R&D, really an extraordinary number when you think about all the SAAS companies that lead with sales and backfill on product development.
  5. Shopify has a 66.3B market cap 📈 and BigCommerce has a 700M market cap, a massive valuation advantage for Shopify.

This is pure speculation, but around 2 years ago it feels like Tobi grabbed the reins of Shopify and dug in to improve the core platform. The benefits are showing up everywhere and something as simple as Shopify Editions brought a whole new level of discipline and focus to the company. It’s Shopify’s time to tackle Enterprise, here they come.

Chad Fisher

CEO/Founder

Is now the time to take your eCommerce business to the next level? Let’s talk today.