Shopify's Shop App gives them a set of powerful data - but for what purpose?

Few people realize that the Shop App asks for connection to Gmail to allow you to track packages not just from Shopify merchants, but anyone.

I won't claim that Shopify is tracking and organizing all this information, but they could be. Shopify's privacy policy gives them the ability to "test new features" which is - well, basically anything they can dream up.

What do they know as a result of the app scanning your Gmail 24/7? (Note: You do have to give it permission to do this)

• Information about popular Amazon items and how they are selling, without scraping Amazon.

• Which non-Amazon retailers are people shopping at.

• Breakdown between Amazon 1P vs. 3P in terms of what people are ordering.

• What promotional e-mails are retailers sending to consumers.

• Email best practices for deliverability - What products they are advertising?

• Understand where retailers are shipping, and their delivery performance by lane.

What could they do?

• Benchmark Shopify merchants against other retailers.

• Understand where there is demand in a category that is underserved by Shopify merchants. i.e. selection gaps.

• Identify the gap between order placement time and ship times across retailers.

David Glick pointed out that “Amazon removed pretty much All useful information status emails a few years ago exactly so Google couldn't do what you are suggesting. Great example of Amazon being competitor focused, rather than customer focused, on this issue.” Stephen Akomolafe echoed this, adding “Considering that Amazon no longer shares product details but only order number and and prices in confirmation emails, I don’t think the app will be able to access product information. But there is the benefit of seeing non-Amazon retailers people are using and other details.”

Even with Amazon excluding some product data in their confirmation emails, there are still some things Shop App could track:

• Amazon fulfillment and delivery performance.

• Amazon share of wallet and purchases.

• Some item information from Amazon (it's in the titles) but obviously not the whole cart.