April 28th, 2025: Composable Conference in Chicago shows MACH progress, ChatGPT and Shopify partnership teased, and Shopify promotes internally for Chief Design Officer: What's going on?
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It’s April 28, 2025 and this is the Watson Weekly - your essential eCommerce Digest!
Today on our show:
Composable Conference in Chicago Shows MACH Progress
ChatGPT and Shopify Partnership Teased
Shopify Promotes Internally for Chief Design Officer: What's Going On?
- and finally, The Investor Minute which contains 5 items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs.
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To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.
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BUT FIRST in our shopping cart full of news….
Composable Conference in Chicago Shows MACH Progress
TL;DR: US is in deep-freeze, Europe is experiencing a mini-boom, and the community got together anyway.
Consensus seems to be in the US (almost) no big projects of any kind are going forward unless it is deemed critical to investors or the Board of Directors. On the other hand, there is something of a resurgance in Europe as the EU is beginning to learn how to rely less on markets in the United States -- which means more investment there than was expected at the beginning of the year. And this is the opinion of essentially a room full of technologists.
A few other thoughts and opinions from the event:
* Had a great time recording a few video clips with Paul Curtis, CTO of Easyjet and Adam Bezemek, Global Director of Experience Engineering.
Adam spoke a lot about the common issue multi-brand holding companies have balancing the rationalization of technology investments vs allowing brand autonomy in these kinds of decisions -- relative to a brand's specific user and growth goals.
I also gave each of them a quick question: What is MACH? Community, standards body, or marketing organization? The consensus answer was "community" of like-minded implementors.
Both Adam and Paul spoke about one of the real challenges with technology: those pesky, unaligned - yet still opinionated and demanding - people. We foul it all up.
* Is MACH controversial, and if so why?
What's interesting is that the founders and curators of MACH are some of the mildest mannered, likable people you will ever meet. Yet for those who have not spent time, there continues to be a lot of misunderstanding, fear, and sometimes even demonization.
Why is this?
* 5 years in, there are known failures of projects which appear to follow MACH principles. As if all monoliths are successful! Hardly a criticism. How many crap stores could I point out from any vendor? Still, the light of day tends to take the shine off principles.
* People tend to speak in absolutes (for short-hand, but also it's easier to make a point that way), and I have never seen a situation where the idea of the "straw man" argument seems to be the prevailing medium of discussion it's with regards to enterprise architecture. Technologists have opinions, and strong ones. MACH is just a byproduct of that, not the originator of it. In short, we are still having the old ESR argument about the Cathedral and the Bazaar in 2025.
* Given the founding of MACH, there is always going to be at least some skepticism of the involvement of the original members, namely Commercetools. In particular if you are another platform. Yet, platforms still remain members.
* Finally, there is the Shopify question. I have often posed this question to MACH members: For MACH to win, does Shopify have to lose? I think no, as if you look at the average Enterprise stack > $1B retailer, you find dozens and dozens of vendors, only 1 of which is the platform.
What you have started to see in the MACH Alliance is several members starting to mix in Shopify as the front-end of a composable eCommerce stack. In essence, Shopify looks like a replacement for a CMS and a checkout.
[References:]
Our Second Story
ChatGPT and Shopify Partnership Teased
ChatGPT and Shopify: Seems Logical, But Are There Any Risks?
Recent news from TestingCatalog indicates that Shopify and ChatGPT are likely on the path to launch some kind of partnership which would allow at least a direct link from ChatGPT answers panel to a Shopify's checkout (at worst) and an easier integration to OpenAI's Operator at best. All speculation.
The logic seems to be:
* AI will take over the world.
* AI partner with Shopify.
* As a result, Shopify will take over the world.
Does this logic make any sense? To my mind, if OpenAI Operator were any good this would not be needed right? It would just "agentic" the integration. (which people are talking about as if it's akin to magic). As a result, the dream of a universal shopping cart does not seem like it is within reach just yet.
Still: Consumers are having conversations, and brands want to be in those conversations. Fact.
So, should brands want to be involved? Yes. You should want to be where your consumers are, at least healthy ones that match your ideal customer profile, anyway.
At any cost? Are there any? Most of the downsides to a brand being included in AI are "who moved my cheese?" style objections (what about my brand front-end) -- as long as the consumer in the driver's seat you should want to be there. In that vein, I predict OpenAI will even publish a set of standards for eCommerce to make things easier for themselves. Which could have broad uptake. So this likely would not be the first or the last integration touchpoint you will see.
For Shopify, there are some risks also. Minimal, but they are there.
* What's the Shop App for now again?
* What if consumers start to get their shipping updates from ChatGPT too?
* Would Shopify not just become a kind of "headless CMS" in the worst case scenario here? Essentially routing between ChatGPT and Amazon Logistics services?
Shopify could view this kind of disruption similarly as "cost of doing business" to stay ahead of the new era.
The real interesting question to me is could AI-guided commerce accelerate the growth of eCommerce further? Or does it steal from other outlets.
Why would OpenAI do this now?
I think there are two obvious answers. One, eCommerce is a fertile area for experimentation. And two, Anthropic Claude is likely to advantage Amazon, so OpenAI may have a competitive reason for the tie-up too.
As far as what brands should do?
Ultimately connecting your brand's backoffice to AI will become a checkbox everywhere, regardless of this announcement. The front-end in my mind is more intersting.
There are a lot of people saying that organic content is useless in the AI era. Not me. The best content will be found by AIs, and used in the experience to help consumers make decisions. All the low-hanging fruit suggests brands should continue to prioritize text-based content in any arena (including their own site/blog, not to mention reddit, X, etc) that an AI spider is likely to show up.
[References:]
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ecommercestrategyconsulting_chatgpt-and-shopify-seems-logical-but-are-activity-7320412318092218369-b6d8?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAABzTYBMEkpgbpDWbI9miv0bkNA3W2mE1I
And Our Last Story
Shopify Promotes Internally for Chief Design Officer
Unlimited design flexibility has never been Shopify's forte'. Historically, while you could always build your own template, most people built templates badly and the process was not all that different than what other platforms offered.
Of course over time that has changed and improved. Now there are a lot of front-end options on Shopify.
Almost too many? Do I need a CMS? Why? What the hell is a headless? Should I use Dawn? Another theme?
Why do any of these questions even matter? They seem like nonsense.
It seems to me that Shopify is re-imagining its entire executive team for the age of AI, and this process seemed to start in earnest back when Tobi got rid of the logistics side quest a couple of years back. It went into overdrive when 8 months ago Shopify chose a new AI-oriented CTO.
Simply put, AI will completely change the front-end of user experiences and democratize the creation of them. Helping those AI create UX that achieve the following goals seems to me like the first goals of a Chief Design Officer in 2025:
* Make it easier than ever to start a store.
* Allow absolutely anyone to improve their existing store incrementally with a few statements.
* Reduce the need for so many damn apps on Shopify (in my mind, the Shopify ecosystem could shrink and we would not miss the apps lost)
* Include testing and data at the core of any design methodology
* Provide guardrails so that errant design prompts don't tank conversion
* Provide connectivity to modern (yes, legacy but still amazing and improving with AI too) toolsets (Adobe Creative Cloud comes to mind, perhaps Figma and emerging players) for Enterprises looking to use Shopify as their commerce stack but designers can stick with the tools they love.
These would be my goals, and if Shopify (or anyone) could achieve them, we would be pushing the ball forward in a way I have not seen elsewhere. Congrats Carl Rivera. The cynic in me says the head of the Shop App is that the right fit? (ok, I had to say it right?)
The analyst in me says, Tobi likes entrepreneurs running big areas of the business and this fits the bill.
[References:]
It’s That Time Friends, for our Investor Minute. We have 5 items on the menu today.
First
Customer Engagement Platform Braze Acquires OfferFit for $325M
Customer engagement platform Braze announced its intention to acquire an AI decision engine for $325 million, in a combination of cash and stock..Braze is acquiring a bolt-on to accelerate the use of agentic AI and enable personalization at scale. Is this the first example of an incumbent using acquisitions to scale agents and their opportunities within a sector, such as marketing? It's worth noting that the acquisition price of $325 million is equivalent to two quarters of Braze's annual revenue.
Second
EDI Platform Crstl Raises Series A Funding
Crstl, a B2B EDI platform, announced that it has raised an undisclosed Series A funding round, which will be used to invest in product development and its AI solutions for brands, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and 3PLs. If you have ever worked on a project and you see or read EDI, it's painful. Using AI to solve EDI workflows enables B2B to get to market faster. Also, can we agree that the line between B2C and B2B for EDI is very blurred?
Link: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sullygarman_edi-activity-7310324961078849536-0XjD
Third
Dollar Tree Sells Family Dollar To Private Equity Funds for $1B
Dollar Tree has agreed to sell Family Dollar to asset managers Brigade Capital Management and Macellum Capital Management for $1 billion. Spending $9 billion in the hopes of having better opportunities to defend a part of the market (Dollar stores), which is highly competitive, only for it to flop, highlights the challenges associated with mergers and acquisitions. After a disastrous nine years, Dollar Tree will unlock value for its shareholders and enable Family Dollar a growth opportunity.
Link: https://www.retaildive.com/news/dollar-tree-sells-family-dollar-1b-private-equity/743539/
Fourth
DHL Group Acquires CRYOPDP From Cryoport
German mail and logistics multinational DHL Group has announced that it has acquired 100% of specialty courier CRYOPDP from Cryoport for a reported $195 million and agreed to a strategic partnership to strengthen its supply chain service offerings for the global life sciences and healthcare sector. The acquisition aligns with DHL’s strategy to become a major player in healthcare logistics by 2030, as life sciences and healthcare contributed more than $5.4 billion in revenue to the group in 2024.
AND FINALLY …
Marketplace Management Platform Gierd Raises $8M in Series A Investment
Marketplace orchestration platform Gierd announced that it has raised $8 million in Series A funding, which will be invested in product development. talent addition, and partnerships. Brands managing the marketplace channel currently have to use a variety of solutions to grow this fast-growing and important channel. The company reportedly will generate $20 million in annual recurring revenue this year. It will be interesting to follow Jordan Sielaff and the Gierd team!
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Did you know that RMW Commerce has another podcast? Check out The Watson Weekend for an unfiltered and lively eCommerce chat each week with me, Rick Watson, my co-host Jess Lesesky, and an array of interesting guests and topics. All focused on eCommerce. You can find the Watson Weekend by searching for it on iTunes, Spotify, or Youtube.
That’s all for this week! Till next time Watsonians.....
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Hi, I’m Rick Watson, CEO and Founder of RMW Commerce Consulting and host of the Watson Weekly podcast - your essential eCommerce Digest.
Our production partner for the series is Podcast on the Fly. This podcast is produced by RMW Commerce.
To hear new episodes of the show every Monday morning, subscribe now at rmwcommerce.com/watsonweekly and wherever you get your podcasts.
