My team and I created an integrated chat support assistant that harnessed the power of Shopify’s community ecosystem, partners, and customer service team to help business owners move into the digital marketplace and lower the barrier to digital entrepreneurship.
As part of the Shopify x BrainStation Hackathon, our multidisciplinary team of web developers, data scientists and UX designers collaborated to enhance the online e-commerce experience by better leveraging the existing ecosystem of the platform itself.
Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the planet with a 23% market share in the U.S. They have more than 2.1 million daily active users and more than 1.75 million merchants.
Their merchants have access to the robust Shopify Ecosystem, a network of partners that includes:
● Developers who create apps for the Shopify app store
● Designers who create themes for the Shopify theme store
● Entrepreneurs, educators, influencers, and content creators who inspire and teach their audience about entrepreneurship with Shopify via the Shopify Affiliate Program.
● Designers, developers and consultants available for hire to help with marketing, store setup,
custom development, content, and more via the Shopify Experts marketplace.
So they asked...
How can you imagine Shopify using its Ecosystem to help lower the barrier to digital entrepreneurship in entirely new regions, demographics, and business sectors?
How might Shopify better leverage its Ecosystem so that they can make entrepreneurship more accessible than ever before?
As we began our secondary research we really wanted to consider misrepresented demographics, or first-time digital merchants, and consider some common barriers they would face while entering the digital sector. We found that …
of small business owners were over the age of 50
of ventures created by older entrepreneurs were still operating compared to 28 percent of their younger counterparts.
The typical 50-year-old founder is 1.8 times more likely to achieve high growth
How might we help older entrepreneurs navigate the digital era so that they feel supported while growing their business?
Through our research we began envisioning who our users might be. We found a demographic of users that are typically misrepresented in the digital era. Considering Shopify’s desire to help lower the barrier to new demographics, we found this to be a great group to focus our attention.
In the current landscape, older entrepreneurs feel lost, unsure of where to start, and find the process overwhelming when attempting to integrate into the digital space.
On your current site we found an opportunity to harness your community ecosystem, partners, and customer service team to help older business owners move into the digital marketplace.
Though you had a forum for community members to connect in, there wasn't much activity when you consider your network of more than 1.75
million merchants.
We believe that harnessing the power and knowledge within your community can be utilized to assist and support new business owners.
Imagine Uber, meets chatbots meets mentoring.
We developed an integrated chat support assistant that harnessed the power within Shopify's community ecosystem, partners, and customer service team to help older business owners move into the digital marketplace and help lower the barrier to digital entrepreneurship.
Tina can easily find a chat support that allows her access to Shopify’s entire ecosystem for immediate support on a variety of business needs.
She can access Shopify’s community, mentor or customer service support team member to chat now or set up a meeting to get help for any of her questions.
With Shopify’s network of more than 1.75 located all over, Tina can select a source of help and get paired with a member in her network of entrepreneurs.