Shopify Rolls Out Messaging App For Merchants

To condense business conversations and tasks into one place, Shopify has launched a new mobile app dubbed Shopify Ping. Through the app, merchants can manage tasks through messaging without needing to switch between apps and tools, Shopify said in an announcement.

“Shopify merchants are conducting many business conversations across multiple apps every day, not only to run their day-to-day operations, but also to manage customer inquiries,” Shopify Director of Product Michael Perry said in the announcement. “Shopify Ping was created to make all of this easier to manage. It’s a one-stop messaging app that lets them spend more time on what matters most — running their businesses seamlessly and deepening customer relationships.”

The app brings together messages from social media, a merchant’s storefront and email — among other channels — into one interface. It also helps merchants plan and manage marketing activities through a conversational interface with the company’s Kit virtual assistant. Shopify said these integrations will help merchants run Instagram and Facebook ads along with email and retargeting campaigns.

The news comes as Shopify rolled out Instagram integration to its merchants in October 2017. According to reports, Shopify had been testing the Instagram shopping service throughout 2017 before opening it up to the thousands of merchants that use its shopping platform.

Shopify already has integration with Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Buzzfeed and others. With the tool, merchants on Instagram can now tag products that users can purchase, offering an option to do so directly within the mobile app. With integration by Shopify, this ability is easier to set up, particularly for users that already sell products via Shopify, noted the report.

Shopify has said Instagram is a big driver of merchant store traffic and that the service could result in increased eCommerce sales. The rollout was being offered to thousands of select merchants but would eventually be available to hundreds of thousands of stores and sellers that have accounts on the mobile app.