Want to get the most out of your Shopify business? Listen to the Shopify Solutions Podcast to get concrete examples and recommendations on how to build and grow your eCommerce business. Hosted by Scott Austin, owner of JadePuma , a Shopify-focused agency in San Diego, California. Scott has decades of e-commerce experience with the biggest companies and the smallest stores and everything in between.
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October 28, 2026Episode 1971 hr 0 min
Episode 197 - One Employee Brand with Mark Gillilan
10/28/26 Episode Summary Mark Gillilan, founder of Kyoto Botanicals, runs his CBD and functional mushroom brand entirely on his own. He and Scott discuss what he’s learned teaching himself Shopify code, and the apps that earn their place in his store. Topics include: Cleaning up leftover code from uninstalled apps Duplicating your theme and tracking changes in GitHub Using IndexNow and Bing to improve AI search visibility Judge.me reviews and their influence on AI recommendations Cart drawer upsells and free-shipping thresholds Klaviyo, and why Mark dropped subscriptions Insights from Microsoft Clarity session recordings Price-per-unit bundle pricing to drive multi-pack sales Show Links - Kyoto Botanicals - https://kyotobotanicals.com/ - Index Now - https://apps.shopify.com/indexnow - Judge.me - https://apps.shopify.com/judgeme - Amp Slide Cart Upsell Drawer - https://apps.shopify.com/slide-cart Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-197-one-employee-brand-with-mark-gillilan
October 14, 2026Episode 1961 hr 12 min
Episode 196 - Live Shopping with Skip Chapman
10/14/26 Episode Summary This week, Scott talks with Skip, founder of KAFX Body, a natural deodorant brand built around patented coffee-oil technology. What started as a dad trying to solve his triplet sons' body odor became a business overnight when one TikTok video hit a million views. Skip shares how he proved coffee oil works as a natural antimicrobial, why his customers care more about results than science, and how showing his struggles built a loyal community. He also explains how AI helped him land a state export grant. Scott and Skip dig into the Shopify apps Skip relies on (Max Bundle for raising AOV, Loox for reviews, and PageFly for landing pages), and Scott gives live feedback on shorter product titles, showing price-per-unit on bundles, adding a reviews page for SEO, and outgrowing the Dawn theme. The second half covers TikTok Shop live selling: how Skip runs daily lives, how the algorithm rewards sales, why Gen X is a major buying demographic, and why getting on camera, imperfect and unpolished, matters more than production quality. Show Links KAFX Body - https://www.kafxbody.com/ KAFX Body Live Events - https://www.tiktok.com/live/event/7689522574102888461 Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-196-live-shopping-with-skip-chapman
September 30, 2026Episode 19549 min
Episode 195 - The Shopify Silver Bullet: Hardwork
9/30/26 Episode Summary JT from ReptiChip returns as the show's first-ever repeat guest. Two years ago, his reptile supply brand had grown revenue 5x; since then it's done it again, for roughly 25x growth in three and a half years. JT and Scott break down the three buckets behind that growth: Catalog expansion : curating and reselling other brands' products that meet his quality bar, including wholesale vs. dropship, partner deals, and margins. Advertising : building in-house skill in Google and Meta, using his own scorecards, and planning top-, middle-, and bottom-of-funnel ads. CPC traffic grew just 6% year over year while revenue from it doubled. Email: evolving campaigns, including a brand-authentic sale tied to Steve Irwin. They also cover growing a marketing team to three full-time people, hiring and keeping good employees (and why location matters), celebrating failure as a way to learn, and why there's no silver bullet: building a brand takes years of hard work. Show Links ReptiChip - https://reptichip.com Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-195-the-shopify-silver-bullet-hardwork
September 16, 2026Episode 19427 min
Episode 194 - AEO for Shopify Stores
9/16/26 Episode Summary Answer Engine Optimization is how your products get recommended when a shopper asks ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini what to buy. Two of my clients are now getting about 7% of their sales from AI, so this is a real channel, even though it's still under 1% of retail traffic overall. In this episode I walk through the two halves of AEO work: on-site, which is the structured data and content that controls how AI understands your products, and off-site, which is the third-party citations that determine whether AI actually recommends you. Then I show three client stores live across all three AI engines. All three got identical on-site work through Datify. Mulberry Park Silks and ReptiChip rank at the top. Healing Home Foods doesn't appear at all. The difference is entirely off-site. Also covered: Why AEO is not SEO, and why unlinked mentions matter more than backlinks What's happening to Reddit, and why you shouldn't build your strategy on it The citation tactics that are actually reachable for a small brand with no PR budget A five-query test you can run this week to score where your store stands Show Links Episode 182 - A Practical Guide to Shopify’s Agentic Storefronts - https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-182-a-practical-guide-to-shopify-s-agentic-storefronts Episode 183 - How to Use the Shopify Knowledge Base App for Agentic Commerce - https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-183-how-to-use-the-shopify-knowledge-base-app-for-agentic-commerce Mulberry Park Silks - https://mulberryparksilks.com/ Citation - https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-personal-shopper/article/the-best-silk-sheets/ Citation - https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/g28686955/best-silk-sheets/ Citation - https://www.usnews.com/360-reviews/sleep/best-silk-sheets Reptichip - https://reptichip.com/ Citation - https://reptifiles.com/ball-python-care-guide/ball-python-substrate/ Citation - https://www.smallpetexpert.com/reptiles/best-ball-python-substrate/ Citation - https://peteducate.com/best-substrate-for-ball-pythons/ Healing Home Foods - https://healinghomefoods.com/collections/raw-crackers/products/pizza-thins Datify - https://apps.shopify.com/datify Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-194-aeo-for-shopify-stores
September 2, 2026Episode 19311 min
Episode 193 - 404 Page in your Shopify Store
9/2/26 Episode Summary Shoppers hit your 404 page when a URL is mistyped or when a product or collection has been deleted, so it matters for SEO and user experience. Shopify Analytics won't show you your 404s easily, but Google Search Console will — under Pages, look for "Not found (404)." Then create redirects in the Shopify admin under Content → Menus → URL Redirects. Shopify makes these 301 permanent redirects automatically, and pointing a dead product to its main collection beats dumping everyone on the homepage. Run this cleanup monthly. For the 404s that still slip through, every theme has a 404 template you can edit in theme customization and add sections to. The episode compares bare-bones defaults (RugsUSA, Beardbrand, Gymshark) with better merchandised versions from Healing Home Foods, Chubbies, and Deathwish Coffee. The recommendation is one simple merchandising section — bestsellers or favorites — so visitors get context and can resume shopping. Don't over-invest: the real goal is that redirects keep anyone from seeing the page at all. Show Links Deathwish Coffee - https://www.deathwishcoffee.com/pages/test Chubbies - https://www.chubbiesshorts.com/pages/test1 Healing Home Foods - https://healinghomefoods.com/pages/test GymShark - https://www.gymshark.com/pages/test Kylie Cosmetics - https://kyliecosmetics.com/pages/test BeardBrand - https://www.beardbrand.com/pages/test RugsUSA - https://www.rugsusa.com/pages/test Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-193-404-page-in-your-shopify-store
August 19, 2026Episode 19249 min
Episode 192 - Subscriptions with The Healing Hedge Witch
8/19/26 Episode Summary Scott welcomes the founder of The Healing Hedge Witch for an in-depth discussion on implementing a successful subscription model on Shopify. This episode offers a practical, real-world look at how The Healing Hedge Witch uses recurring subscriptions to build a predictable revenue stream and foster a loyal customer base. They explore the specific strategies that have worked for their unique product line and the lessons learned along the way. Store owners will learn about the tangible benefits of offering subscriptions and gain actionable advice for their own businesses. The conversation covers key considerations, from customer experience to the technical setup using the Recharge app. This is an instructional deep-dive for anyone looking to leverage the power of subscriptions to grow their Shopify store. Show Links The Healing Hedge Witch - https://thehealinghedgewitch.com/ Spellcrafter - https://shopspellcrafter.com/ Demysify Magic - https://demystifymagic.com/ The Potionary - https://thepotionary.com/ Recharge - https://apps.shopify.com/subscription-payments Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-192-subscriptions-with-the-healing-hedge-witch
August 5, 2026Episode 19129 min
Episode 191 - What AI can do for your Shopify brand today
8/5/26 Episode Summary Two things about AI are true at the same time: it's genuinely powerful when wired into your systems, and getting it there is a lot harder than the demos suggest. In this episode Scott gives you both halves. He walks through Client OS, the tool JadePuma built and runs on client brands — a connector that sits between Shopify, Klaviyo, Notion, GitHub, and Google Drive, holds a detailed brand definition, and routes each task to whichever AI model fits it best by API. The demo covers what's actually running today: automated 404 reports with confidence-scored redirect recommendations, scheduled ADA compliance checks that hand errors to a human expert, brand-compliance scoring on existing pages and emails, sentiment analysis on customer reviews to keep brand language in sync with how customers actually talk, and landing pages built from the theme's existing sections. Coming next: ad platforms, social, Google Analytics, and a connection to the marketing calendar — with the goal of one coordinated campaign across every channel, assembled by AI with human checkpoints built into every skill. Then the honest part. Client OS has taken more than a full-time month from JadePuma's strongest developer and it isn't finished. The connections break, APIs change, and chaining tasks together multiplies the failure points. That math works for an agency amortizing the build across a roster of brands; it usually doesn't work for a single store. Scott's takeaway for store owners: don't build this yourself — ask your agency what they're building, how they're using AI on your brand, and what they'd never let it touch. Show Links Leave a review - https://ratethispodcast.com/solutions Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-191-what-ai-can-do-for-your-shopify-brand-today
July 22, 2026Episode 19015 min
Episode 190 - Shopify's New Powerful Collections
7/22/26 Episode Summary Shopify is rolling out a new Collection engine, and it's a big step forward for store owners. In this episode, Scott walks through what's changing: the old split between manual and smart collections is gone, replaced by collections built from a combination of sources. That means you can now mix automated rules, manual inclusions, exclusions, and pinned products in a single collection, nest collections inside other collections, and target down to the variant level so a collection shows only the red dresses, not the whole product. Scott covers real-world scenarios like self-maintaining sale collections, cleaner navigation, and variant-aware automatic discounts, plus why well-built collections turn your store from a list of products into a decision-making engine that moves shoppers down the funnel. He also shares one caution about third-party apps that haven't been updated for the new engine yet. Show Links Datify - https://apps.shopify.com/datify Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-190-shopifys-new-powerful-collections
July 8, 2026Episode 18928 min
Episode 189 - Why Shopify Stores are Ditching White Backgrounds
7/8/26 Episode Summary The episode explains that a store's background color drives a subconscious snap judgment about a brand within about 50 milliseconds — before a visitor reads a single word — and that in 2026, Shopify stores are increasingly moving away from the long-standing default of pure white backgrounds. Why white is losing its grip . Pure white is clean, fast-loading, readable, and required by Amazon and Google Shopping — but it's become commoditized (making independent brands look like marketplace dropshippers) and causes eye strain on today's bright screens. The replacement trend is "elevated neutrals" — off-whites, warm creams, soft grays. Dark mode's advantages . Dark backgrounds create a "theater effect" that makes products pop, reduce eye fatigue for nighttime browsing, and save meaningful OLED battery life — but the episode warns against pure black (#000000), which causes black smearing and halation; deep charcoal like #121212 with softened text is the pro move. Brand-color backgrounds . High risk, high reward — Tiffany blue builds recognition and emotional immersion, but simultaneous contrast can distort how products look and drive returns. The recommended playbook . A hybrid approach: neutral backgrounds on collection grids where shoppers compare products, atmospheric color on product pages, delivered adaptively via the prefers-color-scheme CSS media query — with every change validated against WCAG 4.5:1 contrast requirements and A/B tested with an eye out for the novelty effect. Show Links Sabi Juice - https://sabijuice.com/ Bixby Chocolate - https://bixbychocolate.com/ Emerson Knives - https://www.emersonknives.com/ Scorpion Percussion - https://scorpionpercussion.com/ Authentic Vintage Posters - https://www.authenticvintageposters.com/ Hexclad - https://hexclad.com/ Google Battery Life Stat - https://wpswings.com/blog/dark-mode-in-ecommerce/ WAVE Evaluation Tool - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/wave-evaluation-tool/ Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-189-why-shopify-stores-are-ditching-white-backgrounds
June 24, 2026Episode 18815 min
Episode 188 - Store Branding in the Checkout and Account Pages
6/24/26 Episode Summary The episode tackles how to apply your brand identity to checkout and customer account pages—two areas merchants often neglect and frequently assume they can't control. Scott's core argument is that the jarring hand-off from a polished storefront to a generic, default-looking checkout erodes trust at the highest-intent moment in the funnel, when a browser becomes a buyer, and that visual disconnect costs you in abandoned carts. He explains why this happens: checkout isn't part of your theme. Once a customer hits checkout, Shopify takes over on its own secured infrastructure. The old checkout.liquid approach is now dead—fully retired for Plus stores in August 2025, with standard plans reaching final retirement in August 2026. In its place is Checkout Extensibility and a unified branding system accessed through the checkout and accounts editor, where you "set it once, apply it everywhere" across checkout, thank-you, order status, and account pages. The bulk of the episode is a step-by-step walkthrough aimed at standard plan merchants (Basic, Grow, Advanced), covering what you can control in the editor: Logo — upload a high-res transparent PNG (no SVG), and preview on mobile, not just desktop Color palette — define reusable hex codes, use your boldest color for action buttons, prioritize contrast over flair, and don't skip a visible error-state color Fonts — pick from Shopify's library, but note you can't control font weight on standard plans Layout — header is adjustable; footer layout is Plus-only (and the editor has a bug where it appears editable but doesn't save) Background images — disabled by Shopify as of February 5, 2026, in the header and main content areas (colors still work) Apps — you can add app blocks to thank-you and order status pages, but not the core checkout steps (Plus-only) Customer account pages — branding inherits automatically, but native pages are bare-bones on content, which is the gap his Customer Accounts Toolbox app fills He closes with the recommendation to audit the live experience in an incognito window on both desktop and mobile, and a four-point checklist covering logo, colors, typography, and accounts. Show Links Account Pages Toolbox - https://apps.shopify.com/account-pages-toolbox Video & Transcript https://jadepuma.com/blogs/the-shopify-solutions-podcast/episode-188-store-branding-in-the-checkout-and-account-pages
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