Future of Shopify app development: Dario Galbiati Alborghetti from Showday
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February 23, 2024
👋 Hello great people of the D2C Community! This is your host Berkay writing. In today's D2CVille Exclusive, we had a wonderful interview with Dario Galbiati Alborgheti, Founder and CEO of Showday.
After finding success in a D2C health and well-being brand, Hundred, and being one of the founding member of Atlantic Food Labs, Dario finally decided to start his own Shopify SaaS company for making merchants' lives easier!
And he gave us great insights into the future of Shopify app development. So without further ado, let me leave you alone with Dario's wisdom!
🧐 A quick intro
TL;DR: Who is Dario and what does Showday do?
DGA: Ciao! I'm Dario, the Founder and CEO of Showday. Prior to starting Showday, I founded Hundred, a direct-to-consumer health and wellness brand focused on personalized vitamin subscriptions. I also had the opportunity to play a pivotal role as a member of the founding team at Atlantic Food Labs, where I served as Managing Director.
My journey before founding Showday has been deeply intertwined with my interest in e-commerce. It’s my passion to drive brands toward achieving growth, and I find video commerce to be an exceptional medium to realize this vision. I want to leverage my experience and passion in e-commerce to transform the way people experience shopping, and I believe that Showday is a step forward in this direction.
💰 Lowering customer acquisition costs
In 2021, we were on a quest to lower acquisition costs. We started exploring existing solutions, only to find a significant lack in the market.
DGA: Showday is an all-in-one video commerce platform for Shopify brands. It allows e-commerce merchants to bring live video shopping and shoppable videos into their storefronts where they can create engaging video experiences such as product demos, live launches, influencer showcases, and in-video purchasing that drive conversions and increase average order value.
The inspiration to start Showday originated from my experience with my previous DTC brand for personalized supplements (Hundred). In 2021, we were on a quest to lower acquisition costs. We started exploring existing solutions, only to find a significant lack in the market.
This led us to building our own shoppable video platform in-house and we began experimenting with shoppable videos on landing pages and product detail pages to reduce acquisition costs. It quickly became evident that video was a superior medium for conveying the product story and message, which resulted in a higher conversion rate.
I noticed that there was a distinct void in the Shopify ecosystem, with very few services allowing merchants to embed shoppable videos and facilitate live shopping.
You can add shopable videos to your website using Showday.io!
Recognizing this gap and the clear demand for such a service, plus the positive impact of shoppable videos on conversion rates I had experienced first hand – led to the conception of Showday. I decided to build a solution specifically for Shopify to ensure that merchants on this platform could easily access and integrate this feature without the need to develop it in-house. My initial perception of the market was that it was underserved in this aspect, and there was a tangible demand for a product that could streamline the integration of shoppable videos for merchants.
👷 Building a Shopify app in 2024
In today’s day and age, does it still make sense to invest in developing a Shopify app?
DGA: Absolutely, investing in developing a Shopify app still makes a great deal of sense in today’s tech environment. The reason being, the vast majority of individual e-commerce brands are utilizing a tech stack, with only a few using a custom stack. Several platforms are prevalent in the market, such as Salesforce, Magento, and WooCommerce. However, Shopify stands out as a major player in this field and continues to attract a growing number of larger enterprise clients.
Given Shopify's significance and expanding user base, developing apps to service customers within this ecosystem is crucial. Integration with Shopify is essential if you wish to serve these customers effectively. Therefore, neglecting to develop a Shopify app would mean missing out on the opportunity to cater to a substantial and growing segment of the market.
Do you want to know more about Shopify App Store marketing? Check out our guide here!
⚒️ Native Shopify Apps
DGA: When it comes to the evolving landscape with Shopify introducing more native apps, the reality is that Shopify is introducing more front-end applications, which may seem to conflict with third-party apps, but there’s a difference in depth and complexity. Shopify typically offers features at a basic level, which suits a broad range of customers. However, when a business needs more complex and feature-rich solutions, Shopify's native apps often fall short.
For instance, Shopify launched a subscription service, but it only caters to the fundamental aspects of a subscription. For businesses seeking more extensive features and depth in a product, third-party app providers tend to have the upper hand. The same applies to other applications like email, where Shopify doesn’t match the depth of dedicated providers.
👀 The future off Shopify app development
DGA: Regarding the future of Shopify app development, I think the apps are expected to mature, with more quality applications entering the ecosystem. This development will enhance the app store environment significantly but will also heighten the competition, making it more challenging for app developers to connect with their ideal customers due to the increased number of options available in the app store. Essentially, the landscape is evolving to a state where quality and specialized functionality will likely determine the success of third-party apps in the Shopify ecosystem.
Do you want to learn more about Shopify app growth strategies? Check out our conversation with Stephanie from Showday here!
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