How the Breakup Between Shopify and Mailchimp Affects Your Jewelry Brand

You may have heard the news that ecommerce platform Shopify recently cut ties with the popular email marketing platform Mailchimp. As of now, the Mailchimp app is no longer available in the Shopify marketplace, and current users will only be able to continue using the app through May 12th.

So, what happened, and how does this announcement affect your jewelry brand? If you run a jewelry ecommerce store using the Shopify platform, and you use Mailchimp for your email marketing, then you’ll definitely want to keep reading to find out what you should be doing next. Email marketing is one of the best ways to connect with your leads and customers in a personalized way, and you should be doing everything in your power to make sure that you have a solid email marketing strategy in place.

Even if you don’t use Shopify and Mailchimp for your jewelry brand, you’ll still want to read this post to better understand why you shouldn’t rely completely on technology to prop up your marketing strategy.

When my clients received the notification that the Mailchimp app is “going away”, many of them panicked. Why is this happening? How will I gather email addresses from new leads? How will I email my customers?

Though it’s not completely clear why Mailchimp and Shopify are breaking up, with each platform telling a different version of the story, we do understand that they weren’t getting along. Shopify had concerns about Mailchimp “locking in” data, while Mailchimp did not want to give up data that it collects about its users. If you’d like to dive deep into the details, check out this informative article from Techcrunch.

In their announcement email, Shopify said, “If you currently have the Mailchimp app installed, it will continue to work until May 12th, 2019. After that date, the app will no longer connect your Shopify store to your Mailchimp account. We recommend you uninstall the app from your store by that date, and use one of our recommended alternatives.” They cited alternative email marketing platforms like Jilt, Seguno, and SmartrMail.

The wording of this announcement makes it seem like you won’t be able to use Mailchimp with Shopify at all. However, the truth of the matter is that – if you already feel comfortable and happy using Mailchimp for your email marketing – you’ll still be able to integrate Mailchimp into your Shopify jewelry store.

First, you can connect your store to Mailchimp through a third-party app like ShopSync (free), Zapier, or Automate.io. Or, if you don’t feel like connecting an app, you can sync your lists manually, which means taking your captured emails from Shopify and adding them yourself to your Mailchimp account (Mailchimp doesn’t recommend this method, but it’s still an option). To learn more about the workarounds, check out this guide from Mailchimp.

Personally, we believe in the philosophy “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Jewelry business owners already have enough on their plate without having to worry about learning a new email marketing platform. If you already enjoy using Mailchimp (assuming you have an email marketing strategy in place), then you should continue using it, despite the feud between Shopify and Mailchimp. Mailchimp continues to be one of the most user-friendly and affordable email marketing platforms available today, and we don’t anticipate that changing any time soon.

Shopify’s announcement is an important reminder that jewelry brands should not depend solely on technology for their marketing efforts, since a platform can be taken away or altered with little notice. When it comes to your marketing, be nimble and adaptable. Do everything you can to own your customer data and your content, so no one can take those things away from you.