Long-form writing
on Shopify Plus checkout.
Experiments, case studies, teardowns, and the occasional rant. New article roughly monthly. Written by the founder, no ghostwriters.
The four moments shoppers bounce — and the blocks that fix each one
Cart abandonment isn't a single failure. It's four predictable moments where doubt outweighs commitment. Here's the diagnostic and the four-block stack that closes each gap.
How Headphone Zone shipped 12 custom blocks in 5 years (without an agency)
Inside the longest-running Checkout Ninja deployment. What they installed first, what came next, and why they never hired a checkout dev.
The case for retiring your five-app checkout stack
Five single-purpose apps adds up to $200+/mo in subscriptions, five vendor relationships, and a Black Friday liability nobody talks about. The math for consolidation.
What Shopify Plus checkout actually ships in 2026 — and what it doesn't
A merchant-eye breakdown of native Plus checkout: every form field, every default block, every API. Then: the 24 things missing that you need.
Three trust-badge layouts. One AOV test. Six weeks of data.
We A/B tested three variations of the Trust Badge block across 40 Plus merchants. The winner wasn't the one we expected.
DDP or DDU: which customs strategy converts more international carts?
We watched 18,000 cross-border carts across 12 merchants split between Delivered-Duty-Paid and Delivered-Duty-Unpaid. Conversion data, not theory.
Gift season 2025 in numbers: what worked at checkout, what didn't
Q4 2025 post-mortem across 50 fashion + home Plus merchants. Which gift-related blocks drove AOV, which ones added friction.
Checkout Extensibility, explained for store owners (no jargon)
Shopify's new customization layer in plain English. What it is, why it matters, why Checkout Ninja runs on it instead of theme code.
How to add trust badges to Shopify checkout (Plus, no code)
The top forum answer says trust badges only go in the theme footer. That was true on checkout.liquid. On Shopify Plus with Checkout Extensibility they go exactly where they matter: above the pay button. Here is how, and which badges are worth the space.
Shopify payment icons: theme footer vs checkout, and how to add them to both
Most guides stop at the theme footer. On Shopify Plus, payment icons can also sit inside the checkout, where a shopper is looking for their card. Where the icons come from, how to add them to the theme, and how to add them to checkout.
Shopify checkout upsell: in-checkout vs post-purchase, and when to use each
Every upsell app pitches a different moment. Cart drawer, checkout page, post-purchase page. They are not interchangeable. A merchant's guide to what converts where, with the honest trade-offs.
Tools, playbooks, deep-dives.
The full resource hub. Articles, calculator, case studies, playbooks.
Open hub ChangelogWhat we shipped this month.
Six monthly releases live. New blocks, API improvements, fixes — all dated.
Read changelog Case studiesFive merchant deep-dives.
Long-form versions of the blog case-study posts. Headphone Zone, Lumebox, three more.
Browse studies