See the event in action by watching the video . Where the Shopify Ecosystem Came to Talk Honestly About What’s Really Working
The Shopify Meetup Dublin 2025 brought together a cross-section of the Irish and broader European Shopify ecosystem - merchants, agency owners, developers, Shopify partners, and platform representatives - for an evening of candid, high-value conversation. Organised by Vevol Media, a Shopify Plus Partner agency committed to building and strengthening the Shopify ecosystem across Europe. Vevol Media has established itself as one of the most active community organisers within the Shopify partner network, having previously hosted Shopify Meetup Romania 2024 and Shopify Meetup CEE 2025 - with Shopify Meetup CEE 2026 already on the horizon.
Held in one of Europe’s most dynamic tech cities, the event was made of a room full of practitioners speaking plainly about the Shopify platform, where it is heading, and how the community around it is evolving. Dublin is an obvious home for this kind of gathering. As the European headquarters for some of the world’s largest technology companies, the city has developed a dense ecosystem of digital commerce talent and a culture of commercial ambition that punches well above its weight. For Shopify specifically, Ireland represents a critical node in the European partner network - a market sophisticated enough to generate genuine platform insight and connected enough to influence the wider eCommerce industry across the EU and UK.
Shopify Meetup Dublin 2025 was made possible thanks to our partners: Shopify, TheMarketer, Love Loyalty, NeuCurrent, Octane AI, and BusinessLeague by 2Performant. Each brought their expertise to the evening - through panel participation, live demos, and on-the-ground support - and played an important role in making the event what it was.
Shopify in 2025 and 2026: What the Platform Is Building and Why It Matters
The most significant and forward-looking conversations at the Dublin meetup centred on Shopify’s trajectory as a platform - where it is investing, how its relationship with partners is evolving, and what merchants and agencies can expect over the next twelve months. Graham Tate from Shopify’s partner team provided a candid and detailed view across several dimensions.
A Partner Recommendation Engine Is Coming
One of the most commercially significant developments shared at the meetup was the planned launch of a partner recommendation engine within the Shopify merchant dashboard. When a merchant indicates they need support with a specific challenge, the system will surface recommended partners with relevant expertise - directing qualified work toward agencies in the ecosystem at the precise moment of merchant need.
For agencies, this represents a meaningful new inbound channel. For merchants, it means faster access to the right expertise without having to rely entirely on referrals or cold outreach. The message from Shopify was clear: when partners win, Shopify wins, and this tooling reflects that philosophy in a structural way.
“There’s going to be a partner recommendation engine which will essentially, when a merchant goes to submit a ticket or opens for more information, give them a recommendation on partners they could potentially work with. It’s giving more business to partners, but it also means merchants get the right expertise in the room. It’s really going to be a beneficial thing for everyone.”
— Graham Tate, Shopify
Greater Autonomy for Partners Selling Shopify Plus
Changes introduced during the summer of 2025 gave agencies the ability to sell and launch Shopify Plus directly, without routing transactions through Shopify’s own sales team. This was described as one of the most impactful structural shifts for agency-merchant relationships in recent memory. The ability to own the full Plus conversation - from scoping to signing - opens significant commercial and relationship-building opportunities for qualifying partners.
For 2026, this direction will continue. Shopify’s focus will be on expanding partner autonomy further, introducing additional revenue stream opportunities, and building out incentive structures that reward partners who drive merchant growth. The message to agencies was clear: invest in your Plus capability now.
Shopify Editions: The Product Heartbeat
Shopify’s twice-yearly Editions releases remain the primary mechanism through which significant platform updates are communicated. The summer 2025 Editions was one of the most substantial in recent memory, covering over 100 distinct product updates across merchant tools, developer capabilities, and partner infrastructure. The December 2025 Editions will be the next major milestone.
For agencies and merchants alike, tracking Editions releases closely is not optional - it is a competitive necessity. New features, extensibility improvements, and partner tooling announced through Editions routinely create short windows in which early movers can generate outsized results before the wider market catches up.
Unified Commerce: The Retail Opportunity
Unified commerce - the convergence of online and offline selling under a single platform and data layer - was flagged as an area of sustained strategic investment from Shopify and growing interest from partners and merchants alike. As more brands look to manage their physical retail and eCommerce operations through a single system, Shopify’s unified commerce capabilities are becoming an increasingly compelling proposition.
“Unified Commerce is not going anywhere. It’s probably going to grow well, especially on the retail side of things. Partners I was speaking to are looking for different areas to stand out from the crowd. Retail seems to be an area that more and more agencies are getting their heads around.”
— Graham Tate, Shopify
For agencies not yet active in retail implementation, this represents a meaningful differentiation opportunity. For merchants operating across both physical and digital channels, it signals that Shopify’s roadmap is increasingly aligned with the complexity of multi-channel commerce.
The Partner Programme: Evolving Toward Better Fit
Beyond specific product announcements, the broader message from Shopify’s partner team was about the ongoing evolution of the partner programme itself. The first half of 2025 focused on relaying foundations - revisiting how the programme serves agencies of different sizes and specialisations, and identifying where incentives, enablement, and tooling fall short.
The honest acknowledgement from Shopify was that the programme does not yet work equally well for all agencies, and that addressing this is a live priority. For the ecosystem, the openness of that conversation is itself a positive signal - it reflects a platform that is listening to its partners rather than simply expecting them to adapt.
Shopify Plus: Enterprise Adoption and the Migration Conversation
Shopify Plus featured prominently across several conversations at the Dublin meetup, both as a capability discussion and as a commercial opportunity. The platform’s evolution toward supporting genuinely complex enterprise requirements - B2B workflows, multi-currency operations, advanced customisation through Shopify Functions - was a recurring reference point.
The newly introduced ability for qualifying partner agencies to sell and launch Plus directly has meaningfully changed the dynamic of enterprise sales conversations. Agencies that previously had to bring Shopify into the room for merchant qualification can now own that relationship end to end. For merchants evaluating Plus as a migration target, this means their agency partner can provide a more seamless and integrated experience from initial scoping through to go-live.
The migration opportunity was also discussed in the context of Shopify’s extensibility. As Shopify Functions, the App Bridge, and headless commerce capabilities have matured, the platform has become a credible option for brands that previously considered it too limiting for their technical requirements. The barriers to enterprise adoption that existed three years ago are substantially lower today.
AI Is Reshaping the Shopify Ecosystem - Faster Than Most Expected
Artificial intelligence was the second major theme to surface repeatedly across the Dublin meetup. The perspective shared by practitioners working inside Shopify agencies, and by merchants building brands on the platform, was consistent: AI has moved. It is no longer a productivity experiment operating at the edges of workflows. It is becoming central to how the ecosystem operates.
From Admin Tool to Strategic Driver
The most articulate framing of this shift came from Shopify’s partner team, describing the transition they had observed across agency clients over the course of 2025. At the start of the year, AI was being used as a sharpening tool - improving copy, reformatting emails, speeding up tasks that humans would otherwise do manually. By mid-year, that had changed significantly.
“At the start of the year, AI was definitely being used as more of a sharpening tool. Since about May or June, that’s kind of been flipped on its head. It’s not being used as an administrative tool anymore. It’s now starting to be used as a tool that’s going to drive everything else - how do I have a better say in the business, how can I plug in an audience and get more insights, how can I automate stuff. It’s really going from level one to level two in a short space of time.”
— Graham Tate, Shopify
This distinction between Level 1 and Level 2 AI usage is a useful diagnostic for any agency or merchant. Level 1 is using AI to do existing tasks faster. Level 2 is using AI to redesign workflows so that the nature of the work itself changes. Agencies and merchants operating at Level 2 are building structural advantages that will compound over time.
AI Is Changing How Customers Discover Products
The shift in consumer behaviour was particularly vivid in the beauty and personal care category. Customers are increasingly using AI tools like ChatGPT to research purchases - asking nuanced questions about skin concerns, shade matching, and product compatibility - and arriving at purchasing decisions through those conversations rather than through traditional search or brand content.
“A lot of people are searching on ChatGPT around their skin concern - what tan suits my skin tone, what products do I need for my specific hair today. You are only as good as your data. You really need to make sure your data is really strong going into next year because you don’t want to be left by the wayside. It’s already a level playing field for large and small merchants.”
— Lauren O’Donoghue, National Beauty Distribution
The practical implication for Shopify merchants is direct: product data quality has become a commercial priority. Clean, structured, comprehensive product metadata is what determines whether your products surface in AI-driven discovery journeys. This is no longer a technical detail - it is a front-line marketing consideration.
Understanding when customers are most likely to convert is equally important. Data presented at the event illustrated a pattern that many merchants will recognise but few act on deliberately: mobile traffic dominates throughout the week, peaking on Tuesday and Wednesday and again between 8PM and 10PM each evening. Desktop activity is comparatively flat. For Shopify merchants planning email send times, promotional scheduling, and paid media windows, building campaigns around these behavioural rhythms is one of the most straightforward performance improvements available.
When are customers buying online? Mobile peaks Tuesday-Wednesday and 8-10PM daily. Desktop remains relatively flat. (BusinessLeague by 2Performant)
AI and the Evolving Role of Agencies
Alongside the operational opportunities, AI was also discussed in the context of what it means for the agency model itself. The ability of AI tools to generate Shopify sections from a prompt, write product descriptions, and produce reports at scale raises genuine questions about where agency value lies.
“These days, you can literally generate a new section by writing and describing it in a prompt. It’s not perfect right now, but in a couple of years it’s definitely going to be distinguishable from the work of a developer. Agencies need to look towards transforming into a coordinating actor that puts forward the strategy and helps coordinate everyone else involved in the project.”
— David Sima, Vevol Media
The argument made was compelling: while task-level execution is increasingly automatable, the role of pulling diverse teams together, breaking down data silos, and providing coherent strategic direction is not. The agency that can bring a brand’s SEO team, paid media team, and CRO consultants into a shared understanding - working toward common objectives with shared data - is providing something that AI tools cannot yet replicate.
This analysis was reinforced by a broader observation about the state of brands in the Shopify ecosystem. Across verticals and budget levels, a lack of strategic coordination was identified as one of the most consistent growth blockers. Siloed teams pursuing individual KPIs - without a holistic view of what the brand is trying to achieve - is a problem that presents an opportunity for agencies willing to reposition as strategic orchestrators.
AI-Powered Tools the Ecosystem Is Actually Using
Beyond the strategic framing, the meetup surfaced a number of specific tools being used by agencies and operators within the Shopify ecosystem to reduce manual effort and scale capacity. These were not theoretical recommendations - they were tools people in the room are actively deploying.
Markifact integrates with ad platforms and auto-generates both Excel reports and client-facing presentation decks at regular intervals. For agencies managing reporting across multiple clients, the time saving is already material even in early-stage deployment.
Telethos is a free lead generation and workflow automation tool that monitors client conversations for specific triggers - such as a mention of a Shopify migration - and automatically routes that signal to the relevant team via Slack. For agencies with a client services function, automated lead triage materially improves response times.
Gumroad (used as an automation layer) monitors incoming emails for keywords and automatically responds with pre-formatted messages containing the correct links and information. For partner and platform teams dealing with high volumes of similar enquiries, it removes significant repetitive effort.
The same principle - connecting data sources, automating outreach, and feeding learnings back into the next cycle - underpins how the most sophisticated merchants are now approaching retention. Rather than running discrete campaigns, the goal is to build a continuous loop: Shopify and POS data feeds a retention platform, which personalises and automates communication, which produces returning customers and new behavioural insights, which improve the next campaign. The result is a system that compounds over time rather than starting from scratch each month.
NeuCurrent - connectivity as a growth engine: store data feeds personalisation, which drives returning customers (+20% conversion), which generates new insights for the next campaign
What Merchants Are Focussing On: Brand, Conversion, and Data
Authenticity as a Commercial Strategy
One theme that surfaced with notable consistency across merchant-facing conversations was the role of authentic brand storytelling. The consensus across the room was that polished, aspirational messaging is losing ground to transparency and genuine communication.
“When you’re honest about some of the problems you find and face in your business, when you’re really transparent about what you’re trying to create and what your key messaging is - that speaks volumes. Being authentic with what you’re actually doing is probably the biggest thing that can make a brand stand out today.”
— Zach Aherne, Social Media Elite
For Shopify merchants, this has direct implications for product pages, email content, social presence, and customer service. Brands that acknowledge challenges, talk plainly about their products, and resist the temptation to over-sell are building the kind of trust that converts browsers into buyers and buyers into repeat customers. For agencies advising merchants, it signals a shift in what good content looks like.
The channel that benefits most from this shift is email. When a brand communicates authentically with its subscriber base - not just promoting, but sharing genuine value - email becomes one of the highest-performing channels in the entire marketing mix. The data backs this up: email marketing generates between $30 and $42 for every $1 invested, compared to $22 for SEO, $5.50 for influencer marketing, and just $2.40 for social ads. At a time when paid acquisition costs on Meta and Google continue to rise, the case for owned-channel investment has never been stronger.
Source: TheMarketer, drawing on Statista, Smart Insights, Tomoson, Amra & Elma
Quizzes as Conversion and Data Tools
A specific tactic generating significant commercial results within the Shopify ecosystem was highlighted through the example of Sculpted by Aimee, a prominent Irish beauty brand. Interactive product quizzes - built using platforms like Octane AI - are functioning as more than a UX feature. They are simultaneously serving as a conversion mechanism and a first-party data capture tool.
“We think of quizzes as a virtual in-store person. The way you can go into a shop and ask someone: I want this shade of foundation, can you help me find that? That’s basically what quizzes are. They guide customers to the products they need. But on the flip side, they give a brand a ton of data that you can sync back to your email and SMS platform.”
— Aoife Teague, Octane AI
This dual function is particularly powerful in categories where the customer needs genuine guidance: beauty, skincare, nutrition, fashion sizing. A well-designed quiz reduces purchase uncertainty, increases conversion probability, and simultaneously builds the data asset that makes every subsequent marketing touchpoint more relevant.
The same logic applies to loyalty. Embedding rewards mechanics - points, tiers, referral schemes - directly into the cart and checkout, rather than behind a separate plugin, means loyalty becomes part of the purchase experience rather than an afterthought. The difference between a loyalty programme that customers use and one they ignore is almost entirely a question of where it lives in the journey.
Love Loyalty - loyalty points, VIP tiers, and rewards redemption embedded natively at checkout
Why the Meetup Format Creates Value That Conferences Cannot
There is a specific type of knowledge that circulates at events like the Shopify Meetup Dublin that does not appear in blog posts, product announcements, or conference keynotes. It is the candid assessment of what is actually working: which tools are genuinely saving time, which strategies are producing real results, and where the platform is likely to move next. This kind of practitioner intelligence is expensive to acquire any other way.
For agencies, the meetup serves an important market intelligence function. Hearing directly from a Shopify Partner Manager about the direction of the programme gives agencies the ability to position their capabilities before those opportunities are widely publicised. Partnerships formed at events like this - between agencies, between agencies and technology providers, between agencies and merchants - routinely generate commercial value that significantly exceeds the cost of attendance.
For merchants, the value is direct access to a community of practitioners who have already navigated the problems you are currently facing. Scaling a DTC brand on Shopify, managing multi-channel inventory, implementing personalisation, or optimising conversion across a mobile-first audience - every one of these challenges has been addressed by someone in the room. An hour of unfiltered perspective from a peer who has done it is qualitatively different from a case study.
Why Dublin Matters for Shopify in Europe
Ireland’s role as a European technology hub is well established. The presence of global technology companies - many with their European operations based in Dublin - has created a dense talent ecosystem and a culture of commercial ambition unusual for a city of its size. For eCommerce specifically, Ireland offers a distinctive market position: English-speaking, embedded in the EU single market, and with strong commercial and regulatory ties to the UK.
The numbers tell a compelling story. Ireland’s B2C eCommerce turnover reached €15.7 billion in 2024. More significantly, 95% of Irish consumers aged 16-74 bought goods or services online in 2024 - the highest rate in Europe (Eurostat / Ecommerce Europe, 2025). Nearly half of Irish consumers - 47% - spent €100 or more online in a single month. This is the market context in which the Shopify ecosystem in Ireland is operating: high consumer intent, high digital sophistication, and a commercial landscape that rewards brands and agencies that get the fundamentals right.
The opportunity for merchants is real, but it is not without competition. While Irish SME performance in digital commerce is second-best in Europe - only marginally behind Denmark - there is a meaningful gap between large businesses and smaller firms. Nearly 54% of large Irish businesses are engaged in online sales, compared to just 38% of small enterprises (CSO, 2025). For Shopify merchants and the agencies supporting them, this gap represents a significant growth opportunity: the infrastructure and expertise to close it already exists within the Shopify ecosystem.
For Shopify, the Irish market is both a proving ground and a gateway. Agencies based in Dublin frequently work with brands selling across the EU and the UK simultaneously, navigating cross-border compliance, currency management, and localisation at scale. The practical knowledge generated in this environment is disproportionately valuable to the broader Shopify ecosystem - and it flows back into partner conversations and platform feedback in a way that shapes product direction.
The Dublin meetup is also part of a broader European community-building effort. As Shopify deepens its investment in European partnerships, events that create genuine connection between partners, merchants, and platform staff are critical infrastructure. Dublin, with its combination of technical sophistication, market access, and community energy, is a natural home for that gathering.
Key Takeaways for Merchants and Agencies
Drawing across the conversations and sessions from Shopify Meetup Dublin 2025, here are the most actionable insights for different parts of the ecosystem:
For Merchants
Track Shopify Editions releases closely. With two major releases per year covering 100+ product updates, new features routinely create short windows for early movers to generate outsized commercial results.
Prepare for the Shopify Plus opportunity. If you are approaching the threshold where Plus capabilities become relevant - complex B2B workflows, multi-market operations, advanced customisation - the migration conversation with a qualifying partner agency is now more streamlined than it has ever been.
Invest in your product data infrastructure now. AI-powered discovery is already changing how customers find products, particularly in beauty and lifestyle. Clean, structured, comprehensive product data is the foundation on which AI-driven visibility is built.
Explore interactive content such as product quizzes if you operate in a category where customers need guidance. The dual function of conversion optimisation and first-party data capture makes it one of the higher-ROI implementations currently available on Shopify.
Prioritise brand authenticity across all channels. Transparent, honest communication about your products and your brand is outperforming polished aspirational messaging across categories.
For Agencies
Position for the partner recommendation engine. Ensure your Shopify partner profile and specialisations are accurate and comprehensive. When the recommendation engine launches, first-mover visibility will matter.
Build your Shopify Plus capability if you have not already. The ability to sell and launch Plus directly is a significant commercial opportunity, and agencies that have structured around it are already winning business that previously required Shopify’s direct involvement.
Assess your AI workflow maturity honestly. Level 1 usage - using AI to refine individual tasks - is rapidly becoming table stakes. The agencies building structural advantages are those redesigning entire workflows around AI-driven automation.
Consider reframing your agency proposition around strategic coordination. As AI tools commoditise task-level execution, the ability to align multiple teams - SEO, paid media, CRO, development - around shared data and shared objectives is a high-value capability that clients genuinely need.
Evaluate retail and unified commerce as a practice area. As more brands look to unify their digital and physical commerce operations through Shopify, agencies with retail implementation experience are seeing growing demand and limited competition.
Who Should Attend Future Shopify Meetups in Dublin
The Shopify Meetup Dublin format offers distinct value across a wide range of roles and experience levels:
New merchants: An accelerated view of what the Shopify platform can do and direct access to practitioners who can help you avoid expensive early mistakes. The informal format makes it easy to ask specific questions without the pressure of a formal consultation.
Scaling brands: An intelligence-gathering opportunity. Understanding where Shopify is investing - in AI tooling, partner infrastructure, unified commerce, Editions releases - enables better decisions about where to focus your own development effort.
Enterprise teams: Shopify Plus capabilities and the partner ecosystem that supports enterprise implementations were central themes across the event. Enterprise teams evaluating Shopify as a migration target will find the combination of official platform voices and experienced agency practitioners particularly useful.
Developers: The technical conversations at the Dublin meetup covered Shopify’s extensibility, the commercial implications of AI-generated code, and where Shopify Functions and the App Bridge are heading. Developers with a commercial orientation will find the format valuable.
Agencies and consultants: The combination of Shopify platform insight, peer practitioner knowledge, and direct merchant access creates a unique environment for business development, team learning, and market intelligence. The meetup format is arguably most valuable for agency owners and eCommerce consultants.
Technology and app partners: Building tools within the Shopify ecosystem? The meetup gives you direct access to the agencies and merchants who are your most likely partners and customers. Conversations here are frank, which makes them particularly useful for product validation and partnership development.
The Shopify Ecosystem Is in an Interesting Moment - And Dublin Is Part of It
What the Shopify Meetup Dublin 2025 demonstrated, above all, is the health and intellectual vitality of the Shopify community in Ireland and Europe. The conversations that took place were candid, specific, and grounded in real operational experience - precisely the kind of knowledge exchange that makes a platform ecosystem stronger.
The themes that emerged are not abstract trends. They are live realities shaping decisions right now. Shopify is investing structurally in its partner programme in ways that will create new commercial opportunities for agencies and better support for merchants. AI is accelerating its way through commerce workflows faster than most anticipated, with implications for how brands are discovered, how agencies are structured, and how teams are organised. And the brands winning market share are those building trust through authenticity rather than reach through polish.
Events like the Dublin meetup are one of the few places where these realities are discussed openly, without the filtering effect of commercial agendas or polished presentations. For those who attended, you left with more than notes - you left with relationships, context, and a sharper sense of where the ecosystem is heading. For those who did not: the next one is worth your calendar.
We’d like to once again thank our partners - Shopify, TheMarketer, Octane AI, Love Loyalty, NeuCurrent, and BusinessLeague by 2Performant - for their invaluable contribution to the success of our event. Their support played an important role in bringing this vision to life, and we couldn’t have done it without them.