Shopify Exec Reveals the Future of Post-Anonymous Retail

Shopify merchants set a record $14.6 billion over BFCM last year. But as discovery moves into AI and the season stretches longer, the store’s job is changing from closing a sale to starting a relationship.

Ellen Linardi, VP of Product at Shopify, is obsessed with fixing in-store workflows and dreams of a world where items left in a shopper’s online cart are ready when the customer arrives in-store. We unpack how in-person purchases are both the most personal and the most anonymous transactions in retail, how POS workflows free merchants to focus on curation, and why 2027 should be the year businesses uplevel experiential commerce.

• The customer relationship often starts online, and deepens in-store. Shopify is focusing on closing that gap.
• Retail-first merchants still need to be findable through AI search. That’s where awareness and discovery happen now, before consumers leave home.
• While the holidays are for new business acquisition, brands should treat every sale as a relationship moment: identified customers spend significantly more.
• Workflow is everything, and optimization differs from store to store. Customize POS to how each location actually sells.
• “A customer list is only as good as what you do with it afterward.” — Ellen Linardi
• “Buyers are not forgiving with wasted time. And time in store is not wasted time, [unless] you’re waiting.” — Ellen Linardi
• “I like to think of [small businesses] as people with consumer resources but enterprise problems.” — Ellen Linardi
• “An in-person transaction is the most anonymous transaction we have, and yet it is the most personal.” — Brian Lange

• Learn more about Shopify’s latest retail and POS updates at Shopify Editions
• Explore Shopify POS and Smart Grid
• Connect with Ellen Linardi on LinkedIn
• Future Commerce’s BFCM 2025: We Give Thanks for Couch Commerce
• Future Commerce’s OMNIMODAL research
• Future Commerce’s The Concierge Economy guide
• Future Commerce’s celebrity brands Signal Report with Merciv
• Get tickets to VISIONS Summit, February 10, 2027 at MoMA

• Memorable Over Measurable: Retail’s Lost Wonders (Ep. 482)
• Separating Real Signals from the Noise (Ep. 480)
• Member Brief: Return on Experience and the New KPIs of Store Design (Insiders)
• Field Notes: How Physical Retail’s Most Compelling Stores Activate the Senses (Insiders)
• The Good Friction Opportunity (Insiders)
• The Doorbusters Are Back (And So Are the 5 am Lines) (The Senses)
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