Jess Hertz says Shopify powers over 14% of the US e-commerce market.
“We power over 14% of the US. e-commerce market, and what's incredible about that is you can sit at this kind of wide aperture of commerce”
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Jess Hertz
1 episodes · 17 quoted claims
Jess Hertz says that last year about 10% of new Shopify shops made their first sale within a day of signing up.
“it was about 10% of new shops made their first sale within a single day of signing up, which is just incredible”
Jess Hertz says 75% of AI-attributed orders on Shopify last quarter came from categories outside the top one hundred.
“So 75% of AI attributed orders last quarter came from categories outside of the top one hundred, which I find particularly interesting.”
Jess Hertz says Shopify's River agent lives in about 10,000 Slack channels, has been used by about 90% of employees, and ran 275,000 sessions and 15 million actions in five months.
“it lives in about 10,000 channels in the company. About 90% of employees have used it. It's run 275,000 sessions, and it's taken 15 million actions in five months”
Jess Hertz describes River as an AI agent that lives inside Shopify's Slack workspace.
“we have this amazing tool called River, and River is basically an agent that lives within our Slack.”
Jess Hertz says Toby Lutke's March 2025 memo on AI made reflexive use of AI a baseline expectation for Shopify employees.
“that memo made being reflexive in AI a baseline expectation for our employee base”
Jess Hertz says almost 90% of Shopify's quarterly revenue comes from merchants who have been on the platform for over a year.
“almost 90% of our quarterly revenue is from merchants who've been on the platform for over a year.”
Jess Hertz says the conversion rate is twice as high when an AI agent uses Shopify's catalog data as when it uses scraped data.
“when someone comes from an agentic channel, the conversion rate that when an agent is using our ca- catalog data is two X compared to if it's just using scraped data.”
Jess Hertz describes Sidekick as Shopify's AI-powered commerce agent that operates inside the Shopify platform.
“Sidekick is our AI-powered commerce agent that lives within Shopify.”
Jess Hertz says Shopify developed the Universal Commerce Protocol, an open commerce standard, together with Google.
“things like the Universal Commerce Protocol, which is the open commerce standard that we developed with Google, which is really the kind of transaction layer of commerce.”
Jess Hertz says Shopify's headcount has been flat for more than eight quarters while its revenue grows 34%.
“Headcount for Shopify has been flat for more than eight quarters, and while revenue is growing 34%.”
Jess Hertz says that over the last five years Shopify merchants reaching $1 million in GMV had 92% retention and those reaching $10 million had 97% retention.
“merchants that reached a million in GMV had 92% retention rate, and then merchants that reached 10 million had 97% retention rate.”
Jess Hertz says a large brand can run about a thousand campus stores, 1,200 storefronts and 6 million SKUs on one Shopify stack.
“It's how a large brand can run, you know, a thousand different campus stores, 1,200 storefronts, you know, 6 million SKUs on one stack.”
Jess Hertz says her last job in the White House was as White House staff secretary.
“my last job in the White House was as White House staff secretary, which sometimes people don't know, but it's basically kind of the central nervous part of the West Wing and the White House.”
Jess Hertz says the 'drift' she flagged in her first message as COO concerned Shopify's incentive compensation system for its sales team.
“that drift was in the context of our incentive compensation system for our sales team.”
Jess Hertz says that when the first tariffs came into place, a Shopify team spent a weekend building a duties and taxes calculator.
“we've operated through lots of moments of uncertainty, even when the first kind of tariffs came into place where we had a team spending the weekend building a duties and taxes calculator.”
Jess Hertz says she is moving from Washington, DC to Toronto the week after the interview.
“as of next week, I'm actually gonna be a Torontonian. I've finally decided to make the pilgrimage, uh, to Toronto”