Panicking About The Mailchimp Shopify Breakup? VL OMNI Has You Covered

The news is in: Chimps won’t snowboard. Or, in other words, Mailchimp and Shopify have broken up. You can read Shopify’s position and why the terms of reference for the API were updated. All in all, it’s an interesting read on both sides. Let’s find out how Merchants can integrate Mailchimp with Shopify without too much hustle.

Merchants who use Mailchimp for their email delivery know it has amazing features that help empower brands’ reach and scale. Retargeting emails, smart marketing campaigns, and goals to reduce cart abandonment should be an essential practice to any retailer. A marketing platform like Mailchimp empowers Merchants with the needed functionality at a cost-effective price point. And up until recently, Merchants selling through Shopify or Shopify Plus benefitted from native Shopify integration to Mailchimp.

With the recent breakup of Mailchimp and Shopify, many Merchants are left with the question: what does this mean for clients of both platforms?

Just like any good breakup story splashed across the headlines, the official reason behind the Mailchimp/Shopify division is debatable. Mailchimp cited privacy concerns and an inability to find alignment with Shopify’s new terms of service. Shopify cited growing concerns about Mailchimp’s app because of the poor merchant experience and their refusal to respect Shopify’s Partner Program Agreement. Whatever the actual story is, by March 21st Mailchimp was no longer on offer within Shopify’s App Marketplace.

Connecting Mailchimp and Shopify

A lot of Merchants who still use both applications are understandably in a bit of a panic, and with many unanswered questions. For example, if Merchants already have the Mailchimp-Shopify integration in place, does this breakup mean email integrations will immediately shut off?

Not exactly. Mailchimp will offer the data exchange for companies already on the native Shopify integration. But that doesn’t mean Merchants can expect to have access indefinitely: Mailchimp has noted they will support the Shopify connection only until May 12th. This gives Merchants a very limited amount of time to find and implement an alternative integration solution. Mailchimp recommends Merchants find a third-party integrator to meet this need as soon as possible to continue the integration and automated flow of data between Mailchimp and Shopify.

“To keep your accounts connected, you’ll need to install a third-party integration or use an alternative solution.”
– Mailchimp

So, a significant number of Merchants will be hitting the web and consulting with their trusted advisors with the hopes of quickly adjusting to this news, and scoping out other integration solutions. For some, this will be the first time making the fateful leap from native Shopify Apps to finding a third-party integrator. Others may well be looking for alternatives to Mailchimp. But while core Shopify users are likely to be able to find a quick plug-and-play integration to replace the native app, scaling SMBs and Enterprises on Shopify Plus may face a greater challenging in filling this gap.

VL OMNI is here to help!

VL OMNI can connect Shopify Plus to Mailchimp for scaling SMBs and Enterprises using both applications through our world-class integration platform; in fact, we already have the Connector ready-to-go for direct, agile and scalable integration.

Wearing our Shopify Plus Technology Partner badge with pride, we’ve been helping Shopify Plus merchants connect a multitude of back end applications to their ecommerce platform for years now. We know and love working with Shopify, but at the end of the day, VL OMNI is application agnostic. We gladly work with all ecommerce platforms, including but not limited to BigCommerce and both Magento 1 and 2.

VL has done several Mailchimp integrations in the past. Merchants who feel they’ve been left in the cold with this recent breakup can begin to find comfort that there are other options available with considerable experience with the platform. By utilizing VL OMNI’s integrations and strategy expertise, integrating customer data through your entire organization is an achievable goal, including the ability to go beyond the walls of just Mailchimp-Shopify. With the help of VL OMNI and our highly valued integration platform, Merchants will be able to continue to use Mailchimp to its full functionalities without having to change platforms. You’ll be able to stay with the platform that you know and love, and you might even see new opportunities for further data automation.

With the VL OMNI platform, you’re not only putting in Connections to keep Mailchimp plugged in, but you’re also putting into place a strategy that will scale with your business growth from startup to enterprise. It’s important to understand the business processes when creating an integration strategy. At VL OMNI we believe in creating a pivotal strategy with workflows that support the processes rather than changing the business process to support the integration. Merchants using VL OMNI have the added strategic bonus of being able to include business rules directly in the data transformation, opening up the realm of possibilities in doing more to satisfy a positive customer experience.

With that being said, May 12th is just around the corner. Merchants can take this breakup as a true opportunity rather than a crisis, and those who do are sure to come out better than before. With VL OMNI’s agile and scalable Connectors, we are confident in our Merchants’ abilities to continue to accelerate their growth and achieve a smooth customer experience.

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