Shopify

Yes, Medusa is a headless commerce system and its all modules are available on npm

Shopify is a hosted platform, so you won't be able to set up WordPress on the same server, because you don't control it. A few options exist though:

• Shopify has a lightweight blogging platform you might use
• You could create a WordPress blog on WordPress.com (or any other WordPress hosting service)
• You could set up an account on a hosting service and install WordPress there.

Good luck!

If the blog features provided by Shopify are too limited for your needs you could decide to create a dedicated blog WordPress based and connect it to a subdomain, like for example blog.dealsalt.com You could host your WordPress instance where you prefer and just modify the domain records to point your blog subdomain to your hosting. I suggest you also to take a look to Shopify JS Buy SDK and Shopify Buy Button JS technologies, if you'd like to integrate some Shopify features in your blog. Please, consider that there are also some SEO drawbacks to use an external platform for blogging on a subdomain. For Google a domain and subdomain have no relations. Therefore if you are going to put a lot of effort in creating content, get backlinks, etc on the blog, you'll improve the ranking of the blog subdomain and not the ranking of your store domain.

With Klaviyo we have managed to set up some really great loyalty and rewards programs for our clients without using an additional app in Shopify. Klaviyo's flows are easy to work with and 2-way tagging functionality allows you to easily create new segments and/or targeted campaigns as well as lookalike audiences.

Definitely Klaviyo. Totally integrates, can drive up sell, does not require developer skills, easy to create a template, great analytics . You do however want to make sure it is set up by an expert, and that it sends from a “clean” domain.

Postgres is a solid database with a promising background. In the relational side of database design, I see Postgres as an absolute; Now the arguments and conflicts come in when talking about NoSQL data types. The truth is jsonb in Postgres is efficient and gives a good performance and storage. In a comparison with MongoDB with the same resources (such as RAM and CPU) with better tools and community, I think you should go for Postgres and use jsonb for some of the data. All in all, don't use a NoSQL database just cause you have the data type matching this tech, have both SQL and NoSQL at the same time.

I have found MongoDB easier to work with. Postgres and SQL in general, in my experience, is harder to work with. While Postgres does provide data consistency, MongoDB provides flexibility. I've found the MongoDB ecosystem to be really great with a good community. I've worked with MongoDB in production and it's been great. I really like the aggregation system and using query operators such as $in, $pull, $push.

While my opinion may be unpopular, I have found MongoDB really great for relational data, using aggregations from a code perspective. In general, data types are also more flexible with MongoDB.

Hey Joshua,

Would recommend using Freshdesk as your tool of choice. It has a direct integration with Shopify and other tools including powerful B2B customer handling. It also satisfies all the requirements you’ve outlined including order history, interaction history, notes, tickets etc. Along with Omni channel integrations with chat (their own or other chat solutions), email, phone and so on.

My company, JindalX can help you set up your customer service automation and journeys along with helping handle any extra volume through our own customer service reps if required. Can provide you with a free assessment if needed? Let me know, I’m contactable at madhav.garg@jindalx.com

Best, Madhav

ActiveCampaign can do all of this for you. They have really great support. Their automation is second to none. They have a chat bot capability. They also have an integrated capability where you see everything related to the one customer in one spot - all their interactions with you, and can move the customer through your custom stages. If you do go with ActiveCampaign, I HIGHLY recommend that you take their paid training. It will really help you get up faster and understand the product deeper, and not waste time. I think they have the training every month. ActiveCampaign is difficult to learn on your own since it is so full featured. Sign up for a trial through a salesperson and then ask if it is possible to get in the class for less money. ActiveCampaign integrates with Shopify also.

If you don't go with ActiveCampaign, then Zoho would be my second choice. But their support and quality is not as good, they feel like a new product even though they have been in business a while. You keep having to get around their bugs, which you can, it is just annoying. ZohoOne may be less expensive than ActiveCampaign.

Both products are so full-featured that they both take quite a while to learn.

Hey Amy, Webflow makes it possible to design the site in the program, then export the html and css into Shopify. For instance, if you know the Shopify templating language, then you can design the site in Webflow, then export the site, and do the Shopify templating and upload to the Shopify site.

Now, if you are not into web development, and that looks like too much, then I would recommend purchasing a template from Shopify for them and update their site that way.

We would also be happy to help if you would like to outsource any of the work.

Hope this helps!