If you haven’t visited Shopify’s App Store lately, take a look now! There are now over 100 apps there, each of which adds new capabilities to your shop. From apps that simplify the task of cranking out shipping address labels to managing your social media presence to rewarding loyal customers, we’ve got lots of ways to make your shop even better.
Portable is one of the currently featured apps, and it brings customer data to an application you can use any time and can access from anywhere: Gmail. It’s a great way to quickly get information about any of your customers and stay on top of your customer relationships.
We had a Q & A session with Justin Burdett, Portable’s developer, and his answers follow.
What does Portable do?
Portable brings Shopify customer details and brings your customers into where you’re interacting with them most: your email. Portable looks up any of the details about a customer using their email address. If the email address belongs to a customer, important details about that customer will be displayed, all within your Gmail window.
Portable currently works with Gmail through Rapportive, but we’re hoping to expand to other email software in the future.
What are Portable’s key features?
Portable brings the following customer details right to your inbox:
- A direct link to that customer’s profile in your Shopify store
- Lifetime value details like total number of orders and total spent, localized for your country and currency
- Recent orders, including a direct link to the recent orders in your Shopify store, the order number, and the financial status, shipping status and order status
- Primary address and phone details for that customer
- Any notes you’ve entered about that customer
Why should shopowners use Portable?
Portable will save you time and effort by bringing customer details right to you when you get support requests. You will be able to provide faster support by cutting down on the time it takes to find the information you need and better support by gaining valuable insights into the customer.
Tell us a little about yourself.
I’m a geek from Pittsburgh, PA. I’ve got a couple of different projects I like work on. In my spare time, I like to play disc sports like Ultimate and disc golf. You can find more about me on my website or follow my dumb jokes on Twitter at @jburdeezy.
Where did you get the idea for Portable?
I was thinking about opening a Shopify store for another project of mine and I thought that I’d like something like Portable. I found Shopify’s API and got to work. Boom! Portable was born.
How long did it take for you to build Portable?
It only took me a few days to get an early version of the app and spent about a week in beta testing.
Where can I find out more about Portable?
You can find out more about Portable on its page in the Shopify App Store.