Organizations for multi-store entrepreneurs
Unlocking new value for an underserved merchant segment
Background
Shopify wanted merchants of all sizes on one unified platform. Historically, users on different plans had different experiences. This meant that mid-sized merchants couldn’t centrally manage stores and staff, and enterprise merchants faced performance issues. Internally, separate codebases led to bespoke features and inefficiency.
Role and contributions
As design manager, I led the strategy and vision for a new platform architecture supporting multi-store merchants. Partnering with product, engineering, data science, and design peers, I guided the end-to-end design direction across key surfaces, including store login, organization settings, and the store switcher.
I coached 4 designers across 7 teams to align on a shared navigation model, improving how merchants group stores, switch between admins, and access organization-level features like user management and billing.
Approach
01 Strategy
Redefine the merchant audience, map the future of multi-store, and sell the vision across teams
02 Decisions
Prioritize merchant choice, clarity, and flow
03 Impact
Scalable infrastructure and broader thinking
Outcomes
21% GMV
User segment unlocked
200k+
Lines of code removed
100%
Users migrated, with 1% uptick in support tickets
01 Strategy
Redefine the merchant audience, map the future of multi-store, and sell the vision across teams
I reframed the merchant story from migration to growth enablement.
Using insights from usability testing and data science, I reframed the work as unlocking Shopify's second-largest merchant segment: multi-store entrepreneurs (21% GMV). We weren't just migrating merchants to one platform—we were supercharging an overlooked yet high-value segment.
I aligned 7 product teams on the new organization model.
I created visual models (like the one below) to align stakeholders on entity relationships, system impact, and boundaries. This helped teams understand how stores, dashboards, and features fit into the future infrastructure and how merchants would navigate them.
I championed a flexible architecture that scaled with business complexity.
My team pushed for new navigation and settings that protected usability for single-store merchants and elevated functionality for multi-store businesses.
02 Design decisions
Prioritize merchant choice, clarity, and flow
Enabled merchants to control organization-level settings. I led the strategy for introducing opt-in organization settings, iterating extensively and partnering with leadership to define the timing and visibility of multi-store navigation. By giving merchants control over this transition, we ensured the interface scaled with business complexity rather than prematurely imposing features.
Clarified key concepts for cross-surface consistency.
I defined and formalized distinctions between organizations, legal entities, and stores, creating a reference glossary that improved UX clarity and laid the foundation for consistent experiences across multiple product surfaces.
Seamless cross-surface navigation. I guided design across multiple entry points (single-store dashboards, account logins, and admin views) to ensure merchants and staff could access organization tools intuitively, without needing full access to the underlying architecture.
🙋🏻♀️ Ask me to demo the full shipped experience
03 Impact
Scalable infrastructure and broader thinking
This work didn’t just unify platforms. It aligned design and product thinking across Shopify. I shifted the focus from merchants as “small” or “enterprise” to merchants as scaling businesses, supported seamlessly as they expand across stores, brands, and regions.
This foundation is already influencing the next wave of improvements: my team is designing a standalone entry point for organization settings, enabling staff to manage operations without needing store-level access. Other product groups have since elevated offerings like payments and feature previews to the organization level, extending the impact of this work beyond its original scope.