Connecting Shopify, Dubsado, and Claude into one operating system for a curated DTC snack and lifestyle brand
The company
A curated direct-to-consumer brand selling snacks across themed shelves (sweet, salty, saucy) plus lifestyle merch (hoodies, totes, tees, hats). Multi-currency Shopify storefront shipping to 20+ countries, a subscription program, and an active brand-partnership pipeline for the products that earn shelf space. Founder-led with a small operator team. Voice is playful and aspirational. The work behind that voice is anything but: every new brand, every new customer, and every new subscriber gets touched by hand at least three times before the system catches up.
The problem
Three onboarding flows ran in parallel and none of them talked to each other. New brands pitching for shelf placement landed in Dubsado. The founder reviewed each pitch, scored fit, and copied the approved brands into the Shopify catalog manually. New customers placed a first order on Shopify and dropped into a Klaviyo flow built years ago, with no awareness of which curated shelf they bought from. New subscribers entered the recurring program and a separate sequence kicked in, but the data did not flow back to the brand-side report the founder used to decide what to stock next month.
Every onboarding edge case landed in the founder's inbox. A wholesale inquiry that came in through Dubsado with a customer question attached. A subscriber who paused mid-cycle and needed a re-engagement note. A new brand rep asking about lead time, payment terms, and minimum order quantities. The founder answered each one personally because nothing in the stack knew enough to draft a reasonable first response.
What we built
We connected Shopify, Dubsado, the email and messaging layer, and a Claude operating layer that sits across all of them. The starting point was the founder's voice: every drafted message has to sound like the brand, not like a bot. Every workflow ships with a human-in-the-loop step before anything goes out the door.
Brand onboarding (Dubsado to Shopify)
- ✓New pitch lands in Dubsado. Claude reads the pitch, pulls public data on the brand, scores fit against the curated shelf criteria (margin, story, audience overlap, packaging quality), and drafts a first-pass yes-no recommendation with the reasoning attached.
- ✓On approval, the brand record is created in the Shopify catalog with placeholder SKUs, lead time, MOQ, and payment terms drafted from the pitch. The founder reviews and confirms before the brand goes live on the storefront.
- ✓Brand follow-up emails (lead time questions, MOQ confirmations, terms negotiation) are drafted by Claude in the founder's voice and queued for review. Nothing sends without approval.
Customer onboarding (Shopify to email)
- ✓First-time order triggers a flow that knows which curated shelf the customer bought from. The welcome message references the actual brands in the order, not a generic 'thanks for your order'.
- ✓Repeat orders are read against the customer's prior history. If the customer is shifting from one shelf to another, the system flags that as a signal for the merchandising lens.
- ✓Customer service emails are pre-classified by Claude (shipping, refund, sizing, brand question) and routed with a draft response attached. The founder approves or edits before send.
Subscriber onboarding (subscription to operating system)
- ✓New subscribers are tagged with the shelf they signed up for. Cancellation, pause, and re-engagement events feed the merchandising decision system, not a separate retention dashboard.
- ✓Subscriber feedback (the open-text fields nobody reads at scale) is read by Claude and tagged for the founder. Patterns surface as written summaries, not raw exports.
- ✓Subscription churn risk is scored on every billing cycle. At-risk subscribers get a drafted re-engagement note in the founder's voice, queued for one-click send.
The systems connected
- ✓Shopify. The storefront and the customer record of truth. Order data, customer history, subscription state, and product catalog all flow through it.
- ✓Dubsado. The brand-partnership intake. Pitches, contracts, and conversations with brand reps live here.
- ✓Claude. The operating layer. Voice contract, draft generation, classification, and decision support across every onboarding flow.
- ✓Zapier. The connective tissue between the systems where direct API integration would be more work than it is worth.
The results
Before
A new brand pitch lands in Dubsado, the founder reads it personally, copies approved brands into Shopify by hand, and writes every follow-up email from scratch in the brand voice. Every step depends on the founder being at her keyboard.
After
Claude reads the pitch, scores fit, drafts the recommendation, queues the catalog entry, and drafts every follow-up email in the founder's voice. The founder reviews and approves. Nothing goes out the door without her sign-off, and nothing waits for her to reach the keyboard before it gets drafted.
Before
First-time customer gets a generic welcome flow that does not know which curated shelf they bought from. Customer service emails arrive in a single inbox and are answered by hand.
After
Welcome flow references the actual brands in the order. Customer service emails are pre-classified, routed, and pre-drafted in the brand voice. The founder approves and sends.
Why this matters
Curated DTC brands compete on taste and voice. The brands that survive are the ones that can scale taste and voice without the founder doing every email by hand. The system we built does not replace the founder's judgment. It removes the keyboard between her judgment and the rest of the business.