Change follow-ups
A week after a price change, discount or product launch, Piste compares the week after with the week before and posts a verdict you can keep or revert.
A change follow-up is Piste's verdict on a change to your store a week after it happened: a price change, a new discount or a product launch, with the week after compared to the week before. It comes as a card with Keep it, a button to revert the change, and Check again in 7 days.
What does Piste follow up?
| Change | Compared on | Revert does |
|---|---|---|
| A price change to a product | The product's net sales, orders and units | Sets every variant's price back |
| A new discount | The store's sales (or orders), and the orders that used its code | Turns the discount off |
| A product launch | Its first week, since there's nothing before it; after Check again in 7 days, its latest week against its first | Nothing: a launch has nothing to revert |
| A discount or price edit Piste made | As above | The edit's own Undo |
Left out: discounts made for one customer, discounts usable only once, and discounts an app created. Two price changes to one product on the same day count as one change, and a price changed and changed back that day counts as none. Pre-orders, order holds and price probes have no follow-up of their own.
How do I turn on change follow-ups?
Change follow-ups come from the Change follow-ups automation, which runs every day at 9:00 in your time zone. Only the workspace owner can set it up.
Open Automations
In the web app, open Automations and choose the Change follow-ups tile under "Ready-made for your store", or under "Put the routine work on autopilot" if you have no automations yet.
Check where results go
Under "Where results go", pick your Slack DM, a Slack channel, iMessage or the web. In Slack, the cards go under its post. Every follow-up with a verdict is also in Needs you on the web.
Create it
Press Create and try it now. Its first run is a dry run: it reads your store and writes its report, but posts nothing and changes nothing.
In Slack, Piste can also set it up in a channel of its own, #piste-changes, when you choose it in a conversation such as the Kickoff. Its first message says: "I'm starting with what changed in the last 28 days, and I'll post here only when a follow-up is due." It also says that anyone in the channel who's a full member of your Slack workspace can take a decision, and guests can't.
How does Piste find changes?
Piste checks your store for changes rather than being told by Shopify: each time the Change follow-ups automation runs, and when you ask about recent changes in a conversation. Each check looks for what changed since the last one.
- Discounts: the first check looks back 28 days, then each check finds the discounts created since the last.
- Launches: active products created and published in the last 28 days.
- Prices: the first check records the price of every variant and reports no price changes. From the second check, a price that differs from the one recorded is a change.
So a price change made before the first check isn't followed up, and price changes show from the second check, usually the next day's run. A change the first check finds that's already more than 7 days old is due for its follow-up at once.
When does a follow-up arrive?
A follow-up is due 7 days after the change. Each morning's run reads up to 3 follow-ups that are due, oldest first, and leaves the rest for the next run. When no follow-up is due and the run has nothing else to propose, it posts nothing.
Price and launch follow-ups read the product's sales from Shopify's reports, so they need Allow Piste to read your sales reports, granted in Piste's page in your Shopify admin. Without it they wait, unread, until it's granted.
What does the verdict mean?
Piste compares the 7 days after the change with the 7 days before it, and leaves out the day of the change itself, since the change ran for only part of that day. A price or discount verdict with figures ends: "Compared with the same days before the change, so this is directional, not a test." A launch's first week says it has nothing before it to compare.
| Verdict | When |
|---|---|
| Ahead | The week after is more than 10% above the week before, on net sales (on sales or orders for a discount) |
| Behind | The week after is more than 10% below the week before |
| Flat | Within 10% either way |
| Too early to say | Fewer than 10 orders in either week, or fewer than 30 across both; for a new code discount, fewer than 10 orders that used the code; a discount with several codes; or figures Piste couldn't read |
| First week | A launch, reported on its first week alone |
A discount code used on fewer than 1 in 10 of the week's orders reads as flat, since too few orders used it for the store's change to be put down to it.
The card's title starts "Follow-up, 7 days:" followed by the change ("Follow-up, 14 days:" after one Check again in 7 days), and its text gives the main figures and the net effect, such as how much more or less in net sales than the week before.
What do Keep it, Revert and Check again do?
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
Keep it | Leaves the store as it is. The card says who kept it and when. |
Revert to <old price> | Sets every variant's price back, only if none has moved since the change |
Turn the discount off | Turns the discount off, if it's still what the change recorded |
Revert | On a change Piste made: the edit's Undo, the same as pressing Undo on the edit's card |
Check again in 7 days | Reads it again 7 days from the later of today and the date it was due. The new verdict is a reply under the same card in Slack, and the follow-up is back in Needs you once it's read again. |
There's no revert button for a launch, or for a price that has changed again since the change. Check again in 7 days appears only once there's a verdict.
When you press Revert, Piste replies with what happened:
- "Set back to" the old price "in Shopify.", or "Turned off in Shopify."
- If the price has moved since: "The price is" its new price "now, not what this follow-up recorded, so Piste left it as it is."
- If the discount has changed since: "The discount is" what it is now "now, not what this follow-up recorded, so Piste left it on."
- If the discount has ended: "That discount isn't active any more, so there's nothing to turn off."
Revert needs Allow Piste to change prices or Allow Piste to change discounts in Shopify. Without it, nothing changes, Piste says which to grant, and you can press the button again once it's granted. See Store edits.
Who can decide on a follow-up?
| Where the card is | Who can decide |
|---|---|
Under the Change follow-ups post in Slack, such as in #piste-changes | Any full, active member of the Slack workspace Piste is installed in |
| In Needs you on the web | The workspace owner, the only person who signs in on the web |
A follow-up appears in Needs you once its verdict is in. A decision in either place updates the other. In the decision log, Keep it is recorded as declining the revert.
What else does the Change follow-ups run do?
The same daily run looks after a few other store checks, each as a card on its post:
- It proposes the fix for a leaked discount code, at most one a run.
- Once a week, it proposes clearance markdowns for stock that stopped selling and a price probe.
- It ends any price probe whose 14 days are up, and puts its price back.
Can I ask about a change in a conversation?
Yes. Ask Piste about recent price changes, discounts or launches, and it reads the same figures and talks them through. A conversation stores no verdict and raises no card: the Change follow-ups automation posts each follow-up with its buttons.
Limits
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Follow-up due | 7 days after the change |
| Weeks compared | 7 days before and 7 days after, the change day left out |
| Flat band | Within 10% either way |
| Minimum orders | 10 in each week and 30 across both |
| Minimum orders using a code | 10 |
| Follow-ups read per run | 3 |
| First check looks back for discounts and launches | 28 days |
| Check again | 7 days later |
| Schedule | Every day at 9:00 |
Related
- Store edits: the changes Piste makes, which it follows up too.
- Proposals and cards: who can press a card, and Show the working.
- Templates: the Change follow-ups template and the others.
- Ad changes: what an ad change did a week on.