Interview a Product Expert for Your Shopify Blog: Questions That Produce Useful Answers

Start with one reader question and a clear boundary around what your contributor actually knows. A useful product-expert interview should help a shopper understand a choice, not leave your small Shopify team with pages of praise to untangle.

For a hypothetical bag store, that question might be: How do I choose a bag size for what I carry every day? That gives the conversation a job. Tell us about your products gives it considerably more room to wander.

Match the question to the contributor’s knowledge

Before booking the interview, ask what the contributor personally designs, makes, tests, selects or advises on. Then check whether that experience fits the question. Someone involved in construction may be able to explain design choices, but that does not automatically make them the right person to discuss every customer’s experience or every competing product.

Write a short scope statement for your own notes:

• Reader question: The single decision or misunderstanding this article will address.
• Relevant knowledge: The contributor’s actual work or experience that can help answer it.
• Outside their remit: Topics they cannot speak to directly or that need another source.

Send the reader question and a short agenda in advance. Explain that you want plain-language explanations, examples and limits, rather than polished promotional answers. If two people from your team can attend, let one lead the conversation and the other take notes. If you are working solo, leave room to pause and catch up.

Also agree on attribution before the conversation: whether you may identify the contributor, how their name, role and business relationship should appear, and whether any information is for background only. If you plan to record, ask permission first.

A five-part interview agenda

Keep the agenda short enough that you can follow an interesting answer rather than race through a questionnaire.

1. What beginners misunderstand. Ask: What do people often misunderstand when they first face this choice? Look for the distinction the article needs to explain before offering advice, not a list of mistakes to blame on shoppers.
2. How a decision is made. Ask: What information would you need before helping someone choose, and what would you consider first? Capture the criteria and trade-offs, rather than jumping straight to a recommended product.
3. Which exceptions matter. Ask: When would that advice change, and how would a reader recognise that situation? An exception is especially useful when it changes what someone should check or choose.
4. What cannot be concluded. Ask: What would be an overstatement of what you have explained? Separate what the contributor knows from what they suspect, prefer or cannot establish.
5. What evidence they can supply. Ask: What documentation or other material could support the details we might publish? Establish what each item covers, which product or version it concerns, and whether you have permission to use it.

Use follow-ups that make the explanation usable

When an answer turns glossy, bring it back to something the reader can inspect, compare or do. Words such as premium and versatile are invitations to ask another question, not explanations on their own.

• Unpack unfamiliar language: What does that term mean in everyday language, and what would a shopper actually look for?
• Keep the outcome open: Can you walk through how you would make the decision before telling me what you would choose?
• Find the missing input: What would you need to know about this person’s situation before answering?
• Understand the basis: Is that something you have observed directly, a recommendation, or a finding from a particular test?

Ask one follow-up at a time. A pause gives the contributor room to think, and gives you room to notice whether you understand the answer. Do not rescue an unclear explanation by supplying the answer you hoped to hear.

Before moving on, read back your understanding in your own words and ask what you have missed. Mark that read-back as a paraphrase. Agreement with your summary does not turn your wording into an exact quotation.

Keep four kinds of notes separate

A single stream of notes makes it easy to mistake your interpretation for the contributor’s words. Use the following template for each useful point. If you did not capture wording accurately, put it under paraphrases rather than trying to reconstruct a quote later.

After the interview, send the contributor the exact quotations you intend to use, along with enough surrounding copy to show their meaning. Ask them to confirm the wording and the agreed attribution. If a correction changes the explanation, update the related paraphrases too.

Quote confirmation and factual support are separate checks. Confirming that someone said something does not establish that its claim is supported. Check factual assertions against the appropriate material, and retain any conditions that change the reader’s decision. If a central detail remains unresolved, omit it or state the specific limit rather than smoothing it into certainty.

Turn confirmed notes into a writing brief

Organise the article around the reader’s decision, not the order of the conversation. A useful sequence might be the direct answer, the criteria behind it, the exceptions that matter and the next thing to check. You do not need to preserve every interesting detour.

Your merchant-prepared brief should include the reader question, the contributor’s relevant scope, supported explanations, approved quotations and any limits the writer must retain. Keep unresolved notes clearly separate from material ready to publish. Also specify which product details genuinely help answer the question, rather than asking the draft to mention everything discussed.

Our AI Blog Writing for Shopify Stores can use your merchant-prepared writing brief and direction, alongside the selected title, tone and relevant store context, to create an editable Shopify article. You prepare the brief from the confirmed interview material and review the resulting draft. That review should include checking quotations, attribution and whether the article still answers the original reader question.

Interview preparation worksheet

Complete this before the conversation, then use it to keep the interview focused.

• One reader question: What should someone understand or be able to decide after reading?
• Contributor and scope: What do they know directly, and what falls outside their experience?
• Five agenda points: Beginner misunderstanding; decision process; important exceptions; limits; supporting evidence.
• Follow-ups to keep handy: Explain the term; walk through the decision; identify missing information; clarify the basis.
• Permissions: Attribution, name and role, recording if planned, and use of supplied material.
• Notes ready: Separate spaces for exact quotations, paraphrases, article sections and unconfirmed facts.
• Review plan: Who will confirm quotations, check facts and approve the final article?