Research Intern - Marketer

Research Intern — Marketer Publishing Problems on Shopify Plus Storefronts

Duration: 6 weeks  
Type: School research assignment (credit-bearing internship)  
Audience: Marketing practitioners at Shopify Plus brands whose storefront runs on Next.js or Shopify Hydrogen  
Method: Academic survey research, designed and reported without a product agenda

Purpose

BILDIT is hosting a six-week research assignment for a student who will study, in a neutral and academic way, the problems marketers face when they publish content and user experiences on their websites.

The work is a research project. The intern designs a defensible study, collects survey data from the defined population, and writes findings that a course instructor can grade. The goal is to describe what marketers actually struggle with. It is not to validate a product, generate leads, or recommend a vendor.

Research question

Among marketers at Shopify Plus companies whose customer-facing storefront is built with Next.js or Shopify Hydrogen:

What problems do they encounter when publishing content or user experiences to the live site, and how do those problems show up in their day-to-day work?

Secondary questions the survey should be able to answer:

- Who is involved when something goes from idea to live (marketer, developer, agency, merchandiser)?
- Where does work stall: drafting, review, scheduling, preview, developer handoff, launch, or later changes?
- What kinds of content and experiences are hardest to publish (campaign pages, banners, promotions, personalized sections, landing pages, seasonal updates)?
- How often do marketers depend on engineering to make a change that they consider a marketing change?
- What workarounds do they use, and what would “published correctly, on time, by the marketer” mean to them?

## Who can be in the study

Include a respondent only when all of the following are true:

- The company is on Shopify Plus.
- The public storefront is Next.js or Shopify Hydrogen. Confirm the stack. A Shopify theme, a different framework, or “we use Shopify” is not enough.
- The person publishes, requests, reviews, or is accountable for content or on-site user experiences (marketing, merchandising, content, ecommerce, CRM, or an equivalent role). Developers may be interviewed only as context, not as the survey population.

Exclude agencies speaking only about their own process, vendors, students, and anyone who cannot confirm both Shopify Plus and a Next.js or Hydrogen storefront.

Academic standards

The intern owns the study design. BILDIT provides access to a supervisor and the list of companies to reach out to. BILDIT does not write the questionnaire to produce a preferred answer.

- State a research question, population, and sampling plan before any outreach.
- Use neutral wording. Questions ask about the work, not about tools the sponsor makes.
- Separate facts (what happened last time they published) from opinions.
- Record inclusion checks (Shopify Plus, Next.js or Hydrogen, role) so the sample can be audited.
- Report sample size, who responded, who did not, and the limits of the data.
- Do not sell, demo, or mention a preferred solution in the survey or the outreach.
- Follow the school’s human-subjects rules. If the course or institution requires ethics review, submit before collecting responses. Store responses so individuals and companies are not identifiable in the written report.
- The graded paper belongs to the student. BILDIT may receive a copy of the anonymized findings.

What you will do

Weeks 1-2  Design

- Write a short proposal: question, population, how you will find people, and how you will keep the sample inside Shopify Plus plus Next.js or Hydrogen.
- Draft the questionnaire and a one-page consent note a respondent can understand.
- Pilot the survey with 2–3 people who fit the criteria, then revise confusing questions.
- Submit the proposal to your instructor and to the BILDIT supervisor before fieldwork.

Weeks 3-4 Fieldwork

- Recruit only inside the population above. Keep a log of who was contacted, how they qualified, and whether they completed the survey.
- Run the survey. 
- Stop and revise if respondents are outside the stack criteria or if questions start steering people toward a product.

Weeks 5-6 Analysis and write-up

- Clean the data and describe it with counts and plain-language themes. Distinguish what the survey can support from what it only suggests.
- Write a research report a non-technical reader can follow: question, method, who was surveyed, findings, limitations, and what a later study should ask.
- Deliver an anonymized data summary and a readout for BILDIT that stays descriptive.

Deliverables

1. Research proposal (question, population, instrument, ethics plan).
2. Final questionnaire and consent language.
3. Recruitment and qualification log.
4. Anonymized response summary.
5. Final report, formatted so it can be submitted as the course assignment.
6. A 30-minute readout of the findings.

A useful finished study is one a faculty reader could grade without knowing who sponsored the internship: clear question, honest sample, and findings tied to the answers.

Qualifications

- Current student who can receive credit or a grade for this project.
- Coursework in marketing, communications, HCI, information science, sociology, or research methods.
- Able to hold a professional conversation with marketers and to confirm technical facts (Shopify Plus, Next.js, Hydrogen) .
- Organized enough to keep a recruitment log and hit a six-week deadline.

Time and support

About 5-10 hours per week for six weeks, or the hours your program requires. You will have a BILDIT supervisor for weekly check-ins and for introductions. Technical staff can explain what Next.js and Hydrogen storefronts are so you can screen respondents.