Ashley Speaks. You Learn.: Recent Episodes
Ashley Speaks - Shopify Expert & Shopify Partner
I save Shopify ecommerce marketers time by sharing the latest Shopify news, Shopify marketing strategy, and revenue growth tactics for Shopify stores and DTC brands.
Welcome to the April 2022 edition of our API features roundup, designed to help you understand how you can adopt some of the latest changes to improve the quality of your apps and streamline your development experience.This version includes the all-new Customer Segmentation API. It also includes new features to track fulfillment with fulfillment and delivery time data and offers improved visibility into Product Taxonomy.This version also adds new features for offering discounts using the App Subscription API and includes updates to the Storefront API that make it possible to get delivery quotes from the cart API.This release also coincides with the removal of version 2021-04, so remember to check your API health report to make sure you’re compatible and review the changes coming.For a full list of API changes associated with this version, visit the 2022-04 release notes.1. Customer SegmentationCustomer Segments is a new feature that is replacing Customer Saved Searches. In the past, Customer Saved Searches only allowed for free-text searches across customers.This means that a search for “Madison” might yield customers named Madison, people who live in Madison, Wisconsin, or people who have an address on Madison Ave. Unfortunately, there was no way to differentiate between these results and return customers that were important to you using Saved Searches.Customer Segments are much more powerful. Segments allow you to specify which customer fields need to match to be a group member. For example, segments might include things like:Customers that purchased a particular product.People from a specific city.Customers who have spent a certain amount of money on the shop.Merchants can then use this information to send marketing material to customers in a certain segment or learn more about segment member behaviors.To create a new segment using the API, you can use the segmentCreate mutation, using a name, and the query that you’d like to use to segment customers:Response:For more examples and to see all of the queries and mutations available to manage segments, visit our documentation on the segmentation API at shopify.dev.2. Product TaxonomyStandard Product types, launched as a part of the 2022-01 release, help store owners keep their products organized on the storefront. As of the 2022-04 release, an API is available to get information about all of the standard product types that Shopify supports. This information is accessible through productTaxonomyNodes through the GraphQL API.The following query will get all of the product taxonomy nodes that are related to jewelry:Response:When creating a product, you can use the provided standard type taxonomy values to ensure that products will show up exactly where they belong on the storefront.To learn more about product types or receive a complete list of the taxonomy nodes queryable with the API, visit our documentation.3. Fulfillment Time & Delivery TimeThree new fields are now available through the API to help understand the fulfillment and shipping expectations for fulfillment orders created through marketplaces. These fields are especially important for marketplaces that have a delivery guarantee.For example, merchants might need to fulfill some orders earlier than others to meet customer delivery expectations.The three new fields that are available on fulfillment orders are:minDeliveryDateTime: This is the earliest date and time by which the delivery is expected to be completed.maxDeliveryDateTime: This is the latest date and time by which the delivery is expected to be completed.fulfillBy: This is the latest date and time by which the store owner should fulfill all items in the fulfillment order to meet the delivery deadlines for the order.All of these fields are available in GraphQL, and can be fetched from fulfillment orders:4. App Subscription Billing DiscountsAs of the 2022-04 version, you can use the discount field as a part of the appSubscripti...
How Coco Moon Puts Charitable Giving in Customers’ Hands with GivzOne look at Coco Moon’s ecommerce store and you can practically smell the plumeria and feel the mist coming off the Pacific.The baby and toddler brand had long been donating to a local, aligned organization but was in need of a way to allow customers to donate to charities they care deeply about.Founder Amber Thibaut says, “When I heard about Givz on a podcast, I was super excited about it not only for the giving aspect of it which is phenomenal, but also for the potential business impact as well.”Keep reading to discover how Amber used Givz to increase average order value and easily pivot towards featuring relevant charities amidst a crisis.“We could tell our community was very passionate about giving. We wanted a way to involve them more in that process and give them a way to be a part of the donation decision.”Amber ThibautFounder of Coco MoonBaby Love, Hawaiian StyleAmber, the daughter of a Maui waterman, grew up diving, surfing, and fishing. When she became a mother, she noticed a total lack of clothing with Hawaiian spirit and soul. So she founded Coco Moon to help other families get the style and meaning they loved.The brand now offers buttery-soft blankets, bibs, hooded towels, onesies, sweet toddler dresses, and even robes for momma.Choosing Customer-Driven Donations“We have had a giving back program since 2017, whereby we donate 1% of our sales to Hawai’i nonprofits. Just in the last two years, we’ve donated those primarily to the neonatal intensive care unit, here on Oahu,” says Amber. The Kapiolani Health Foundaiton NICU positively impacts so many lives, and has been a great fit because it ties directly into their brand.“But at the same time, it is a very specific cause to donate to,” says Amber. “We could tell our community was very passionate about giving. We wanted a way to involve them more in that process and give them a way to be a part of the donation decision.”Coco Moon still donates 1% of sales to Kapiolani Health Foundation, and uses Givz as an additional way to give back. By allowing customers to choose from featured charities with Givz, or to search their own favorite organization, Coco Moon has been able to support customers’ favorite causes while diversifying their giving.The Givz Team Comes Through with Data-Driven RecommendationsWhen asked what is was like to set up her first donation incentive, Amber says, “On the technical side it was super easy to implement.”Even better, Nicole from the customer success team at Givz offered data-driven advice during the setup process. “I met with Nicole to strategize our best approach, and she was able to share some best practices based on things she’s seeing that work well for other brands using Givz,” says Amber.Based on the amount Coco Moon was able to commit to in addition to their corporate giving and on what has been tested by other brands, they were able to land on giving 5% of sales for any purchase over $100.“It was super, super helpful to be able to have that conversation with her about what was working,” says Amber. Our team also offered feedback on Facebook ad drafts based on what has been successful for our other customers.The Average Order Value BumpCoco Moon has posted about the opportunity to give with Givz using Instagram carousel posts and Stories. But the main way that customers find out about it is through the website banner at the top of every page.Spend at least $100 and Coco Moon will donate 5% of your order value to a charity you choose via GivzQuick Pivots for Helping in a CrisisOne unexpected benefit of using Givz was the ability to adapt to customers’ desires to support certain causes. When the war in Ukraine began, Amber was able to quickly change their Givz featured charities to organizations helping the people of Ukraine, including the International Rescue Committee, UNICEF USA, American Red Cross, Direct Relief, and Save the Children.“With ...
Table of contentsAs a Shopify Partner, development stores can be a game-changer for your business as a source of recurring income. In this guide, we’ll explore development stores and how they benefit Shopify Partners, the biggest considerations for making and using them, and a step-by-step process to get started.What are development stores?Development stores are test stores you can build on your client’s behalf, then transfer ownership to them. When you do this, you earn a recurring commission on their monthly subscription cost. That’s what we call a win-win.Specifically, a development store is a free Shopify account you can use to build, test, and experiment with the Shopify platform. You can also test any themes or apps you create, giving you a sandbox environment with all the functionality of the Shopify Advanced plan, minus a few restrictions.And because you can create an unlimited amount of development stores, with no time limit, you have an unlimited amount of potential.Partners use development stores for two main purposes:Build a Shopify store on behalf of a client (and when you transfer it to your client, you’ll earn a recurring commission)Test an app or a theme that’s still in developmentIn both cases, the process of creating a development store is the same, but certain features like developer preview might prevent you from transferring the store to a client.Note: You first need a Shopify Partner accountto create and access development stores.Development store referralsA development store referral is when you refer a new merchant to Shopify by signing them up to the platform, creating a development store for them, and transferring store ownership over to the client when you’re done.After your client switches to a paid plan, Shopify will pay you a percentage of their subscription fee.You’ll continue to receive your monthly development store referral commission as long as you’re an active Shopify Partner. (Active partners have referred at least one active merchant to Shopify within the last 12-month period, as outlined in the Partner Program Agreement.)Note: Don’t build stores as part of the Shopify free trial.You can only earn referral commission by transferring a development store (not a trial store) to a merchant.Development stores vs. merchant storesDevelopment stores have some important differences from stores that merchants create for themselves:As a Shopify Partner, you can create an unlimited number of free development stores.You’ll start earning referral commissions on development stores after you transfer them to clients.There is no time limit on how long you can work on a development store. Clients only start to pay for their stores when you transfer ownership to them and they select a paid plan.Many Shopify Partners use development stores to grow their revenue and level up their skills—with good reason. Here are several key benefits that will create new opportunities to build your business.Earn recurring commission with development store referralsA development store referral is when you refer a new merchant to Shopify by signing them up to the platform, creating a development store for them, and transferring store ownership when you’re done.When you make a development store referral, you earn recurring commission based on your client’s subscription. The percentage of this commission varies depending on whether you’re a Shopify Partner or Shopify Plus Partner.Payouts recur monthly as long as the client remains a paying Shopify customer and you remain an active Shopify Partner. (Active partners have referred at least one active merchant to Shopify in the last 12-month period, as outlined in the Partner Program Agreement.)Even if you don’t build a full website, you can still earn the development store referral commission by doing a bare-bones setup for a client, including creating a domain, configuring basic theme settings, setting up core pages, and adding or editing products.But ...
Green Marketing: Interesting Statistics and Research Notes Green marketing is the process of advertising products or services based on their environmental benefits. These items or services may be environmentally beneficial in themselves or created in an environmentally friendly fashion. Green marketing research helps to understand its function in a business and how it contributes to the conservation of the environment. Why green marketing is growing In an effort to raise public awareness about the industry’s involvement in climate change, numerous corporations, enterprises, and brands have begun advertising environmentally friendly products and services. Increasingly, people are purchasing synthetic leather shoes and couches, eco-friendly cars, and recyclable food containers. This marketing domain encompasses a wide range of activities, including: Modification of the product Changes in the manufacturing process Changes in packaging Changing advertisements Produced in an environmentally friendly manner Contains no hazardous or ozone-depleting elements Produced using recycled materials or recyclable materials Produced using renewable resources Excessive packaging is not used. Designed to be repaired rather than discarded The concept of sustainable marketing and corporate social responsibility is becoming a high priority for brands, and an increasing number are making an attempt to develop sustainable and environmentally friendly marketing techniques as a result of this. Businesses are putting more and more sustainable measures in place to demonstrate a high level of social responsibility, which they hope will improve consumer loyalty to their brands. The green marketing research doesn’t lie: According to one study conducted, there was a huge shift in consumer behavior during the pandemic. 81 percent of shoppers surveyed want businesses to be environmentally conscious in their advertising and messaging, and 69 percent said they were doing everything they could to reduce their carbon footprint (up from 63 percent just a year earlier). According to a recent LendingTree poll of 1,048 Americans, 55 percent are willing to spend extra on sustainable and eco-friendly products, and 4 in 10 are likely to boycott companies that aren’t as committed to turning green. The fact that a key result in a new global analysis from The Economist Intelligence Unit, commissioned by WWF, indicates a whopping 71 percent increase in internet searches for sustainable goods internationally over the last five years should raise eyebrows for brands. Does green marketing work? It’s challenging to keep up with the rate of change in the world. Climate, health, and social issues make headlines on a daily basis, and we need to do more and faster, according to the majority opinion. With the increasing importance of corporate social responsibility, green consumers and investors are demanding that companies take into account their social and environmental impact before they focus on profit and growth. As of March 2021, 28 percent of customers had ceased purchasing some items owing to ethical or environmental concerns, according to Deloitte green marketing research. There were 200 new companies that vowed on September 20th to reach carbon net-zero emissions by the year 2040, including Twitter, Salesforce, and Procter & Gamble. Microsoft, Starbucks, and Nike are just a few of the hundreds of businesses that have already pledged to meet the 2°C objectives by 2030 and align with the Paris COP21 climate agreement. The net-zero race has begun. When done correctly, green marketing may be a very effective marketing technique. Think about these green marketing statistics: To lessen the environmental effect, 48% of consumers in the United States say they would definitely or probably change their consumption habits. A whopping 73% of Millennials are willing to pay more for sustainable items, as opposed to the 66% of worldwide customers who are. Companies are altering their m...
Paid social is the lifeblood of growing ecommerce brands. Unfortunately, few owners, operators, and marketers play the game with a clear strategy on how to win. Fewer still calculate Facebook ad costs on a single outcome: profit. Good news. That’s exactly what this article contains: a Facebook budget calculator, step-by-step instructions, and a video tutorial. To cover those ingredients, we’ll ask and answer three questions . How Much Should You Spend on Facebook Ads? What Type of Facebook Ad Budget Performs Best? Where Does Campaign Budget Optimization Go Wrong? How Much Do Facebook Ads Cost for Ecommerce? Before the acronyms, formulas, and tactics . let’s start with benchmarks. Why? Because large and small businesses alike face the same questions: What is a good CPM for Facebook? What’s the average CPC? How does that stack up against ROAS? Finding reliable answers isn’t easy. Especially nuanced answers that separate ecommerce from other industries and distinguish between verticals. Not to mention prospecting versus remarketing. The numbers below come from our ecommerce data newsletter — a set of ~200 online retailers totaling +$5.9 billion in sales between 2020–2022. You’ll see two timeframes . Trailing 12 months (TTM): the 12 months leading up to publication Previous 12 months: the 12 months before TTM Don’t let those timeframes confuse you. Essentially, we’re looking back at the last 24 months, breaking them into two 12-month blocks, and comparing them year-over-year (YoY). First, the big picture: Facebook and Google costs over the last two years. Facebook CPM Trailing 12 months (2021–22): $14.10 Previous 12 months (2020–21): $9.92 YoY Change: +42.1% Google CPC Trailing 12 months (2021–22): $0.83 Previous 12 months (2020–22): $0.67 YoY Change: +22.7% Facebook ROAS Trailing 12 months (2021–22): 1.53 Previous 12 months (2020–21): 1.76 YoY Change: -13.2% Google ROAS Trailing 12 months (2021–22): 4.51 Previous 12 months (2020–21): 5.31 YoY Change: -15.0% In short, the cost to advertise has increased while the efficiency of advertising has declined. Much of that one-two punch can be traced back to post-COVID struggles, broader ecommerce trends, and the effects of iOS 14.5 on digital advertising. Having identified the trailing 12 months’ CPM and CPC, it’s tempting to assume we have an answer to our opening question: How much do Facebook ads cost? Average Facebook CPM is $14.10. Average Facebook CPC is $0.83. However, that’s far from the full picture . Next, let’s compare all ecommerce to its dominant verticals, separated into non-holiday versus holiday costs. 1. All Ecommerce Brands Facebook CPM TTM Non-holiday: $13.34 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $19.97 Facebook CPC TTM Non-holiday: $0.85 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $1.15 Google CPC TTM Non-holiday: $0.84 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $1.00 2. Fashion & Apparel Facebook CPM TTM Non-holiday: $12.66 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $18.78 Facebook CPC TTM Non-holiday: $0.70 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $0.92 Google CPC TTM Non-holiday: $0.55 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $0.71 3. Cosmetics & Beauty Facebook CPM TTM Non-holiday: $20.41 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $31.95 Facebook CPC TTM Non-holiday: $1.17 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $1.72 Google CPC TTM Non-holiday: $1.12 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $1.53 4. Food & Beverage Facebook CPM TTM Non-holiday: $14.43 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $16.89 Facebook CPC TTM Non-holiday: $1.13 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $1.31 Google CPC TTM Non-holiday: $0.94 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $0.97 5. Health & Wellness Facebook CPM TTM Non-holiday: $20.95 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $30.86 Facebook CPC TTM Non-holiday: $1.52 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $2.04 Google CPC TTM Non-holiday: $1.05 Holiday (Nov–Dec. 13): $1.17 For clarity — and, in particular, to highlight the differences — here are all those data points in table form: Industry Facebook CPM Facebook CPC Google CPC Ecommerce $13.34 $0.85 $0.84 Ecommerce: Holiday $19.97 $1.15 $1.00 Fashion $12.66 $0.70 $0.55 Fashion: Holiday $18.78 $0.92 $0.71 Health $20.95 $1.52 $1.0...
Twelve years ago, Yoast was founded by my brother, Joost de Valk after a career as an independent SEO expert working with large brands like eBay, Facebook, Disney, and The Guardian. Everything he learned while fixing the sites of those companies flowed into a plugin for WordPress called WordPress SEO, which would later become Yoast SEO. In 2022, the company consists of over 140 people worldwide, and its software is used on over 12 million websites. Yoast SEO is still the flagship product and has become the most popular SEO tool globally, garnering over 25,000 five star reviews on wordpress.org. SEO experts build Yoast SEO, but we design it to be accessible and useful for anyone looking to get a fair chance in the search results. In this post I’ll share our approach to building an app for Shopify, how we successfully launched the app, how we’ll continue to invest, and what we’ve learned. But why build an app for Shopify? Our mission is SEO for everyone. We want everyone to have a fair chance to show up prominently in search. Shopify is one of the world’s most popular ecommerce platforms, and it’s growing insanely fast. Extending our services to Shopify will help us get closer to our mission. By publishing our app on the Shopify App Store, we’re diversifying our offering. As you know, we’ve been attached to the WordPress CMS forever, and that makes us vulnerable. By growing our consumer base on another platform that’s seeing very healthy growth, we can become less reliant on the sole income of our WordPress plugin. Combine that with the never-ending ecommerce boom, and we have the opportunity to share our product with millions of new merchants. If we succeed, the possible financial gains can be huge, which will also flow back into improving Yoast SEO across all platforms. This helps us continue our mission – to help businesses get their best outcome in search. Besides the financial benefits, Shopify itself speaks to our open-source loving hearts. While it’s proprietary software, the Shopify philosophy is something we can very much get behind. We all want to make the web a better place for independent merchants and give them the chance to stand up to big money! How the Yoast team built the app This being a new platform for us — and the first time developing for a SaaS — we researched extensively how to best build an SEO app for Shopify. One of the most essential sources was the Shopify developer documentation. Here, we found answers to almost all our questions. Shopify.dev contains all documentation regarding the different APIs and integration points Shopify offers. We’ve been using this as a primary lookup source for information about: The Liquid syntax and the available objects Shopify offers, for us to output the right meta tags and Schema.org information. The Admin API, which we use to retrieve and enhance existing content. The Partner API, which we use to manage customers’ access to our SEO academy. The App Bridge library, which allows us to integrate our app inside the Shopify admin and rely on their authentication mechanisms. In addition, the Shopify developer documentation also provided a lot of information about how to work with Shopify’s existing SEO implementations, like its title and meta description implementation, as well as canonical URLs, sitemaps, and the robots.txt file. Also, the developer documentation provides information about tools that we use, like the Theme Inspector, to analyze the performance impact of our app. We use this when we’re editing our SEO modifications to the Storefront to determine how much impact our modifications have. We worked with the Shopify partner community for help. For technical questions, we reached out to ZAGO — a very experienced Shopify agency from Sweden. We used their expertise to confirm our findings on building the best possible app. We set out to build Yoast SEO for Shopify using all of our combined insights. For us, this is an entirely new app, built on a mostly new te...
Charitable donations have an amazing impact. Charities can improve access to education, conserve ecosystems, or save lives. Americans donate over 470 billion dollars annually to charity, with 69% coming from individual donors. Charity donation apps can make donating your money to causes you believe in even more accessible. There are charity apps for individuals, businesses, and non-profits. Below, we dive into the main types of donation apps and show you our top 15 picks. The four main types of charity donation apps Are you looking for an easy way to make tax-deductible donations? Or maybe you want to collect donations for your non-profit or a non-profit that your business supports. Whatever your motivation, one of these types of charity donation apps will be the right fit for you: Ecommerce donation incentive apps incentivize your shoppers to hit a donation threshold; for example, you might offer to donate $25 for any purchase over $150. The software should collect and send donations on behalf of your business. Non-profit donation collection apps – An app designed to collect donations for non-profits will include payment processing features and donor contact information management for further marketing and communication. Ecommerce donation at checkout apps – Some apps allow ecommerce stores to collect donations at checkout (such as rounding up a purchase or collecting a $1 gift). Many of these apps have been created specifically for Shopify, one of the most popular ecommerce platforms in the world. Charity donation apps for individuals – Of course, there are also donation apps designed for individual donors. Some of these will round up your everyday purchases, while others can be used to make one-time donations. 15 charity donation apps to try in 2022 Want to donate to charity this year? Try one of these apps. 1. Givz Givz makes it easy for Shopify stores to collect donations on behalf of charities. Here’s how it works: stores can set donation criteria (donate a flat-rate amount for purchases over a threshold, a flat-rate amount for any purchase, or a percentage of any assets), and after a qualifying purchase, shoppers can choose from over 150 charities. App type: Ecommerce donation incentive apps Core features: Flat-rate and percentage donations Threshold options designed to help increase AOV Your company makes contributions pay—extra funds are not requested from customers Allows customers to choose the charity Makes donations to the charities Collects necessary tax information Built for Shopify 2. Give Lively Give Lively is a charity fundraising app that makes it easy to add donation pages and widgets to any website. App type: Non-profit donation collection apps Core features: Donation pages and widgets Text-to-donate campaigns Event Ticketing Peer-to-peer fundraising management Learn more about Give Lively. 3. Easy Donation Easy Donation is a Shopify app that allows merchants to add donation options on their store’s view cart or checkout page. The platform can be used by non-profits but is more frequently used by businesses looking to donate to charity. App type: Ecommerce donation at checkout apps Core features: Charity donations collected along with product purchases Works on Shopify cart or checkout page Individual donation products or landing pages (to collect donations without product sales) Learn more about Easy Donation. 4. RoundUp With RoundUp, anyone can start making everyday purchases to support a non-profit. App type: Charity donation apps for individuals Core features: Connect to your multiple credit and debit cards or just one Transactions are rounded up, and donations are made every month Pause and re-start donations as desired Set monthly donation maximums One-time donations are available 1 million non-profits are supported Learn more about RoundUp. 5. Tip Jar With Tip Jar, Shopify stores can collect tips, donations, and upsells. App type: Ecommerce donation at checkout apps Core features: Collect dona...
More and more brick and mortar merchants are launching online stores, and ecommerce merchants are moving into retail locations. As such, there’s an increased demand for merchants to upgrade to tools that unify online and in-store systems. With a unified POS, merchants can manage online and in-store inventory from a single point of sale, speed up checkout, and, ultimately, capture more sales. If you’re looking to grow your business as a Shopify Partner, now is the perfect time to become an omnichannel expert. If you run an agency or build apps, Shopify makes it easy for you to grow by supporting merchants who sell online and in-store. For app developers this likely means integrating with Shopify POS. For Shopify agency partners, this likely means expanding your existing services to help drive revenue across more channels, such as brick-and-mortar retail. While you may be ready to start supporting retail merchants, you also may be wondering how to find your first few brick-and-mortar clients. In this post, we’ll talk about how you can find new clients by: Looking at your existing client base Establishing a referral network Offering incentives Leveraging your local advantage Running a marketing campaign 1. Look at your existing client base More and more merchants are expanding the success of their online stores by moving into physical locations. One reason for this may be because selling in person and pop up stores may be a financially efficient way of acquiring new clients compared to digital acquisition costs, which only continue to increase. According to Shopify’s Future of Retail report, 32% of brands said they’d be establishing or expanding their use of pop-up and in-person experiences in the next year, while 31% said they planned on establishing or expanding their physical retail footprint. What’s interesting is the opposite is also true as brick-and-mortar retailers are now selling online. Ecommerce is growing and it’s easier now than ever to reach a wider audience by bringing sales online. Chances are, several of your current and past clients are expanding their stores into physical locations or moving sales online. This can be a huge opportunity for you to grow your own business alongside theirs. “Add value to the relationships you have with existing clients—introduce them to POS and show them how omnichannel can work for their business, and how you can help. Take your existing knowledge of Retail commerce trends and the Shopify platform to identify new ways your clients can succeed as in-person retailers.” -Carlyle Doherty, Retail Partnerships Lead, Shopify. Here are some specific ways you can extend your new services to your existing client base. Send an email The power of email marketing cannot be understated, especially if you already have a thriving relationship with clients. The most recent State of Email report from Litmus shows email marketing is becoming increasingly critical to the success of a business, and that email marketing has remarkably high ROIs. The report shows an average email marketing ROI of 36:1. The additional good news is if you already have a relationship with past clients, you’ll likely experience higher open rates and your campaign doesn’t have to be complicated. If you offer digital marketing or consulting to merchants on Shopify websites, you can send an email notification informing clients you’ve expanded your service offerings to include retail support. Longhouse Media does this: “One of the main strategies we use at Longhouse Media is to reach out to existing clients by email. We show them the benefits of using Shopify by walking them through a live demo. Once the client sees how easy it is to add and manage their products, they have a hard time not making the transition to Shopify.” Austin Mallar, Founder, Longhouse Media Explain the value of a unified back-office If you know your existing clients are using a POS that’s not Shopify, teach them the value of unifying sales with one sys...
BFCM is Black Friday, Cyber Monday, one of the most anticipated sales period for every merchant— online and in-store. Last year, Shopify merchants collectively made over $1.5 billion USD in sales during BFCM. But, if you’re a new or small merchant, you may wonder why, what, and how of this sale season. That’s why we’ve put together this quick blog to give you the rundown to start selling on Black Friday immediately. What are Black Friday and Cyber Monday? Black Friday, Cyber Monday (BFCM) is the most significant shopping period from the Friday after Thanksgiving until Monday. This year (2019), BFCM is from 29 November to 2 December. This informal event became popular around the 1960s to mark the start of America’s Christmas shopping season since people would skip work to hit stores. However, retail stores adopted this tradition in the early 1980s when they started seeing a financial benefit to this annual shopping spree. This holiday was born in the United States, but it quickly spread to different parts of the world, especially in countries like the United Kingdom and Australia. Cyber Monday was introduced later in 2005, at the advent of online shopping, to promote eCommerce businesses among Black Friday deal hunters. Currently, online shopping is seeing more success than retail stores, with ecommerce sales figures surpassing retail purchases. But, you may wonder, what is so special about this sale weekend? Let us illustrate its popularity. Here’s a store being opened at 4 am for Black Friday: Since Black Friday is a highly marketed annual sale as the biggest sale of the season, shoppers are eager to look for the best deals on products from fashion and makeup to furniture and even flat-screen TVs. Additionally, retail and eCommerce stores slash their prices as high as 60% to entice shoppers. These significant discounts have even instigated violence among shoppers in stores. Now, for the most critical part— planning your Black Friday sale. Getting Started with Black Friday Planning Whether you’re a small store or a large enterprise, Black Friday is your opportunity to grab more eyeballs, get new visitors onto your store, increase purchases, bring back customers to shop from you again and earn more. It is beneficial for stores just starting, as the sale season boosts sales and helps them increase their customer base. There are three core steps to any Black Friday sale: Decide your discount amount Promote your store’s discount before and during the sale with innovative marketing channels. Engage with visitors to your store and maximize conversions with stellar customer support. Want more details on these steps and maximize your reach during this sale? Pick up our easy-to-follow Black Friday checklist to plan your sale efficiently and set up a successful BFCM sale on your online store. PushOwl for BFCM Web push notifications are a great way to market your sale immediately and get more visibility for your short-lived sale quickly. By crafting well-written web push notifications about your sale, you can increase traffic to your store and get people who have subscribed to your store to come back and purchase from you. Here are two blogs we have to help you plan your web push notifications for sale: Web push strategy: Guide to Planning BFCM with Web Push Notifications Web push copy tactics: 8 Web Push Notification Tactics for a Successful Black Friday Sale Another hack for Black Friday is to use the surge of store visitors to your advantage by optimizing your web push subscription tactics for sale. Our blog on how to turn your Black Friday visitors into subscribers gives you every tip to increase your subscriber list and ensure you have a larger audience to market to, even after the sale. Other Resources Here are some helpful resources based on the problem you want to solve during BFCM: Abandoned Cart Recovery Strategy For BFCM Black Friday Email Marketing Ideas to Skyrocket Your Sales in 2019 Shopify Apps and their Black Friday d...
Leigh Sevin and Jinesh Shah founded Endear to empower retail sales teams to chat with customers via email, text and WhatsApp and track how those conversations turn into sales. As Shopify’s first and only clienteling app, Endear continues to pave the way for modern omnichannel retailers. Keep reading to learn more about Endear’s story and how the team has found success as a Shopify Partner app. You might also like: Profitable Pivots: How Octane AI Shipped Innovative Products in Uncertain Times. Establishing Endear Over the past decade or so, the commerce industry has seen a hearty debate about the lifespan of brick-and-mortar retail. Some say that retail is dying, while others say that the reality is quite the opposite. One team works to straddle this line, supporting omnichannel merchants by bridging the gap between in-store and online sales: Endear. Endear is a clienteling platform and CRM that empowers stores to digitally connect with and sell to customers to increase traffic and drive sales in-store and online. Leigh and Jinesh had always been interested in the tech that powered the omnichannel space, but the investment was being made on the e-commerce side, despite brick-and-mortar stores being an important part of the retail equation. “At the time, we realized there were few technology resources and tools that retail stores could use to manage their business in a data-driven way—like websites do,” said Leigh. So, she and Jinesh conceived a clienteling platform to ensure that stores and the sales associates who worked within them were not reliant on foot traffic as a way to succeed at their jobs. “The whole purpose of being omnichannel is to provide multiple ways for customers to autonomously design their own path to purchase,” said Leigh. “But your salespeople are still an incredible resource. So, how do you give your store associates the ability to sell remotely?” The whole purpose of being omnichannel is to provide multiple ways for customers to autonomously design their own path to purchase. That was what Leigh and Jinesh set out to do—to give retailers the right data and the right tools to drive sales over remote channels, not just in their store. Retail Sales in an Omnichannel World Omnichannel retail is a proven strategy. Return rates are lower, AOV is higher, and the lifetime value of an omnichannel customer is about 30% better than if they just shop one channel or another. But does an omnichannel approach render retail salespeople obsolete? No. Not only can your sales team power valuable experiences like local pickup and appointment shopping, but they also play a critical role for both in-person and online sales. Lifestyle brand Alexis Bittar is a testament to this. The brand launched its brand solely online during the COVID pandemic. With Endear, they leveraged a fully remote sales team to grow the brand for a year before opening any stores, in which they also placed retail salespeople. “Their outlook on their website is that it’s meant to feel like a store—that you’re walking into an Alexis Bittar store, and it just happens to be digital,” said Leigh. “We love being a part of that strategy and the way that this brand values sales across channels.” Another Endear customer, Gorjana, uses their in-store sales team to connect with customers who don’t live near its brick-and-mortar locations. When a customer does shop online after speaking to a salesperson, their AOV is typically 20% higher than someone who doesn’t speak to a salesperson. “To us, that’s just evidence that salespeople are valuable, and they really do make a difference in driving these key metrics,” said Leigh. “The more information and the more confidence you give a shopper, especially if they’re buying online, the better results you get.” In short: If you have a sales team, Endear is an incredible resource. “Our goal as a company is to open up the eyes of ecommerce and say ‘It can’t just be all marketing’,” said Leigh. With Endear, brands can trac...
When Shopify merchants use apps from the Shopify ecosystem, they are entrusting developers with critical tasks to run their businesses. Maintaining a reliable and trustworthy app marketplace is a top priority. We need to make sure that every app and developer meets our high standards—and if they don’t, that sometimes means making the tough decision to remove the app from the app store and in some cases our platform. Recently, there have been discussions in partner community groups expressing confusion about the methods we employ to keep our ecosystem safe for merchants. We’re listening to all of the feedback and want to share more about our enforcement process with you. What happens when apps can’t meet our requirements Making sure every app in the Shopify ecosystem is reliable starts with setting expectations. Developers must adhere to the terms of our Partner Program Agreement, and every app in the Shopify App Store has to meet a list of requirements before it can be listed and available for installation. Some of these requirements are technical, like making sure merchants can easily install and use the app. Others are functional: does the app do what the developer says it does? Will it slow down a store? Is it secure? As a developer, you’re expected to be familiar with these standards and meet them in every step of building and maintaining your app When a developer fails to meet our standards, our Partner Governance team will reach out to the developer to communicate the issue, sending to the developer’s email associated with the account. The email will be from support@shopify.com and the subject line will include verbiage like “[IMPORTANT] Your app is under review” or “[IMPORTANT] Your account is under review.” This communication can entail a request to update the app to meet requirements within a given timeframe or a temporary unpublish until issues are resolved. For repeated issues or more serious violations, like buying fake reviews, it might result in terminating a partner account. Unpublishing an app is different from permanently removing the app from our platform—an unpublish removes the app’s visibility from the Shopify App Store and prevents new installs. Whenever possible, we give developers an opportunity to rectify the issue and send emails that outline the steps necessary to get re-listed on the Shopify App Store. If it’s not possible to rectify the issue, if the developer hasn’t communicated back to Shopify, or if it’s a repeated offense, the app may be terminated from the Shopify App Store for good. If the risk is high enough, a partner account might also be terminated—and that means a developer would be unable to create future apps. Deciding to terminate an app isn’t an easy decision, and we take it seriously because it often means disruptions for merchants. Shopify gives merchants notice if any of their apps are going to be terminated and offers alternatives for installation. Shopify’s App Audit team reviews apps regularly and sometimes removes cohorts of apps at once as part of that review. We know developers often make updates to their apps and listings, and these changes can end up making their app non-compliant. Sometimes this is unintentional, and we can work with you to resolve these issues. Now, let’s look at a few more of the tools we use to ensure the quality of the ecosystem. Automated scans We scan our app ecosystem regularly to ensure minimum requirements are being met. Some of these scans are automated, based on certain criteria that are easy to detect and take action on, like whether or not an app is failing an OAuth check and unable to be installed by merchant stores. When we detect something like this, we delist the app, which triggers an email to the developer alerting them to the issue and requesting they solve it. Once the issue is resolved, the app will be listed on the Shopify App Store again. Automatic, immediate unpublishes like this are rare and used only in instances where an app...
Ecommerce sales will exceed $5 trillion this year, according to eMarkerter. But, ecommerce isn’t the only channel where retail sales are skyrocketing. Experts project brick-and-mortar sales will grow between 2.6% and 3.4% by 2025 and will see more in-store spending this year ($702.17 billion) than online ($603.68 billion). The explanation for this increase is simple: more merchants are adopting the “clicks and bricks” omnichannel model because it saves them time, supports their growth, and aligns with trends we expect from The Future of Retail. In other words, sellers are seizing the massive opportunity within retail to combine and grow both offline and online operations into a cohesive retail experience. As more merchants adopt omnichannel selling, Shopify partners can grow their business by providing additional services to help unify their clients’ online and in-store operations. Here’s the good news — if you’re a Shopify expert, you’re already a retail expert. You just don’t know it yet. Shopify POS provides partners an opportunity to help retailers drive increased revenue and build deep relationships with their customers, while saving them time managing their business from one admin. Whether you run an agency or build apps, Shopify makes it easy for you to grow your business by not just supporting the ecommerce side of your customers’ businesses, but their in-person presence as well. Here’s how. For agencies If you’re a Shopify agency partner, there are many ways to incorporate the needs of brick-and-mortar merchants into the services you’re already offering. As omnichannel commerce, shop-local, and in-person experiences support the growth of brick-and-mortar business, it’s never been a better time for Shopify Partners to align their services with Shopify’s full platform. A truly seamless, omnichannel operating system is what sets Shopify apart from competitors. The partners who adapt to this new normal and help their clients execute on their omnichannel way of business will be far better equipped to succeed in the future. Here are some concrete ideas on additional services you can offer to merchants with a brick-and-mortar presence. 1. Migration and store setup If you’re already familiar with migrating data to Shopify for clients online stores, providing a similar service for POS migration should be a breeze. This is one of the most in-demand services from merchants as we’re seeing an increasing number of businesses migrate to Shopify POS. Mark Perini, Founder of ICEE Social, is a Shopify partner who grew his agency by building a POS migration app. In an interview with Shopify, Perini explained how he set up an online jewelry store for two older women to run their business. These women also liked to do the occasional pop-up shop and needed extra support. After setting up a website for these jewelry entrepreneurs, Perini integrated the jewelry website with Shopify POS. As a result, these women can now capture sales in person and track online and pop-up sales from one convenient POS system. Perini also stressed how easy it was to integrate the POS system and for the store owners to learn how to use it. He gave them a three-hour training and he hasn’t had one question from them since. “I’ve helped 100s of clients move from Lightspeed, Square, Vend, Quickbooks, Revel, and more. Merchants of all sizes are making the move,” said Perini. 2. Design and branding If you offer design and branding services for ecommerce websites, extending your services to offer in-store branding and experiential design is an easy addition to the ways you can support businesses who sell online and in-person. Aaron Gray, Co-Founder of NO-BS Marketplace, said Shopify partners could create branding partnerships that extend into clients’ brick-and-mortar locations. Gray’s advice was to stress to your clients the importance of keeping physical and online branding consistent. “You might feel tempted to stand out with your brick-and-mortar branding, but ...
Morning, noon, or night, we indulge in self-care. In fact, indulge is too light a word. For consumers — whether its weight loss, well being, or washing — health and wellness products are an essential part of daily routines. Those simple human habits mean one thing . for owners and operators, the health and wellness industry will always be a staple of commerce. Beyond behavior, however, there’s even stronger indicators of opportunity in ecommerce. Despite a history of brick-and-mortar domination, the rise of digital channels has leveled the playing field for challenger brands. The looming treasure is bountiful and the path to get there, wide open. We’ll provide the map: Data: Global Health & Wellness Consumer Trends Growth: Profitable Health and Wellness Ecommerce Marketing Strategy: Health and Wellness Marketing from the Top DTC Brands Don’t miss that final section . There you’ll find detailed examples — packed with tactics and lessons — from three fast-growing ecommerce companies: Supply Selling razors at ~5x the industry’s usual price-point, Supply struggled with conversion rate and lifetime customer value. Scaling the business internationally, creative iteration, and an exclusive membership program allowed Supply to jump the premium hurdle — resulting in 4.15x YoY growth. Love Wellness Record-setting holidays are one thing. To grow its business during the slower shopping periods of Q1 and Q2, this all-natural and “body-positive” supplement company had to get creative. By testing content to improve performance, creating dynamic ads to a broad audience, and building product-specific landing pages, Love Wellness scaled to a 5x ROAS and increased first-time customers by 380%. Snow Teeth Whitening After expanding its oral care line, Snow wanted to reach new customers with an offer so attractive that it would sell out its inventory. By driving visitors and then remarketing to those who showed interest with Facebook advertising, its product launch sold out and resulted in a 2.4x increase in purchases. Global Health & Wellness Industry Consumer Trends Globally, the industry is strong and tracking toward considerable expansion. At an average annual growth rate of 9.9%, the wellness economy is expected to hit $7 trillion by 2025. Rising income and living standards contribute to high demand. With the health and wellness industry generating 5.3% of global economic output. However, even as absolute revenue and total addressable market increase, growth itself has stalled over the past few years, despite the bump during the pandemic’s peak. In other words, the time is now for upstarts eager to gain market share. Of any global markets to penetrate, the most promising are the United States and China. In 2022, sources calculated those two markets at $66.6B of the world’s spending. Revenue for these goods in the U.S. has steadily risen year after year. Although growth has always been upward, in the United States, volatile percent changes for consumer health and wellness sales are finally leveling out. 2023 is poised to be the first year sales rise above pre-pandemic percent growth rate. Health and Wellness: Consumer Insights & Verticals Aside from strong revenue and far-reaching market share, the greatest advantage for personal care brands is lifetime customer value. Why? Because products under the industry umbrella are habitual in consumers’ routines — and, even more lucratively, can lead to high repeat purchase rates. More importantly, consumers view personal care products as essential for maintaining health. Since wellness purchases are born out of both actual and perceived necessity, the high growth in spending highlights a willingness from consumers to spend continually and often. Understanding your product’s place in a consumer’s wellness routine thus becomes utterly influential. Here, we’ll major on the personal care segment of the larger health and wellness industry — which includes products such as hair care, skincare, oral care, ...
When you build a website, there are two major aspects to consider: consumers and search engines. You need an SEO-friendly website so you show up on Google when consumers are searching for your products. But you also need a creative, user-friendly website so consumers can find what they want to buy. The conflict for site owners, especially when there are hundreds of products available on the site, becomes finding a balance between being user-friendly and SEO friendly. To further complicate things, many businesses have two separate teams for SEO and web development. Even if both teams are in-house, having them work together to build a beautiful and successful website can be challenging. The development team will fight to keep the visual and user aspect of the site very simplistic, while the SEO team will want to ensure the site has enough content so Google can rank it effectively for user search queries. So how do you find the balance when you have conflicting suggestions coming from each side? In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at what SEO web design is, why it’s important, and what 10 things you need to optimize to find some common ground between these two goals. What is SEO web design? SEO (or search engine optimization) is the practice of optimizing a website so that it ranks well on search engines. Website design is the design and creation of a website and all of its pages. If you put them together, SEO web design is the design and creation of a website that is optimized for search engines. It covers the SEO best practices that designers need to follow when building websites. Why is SEO web design important? If your company website has a stunning design but you can’t get any of its web pages to rank in search engine results, how are people going to find your website? While social media and PPC ads are great for increasing traffic, it’s important to find organic (read: free) ways to ramp up your website traffic and get to page one of the SERPs (search engine result pages). Let’s go over a few of the top benefits of SEO web design. SEO web design increases organic traffic Organic traffic to your website is any kind of traffic coming from search engines that hasn’t been paid for. These are website viewers who found your site after searching for something on Google and browsing through the top options. To be specific, the first search result gets over a quarter of all clicks, the second search result gets 15 percent, and it drops off quickly from there. Since the 10th result gets 2.5 percent of the clicks, it’s safe to assume that anything past page one has abysmal organic traffic results. This is why you want to design and optimize your website as well as possible to increase the chances that you rank higher on SERPs. SEO web design attracts high-intent traffic When someone is conducting a Google search, it’s because they have a specific query they’re hoping to find information about. And when your page shows up at the top of the search results with that exact answer, they’re going to click over to your page. While they may not convert right after discovering your website, they’re now aware that they can come back to you if they have any other related questions. This top-of-mind brand awareness is ideal for increasing conversions, all because they were searching for something in your industry. Having that high-intent traffic is even more valuable than other traffic, which is why it’s important to optimize your new website to increase search engine rankings. SEO web design improves the user experience Every dollar invested in UX brings 100 in return, an ROI of 9,900 percent—but that’s not the only benefit. If you want to get on the good side of Google’s algorithm, your website needs to be SEO-optimized but also user-friendly. Google has refined its criteria so that user experience-related metrics factor into your rankings. Based on studies done by Backlinko, some of these criteria include: Dwell time Mobile usability ...
Whether you’re thinking about starting an ecommerce business or you’ve been selling products for a while, you’ve probably thought about warehousing, shipping, and fulfillment. Sure, making sales is the exciting part. But what happens after the order is placed? Somehow your product needs to end up in customers’ hands. There are three ways this can happen: You sell a product from a dropshipper who will fulfill orders for you. You fulfill your own orders, either independently or with a team. You work with a logistics company that will handle your warehousing and fulfillment. There are clear benefits to packing and shipping your own orders: it’s flexible and cheap. For these reasons, businesses that are just starting out and have unique ecommerce packaging needs often handle their own logistics. And regardless of age or industry, any business struggling with cash flow will be better off handling things in-house. Sometimes you have more time to spend than money. But if your business is growing quickly and you have the cash on hand to outsource, you may be interested in exploring third-party warehousing and fulfillment. Many logistics companies will store your product and pack and ship your orders. Working with logistics companies can be intimidating if you’ve never done it before. In this piece, we’ll take you through every step of the process. What are fulfillment services? A fulfillment service is a third-party warehouse that prepares and ships your orders for you. It does this from its fulfillment center. Ecommerce fulfillment services are ideal for businesses that don’t want to deal with shipping or have outgrown existing warehousing capabilities to a point where they’re unable to ship orders themselves anymore. There are many larger third-party fulfillment providers, like the Shopify Fulfillment Network, and smaller regional options, like Colorado Fulfillment Co. and Ecommerce South Florida. If you’re scaling fast and looking to optimize your fulfillment strategy, working with a provider that offers a central view of your data and smart inventory allocation across multiple warehouses will give you the most flexibility. To learn more about the Shopify Fulfillment Network, visit us here. What does a fulfillment center do? While each fulfillment center operates slightly differently, they all accomplish the same thing: they act as a command center for all your order prepping and shipping needs. Fulfillment centers also double as warehouse spaces for inventory storage, allowing you to hold onto products. Some fulfillment service providers have multiple fulfillment centers, allowing them to serve different geographic locations more quickly than if they were to have just one. This allows ecommerce companies to deliver fast and affordable shipping to a diverse customer base. What do fulfillment services cost? Fulfillment services typically charge by the hour or per unit/pallet. Providers add up costs for receiving, storage, pick and pack, shipping, kitting or bundling, returns, custom packaging, gift services, and setup. They then apply one-time (e.g., receiving, shipping) and recurring (e.g., storage) fees. The benefits of using third-party logistics The obvious benefit to using a third-party logistics (3PL) company to outsource fulfillment is that it saves you from having to do the work yourself. But the benefits go deeper than that. Outsourcing warehousing and fulfillment can have a meaningful impact on your business’s growth. Avoid long-term leases Many logistic companies offer flexible pricing. This means that as you grow—or go through slow periods—they’ll be able to adapt to your needs and adjust costs accordingly. Renting your own warehouse space usually requires more of a commitment. Bring on the experts When you hire an outsourced fulfillment services provider, not only do you get warehouse space, but you also get people responsible for running the fulfillment center. When you fulfill and ship your own orders, you’ll likel...
If you haven’t launched a TikTok strategy, you aren’t too late. If you have but aren’t getting the results you want . you’re not alone. TikTok hit a billion users faster than any social media app in history. And its growth continues to skyrocket — 650,000 new users every day, enough to fill the largest football stadium in the US six times over. Plus, it overtook Google late last year to become the most-visited domain in the world. Still, none of that makes capitalizing on TikTok’s record-breaking momentum easy for ecommerce brands. To create viral organic hits and ad campaigns with mega returns, you need a one-stop, all-inclusive guide. That’s exactly what we’ve prepared. Here’s everything to craft your TikTok ecommerce strategy: TikTok Basics & the Value to Ecommerce Your Crash Course on TikTok Content Creation Building an Organic TikTok Marketing Strategy How to Use TikTok Advertising for DTC Business
TikTokMadeMeBuyIt = Opportunity + Uncertainty
TikTok Basics & the Value to Ecommerce Businesses TikTok originated in China as an app named Douyin in 2017. Parent company ByteDance introduced it to global markets as TikTok after a merger with now-defunct social network Musical.ly. Once dominated by Gen Z, its reach now goes much further. About 48% percent of US adults ages 18-29 and 20% of those ages 30-49 use TikTok. What’s more, 89% of Americans recognize the TikTok brand — a cultural impact far beyond its user base. People are not only using the app, they’re deeply connected while browsing. Known for its signature short, viral videos, the app keeps users glued to their phones for hours. Engagement rates on TikTok lean higher than on any other social platform. Nine out of 10 users log into the app multiple times per day, each racking up over 850 minutes per month. Why? Because the success of TikTok’s immersive experience points to a single ingredient. Exploring The TikTok Experience That ingredient is simplicity. And it’s revolutionary. When you open the app, you immediately land on the For You Page (FYP). Displaying one audio-on video at a time, TikTok’s algorithm monitors every interaction, then tailors your feed with content based on predictions about what you engage with most. Thus, the name: “For You” Page. Alternate content feeds, the “Following” and “Live” pages, pale in comparison to the appeal of the FYP. This personalized, one-video-at-a-time format makes TikTok a powerful content channel. The key is to create a video that lands on your ideal audience’s FYP. TikTok Versus Other Social Media Platforms Managing multiple social media accounts demands a lot of resources. Certain online platforms are better for achieving specific objectives than others. Where does TikTok fit into the bigger picture? Search-based platforms (like Google and Amazon) serve better for capturing demand. Traditional social platforms (like Facebook and Instagram) fare better for generating demand. Viewed through this lens, TikTok’s ability to generate awareness stomps its rivals. Unlike other social media platforms, TikTok supports widespread content virality, regardless of follower count. Imitators? Of course. But none with comparable organic reach. Facebook vs TikTok The average engagement rate on a Facebook post is 0.18%. The average post for influencers on TikTok boasts an engagement rate of 18%. Combine this with the average reach per post and you can see why an organic TikTok strategy carries higher potential ROI than one for Facebook. Facebook isn’t dead. It stands to be said, though, that an organic strategy built on repurposing content from other channels may be more worthwhile at the moment. Organic video sharing on TikTok currently sees better performance. Instagram vs. TikTok The thing that makes TikTok such a huge opportunity for brands? One word: discoverability. Instagram really identifies as the all-in-one platform, offering photos, videos, stories, and more. Potential audience growth (organically) on Instagram can’t compete w...
A sound CRM (customer relationship management) tool for ecommerce makes it easy to manage online sales, marketing, inventory, and order processing. Yet, how do you know which CRM platform to use? When determining the best fit, you must find one that tailors to your needs as an online business owner. Below are the top CRM tools that address the most crucial customer relationship management needs in an e-commerce business. Start by reviewing each one to help you make a more informed decision. 1. Salesforce Commerce Cloud Salesforce Commerce Cloud dedicates its platform to serving e-commerce business growth and nurturing customer relationships. It has efficient contact management tools, allowing users to log calls and meetings, view activities, and link social media accounts. It also allows you to set up and manage your email marketing campaigns, track orders and add contacts to your campaigns. E-commerce businesses might find it especially useful for newly launched sites, creating product promotions, and optimizing their online store. You can manage orders, automate tasks and manage your site allowing you to focus on more big-picture elements of your business. Salesforce Commerce Cloud’s pricing differs, but they have knowledgeable reps you can contact to help you pick the best-fitting plan. 2. Hubspot Hubspot is a robust CRM tool for e-commerce businesses of all sizes. It has many sustainable features, including marketing automation and ROI reporting. That way, you guarantee you’re sending the perfect email at the right time. And you can monitor your progress to determine where your marketing efforts are succeeding. Hubspot also allows you to create targeted workflows for individual contacts in your CRM. You can use these workflows to find leads, convert them and personalize your emails. Hubspot’s visual editor also gives each workflow a smooth appearance so that you can analyze data in the most efficient way possible. Hubspot’s CRM is free and offers plans to add new features as you grow. 3. Agile CRM Agile CRM is an excellent all-around tool for e-commerce businesses. It allows users to manage sales, customer service, and marketing in one platform. Its drag-and-drop functionality makes the interface easy to use and seamlessly integrates with other e-commerce systems. These include systems such as Magento, Shopify, and WooCommerce. It also serves multi-channel marketing, enabling online stores to cross-promote their business via email, SMS texts, social media, and landing pages. Agile CRM has a free-forever plan that allows up to 10 users. Though, it limits automation and integration capabilities. 4. Monday Sales CRM Monday’s Sales CRM platform enables you to manage your work in one place. It includes lead tracking, contact management, sales pipeline, customer onboarding, and marketing. The flexible software enables users to tailor the platform to their needs without any development. It also features an intuitive dashboard that tracks team goals, activities, and sales forecasting with detailed reports. This CRM software also syncs to your Gmail or Outlook account. It will notify you of any new activities on your email marketing campaigns. Monday Sales CRM is free for up to two users — and starts at $10 per additional user. 5. Freshworks CRM Freshworks helps e-commerce businesses grow and increase their lead generation by providing a well-rounded CRM solution. Online-business owners can track conversations, build contact databases and personalize their tools. Its AI-powered platform also provides forecasting, contact scoring, and pipeline management. It features many third-party integrations, like Shopify, Mailchimp, Google Calendar, and more. So you can manage everything in one place. Freshworks also features optimization tools like heat maps and A/B testing to make it easier to close sales. You can even coordinate with team members better and keep them up to date with a mutual dashboard. The pricing is suitable for e-comme...
Ecommerce contains a lot of moving parts. From internet marketing to keep up with the supply chain, it’s vital that employees are happy and maintain good morale, regardless of department. No matter how small or large an e-commerce company is, there are actionable steps to take to improve overall employee satisfaction to improve retention and assert an employee’s value. This connection is priceless, especially in an industry focused on sales where quantitative data often overshadows appreciation. 1. Gather a Baseline It’s impossible to know where to begin when improving the happiness of your e-commerce workforce if you don’t know their current standing. You can measure employee happiness in an e-commerce outfit regardless of whether operations are local or worldwide by considering these questions: Are you excited to come to work every day? Why or why not? Have you considered looking for other employment, and what would make you stay? Do you have any friends or family whom you’re envious of a perk or benefit they have in their workplace? Do you feel engaged throughout your shift and satisfied when the day is over? Are you clear on personal and company goals, and are you driven to progress toward them? Send out surveys or set up individual feedback meetings to gather data. This can help identify problem areas or gaps in employee treatment or benefits. 2. Remind Staff How to Flourish Many employees feel stuck in their current employment, either because of comfort from a long tenure or feeling like there’s no room for advancement. Never assume every employee is content with their position. Discuss their aspirations and provide assistance to help them climb so they don’t feel they’ve hit a dead-end. Gently remind employees of opportunities throughout the company for individuals to continue upward momentum or experience other positions. Sometimes it isn’t even about progression — it’s about options. If burnout hits, lateral moves can motivate employees to expand their skill sets or try something new. They may find every other aspect of their job fulfilling — but even that can’t cure boredom. If employees aren’t happy with where they are, find a way to reinvigorate their contribution. 3. Brainstorm Perks Employees want office-provided perks as part of their work experience. This doesn’t have to be exclusively physical benefits like updated office equipment or gift cards. Consider offering short mental health staycations, recharge days or extended breaks periodically to reinforce how much a company values employee well-being. An e-commerce company could also consider perk programs to drive healthy employee competition and self-motivated growth. For example, reaching individual key performance indicator (KPIs) goals monthly would feel less stressful if an optional reward was a temptation. It’s also a great way to measure work-related milestones to celebrate as a company. 4. Remind Employees Why They’re There Your workforce will feel happier about their position if they feel they have value. Whether an employee’s goal is to reinforce intrinsic value or feel they’re contributing to global betterment, supporting those emotions is essential for a more satisfied workforce. This reminder of their assistance shouldn’t feel forced. Ideally, an employer can incorporate it seamlessly into their workday. Employers can integrate glowing customer feedback in emails or tangible statistics on how their work impacts the world. For example, if an employee suggested starting a recycling plan, let them know how they improved the company and the environment. Too often, employees feel they are replaceable — it’s time to crush this mentality so every e-commerce can have an optimistic staff. 5. Promote Genuine Company Culture Company culture can sound like a buzzword, but if incorporated correctly, it can be a game-changer in a professional atmosphere. A business can cultivate a company culture that’s recognizable by employees by: Providing balanced feedba...
The metaverse is here and it’s shaping how consumers behave, and the way e-commerce brands do business. Companies of all sizes from various industries are currently jumping into the digital world. Some of the most notable brands you see venturing into the metaverse are Nike, Walmart, Hulu and Verizon. It has even come to the point where businesses are holding meetings to discuss strategies for the metaverse. To understand why companies need to learn how it’s impacting e-commerce and elevating it. First, it helps to learn what the metaverse is to have a true understanding of its impact. What Is the Metaverse? There’s still much to learn about the metaverse. Most people are still figuring out the concept of it and how it affects the future of e-commerce. From what people know, it’s a virtual world that’s consistently online — whether users are connected to it. Within the virtual world, users have a virtual avatar to represent themselves. They can explore online spaces to socialize, shop, trade, travel, and do various other activities. In other words, the metaverse pushes physical reality into a virtual space where users can immerse themselves in another world. The Metaverse for E-commerce Brands and Customers E-commerce is at its early stages in the metaverse, but it’s already here. Yet, once there is mass adoption of this virtual world, it will change how business and online shopping works entirely. The metaverse has many things to offer e-commerce brands and customers. Here are some of the ways it will affect online merchants and consumers. 1. Virtual Shopping The metaverse takes the shopping experience to the next level with immersive product experiences. The virtual world has a place for virtual stores where customers can shop for products in an immersive environment. With virtual assets, e-commerce brands can open stores across various virtual worlds. H&M has already made this possible by opening a showroom in the metaverse. Inside its virtual showroom, guests can interact with each other, shop virtual collections and “try on” virtual garments. Customers will have a more immersive shopping experience and be able to see how products work or what they look like first-hand. By showcasing your products in virtual reality, customers can feel more confident about placing items into their carts and checking out. 2. Personalized Shopping Personalization is key to success for any business. That’s because customers are more likely to purchase products that appeal to their tastes. Plenty of tools allow e-commerce brands to customize products for their customers. In the metaverse, there will be numerous opportunities for e-commerce stores to take product personalization to the next level. Customers can shop personalized products in a virtual world in real time. For online businesses, this will completely change how they operate. 3. Customers Interact With Online Brands The metaverse will revolutionize e-commerce and change how people interact with brands and products. This means consumers will have access to increased levels of immersion and entertainment. This will allow e-commerce brands to gain more attention and generate revenue. When customers have direct access to your brand, you can immerse them in an in-person shopping experience. An experience like this can lure customers and greatly influence their purchasing decisions. Additionally, e-commerce brands can enhance the pre-sale and post-sale experience for customers through various virtual touchpoints. For instance, brands can showcase their products in action through the metaverse. 4. Brands Can Take Advantage of Virtual Events People attend live virtual events such as concerts and meetings in the metaverse. In a virtual environment, this can help you expand your audience by attending network shops and participation opportunities. You could even attend meetings with your team if you’re working remotely across the board. No longer will you have to deal with Zoom meetings. Yo...
A logo’s significance is far more than a static symbol. A logo possesses the potential to contain a brand’s mission, vision, and its entire identity. The need to have a logo arose after brands realized they had to rely on something that carries the ability to convey every aspect they uphold in a visual way. That is why the perception to deem it as a mere symbol needs to be outdated, as without a logo, a brand cannot uphold any significance. Understanding the Importance of a Logo Most new brands or startups face the dilemma of not having enough sources or the budget to invest in branding. While there are several types of digital marketing, every brand needs to start building its visual personality with a logo. The idea of investing in a brand logo varies on different factors, and according to Forbes, you need to understand why you need a logo for your brand clearly. With the world becoming digitized over the years, hiring and working with graphic designers is somewhat unessential. Relying On Online Logo Design Tools New startups tend to invest in branding strategies that befit their budget. Sometimes the budget they need for digital promotion exceeds and causes further shortcomings. Better alternatives exist; one such option is relying on online logo design tools. Most of these tools allow you to create your logo for free but only ask for payment when you download it, while some do not have hidden charges. Using a reliable logo design maker allows you to customize your logo without hiring external or third-party designers. Here are the top 9 free logo design tools that have taken digital branding by storm. Canva Available on iOS and Android platforms, Canva is more than an online graphic design creator. With a simplistic interface, you can drag the design objects of your choice into a resizable canvas and customize them accordingly. The core foundation of Canva is more than an online logo creator, as you can create business cards and flyers of diverse kinds. Today’s era is all about dynamism, so relying on design tools that do not consume much of your time is essential. You can simply choose a high-resolution template of your choice, make changes, tweak colors and then download it in your desired image format. The tool also has a premium subscription version that provides unlimited access to an extensive directory of millions of design objects, icons, graphics, and images. Core Features Professionally designed logo templates Unlimited options to edit and share your designs AI-based custom logo generation Hundreds of unique font styles LogoVerge An online logo design tool, LogoVerge is a brand new addition to the domain of online designing tools, simplifying the notion of AI-based digital design. Using this tool, you can design a logo that can be fully customized and personalized the way you prefer. The hassle of designing logos from scratch and depending on professional designers is no more, as the tool contains pre-defined templates, icons, images, and font styles you can add to your design. After you are done with the editing, you can save and download it in a high-resolution file format for simply $19. Core Features Select from a wide list of industries Option to insert company/brand name and its slogan Thousands of pre-defined design templates Unlimited downloads and re-edits DesignHill A community-based graphic design platform, DesignHill allows both professional and novice designers to contribute to the design community by showcasing their work on the platform. One core feature of DesignHill is its free logo maker, but if you want to download it, you are required to pay for the design. With the option of making multiple revisions, you can select any template and style it with relevant colors, icons, and font combinations from the design directory. The platform also holds various contests allowing designers to highlight their skills further. Core Features Copyright ownership of your work Multiple color variations for yo...
The commerce world has been shifting at a fast pace from brick-and-mortar structure to the world of digital selling – e-commerce is growing. It has become increasingly mandatory for businesses to mark their online presence, building a brand for themselves. E-commerce has opened avenues for businesses to flourish globally. Unlike brick-and-mortar structures, an e-commerce store doesn’t have a geographical location and time during the day as limiting factors, but an e-commerce store works for your business 24X7. Growing technological advancements and digitalization have bestowed the world with lots of blessings. Not every business owner has the time and skills to develop an e-commerce platform development skills to launch their e-commerce store. To their rescue, there are e-commerce dent stores – Shopify, which helps businesses get started seamlessly. With Shopify features and offerings, businesses and merchants can begin their digital journey. Businesses launching their e-commerce journey need to contact Shopify development providers to set up their Shopify site. They will help you bring your ideas into reality by choosing the apt features. Benefits of using Shopify development services for your business Using the Shopify platform to develop an e-commerce store for your business poses many Benefits. Some of them are as explained below: 1. Easy to use and User-friendly Interface The most beneficial advantage of the Shopify development is it’s easy to use and has the most user-friendly interface. Unlike its competitors, Shopify has a seamless interface and is simple to use. Irrespective of your level on the learning curve, Spotify is easy to set up. It can use with ease both by experts and beginners equally. 2. Vast Template Library Another distinctive advantage of Shopify is its vast library of templates. To cater to the need of the business to build a visually appealing and aesthetically pleasing website, Shopify offers an abundance of themes to choose from among a vast library. A seamless user interface (UI) gives a smooth user experience (UX). At Spotify, business owners can find a theme suitable to their businesses. 3. Seamless Integrations Shopify allows seamless integration of applications on your website without any hiccups, allowing customization as per business needs and adding features to it. 4. Secure Transactions With Shopify, business owners can build a website with safe and secure transactions. Operating an e-commerce website must have secure transactions as it is subject to sensitive user information like credit card details, account information, customers’ private information, etc. 5. Quick Load time With the fierce competition in the e-commerce space and numerous players in the market, the business website must have a quick load time. With slow-loading websites, it’s a high probability customer will click away with so many other options available in the marketplace. To get over all these issues, Shopify offers the solution with a customizable website and fast load times. 6. Expand globally Using Shopify services helps business owners to set their foothold strong in the e-commerce space and opens the door to opportunities to expand globally. Customized features and a user-friendly interface allow business owners to connect with millions of customers worldwide. 7. Build a mobile-friendly website With more traffic coming from mobile than desktop, websites need to be equally optimized with desktops as well as with mobile phones. Using Shopify services, business owners can use Shopify themes that are equally responsive to all platforms and work well everywhere. 8. Accessibility to Search Engine Optimization(SEO) & Marketing tools Shopify services help build a customizable and user-friendly website but also help get it noticed with search engine optimization(SEO) and plenty of other marketing tools available. Shopify services help business owners create hype and curiosity among customers using discount codes and pr...
If you’ve been following us here at PostFunnel for a while, you know we’re huge fans of Starbucks. So when their new microsite, “Creative Expressions” went live, we were intrigued. The site explains how the company’s marketing and design teams stay aligned as they create promotional ads and other content. Publicizing these guidelines provides customers with a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how they create their content. This serves Starbucks’ efforts to connect with their customers “with transparency, dignity, and respect.” What’s more, it provides guidelines for customers looking to create some Starbucks-focused content of their own. More from PostFunnel on branding: Using Brand Personality to Delight Customers Asking the Experts: When It’s Time to Rebrand? The Starbucks Creative Expressions microsite addresses five key elements of the brand’s promotional content: Logo Color Voice Typography Illustration and Photography Let’s take a closer look at how Starbucks uses each element to create instantly recognizable content that attracts and engages its customers. The Ubiquitous Starbucks Logo Whether you’re a Starbucks addict or never stepped foot, one thing is for sure: you’re more than familiar with their logo because it is identifiable on nearly every urban street corner. In fact, Starbucks even refers to its logo as one of the company’s “most recognizable assets.” The other most recognizable Starbucks asset? Their wordmark: Notice that the company intentionally decouples these assets. As its website explains: “The preferred approach is to use the Siren logo by itself, unlocked from the wordmark. This allows flexibility to present the Siren with greater prominence while maintaining a considered, open, modern presentation.” From a practical perspective, this makes sense: by itself, the image takes up less space than the image and wordmark and will fit better in promotional content and other areas. Furthermore, there’s no need to use both simultaneously; most coffee lovers instantly identify the green mermaid with Starbucks. And, of course, the wordmark is self-explanatory. Including the logo with the wordmark is redundant or even overkill. While the two play off each other, neither asset relies on the other to spur brand recognition. Starbucks’ recent rebranding ensures that each can stand alone—allowing the design team more flexibility in how they apply them in their marketing. Takeaway A strong logo that represents your brand is important for recognition and recall. But an awesome logo isn’t always enough to spur awareness. As Starbucks demonstrates, you must present your logo strategically to ensure your audience is exposed to it at the right moments. Consistent promotion of branded material has been shown to improve brand visibility by 400%. The lesson? Keep your logo simple to allow for maximum flexibility. The easier it is to fit your logo into promotional and branded content, the easier it will be for your audience to recognize it. A Family of Green Colors Another instantly recognizable aspect of Starbucks’ promotional material is the “family of greens.” As the company explains, Starbucks Green is the most identifiable of the brand’s assets—and is thus its most used color overall. The logo and wordmark are secondary to color, as the color is the coup de grâce that makes these assets so recognizable in the first place. The company provides clear guidance on how designers should use each shade. For example, House Green is used as a secondary color when paired with Starbucks Green. However, it can also be used as a foundational neutral color when paired with the shades of white in the color palette. As for putting these design principles into action, Starbucks uses a wide spectrum of approaches. In some cases, the team will go for a more functional, minimalistic approach: But when it comes to celebrating certain holidays or times of year, Starbucks is a bit more expressive with its color themes: Takeaway While Starbucks Gr...
Apple’s iOS 14.5 update has arrived. And with it, a flood of changes to Facebook Ads Manager. Not to mention . uncertainty, confusion, and fear. This article contains everything we know about the new iOS changes — as well as their impact on Facebook advertising and ecommerce trends. But, let’s cut to the chase . Data on the State of Ecommerce & Online Advertising As an index, we’ve compiled data from ~200 ecommerce brands totaling +$5.9 billion in online revenue over the last two years. Those businesses are drawn from Statlas — our proprietary ecommerce growth tool; they represent Common Thread Collective (CTC) clients, ADmission members, and Statlas users. All metrics have been standardized to Facebook’s default attribution. Big Picture: Year-over-Year For clarity, the following charts represent trailing 12-month YoY data. Each metric is also calculated for the three months before iOS 14.5’s release (Feb.–Apr. 2021), and three months after (July–Sept. 2021), excluding May and June 2021 to account for iOS 14.5’s rollout. Average Facebook Reported ROAS Facebook ROAS 2020–21: 2.56 Facebook ROAS 2021–22: 2.11 Facebook ROAS YoY %-change: -17.71% iOS 14.5 Effect on Facebook Reported ROAS Pre-iOS Facebook ROAS (Feb.–Apr. 2021): 3.14 Post-iOS Facebook ROAS (July–Sept. 2021): 1.87 Pre vs Post Facebook ROAS %-change: -40.48% Average Marketing Efficiency Rating (MER) MER = total revenue ÷ total ad spend; often referred to as “blended” ROAS. MER 2020–21: 5.03 MER 2021–22: 4.82 MER YoY %-change: -4.26% iOS 14.5 Effect on Marketing Efficiency Rating Pre-iOS MER (Feb.–Apr. 2021): 5.24 Post-iOS MER (July–Sept. 2021): 4.98 Pre vs Post MER %-change: -4.90% Average Weekly Facebook Spend per Account Facebook Spend 2020–21: $14,534 Facebook Spend 2021–22: $16,365 Facebook Spend YoY %-change: +12.60% iOS 14.5 Effect on Weekly Facebook Spend Pre-iOS Spend (Feb.–Apr. 2021): $13,592 Post-iOS Spend (July–Sept. 2021): $14,454 Pre vs Post Spend %-change: +6.34% Average Facebook CPM (Cost per 1k impressions) Facebook CPMs 2020–21: $12.18 Facebook CPMs 2021–22: $13.63 Facebook CPMs YoY %-change: +11.91% iOS 14.5 Effect on Facebook CPMs Pre-iOS CPMs (Feb.–Apr. 2021): $11.13 Post-iOS CPMs (July–Sept. 2021): $12.01 Pre vs Post CPMs %-change: +7.97% Average Weekly Ecommerce Revenue Revenue 2020–21: $146,291 Revenue 2021–22: $163,913 Revenue YoY %-change: +12.05% iOS 14.5 Effect on Average Weekly Ecommerce Revenue Pre-iOS Revenue (Feb.–Apr. 2021): $138,953 Post-iOS Revenue (July–Sept. 2021): $145,445 Pre vs Post Revenue %-change: +4.67% Immediate Context: Monthly Comparing daily averages for the last four weeks year-over-year (YoY) . Facebook Spend: +0.18% Facebook CPM: -12.34% Facebook Revenue: +3.65% Facebook Conversion Rate: +3.87% Facebook ROAS: +4.02% Google CPC: -10.94% Google ROAS: -25.06% Marketing Efficiency Rating: +1.78% Total Ecommerce Revenue: +3.41% Average Order Value: +0.39% Summary of iOS 14, Privacy Updates & Facebook As of early May, Apple users on all mobile devices are receiving the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) Prompt — giving them the choice to opt-in or opt-out of data tracking. Before this update, the Pixel could directly connect Facebook users’ app-to-onsite activity — in other words, actions on Facebook with actions on a business’s website. Now, Facebook’s data, attribution, and tracking will be severely limited. Data Then: Facebook could connect users’ in-app ad views (impressions) to off-app activity — like visits, add-to-carts, purchases, etc. Now: iOS 14.5 users will be opted out by default from Facebook’s ability to connect, report, and optimize that activity Attribution Then: Facebook’s window was set to 28-d click + 1-d view; purchases and ROAS were recorded backwards to day-of impression Now: Limited to 7-d click + 1-d view; purchases and ROAS are recorded on the day-of conversion; goodbye, delayed attribution Tracking Then: Facebook’s Pixel could track — and therefore, optimize for — as many default or custom events as ...
Many individuals think of key performance indicators (KPIs) as dos and don’ts. Yet KPIs on Amazon, also known as seller metrics, provide sellers with useful insights that may be used to expand their online businesses. They are an important component of your online business growth strategy because they show you what customers like and how they engage with the system. Scaling your business on Amazon requires a strategic approach and familiarity with metrics analysis. It’s no simple task, and you’ll need top-notch tools. You can choose from a wide variety of third-party tracking and analytics solutions, like this one here. However, ensure you choose one that will help you to get the most out of your business. Moreover, specialized software can benefit sales, order processing, and interactions with your customers. Besides, while there are a lot of Amazon seller metrics you need to keep track of, only a handful directly affect your ability to sell. Some examples of the most important metrics to track are as follows: 1. Product Ranking Product ranking is a significant KPI for Amazon merchants. Customers know they can find what they need on Amazon. They never aimlessly browse and use search engines to find stuff. Many people won’t even bother clicking through the following pages of results. The importance of the product rating comes from this fact. Thus, to get on the first page of results, you must become a best-seller in an applicable category. The Amazon product ranking metric is a great place to start if you’re trying to decide what to sell on Amazon. Use the metric to decide what to sell. Low rankings indicate that a product is not likely to sell successfully. Achieving the ideal rating requires some careful balancing. The sweet spot is to find a product for which you believe there is both a market and profit opportunity and room to optimize and improve its Best Sellers Rank (BSR). 2. Fulfillment and Shipping Metrics Amazon has made two-day shipping the norm and is working hard to make same-day and one-day shipping the new norm. It also prefers sellers who can meet their customers’ quantity and delivery time needs. You have less to worry about if you’re using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Hence, if you can keep up with Amazon’s demands for product deliveries, you should be fine. 3. Amazon Click-Through Rate (CTR) Every Amazon seller needs to understand and keep an eye on their CTRs. Amazon CTR measures the percentage of users interacting with advertisements by clicking on them. Amazon’s CTR is reported per keyword and search term. Low CTR could indicate poor product-keyword alignment or unproductive search keyword traffic to avoid. To boost the CTR percentage of your listings, here are the following areas you should work to improve on: Title. Find out which keywords have a lot of views. This can help you determine which keywords are too broad for your title. Price. Keep your prices competitive to attract customers. Ideally, you’d like to offer a price that prompts people to buy the product after they click on it. Reviews. The higher the number of reviews for a product, the more likely it is to be clicked on. Image. Making your items look more polished will boost their perceived value and give shoppers trust in your brand’s dependability. Badges/Coupons. The CTRs of your ads will increase if you promote Amazon discounts, coupons, and limited-time offers. 4. Negative Feedback Rate This metric is calculated by dividing the number of negative feedback orders by the total number of orders. Amazon calculates the percentage of orders with poor ratings based on the order date, not the day the customer left a negative review. Subpar ratings of only one or two stars in the feedback section are a poor sign. Thus, it is crucial to get in touch with the affected customer through Amazon’s Feedback Manager to figure out what went wrong. Because FBA delivery is Amazon’s job and has nothing to do with your performance, any negative feedback ci...
The inbox is a busy place. Our phones? All the more. Fearing unsubscribes — or, worse, being marked as spam — ecommerce marketers default to a “reasonable” solution . Send fewer emails. Send fewer texts. That couldn’t be more wrong. The key to success is sending more and better messages. Simple changes in your email marketing and SMS strategy mean more money in your pocket from subscribers you’ve already paid to acquire. Let’s explore 25 email campaign examples all about why and how to send more . Why Establish a Regular Cadence for Email & SMS Campaigns? What Can You Send When You’re Short on Content Ideas? How Should You Flesh Out Your Campaign Calendar? When Should You Use Email Marketing vs SMS? Who’s Doing This Well in Ecommerce? Why Establish a Regular Sending Cadence for Email & SMS Campaigns? Infrequent messaging contributes to the risk of hitting spam traps, depending on the email service provider. It also limits subscribers’ opportunities to engage with your brand’s content. In turn, this severely limits your ability to learn. Despite being framed as “respecting” the subscriber, a less-is-more mindset ignores that a subscriber specifically completed an opt-in and consented to hear from you. The best thing you can do is to deliver consistent, meaningful experiences. Every brand faces a different reality, but to drive sales as well as support healthy list maintenance, you should send emails at least once weekly. SMS leaves more room for flexibility; a few sends per month should be the minimum. SMS & Email List Deliverability Ironically, fewer sends increase your odds of getting relegated to spam. Sudden sending after long gaps makes your domain activity look unusual. It’s a classic way to end up in a junk folder instead of the inbox. This can be especially damaging during high-volume seasons. Having a steady baseline (and closely monitoring your deliverability year-round) heads off issues during important times. Subscriber & Customer Engagement Engagement and click-through rate increase when people expect to hear from you. Wait too long, and they’ll forget they even signed up. The result? More unsubscribes or spam reports. Consistency does more than build brand recognition, though. Extended gaps between your marketing campaigns leave opportunities for your competition to slide in. Digital Marketing Metrics & Learnings The more you send, the more data you collect. Test aggressively during lower pressure times in your calendar. Then apply those lessons to your seasonal ecommerce email marketing strategy. None of this means you can’t send at too high a frequency. It does mean that the threshold sits much higher than many think. What Can You Send When You’re Short on Content? Product Showcases Often DTC marketers fall into the trap of only using bare-bones email templates of product photos and CTAs. First-purchase customers or new subscribers might need more details than existing customers. You have a better chance of converting them with an email that gives all the information needed for a purchase decision. Choose the best designs through A/B testing. Many email marketing software support experimenting with elements like email subject lines. UGC or Reviews Look for photos your customers upload to social media. You’ll find authentic looking user-generated content (UGC) on platforms like Instagram. Beyond social media, you can also check onsite reviews. Feature those photos or comments alongside the products included in your email and SMS campaigns. This builds credibility for your ecommerce business. It also helps subscribers picture how those could fit into their own lifestyle and routine. The more variety here, the better! Presenting alternate uses, especially for consumables, can inspire the customer to use products more frequently. This is an easy shortcut to decreasing the time it takes them to make a second purchase and increasing their LTV. Color Stories Pick a specific color to theme your email around, and show...
As the digital transformation of commerce continues at a rapid pace, it’s more important than ever to pay attention to the underlying technology that powers Shopify stores and apps and optimize it wherever possible. To meet increased customer expectations and get ahead of the competition, facets such as mobile-first design, security, performance, and accessibility are now becoming table stakes for merchants to provide a smooth experience. “These are expected to be implemented by default,” points out Scott Vinkle, accessibility specialist at Shopify. “Shifting accessibility left in the product workflow is one way to avoid creating access barriers in production and costly sprints to retrofit. But don’t expect things to be WCAG-compliant overnight. Accessibility is a marathon, and change takes time. Accessibility is about progress, not perfection. The important thing is to start and keep improving over time.” App and theme developers have a ton of tools and techniques at their disposal that enable them to build versatile, cutting-edge experiences for their clients. Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to see beyond the hype and the buzzwords. So in this article, we identify eight practical development trends, recommended by Shopify partners and experts, that you should consider and act upon in 2022. 1. Design your app for headless from day one You’ve undoubtedly heard the word “headless” flying around the ecommerce ecosystem in the last couple of years, and with the recent release of Hydrogen, a React-based framework for building custom storefronts, Shopify has made its own steps towards headless commerce. While there’s plenty of ongoing discussion about what headless commerce really means, and when going down the headless route makes sense for merchants, Gavin Ballard, founder and CEO of Shopify Plus partners Disco Labs, believes that applications designed with headless in mind from day one will have a significant competitive advantage in 2022 and beyond. “If we take the view that ‘headless’ really just means giving merchants much more control over customer touchpoints—whether that’s an online store, mobile app, or in-store experience—then I think it’s clear that developers building apps for those merchants need to make it as easy as possible to serve those touchpoints,” he explains. Why building for headless benefits app developers Ballard believes designing for headless drives better API design, ensuring developers don’t tie their solution to a single platform or context. “It forces you to think about all the different contexts in which a merchant might be using your service and present a coherent, API-first solution that’ll work for all of them,” he says. Ballard offers the example of a Shopify reviews app making content available on a product page. While one route would be to provide some Liquid snippets to render those reviews from metafields attached to the product, that confines the solution to merchants using a Liquid-based online store template. Instead, Ballard suggests, the app developer can consider a general-purpose JSON API that pulls content directly from the app—a solution that will not only work for Liquid-based store templates, but also for headless storefronts, dedicated product mini-sites, mobile apps, or an iPad sitting next to the product in-store. “Designing your APIs in this way can really reduce your overhead when it comes to maintaining integration points, support, and documentation,” Ballard advises, adding that “there’s also the benefit of being able to stick with the merchant when they change platforms or front end approaches.” Considerations when designing for headless Ballard suggests the following best practices to consider when designing for headless: 1. Maintain an independent domain model: Don’t tie your application too closely to data structures or concepts that may only be available on one particular platform or context. 2. Choose an appropriate API stack: Think about how and where your...
The family is gathered, the turkey is roasting, there’s a crisp chill in the air . and you’re sitting at your desk panicking about all the things that could go wrong with your Black Friday sale. The best way to deal with that overwhelmed sensation? A checklist. We put together 20 must-follow tips in the only Black Friday, Cyber Monday checklist you’ll need for ecommerce holiday success. 2022 Black Friday Checklist We made this list, checked it twice. Now it’s time for you to take all of our advice . 1. Kill Your Usual Onsite Offers Scour your pop-ups, banners, and visual merchandising apps (including personalization) then kill anything that’s not related to your holiday offer. If you’re updating manually on Black Friday, make a list and have someone not on your team check it twice. In the below examples, Cubcoats’ 50% BFCM offer is GREAT . but the popup brings your attention to the standard 10% discount. Similarly, Fulton’s BFCM BOGO deal is only visible in the small top-bar, whereas the evergreen 10% off popup steals the screen. Big brands and DTC darlings aren’t immune to cross-offer mistakes either. Even Ruggable confused its visitors with competing 15% and 10% offers. 2. Test Various Browsers & Devices If you thought Apple was the bane of your advertising existence, just wait ‘til iOS devices start messing up your text and visuals onsite. Or worse, your pop-up and cart-to-checkout process. Go incognito on three different mobile OSs the whole way through. And if you’re not sure where to start, check your site’s analytics to understand your most used traffic sources. 3. Set Up Gift Cards Catch indecisive gifters with a product everyone loves — gift cards. Bonus points: use a platform that automatically adds the gift card option to sold-out products. 🤑 4. Optimize Shipping Rates Nothing kills conversion rates like bad shipping-rate rules. In particular, test any new products or bundles synced to your fulfillment as well as shipping-related SKUs (like a carbon-offset fee). Free shipping can tip the scales, especially in a competitive marketplace, for both conversion rate and AOV. 5. Edit Email & SMS Flows Turn off — or disable through Smart Sending — evergreen sequences, especially your welcome series. If your abandonment series has editable text, remove any incentives and add holiday shopping language instead. EXTRA POINTS: Update your transactional emails with custom holiday templates and a “hidden” offer 🎁 6. Use Plain Text Emails For your final sends on Black Friday and Cyber Monday . make them simple, clear, and urgent: “This [deal] ends at [specific time or countdown]. Click here for [holiday lander or best-selling collection].” 7. Stagger SMS texts Stagger your texts so they aren’t sent at the same time for redundancy. Ensure the copy isn’t repetitive from one SMS to the next since (unlike emails) they display in a thread. Lastly, using the format “X hours left” works like gangbusters. 8. Get Your Ads Approved Load and pause all your Black Friday ads to get them approved now ⏰ like . right now. This goes for social as well as your shopping promotions in Google Merchant Center. 9. Keep Your Evergreen Ads On Unless they feature a lower-than-your-holiday-sale discount or offer, leave your evergreen campaigns on. Evergreen ads are often, surprisingly, the best-performing ads during Black Friday, Cyber Monday. 10. Holiday-ify Your Evergreen Ads Add holiday-offer-only sales copy — description, headline, etc. — to top-performing evergreen creative for additional lift! 11. Switch to Lifetime Budget Campaigns Duplicate your campaigns and swap the budgets from daily to lifetime. Leave the duplicate campaigns turned off. If you see massive success with any one particular campaign, you’ll be able to turn on those duplicates without disturbing your current performers. Scale. Scale. Scale. 12. Check Your Payment Methods Few things crush Black Friday excitement like a declined credit card . in your ad account 🤬 Clear your present b...
Corporate social responsibility might sound like a boring, jargony term, but it truly is a beautiful thing. Companies around the world are committing to more responsible practices. To hiring more diverse teams. To treating their employees well. To producing products with recycled materials. 72% of US consumers say it’s more important than ever to shop from brands that hold the same values. In an increasingly polarized world, companies that stand for human rights and the protection of our environment stand out. After all, if there’s one thing we should be able to agree on, it’s the fair treatment of others, including future generations. In this guide to corporate social responsibility, we definite this term, present key strategies, and highlight useful software to help companies reach their goals. What is corporate social responsibility? Corporate social responsibility (CSR) refers to the concept that businesses have a responsibility to not only their stakeholders and customers, but also to the planet, its ecosystems, wildlife, and people. CSR comprises the work companies do to uphold that responsibility. This work includes hiring practices, marketing practices, product material choices, shipping strategies, and so much more. Why is corporate social responsibility important? Consumers are growing increasingly frustrated with corporations harming the environment without care or retribution. With global warming accelerating at an alarming rate, the time for finger-pointing is over. Everyone needs to do their part. Consumers need to purchase more sustainable products, and corporations need to meet this demand and change their practices across manufacturing, packaging, and every other aspect. Studies show that the brands who lead the way with corporate social responsibility appear more authentic to customers than those who lag behind. 15 factors comprising CSR A corporations’ corporate social responsibility is comprised of lots of different factors, from their shipping practices to who they hire and how truthful they are with their marketing campaigns. Below, we dive into the top elements that make up CSR: 1. Factory working conditions Dozens of consumer brands have come under fire for having poor factory working conditions. The worst of these is, of course, child labor. But low pay, lack of breaks, dangerous facilities, and other issues also abound. Because many companies contract out to factories, they need to have an internal CSR professional or consultant go and visit these factories in order to vet the safety, wellness, and pay of the workers. If there are any issues, the PR flack won’t fall just on the third-party contractor, but on the brand. 2. Corporate employee treatment Corporations need to be mindful of how their knowledge workers and front-line customer service employees are treated as well. From health care to fair wages to ethical treatment by managers, companies need to keep a watchful eye on employee training, management, and working conditions across all levels of the organization. 3. Product or service impact A company’s CSR can’t be separated from its revenue streams. The products or services that a brand offers have a major impact on the world. This impact can be positive or negative. For example, eco clothing brand Pangaia shares the positive climate impact of all of its products. Shoppers can see how much carbon, water, and pesticide use is reduced by purchasing one of Panagaia’s products over a similar item from a company that doesn’t prioritize sustainability. Service-based businesses are not immune to environmental impact. For example, a consulting firm might have a high carbon footprint due to business travel for in-person meetings. To combat their footprint, business travelers can consolidate their trips and eliminate unnecessary in-person meetings. Because of the increasing urgency of the climate crisis, companies across all industries should take efforts to reduce the environmental impact of their p...
Because of widespread internet access brought about by smartphones and gadgets, now almost everyone can buy and find everything online. This phenomenon brought about the rise of e-commerce businesses where, in place of selling in a brick-and-mortar establishment, entrepreneurs now use a website as their platform. The popularity of online selling and shopping presents opportunities and threats to budding entrepreneurs. The good news is you have the assurance of a stable market and following. However, one of the biggest threats is that thousands of e-commerce stores appear every day. You’re not the only business that has seen an opportunity online. Needless to say, competition is fierce in e-commerce. Starting your e-commerce store and releasing your products is only half the equation. You have to do more to get your e-commerce store off the first floor. After going through all your effort to develop your products, it’s now time to proceed with one of the more challenging tasks in e-commerce: promoting your store. So, how do you attract customers to your online store? This guide gives you a quick guide on e-commerce marketing strategies that work. Leverage Social Media To Your Advantage Social media has encompassed almost every aspect of life nowadays. Finding anyone without at least a minimal social media presence can be challenging. Apart from individuals, businesses use social media to promote their products. If you haven’t created any social media accounts for your e-commerce store, you might miss out on new markets or research about your current target. Think of the top four most popular social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. These are the most consumer-centric, potentially expanding your audience reach. Here are some ideas to help you get started: Use Facebook Live to make meaningful connections with your followers. Provide direct links to your e-commerce website on your social media accounts and each post. Run Facebook ads. Post in-store photos on your Instagram feed. Create an Instagram shop to make it easier for your customers to make a purchase. Curate your visual feed to have a sense of coherence and for stronger branding. These examples are some quick ways you can start to reach your target market. You’ll learn more as you continue your efforts on social media. Reward Customers For Taking Action Rewarding customers for their actions means showing gratitude for their loyalty or regular purchases. Physical loyalty cards are a norm in many traditional stores, and you can still have the same, even in the e-commerce sector. For instance, you can hand virtual loyalty cards to customers. Here are a few ways to start this: Pre-load the loyalty cards with corresponding points, depending on the amount of the purchase made each time the loyalty card is used. Tick boxes on the loyalty card every time a customer makes a purchase in your store and then offer a free item or a gift card after a certain number of purchases. Give a discount after a customer has reached a specific purchase amount. Loyalty cards are still doable in a digital world. You should now have a few ideas with the tips in the list above. Create A Blog And Post Good Content Regularly Say you already have your e-commerce website up and running. Did you know that you can do so much more to maximize your website’s ability by posting blogs? Re-design your website to have a page dedicated to blogs where you can post high-quality content relating to your niche and business regularly. Blogging is effective in convincing customers to make a purchase. The most successful stores are those that don’t just sell products but solutions. You have to show your customers how your products can help solve some of their problems. That way, you can convince them to choose your business and your products. However, content marketing is a long-term strategy. It takes a lot of patience and hard work before you see any favorable results. Study your analytics ...
“Like so many shops, we would get caught in the scoping trap. Basically, we would practice traditional scoping, clients would dictate the budget, and then we’d try to hit that or come under. That means the statement of work would get signed, and only then would the team find out what’s at stake. That’s when you hear reactions like, ‘Whoa, this is not how we would go about it. It’s missing a lot of details. The timeline is all off. You’re gonna need a lot more budget. And hey, we still have a couple of dozen questions to clarify.’” These are the words of Peter Kang, co-founder and CEO at Barrel, an agency that works closely with clients of Shopify Plus, helping build and expand their ecommerce presence. In our interview in December 2021, he described some of the challenges that his agency had been facing. The team at Barrel came to question many widely-held assumptions regarding project scope, the role of the customer in the creative process, and the way teams, managers, and clients interact in high-pressure projects. You might also like: The Ultimate Guide to Finding Web Design Clients . Our relationship with scope: It’s complicated “The work we do for Shopify Plus clients varies,” Kang says. “Sometimes they are not huge builds, but they are ongoing projects, and they all involve many roles, designers, developers, content folks, all with different levels of involvement, depending on the project. It’s vital to be flexible when you’re working with Shopify Plus customers because that’s a big piece of the puzzle of being in this ecosystem. It’s all about their fast-growing businesses. They have a lot of evolving needs, and our job is to cater to them, whether it’s on a retainer basis or project by project. But even with our best clients, scope is always the hardest part to manage.” It’s not for lack of trying, Kang explains, but rather, some broken assumptions about what scope really means. With traditional scoping, there is a person somewhere who figures it out—one singular person, often a sales lead or a project manager. The general belief is that just this one person is needed to understand the scope. But usually, they are not the ones who will be doing the work. Regardless of how well-informed this individual is, it’s a setup for failure, because even if you are that person, the scope is not going to be what you think it is. If you look back at any completed project, you’ll see that the end product was a collaboration between multiple roles and the client’s often-changing needs and feedback; whether you like it or not, scope is a team sport. Scope has to be what everybody, together, thinks it is. And that seems like an impossibly chaotic idea. When confronted with this, a project lead is going to say, “I will own the scope and tell everyone else what it is.” But that’s the fundamental problem. When one person somehow claims, “I own the scope”, then it means that nobody else does. The reality is that scope is not defined until everyone understands it in the same way. And this demands that first, everyone on the team, including the leads, should be involved in fully mapping out what that work is going to be. Then, to make it truly complete, you must involve the customer, too. Customers are generally the ones with the greatest vested interest in the project but traditionally the least insight into the scope’s many implications and details. Kang admits that like many Shopify shops, his agency was not really enjoying success in terms of being in control of their projects. There was a lot of disconnection that they weren’t even aware of, especially disconnects between the creative and technical people who were building the sites and the principals who were talking with the clients and then doing the scoping. Sometimes they, the principals, might loop in a couple of team members to ask specific questions about how a particular thing was done, but for everything else, they would simply ballpark the estimate or refer to older projec...
Help Your Customers Make a Difference by Adding Charitable Donations to Your E-Commerce Store Today’s brands are embracing the move toward social good. And it’s having unexpected benefits to business. Discounts can be problematic for the long term profitability of a business. Givz offers a win-win alternative that’s attractive to customers and e-commerce companies’ bottom lines. Customer donations to charities outperform traditional discounts in terms of increased conversions and customer retention. Every year, in the U.S. alone, e-commerce businesses lose $50 billion of revenue by offering discounts on retail products. But that’s changing. For decades, companies believed that the best way to attract customers, make sales and increase revenue was by offering discounts on products. But consumers are changing, and these days they expect more from the companies they support. Discounts alone aren’t enough to attract customers. That’s why Givz designed a system that enables brands to give shoppers, at the completion of their transaction, the option to donate a portion of their purchase to charity. In short, Givz enables brands to convert discounts into donations. And in doing so, the business improves customer retention. Givz founder, Andrew Forman, shared the company’s story and described the platform’s purpose-driven features on the podcast, Own Your Commerce (check out the episode here). Highlights from the conversation are included below. Charitable trends in e-commerce Andrew sees two huge trends happening in the e-commerce market right now, with Givz sitting at the tip of the intersection and satisfying both trends: Brands want to move away from discounts Consumers crave doing business with brands that engage in purpose-driven activity How Givz helps e-commerce brands Product discounts can be problematic Discounting products can be bad for the long-term profitability of a business — that’s why many companies prefer avoiding them. Perpetually discounting products trains shoppers to expect price reductions. Customers also start to notice patterns in the way a company discounts inventory and if an item they want to buy is full price, they’re more likely to wait until the next discount to make a purchase. Discounts can also complicate the relationship between a company and its customers. For example, when a shopper buys a product at full price and then the next day sees that item discounted, it can leave the person feeling resentful for missing the sale price. And for some consumers, discounts demonstrate a lack of confidence in a product and may even damage customers’ trust in the company. If a product is always discounted, then shoppers might believe the value of the product should always reflect the lower, discounted price—not the full retail value. Roundup donations are awkward Roundup donations are small amounts of money that are generated by rounding-up the cost of a sale — say $14.53, after taxes, for an audio book — to the nearest dollar amount — $15. And then, at the end of the month, the business combines all of the rounded-up funds and donates it to a single charity. The only problem is that these transactions are known for making customers feel irritated or uncomfortable. It’s a small enough amount that shoppers may opt in, but not because they care about the ASPCA or wounded veterans. Oftentimes they’re doing it because they feel pressure to do it, or feel guilty for not just giving 47-cents to charity. In addition, with roundup donations, a company essentially takes the money from their customers and then turns around and writes a check to the charity using their own name, not the names of the shoppers who donated the money. With Givz, the donation is a gift that the brand gives to customers. Givz has seen higher conversions from customers who are given the option to allocate a donation versus receiving a discount. With one client, Givz tried a 50/50 A/B test where half the email list got a 30%-off coupon code, a...
Ecommerce is booming, but with increased opportunity comes increased competition. As a result, it’s never been more important for merchants to find ways to differentiate themselves. Recent global events have unquestionably taught us to expect the unexpected but one area that’s definitely set to shine in terms of importance and impact this year is content marketing. As we learn to live with the legacy of the pandemic, the role that content marketing plays in the communication of a brand’s ethos, values, community, and expertise is proving itself to be invaluable. A solid content marketing strategy helps brands reach across the digital divide to engage with customers and strengthen their image. In this article, we’ll explore three key ecommerce trends identified by Shopify. We discuss what they might mean for merchants (and the agencies who support them) and learn how content marketing can provide a helping hand in navigating them throughout the year ahead. Research shows that outbound advertising ROI is plummeting, as competition increases and pricing skyrockets. With digital spend sucking the life out of marketing budgets, brands are increasingly looking for other methods of promotion—and turning their attention to retention, over acquisition. Over-dependence on paid spend to drive sales will catch up with brands in 2022, as margins are squeezed. In reaction to this growing trend, we’re seeing businesses turning to a more significant investment in brand building. Brand values are being placed front and center, and storytelling is starting to play an important role in attracting organic, well-aligned audiences. This strategy is not without its potential pitfalls. It’s all too easy to jump on social justice and environmental trends that your brand doesn’t support in the long term. It’s essential that businesses remember to stay authentic in how they communicate their brand values. Accusations of greenwashing or hypocrisy stick, so brands need to build their strategy around an honest portrayal of what their business genuinely stands for. Embracing a mindful approach to business and marketing will not only help you to stand out and align with conscious consumers, your messaging will also set the tone for others to follow suit. Spread the mindful message and inspire others to up their game, multiply your impact and your revenue as a result. What does this mean for merchants? In 2022, merchants need to be thinking holistically about the way that they’re building up their brand’s reputation, positioning, and supporting story. Content marketing can (and should) offer a fantastic way to convey expertise, experience, and alignment with future customers, as well as inspiring loyalty in those who are already familiar with the business. Slowly breaking the dependency on paid traffic won’t happen overnight, but a conscious effort should still be made to move towards more affordable, sustainable organic brand building. Investment into properly researched content strategies can support this, with targeted content that will appeal to carefully constructed customer personas. How can agencies help merchants navigate this trend? When it comes to telling the story of your brand through content, the method of delivery is almost as important as the message itself. Agencies can help their merchants win by urging them to think creatively about the different ways that content can be shared and enabling this at every touchpoint of the customer journey. Increasingly, brands are telling their stories via a wider range of media—content marketing can now be embedded in a much broader context. Innovation and novelty in content can help brands really stand out—be it smart mirrors in brick and mortar stores displaying outfit suggestions or relevant “non-product” content being delivered on internal search results pages of online stores. There’s so much scope to take your content further. You might also like: 10 Ecommerce Trends That Will Define Online Shoppi...
7 Charities You Can Support for Women’s History Month & International Women’s Day Can’t believe its March already? Us either. From the Givz side, we’ve been so happy to see more and more ecommerce brands sign up and begin supporting the charities their customers care about. It’s so much more meaningful than a traditional discount for your customers. Many of our clients have been reporting Average Order Value (AOV) increases of 20-30%. This makes our team really happy – we know customers love when they can support a charity they truly care about but what’s also important here is the bond that is made between merchant and customer. For Givz, a sustainable model where more companies are able to give-back daily yields the most upside in terms of the social impact we can create together. If you have not yet seen our prior post addressing the conflict in Ukraine. We created “Help Ukraine: Charities You Can Support” after several of our clients reached out looking for charity recommendations. TUE, MAR 1, 2022 – THU, MARCH 31, 2022 Women’s History Month [learn more] is an annual celebration that is celebrated during the month of March every year in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia (October in Canada). The celebration highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. Per history.com, this year’s theme is “Women Providing Healing, Promoting Hope.” A them that is “both a tribute to the ceaseless work of caregivers and frontline workers during this ongoing pandemic and also a recognition of the thousands of ways that women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history.” International Women’s Day The origins of Women’s History Month can actually be traced back to the first official International Women’s Day that took place in 1911, the event was marked by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Today, countries around the world celebrate the holiday with demonstrations, educational initiatives and customs such as presenting women with gifts and flowers (source). This years theme is “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, recognizing the contribution of women and girls around the world, who are leading the charge on climate change adaptation, mitigation, and response, to build a more sustainable future for all. (unwomen.org) Charities You Can Feature on Givz for International Women’s Day & Women’s History Month Girls, Inc | 13-1915124 Girls Who Code | 30-0728021 Malala Fund | 81-1397590 Equality Now | 13-3660566 National Women’s Law Center | 52-1213010 Dress for Success Worldwide | 13-4040377 In partnership with schools and at Girls Inc. centers. Girls Inc. focuses on the development of the whole girl. She learns to value herself, take risks, and discover and develop her inherent strengths. The combination of long-lasting mentoring relationships, a pro-girl environment, and evidence-based programming equips girls to navigate gender, economic, and social barriers, and grow up healthy, educated, and independent. Informed by girls and their families, we also advocate for legislation and policies to increase opportunities and rights for all girls. Donations help equip girls to create positive change in their life and in the world around them. Happy #WomensHistoryMonth! This month Girls Inc. is celebrating the achievements of extraordinary women from all walks of life. At Girls Inc., we inspire all girls to be strong, smart, and bold, and encourage them to be trailblazers in their own communities Girls Inc. (@girls_inc) March 1, 2022 Girls Who Code is on a mission to close the gender gap in technology and to change the image of what a programmer looks like and does. 500M: People reached through their online resources, books, and advocacy work – in the U.S. and around the world. 450,000: Girls served through their in-person programming including their Summer Immersion Program, Clubs, and College Loops. Donations help ensure that ...
One of the most versatile features of the Kustomer platform are Workflows. Workflows can automate a variety of tasks and processes in your platform by creating rulesets that trigger certain actions based on predefined conditions. While incredibly powerful, due to the complexity of the feature, a variety of errors and unintended events can ensue if a Workflow does not run as expected. There are several different types of errors that you might encounter within a Workflow. Additionally, while some Workflow issues are not related specifically to errors, there are situations where you might have seen a Workflow only partially complete or travel down the incorrect flow. Understanding these types of issues and how to account for them can help make your Workflows more accurate and less likely to deviate from the intended path. Workflow Actions & Conditions Before going into specific types of Workflow errors, it would be important to touch on view logs, which are imperative when troubleshooting Workflow errors. In a blog post from a few weeks ago, we discussed the concept of view logs and how to dig through them in order to create Workflows. In addition to what is discussed in that article, Workflow logs are also vitally important when troubleshooting any issues you encounter related to your Workflow. For more on how to access view logs as well as the types of data they can speak to, you can reference the blog post linked above. Our help center also contains information related to using these logs as well as Workflow errors to debug any issues. You can find information here with great context about the general troubleshooting of Workflow errors. In this blog we will be more granular regarding specific issues you may run into and how you can verify an issue in your Workflow even if it might not have registered as an error. The Workflow below is designed to add an ‘Email Team’ tag to new conversations that come in through that channel. Additionally, this will also do the same thing for chats with a ‘Chat Team’ tag. If we have our view logs activated at the time the Workflow runs, we can verify the steps the Workflow ran through when inspecting the view logs related to that interaction. In the screenshot below, we can verify that the Workflow made it to its final step and added the tag to the conversation as we can see both steps of the Workflow were successful. In cases where we have a Workflow that branches into different paths, we can also verify the specific path the Workflow traveled through based on the steps highlighted in the logs. In instances where a Workflow does not run as expected, we can generally see one of three scenarios come into play: Scenario 1: The Workflow Does Not Satisfy a Condition In this scenario, a Workflow would not reach the end of one of its branching paths. As we can see on this Workflow, each branch has a total of two action steps it would need to run through in order to fully complete. In this case, the Workflow logs only display one action step as completed. Check the conditions the Workflow should have run through and verify where a discrepancy could have been encountered from the data sent through the view logs. For larger Workflows, this would be the branch of conditions directly after the last action step completed. Scenario 2: The Workflow Travels Down the Incorrect Workflow Path In some cases, upon inspecting the Workflow’s view logs, you might observe the Workflow traveling down an unintended path. This could be due to one of two reasons: The first (intended) path of the Workflow was not satisfied, so the Workflow ran down the next available path. The Workflow satisfies multiple conditions in the same condition branch. In these cases, the Workflow will travel down the condition it satisfies closest to the left of the condition branch, which might not be the branch you intended for it to travel down. The fix for both of these would roughly be the same. Ensure that in a specific scenario, a Workf...
25 Environmental Charities to Support for Earth Day and All of April The state of the planet has never been more talked about than now. Rising CO2 levels and melting ice caps have led to a climate crisis, with hundreds of charities buckling up to do their part. April is just around the corner, which means Earth Day is almost upon us–a time to reflect on what’s happening to the planet and turn our money into action. But it shouldn’t be a one-day event. In fact, many charities and climate change activists consider April to be Earth Month, with key organizations and charities putting on events and fundraisers to bring awareness to environmental issues. Earth Day 2022 falls on the 22nd of April. Dedicated to bringing people’s attention to the environmental problems that are racking the globe, like rising air pollution, dangerous CO2 levels, plastic contamination in our oceans, and deforestation, the goal is to educate, diversify, and activate the environmental movement around the world. The day was first celebrated in 1970 and it is now the largest recruiter to the environmental movement. Thousands of charities take part in the event, with more than 150,000 partners joining forces with the Earth Day founders in over 192 countries. Why It’s Important to Support Environmental Charities Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware that the world is suffering right now. The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere is the highest it’s ever been in the history of humans and more than 800 million people are currently vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including floods, heatwaves, and droughts. Deforestation plays a huge part in global greenhouse emissions, contributing 11% of emissions caused by humans. But saving the planet isn’t cheap. In fact, it would cost $140 billion per year to make the changes humanity needs to adapt to the effects of climate action–a figure that will only increase the longer this goes on. This is why it’s important to support environmental charities that are focused on making a difference. The costs involved in saving the planet are huge but necessary, and every little helps when it comes to donations and fundraising, particularly when you consider that conserving ecosystems is often more cost-effective than human-made interventions. For example, preserving the coral reef in the Maldives is four times cheaper than building a sea wall for coastal protection, but it takes time and effort to do that–hence why environmental charities are so important. Not only do they inspire change, but they encourage people to take action now in the hopes that we can undo some of the damage already caused. What Environmental Charities Do There are multiple different kinds of environmental charities, each of which focuses on a different element of saving the planet. Here are some examples: Animal charities: these charities tackle the issue of endangerment and ensure dwindling numbers of species doesn’t go too far Conservation charities: these types of charities are focused on conserving at-risk locations and ecosystems, like rainforests and mangroves Community charities: these are often local charities that work with local people to teach them the skills they need to do their part for the planet Social justice charities: these charities fight for fair pay, sustainable production lines, and other causes that inherently affect the well-being of the planet through humans Ocean conservation charities: these charities focus predominantly on the health of the ocean, campaigning for cleaner seas The projects these charities undertake vary dramatically on their goals and their end mission. They might put together a beach cleaning session, provide resources for farmers, advocate against fracking, or create programs to protect endangered animals in the wild. How to Donate to Environmental Charities Donating to environmental charities is one of the easiest ways to take part. If you don’t have the time to commit to ...
Existing customers are the foundation of growth. They’re the most predictable, most stable, most profitable source of ongoing revenue. Unfortunately, many brands treat retention like an afterthought. Especially email marketing. I get it. Before joining Common Thread Collective (CTC) as a Retention Strategist, I worked for almost a decade as an in-house email marketer. I’ve seen automating flows, building lists, and accelerating LTV get lost amid day-to-day demands. If that’s you, this big fat article isn’t supposed to be a guilt trip. It’s a way forward — a behind-the-scenes look at how we structure our retention services with one goal . to help you make more money. Together, let’s fix five email marketing mistakes: Disconnecting LTV from Profit Forgetting Email Is Conversational Losing an Industry-Wide Perspective Slacking on Email Capture & List Building Lacking the Time & Resources to Make It Work 1. Disconnecting ‘Lifetime’ Value from Profit Calling existing customers the foundation of growth isn’t lip service. For clients — as well as the brands we own and operate — CTC forecasts demand in three “layers” of revenue, moving from most volatile (top) to most reliable (bottom): Top: Paid Acquisition Middle: Owned Audiences Bottom: Retained Customers Different channels power each layer. But they’re deeply interconnected. Your ability to front the highest customer acquisition costs (CAC) at the top layer depends on maximizing LTV at the middle and bottom layers. Why? Because CAC has exploded and the industry is flooded with competition. Facebook’s cost to advertise (average CPM) is up 50.58%. Google’s average CPC, 39.81%. Unfortunately, the “lifetime” in customer lifetime value (LTV) is a slippery metric. You need cash now. That’s why we use a time-bound version called cash multiplier (CM): 60-day LTV. Connecting LTV to profit means aiming for a 30% increase in the first 60 days and 100% in the first year. The higher your cash multiplier at both points, the better your marketing efficiency rating (MER) — total revenue divided by total spend. The higher your MER, the lower first-purchase ROAS you can afford to target. Translation: If your customers spend more money over time . you can spend more to acquire them. That’s not theoretical bullshit! Bambu Earth, the clean skincare brand we operate, is able to grow profitably even with a less than 1.0 ROAS on Facebook. How? It has a 60-day LTV of +47.5% and one-year LTV of +107.7%. Every new customer is worth $40 more in incremental revenue within two months. Then, $91 more within a year. Take a CTC client whose cash multiplier was ~15% at the time of contracting. The first thing our retention team did was dig into three metrics: Repurchase windows for the time lag between orders First purchase products with the highest additional orders Popular or complementary products shared by first order and beyond Knowing when and what customers return to buy shaped an entirely new post-purchase workflow. It pressed hard into the first 30-day window when customers naturally re-entered the consideration phase. It emphasized SKUs that weren’t just purchased together but purchased in subsequent orders. It featured a downsell subscription offering. And it spoke to satisfaction issues for products with high return rates. The result? From a 15.39% cash multiplier last year to 43.83% this year. In real dollars, from $7.16 to $17.98 per new customer within the first 60-days of purchase. To fully connect LTV to profits, you also need to integrate email as a channel with your other marketing channels. Email can’t operate in a silo and still effectively improve every layer of revenue. At CTC, we use Growth Maps — day-by-day forecasts of email with revenue expectations attached to each one. These email forecasts roll up into larger forecasts for all marketing revenue that month. Even better, Growth Maps allow our buyers to raise or lower paid budgets based on the actualized revenue email generates. Or, d...
At some point in an ecommerce business stage of its maturity there typically is a growing need for effective financial protection against risks and possible losses, and begins to use insurance instruments actively. And over time, the question becomes increasingly urgent – who exactly to entrust the management of their risks, the formation of their adequate financial protection, and professional support? This article will analyze the main advantages of using a business broker. Advantages of business brokers 1. Broker works in the interests of the client Unlike ordinary companies that are only sellers of services, in the business market, there is only one professional intermediary who works on the side of service consumers. A sole professional intermediary working in the client’s interests is a broker, and his main goal is to select and buy the best product for his clients. 2. Use of professional tools Business sale brokers, WebSiteClosers have experience in concluding similar transactions, which is measured by hundreds of closed orders. Practice allows you to develop your own effective strategies. Using them significantly reduces the time of selling the client’s business, and combining their knowledge and skills allows them to achieve excellent results. An experienced broker is a specialist in a comprehensive profile and a generalist. This is a lawyer, accountant, appraiser, and auditor – all in one person. If the intermediary does not know something, he will find people who will participate in his functions. 3. Confidence in the adequacy of business valuation Another benefit of business brokers for the seller is an opportunity to get the most money without delaying the transaction while remaining competitive with similar offers. And for the buyer, it is a way not to pay extra for a project with an unreasonably high price. 4. Saving time and costs The broker sells the business, and the entrepreneur can deal with his current affairs without distraction from conversations, meetings, etc. In addition, any transactions carried out with the involvement of professional intermediaries look more solid and status. Potential buyers are more willing to communicate with brokers than businessmen who sell their companies independently. 5. Avoidance of risks Selling a business without the involvement of professional intermediaries, the merchant takes responsibility for the result and all possible risks. The company’s owner may be left without a penny of profit in a market teeming with fraudsters and all kinds of scams. Raider seizures, lease fraud, co-founders collusion, and competitors’ mergers – this is not a complete list of schemes that a business seller may face. A broker knows how to reduce the possibility of any of the above situations to zero. Specialists in the provision of intermediary services act as a guarantor, increasing the security of the transaction at times 6. Guaranteed result Professional business brokers have several dozen times more chances to sell an operating company profitably than the owner of this legal entity. Specialists use not only a set of appropriate tools; they competently use numerous marketing and advertising strategies. Reasons to use a business broker Assistance in selling a ready-made business is especially needed by owners of medium and large enterprises with various assets because such projects are often underestimated. As a result of the transaction, the seller receives a more considerable amount than he initially expected. The broker protects his client’s interests, does not allow the price to move in an unfavorable direction without a valid justification, promptly clarifies the timing of achieving intermediate stages, and solves difficulties that arise. It can be stated that cooperation with a business website broker is the most effective and fastest way to sell your ready-made business. We advise you to sign a cooperation agreement with a business broker. Thus, the broker will become your full-f...
{% if product.metafields.my_fields.country.value != blank %}{% endif %} When building Shopify themes it’s important to empower merchants to express their brand without sacrificing ease of use, by balancing flexibility and simplicity. This is where metafields can play a major role in customizing storefront experiences. Metafields represent data that are associated with specific resources and can be displayed on individual pages. By adding and storing additional information about Shopify resources like products and collections, merchants can expand on the core fields available and unlock a new range of personalization. With the release of Online Store 2.0, metafields are now supported natively, for page resources that render with JSON templates. What’s more, metafields are created straight in the Shopify admin and merchants can link to metafields from the theme editor with dynamic sources. In this article, we’ll look at how to work with metafields in your own theme projects, and demonstrate some practical use-cases, as well as how to build sections that can empower merchants to leverage dynamic sources. Understanding Shopify’s metafields Shopify’s metafields go beyond the basic custom fields that developers may be familiar with, and support objects like URLs, images, text and measurement values. When a new metafield definition is created, merchants can select which content type is accepted, before assigning values for each product, collection, or other resource. When building a theme, it’s worth exploring all the different metafield types to consider what kinds of functionality can be unlocked for merchants using your theme. The use cases for metafields could include assigning dates for upcoming sales, displaying specific images for individual collections, listing measurements for particular products, showcasing product ratings and much more. Our help docs go into detail about how to create metafields and assign values from the admin, but it’s important to understand the structure of metafields for use in themes or apps. When you create a metafield you’ll need to assign a namespace and a key. The namespace is the group that your metafield will belong to, and the key is the specific metafield name. For example a metafield can be defined as product.metafields.my_fields.instructions. In this case, my_fields would be the namespace and instructions would be the key, or name. Once these properties are defined, a type can be chosen which determines what kind of content is represented by the metafield. You might also like: How to Test your Theme Before Submitting to the Shopify Theme Store. Accessing Metafields in Liquid Metafields are also accessible as Liquid objects in themes, by wrapping the full definition in curly brackets, like a typical Liquid object, along with value. For example if we add {{ `product.metafields.my_fields.instructions.value }} to a main-product.liquid section, we can output the instructions value for the current product. Expanding on this further, Liquid filters can also be applied to metafields, which is very helpful when the type of metafield you want to include is a URL, or an image. For example if we have a metafield which is an image, we would need to apply image filters so that the assigned image will render correctly. Once these filters are applied, the full object would appear like: {{ product.metafields.my_fields.custom_image.value | image_url: width: 500 | image_tag }} Having access to metafields within Liquid opens up a deeper level of flexibility to display custom rich content on storefronts. What are dynamic sources? Dynamic sources link the data stored as a metafield to section input settings, which allows merchants to add metafields to pages straight from the theme editor. Once a metafield is created for a specific resource on the Shopify admin, you can access it as a dynamic source from the theme editor. For example, a text metafield created for a product can be accessed as a dynamic source f...
Like most business owners, you’re probably paying too much for your general liability insurance. General liability insurance can help protect your business from risks such as third-party bodily injury, property damage, and personal injury. By understanding how it works and what it covers, you can ensure you have the right level of protection for your business – one that doesn’t cost you a fortune. This article gives insight into some little-known secrets that could help you save money on your coverage. Let’s start by understanding the basics of general liability insurance: Areas covered by general liability insurance Most business owners need general liability insurance to protect themselves from claims of bodily injury or property damage caused by their business operations. General liability insurance can also provide coverage for certain personal and advertising injuries. The following areas are covered by a general liability insurance: Tenants legal liability: If you’re a tenant and any damage is incurred on the property, you’ll have to take care of the expenses. Libel, slander, and copyright: If you or your employees make disparaging comments about a competitor that are published, you could be sued for libel or slander. If you use someone else’s copyrighted material without permission, you could also be sued for copyright infringement. Product liability: If you sell products, your insurance can help protect you from lawsuits alleging that your products caused injuries or damage. Third-party bodily injury: If a third party, such as a customer, is injured while on your premises, your insurance can help cover the costs of their medical treatment. Examples of this include a customer slipping and falling in your store or a delivery person being injured on your property. Here’s a video to help give a better understanding of general liability. To summarize, general liability insurance covers unintentional negligence of policyholders. Now that you have a basic idea of general liability insurance, let’s dive deep into the secrets no one has told you about. 1. You may be able to get by with less coverage than you think Many business owners carry more coverage than they need. Being salesy is part of a typical insurance agent’s job. If you want to get by with a lower level of coverage, you’ll have to be the one to assert yourself and ask for the specific coverage required. To do that, have the following numbers ready in front of you: Gross sales Operating costs Gross payroll Number of employees Loss History Operations The numbers are important for insurance providers to develop the best policy for you. If you’re prepared beforehand and have everything available, you’ll earn the best cost of your general liability insurance. Remember that insurance companies will audit your policies, including worker’s compensation and general liability, so undercutting your worker’s compensation will not help. 2. Higher deductibles can save you money By opting for a higher deductible, you can lower your overall premiums. Just make sure that you have enough money to cover the deductible in case of a claim. To increase your chances of having claims paid, purchase insurance from a provider with a good financial rating. A higher deductible means that you’ll be paying less for your policy. For example: if there’s a deductible of $1000, you’ll be paying the initial $1000 yourself. After this number, the insurance starts covering the amount. The deductible offered on your policy differs from case to case. Have a good credit score. Keep updated on your credit score rating, as it will help achieve the best possible package for your business needs. 3. Shop around for the best rates Hire an independent insurance agency. They focus on providing solutions according to individual client requirements. Choosing from various insurance programs and companies can be a tough job. Insurance rates differ. Each company has its own rates and policies. It will always pay o...
According to Adobe Analytics forecasts, an estimated $209.7 billion is up for grabs during the 2022 holiday season (November 1 to December 31). But most online stores will fall short of their revenue potential during this year’s Black Friday ecommerce rush. Merchants spend heavily on Black Friday marketing strategies to lure customers in: They run Black Friday deals, influencer campaigns, Instagram ads, and other expensive customer acquisition plays. But dollars spent on attracting people to your site go to waste if you can’t provide a shopping experience that converts browsers into buyers. Gorgias believes your best bet for driving online sales during BFCM is to optimize your website and customer support experience for conversion and retention. This means clarifying policies, answering customer questions more efficiently, and smoothing out your checkout flow. Source: Gorgias 10,000+ online retailers use Gorgias to upgrade their Black Friday customer experience. The Gorgias team pulled their data and best practices to create an in-depth Black Friday-Cyber Monday ecommerce strategy. If you have time, go through that linked guide in order. Otherwise, jump around and focus on the areas you feel will significantly impact your business. Here are their top five tips to get you started: Gorgias’ top 5 tips for BFCM ecommerce revenue If you’re finding this article a week before Black Friday-Cyber Monday or are otherwise strapped for time, you need to prioritize the 20% of actions that drive 80% of the results. Here are the top five things Gorgias Director of Support, Bri Christiano, would do today to drive revenue through your customer experience during the holiday shopping season: Turn on self-service chat menus (through Automation Add-on, if you’re on Gorgias): This is the single most effective thing you can do to reduce your ticket volume for BFCM. Up to 20% of your tickets will be deflected immediately, freeing your agents up for higher-value conversations. Make sure you’ll be able to handle the ticket volume (and hire an outsourcing agency if not): Drowning under your ticket backlog is a quick way to ensure your team burns out. Plus, you’ll lose easy sales if you’re too swamped to find and answer urgent pre-sales questions (or upselling and cross-selling opportunities). Update your FAQ page or help center to answer all common questions and cover BFCM-specific policies: If your customers can find answers on these pages, they’ll buy faster, convert more often, and leave your support team to handle more complex questions. Use Gorgias’ native help center to upgrade your FAQ page and offer even more self-service features. Set up Macro templates and automation Rules for all your most common pre-sales questions: For the questions that aren’t quickly answered by an FAQ page or for customers who can’t be bothered to read them, make sure your agents are prepped with Macros that reflect current policies. Automate the Macros with Rules where you can move a larger volume of potential customers to the checkout button as quickly as possible. Turn on proactive live chat campaigns to convert more customers during the big weekend: Live chat campaigns let you reach out to specific customers based on browsing behavior to offer support, information, or even a discount. This is how you turn casual browsers into customers. Vital support programs don’t wait around, hoping customers make the first move. Note: These steps assume you’re on a helpdesk already. If you’re not, the holiday season will be much less festive for your team. Get Gorgias free for the rest of the year if you sign up before BFCM, and we’ll be here to help you get set up before the big day. Read the ultimate Gorgias guide to Black Friday–Cyber Monday revenue Check out the complete guide to generate more revenue through support for this Black Friday–Cyber Monday ecommerce season. This article will teach you how to prioritize high-value customers with a helpdesk, proactively (and auto...
In this edition of What’s New for Developers at Shopify, you’ll get important updates to continue your development work. In this edition, learn about discount Functions, choosing your own app category, Shopify CLI 3.20, and more. Stay in the know Subscribe to receive What’s New with Shopify, our monthly email featuring Shopify’s latest product news. Thanks for signing up! Apps powered by discount Functions available in the Shopify App Store Apps that leverage the product or order discount Functions APIs can now be published in the Shopify App Store. Functions allow developers to inject custom code into Shopify’s backend logic. With the product and order discount Functions, you can build popular discount promotions like volume discounts or free gift with purchase offers, and allow merchants to configure them in the Shopify Admin. Please note that shipping discount Functions are still in a developer preview. Also Plus merchants cannot access Functions at this point in time. To learn more about building with Functions, visit our discount app tutorial. Check out the video below to learn about Shopify app developer Optizio’s experience with Shopify Functions and get inspired for your own builds. Watch video Developers can now choose their own app store categories You can now self-categorize your app once using the app submission form in the Partner Dashboard. Categories can be chosen by selecting up to two tags from our updated app categories that best describe the main function of your app. You can later appeal to change your app’s categorization if its capabilities change. For more information, please visit our developer documentation. Visit docs Introducing support for themes with the latest update to Shopify CLI 3.20 In addition to migrating over theme commands, Shopify CLI 3.20 supports a new authentication method that powers the usage of theme commands on continuous integration/deployment pipelines to perform actions like pushing, pulling, and publishing a theme. Moving forward, you should use the new version of Shopify CLI (version 3), which provides a more streamlined theme development experience. Migrate to 3.20 Deprecating custom and standardized product type in favor of product category for sales tax purposes We’ve added a new productCategory field to the Product object. The product category specifies a category in the Shopify Product Taxonomy. We’re deprecating several fields: The standardizedProductType field is deprecated in favor of productCategory The customProductType field is deprecated in favor of productType Previously, the product category data was not powering any platform features. Now, the product category will be used to determine the rate at which a product is taxed in the US. In the future, it will apply to how products are taxed in other regions/markets. For more information, refer to the Product object or learn more about product tax codes at the link below. Learn more Improve the performance of your shipping app Checkout performance is a major factor in helping merchants get more sales, which is why we strive to ensure that shipping rates at checkout load at the optimal speed and without perceptible delay. To help app developers create optimal checkout experiences and return shipping options fast, we have consolidated a list of six best practices to improve the checkout performance of your shipping app. Learn more Tap to Pay on iPhone with Shopify POS Merchants selling in-person in the US can now accept contactless payments directly on their iPhone, without needing to invest in hardware. If you work with merchants in the US, this update can help them break into in-person sales for the first time, or enhance the way they sell in person, anytime, anywhere. Learn more Stay in the know That’s all for this month. To stay up to date with changes that impact the Shopify platform and app development, subscribe to the Shopify developer changelog by email or by RSS for real-time updates as they happen. And if...
Inspiration doesn’t always hit when you need it. Creator’s block is real. Worse, when it comes to advertising, that block easily turns from frustration into low-ROAS, bottomline-crushing burnout. What if — instead of starting from scratch or endlessly hunting through Facebook Ad Library — you had a comprehensive toolkit to inspire you? What if that toolkit was organized around 30 Facebook ad types all defined and designed for ecommerce? And, what if it also included exactly how to build and measure? You need ecommerce ad inspiration and more. Here’s how we’re serving it: Measure: Four Metrics, One Funnel & Your ‘Real’ Goal Build: Three Rules to Create Every Ad’s Five-Part Anatomy Inspire: 30 Ad Types + 90 Examples of Facebook Ad Creative Measure: Four Metrics, One Funnel & Your ‘Real’ Goal How do you know if your ads are working? Seems like an obvious question with an even more obvious answer, right? Return on ad spend (ROAS). Unfortunately, ROAS is the end result of an ad — the final step in a customer’s journey — but it doesn’t tell you much about the ad itself. Instead, let me introduce you to AIDA: attention, interest, desire, and action. AIDA gives you an analytical framework for the different stages your ad needs to take customers through: i.e., the funnel. It’s one of the core principles we use as a Facebook advertising agency to identify and solve problems. The goal is to evaluate and improve the steps everyone must take to get to ROAS: Attention At the very top, we have attention. When a prospect is scrolling through their feed, your video may automatically play or a thumbnail will show. You need to be prepared for both because attention is measured by dividing three-second views by impressions. If this number is below 25%-30%, you’re paying a ton of money for impressions that don’t result in video views. Interest Next, we move into interest. Is the ad holding the prospect’s attention? It goes beyond the three-second mark and is measured by average watch time. The longer they watch, the better. Why? Because longer watch times directly correlate with the next two metrics: outbound clicks and ROAS. The inverse is painfully true: even if someone clicks through before consuming your creative, we regularly see low conversion rates. Low-interest ads lead to low-qualified visitors who simply aren’t prepared to make a purchase. Desire Once you’ve captured interest, your ad has to push someone forward. Desire compels them to click your call-to-action (CTA) button. In a sense, that’s creative’s number one job — to sell the click. Desire is measured by outbound clickthrough-rates. One percent may seem low but it’s only a benchmark. Your aim should always be to beat your own ad’s averages. Action Once a prospect clicks on the CTA button and arrives at the landing page, creative’s initial job might be over. But clicks don’t pay the bills. Just like you, we obsess over whether the intended action — ultimately, a purchase — occurs or not. Naturally, that metric is return on ad spend (ROAS). So, why not just measure ROAS and be done with it? ROAS can tell you if an ad is working or not working. It can’t tell you why. AIDA gives you a step-by-step, metric-by-metric system to diagnose exactly where your creative social-media strategy isn’t performing . all within a single funnel. Build: Three Rules to Create Every Ad’s Five-Part Anatomy If we think critically about how active users consume Facebook offers on their news feeds, three rules tower above every other piece of advice. What’s more, when you use those three rules to shape the anatomy of every ad — the five parts Facebook gives you to work within — you’ll have a cheatsheet to target people who will love your ad set. Think ‘Small’: Mobile Ads, First to Last 98% of Facebook users view the app from a mobile device. And, 81% of users use its mobile app exclusively. With so many prospects using Facebook via mobile, it would make sense to create your product ads so that they fit th...
The holidays are coming up, which means it’s time to start shopping. We know thinking of gifts can be a nightmare, especially for that family member you haven’t talked to in months. The good news is that there are tons of small ecommerce businesses all over the world with every type of product you could think of. Consider supporting a small business this holiday season when you start your shopping. Check out our categorized holiday shopping guide below for some of our favorite brands we’ll be checking out this year. For Caffeine Lovers We all know those people who you don’t even want to talk to until they’ve had their morning cup of coffee. Surprise the caffeine lovers in your life with some delicious, unique java this year. 1. Copper Cow Coffee: Bring the taste of authentic Vietnamese style coffee to someone’s home this year. With hot, iced, and cold brew options, there is something for everyone. 2. Girls Who Grind Coffee: This female-owned brand offers great-tasting coffee with an even greater mission: supporting female coffee producers and sharing their stories. 3. Rage Coffee: This plant-powered instant coffee brand will help you stay calm when you do your holiday shopping this year. They offer coffee infused with vitamins to keep you energized. 4. Pergamino US + Pergamino Colombia: With a focus on delivering fresh coffee, this Colombian coffee brand roasts coffee and ships it to you within days. Talk about freshness. 5. Matcha.com: For those who prefer a different type of caffeine, matcha is a great source of natural energy made from green tea powder. 6. Cafuné: This French-Canadian brand goes beyond the cup by offering brewing tools and accessories for that perfect at-home brew. 7. ECS Coffee: With an extensive selection of high-end brands, ECS Coffee is your one-stop shop for that wanna-be barista in your life. 8. Eight Ounce Coffee: If you happen to know a café owner, they may love a gift from Eight Ounce Coffee. This Canadian specialty coffee brand is the biggest specialty coffee equipment distributor in Canada and has a wide range of unique tools and blends. 9. Eat Your Coffee: Know anyone who isn’t a coffee drinker but is still looking for their caffeine fix? Well you can surprise them with caffeinated snack bars and bites this year! For Kids There’s something special about seeing the excitement in a kid’s eyes around the holidays. Delight the little ones in your life (or their parents) with something they’ll love this year. 1o. Bamobam: This Costa Rican brand was started by a mom who was inspired by conscious parenting philosophies. From toys to themed costumes, spoil the little ones in your life. 11. Beeja May: Keeping on the sustainability train, Beeja May is the easiest solution for families to shop second-hand with a constantly revolving stock of clothing for everyone from newborns to teenagers. 12. My Baby Babbles: This Indian baby outlet has everything from clothing, to furniture, to toys and activities for little ones. A great brand to check out for kids and their parents. 13. Tiny Harlow: This Australian doll brand is on a mission to bring back the quality and unique beauty of toys. Their ethically-sourced dolls are made to be passed down over the years so you can surprise a little one with the beginning of a beautiful tradition. 14. Healthy Roots Dolls: Another amazing doll company coming up! This American, black and female-owned business has introduced their doll Zoe to the world to help little girls of color with curly hair to finally see a doll that looks like them. 15. Small Smart: For parents across the pond, this UK baby brand is the one-stop shop for all-things-needed to make the parenting process easier without compromising quality or affordability. 16. Plastic Free Amsterdam: The earlier you start living sustainably, the better. This brand sells sustainable alternatives to single-use plastics like bamboo toothbrushes and utensils for kids. For Tech Lovers Everybody knows someone who likes to ha...
Recently, ecommerce companies have been attaching great importance to the satisfaction and safety of their customers. Many companies around the world store many of their customer’s data and information in their cloud systems, much of which should be kept confidential. Keeping this data confidential and secure is of vital importance for companies. For this reason, many companies use some security methods to ensure data security. According to a survey of 2022, the majority of participants in the survey conducted for this study stated that external actors, such as hackers, posed the biggest threat to the security of data stored on the cloud. Employees or IT professionals inside the corporation were additional risk factors. Companies apply many different methods to access sensitive data securely. These methods reduce cyber security threats, and your customer’s data can be secured. Single Factor Authentication (SFA) is not enough to securely store and access your customers’ sensitive data. Therefore, you should know more robust security methods and choose the one that suits you best. Finding and comparing the most appropriate security methods for your company is necessary. For example, you can select one of these methods by comparing multi-factor Authentication vs. 2FA. So what are these methods? What is Multi-Factor Authentication? Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) is a security method that provides a multi-step account sign-in process that requires users to enter more than just a password. It does this by asking users to enter a code that is sent to their email address along with a password, answer a secret question, or scan their fingerprints. A second verification method can help prevent unauthorized account access if a system password is compromised. Multi-factor Authentication is an extra layer of security that requests multiple forms of identity from the user during account registration. The system saves this ID and user information to authenticate the user for the subsequent login. The login is a multi-step process that verifies the password and other credentials in addition to the password. MFA is a more secure user access management tool as it combines different types of security elements. For instance, to access the required systems or information assets, the user must present complicated proof from multiple sources proving that he is that person in addition to supplying a password, confirmation code, and biometric data. What is Two-Factor Authentication? Two-Factor Authentication takes two factors to identify a user when logging into the system or request data access. A password is one of these elements, and anything you own is another. For instance, you are using a token or a smartphone to verify the identity of the individual whose access has been sought. The second factor can be anything an individual needs to access or know without being restricted to a physical gadget. Users frequently have the option of having the second factor be an SMS or email code. Security can only be fully achieved by including the second factor in the user authentication process. 2FA acts as a barrier in the event of a password leak, making it difficult for attackers. The system logs user activity and authenticates the user for an operating system. Even if a person has your username, email address, and password, they cannot access the code that will be sent to your mobile phone as an SMS or instant notification, thanks to the two-factor authentication security precaution. Because the use duration for these codes is typically only a few minutes. In other words, only you can know the password if your phone has not been stolen. What is the difference between MFA and 2FA? A multi-factor authentication method known as 2FA necessitates precisely two authentication factors. Compared to 2FA, MFA provides an additional authentication dimension that calls for at least two different authentication factors (two, three, or more). 2FA can also be defi...
{carrier_name}_#{origin_postal_code}_#{destination_postal_code}_#{total_items_weight} => shopify_post_C3C3C3_K2K2K2_1
Checkout performance is a major factor in helping merchants get more sales, which is why we strive to ensure that shipping rates at checkout load at the optimal speed and without perceptible delay. If you build shipping apps, that also means that your app needs to be just as fast. To help app developers create optimal checkout experiences and return shipping options fast (< 500ms) and reliably, we have consolidated a list of six best practices to improve the checkout performance of your shipping app. Build apps for Shopify merchants Whether you want to build apps for the Shopify App Store, offer custom app development services, or are looking for ways to grow your user base, the Shopify Partner Program will set you up for success. Join for free and access educational resources, developer preview environments, and recurring revenue share opportunities. Sign up 1. Store carrier retail rates internally Many shipping apps function as aggregators for multiple shipping carriers in order to offer merchants rate-shopping functionalities. To avoid poor responsiveness of your shipping app, this dependency on carriers’ backed performance should be reduced when possible. We recommend storing carrier retail rates internally to avoid any external call. 2. Cache carrier rates For carrier rates that are highly dynamic or merchant-specific, there may be an opportunity to build a caching layer. While not every call to a given carrier will result in the same response, there will likely be a pattern for which rates are identical. Based on this, you can define a cache key. At Shopify, we built a self-healing caching system to significantly reduce the number of external calls and our dependence on shipping carriers’ backend systems. We recommend following these steps: Analyze the response data to external calls in your system and identify patterns across various use cases Store responses to similar requests within the memory database (such as Redis) to guarantee fast retrieval when new requests come in When requests hit the cache consider making an external request in the background to validate accuracy and update the cache with new information if required Analyze your cache hit and miss ratio and frequency of response changes for the same requests In action, these steps look like the following: Input Output Assuming that for a given origin and destination pair of postal_codes and a given total weight, every request returns identical shipping rates Based on this assumption the following cache pattern and key can be created: 3. Parallelize calls to external systems If calls to external systems such as carriers cannot be avoided through local storage of public retail rates or caching, you can reduce the response time of your shipping app by calling carriers in parallel. Parallelization in combination with a timeout for slow carriers can be very effective in speeding up your response to Shopify while ensuring checkouts are not blocked as a subset of rates are returned. 4. Set timeouts for external systems If your shipping app fetches rates from multiple external systems and you are parallelizing these calls, your app’s response time to Shopify will be at least as long as the slowest response time. To avoid a timeout and a blocked checkout on Shopify’s side, we recommend setting an internal timeout that cancels your request to the external system if it fails to respond. Following this approach, you’ll be able to return to Shopify a subset of rates and unblock checkout. 5. Optimize the hosting of your service The response time of your shipping app matters due to the impact it has on customers’ experience at checkout and, therefore, on merchants’ success. A share of the response time can be attributed to the latency between your app server and Shopify servers, which is particularly large when both are located on different continents. ...
▶” title=”The TRUE Success Metrics for Ecommerce Growth” width=”560″> After iOS 14, businesses stopped trusting the numbers they were seeing in Facebook. Understandably, brands started looking for a third-party tool to give them the clarity they once relied on Facebook to provide. Enter: Multi-touch attribution tools. What started out as a helpful way to understand customer metrics has turned into over-reliance, and dare we say, an over-hyped understanding of the data presented. Which raises the question: Is there such a thing as too much data? Despite CTC’s data-centric reputation, our answer is a resounding “Absolutely.” As we continue to work with third-party attribution tools like Rockerbox and Triple Whale, we’re seeing some discrepancies and pitfalls to be wary of. Yes, the reporting and visibility on the data has changed. But that’s no reason to put all your chips down on tools that promise to give that visibility back. That’s because there’s a difference between measurement and decision-making. The Basics: What Do Multi-Touch Attribution Tools Do? How Do They Work? The main purpose of attribution tools is to assign credit for a sale to a specific channel within the marketing or media mix (i.e. Facebook, Google, TikTok, etc.). These tools serve two main purposes for DTC businesses: Reporting & analytics Attribution Reporting & analytics within these platforms are meant to show you the full customer journey, rather than just consumer behavior as it pertains to a single channel. Attribution requires some sort of modeled framework (each tool has different ones) to understand how much each channel contributes to parts of that customer journey. Practically, media buyers analyze the data reported in these platforms to provide strategies for enhanced customer acquisition. What is multi-touch attribution? Multi-touch attribution applies different weights to each channel in the marketing mix. Ultimately, all channels add up to 100% of the businesses actual revenue outcome. Typically, performance will look a lot worse than what Facebook is showing. Anecdotally, we’ve seen platforms like TikTok and Google (branded search campaigns in particular) seemingly perform higher than expected. So what’s going on here? Here’s an illustration: You see an ad on Instagram, click on it, browse a little bit, but you don’t convert. Later on that evening, you Google that brand, branded search comes up, and now you buy . Both Facebook and Google will take credit for that purchase. This double-dipping is exactly what multi-touch attribution tools try to solve — and retailers try to use these insights to better understand where to put their marketing dollars. In the above example, the multi-touch attribution tool might report that Google’s getting 75% of the credit for that purchase and Facebook’s getting 25%. So . you just cut the efficiency of Facebook by three quarters. Is that really accurate? Problem 1: Pulling Back Spend Based on Attribution Data When it comes to multi-touch attribution, you don’t get any of those subsequent touches — and you don’t get the conversion — without the first touch. And the data backs that up: across the board, a decrease in Facebook spend correlates with a decrease in overall revenue. “Is this exact number in Facebook accurate?” is the wrong question. Because even if Google is “75% responsible” for a sale, that sale would never have happened without that initial 25% from Facebook. Beware of getting so caught up in the discrepancy between the two numbers that you pull back on Facebook. Problem 2: Attribution Data Isn’t Passed to Facebook There’s another major flaw with multi-touch attribution tools — none of them pass their information back to Facebook. And that means that Facebook can’t price your ad or optimize against that data. Inevitably, you’ll start to see your CPMs go up, since you’re telling Facebook to optimize for people that its own data shows to not be profitable. This perpetuates the problem, creatin...
Ensuring great app security not only earns you the trust of your customers, it also greatly increases the long term chances of success for your business.
Cyber attacks are only increasing in frequency and cost. The industry has a long, difficult road ahead, but both tooling and best practices are making headway, and we can see it making a big difference for modern apps built in this way.
Building an app for the Shopify ecosystem not only provides you with a fast, high-converting platform for millions of merchants, it also ensures credit card information and customer data is protected. Shopify is PCI compliant and handles the whole checkout. Credit card information is sent directly to Shopify for them to handle, which alleviates you and your app users from the burden of full PCI compliance.
That doesn’t mean you don’t still have to be careful when developing your Shopify apps. Basic web application security principles apply, and as the Shopify ecosystem grows, we have to be continuously vigilant in ensuring we uphold the security of our apps on the platform. When new functionality is introduced, it can sometimes mean we have to think about using customer data more carefully—such as if we’re sending it to an artificial intelligence (AI) engine for recommendations.
Common web application flaws are often dealt with by using modern frameworks, like SQL injection—a method of breaking out the confines of a poorly constructed query and interacting with the database in unwanted ways. If you’re turning your legacy app into a Shopify app, you may have to spend a considerable amount of time checking and improving the codebase to meet modern security standards. Contracting an external penetration testing company or consultant is worth the investment, as this means you’re not “marking your own homework.” Developers can often be blind to their own security missteps.
A key challenge to consider when developing a Shopify app is the handling of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), especially in areas where you’re requesting your client’s customer information. One small mistake in this area can cost you the trust of your users, and damages the trust in the Shopify app ecosystem as a whole.
Make sure you check through the requirements for public apps, which include GDPR compliance, having a privacy policy, and responding to deletion requests.
In this article, we will cover 11 key areas you need to consider to ensure you’re building a secure Shopify app. Now that you know why it’s important, let’s explore the details.
1. Always use source control
When starting to build a new application, it’s important to use source control. It’s not only helpful to collaborate with other developers, but it also allows you to track and monitor changes.
Using source control allows you to start automating the deployment and build process, which reduces the potential for human error. If you’re manually going through any steps to get your application live, it increases the likelihood of something going wrong.
Ideally, all your infrastructure would live as code. If you use AWS, that could be orchestration tools such as CloudFormation or Terraform. In Heroku, this would be your buildpack. In modern, low-config deployment environments like Vercel, a lot of best practices are built in by default.
2. Environment variables
You should keep all secrets, like your Shopify keys, out of your codebase. This makes it easier to work on your code with other developers, and if your code were to ever be leaked, hackers wouldn’t have access to third-party services, databases, etc.
In your local development environment, it’s best practice to run completely different instances of third-party services that you use, set them up specifically for development, and then put these in a .env file in the root of your project, which is ignored from your source control. You can add a .env.example to your repo as well to show which variables need to be configured.
Starting a project wit...
Running a successful online business is only getting harder, which is why our growing, global merchant base turns to the Shopify ecosystem for help. These merchants need Shopify to be the simplest, safest, and most personalized commerce ecosystem in the world. And that’s why we’re making significant improvements to how merchants discover, select, and make use of apps and themes this year. As more and more merchants join Shopify to grow and scale, so too does the need for innovative solutions from developers that can power their success. In fact, the average merchant uses 6 apps to manage their business. This demand creates new opportunities for our developers to succeed and shape the future of commerce. This natural alignment between merchant and developer success is a cornerstone of our platform strategy—we can’t do this without you. We’re going to be experimenting with new approaches so we can learn how best to help merchants and make our ecosystem safe, simple, and personalized. In this post, we’ll share a bit more about our plans and how you can get involved. Simple: Making it easy for merchants to get help When merchants sign up for Shopify, they need to learn about the set of apps and themes that will get them to their first sale. We want to make it as easy as possible to get to these solutions, so we’re focused on major UX improvements that will take as much burden off merchants. We’ll help merchants understand what apps are and get them everything they need to set up their store, build product catalogs, run marketing initiatives, and make operations and support more efficient. A few areas we’re working on: Intuitive navigation: We’re learning how merchants browse apps and themes and testing different approaches, including focusing more on merchant goals than app taxonomy. Clearer categories: We’ll provide educational context on what different categories are used for, so that developers can explain their apps more clearly. App and theme cards: We’re experimenting with highlighting different details about apps and themes depending on what context they’re in, from the homepage to search results. Safe: Increasing trust between merchants and developers Merchants expect apps and themes to be functional and effective, to work reliably and quickly, and to keep their customers’ data private and secure. Most of our partners share these goals and work hard to earn and keep merchant trust. But we’ll also be tightening controls on the small minority of fraudulent actors, which helps merchants while also levelling the playing field for trustworthy developers. We’ll provide clearer guidelines for how to meet these new standards, plus make it easier to test app quality and get approval for new apps. We’re also focused on: Performance and reliability: Apps and themes should be fast, responsive, reliable, and optimized for mobile. We’re updating APIs and have added new checks to help you, including removing apps that don’t install properly and notifying developers to fix issues. Privacy and security: Merchants want to know developers are treating data with care, adhering to platform policies, and meeting relevant laws and regulation. Developers can reinforce trust by using the API responsibly and keeping apps up-to-date. Trust: We want to make it easier for merchants to find useful reviews, getting quick signals on an app or theme’s quality. We also want to share insights back to developers about how their products are being used and evaluated. Fake reviews erode trust, and we continue to strengthen tools that flag potentially fraudulent reviews. Personalized: Getting merchants to the right solution for them Merchants have a lot on their plate, so we want to guide them to the most relevant apps and themes for them, as quickly as possible. We’ve made improvements to the Shopify App Store around discovery and personalization, but we’re only getting started. We’re also focused on: Personalized recommendations: We’re showing merchants re...
If you’re a small business owner, you’re likely familiar with the term “there are not enough hours in the day.” From drafting proposals and meeting with clients to keeping on top of emails and administration tasks, your days are full. It’s easy to become overwhelmed and exhausted. Fortunately, technological advances in software and apps mean that today, plenty of digital tools are available to help you streamline your business and make your work less stressful. But with so many options available, how do you know which ones will be the most effective for your business? In this article, we’ll share some recommendations for tools to help make your life easier. Benefits of Using Tech Tools for Small Businesses Before we dive into our list, let’s explore why investing in tech tools for your small business makes sense. Firstly, technology can save you time, allowing you to focus on the things that matter. Instead of laboring over manual, administrative tasks such as data entry and invoicing, you’re freed up to invest that time in talking to your clients and prospects, improving your products and services, and other strategic endeavors to grow your business. Secondly, tech tools can save you money. For example, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool can automatically identify where you might be “leaving money on the table” with a specific group of customers. Accounting software might surface insights that show you’ve been paying too much tax. A backup solution can ensure that you never lose data or experience unwelcome downtime that leads to customer churn or revenue loss. A robust project management solution will ensure that you don’t inadvertently miss a deadline that results in a service-level agreement breach and associated penalties. Thirdly, digital tools support the new post-pandemic paradigm in which people and businesses want to limit in-person interactions due to enduring health concerns and regulations. The digital nature of tech tools allows people to do much of their “business-as-usual” activities from any location and device. Moreover, most tools are available as software-as-a-service (SaaS), so you only pay for the features you want and need; you can cancel your service easily if you decide a tool isn’t for you. From these examples, it’s clear that the thoughtful selection and use of tech tools for your small enterprise make business sense. Now, it’s time to suggest solutions for you to consider in each tech tool category. We’ll also touch on their advantages and potential drawbacks or limitations. Note: In compiling an overview of the pros and cons of each tool, we scoured a few of the most prominent customer review boards on the internet and summarized some of the most common themes. Please note that we don’t recommend any specific solution over another, and we always recommend you do your own research before installing any SaaS tool. The Top 10 Tech Tools for Small Businesses in 2022 1. Project Management Tools Project management software is excellent if you’re trying to keep multiple balls in the air. Essentially, these tools allow you to digitally track your activities, appointments, and deadlines (as opposed to having to manually). These tools can automatically create reminders for upcoming tasks and events, including details such as when your next meeting is happening and where. Additionally, these tools can send similar reminders to other team members so everyone knows precisely what’s expected of them and when. Trello is one of our favorite project management tools. Advantages Easy-to-understand pricing structure; they offer a version where you can invite an unlimited number of members and create boards, cards, and lists. It works on every platform and is mobile-friendly. Disadvantages A10MB file upload limit for each attachment if you’re a basic member. Data backup risks – you can’t import data back into Trello in case of an emergency or data loss. (Mitigate this risk with the Rewind Backups for Tre...
Social proof is a marketing tactic that every brand should be looking to employ. It can drastically increase brand awareness, leads, and revenue. It takes time to nurture a solid customer base that loves your product or service and effort, but it pays dividends in the long term. What is Social Proof, and Why is it important? Social proof forms a relationship between a brand and its consumers, typically via social media. When launching a social proof campaign, the goal is generally to increase the number of leads and sales a business generates. Still, social proof can increase engagement on platforms, develop brand awareness (sometimes outside of your current reach), and socially build the business’s reputation. A social proof campaign requires the brand to take time to understand its audience genuinely, get to know its customers, and form personal relationships with them. This sounds unachievable at scale but could be as straightforward as interacting with customers on social media, such as replying to a tweet. Rather than focusing on the minutia, consider the broader picture and ensure that your audience is in mind when creating each post for social media. If you’re worried about the image quality of your social proof, you can rest assured that using an image upscaler will solve your concerns. The 8 Types of Social Proof We’ll explore eight strands of social proof in this article. According to some experts, there are far more strands that you can explore, but these are the most commonplace methods of using social proof in modern marketing. An Expert When an expert picks out your product or service and reviews it positively, this is social proof at its best. It’s why restaurants are desperate for critics to visit their establishment; with positive praise from a well-known figure, sales can explode, not least because thousands of people will value their opinion. It’s important to know that, especially in the restaurant example, positive praise works wonders, but negative can ruin businesses. The Celebrity With tens of millions of followers, mega influencers on social media can deliver significant social proof for brands. Many celebrities will promote products for a fee; this somewhat diminishes the quality of the social evidence but still goes a long way. If a star organically picks up on a brand and talks about it, this is top-quality social proof. User Reviews When someone who has genuinely used your product reviews it, either on your website or a third-party site, these testimonials are a massive vote of confidence in the product or service you are offering. They have the highest impact on independent platforms. Credentials or Accreditations Simply belonging to a public or awarding body can impact social proof should it be a body that is well respected and known by your customers. Organic Media When websites not directly linked to yours begin to link to yours as either a recommendation or a mention of services offered, it passes on kudos from them to you. In this case, often, the backlink is excellent for SEO too. Social Shares When individuals on social media share your posts, they show that they align with your views (if it’s a share on a blog post or article) or that they like your product. These shares can be all that some people need to purchase from you, especially if your product goes viral. FOMO Fear of missing out significantly impacts people; they never want to be the person who misses out, so if many of their friends are seen purchasing a particular product, they will want in too. Friends and Family Friends and family sharing their thoughts dramatically impact our buying choices. These are the people we care about and trust the most. Therefore we hold their opinion in high regard and tailor our purchases accordingly. 7 Ways to Use Social Proof in Your Marketing Bring In The Experts Experts are often willing to share their opinion; it doesn’t have to be about your product specifically. Hosting a roundtable where...
Double-digit inflation is already eroding consumer purchasing power while fear of a recession is making people think twice about spending on higher ticket items. Even when those products are must-haves and not nice-to-haves, the economic environment is making these necessary purchases feel like higher-stakes decisions. Consumers are less likely to buy items sight unseen and more likely to do extensive research before making a significant purchase. However, that doesn’t mean that consumers are more likely to head into stores to see products and have their questions answered. The Covid-19 pandemic changed consumer shopping habits forever and most retailers are closing stores, not opening them, due to high costs and staffing shortages. So. what’s a brand to do in this tricky environment? Here are four practical and easy tips to consider right now. Create more opportunities for customers to see products without expanding your retail footprint. Chasing foot traffic through retail locations in popular malls or highly-transited streets is an expensive proposition and a losing one – especially now. Instead, consider opening a so-called dark store for online customers only. Because customer visits are virtual instead of in-person, you can open this dark store in a relatively inexpensive location and then use live, HD video to create a shopping experience that is optimized for online customers who need to learn more about a product before making a purchase. (HP has a dark store near Barcelona that serves customers worldwide!) Leverage and amplify the impact (and sales!) of your top sales people and product experts. Do you ever wish you could clone some of your top sales people and product experts? While this is not yet a possibility outside of science fiction movies, there is a lot you can do to expand their reach and drive sales. Start by having them serve as product experts in your dark store, via live video, instead of limiting their scope to a particular retail location. That way they can drive sales across geographies and time zones instead of being limited to serving customers in one specific store. (Some companies are even letting these product experts work and broadcast from the comfort of their own homes. That’s one way to retain top talent!) Support customers’ need for more product insights and information before making considered purchases. You probably already have lots of information online for customers eager to research your product and compare it to others. However, nothing beats the guidance of a trusted product expert who can demonstrate how a product is used, answer questions, and recommend alternatives. You probably already have product-experts and sales people in-house who are skilled at doing just that. Now it’s time to have them do what they do best via live video. Use them both to broadcast product demos and information sessions online and to provide one-on-one product guidance via video to online shoppers. Get more out of your in-store staff. Some retailers are turning their existing stores into part-time studios and letting their staff serve both retail customers and customers online. That means that their in-house experts can serve online shoppers when the store is near-empty or even after the store is closed. There are more opportunities for selling when you aren’t just relying on foot traffic. In short, you can use live commerce to recession-proof (and future-proof) your business by turning your stores into studios, turning your staff into stars. And investing in live video doesn’t mean investing in studios and fancy production companies. All you need is a smartphone, an app and a headset and you’re good to go.
The Givz team hosted our first webinar, #GivzSummit. We were most fortunate to be joined by Eric Binder (Spongellé), Emily Baird (Nuun Hydration) and Ross Goodhart (Jupiter) to chat about their experience in social impact marketing and more. Timestamps 0:00 Intro 0:25 Givz Slideshow 3:13 Andrew Forman, Cofounder & CEO | Givz 6:38 Nicole Howerton, VP Business Development & Partnerships | Givz 7:15 Eric Binder, COO | Spongellé 17:12 Emily Baird, Sr. Ecommerce Manager | Nuun Hydration 28:32 Ross Goodhart, Founder & Co-CEO | Jupiter 41:20 Group Q&A CLEANSE. EXFOLIATE. MASSAGE. NOURISH Welcome to Spongellé, where we create your self-care oasis. Using patented technology and innovative delivery systems, we dispense our blend of high-quality moisturizers, botanicals, sea minerals, antioxidant, and anti-aging ingredients to create multi-use body wash infused buffers. Our patented formula provides the same benefits as traditionally packaged skin care, but as a simple and effective 4-in-1 product, eliminating the need for your bottle of body wash, loofah, exfoliator, and moisturizer. Made with love in Los Angeles, California. Givz offer: Donating 5% of orders over $50 to the charity of your choosing
ZEROFLAKESGIVEN
In life, you can only care about so much. You have to pick and choose what you’re going to stand up for, what advice you’re going to take, and what rules you’re going to follow. For so long we’ve been shamed, targeted by the big brands for experiencing something that nearly 75% of the world deals with at some point in their lives. We’ve felt forgotten, resigned to using products that smell like a barbecue, come in ugly bottles, or contain irritating ingredients. And we’ve felt insecure, stared at by people for whatever sign of discomfort we may have been experiencing at the time. So we decided to do something about it. When we launched Jupiter, we set out to make the most beautiful and effective products for your scalp and hair, not only by using the best, most luxe ingredients, but by changing our mindset and the conversation entirely — channeling our energy into positivity.
ZeroFlakesGiven is our mantra — our attitude — that we can be better, stronger, and kinder by focusing on what matters most. By being friendly, personable, supportive, and damn good at whatever we do.
And flicking off the rest. Givz offer: Jupiter will donate $10 to the charity of your choice on orders of $80+ PRONOUNDED, “NOON” Nuun began as the first company to separate electrolyte replacement from carbohydrates. The result? A healthy, hydrating beverage without all of the extra sugar and additives. #heckyea! Over a decade later, Nuun Hydration is hydrating the planet one runner, surfer, cyclist, mother, yogi, hula hooper at a time (the list goes on.)! As the good word about hydration and wellness becomes more widespread, Nuun has become a “must-have” product for more and more people. Nuun has expanded its product offerings from its sports hydration roots to include more clean-ingredient lifestyle products for everyday hydration! Nuun HQ is based in Seattle, WA. You can find our products sold in over 5,000 outlets in the U.S. and available in over 30 countries.
stayhydrated
This originally appeared on Givz and is made available here to cast a wider net of discovery.
Raising prices is a great way to improve profit margins at your digital agency—and pay yourself more. It’s all the more important today, as your labor costs go up, too. But if you raise prices poorly, you’ll lose clients and hurt profit margins. Fortunately, you don’t have to guess, and you don’t have to start from scratch! Raising prices the smart way means keeping your best clients happy while maintaining or reducing your workload. This advice works best when you have happy clients that are getting results, a strong sales pipeline, and several months to implement the transition. I call this method the “portfolio” approach to raising prices. Rather than raising prices across the board—by the same amount for every client—you adjust the increase to reflect each client’s circumstances. This helps you optimize overall revenue growth, balancing rate increases, and client retention. Here’s how it works, so you can apply it at your own agency. The “portfolio” approach to raising prices The goal is to raise each client’s price as much as possible. but not too much. To accomplish that, think about your client base as an investment “portfolio”—some clients paying more, other clients paying less. You’ll identify and evaluate clients based on certain criteria—and then raise prices to the maximum amount each client might be willing to pay. These factors include your track record of getting results, client satisfaction, client “nuisance” level, and overall history. Being intentional in your approach to raising prices helps you boost revenue (and profit margins) while ideally reducing the team’s workload and stress. A content marketing agency I advise used this approach to target increases between 10 to 25 percent and achieved 93 percent of the increases they sought. In the end, they increased prices overall by nearly 25 percent. Another agency raised some clients’ prices by up to 50 percent. And including scope expansions, an ecommerce agency raised rates by eight times in just over a year for a high-performing client. Ready to do that yourself? Here’s my step-by-step approach: 1. Start by updating your public pricing Identify the price you’ll be charging new clients and make it public. Doing this will help “anchor” your increases for existing clients—it frames their personal increases as a special deal, compared to your new-client pricing model. This step will look different depending on how you structure your services: If you use packages or milestones, it’s as easy as updating your price sheet If you’re doing primarily custom work, update your Minimum Level of Engagement (MLoE) instead Do you have existing sales prospects who are on the fence about signing on? Tell them the new price and offer to honor the old price if they move forward within a certain time frame, or for a certain amount of time. 2. Create an annotated list of all of your clients Make a list of all of your clients, and then add notes about each one. I recommend “coding” them by key factors to help you see where they fit into your portfolio. For instance, what is their current value (high, medium, or low)? What is their future potential (high, medium, or low)? How likely are they to recommend you to others? Are there other reasons you’d choose to raise their prices more or less than others? As a shortcut, you can use my free Agency Client Rating Matrix template to get started—follow the existing criteria or add your own. If you’re not the client-facing contact, get input from your account managers. Once you have the annotated list, group clients by price-increase “tier” (high, medium, low, or none). 3. Draft messaging by price-increase tier No one loves paying more money. But happy clients getting big results will be more open to an increase than an unhappy client that isn’t satisfied with their results. Thus, you’ll want to draft two to four versions of the messaging about the price increase. Here are some pre-written examples to help you get started. Example 1: A h...
The search for business financing can be frustrating. Banks don’t want to lend to you because they say your company is too risky. Venture capitalists say you’re not fundable. And angel investors? Well, they can be hard to find. Is crowdfunding the answer? Kickstarter and Indiegogo can work well—especially if you can offer great rewards and you’re excellent at online marketing. But there’s another way to raise money from the crowd. It’s called equity crowdfunding. Now you can sell shares of your business to just about anyone. And no, it’s not just for tech companies. What is equity crowdfunding? Equity crowdfunding—also known as crowd-investing or investment crowdfunding—lets startups and private businesses raise capital from the public (i.e., the “crowd”). Basically, it allows everyday people to invest in your business and in exchange, you offer them equity in your business (think Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den). Each investor is entitled to a stake in your company proportional to their investment. And these days, anyone can be an investor. This type of fundraising has always existed, but until recently, you could only sell your business shares to accredited investors—relatively wealthy individuals who met specific net worth and income criteria. Now, your cousin, your neighbor, or almost any public member can buy shares as a non-accredited investor, provided you set your business up properly (more on that later). Equity crowdfunding vs. crowdfunding Crowdfunding refers to raising money from the public, primarily through online forums, social media, and crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter to finance a new project or venture. In return, these people might get a reward, like a copy of what’s being produced, for example, or nothing at all. Project creators on Kickstarter and similar platforms maintain 100% ownership of their work and business. With equity crowdfunding, the crowd can fund your business or project. In exchange for relatively small amounts of cash, public investors get a proportionate slice of equity in your business venture. How does equity crowdfunding work? Navigating the equity crowdfunding landscape can be pretty confusing. Typically, securities and those who offer securities to the public must be registered and subject to regulation. Securities regulation protects investors by ensuring that investors obtain the information they need to make an informed decision, and that issuers are held accountable for any misrepresentations or fraud. But equity crowdfunding is considered an exception. In recent years, regulatory bodies have allowed registered platforms to act as an intermediary between crowdfunding issuers and your investors. But that means you can only raise financing this way by signing up for a registered equity crowdfunding platform in your country or region. There are plenty of equity crowdfunding sites out there right now, but you should do your research to find the right one for your business. In general, FrontFundr is one of the best Canadian portals for equity crowdfunding and in the USA, SeedInvest and Indiegogo are the better options. And depending on your campaign and how many investors you’re looking for, it may even be an option to use more than one platform. While the structure of your offer, including the equity percentage and the type of securities you will sell, is a bit complicated and best done with the help of your lawyer, the process of creating a campaign is fairly straightforward. Here’s a general overview of how the process works in the U.S. and in Canada: Sign up for a registered equity crowdfunding platform. Set up an offer on a registered equity crowdfunding platform and raise funding in exchange for real, legal shares in your company. Make your pitch. Once accepted by your platform, you have to prepare your crowdfunding pitch. This is the most time-consuming part of the process and may involve frequent iterations to keep interested going. You’ll also have to determine your pitc...
At Rewind, one of the events everyone looks forward to each year is the holiday party. It’s a chance to put on some fancy outfits, leave our laptops at home, and let loose with our colleagues. Since the pandemic, Zoom parties have become somewhat of a meme. To dispel the idea that virtual parties were lame by default, we challenged ourselves to organize the most exciting holiday party ever hosted on Zoom. We thought it might be helpful to other remote companies if we wrote a post to share how we planned and organized a party on Zoom that people enjoyed. While our event was held to celebrate the holiday season, with a few tweaks, your team can easily adapt our tips and tricks to celebrate just about anything, from product launches to company anniversaries. This blog post will share our itinerary, the resources we used, and how our team of three planned and organized everything behind the scenes. We created this Trello Template your team can use to do the same. Our planning crew met for 30-minutes each week for 6 weeks leading up to the party to brainstorm and assign action items. After each meeting, we had a few hours of homework to complete before our next meeting. The hardest part was keeping everything we were working on a secret from our colleagues. We planned for our holiday party to be 3 hours long. We originally felt like that might be too long, but once we planned the events, we expected that if everyone was engaged that’s how long it would take from start to finish. The event ended up running for a little bit over 3 hours. We recommend scheduling more time in the company calendar than you think you’ll need. We had asked everyone in advance to dress up for the event and were delighted to see everyone showing up wearing festive hats, ugly Christmas sweaters, and (you guessed it!) holiday Zoom backgrounds. Once we had our custom designs ready, we placed our orders online and shipped all the items to a local gifting company, Parcelly, to fulfill, package, and ship the gifts to each employee’s mailing address. “Companies moving their social events onto platforms like Zoom always struck me as a type of “forced fun.” To my delight, this was not the case for Rewind’s annual holiday party. Participation from the whole company, especially leadership, and activities that got employees to engage, led to it being a blast. That it was all done over Zoom soon became an afterthought. Sachin, First-Time Rewind Party Attendee The Party Before we get into the details of how we organized everything, we’ll start by giving you a brief overview of the event itself: To create a festive atmosphere right from the start, we asked our musically-talented colleagues, Mats and Ryan, to play the piano and sing as people entered the meeting room. The Prep Employee Gifts One of the first things we got started on was planning gifts for our employees. We wanted to kick off the event with something exciting that everyone could participate in together remotely. The idea was to ship each employee a box of surprise goodies and do a live unboxing on Zoom. Pro Tip: Before getting started, ask employees to update their mailing addresses in your HR software. There were a few things we considered when conceptualizing gifts. First, we wanted to support small local businesses. We researched and sourced items from local vendors that would appeal to a large audience such as chocolate from Ottawa chocolatier Alicja Confections and coffee from our friends at Brown Bag Coffee Roasters. Second, we wanted to create some collectible items with Rewind branding. We leaned on our designer, Stacey to create designs for a custom Happy Holidays greeting card, a holiday mug, and a “Be Kind, Rewind” laptop sticker. Third, we had to ensure that no one would open their gifts before the Zoom party. Stacey came to the rescue and designed these stickers to caution people against opening their gifts too early. Office Awards Unsurprisingly, the Rewind team has many fans of The Office....
Welcome to another edition of API deprecations at Shopify, where we dive into the breaking changes coming into effect for all supported versions. In this edition, we’ll review the breaking changes in the 2021-07 API version, the oldest supported version as of April 1, 2022. This includes vital information for developers of private apps. Let’s take a look. A quick refresher on versioning Before we dive into the changes headed your way, let’s revisit how API versioning at Shopify works. We release a version every quarter. These releases typically happen on or around January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1. Versions are named in a year-month format (e.g. 2022-01), ensuring that it will always be easy to identify the time the version became stable, as well as compare the timelines of multiple versions. Apps make requests to a specific version of the API by specifying it in the request URL. While the Shopify APIs continuously evolve, apps can be built on a stable version to ensure that the API contract remains constant. Keep in mind this means that any features released after your targeted version won’t be accessible until you update your request URL. We release features to merchants continuously. To ship features without affecting the latest stable APIs, we use release candidates. The release candidate is simply the next API version, and can be targeted for requests using the same year-month format. In the release candidate, you’ll find the latest set of features that have just been released. However, since it’s continuously evolving, you should avoid using the release candidate for your app’s general everyday consumption of the API. To have both the benefit of stability and access to the latest features, we recommend keeping your app’s everyday requests on a stable version, and only moving specific calls that deal with newly released features to the release candidate. Apps that do not request a specific version are served the oldest supported version. This allowed existing apps to continue functioning when we shipped versioning, without having to update to the new URLs. This concept also applies to apps explicitly calling versions that are no longer supported. While every app will benefit from this mechanism preventing all of their requests from erroring out after a version switch, we recommend targeting recent releases intentionally. Versions are supported for one year. Removing support for versions allows us to stay agile and make the changes needed to best serve our merchants and the Shopify platform for the long term. While versions are supported for one year, this means that apps actually only have nine months to adopt these new changes and take advantage of new features before the old behavior is no longer available. With this refresher at the top of our mind, let’s review the key information you’ll need to be ready for April 1, 2022. What’s happening on April 1 On April 1, 2022, the following changes will come into effect on our APIs for both public and private apps: The 2022-04 version will become stable and ready for general usage. The 2021-04 version will become unsupported. Requests that have been deprecated by changes in 2021-07 will cause your app to be flagged. To minimize merchant impact, Shopify will de-list flagged apps from the Shopify App Store and block new installs. Additionally, we may notify merchants that your apps are no longer supported. Shortly afterward, at our discretion: Requests with no API version specified will be served the 2021-07 version. Requests for the 2021-04 version will no longer receive that version. Instead, these requests will fall forward to 2021-07. Webhooks set to 2021-04 will fall forward in the same manner. Most importantly, the 2021-07 API version, which will become the default version, includes breaking API changes. If your app is making requests that would break in 2021-04, you need to take action and migrate those requests before April 1, 2022. Failure to do so will resul...
One thing most online retailers strive for is a shopping experience that users adore. It’s challenging to cover all your bases with various search filters and specials to ensure you hit all the high notes. Competition is quite fierce in the e-commerce industry. If your site doesn’t provide an excellent customer experience (CX), you may lose more revenue than you can sustain. E-commerce filters can help fill the gap by making searches easy and highly functional for users. Unfortunately, filters can also break your business and cause your site visitors to bounce away. Why Are Filters Important for E-Commerce Websites? A recent report by Statista estimated around five billion global internet users, with those buying online spending about $5.2 trillion last year. The pandemic pushed more people toward the convenience of online shopping, and now more people than ever before hop on e-commerce pages to comparison shop and find products unavailable in local stores. Users might grow overwhelmed by the offerings if you have more than a few products in your store. Even clever categories only do so much to refine results. Filters are a must if you want to return results that perfectly meet the user’s needs and increase the chances of a sale. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind when adding filters to your e-commerce store: 1. Choose the Best Filters The filters you need will vary based on your target audience. For example, color might be essential if you sell clothing to young teenagers. People will also need to be able to filter by size. Some other things you might notice people pay attention to include what’s on sale or a particular style of clothing. For different audiences, color may not be as important as fit. You’ll have to survey your customers and pay attention to internal analytics to determine what matters to your patrons. Source: Bellelily uses both categories and filters to separate their clothing. Shoppers can hunt for new arrivals, best sellers, or by type of clothing pieces, such as a top or dress. Once on the category page, you can further refine your selections. For the “Tops” page, you can filter down by tees, tanks, blouses, and long sleeves. Other filters include color, size, and price range. These are likely the things people most commonly hunt for clothing by. 2. Include All Options If you’re going to add a filter, make sure you include all options. For example, if offering a color filter, add all the colors of your products so that the database can return the correct results. How people select product descriptions when uploading new products becomes vitally important. If orange is left unchecked, but the blouse is orange, you’re missing potential sales. 3. Sort by Reviews One thing a lot of e-commerce sites miss is sorting results by customer ratings. People sometimes want to know which of your products were marked as the best by their peers. Adding a filter that sorts by reviews let them see the top results and narrow their choices. Source: Check out how mac of all trades uses its filters to help its online visitors. You can sort by type of desktop. However, you can also check the memory, grade, or price range. Everyone should be able to find an Apple computer they can afford and meets their needs personally or professionally. 4. Create a Balance in the Number of Filters E-commerce stores are on target to bring in more than $5 billion this year. To take full advantage of your portion of the pie, you must carefully select how many filters you add. Too many, and you risk the person growing frustrated at all the choices. Too few, and users might get aggravated at the lack of narrowing the choices down. 5. Make Searches Easier What about the customers who know exactly what they want? For example, you might have clientele who always buy the same brands or the same line of products. It would help if you had a way for them to filter by brand alongside other filters to get to the exact item they want. Sometimes ...
When a company can bring flexibility to another business, it can be a recipe for success. And a win-win for both parties. Afterpay, a Bold partner, has established a sterling reputation among its merchants for layering a flexible payment structure for shoppers, known in the industry as Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL). How does BNPL work? When a consumer visits a retailer that has partnered with a BNPL service such as Afterpay, they have the option at checkout to divide the cost of their purchase into four interest-free installment payments. As a Lightspeed report noted, “Online shoppers are coming to expect an option to buy now and pay later everywhere they shop online.” Based in Australia, Afterpay is offered by nearly 100,000 of the world’s favorite retailers (American Eagle, Bed Bath & Beyond, Ray-Ban, etc) and has nearly 20 million customers in North America alone. Giving customers alternative payment options can endear shoppers to brands. “Afterpay is a clear win for merchants, as they can offer their customers payment flexibility without requiring them to enter into a traditional loan or pay interest,” says Sarah Clansky, Director of Channel Partnerships at Afterpay. “Our merchant partners receive the full amount of each purchase upfront, and we take on the full risk of repayment. For brands and retailers, this leads to many business benefits such as increased conversion rates and sales, new customers, lower return rates, and higher average order values and basket size.” Afterpay has no interest. There are also no fees if payment installments are paid on time. Driving growth for brands is at the heart of what Afterpay does. An Accenture report found that merchants using Afterpay gained $4.5 billion in net benefits in 2021, including almost $1.2 billion in net benefits for SMBs. Afterpay is competing in a surging space. The global BNPL market size is expected to reach $20.40 billion by 2028, registering a CAGR of 22.4% from 2021 to 2028. Going beyond a simple partnership What merchants also appreciate about Afterpay, notes Clansky, is how a BNPL provider can be more than a payments provider but also a marketing partner. “Many customers will start their shopping journey on our Shop Directory, and oftentimes use it as a place to discover new brands and products,” she says. Due to how the pandemic has accelerated the growth of ecommerce, consumers have now become used to the ease and flexibility of online shopping, forcing retailers to bring online convenience to the in-store experience, Clansky adds. She goes on to speak on Afterpay’s omnichannel model, “Afterpay has helped brands overcome this challenge by allowing them to offer the BNPL service both online and in-store. Launching Afterpay in stores is a light lift for retailers, and provides them with a safe, contactless payment solution to offer to their customers.” Looking to take advantage of innovative technology, Afterpay recently teamed with Westfield shopping centers on an augmented reality (AR)-activated scavenger hunt that offers QR codes for shoppers to scan and unlock deals and promotions at Afterpay-backed retailers. And in 2021, they also unveiled two new products for merchants: Afterpay iQ is a customer-centric analytics tool to help brands evaluate marketing performance, omnichannel shopping volumes, and demographic summaries down to the store level; and Afterpay Ads introduces a new suite of advertising products to “help brands reach, acquire and activate high intent, loyal shoppers across the Afterpay ecosystem,” as the release writes. What Afterpay provides to merchants and, through a behind-the-screens assist, to shoppers can be a teachable moment to other business leaders: make flexibility a priority, help your brand partners market to consumers, and adopt next-gen technology to continue to develop product lines that will retain core customers and open the door to new revenue. Late fees may apply. Eligibility criteria apply. See www.afterpay.com for more d...
Teaching Kids About Giving: The Why, The How, and The How Soon Most parents want to raise their children to become kind adults, empathize with those less fortunate, and do something about it. One of the better ways to encourage that is to teach them about charitable giving from an early age. This includes everything from sharing toys at playtime, to inviting kids to join in recess games, to setting aside some of their money to donate to charities. Here’s what you need to know to get started today. Teaching our kids to give charitably raises them into better human beings. We also know some of the specific traits this builds in children, which they can use as adults and while they grow. When kids give, they think about what their gifts do for those they help. If they invite a lonely classmate to join in a game, they understand loneliness. If they give some of their allowance to a food bank, they think about how hungry they might feel if they didn’t have food. By making a difference in somebody’s life, children consider what might have happened without their help. This builds empathy and compassion, traits that rely on the proverbial “walk in someone else’s shoes.” It Encourages Them to Explore Their Interests If a child is interested in the cultures and languages of Southeast Asia, then giving to a charity based in that region helps them explore that interest in a new way. If they love to read, volunteering at a library lets them dive deeper into the world of books. Whatever your child is fascinated with, there’s a way to give that immerses them more fully in that topic. On a more functional level, getting involved in those passions early through giving also helps them in their professional life later. It introduces them to the structures and systems of that passion and could even help them find mentors and influencers in the field. Empathizing with less fortunate people also helps kids appreciate their own lives. Thinking about what hunger feels like inspires gratitude for a full belly. Delivering charitable holiday gifts instills a sense of appreciation for the packages under the tree at home. Research has found that gratitude strengthens relationships, improves physical and psychological health, reduces aggression, improves self-esteem, and improves sleep quality. That’s not a bad return on a few hours or dollars given to worthy causes. Now that we’ve seen how powerful it can be to teach our kids charitable giving, let’s look at some methods. Charity isn’t restricted to writing checks or slipping bills into a donation jar, after all. 1. Reinforce Kindness Early and Often When adults give to charity, we get a dopamine hit that makes us feel good about ourselves and the world for a little while. Kids get that too, but we can reinforce it. If we praise our children any time we catch them doing something kind for others, we give them that same dopamine hit we get from formal giving. This can be even more powerful if we ask them how they felt about whatever kind of thing they did. They get the neurological benefits and the lesson of deeper thinking about empathy and charity. Giving money or other support from a distance provides the personal benefits of charity and supports the cause. However, it can be too abstract for younger children to understand and engage with. Most nonprofit organizations give tours to people who want to know what they do and why. Unless their facility is dangerous in some way, they often love to bring kids in to teach them about their mission. This in-person visit can help children understand how their efforts and donations help people. 3. Make Giving a Budget Line Item When your kids earn money, consider portioning it into cash to spend, money to save, and money to donate. The exact proportions are up to you, but it’s a tangible way to encourage kids to think about charity early and plan their finances accordingly. Make a line item in your own budget for supporting causes you find essential. Share this...
Messenger marketing is a trend that has been making the rounds in the digital marketing industry. Basically, companies send marketing material via messaging applications, such as Facebook Messenger. These messages can come in the form of text, audio, video, images, and can even be sent through chat bots. Messenger Marketing is effective because it gives the company a direct connection to its audience and target market. Second, there are 1.5 billion users on Messenger giving companies a more efficient way to make their products and services visible. The vast amount of users stems from the fact that more and more people are using their phones to use the internet. Maryville University reveals that there was a 63% year-over-year increase in mobile traffic back in 2016. This hasn’t slowed down, as that number continues to increase to this day. While messenger marketing can be an effective way to reach your intended audience and potential customers, there are common errors companies make. Here, are a few tips to avoid these mistakes, and you can maximize your results on messenger marketing Generic Content One common mistake when it comes to Messenger marketing is using the same material from your other social media platforms in your messages. Aside from being generic, they don’t maximize the capacity and potential of the method, as they were written with other platforms in mind. You can avoid this by sending tailored messages in your campaigns. This is especially useful for eCommerce websites, as it encourages potential and past customers to revisit your site. ShopMessage aids companies in this process, as it allows them to send personalized messages that are based on a customer’s activity. Long Messages Time Magazine, points out that people have shorter attention spans now more than ever, people lose interest after a mere eight seconds. While other platforms are still suited for long-form content, this isn’t the case for Messenger. The best way to grab your customer’s attention is to maintain a conversational tone that is aligned with your company’s brand. Keep your messages concise, casual, and straight to the point. A good rule of thumb is to avoid sending messages that are longer than three sentences. Complicated Chatbots Companies usually bog down the process with unnecessary chatbot complexities. A good way to avoid this is to establish your goals and expectations before setting it up. Remember, the main objective is to increase sales and build your brand. A focused chatbot is more effective than trying to shove in multiple tasks that could just confuse your entire Messenger marketing strategy. Written for ShopMessageBy Robene Jade This originally appeared on Shop Message and is made available here to educate and cast a wider net of discovery.
Living in a post-COVID-19 world has changed the entire curriculum of all industries. A boost in designing virtual workplaces for employees was witnessed and along with it, came a need to devise effective strategies to manage these virtual workplaces. Hiring a remote team and managing it has its fair share of challenges but if managed wisely, remote work can have resulted in positive employee productivity. Bringing about a real change takes time but if sincere efforts are put in, positive results can be achieved quicker than expected. Below are 5 amazing techniques to ensure effective virtual workplace productivity and performance to help you grow your business! Introduce a strong company culture A strong workplace culture leads to positive employee productivity. Before you hire your new remote staff and set your standard of expectations, it should be noted that a strong work culture comes as a prerequisite, so your employees are motivated to perform to the best of their abilities. This can be ensured through a multitude of methods. Some companies maintain workplace productivity by monitoring and keeping a track of employees’ performance on an hourly or weekly basis. This prevents employees from becoming neglectful of their duties. However, it has been argued that most employees find this type of micromanaging regimented which leads to frustrated employees who do not appreciate such stringent monitoring methods. Another method involves hiring value-centric candidates and setting weekly or monthly goals for them to aim at. This means that the productivity of employees is measured through their productivity results rather than keeping a check on how busy an employee may seem during his working hours. Apart from that, your company must outline a clear framework of work policies. Though remote working is more flexible and unconventional than traditional workspace environments, a proper set of company guidelines still needs to be put in place so your employees can understand what is expected of them. Ensure giving out clear company guidelines and expectations A spectrum of things is required to create a productive remote workplace. One of them is effective communication guidelines. If a company fails to produce a clear set of company guidelines and policies, its employees are likely to find themselves in a confused state and would struggle to reach their maximum working potential. Although guidelines for each company are determined by its niche and industry, here are some of the basic points you might want to consider: What and where to employ given communication tools and strategies Use of understandable vocabulary to ensure that voice of guidance is conveyed well A guideline that focuses on virtual meeting etiquette Short training for all employees to prepare urgent documents A virtual tour of your work environment will help a new employee understand his/her duty in a friendlier way Offering different remote setups Although work-from-home is the new normal and as comfortable as it may sound, some people do not feel productive working from home. This could be due to several reasons. For example, your employee may not have enough space at home or he/she may feel too distracted to work in their comfort place. Many employees still miss the pre-COVID hustle and bustle of their office. And to cater to this need, you can provide access to co-working spaces to your employees. It is much easier and cheaper than finding an office and renting it for your staff. Numerous co-working spaces can be accessed globally. Those of your employees who feel most productive in the comfort of their homes, need to make sure that they have access to all the right tools without interference. If affordable, your company can also provide employees with work from home stipend allowing them to buy the necessary equipment for effective performance. Stay in touch with your employee’s professional and personal well-being Maximum employee engagement is the backbo...
Reading Time: 5 minutes Confused about how to set up emails for a new Shopify store? Yes, Shopify email setup can be tricky, especially for folks without previous experience or technical background. That’s why we created this simple guide. Keep reading to learn how to set up Shopify email in less than an hour. Shopify Email requirements First things first: You can only use the Shopify Email app if your store has a paid subscription. If you’re still on the trial plan, Shopify allows sending test emails to yourself only. So Make sure you bought a paid plan before starting the Shopify email setup. The cheapest subscription costs $29/mo. See the Shopify pricing plans here. Shopify email setup Go to the Shopify Email app page to begin. Click Add app and follow the instructions to start the installation. Logging into Shopify is required to continue. Once you’re logged in Click Install App. In about five seconds, Shopify Email will be ready to use. One important note: Shopify doesn’t host your emails. More specifically: you can’t reply directly to your customers from your Shopify email. Instead, they offer two options: email forwarding and third-party hosting. Forwarding means your emails will have @shopifyemail.com at the end. In this case, the messages won’t look very professional. But if you’d like to use this option, use the Add forwarding email address in Domains (now under Settings) in the Shopify dashboard. This option is only available for custom domains (not ending in myshopify.com) purchased through Shopify. Watch Shopify’s walkthrough here: Third-party hosting means using another service to host your emails. It’s a great option that many stores use. With Shopify, you can select between Google Workspace and Zoho Mail. To add a third-party email hosting service Go to Online store > Domains and click your domain under Shopify-managed domains. The Domains option will only be visible if you’ve purchased a custom domain through Shopify. Click on Manage. There, in the Email section, choose Use third-party hosting service. This window will appear, allowing you to make a choice. The meta tag or TXT that you see on the picture can be obtained from your chosen email hosting provider. You can also watch a video walkthrough from Shopify: To connect your Shopify store to any of those two email hosting services: Go to your Shopify dashboard > Settings > Domains. There Click Connect existing domain and type in your store’s URL. If your store is registered with these Shopify partners, an option to connect automatically will appear. Here’s how it looks. Click Connect automatically and follow instructions. How to add SPF and DKIM records to Shopify If you chose a third-party Shopify email hosting provider Shopify says you need to add Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records and Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) records to your account. Otherwise, your emails will be shown as being sent from [email protected] or, worse, flagged as spam. To add Shopify SPF and DKIM: Go to Settings in your dash Click Edit in Contact Information Choose Fix this Click Authenticate in Sender email Enter SPF and DKIM according to instructions Once this is done, you can feel confident that your emails will be delivered to customers. If you need more help with this step, see this SPF & DKIM records guide. Shopify email marketing with Omnisend Shopify Email is an okay email marketing option with an average rating of 4.4 stars. Users are generally satisfied but many reviews suggest a lack of automation and too few templates. If checking out some alternatives is something that crossed your mind, let us suggest Omnisend. You get: Top-rated customer support Free plan with 500 emails/mo Best-in-class email automations Stunning email templates SMS marketing features The app has 3,600+ 5-star reviews from Shopify users. If you’re interested—taking Omnisend for a spin is easy (and free). The basic steps: Go to Omnisend’s page on the Shopify App Store and click Add app. After...
Direct store delivery (DSD) is an attractive option for many wholesalers since it provides advantages over centralized distribution. Immediate store delivery (DSD) is an ideal sales channel since it expedites the delivery of products to customers and applies to all products. In contrast, centralized distribution is best suited for products that are easy to ship, require minor special handling, and have a long shelf life. Shops are attempting to improve by cutting costs and stock in the supply chain, speeding up delivery times, and being more responsive to customers’ needs. As a result, many manufacturers are abandoning their multi-tiered DSD distributor systems in favor of the DSD Model. Connect your data and infrastructures With so many field personnel making deliveries and processing customer orders, you must keep your data organized and accessible from a single platform. This necessitates adopting user-friendly DSD software that can be accessed by route employees, sales representatives, and back-office workers without requiring special training or hardware. Here’s where route accounting software comes in handy; it streamlines invoicing customers, collects payments, and manages inventory and shipments from the field. It will provide route employees rapid and efficient access to vital information and eliminate order entry errors. Your software must interface in real-time with core systems, including your ERP, so field workers are always informed (as will your back office staff). Keep your field workers in the loop Not just sales reps should know your company’s offerings. It would be best to inform your drivers to make sales and answer client questions. Include an e-Catalog with graphics and product information in your DSD sales plan. Your personnel will also need sales and order history. This helps them counsel customers and recommend products that close deals. To boost sales, offer ‘account-specific’ incentives based on client preferences and order history. You can turn them into sales reps by giving your field personnel simple online and offline access to customer and product information. Your field workers can sell from anywhere, anytime, and even when delivering. Intensify productivity With so many simultaneous deliveries, manufacturers and wholesale distributors need a method for tracking field activity. Managers should also have real-time access to information regarding worker locations and completed tasks. So, they can ensure the route crew is on time, making deliveries, and reacting to last-minute sales and delivery demands. Field personnel should access sales data, but supervisors should also oversee direct store deliveries to reduce errors. To track deliveries and sales, digital delivery and order entry technologies offer electronic proof of delivery (ePOD), invoicing, and payments, shortening the billing cycle. Utilize your mobility to its full potential Mobile devices coupled with route accounting software may readily deliver all the customer, product, and sales information that field employees need while in the field. Use a DSD platform compatible with several operating systems so that your field reps can “bring their own device” (BYOD) on the road instead of buying new hardware for everyone on staff. The platform must support offline use to ensure that field employees can access data and information without connecting to the internet. Go native for further perks A native mobile app that works on Android and iOS can take advantage of the device’s built-in features such as the camera for scanning barcodes, calendar, push notifications, and geo-location to log places and times, allowing companies to collect valuable information on their drivers while facilitating employee ease-of-use. Direct store delivery shouldn’t be haphazard. Using the latest DSD and Route Accounting technologies, wholesalers and distributors may optimize their DSD sales and enhance their route employees.
When was the last time you checked your email? If you answered “today,” you’re not alone. In fact, more than 80% of Americans report checking their inbox daily, with a thundering 63% majority checking it multiple times a day. Despite its age, email hasn’t stopped growing. The number of email users worldwide has increased every year since its inception and is estimated to top 4.2 billion by the end of 2022. That’s what makes a good email marketing campaign so important. Social media and paid ads are a great way to find new customers, but neither offer the level of control over your customer journey that comes with audience segmentation and a good email marketing campaign. If you’re looking to create a successful email marketing campaign, you need to see what a good marketing email looks like. That’s why we’ve put together a list of some of our favorite recent email marketing examples from independent brands. 21 extraordinary email marketing examples to inspire you 1. Poppy Barley The brand: Poppy Barley is a retailer with stores in Calgary and Edmonton, specializing in leather footwear and accessories, like backpacks, wallets, and purses. Poppy Barley is branded similarly to a lot of high-end retail outlets that sell similar products, but with one crucial difference—its commitment to ethical business practices. Poppy Barley’s goal is to rethink the ethics of the fashion industry, from production to distribution. It only uses sustainable materials in its products and packaging. It only works with factories that meet certain standards for ethical production (which includes human rights, gender equality standards, and the right of workers to unionize). Subject: Hello, new friend! Type of email: Welcome email Why it works: In “Hello, new friend!” Poppy Barley wastes no time in setting itself apart from other luxury goods retailers. The header image cheekily crosses out “New York” and replaces it with “Edmonton” when labeling where products are designed. It replaces “Italy” with “Mexico” when listing where the products are manufactured. In doing this, the email makes a direct comparison to its competitors—high-fashion companies usually based in big fashion cities like New York and Milan. This immediately sets the brand apart. Good branding is all about telling consumers what makes you different, and Poppy Barley wastes no time getting to it. The email lists what makes the company different and uses calls to action (CTAs) to direct customers to where they can find more info about what makes them different. Takeaway: Welcome emails are the perfect opportunity to tell audiences what makes your brand unique from your competitors. 2. Doomlings The brand: Doomlings is a post-apocalyptic card game where players have to survive the end of the world. Each round, a new catastrophe brings about the end of the world, and players draw cards that assign them certain “traits” that can be used to defend against the catastrophe. Doomlings is both a game and a hobby. In addition to selling the standard edition of the game, the Doomlings ecommerce store also sells expansion packs and sleeves of cards that fans can add to their collection or trade with other players. Subject: Welcome to the end of the world! Type of email: Welcome email Why it works: Even before the recipient opens the welcome email, Doomlings’ apocalyptic tongue-in-cheek humor is apparent right away, with a foreboding, yet playful subject line that’s nearly impossible to ignore. Once inside, recipients are offered a discount for first-time purchases to encourage sales, given more background on the game’s founders, and shown convenient links to their product collections. Takeaway: Know your target audience. Don’t be afraid to be bold in appealing to an audience that is receptive to boldness. 3. Nonna Live The brand: Every week, Nonna Nerina welcomes online audiences into her kitchen, located in a small village in Italy, for Nona Live, a cooking class where viewers are taught authen...
We know Q4 ROAS typically dips then spikes around Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But not all verticals experience the same bump. The Health and Wellness category remains relatively flat (likely because people don’t necessarily “gift” these items). Whereas Fashion & Apparel performs better than the overall store average. In fact, the Fashion & Apparel space maintains close-to-Black-Friday revenue levels for several weeks after BFCM weekend itself. These brands would do well to continue pushing ad spend through December. Facebook CPMs also vary between verticals: Fashion & Apparel and Food & Beverage show the lowest CPMs in Q4. Health & Wellness and Beauty & Cosmetics round out the higher end. Offers by Vertical: What Do Holiday Shoppers Expect? Pulling from our database of offers from 604 of ecommerce’s most successful brands, we broke it down using offer type by category. For Apparel & Accessories, Sitewide and Select SKUs reigned supreme. Home Goods followed suit with Sitewide, Select SKUs, and None taking prominence. Select SKUs led the Children and Baby vertical. Sitewide sales dominated the Beauty, Food & Beverage, and Health & Wellness industries. Although None was just as dominant for the latter industries. Transitioning from Black Friday to Cyber Monday What about the shift from Black Friday to Cyber Monday? How do online stores handle the different holidays? How do offers change? We turned to the data. The majority of brands kept their initial Black Friday offer into Cyber Monday. But plenty experimented with new offer types for the subsequent holiday. Focusing on Sitewide sales specifically, we looked at how often stores decided to either bump up (or bump down) discounts moving into Cyber Monday. Many more stores felt comfortable offering No Discount for Cyber Monday after running a Sitewide offer for Black Friday. Competitive analysis can help alleviate some of the uncertainty of the 2022 holiday season. What will your customers respond to most this year? Contact us to learn more about our data-backed approach to ecommerce growth. Eager to learn more? Stay up to date on the latest happenings in the DTC universe by signing up for our newsletter or partnering with our team. Melissa Rosen is the Director of Marketing and Content at Common Thread Collective. Based in San Diego, California, she has spent the last decade exploring how to create engaging content that inspires, teaches, and entertains. Melissa can be found on Twitter and LinkedIn talking all things content, marketing, and ecommerce. Special thanks to our friends at Common Thread Collective for their insights on this topic.
❓ We use a large number of discounts and we are trying to understand: do we have customers that only buy when there’s a promo? 💡 How to use Segments to answer this question: a. Create a segment of customers who made a purchase using any discount: 1. Open the Segments app and go to Segment Builder. 2. Click on add filter and select Discount code = not empty. 3. Click on Apply filters. 4. Review the metrics for this segment and click on save segment. b. Go one step further and review which customers didn’t use any discount (full price): 1. Open the Segment Builder. 2. Click on add filter and select Discount code = empty. Note: It’s possible that they still bought on discount but not using any promo codes, for example, if you make a store-level sale and everything was discounted. 3. Click on Apply filters. 4. Review the metrics for this segment and click on save segment. 🤔 What to do with this data? Email / SMS marketing – sync your discount buyers to your chosen email / SMS platform and split test different sale-based messaging and early access to new collections (full price only).Why? Because showcasing early access to new collections could push the customer over to purchasing full price. Advertising – sync your discount buyers to Facebook Ads create LAL audiences target with lead gen ads with creative showcasing early access to sales. Want to learn more about Segments and how our 30+ prebuilt customer segments, lifecycle grid and product journey maps can help drive long term, sustainable growth for your Shopify store? Try it free today This originally appeared on Segments and is made available here to cast a wider net of discovery.
In ecommerce, one-click checkout solutions are aimed at reducing friction and shortening the path to purchase by minimizing the number of form fields and clicks required to place an order. Savvy online shoppers expect easy, intuitive experiences, with an increasingly lower tolerance for too many steps in the process, or lack of preferred delivery and payment options. Despite ongoing investment in improving the end to end online shopping experience, overall cart abandonment rates continue to sit around 70%, according to Baymard Institute. A major contributor? Checkout abandonment. According to The Checkout Benchmark, almost half of all shoppers who proceed from cart into checkout, don’t complete their purchase. That’s a staggering volume of lost sales potential from shoppers that demonstrate strong intent to purchase but drop off during checkout. “While there will always be a certain amount of checkout abandonment — because some shoppers will start a checkout as part of their consideration process or simply to see if discounts are available — brands should strive to minimize friction in the checkout. Any extra friction in the checkout will increase checkout abandonment,” says Anatolii lakimets, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Bold Commerce. One-click checkout shortens the path to purchase in an effort to minimize friction by moving shoppers through checkout with fewer clicks. For a basic one time, one item purchase on a website, the concept of a shortcut through checkout with one-click is pretty straightforward. But with the shift in shopper interest to purchase in different channels like social or blogs, on a mix of devices, or without clicking at all (in the case of voice assistants), the requirements of a one-click checkout increase. Reducing friction isn’t about getting to one click at all costs, when some clicks are valuable ‘conversion boosters’. Shoppers expect BOPIS and other delivery options, payment options, the ability to collect loyalty points, or apply discounts during checkout. “Checkout used to be about taking payment, but in today’s world, checkout has become the orchestration point of all of these elements in a shopping experience. Exceptional customer journeys continue right through checkout,” says Deanna Traa, Chief Marketing Officer at Bold Commerce. “Brands need to think about the data and checkout logic they require through their checkout experience, especially when they are selecting a one-click solution. When you think about it, checkout is a critical moment of truth in a shopping journey to reinforce your brand experience.” 5 ways to tell your brand needs a customized one-click checkout Not all one-click checkout solutions are created equal. Many options, including digital wallets, require brands to make sacrifices to the shopping experience and the checkout logic in order to implement a one-click solution. This can mean serving up payment methods, delivery options, subscription offers, or the ability to collect or redeem loyalty points. For brands with simple business models and one item baskets, these sacrifices are smaller. For others, the effectiveness of a one-click checkout experience relies on the ability to customize it based the business model while also delivering brand consistency across every channel. Here are five indicators your brand would benefit from a customized one-click checkout solution:
1: Your shoppers are embracing alternative payment
A recent McKinsey report found that more than three-quarters of U.S. shoppers used some form of digital payment during the pandemic. Plus, the share of consumers using two or more digital payments methods is on the rise — jumping to 58% from 45% year over year. According to The Checkout Report, 38.7% of buyers chose PayPal as a payment option when offered. If your brand has a large number of users opting for alternative payment methods to credit cards, it could be a sign they are looking for a simpler, streamlined checkout experience. Digita...
Do you have an abandoned cart problem? If so, don’t panic, this is a very common issue for Shopify store owners. In fact, according to a Statista report, the average online shopping cart abandonment rate is a massive 79.8%. You’re in good company! A good Shopify abandoned cart app can win back a healthy percentage of this lost revenue. To help, we’ve put together a fresh list of the very best Shopify abandoned cart apps, based on both user reviews and their overall effectiveness. How to recover abandoned carts on Shopify? It’s simple: you choose the right Shopify abandoned cart app for your business and use it effectively. Usually, this means sending a series of carefully-timed messages over multiple channels, reminding the customer of their missed purchase. Messages can include things like a photo of the abandoned item, an easy link back to the product page, an incentive such as a discount or free shipping, and similar product recommendations. Popular channels to recover abandoned carts on Shopify include: Email: This is the most common and cost-effective method, converting an impressive 34% of lost orders SMS: These widely-read messages can add a sense of urgency to your abandoned cart series with time-sensitive deals Exit-intent popups: Catch users as they are preparing to navigate away from your store and give them a second chance to complete the purchase Website chatbots: These handy helpers guide users through the shopping experience and can leave subtle reminders about an unfinished purchase Push notifications: Increasingly popular push notifications give reminders directly on-screen, regardless of which website the user is browsing. It’s always a good idea to use a combination of these channels in your abandoned cart workflows. Let’s check out the best Shopify abandoned cart apps that allow you to do this. Best Shopify abandoned cart apps Omnisend Tidio Rivo Carti PushOwl Care Cart Persistent Cart Keep Cart by Marsello WhatsApp Abandoned Cart & Chat Facebook Messenger Cart Recovery 1. Omnisend Omnisend is the most complete marketing automation app for Shopify. Designed specifically for ecommerce retailers, it naturally includes powerful abandoned cart features. You can easily combine email, SMS, and more for a truly omnichannel abandoned cart strategy. Features: Advanced segmentation: Break your audience down into smaller, more specific categories for more personalized and relevant abandoned cart messages Pre-built automations: Save time with effective pre-built abandoned cart workflows created specifically for ecommerce and backed by data Drag-and-drop builder: If you want to customize you can with easy drag-and-drop functionality SMS and push integration: Seamlessly add SMS and push notifications into your abandoned cart workflows for urgency and time-sensitive deals Powerful analytics: Discover exactly what’s working and what needs a few tweaks with in-depth analytics and actionable insights Why choose Omnisend? With its focus on easy-to-use automation, Omnisend makes good on its promise of increasing your sales, not your workload. Workflows are quick to set up and run seamlessly in the background, driving sales on autopilot and drastically reducing your abandoned cart rate. Another useful feature of Omnisend is the ability to track visitors with cookies, so you can send abandoned cart messages to visitors who aren’t yet subscribed to your list. And the best part? All features are accessible on their free plan, so you can get started right away. Get Omnisend for free 2. Tidio Tidio prevents cart abandonment at its source by reaching out to shoppers while they’re still shopping. Using smart exit-intent technology, this Shopify abandoned cart app displays automatic reminders via chatbots. You can also “catch” customers in real-time with live chat. Features: Pre-built cart abandonment chatbots: For quick set up and start Drag-and-drop editor: To easily customize chatbots without coding skills Multiple languages: Pro...
February 14th is the day of love. Valentine’s Day is all about spoiling the people you love, whether this is your romantic partner, your best friends, your family, or even yourself! No matter if you opt for the classics: candles, lingerie, and flowers, or if you want to go outside of the box (of chocolates) with a memorable romantic dinner at home, this list of 14 small businesses has got you covered with a Valentine’s Day gift your love will love. No grocery store flowers and discount chocolates on your way home from work this year. Find that special gift for that special someone with this Valentine’s Day gift guide we are totally head over heels for. 1. Bijou Candles Set the mood with your special someone this year with these affordable luxury candles. Or indulge in some self care because who says you can’t be your own valentine? Bijou Candles offers pop culture candles that look good and smell even better. With 3 different sizes of candles and various candle sets, you’ll be sure to light up your valentine’s day with this gift idea. These clean-burning, soy candles can burn up to 140 hours making it the gift that keeps on giving. Did we mention customers even say they’re guaranteed to give off magical vibes? True story. Whatever February 14th means to you–Valentine’s, Galentine’s, Palentine’s, or Self-Love-entine’s (alright, we’re still working on that one), Bijou Candles sparks that magic you’ve been waiting for. 2. Pretty By Her Not the mushy gushy romantic type? Valentine’s Day doesn’t give you total heart eyes? Don’t worry–skip the traditional uber romantic gifts this year and stay true to yourself with a fun, sassy gift. Show your fun side with Pretty By Her’s collections of sassy greeting cards, wine labels, and stickers. Shop their line of “gifts for the person you kiss” for your partner or spoil your galentines or palentines with their friendship cards and gifts. This brand might be called Pretty by Her, but it definitely has gifts for everybody shown through their range of inclusive products and values. Give your special valentine a gift that will make them laugh because it’s just so you. 3. The Million Roses There’s a reason flowers are a tried and true Valentine’s day gift. Stick to the classics this year and give your special someone a single red rose or a full bouquet of beautiful flowers. The Million Roses specializes in beautiful personalized flower boxes of the timeless symbol of eternal love and affection: roses. These roses are hand picked from their private farm in Ecuador and can be shipped basically anywhere in the world. A perfect option for when you and your valentine are a country or even an ocean apart. Oh yeah, did we mention these roses last up to 3 years? Yup, that wasn’t a typo (don’t worry, we did a double take too). 3 years, 36 months, 1095 days or however you measure 3 years. So if you’re looking for a gift to make a long-lasting impression, here you are! 4. Wine Chateau Red, white, rosé, or champagne–Wine Chateau has you covered for when you’re looking to unwind with a nice glass of wine with your special someone. We’ve all gotten used to celebrating those special moments from the comfort of our living rooms for the past 2 years. But this February 14th, why don’t you swap the sweats and chips for some nicer clothes and a romantic dinner completed with a glass (or a few) of your favorite wine. Opting for Galentine’s or Palentine’s Day this year? Did somebody say rosé all day? Whatever your go-to celebration drink is, Wine Chateau has you covered with their wide selection of wines, spirits, and champagnes that can be ordered online and delivered right to your front door anywhere in the United States. 5. Curious Elixirs Skip the alcohol this year and make Valentine’s Day one to remember. This mocktail brand has a variety of booze-free cocktails for every occasion. Curious Elixirs is the perfect option for anybody who doesn’t drink alcohol and will help you step up your hosting game by offerin...
Maybe the writing was always on the wall. Given the data leaks and privacy scandals, we probably should have seen it coming. Deep down we knew . but chose to ignore it. Early last year, when Apple’s update required users to choose if they’d like their data collected by third-party applications, 96% opted out. And Facebook ROAS tanked by roughly 30% overnight. Needless to say, iOS 14 rocked ecommerce to its core. What if iOS 14 was a gift in disguise? Hear us out. iOS 14 was a rude awakening that many of us weren’t measuring the full efficacy of our ad spend. We got soft, complacent even, reliant on a number that hid the truth in plain sight. However, amid confusion and fear, we were forced to ask three questions we should have been asking all along . Are our ads actually working? Are we really making money? Are we selling the right products? As simple as they sound, these questions reveal more about ecommerce success than ROAS ever could. Even better, they’ll enable you to place three metrics that truly matter at the center of your business’ growth. ‘Are Your Ads Actually Working?’ 1. Google Analytics ROAS & Weighted CAC It’s impossible to overstate the confusion iOS threw over the DTC world. No one, not even Facebook, knew if the sudden plummet in ROAS was real, a reporting issue, or some combination of the two. Unfortunately, many businesses and agencies took it at face value. Across the ~250 ecommerce brands we monitor through Statlas — less than half of which are CTC clients — spend deceased by 23% comparing the three months before versus after iOS 14.5’s full rollout. To know if performance or attribution was at stake, we chose two metrics unaffected by Facebook tracking: Google Analytics last-click ROAS Customer acquisition cost (Weighted CAC) Google Analytics last-click depends solely on disciplined UTMs and “channel” grouping. It doesn’t take into account “view” attribution; so it’ll always be lower than Facebook ROAS. But that’s exactly the point. Historical data showed Google Analytics was not impacted to the same degree as Facebook. For example, here’s what we found for one of our fashion accessories clients: Of course, that’s not necessarily true for your business . Client by client we combed through the numbers. Below you’ll find four different brands (two of which we own and operate) showing the relationship between Facebook ROAS and Google Analytics last click. Unlike the table and graphic above, these plot the entire year. They also include correlation coefficients (r) used to determine how reliable Google Analytics was in setting new Facebook targets. In other words, that 30% plummet? Scary. But not necessarily reality. With some, we went as far back as three years to translate Google Analytics ROAS into Facebook ROAS targets. How? By benchmarking the relationship between pre versus post. If historically Google Analytics reported ROAS at ~50% of Facebook, then jumped to ~80% after iOS’s release . that meant our new Facebook target would be 80% of the original — from 1.50 to 0.88. For your own business, it’s far from ‘too late’ to do this analysis. There is one fatal flaw to using only Google Analytics as an index for your advertising results; it only gives credit to the highest-performing last-click campaigns. If someone doesn’t buy after clicking a prospecting ad, but buys within seven days after clicking a remarketing ad, Google Analytics will only give “credit” to the remarketing ad. Follow that to its (il)logical conclusion and you’ll over-dedicate funds to bottom-funnel campaigns and sacrifice top-funnel campaigns that are doing the heavy lifting. This is why understanding your weighted CAC is equally crucial. Thankfully, this one is a lot more simple and doesn’t depend on disciplined UTMs nor tight “channel” grouping. Calculating your weighted CAC is as easy as dividing your total ad spend by the number of new customers acquired. CAC clarifies how efficiently your business needs to acquire customers a...
Coca-Cola was the first brand to hook consumers with discounts when it released the very first coupon in 1887, redeemable for a free glass of Coke. More than a century later, you can still see the psychology behind that very first discount at work online. Receiving discounts releases oxytocin, in turn making shoppers happier—and less likely to abandon their carts. By 2017, 97% percent of retailers cited discounting as their top pricing strategy, and within the last two years, shoppers’ expectations of receiving a discount has only increased. According to one 2021 survey, 60% of US shoppers say that online discounts have become more important since the onset of the pandemic. Meanwhile, Shopify’s Future of Commerce report found that 52% of consumers are significantly influenced to hit Buy when they’re offered personalized discounts. The right type of discount can maximize sales, prevent shoppers from abandoning their carts, and entice first-time buyers to try a brand. But using the wrong type of discount can have adverse consequences, including lowered profits and a devalued brand We’ve put together this guide to help you determine how to offer the right type of discount to the right customers at the right time, including top-performing discount strategies you can start using today. Table of contents What’s the difference between discount codes and automatic discounts? Pros and cons of discounts codes Pros and cons of automatic discounts Why ecommerce merchants should consider a discount strategy Top performing discounts you can start using today Discount #1: Buy one, get one free (BOGO) Discount #2: Free gift with purchase Discount #3: First-time customer discount Discount #4: Tiered discounts by spending thresholds Discount #5: Personalization discounts What to consider when building a discount strategy When to use discount codes vs. automatic discounts What’s the difference between discount codes and automatic discounts? What works better: discount codes or automatic onsite discounts? Ultimately, the right approach to discounting hinges on what you sell, the customers you target, and the brand experience you wish to create. Specifically, will your target market be more inclined to purchase with discounts that appear automatically at checkout? Or might they be more persuaded to buy after receiving a discount code they need to enter during checkout? Your choice boils down to offering a self-serve discount model (the consumer manually enters a code) or setting up your online store to automatically apply discounts for the shopper. Discount codes Discounts can take the form of a fixed value, percentage, or discounts on products, collections, or variants in-store. Importantly, discount codes give you strict control over pricing and promotion: Increase your average order value (AOV) with discount codes that give customers “buy X, get Y” discounts. Limit the life of a particular discount code by specifying the dates for which the code is valid. Protect your brand and profit margins by limiting the number of times a code can be used, the minimum spend amount before the code can be used, and to which products, collections, or variants the discount can be applied. Even better, brands with an omnichannel retail strategy can let customers either redeem their discounts in an online store or in a brick-and-mortar retail location. Discount codes may be used to: Track conversion performance of social media influencer partnerships Promote a site-wide discount in a banner for anyone visiting your site Improve your customer service or abandoned cart email campaigns Out of Print—which sells out-of-print book covers on t-shirts, totes, and accessories—offers a site-wide discount code to first-time shoppers and those leaving who have not yet made a purchase. “It’s an incentive to make that first purchase,” says Chuck Mazzone, Digital Marketing Director at Out of Print. “But we’d rather shoppers focus their attention on our products instead of do...
With continuous technological advances, there’s more integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in many aspects of business’s daily operations. In fact, more companies are discovering the importance of AI in helping them generate more leads, understand their audience, reduce costs and increase output. Moreover, adopting these solutions into their systems helps increase customer satisfaction. The e-commerce industry, specifically, is at the forefront of adopting machine learning and artificial intelligence. Entrepreneurs could apply such modern solutions to improve their operations and boost their visibility in the digital platform. For instance, the market has some of the best AI marketing tools that business owners can leverage to promote brand awareness and attract more customers. With such innovation, businesses can offer more value to their customers by providing their desired products and delivering them on time through reliable means. AI can also enable e-commerce businesses to gain a competitive advantage by incorporating better and increasing customer loyalty. Whether you’re an eCommerce business owner looking into how your company can benefit from such technological advancement or a consumer wondering how AI can improve your online shopping, this article can be for you. In this post, we’ll explore the various applications of AI in eCommerce. Applications of AI in eCommerce For Business Owners Adopting AI can make your business operations more efficient with the following applications: 1. Chatbots To Answer Customer Query Most renowned e-commerce businesses have chatbots on their website to make the customer experience worthwhile. With chatbots in place, once consumers visit an eCommerce website, they’ll be greeted with a pop-up question on screen asking ‘how can I help?’. They can then use this feature to ask relevant questions and get immediate responses courtesy of the AI-programmed system. Utilizing this tool can go a long way in ensuring your customers are attended to 24/7, even when there aren’t live agents present to answer queries. This can come in handy since a buyer’s decision to purchase a product or avail themselves of a service might be affected by the time they wait for responses. Some prefer instant answers to their queries to help them decide whether to order a good or not. 2. Generation Of Product Descriptions Product descriptions give customers more information about the product and why they’re worth buying. A well-written one is critical to your business as it can act as a shop assistant for your customers. It can confirm whether the features of the product they intend to purchase match what they’re looking for. AI has made this task simple for business owners. Such a solution enables eCommerce businesses to generate unique and dynamic product descriptions automatically and within a short period. This is less time-consuming and more efficient, unlike the conventional way of writing an effective product description, which can take a while. 3. Handling And Processing Of Business Data Apart from the many products that e-commerce websites sell, they also have to deal with and organize a lot of data daily. This includes managing your product database and information such as: The total sales per day Purchases Inventory level Goods returned Customer information and purchasing patterns The total number of orders The number of successful deliveries Manually monitoring and assessing these data can be tedious and not to mention prone to human errors, and that’s where artificial intelligence comes into play. Aside from collecting and arranging records in an organized and structured format, AI can also make it more insightful. This makes it easier for business owners to understand how their company is performing, allowing them to make the necessary decisions for areas that need improvement. Such insight could also give them an in-depth overview of the customer purchasing patterns, enabling them to make person...
To ensure that building Shopify apps provides the best experience for both merchants and developers, we’re continuously working on new processes to improve app development. With our new theme app extensions, building apps for merchant’s storefronts has never been easier. When building a Shopify app that interacts with the online store, one of the most difficult aspects that developers encounter is ensuring that their app integrates safely and easily with all themes, while still being straightforward for a merchant to install. Shopify’s theme app extensions aim to remove this challenge by introducing a new streamlined method for apps to interact with themes, that improves the experience for both developers and merchants. Theme app extensions also ensure that apps integrate seamlessly with OS 2.0 themes, which we expect more merchants will continue to adopt throughout this year. “Merchants shouldn’t concern themselves with code. Generally, they aren’t technical and, even if they are, they need to spend their time on their business. We actually opted to delay our launch and migrated over to the new theme app extension framework.” App developers are already adopting theme app extensions and seeing the benefits. “Merchants shouldn’t concern themselves with code. Generally, they aren’t technical and, even if they are, they need to spend their time on their business,” Ryan Macdonald from Obsidian Apps says. “We actually opted to delay our launch and migrated over to the new theme app extension framework.” In this article, we’ll unpack how apps work with Shopify themes, the advantages of using theme app extensions, and how to get started with this approach for your own app. We’ll also learn how some Shopify app developers have implemented theme app extensions and what their experiences have been. How apps integrate with Shopify themes At Shopify Unite 2021, we released Theme App Extensions as part of Online Store 2.0 with a major update to how apps integrate with the storefront. Here’s a high level look at how both the old and new approaches work. Without theme app extensions Without theme app extensions, apps use the Asset API which gives them full read/write access to theme files. They then proceed to add and modify any number of files to get their app integrated into the theme. There are a number of issues with this approach: Developers need to determine exactly where to insert their code into the theme, which can vary depending on the theme. Apps may inadvertently break themes or introduce performance degradation issues. When an app is uninstalled, the code that was added isn’t removed, which leads to code running that is no longer needed or may no longer work. Shopify’s theme update mechanism only works on themes without code edits, so this approach prevents merchants from receiving updates to their theme, potentially blocking them from the latest features for their online store. With theme app extensions With theme app extensions, all the issues outlined above are solved as app developers no longer need to modify theme files directly. Instead, Shopify provides a way to build blocks that are added to a theme by the merchant in the editor and injected at render time by the platform. This avoids any potential integration bugs, keeps the theme untouched and eligible for updates and the app is automatically removed from the theme when uninstalled, no further cleanup needed. Furthermore, all of your theme app extension assets (liquid, CSS, JS, SVGs) are hosted on the Shopify platform and delivered through our CDN for fast performance all over the world. What are blocks? To understand theme app extensions, you first need to understand what blocks are in themes and how merchants interact with them. Blocks are modules of content that can be added, removed, and reordered within a section. This allows merchants to have granular control over the look and feel of every aspect of their online store. To learn more about blocks in themes and...
Reading Time: 9 minutes Looking for ideas for your Shopify clothing store? Look no further. With global retail sales of apparel and footwear reaching a staggering $1.9 trillion, the fashion industry is booming. Much of this growth is taking place online, with Shopify clothing stores playing a big part. In this article, we’re going to check out some of the very best Shopify clothing store examples. From attractive website designs to compelling email marketing to the interesting stories behind the brands, these popular clothing stores have found the right ingredients for ecommerce success. Ready to be inspired? Let’s go ahead and discover the top clothing stores on Shopify right now. Omnisend’s deep Shopify integration and feature-packed automation make email marketing a breeze. Start free today and take your Shopify clothing store to the next level. 11 best Shopify store examples Let’s look at the 11 best clothing stores we found on Shopify. 1. Naked and Famous Naked & Famous Denim “sources the world’s best fabric and turns it into awesome jeans.” This popular clothing store is driven by the passion of its founder, Bahzad Trinos. Trinos refers to himself as a “giant denim nerd,” and this really comes across in the meticulous detail of his products. The Shopify store itself is colorful and hip, displaying pop-culture-influenced collections with high-quality images. There’s a strong focus on customer education, with a fitting guide and raw denim tutorial just below the fold. Trinos credits the move to Omnised from Mailchimp for the success of his email marketing. With 19.75% of the store’s email marketing revenue coming from automation, effective automation workflows like welcome series and cart abandonment are vital. 2. Black Halo Black Halo is a female-founded Shopify clothing store that sells tailored dresses, business, and evening wear. Featuring a store that clearly illustrates different collections with attractive photos and easily-accessible CTAs, Black Halo also makes good use of Instagram. The brand has a strong following on the visually-focused platform, and it uses this effectively through the promotion of its “muses”—influencers who model their clothing. Black Halo has experienced strong growth after implementing a user-friendly email automation platform. “From the time we started implementing automations, we saw an increase of $20K in that first month,” said Director of Ecommerce and Digital Marketing Caely Lybeck. Currently, Black Halo is getting an impressive 36% of their email revenue from automations, despite them making up only 1.1% of total email sends. 3. SM Global SM Global is a K-Pop merchandise store for fans of the popular music genre from all over the world. This top Shopify store has attracted over 400,000 subscribers who get access to special deals, content, and loyalty programs. SM Global’s success is driven by retention and building customer loyalty, something that they achieve with the effective segmentation of their subscribers. This allows them to send the right messages to the right customers at the right times. Digital Marketing Director David Sung uses a data-driven approach to the store’s marketing, with a particular focus on A/B testing. “Once you have hundreds of thousands of customers in your database, even a 0.2 or 0.3 percent increase in any of your metrics can drastically have an improvement on your revenue overall,” he said. “So I do believe that A/B testing is crucial.” 4. Kerrits Kerrits designs and sells innovative performance clothing for women and children who ride horses. The brand has also recently a line of riding-inspired everyday clothing, for equestrian enthusiasts who wish to show their passion for horses wherever they go. What began as a wholesale company, Kerrits quickly identified direct-to-consumer as a fashion ecommerce trend and began reaching out with email marketing. Its bright and user-friendly Shopify store now handles both of Kerrits’ brands, offering a seamless...
They are dancers and videographers, writers and designers, gamers and comedians. Many terms have been flying around to group together these creative self-starters winning over audiences and monetizing their crafts online. Whatever you call them, they are a collective force. An estimated 50 million people make up the creator economy today. If TikTok’s recent announcement of one billion active users is any indication, that number will only grow. And, more tools, platforms, and ideas are emerging every day to make it easier for creators to own their futures. Understanding your value proposition is just the first step. Knowing where and how to reach the right audiences with the right content is crucial. But the term digital creator has a lot of nuance. You don’t necessarily need to have a charming on-camera presence or even be creative. There are many ways to lean into your specific strengths or interests and build a personal brand around them. Understanding your value proposition is just the first step. Knowing where and how to reach the right audiences with the right content is crucial. Here, we examine seven main creator archetypes, breaking down who they are, what makes them unique, and the best content ideas and channels for each. Use these as a tool to identify your own personality type and start your journey to becoming a financially independent creator. 💡 For brands: These archetypes can help you narrow down the best types of creators to approach for partnerships. We’ve already shared why influencer marketing can be a successful tool for your business. But finding the right creator to rep your brand will result in more authentic campaigns. What is a digital creator? Put simply, digital creators create online content and share it across social platforms like YouTube and TikTok or owned websites to reach a target audience. Content comes in multiple formats like video, images, and written content and the subject matter is even more broad. The past few years have made it more possible for independent digital creators to monetize the audiences they have built around their content. Many do so with brand partnerships, gated/paid content (through platforms like Patreon), ads, and merch. This has created the opportunity for more folks—not just top-tier influencers—to pursue a viable paying career as a creator. Monetize your personal brand and try Shopify free for 14 days Creator, content creator, digital creator, or influencer—what’s the difference? In many ways, these terms are interchangeable. Digital creators or content creators generally refer to those creating digital content, while the more broad term creator emerged to encompass those who may fall outside the “digital” definition. Think sculptors, gardeners, or athletes whose primary “content” isn’t digitally created but who are reaching audiences through digital means and accompanying digital content. The term Influencer preceded the web and its definition has evolved. It is still used most often today to refer more to those with larger followings who influence their audiences to engage with the content, make purchases, follow trends, or take another action. Creator was introduced as a modern umbrella term that includes influencers. Arguably, any online creator could be considered an influencer if they have a dedicated audience that is inspired to engage. There is still some dispute over the preferred words to use to describe creators and the fast-growing creator economy. Expect that as language evolution lags behind technology and trends, we may see more terms emerge. 7 creator archetypes Recently, we sliced digital creators by platform and medium to break down the most useful tools and software for each within the creator economy tech stack. Here, we’re dividing them in a different way, grouping them by skills, personality traits, and content subject matter to uncover seven main archetypes within the creator universe. 1. The Performer The Performers are creators skille...
If you’re wondering how to be an ally for the Black community this February, shopping from Black-owned businesses is a great place to start. Not only are you supporting a small business owner’s dream, but by shopping from Black-owned stores you are directly and sustainably supporting a community of entrepreneurs that has been deeply affected by systemic racism and disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we have compiled a list of 22 Black-owned small businesses to support in 2022 from four different categories— fashion and accessories, beauty and skincare, haircare, and home and lifestyle. We know that this list only scratches the surface of the millions of amazing Black-owned businesses online so we encourage you to shop around for more great finds. Without further ado, here is our list of Black-owned businesses to support. Fashion and accessories 1. The Wrap Life As a Black-owned business, The Wrap Life takes a stand on addressing appropriation related to wearing head wraps. They believe that “wearing head wraps is for everyone, because it has always been for everyone.” With inspiration from West African traditions of wearing head wraps for colorful self-expression, The Wrap Life offers a variety of product lines from turbans, to head wraps, to bandies in various collections including solid, handprinted, and non-traditional for all types of customers. They even reward their loyal customers through their Unwrap Rewards program and tiered-VIP program. 2. D’IYANU This bold fashion brand sells quality, trendy, African-inspired fashion at affordable prices. With product lines for women, men, children, and matching his and hers lines, D’IYANU truly offers clothing made for everyone. With a core value of “creating value within the community” D’IYANU donates a portion of their funds to various charities both within the US and internationally in African countries. To date, they’ve donated over $60k, making it easy to feel good about shopping with them. 3. Outtire We’ve got another apparel brand here that is far more than a fashion brand. This LGBTQ+ Black-owned brand aims to empower their community through “representative streetwear and queer focused philanthropy.” With new weekly designs and made-to-order products, Outtire keeps their customers looking stylish without the environmental implications of fast fashion. With non-gendered product collections including: Tees, Tanks, Sweatshirts, Hoodies, All-Over Tees, and Black Lives Matter, customers can feel comfortable and confident shopping for whatever clothing catches their eye. The definition of an inclusive, safe, and meaningful brand community if you ask us. 4. Black Girl Blessed Black Girl Blessed is a Black woman-owned business that “challenges you to change your perception of beauty, self-esteem, emotional strength, faith, and sisterhood as we grow together.” They sell a wide array of unique and colorful earrings including puff ball earrings, tassel earrings, and even a variety of dehydrated fruit earrings. If you’re up for a surprise, you can opt for one of their mystery boxes which include one statement pair and one pair of studs. 5. Neon Cowboys With a mission to spread joy and help their customers “glow from the inside out”, Neon Cowboys is a fashion tech brand specializing in wearable neon western cowboy apparel and accessories. Their neon cowboy hats, glow in the dark cowboy boots, and custom-made couture outfits are loved by celebrities and influencers alike. Kesha even sported one of their made-to-order outfits in her music video. Talk about a glowing endorsement. 6. Black Tribe Vibe Founded when CEO Trinity was only 14 years old, Black Tribe Vibe is a lifestyle and fashion brand that aims to connect, love, uplift, and build with those deriving from the African Diaspora. With the mission to create a tribe-like community, this apparel brand sells stylish clothing and accessories with powerful messages such as “Defend Black Womanhood” and “Black Lif...
did you know Omnisend customers automate 32% of their email conversions. Are you maximizing sales? automate my sales Reading Time: 10 minutes BigCommerce gives merchants plenty of opportunities for customization, but the theme you pick when starting out will have a direct impact on many areas of your design. Selecting a theme that aligns with the goals you have for your online store will help you achieve your ideal design as quickly and efficiently as possible. Different designs make sense for different businesses, but we’ve found that these ten options stand out from other BigCommerce themes. What to look for in a BigCommerce theme It’s easy to judge an ecommerce theme based on screenshots alone, but you’ll need to consider a few other factors in order to identify the best overall option for your BigCommerce store. Speed: One in four visitors will abandon your site after waiting for just four seconds, and a delay of just one second will lead to a 16% drop in customer satisfaction. Test a few different themes to see how each one affects your performance. Mobile friendliness: Mobile orders are expected to make up roughly three-quarters of all ecommerce sales in 2021. Your BigCommerce theme should work just as well on smartphones and tablets as it does on desktops and laptops. Customization: You’ll need to customize your theme to match your brand style and deliver a more personal customer experience. Themes with an overly rigid design will be difficult to adapt to the unique needs of your site. Home page: An ideal home page offers plenty of space for a captivating hero image while making it easy for users to navigate your site and find the products they’re looking for. Product pages: Product pages should include a high-resolution image, a detailed description of the item, shipping and return policies, and any other information that could make visitors more confident in their purchase. Support: Your theme provider should offer some basic support to help you respond to technical issues. While a few themes are developed and supported by BigCommerce itself, many more come from third-party providers. Pricing: While there are some free themes, a paid theme may be worth the price if it offers a unique design or powerful features that will add significant value to your site. Cart and checkout features: Persistent carts are a crucial feature for ecommerce businesses, ensuring that a visitor can leave your site, come back, and see the same products in their cart. Let’s look at the best BigCommerce themes that check these boxes. 1. Vault Main features: Vault is a free custom BigCommerce theme with a sleek design that should work well for all kinds of ecommerce brands. The Vault design includes a banner at the top of the page that could be used to highlight promo codes, order minimum for free shipping, information about processing delays, or anything else that might be relevant to your visitors. Price: free Optimized for: Vault is fully optimized for mobile devices, only making minor changes to the design in order to accommodate the smaller screen. One thing to watch out for in your mobile design is that the hero image will be a fraction of the size on a smartphone or tablet. Text in your hero image might look fine on a desktop, but it will likely be too small for your mobile visitors to read. Styles: Vault is currently available in three styles: Bright, which comes with orange elements Cool, which comes in blue Natural, which comes in green 2. Solar Main features: Solar provides a familiar ecommerce setup, with basic information at the top and a hero image for top products and offers. One unique element is the inclusion of category buttons on the sides of the page, leaving space for a hero image while making it easier for visitors to find the items they’re looking for. Price: At $300 per license, Solar is one of the more expensive BigCommerce templates we’ve covered. Optimized for: The Solar theme is optimized for mobile devices. Keep i...
In 2009, Brian Burke started to offer customers a trusted alternative to sell and buy refurbished Apple products. Originally operating on eBay, Brain migrated his business, RenewedMacs.com to Shopify to gain more control over the customer experience. In this episode of Shopify Masters, Brian shares with us the importance of personal branding, how he uses Linkedin to market his business, and his secret to achieving 6-figure monthly sales. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters. Show Notes Store: RenewedMacs Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter How this tech reseller moved from eBay to Shopify Felix: You started in 2009–that’s quite a long time in the ecommerce space. How did you get started in the beginning? Brian: I’ve always loved ecommerce. It started off on eBay, buying and selling stuff there. In 2009 I realized I needed an inbound sales channel so that’s when I built sellyourmac.com. It helped us get customers coming to our website and paying for their Apple products there instead of having to go through eBay. We’ve been growing that business organically, and each year we keep it going and help out more Apple customers. Felix: You started on eBay. Why was it important to get your own platform up off the ground, when you already had this inbound sales channel up and going? Brian: The biggest thing for us was controlling the customer experience. That’s the reason we launched our Shopify store. On eBay, they’ve stripped away more and more of the ability to control the customer experience and talk to your customers. For instance, when someone makes a purchase, you get a generic email. You can’t even reach out to them directly by email. Knowing we could control the customer experience better and interact with them more was the reason that drove us to launch our Shopify store. The customer experience is what’s going to keep people coming back. If you can’t control that and they don’t know you as your own brand, you’re not going to have these customers very long. Felix: What instance made you realize that you needed to own the customer experience aspect? Brian: I wouldn’t say the race to the bottom because we’re still getting really good pricing, but when someone comes back to buy their next computer, they’re not going to remember to go search for our eBay name. With our own platform, they’re going to remember the Renewed Macs website. Trying to build that trust for the future and being able to delight our customers in that manner, is really important. If we can’t even directly email our customers special offers or send them a gift or anything like that because we don’t have their information, that’s pretty tough. Felix: Did you have any strategy in place, when you transitioned from the marketplace to your own platform, for customer acquisition or growth? Brian: The biggest thing that helped us was having all the content to put up. One of the best things I’ve done through my company since we started is focused on building a ton of content, mainly for SEO purposes. That’s helped Sell Your Mac be the number one go-to source for everything Mac on Google. If you type in where to sell my mac, we’re number one there. We’ve built up a lot of content with blogs and images. The images in particular helped us out when we were launching Renewed Macs so we could sync up images of all the products correctly and always make sure we’re showing the customer the right thing. I think there are about 3000 different images that we had to pull together or some type of variation. Felix: Give us an idea of the timeline surrounding Sell Your Mac and Renewed Macs. Brian: Sell Your Mac launched in 2009 and at the time we were still selling mainly on eBay. We work with other retail stores and wholesale buyers as well, but we really want to work directly with the customer. We see the most value in going to the end-user–both from the standpoint that we can sell them a computer that’s been fully tested, 12 months warranty, and stuff like that, ...
At some point in your business journey, you will likely find yourself needing more capital. Whether it’s to accelerate growth or to cover a seasonal cash flow shortage, adequate funding can be make-or-break for small business owners. In fact, the vast majority (82%) of small businesses close their doors because of poor cash flow management. Another 29% simply run out of cash. Luckily, there are plenty of small business lending solutions available to you. Banks, online lenders, and even family and friends can all help you secure the money you need to grow your business. To help you navigate small business lending, we outline the various types of loans and share statistics on approval rates and average loan amounts to help you choose the right option for your business. Types of small business loans There’s no shortage of small business lending options available to you—but they each come with their own advantages and disadvantages, and varying repayment terms. Repayment terms are extremely important to pay attention to. For example, if your business has a long cash flow cycle, short-term business loans with frequent payments could leave you in a cycle of debt payments. Below is a quick overview of each type of small business loan and their pros and cons. Business term loan A business term loan is a lump sum of cash that small business owners can get from banks, online lenders, or other financial institutions. Companies have a fixed term to repay the lender. (95% of business term loans have fixed interest rates.) These can be short-, medium-, or long-term loans and depending on the lender, the time to receive funding can vary greatly. For example, medium-term business loans take longer to approve through a bank versus an online lender. Short-term business loans have a short repayment period (usually between 18 months and 3 years) whereas medium- and long-term business loans have longer repayment periods (up to 10 years). 💸 Pros: Fixed interest rates. You can build business credit. Small businesses can borrow large amounts of money. Long term payback period available for long-term loans (up to ten years, depending on the lender). Low eligibility requirements for short-term loans. 🚧 Cons It can take a while to be approved. The shorter the term, the higher the interest rate. The shorter the term, the more frequent the payments. There may be early repayment fees if you pay off the loan earlier than agreed. SBA loan The US Small Business Administration (SBA) is a government-backed loan available through various lenders including banks and credit unions. SBA loans are beloved for their enviable rates and loan terms. There’s a lot of variation and options when it comes to SBA loans, and amounts can vary from $75,000 to $5 million, so be sure to check the SBA’s website for the right type of loan for your business. 💸 Pros: Low interest rates. Small and large sums of money available to borrow. Broad eligibility requirements: you must be a registered business, operate in the US, have invested your own time/money into the business, and have been unsuccessful at applying for funding elsewhere. 🚧 Cons Long approval process (around 60 to 90 days). Good credit scores required. Down payment needed. Personal guarantee required for SBA lending; you’re liable for the loan if the company is unable to pay. There are lots of avenues to investigate if you’re looking for money to start a business. One popular route is a small business loan, such as an SBA microloan, which is a loan of up to $50,000; it’s administered by nonprofit community lenders and can come with favorable interest rates and terms. Business line of credit Line of credit is a lump sum payment that small business owners can use for expenses—such as inventory, rent, or new machinery. Unlike business term loans, large banks give companies a line of credit without fixed repayment terms. It’s a short-term loan that can range anywhere from $1,000 to $250,000. According to the Small Business...
When brands adopt a headless commerce model for their online storefronts, each component becomes an important software development trend. When they all align together, they engineer a dynamic system that delivers speed, flexibility, and customization that often outpaces legacy systems. That’s why the framework built on MACH (micro-service-based, API-first, cloud-native, headless) has levelled up ecommerce programs launched by future-ready brands, according to an interview with Myplanet CEO and founder Jason Cottrell on an episode of the Own Your Commerce podcast. A Bold Commerce partner, Myplanet is known as a reputable software studio offering brands their expertise and technology to create engaging digital experiences. In a conversation with Bold Commerce CEO Jay Myers, Cottrell discussed the value of a headless commerce architecture, multichannel opportunities, and success stories featuring brands invigorating their ecommerce systems with a best-in-breed approach. Baking flexibility into a multichannel environment Composable commerce relates to brands and their development teams creating their commerce platform by harnessing best-of-breed technology partners by switching out, upgrading, or adding microservices individually, freeing them from managing multiple dependencies across the system. Cottrell said he has seen a shift towards this kind of microservice- and API-based architecture where brands favor the model of “decoupling the presentation layer and all of the underlying logic and systems,” which leads to added flexibility and scalability. “It’s very common to see customers coming off of Oracle ATG, coming off of SAP Hybris, coming off of bespoke custom systems,” Cottrell said. “We see some of these patterns, and we can then usually help our customers work through what that roadmap looks like.” Part of that roadmap involves partnering with various vendors that each excel in their individual strengths, whether that’s web development, subscription services, checkout, payment options, etc. The role of the MACH Alliance Cottrell noted the importance of a group such as the MACH Alliance, an organization of technology companies and agencies focused on advocating for an open, best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystem. He regarded the benefits as two-fold: “It’s encouraging certain minimum standards in how products are architected and what you can actually do. And then the other part is bringing together that ecosystem, so that the systems and the vendors are going out of their way to make them interoperable with each other.” Independent research groups echo Cottrell’s assertion. According to a recent Gartner report, by 2023 companies with a composable tech solution will be 80% faster than their competitors in implementing new features. Learn how a composable solution to Staple Canada’s digital challenges helped the Canadian retailer save both time and money. A composable approach is valuable for businesses with various touchpoints and products and services to deliver, Cottrell said. Brands aren’t venturing into the composable headless space to simply upgrade one website; they may have complex challenges brought on by, say, managing dozens of brand sites, overseeing a subscription service, and maybe even undertaking a new product launch such as a wearable. The MACH Alliance also helps clarifies for brands how a composable headless approach to ecommerce can support multichannel sales. Cottrell said that brands often have to support multiple commercial models and ways of buying, selling, and bringing a product to market. But solving those challenges is thrilling to a studio such as Myplanet, which boasts several case studies of MACH success. New Balance, Harry Rosen winning the headless game Pointing to New Balance, the apparel and sneaker manufacturer, Cottrell said this client faced a common dilemma: how can they create engaging brand experiences for their products that are bought maybe once or twice a year? Both New Ba...
Compared to other social media platforms, TikTok can feel like there’s some magic at work. A cool dance, a funny phrase, a new song—any of these can turn from obscure to mega-viral overnight, in ways that are hard to predict but delightful to watch. However, if you’re a creator or a business, hoping for a little luck and magic isn’t a very good place to build a social media strategy from. There is, in fact, some science and data to what can seem like viral chaos. A TikTok strategy—especially one for a brand, not a celebrity—takes legwork. Finding the best time to post is one piece of that strategy, and one of the simpler aspects to figure out. Let’s dive in. What the data says about the best time to post on TikTok If we’re looking at TikTok as a whole, research has been done to find what the best times to post are, and they vary by day of the week. Influencer Marketing Hub analyzed more than 100,000 TikTok posts to look for engagement trends and determined these are the best times to post every day, all in Eastern time: Monday at 6 a.m., 10 a.m., and 10 p.m. Tuesday at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., and 9 a.m. Wednesday at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., and 11 p.m. Thursday at 9 a.m., 12 a.m., and 7 p.m. Friday at 5 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. Saturday at 11 a.m., 7 p.m., and 8 p.m. Sunday at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., and 4 p.m. In this study, the highest engagements overall were at Tuesday at 9 a.m., Thursday at 12 a.m., and Friday at 5 a.m. The huge caveat here is that, to make these numbers useful for you, you need to consider your own time zone and location of your viewers. Free Reading List: Social Media Marketing Tactics Want to learn more about how social media can help drive sales? Download our free, curated list of high-impact articles. Get our Social Media Marketing Tactics reading list delivered right to your inbox. Almost there: please enter your email below to gain instant access. We’ll also send you updates on new educational guides and success stories from the Shopify newsletter. We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe. Thanks for subscribing. You’ll start receiving free tips and resources soon. In the meantime, start building your store with a free 14-day trial of Shopify. This data is certainly interesting and not a bad place to start when first crafting your TikTok strategy. However, it won’t be long before you can get personalized analytics, and that’s when you’ll find out what’s truly the best time to post on TikTok for your specific account. How to find the best time to post on TikTok for your business There’s a method right in the TikTok app for finding when your audience is the most active, and we’ll walk you through the steps to get there. Step one: Make a business account First, you need to make sure you have a Pro or Business account on the app. It’s free and simple to switch. Just go to Settings and Privacy, then Manage Account, and tap Switch to Business Account. This will give you access to analytics, as well as other features. Step two: Open your analytics dashboard Next, you’ll want to find your account’s analytics. You can get there by clicking the menu at the top right of your profile screen, clicking Creator Tools, then Analytics. That opens TikTok’s analytics dashboard, which offers all kinds of insight into your account and your followers. Step three: Find your follower activity If we’re looking to find the best time to post on TikTok, you’ll want to find the Followers tab at the top. From there, scroll down and you’ll see a pane called “Follower activity.” This is what it looks like on mobile. This pane will show when your personal followers are most active. As you can see above, the data shows that the activity of the followers of this account ramp up through the day and peak at 10 p.m. UTC. TikTok always displays these times in UTC, so you’ll need to convert to your local time zone. For this account, for example, 10 p.m. UTC converts to 5 p.m. ET. From that, we can determine that this account should aim to post...
did you know Omnisend customers automate 32% of their email conversions. Are you maximizing sales? automate my sales Reading Time: 13 minutes If you’re planning to set up an online store, BigCommerce vs Shopify is one of the most important comparisons you’ll need to examine. You’ll need to determine which one has the features that match the vision you have for your shop, as well as ease-of-use to help minimize the effort required to run your business. Shopify is a staple brand in ecommerce. It has one of the largest market shares among online stores for good reason. It is easy to use even for people without any web programming knowledge. And, through its built-in features and available themes, Shopify allows you to set up your shop and start selling your products in no time. In contrast, BigCommerce isn’t among the most widely used ecommerce platforms. Nevertheless, it is undeniably among the best Shopify alternatives because it is comparable in price even when it offers more product and sales features than what’s built into a typical Shopify plan. Whether you choose Shopify or BigCommerce, Omnisend lets you automate your marketing across various channels so you can generate sales on autopilot. Start free. BigCommerce vs Shopify On the surface, Shopify vs BigCommerce might not even seem like a useful discussion since Shopify’s market share far surpasses that of BigCommerce. According to BuiltWith data, Shopify is used by 2.62% of the top one million websites based on traffic, and 20% of websites that use ecommerce software. It is more popular than Magento and second only to WordPress’ WooCommerce Checkout. BigCommerce has a much smaller market share at 0.22% of the top one million high-traffic sites. When you consider only the top 100,000 websites based on traffic, Shopify surpasses WooCommerce and becomes the most popular ecommerce platform while BigCommerce doesn’t even make it to the top ten. So, based on usage and popularity, Shopify is definitely the winner. But is that a good reason to dismiss BigCommerce entirely? Apparently, a comprehensive comparison of these two technologies shows that BigCommerce offers several advantages. Choosing either Shopify or BigCommerce would depend heavily on the specific features you seek for the unique requirements of your online business. BigCommerce vs Shopify comparison To help you choose the best platform for your ecommerce venture, here’s a compilation of valuable insights from several of the most credible BigCommerce vs Shopify reviews. It breaks down the comparison into the most critical deciding factors and determines each platform’s benefits and potential disadvantages. By the end of this report, you’ll have a good understanding of each platform’s features, pricing, and user-friendliness. You’ll also see which one has a better selection of themes and apps that are critical to your website’s design and functionality. Additionally, you’ll see whether BigCommerce or Shopify has better security features and quality of support. Let’s begin. Website Builder Features Among the most commonly praised BigCommerce features is its website builder. If you’re creating a store without a programming background, you’ll appreciate its drag-and-drop interface. It lets you design web pages by selecting elements and laying them out with the use of your mouse. BigCommerce also ensures that all pages created on the platform are responsive, so you don’t miss out on sales from shoppers on mobile devices. Additionally, BigCommerce has a built-in blog that you can use to engage your target audience and establish your reputation as an expert in your niche. Maintaining a blog will also be valuable for SEO and driving targeted traffic to your ecommerce store. Similarly, Shopify features also include a built-in blogging engine that functions practically the same way as BigCommerce’s. It also lets you build a mobile responsive online store without having to write a single line of code. And even if it doesn’t...
Meta unveiled two new updates to the platform for marketers recently. The first, Advantage+ shopping campaigns, are an actual update to the system we use for ad campaigns. The second, Performance 5, is a list of best practices for using this new system. It’s been a while since Meta announced any kind of new direction for ad buying on its platform. Much of this seems to be in response to iOS 14. So it’s a big deal in the Meta universe. At CTC, though, we’ve been intensely tracking our clients’ campaigns since the iOS update, and have already been implementing most of these new practices for years. That said, here’s a quick breakdown of the changes. What are Advantage+ shopping campaigns? Advantage+ shopping campaigns are essentially a new algorithm for Meta ad campaigns. It’s a brand new campaign type within Ads Manager. We’ve been testing it for a few weeks now and seeing pretty good results, but it’s still early. It attempts to streamline the process and remove a lot of the optionality and manual placements in campaign settings. It’s moving toward a model of blended prospecting and remarketing — which we’ve already been doing at CTC for years. While Advantage+ does streamline the account structure, you still have to think about budget allocation and optimization. Meta is basically saying: If you want to succeed with this new algorithm, you’re going to have to use these Performance 5 best practices. What is Performance Five? At Meta’s Performance Marketing Summit they rolled out “Performance 5.” It’s essentially an update to their previous model, “Power5.” It’s simply a short list of best practices for advertising on the platform. Especially after the changes brought about by iOS 14, there’s been a lot of questions around new guidelines and tips for getting the best performance out of Facebook and Instagram ad buying. Performance 5 aims to answer all these questions. This new set of advice comes in conjunction with one of the biggest technical updates to the platform in a long time: Advantage+ shopping campaigns. This new system and the new set of best practices are meant to work together. What are the five pillars of Performance 5? Performance 5 attempts to address the environment at large — wherein people distrust the data they’re getting from Meta (since iOS 14) and are moving onto other social platforms (like TikTok). Truth is: We’re already doing all these things at CTC. And we have been for a while. 1. Account consolidation This is really all about getting your campaigns out of the “Learning Phase.” Meta recommends consolidating campaigns and structuring accounts in a proper way to get assets out of the Learning Phase. Many times, when we do audits for new clients, we see their budget spread across a lot of campaigns — $10 here, $20 there — and that’s a red flag. It’s one of the first things we ask during audits: What percent of your account is in Learning Phase? It’s something we’ve been doing for over a year. Not necessarily a new thing for us as an agency. But, Advantage+ Shopping campaigns are a functional new piece of this concept. 2. UGC content and creators Meta rolled out the Creator Marketplace to acknowledge how essential creators have become over the past two years. I would imagine they see TikTok as one of their biggest threats in terms of ad dollars and daily average user growth. So this is their attempt to mimic the success of its creator program 3. Creative diversification Meta is doubling down on the future of video. Instagram’s shift to video content with Reels exemplifies this best practice. They want to encourage brands to use creator content and diversify your creative portfolio so it feels engaging and dynamic for the end user. Again, this is something we’ve always done at CTC. We’ve been working with creators and testing a wide range of creative assets for years. Performance 5 just marks the first time Facebook is really coming out and confirming these are the best ways to find success on its pla...
It’s no secret that the logistics industry is in despair. The availability of warehouse space was just 5.6%. That’s an all-time low and dramatic fall from the 8.5% reported at the start of 2016. As a result, retailers are being pushed to squeeze as much value out of each square foot. From the way they store inventory to the method of picking orders, strong warehouse management processes help retailers run their warehouses like a well-oiled machine. This guide shares how. Table of contents What is warehouse management? The benefits of having warehouse management technology Inventory management and warehouse management: How do they work together? Warehouse management processes Warehouse management best practices Advantages of working with a 3PL for warehouse management What to look for in warehouse management technology What is warehouse management? Warehouse management is the set of operational processes that help a warehouse run efficiently. These processes include tracking inventory levels, locating goods, managing staff schedules, fulfilling orders, and optimizing warehouse space. What is a warehouse management system? A warehouse management system (WMS) is the software that helps a business complete operational tasks within its warehouse. From resource planning to supply chain logistics, it’s a technology retailers use to fulfill customer orders from a warehouse or distribution center. Some merchants have their WMS as subsection of wider enterprise resource planning (ERP) software—one central dashboard for ecommerce brands to control all aspects of the business. The benefits of having warehouse management technology The global supply chain is in disarray. Manufacturing and shipping times are much longer than they once were—an issue not set to resolve itself anytime soon. McKinsey reports that significant disruptions to manufacturing production now occur every 3.7 years, with reasons ranging from political instability to natural disasters. Ultimately, a WMS will help you speed up your receiving, cycle counting, and fulfillment, resulting in more efficient processes and reduced labor costs. Nick Malinowski, Co-founder of OTW Shipping A WMS that syncs with your inventory management system helps you stay one step ahead, hence why 38% of the merchants we surveyed plan to integrate technology to help their company anticipate disruptions and demand. Inside one, you’ll see dropping inventory levels to prioritize replenishment. If you know that one bestselling SKU sells 500 units per week, but it takes three weeks to receive shipments from a supplier, for example, set an alert to notify you once stock levels drop below 2,000 (leaving extra leeway in case a spanner is thrown into the works.) Using a warehouse management system, you’ll be able to track every product in your warehouse and help boost your customer experience by giving them accurate visibility on your product’s availability. Perry Valentine, Founder of AtPerry’s Combine those alerts with historical data for accurate inventory forecasting, using your WMS. Every item in your warehouse is costing you money, both in storage fees and opportunity costs. Poorly performing inventory is taking space that should be given to higher volume, faster moving, and ultimately, more profitable stock. Ben Clarke, interim Head of Marketing for James and James Ecommerce Fulfilment, says, “By ensuring that products are always shelved in the most efficient way possible, and by providing real-time visibility of stock levels, a warehouse management system can help avoid overstocking or running out of popular items. This can save significant amounts of money on inventory carrying costs.” Inventory management and warehouse management: How do they work together? The key to success in global ecommerce is to sell in the channels where your customers are. From social media storefronts to mobile commerce, this multi-channel retail strategy is notoriously hard for retailers to get a grasp on. You neve...
When Kendall and Justine Barber founded Poppy Barley in 2012 they had sustainability in mind from the start. The co-founders toured countless factories in Mexico to find the right production partner that aligned with their values. Eventually, they did. The socially and environmentally conscious Canada-based fashion company—which produces leather shoes, bags, accessories, and home goods— teamed up with a factory in León, Mexico. Poppy Barley paid the artisans significantly more than the local wage. The company went on to provide post-secondary scholarships for the children and grandchildren of its Mexico-based team members. This was the beginning of a long-term partnership that embodies how Poppy Barley does business. Whenever we’re making decisions, we always think of the most sustainable way we can make it happen. If there’s steps that we can take to make it better for the planet, or better for people, then we choose that route. It’s a filter that we constantly think through. Online shopping and social media purchasing have ushered in an age of unlimited options, making it harder for companies to build lasting relationships with buyers. Companies can make one-off sales but find it challenging to create long-term customers. Leading with your brand values enables your business to capture the attention of customers and distinguish yourself from competitors. According to the 2022 Future of Commerce report—a study conducted by Forrester on behalf of Shopify—53% of companies are making improved sustainability one of their top priorities for 2022, and 39% are improving efficiency in manufacturing processes. On the consumer side, customers are increasingly concerned about the companies they support with their money. While words like “sustainability” are increasingly a marketing buzzword, many consumers aren’t satisfied with greenwashing. Instead, they’re doing the research to see whether a company’s claims are authentic or simply advertising. Buyers are more environmentally and ethically conscious than ever, opting to buy from businesses that align with their personal values. A decade later, Poppy Barley has not wavered in its mission to build a company that provides “luxury for the people” while having a positive impact on the world. In fact, its mandate has only expanded. Today, it’s a certified B Corporation with a dedication to “business for good.” “Whenever we’re making decisions, we always think of the most sustainable way we can make it happen,” says Marina Eckert, Poppy Barley’s Social and Community Lead. “If there’s steps that we can take to make it better for our planet, or better for people, then we choose that route. It’s a filter that we constantly think through.” The company focuses on ethical production, using responsible materials and sustainable packaging. Its products are built to last to reduce waste, and the business is a vehicle to empower people and protect the planet. Since 2018, the company has donated the profits from its busiest shopping day, Black Friday, to organizations like the Lois Hole Hospital for Women, The Nature Conservancy of Canada, and Water First. People choose our company because we act with these values in mind and try to articulate them well. Poppy Barley is a quintessential example of modern businesses establishing brand values and living by them. But more and more companies are catching up, putting brand values like sustainability and ethically sourced goods at the center of their business. According to the Future of Commerce report, consumers are four times more likely to purchase from a company with strong brand values. “Oftentimes, I find that customers interact with us and say, ‘I love your company. And I love your values. What you stand for is awesome,’” says Eckert. “People choose our company because we act with these values in mind and try to articulate them well.” In this article we’ll dive into what brand values are, how to establish them, and the benefits of running a values-c...
Compared to other social media platforms, TikTok can feel like there’s some magic at work. A cool dance, a funny phrase, a new song—any of these can turn from obscure to mega-viral overnight, in ways that are hard to predict but delightful to watch. However, if you’re a creator or a business, hoping for a little luck and magic isn’t a very good place to build a social media strategy from. There is, in fact, some science and data to what can seem like viral chaos. A TikTok strategy—especially one for a brand, not a celebrity—takes legwork. Finding the best time to post is one piece of that strategy, and one of the simpler aspects to figure out. Let’s dive in. What the data says about the best time to post on TikTok If we’re looking at TikTok as a whole, research has been done to find what the best times to post are, and they vary by day of the week. Influencer Marketing Hub analyzed more than 100,000 TikTok posts to look for engagement trends and determined these are the best times to post every day, all in Eastern time: Monday at 6 a.m., 10 a.m., and 10 p.m. Tuesday at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., and 9 a.m. Wednesday at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., and 11 p.m. Thursday at 9 a.m., 12 a.m., and 7 p.m. Friday at 5 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. Saturday at 11 a.m., 7 p.m., and 8 p.m. Sunday at 7 a.m., 8 a.m., and 4 p.m. In this study, the highest engagements overall were at Tuesday at 9 a.m., Thursday at 12 a.m., and Friday at 5 a.m. The huge caveat here is that, to make these numbers useful for you, you need to consider your own time zone and location of your viewers. Free Reading List: Social Media Marketing Tactics Want to learn more about how social media can help drive sales? Download our free, curated list of high-impact articles. Get our Social Media Marketing Tactics reading list delivered right to your inbox. Almost there: please enter your email below to gain instant access. We’ll also send you updates on new educational guides and success stories from the Shopify newsletter. We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe. Thanks for subscribing. You’ll start receiving free tips and resources soon. In the meantime, start building your store with a free 14-day trial of Shopify. This data is certainly interesting and not a bad place to start when first crafting your TikTok strategy. However, it won’t be long before you can get personalized analytics, and that’s when you’ll find out what’s truly the best time to post on TikTok for your specific account. How to find the best time to post on TikTok for your business There’s a method right in the TikTok app for finding when your audience is the most active, and we’ll walk you through the steps to get there. Step one: Make a business account First, you need to make sure you have a Pro or Business account on the app. It’s free and simple to switch. Just go to Settings and Privacy, then Manage Account, and tap Switch to Business Account. This will give you access to analytics, as well as other features. Step two: Open your analytics dashboard Next, you’ll want to find your account’s analytics. You can get there by clicking the menu at the top right of your profile screen, clicking Creator Tools, then Analytics. That opens TikTok’s analytics dashboard, which offers all kinds of insight into your account and your followers. Step three: Find your follower activity If we’re looking to find the best time to post on TikTok, you’ll want to find the Followers tab at the top. From there, scroll down and you’ll see a pane called “Follower activity.” This is what it looks like on mobile. This pane will show when your personal followers are most active. As you can see above, the data shows that the activity of the followers of this account ramp up through the day and peak at 10 p.m. UTC. TikTok always displays these times in UTC, so you’ll need to convert to your local time zone. For this account, for example, 10 p.m. UTC converts to 5 p.m. ET. From that, we can determine that this account should aim to post...
No matter what stage your store is in, you’ve probably tried several tactics to drive business to your online store. From propping up your website to Facebook ads to email marketing, you’ve studied the strategies that can deliver big ROI quickly. Even if you have a stunning website and a strong social media game, you might still be wondering what’s out there. Perhaps it’s time to consider an ecommerce press release for your shop. What are the untapped marketing opportunities that could send hordes of shoppers through your digital doors? What will make your checkout page light up and your revenue skyrocket? To light a fire with your products and business, you just need to find that spark to make folks perk up and turn their heads your way. Maybe it’s time to think outside the inbox and set your sights bigger. Maybe it’s time to unfurl a press release. What Is an Ecommerce Press Release? A press release is a great way to promote a company, its products, and its services. It can also be used to announce company news such as the launch of a new product, an acquisition, or big news like an incoming CEO. You’ve likely read a press release or two in your lifetime without even knowing it as they’re often slipped right between stories in the news. Press releases are easy to create, publish, and distribute as long as you know where to begin, which we’ll get to in a bit. There’s a common misconception that press releases are only sent to journalists and that they only announce big events for huge companies or organizations, but that’s not really the case any longer. Press releases can be used to improve search engine optimization, which can help ecommerce companies connect with customers who are searching for their products. In addition to events and new products, press releases can be used for direct communication with a target audience without going through other channels. For example, you can post the press release on your website or publish a link to it on social media. Scatter it everywhere you can find on the internet and cast that net far and wide. You can leverage a press release to talk to your customer and make a personal connection through stories or events. There is one challenge when it comes to distributing press releases: If you want traction and ROI on the releases you send out, you may need to hire an agency or a third-party connection to distribute it on your behalf. These third parties typically have access to distribution lists full of journalists, trade publications, and potential investors. In other words, they know people. Access to these lists isn’t free, and there’s no guarantee that you will see a big ol’ ROI. But don’t let budget be a deterrent. If you have even meager writing chops and a deep passion for your brand’s story, take a turn at writing a press release on your own. A quick search can point you in the direction of press release templates, lists of information to provide, and tips to create a succinct yet compelling story. Also, don’t shy away from leaning on your own network of other ecommerce pros or even family or friends. You may be surprised by the hidden talents within your reach (and asking a favor of Uncle Larry might only cost you a case of beer). How to write a press release that drives traffic Like most things on their journey to perfection, it takes practice to write an effective press release. It’s not uncommon for a first, second, or third draft of a story to get denied by many outlets, which are trying to manage and prioritize lots of requests just like yours, so it’s important to not get discouraged. It’s not about how many times your statement gets rejected, it’s about how many times you pick up the pen again (or something like that). That being said, there are some pointers you can use to craft an impactful press release on your first try. The most important thing to remember is to keep your press release short and straight to the point. With that said, here are the key components ...
For enterprise brands building ecommerce sites on WordPress, checkout performance can become a pressing issue, especially when visitors clamor to shop online during peak periods, such as Black Friday-Cyber Monday. The Open-Source approach of WordPress provides superior flexibility for enterprise brands to create a tailored commerce solution for their needs, but as the number of plugins required to create those custom experiences grows, so too does the complexity. Site load speed is often a top priority for commerce teams serving enterprise brands. Close to 70% of consumers say that page speed impacts their willingness to buy from an online retailer, reports Unbounce. A brand’s chances at conversion drop by a full 2% for every second of load time. A high number of plugins on WordPress sites means checkout load times can slow dramatically due to incompatibilities between plugins or heavily-trafficked servers, especially as the volume of shoppers increases. Bold Commerce aims to solve these challenges by offering its Bold Checkout Experience Suite to enterprise brands on WordPress, giving them a robust SaaS tool ideal for checkout, BOPIS, subscriptions, and much more. What is poor checkout performance costing you? Try our calculator now. Checkout horsepower to take you farther, faster When WordPress sites move to a headless commerce approach to their ecommerce ventures, they’re one step closer to scaling with ease and flexibility. Headless opens the door to a best-in-breed approach that gives brands the freedom to select the ideal technology solution for their needs, from ready-to-go features to compatibility across a large network of integrations. With Bold Checkout, enterprise brands on WordPress can protect up to 30% of revenue lost to slow load times by moving the customer through the checkout four times faster than other checkout options. It can also: Streamline your WordPress stack with Bold’s ready-to-go pre-built integrations instead of adding them through a complicated array of additional plugins. Manage peak order volume without having to add more servers, since Bold decouples the checkout experience from WordPress servers. Reduce database calls and maintenance grievances because Bold handles the entire transaction, beginning to end. A single, lean plug-in built for extensibility Ushering in the Bold Checkout plugin will not only create a consistent experience for shoppers, it will open the door to further innovation. As Bold Commerce co-founder Yvan Boisjoli wrote, “With a consistent checkout experience, a headless approach then creates space for other feature rollouts across all channels, such as alternate payment methods; creating different checkout flows for marketing, voice or in-store kiosk; layering in the ability to manage B2B pricing; different shipping costs and net terms with integrations to reduce the complexity of managing different systems; integrating a fraud system; and offering subscriptions, loyalty programs or accepting gift cards.” Layering a strong and reliable SaaS tool atop an open-source approach is a winning combination for enterprise brands, according to a McKinsey report. “For companies looking to get a new business off the ground, SaaS is a way to quickly and cheaply access a robust array of existing services. When using just a single service or combining a number of them, SaaS has proven capable of meeting as much as 90 percent of the needs of a given function.” It’s evident the hunger for comprehensive SaaS solutions will only grow over the years. The C-suite is watching this space closely: Close to 70% of CIOs claim that agility and scalability are two of the top motivators for using SaaS applications. While WooCommece is a popular choice for a WordPress commerce engine, it’s default commerce engine can be sluggish, overwhelmed by other plugin tools, and hurt the performance and site load speed. Bold’s single plugin can unleash the power of checkout, ensuring your WooCommerce checkout o...
did you know Omnisend customers automate 32% of their email conversions. Are you maximizing sales? automate my sales Reading Time: 9 minutes The web has become a place for small, medium and large businesses to compete on practically equal footing. This is especially driven by ecommerce platforms that have made it possible for anyone to set up and manage online businesses regardless of their programming background or access to significant capital. Today, Shopify is one of the most popular software services in ecommerce. It’s best known for its website builder and built-in sales tools. But if you’re looking for good ecommerce solutions, WooCommerce is definitely one of the best Shopify alternatives to consider. WordPress’ WooCommerce vs Shopify is a commonly debated subject but there is no universally accepted best choice between the two. The right solution depends on the unique needs of your business, and this comprehensive comparison should help you make the right decision. Whether you choose WooCommerce or Shopify, Omnisend enables you to generate sales and nurture your customers on autopilot. Start free. WooCommerce vs Shopify Among the top one million ecommerce websites based on traffic, Shopify holds a market share of 20% but WooCommerce Checkout is the leading platform at 29%. In fact, WooCommerce is the leading ecommerce platform on the entire web. This is undoubtedly driven by the popularity of WordPress, the open-source content management system it is built for. However, when you consider only the top ten thousand online stores, WooCommerce drops significantly to an 8% market share while Shopify retains 19%. The only reasonable conclusion is that there are larger and more active businesses on Shopify than on WooCommerce. Although adoption rates help you appreciate the value of each platform, it shouldn’t be the primary basis of your decision. You should choose either WooCommerce or Shopify based on features and unique offerings that will help you maximize the potential of your online business. In-depth WooCommerce vs Shopify comparison Below is a Shopify vs WooCommerce evaluation of the most crucial considerations for ecommerce stores. Identify which factors are important to you and then see which platform will deliver on your requirements. Website builder features Whether you choose Shopify or WooCommerce, you can build an ecommerce store and process payments. You can also fulfill orders and run marketing campaigns on the same platform. But each platform handles these features differently. Building an online store is generally easier on Shopify. Once you’ve selected a theme, much of the work is already done. All you’ll need to do is populate your store with all the products or services you want to offer. On the other hand, WooCommerce requires more work. Apart from selecting and setting up your own hosting plan, building on WooCommerce typically involves more customization to ensure that your store has the design and functionality you need to run your business. On a more positive note, this allows for more creative freedom, better branding, and a shopping experience that’s customized for your audience. Payment processing features Shopify plans come with a built-in payment processor while WooCommerce sites can be integrated with an extension like WooCommerce Payments. Both enable you to accept a wide variety of payment types, including credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, and several local payment options. Both Shopify Payments and WooCommerce Payments charge pay-as-you-go fees. Rates are similar between the two, which is a $0.30 flat fee + 2.9% per transaction. Where WooCommerce differs is an additional 1% charge for non-US cards and another 1% charge for currency conversion each time a non-USD payment is made. Shopify doesn’t have any additional fees. In fact, your store’s transactions can be subjected to lower fees depending on the Shopify plan you select. Although the flat fee per transaction remains at $0.30, ...
allows Shopify stores the ability to use omnichannel marketing—email, SMS, push, and even Facebook and Google—to capture, convert and retain customers. It’s also a Shopify Plus Certified App, allowing you to integrate the service seamlessly with the platform’s enterprise-level plan. did you know Omnisend customers automate 32% of their email conversions. Are you maximizing sales? automate my sales Reading Time: 11 minutes SMEs and large enterprises alike recognize the increasing importance of having the means to sell goods and services on the web. That’s why ecommerce platforms like Shopify have skyrocketed over the past decade. These technologies enable businesses of all sizes to easily set up their online stores, market their goods, and manage their operations. Shopify is undeniably among the most recognizable brands in ecommerce. However, it isn’t necessarily the best option for all businesses. It may not be immediately obvious, but Wix is actually a worthwhile competitor and one of the most remarkable Shopify alternatives. No matter which ecommerce platform you choose, you can automate your marketing and generate sales effortlessly. Start using Omnised for free. Wix vs Shopify While Shopify has always been known for ecommerce, Wix’s popularity began among freelancers and content creators looking for an easy and inexpensive way to build a web presence. Eventually, the company expanded its features to include ecommerce essentials that allow it to compete with brands like Shopify. According to SimilarTech, 0.68% of sites in the entire web run on Shopify while Wix holds a much smaller share of 0.18%. This puts both among the top five ecommerce platforms alongside other popular technologies like WooCommerce, Squarespace Commerce, and PrestaShop. When you compare only the top one million most visited websites, however, Shopify takes the highest share at 3.62% and Wix is no longer part of the list. This goes to show that there are more serious online businesses on Shopify than on Wix. But is that enough reason to dismiss Wix and automatically choose Shopify? That wouldn’t be prudent as Wix does offer many advantages that would make it more beneficial depending on your experience in ecommerce, the nature of your business, your current size, and your plans for scaling. To help you make the right decision both for now and for the long term, below is a comprehensive evaluation of Wix vs Shopify, and when to choose one over the other. In-depth Shopify vs Wix comparison This comparison includes the most critical considerations for ecommerce stores. Once you identify which ones are most important to you, it should be easier to choose either Wix or Shopify. Features The quality of the website you can create and the simplicity of the process is among the most critical parts of any Wix vs Shopify debate. There’s no denying that the Shopify website builder is incredibly powerful. It enables you to create beautiful and responsive online stores with lots of ecommerce functionalities. Apart from built-in sales tools, the top merchants on Shopify highlight the advantages of a robust inventory system that make the platform more scalable. In contrast, WiX eCommerce isn’t quite as sophisticated. It has all the basics you need to create an ecommerce store and accept payments. But it doesn’t have as many built-in sales tools as Shopify. Nevertheless, Wix is best known for its design flexibility. Unlike Shopify, Wix allows for greater design customization. This opens up possibilities for better branding and sales optimization. Ease of use Most will agree that the Wix website builder is much easier to use, which enables businesses to get their online stores up and running sooner. It has a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editor that allows you to build your website with drag-and-drop elements. It also offers in-editor help, which provides guidance right where you need it. Overall, the Wix platform is generally considered more intuitive than S...
With TikTok’s incredible growth, we’ve seen the marketing landscape upended by a flood of rising influencers. With this change, big and small companies have been scrambling to learn how to best promote their products in the most effective way possible. As they’ve done their research on influencer marketing, they’ve also asked themselves if they should even bother about it at all. Should your brand use TikTok influencers to promote your products? Are they truly effective in capturing the attention of young people globally, or are firms better off investing resources elsewhere? In this article, I’ll seek to answer those questions and more. I believe TikTok’s meteoric rise presents an incredible opportunity for brands to connect with audiences more deeply than ever before. As the consuming habits of younger generations rewrite the advertising playbook, TikTok influencers will prove to be a vital tool in your effort to build and maintain relevance. Why? Read on, and I’ll tell you. What is TikTok? Before we go further, let’s talk about TikTok – what it is and where it came from. First, please note that there are two versions of TikTok: Douyin (the Chinese version) and TikTok (the international counterpart). TikTok/Douyin is a video-sharing app that began its life in China, created by a little-known startup called ByteDance. From the beginning, ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming was laser-focused on international expansion to maximize the platform’s growth – a move met with great success. In late 2017, TikTok acquired Musical.ly for one billion dollars and merged the two apps. Following this acquisition, TikTok hit critical mass and has since experienced unprecedented growth and, in 2021, surpassed Google in popularity. As they say, the rest is history. What is TikTok used for? Initially, TikTok was mostly centered around the same kind of content that Musical.ly was – homemade music videos of young, amateur fans singing and dancing to their favorite tracks. However, the range of content on the app has drastically expanded to include pretty much everything. These days, it has about the same content range as YouTube while surpassing YouTube in watch time. It’s elementary to make a video on TikTok – adding to the platform’s attractiveness. I published a video on TikTok that received over 1.4 million views. But, here’s the kicker: it only took me about ten seconds to record and publish it. Who uses TikTok? TikTok’s demographics skewer very strongly towards youth. So if you’re thinking about marketing your product on TikTok, make sure it’s something that appeals to Generation Y and Z youngsters. TikTok vs. Other Social Media Due to its unique structure, TikTok has blown past its established competitors in recent years. It’s also been a boon for marketers, who have found that TikTok experiences phenomenal engagement – even compared to other major social platforms. Neuro-Insight – a neural marketing and analytics company – recently completed a study involving 57 respondents aged 18-35. The verdict was that TikTok drives incredible engagement among users, compared to established forms of advertising. Their study found that TikTok’s videos are hyper-relevant to the users, resulting in an incredible approach 44% higher than the social media average (in this case, “approach” is basically how much the subject liked the content served to them). The engagement was terrific, too: 15% higher than the social media average. This study is fantastic news to advertisers who can rely on TikTok to serve their content to only the most relevant users possible. On TikTok, your content (both paid and organic) is much more likely to reach consumers who care about it versus other platforms. Moreover, this engagement effect can compound the authority of influencers established in their niches. What is Influencer Marketing? Influencer marketing is the art of paying influencers – people with a large social media following – to promote your products. Ideally, your targe...
It’s that time of the year again! When everything around us turns to 50 shades of red, storefronts are covered with chocolate & candy, and your inbox is overflowing with sweet deals and discounts. We know it, you know it – Valentine’s Day is coming soon. As one of the biggest retail events in the calendar, traditionally, consumer spending is skyrocketing in February. And even if your store doesn’t belong to the candy-flowers-jewelry love triangle, there are still plenty of ways for you to join the festivities and drive more sales. Whether you are new to text marketing or a seasoned SMS pro, we got you covered! Enjoy 9 powerful tips combined with 15 inspirational SMS templates to help you make this Valentine’s Day your best one yet. January 27- February 4 Eager to start Valentine’s Day festivities as early as possible? Consider the end of January as your cue. Use this time to grow your list of subscribers and launch powerful and engaging Warm-up campaigns. Suitable dates for SMS campaigns: January 27: VDay Warm-up campaign January 31: VDay Expedited Shipping VDay SMS Tip #1: Maximize subscriber collection “Could I have your phone number?” They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Consider the very first time someone lands on your store as your first date – the key is in the details, and it all comes down to making a good impression. Bring your A-game this Valentine’s Day by setting your store as the scene of the perfect first meet-up. But instead of lighting candles or playing romantic music, get site visitors in the mood to shop with powerful and eye-grabbing subscription forms. Think of them as little cupids that will make people instantly fall in love with your brand and special deals. A beautiful and timely pop-up will serve as the perfect final touch of your themed decor – set it up to appear 15 seconds after potential customers land on your home page. For a more delicate presence, use a floating button or a footer form that will stay discreetly at the bottom of the page and turn store visitors into dedicated SMS subscribers with a single tap. Use colors such as red or pink to match the general Valentine’s Day vibe and sprinkle some lovey-dovey wording. Add a small incentive in the form of a discount or free shipping to urge shoppers to sign up for your SMS marketing club. Pro tip: Don’t forget to adjust the copy of your welcome text to match the offer from the subscription form. The good news? It’s literally a “set and forget” type of thing, but it makes all the difference in the world because this is how your new subscribers are welcomed to your store. Because let’s not forget the first rule of dating: as soon as your new crush gives you their phone number, they will be waiting for you to reach out, right? VDay SMS Tip #2: Start The Conversation “Tell me more about yourself.” Now that we are past the excitement and the thrill surrounding (most) first dates let’s move on to something even cooler – getting to know each other a little bit better. Not all customers want the same thing and come looking for exactly the same product, right? Gone are the days when bulk text messaging was considered a good idea. Nowadays, personalization isn’t just important — it’s imperative. The majority of shoppers find texts from brands more engaging when they contain information relevant to their interests and past purchases. And sometimes, the best way to understand what your customers want is to just simply ask them. Set your store up for success this Valentine’s Day by sending conversational SMS flows every time someone subscribes to your text marketing club or makes a purchase on your store. Use this opportunity to learn more about shoppers’ preferences or what they came searching for in your store: gifts for themselves or a significant other? Use keywords to create separate scenarios for the different options and give personalized product recommendations based on responses. Pro tip: Use this opportunity to di...
Arguably, 2021 peaked in the pilot episode of And Just Like That. when a Peloton bike unfairly took the rap for a character’s death. And, for the second time since 2019, for better or worse, the fitness giant was having a cultural moment. However you look at it, though, Peloton would become one of the most relevant fitness brands—dare we say brands, period—of the pandemic. Elsewhere, clever founders in the direct-to-consumer (DTC) fitness industry watched consumer trends closely and acted swiftly, with retail businesses hustling to pivot to a virtual model and reach clients in their own homes. Some survived, some didn’t. The question remains, though: Will any or all of these trends persist through 2022? Brands built on the in-person experience struggled to pivot to a virtual model and reach clients and customers in their own homes. Some survived, some didn’t. Now, even Peloton is suffering the effects of the “return to normal,” reporting a recent waning of interest and sales. The brand’s arc proves that being in the right place at the right time to cash in on collective isolation may not itself be enough to sustain long-erm success. The way we shop, and the way we engage with brands, the world, and each other has all changed. Here, we take a deep dive into the DTC fitness industry to glean insights into modern workout trends and uncover what aspiring founders need to do to future-proof their businesses. We look to the past for clues, examine successful brands, consult the data, and speak to experts from across the fitness industry, including founders, athletes, trainers, and marketers. The trends that shaped at-home fitness as we know it today Working out from home isn’t a new concept. Early “home gyms” emerged in the late 1800s via rudimentary resistance machines, although the concept was still quite rare. As television sets became commonplace in households in the early 1950s, so did living room fitness. Workout programming like Jack LaLanne’s broadcast aerobics show reached millions. The 1980s ushered in the first version of a widespread health and fitness craze. Gyms, once almost exclusively patronized by serious bodybuilders, now welcomed a new clientele in the general population. The VHS tape was a win for home fitness, becoming a popular format for celebrity fitness instructors to reach wide audiences. Eventually, a slew of gimmicky As Seen on TV workout inventions from the Shake Weight to the ThighMaster dominated late-night TV ads. While tech innovations were a win for self-guided fitness, they couldn’t replicate the community, camaraderie, and friendly competition offered by IRL spaces. Chain gyms exploded in the next two decades, spanning from no-frills suburban mini-mall options to high-end studios with VIP perks like chilled eucalyptus towels. But home fitness held its own, too. Stationary bikes and compact treadmills upped their offerings with more gadgets and electronic trackers, like heart-rate monitors. Body resistance techniques gained popularity, and anyone with a $20 yoga mat could exercise from home. The early 2000s kicked off a boom in fitness tech, as mobile apps, interactive video game platforms, and wearable tech dominated the trends in the space. While these innovations were a win for self-guided fitness, they couldn’t replicate the community, camaraderie, and friendly competition offered by IRL spaces. It’s only in recent years that DTC at-home fitness businesses have aimed to tackle this gap, incorporating these important elements into their software and services. Peloton and Barry’s became leaders in the space, even before 2020. Then, the pandemic landed. Gyms became unsafe, leaving your house was out of the question, and solo at-home fitness was no longer an option—it was the only option. One study on year-over-year fitness trends saw online training move from the number 26 spot in 2020 to the number 1 trend in 2021. Start a fitness business and try Shopify free for 14 days How the fitness indus...
Open source has long been a powerful software format that allows for easier data portability and makes it simpler for businesses to move between frameworks and take advantage of the best tools for the task at hand. While proprietary software-providers still dominate the market, open source software has an important role to play for enterprise brands. As Boston Consulting Group writes, open source Linux powered 75% of the public cloud workload in 2020, and its share is expected to rise to 85% by 2024. With open source, enterprise brands can accomplish a lot of tasks more quickly, and allow for business growth without limitations, says Karim Marucchi, CEO and co-founder of Crowd Favorite, in a Bold Commerce podcast. “Open source platforms and SaaS solutions can be stronger together,” he adds. For enterprise brands seeking to drive innovation and accelerate revenue, Bold Commerce is excited to see the popularity of its Checkout Experience Suite plugin for WordPress sites. Brands can both leverage dynamic out-of-the-box features, and full compatibility with a multitude of best-in-breed technologies. The plugin also closes the gap between the limitations of open source and the strength of a robust SaaS tool ideal for checkout, BOPIS, subscriptions, and much more. Peak performance without the complexities and costs Open source software is not without its limitations. The more you modify your source code, the more complex and expensive your systems become to update and maintain. You will typically need a developer, an in-house IT team and/or an agency to ensure open source software is performing correctly. However, a flexible and powerful SaaS plugin can help overcome those challenges, which is what Checkout Experience Suite accomplishes for developer teams on WordPress. When enterprise brands leverage Bold’s single, lean plugin, the benefits can lessen the workload (and administrative strain) of those on WordPress. The benefits include: Protect up to 30% of revenue lost to slow load times by moving the customer through the checkout 4X faster. Conveniently manage the features of Bold Checkout Experience Suite from a centralized WordPress admin dashboard. Mitigate security risks with full PCI DSS Level 1 and SOC2 compliance handling by Bold. Make Bold enterprise moves with industry-leading 24/7 support. The value of MACH architecture Developing enterprise growth through a headless commerce model is also an effective strategy for brands to level up their online initiatives. This form of MACH architecture (Microservices, API first, cloud native, headless) allows enterprise brands to pick and choose specialized vendors they need most, freeing them from the burden of a complete platform overhaul. Bold’s Checkout Experience Suite applies the MACH approach to its integration with WordPress, since it’s compatible with a wide network of best-in-breed technologies. This enables brands to extend checkout functionality and move more consumers through that portal with ease and speed. Building a better tool for scalability WordPress’s open-source backbone attracts enterprise brands due to its customization features, but it can also frustrate development teams due to plugin overload resulting in slower site-load speed. What is appealing to enterprise brands on WordPress is scalability and a range of features well-suited to their evolving business needs. The plugin includes tools to help online stores become future-ready with out-of-the-box features such as: Subscription Dynamic pricing One-click checkout Payments Taxes Shipping Promotions Architected for compatibility with other WordPress plugins, the Checkout Experience Suite gives enterprise brands the ease of managing all features and WordPress functionality with a centralized admin panel. Brand and commerce teams don’t want the hassle of heady complications stealing time away from their most important projects, which is why Bold aims to simplify control, maintenance and support as much as po...
The ecommerce landscape has changed dramatically over the last couple of years. Driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses had to deal with more change than in the previous two decades. Shipping and acquisition costs are rising at an alarming rate, while returns on online advertising are plummeting. At the same time, consumer behavior is rapidly evolving. As more money than ever before is being spent online, customer expectations are through the roof. People are more selective about which companies to buy from and less accepting of slow delivery times (unless it’s for the right brand), while ongoing supply chain issues are forcing merchants to permanently change their fulfillment strategies. How do you navigate these challenges and set yourself and your clients’ businesses up for success in the new year? We asked leading Shopify partners for their thoughts on the most important shifts in online shopping and how you can support your clients in addressing them to ensure sales will thrive in the new year. Follow their advice, and you’ll be more prepared for what merchants need in the months ahead to stand out from the competition. For a deeper dive into the trends that will shape 2022, check out Shopify’s Future of Commerce report. 1. Meet and exceed customer expectations With 2021 ecommerce sales topping the record highs of 2020, we can expect online shoppers in 2022 to be even more experienced and sophisticated. Senior ecommerce consultant Kurt Elster, host of The Unofficial Shopify Podcast, says the bar for what constitutes a great ecommerce experience is now higher than ever. “Customers expect more,” he points out. “Merchants will need to meet them where they’re shopping through multichannel, provide on-demand customer support through automation and agents, and fulfill orders within 48 hours or less. That’s the new bar for good.” To take it to the next level and create a truly great experience, Elster recommends merchants provide novelty to customers, for example with limited edition products and emerging technologies like augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) when applicable. “Whether they know it or not,” Elster points out, “some online merchants will find themselves in a technological arms race with their competitors.” 2. Tell the story of your client’s brand In 2022, to really set themselves apart from their competitors, merchants need to nail their brand identity. It’s the foundation for all marketing communications and an opportunity to highlight unique differentiators: Fifty-two percent of shoppers are more likely to purchase from a company with shared values. “The brand is what separates businesses that are growing at a rapid rate from businesses that are just getting by,” ecommerce consultant and growth marketer Kate Collinson believes. “Run a workshop with employees and really hone in on the brand identity and its values. Why does the brand exist? Who are they, what do they bring to the table, what do they look like to customers, and how are they going to be recognized in the market? What are their key differentiating factors?” “Independent brands need to tell their story,” agrees Ben Jabbaway, founder and CEO of ecommerce marketing platform Privy. “There was a reason they started their business. Maybe they were passionate about a product or service and left their job to work on it full time. Telling that story, and anchoring the marketing around it, builds a connection with the customer. That’s going to take the business to the next level.” 3. Authentically engage customers with social commerce Social media presents new commercial opportunities, from brand marketing and product discovery to customer service and shoppable advertising. About 30 percent of internet users in the United States already make purchases directly within social platforms, and sales through social media channels around the world are expected to nearly triple by 2025. In 2022, merchants can’t avoid social shopping anymore: More than one-t...
Think about the worst logo you’ve ever seen—what comes to mind? If you’re having trouble thinking of one, that’s not surprising. Good logos stick. Bad ones don’t. That’s what makes designing a logo different from designing other branding materials. Web banners, ads, and social media posts each have their own design objectives, but none are as focused on being remembered as a logo. Some of the best logos are the least complicated—think of the Nike swoosh or the McDonald’s golden arches. Ted Kaye, of the North American Vexillological Association, says flag designs should be simple enough that a child can draw them from memory. The same is true of logos. Your logo is not your brand—you build that separately—but it will become the face of your brand. It will appear on your website, your products, your marketing, your in-store signage, and just about any other place where people interact with your brand. No matter your budget, you deserve a logo you feel good about. That’s why we put together this guide. We’ll walk you through every step of the process to create a business logo from scratch—from choosing a color to hiring a designer—with the help of real in-house graphic artists. What is a logo and why does it matter for your business? How much should a logo design cost? How to design a logo: A step-by-step guide Hiring a designer Designing a logo for free (or cheap) Logo design tips and common mistakes Conclusion What is a logo and why do you need one? A logo is a symbol that represents your brand and your brand’s personality through the simplest image possible. Logos embody your brand in the minds of your customers. Without one, they have nothing to latch onto. Here’s why: Humans learn from visual cues If there’s something about your brand you want your customers to know, science says images are more effective than words in communicating it. If images have this power to convey ideas, then the image that will appear most often in your branding is potentially the most important. Logos are the fastest and easiest way to brand your products If you’ve ever been in a corporate office, you may have noticed a large number of items branded with the company’s logo, like pens, notebooks, bags, or clothing. The Shopify office even has a branded skateboard: Branded swag can be handed out at trade shows, given as gifts to potential clients, and even sold in-store. Good conversation can be forgotten a lot quicker than the branded pen a client finds at the bottom of their swag bag. Logos provide a visual base to draw from for graphic design Brand consistency is a key element in developing a lasting impression. By having a definitive representation of your brand at its most base level, you’ll have something to draw from when designing other marketing elements. Logos help you stand out from the competition Certain symbols or icons are associated with certain industries. Think of how many medical supply businesses use variations of a red cross in their logos. When there are a lot of businesses competing for the same market, distinguishing yourself is the key to getting noticed and remembered. A logo provides many advantages, so it’s not hard to understand why nearly every business has one. Going logo-less looks unprofessional. It comes across as illegitimate, even untrustworthy. How much should a logo design cost? Once you’ve decided you need a logo, you next need to figure out whether you should design your own or hire a designer. Designing a logo that’s unique but also simple enough to be remembered isn’t something that’s easy for amateur designers. Do what you’d do in any aspect of your business and hire a professional if you have the budget. But how much should a logo cost? The cost of a logo design can vary significantly based on the experience level of the designer you hire. Logos can be exceedingly expensive, incredibly cheap, or even free. You can look at a designer’s portfolio, but there’s still no definitive way to know the quality of ...
Supply chain issues, shipping delays, and fulfillment challenges are on the rise. So are customer expectations. Shoppers favor fast, free shipping options: according to new research, 75% claim that free shipping had a significant or very significant influence on a purchasing decision. Even above cost and speed, this research found that customers value dependability and transparency when they shop online. For you, that means building trust by communicating clearly and often. We recently released the Future of Commerce report, an in-depth roadmap built on proprietary research, data from millions of Shopify merchants, and expert interviews. As you adapt to the ever-changing climate of ecommerce, the learnings from this report will help you solve shipping challenges, exceed customer expectations, and build solid shipping strategies and processes for the long term. Get more transparent about shipping costs and timelines According to the report, 74% of consumers want to see shipping costs upfront when making purchasing decisions, and 68% would like free returns and estimated arrival times. Shoppers want to know: How much will shipping cost? How long will it take to get my order? Do I have to pay to make a return? Will you update me if my order is delayed? These are the changes you can make to improve transparency with your shipping process. 1. Create a shipping info page The more transparent you are with shoppers about your shipping policies from the beginning, the more trust you build with them for the long term. Plus, setting expectations upfront means less time answering support inquiries later. Build a page dedicated to shipping on your website. Here’s the basis of what this page needs to include: All of the shipping options you offer. List how fast each option is and how much each one costs. Order processing time. How many days after a customer places an order can they expect it to ship? Are there any exceptions? Domestic and international shipping options. Customers across the globe need to see if you ship to their location, how quickly, and for how much. A full return policy. Shoppers want to know if you offer free returns or a return-in-store option, or if they’ll have to pay. They also need to see how they’ll get their refund. Any shipping delays. Are orders taking longer than usual to ship? Let shoppers know upfront. A cancellation policy. Will you allow customers to cancel an order once they place it? If so, let them know how long they have—and their options if they miss the window. Encircled, a sustainable fashion brand, has a clear shipping info page on its website that includes how fast each respective shipping speed is. 2. List shipping prices before checkout Have you ever found the perfect item, added it to your cart, and balked at the price to ship it to your house? You likely promptly closed the tab and moved on to another brand that would ship you a similar item for less. In 2021, Baymard Institute found that 49% of shoppers abandoned a cart at checkout because the extra costs, like shipping and taxes, were too high. You can avoid cart abandonment by communicating shipping prices before a shopper gets to the checkout screen. Listing shipping prices in your shipping info page is a great place to start. Consider putting shipping prices inside the buy box or on each product page, especially for large, bulky, or heavy items. For example, if you sell furniture, you might offer a flat shipping rate of $150. Pop that into a buy box, product details, or other information section so customers can see it as they browse. Even if your shipping costs are high, eliminating the element of surprise provides transparency and sets expectations early on. As they shop, consumers can mentally tack on the extra fee rather than abandon a cart when they see a final price that’s significantly higher than they originally expected. Similarly, let customers know you offer affordable or free shipping, too. It might be the extra push they n...
Brands using WordPress for their ecommerce stores value the breadth of customization and flexibility available to them. With WordPress, merchants can add plugins or make major or minor changes to the source code to create unique, product-first shopping experiences. The tens of thousands of plugins offered to brands on WordPress gives them the ability to layer best-in-breed integrations to meet their needs, whether complex or simple. If there’s any area of an online store that can take advantage of high-performance technology, it’s the checkout area. Fast-moving retailers should seek to innovate their checkout technology, especially when they learn cart abandonment rates can be as high as 78% and checkout abandonment rates at 48% for desktop and 58% for mobile, according to The Checkout Benchmark. In the checkout, a plugin-rich environment creates a new set of challenges. Too many plugins that often are incompatible with each other can slow down performance. Plugins can introduce security vulnerabilities if maintenance is not done regularly by developers This can give rise to further complexity: A big cache of plugins often results in a lack of support and difficulty in establishing a clear roadmap for functionality. Ensuring the checkout process is fine-tuned for the shopper experience should be a priority for brands. After all, customers expect frictionless end-to-end shopping journeys, and brands want to do as much as they can to help smooth out any bumps on that road. That’s where Bold’s Checkout Experience Suite comes in. As a checkout leader for ecommerce brands, Bold is fully in sync with the needs of brands operating on WordPress. As the world’s most popular content management system powering 34% of all websites, with more than 500 websites being built each day on the CMS, WordPress benefits from plugins that deliver results to their passionate customers. Integrated with WordPress, Bold Checkout’s API-first architecture allows enterprise brands to design a completely customized, flexible checkout or run with a wide range of out-of-the-box features. It can also help integrate easily with an ecosystem of leading technologies and best-in-breed partners. Levelling up your site performance Customizing the checkout experience has long been associated with benefits, such as increased conversion and stronger brand loyalty. When enterprise brands address their dynamic business requirements — such as BOPIS, complex pricing, and subscriptions— customization and flexibility are two key ingredients for successful checkout experiences. Bold Checkout is a single, lean plugin built to withstand high traffic volumes and boost site speed while protecting against 30% of potential lost revenue. The plugin can offer brands: Extensive customization through robust features such as taxes, shipping, and integration with other plugins Flexibility and extensibility to allow for redesigning or tweaking checkout to address evolving business needs Architected to be compatible with other tools on WordPress Exemplary performance and scaling ability, running four times faster than the default WooCommerce checkout on WordPress. Security protection with full PCI DSS Level 1 and SOC2 compliance handling by Bold. Checkout customization brought to life Designing a powerful, entirely customizable checkout will allow you to scale endlessly, selling more, in more channels. How? Here are a few examples of checkout optimization capabilities sure to be game changers for enterprise brands on WordPress: One-click checkout: Add a one-click checkout to absolutely any channel such as a product page or blog post so shoppers can purchase with an Amazon-like experience at the height of interest. Delivery options: Add BOPIS to the checkout without adding yet another plugin and putting checkout performance at risk. Subscriptions: Create and configure any subscription imaginable and convert one time transactions into recurring revenue with Bold Subscriptions. Complex pri...
How to Define and Communicate Your Core Brand Values Written by Dayana Mayfield Brand values bring everyone in a company together around a set of core beliefs. This allows the brand to operate as one cohesive entity across all key decisions, from naming products to hiring new staff. Of course, brand guidelines and product strategy will guide those decisions as well, but everything begins with very clear brand values. Although brand values are critically important, they’re also hard to pinpoint exactly—meaning that too many brands fail to achieve that cohesion and clarity. If you don’t have your brand values clearly defined and readily available for employees and customers, you run the risk of creating disjointed experiences and failing to engage customers in deeper relationships. The good news? Honing in on your values provides an incredible opportunity for rapid growth as a brand. In this guide, we dive into what brand values are, how to apply them, and how to define your own. Brand values are the set of non-negotiable principles and beliefs that guide everything your brand does and the experiences you create for your customers. The impact of your brand values affects everything from employee training to product development to marketing and beyond. “Every person has values, they have a belief system that drives every decision they make, the way they operate, the way they act in the world. You have them. If you have kids, or just your loved ones, and at the end of your days you can only share with them 5 to 10 beliefs or values, what would they be? That is powerful stuff. Because when you can get down to the core of what makes you operate or how you tick or the kinds of things that you’ve learned in your life, that is going to change everything. Getting to that foundational level of values is step number one. You can’t build a brand without that. I don’t believe you can manufacture a brand. It is extracted from the soul of an entrepreneur.” That’s why brand values should originate from the business owners and leadership team (not just the marketing team), so that these values can connect all departments. Your brand values couldn’t matter more. Want proof? Here’s what brand values can offer: Loyalty – 89% of consumers stay loyal to brands that share their values. Consistency – When you present your brand consistently across all channels, you can experience a 23% increase in revenue. Memorability – The human brain takes just 7 seconds to make a first impression. Your brand values can help you craft a more interesting brand presence. Profitability – Conscious consumers are willing to pay 30 – 50% more for products that have a positive impact on the world. Trustworthiness – 91% of consumers say they’re more likely to buy from an authentic brand than a dishonest brand, so make sure you’re upholding your promises to customers. Data aside, brand values make sense intrinsically. Think about it: when it comes to your romantic relationships and friends, you probably have core values in common. You and your best friend might both value adventure, for example. It only makes sense that people want to seek relationships with brands that value the same things they do. 7 steps for defining and communicating your brand values Forget the fluff. Here are 7 tactical steps for truly understanding and utilizing your brand values. Step 1. Consider the customer you truly want It all begins with your customers. Your company values need to resonate with them. Consider who you want to serve and get as specific as possible. “Who’s your core customer? Who would love to do business with? I always ask, who is a customer that you’ve had over the last few months that you adore, that you absolutely love, that if you had thousands of those people, you would just be pumped to go to work everyday, Business is about solving a problem that you’re passionate about, but the truth is, you also have to choose your customers. Because if you don’t work for the right k...
It’s no secret that ecommerce is booming, with increasingly more people shopping online for everything from clothes to electronics. If you want your ecommerce business to have the best chance of success,it’s well worth having a solid IT roadmap in place. Designing an IT roadmap for your ecommerce business might sound like a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be. In this blog post, we will give you tips and tricks on how to design a roadmap that meets the specific needs of your business. We’ll also discuss some common pitfalls to avoid when creating your IT roadmap. So whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been in business for a while, keep reading for plenty of helpful advice. Designing an IT roadmap for ecommerce One of the most crucial factors in launching and running a successful ecommerce business is having a robust and well-designed IT infrastructure. In other words, your website needs to be fast, reliable, and secure. In order to achieve this, you need to have a clear IT roadmap that outlines all the changes and upgrades you need to make to your website on a regular basis. You can map it yourself, or ask for professional assistance – companies like EC-MSP can help you plan the whole process. Below are our tips and tricks on how to design an IT roadmap for ecommerce that will help keep your website up and running smoothly.
1 Define your goals
What do you want to achieve with your ecommerce website, and what are your top priorities? Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can start planning the steps you need to take in order to achieve them. Your goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. That’s why an aim such as “improve website speed” is too vague, and a better goal would be something like “decrease website load time by 50% within the next six months”. By setting SMART goals, you can track your progress and adjust your IT roadmap accordingly down the line. To help define them, consider your main objectives, timeline, budget, and risks or challenges while brainstorming.
2 Analyze your current infrastructure
This process includes taking a close look at your website’s hosting plan, domain name, shopping cart software, and payment gateway, etc. Once you have a good understanding of what you have in place currently, you can start planning for any necessary upgrades or changes. For example, if your checkout process is outdated, it might be time to switch to a newer and more user-friendly platform that offers features like one-click purchasing. Or, if your website is running slowly, you might need to invest in a more powerful hosting plan or consider using a content delivery network (CDN).
3 Determine your upgrade paths
Once you know where changes need to be made, figure out the sequence of steps you need to take in order to implement them. This will help you create a timeline for your IT roadmap and ensure that all the upgrades are made in a logical order. Let’s say your goal is to improve website speed, then one of the steps in your upgrade path may be to switch to a faster web hosting plan. Whereas if your goal is to increase online sales, then a sensible change would be to add a live chat feature to your website so that potential customers can get their questions answered in real-time. By outlining all the changes and upgrades you need on a regular basis, you can create an IT roadmap that’s tailored to the specific needs of your ecommerce business.
4 Create a schedule for changes
While determining your upgrade path, also use this time to schedule when to make any modifications to your current infrastructure so that everything continues running smoothly. Doing so will save you time and energy in the long run because you won’t have to scramble to make last-minute changes, and you can then also allow some buffer time in your schedule in case any unforeseen delays or issues arise. For example, if you’re planning on upgrading your web hosting plan then do it...
Using manual processes to manage tasks has several unfavorable implications for your business. Brands must look for new ways to improve efficiency by being more organized, using their time better, and increasing productivity by implementing innovative organizational techniques and procedures. A basic plan incorporating several forms of business automation is key to success and enhanced productivity. When you automate processes, you will see an instant reduction in the amount of time it takes to complete tasks and an improvement in the efficiency of your business. You will effectively handle various company tasks and procedures with the assistance of digital productivity tools, particularly the activities that consume an excessive amount of your time. Every business recognizes the importance of automation and makes it a primary objective to attain this goal—it will assist in reducing overhead expenses and saving valuable time. E-Commerce automation helps increase openness and accountability, enabling workers to do their jobs more effectively and locate points of contention. The e-Commerce automation provides solutions to typical problems that often arise while doing business. Workers will enhance their performance, enabling businesses to overcome periodic but widespread barriers more efficiently by automating the procedures involved in their online trade. Automation technologies help simplify your e-Commerce business’s operations in various ways, including accepting orders and delivering them. There are several platforms to choose from—picking the most effective automated solutions for your business will be challenging. Continue reading as we walk you through 6 time-saving productivity tools that will assist you in automating tasks—freeing up more time to improve productivity. But before delving deep into these essential tools, let us know about e-Commerce automation. Understanding e-Commerce automation Source E-commerce automation software is created to transform your company’s operations, procedures, and campaigns into automated workflows that run independently and only when required. It’s how companies get more out of their current resources. You will save time, money, and energy by simplifying and automating as much of your e-Commerce operation as possible. Automation is helpful when many different jobs need to be completed. This allows businesses to scale more efficiently and to set priorities for their work more effectively. Inventory management, conversational commerce, lead conversion, and notification management are just a few areas that benefit greatly from automation. It is possible to run an effective e-Commerce business with the help of these technologies, thanks to the wide range of configuration options they provide. 6 Time-saving tools to improve your ecommerce business Demands, complexity, and routine tasks increase as businesses grow. Previously reliable systems gradually lose effectiveness and eventually fail. As a result, businesses resort to labor-intensive solutions, diverting resources from more pressing matters to deal with the unexpected. E-commerce automation tools come in handy to provide businesses with the right solution to enhance productivity and growth. 1. Text extraction automation tools—DocHorizon The text extraction automation tool will extract text from a scanned document or image, and then the extracted content will be converted into a computer-readable format. This is helpful when information is required for further processing—this includes situations like accounting, invoice processing, spending tracking, customer loyalty programs, and identity verification. While automation will make specific tasks more manageable, integrating automation into robust processes will efficiently handle routine tasks. Businesses widely use this OCR (optical character recognition) technology to capture data from receipts and extract data from documents. It is a productive business process that saves time, m...
2022 is going to be a busy year. Themes are super important for people who are starting their business, and for existing merchants, we know Q1 is the busiest time of year for theme updates and changes. In this article, we’ll talk about what 2022 could have in store for you, including what the Online Store product team has been working on since June. Spoiler alert: there are some highly requested feature updates, and we’ll introduce you to a new suite of Shopify’s best free themes being released in January. First, let’s recap what was released last year. New Online Store features in 2021 At Shopify Unite 2021, we announced some serious improvements to the way merchants can customize their online store without code, as well as new developer tooling for anyone building themes and apps for Shopify merchants. For merchants, we upgraded the theme architecture to support sections on every page and theme app extensions with app blocks and app embeds. Up until then, merchants were limited in how they represented their business on Shopify, with the flexibility of sections being limited to only the home page. Code edits, elaborate workarounds with blocks, or custom apps were needed to achieve a similar effect across other pages. Now, merchants can add sections to all pages, not just the home page, unlocking a range of new opportunities to personalize every aspect of a store. Previously, there was no structured, end-to-end solution for apps to easily integrate with themes. With theme app extensions, app developers can now build UI components that can be added, removed, and configured directly through the theme editor without touching a theme’s code. This means uninstalls are also cleaner, with redundant code automatically removed. Lastly, the updated theme editor allows merchants to add metafields and properties without using APIs or code. That means merchants can now add custom content they need to the product page, like introducing a space for buyers to include a size chart or ingredient list. Anything that is unlikely to appear in the core store editor can now be added in via metafields. For a full recap of the new Online Store features and what they mean for developers, check out these resources: Read this blog article Catch the Shopify Unite recording Join our upcoming deep dive webinars for partners: Sections Everywhere and Metafields + Storefront Filtering. To accompany the launch of Online Store 2.0, we launched a brand new default theme that ties together all the new features. We call it Dawn. Dawn is Shopify’s first source-available reference theme with OS 2.0 flexibility and a focus on speed. It’s accessible, performant, and a great starting point to customize on. Installing Dawn isn’t the only way to access the new Online Store features – merchants can install any theme labeled OS 2.0 in the Shopify Theme Store, or update their theme to use JSON templates. Migrating a theme to using JSON templates is likely the preferred approach for any merchant who has a lot of customizations on their theme already. Feature improvements Since the release of sections on every page, app blocks and embeds, and dynamic sources that support metafields, the Online Store team has been working through a backlog of outstanding feature improvements. Merchants will now also be able to: Add metafields on Collections, Orders and Customers. For example you can now add wishlists, shipping addresses, and favorite products associated with customers. For metafields with Orders, you can add barcodes, order IDs, serial numbers, notes, and even give an indication if an order is a gift. Create storefront filters and choice lists for metafields. For example, for a wine collection merchants might like to filter by country and region. The choice list for the country filter might include France, Italy, etc and the choice list for the region filter might include Southern Rhone or Tuscany. We got a lot of feedback on the template limit, so we’re extended this limit ...
To say ecommerce has boomed would be an understatement. Global online sales are predicted to total $5.4 trillion in 2022. Consumers in the US alone will take a $1 trillion stake. To get a slice of the action, brands pivoted their marketing campaigns to focus heavily on the online channels customers were flocking to instead of brick-and-mortar stores. The result? Sky-high customer acquisition and paid marketing costs. Ecommerce brands in the US will be spending $200 billion to compete for customer attention—something already known to be dwindling. The current state of ecommerce is forcing brands to think about other ways to attract new customers and retain loyal ones. They need to drive down ever-increasing advertising costs and focus on relationships with their customers. All of this is done through brand building. The goal is to be a customers’ first port of call when they need the product you sell— not catching them by chance through a paid advert. This guide shares how to bolster your ecommerce brand as we head into 2022 and beyond. We’ll share the changes you need to be aware of and how to prepare for them, complete with examples of brands that have invested heavily in brand marketing—a strategy that paid off. Table of Contents What is brand building in 2022? Old vs. new brand marketing strategies Brand marketing statistics Brand building strategies and best practices in 2022 Brand marketing: a case study Brand building in 2022 and beyond What is brand building in 2022? Brand building is the strategy behind building recognition between your products and your customers. It includes everything from the visual identity (consistent brand logos, fonts, typography, and color palettes) for your business through to the values, brand mission statements, and people you want to help. Strong direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands have become the default merchants for customers who align with their core values when searching for new products. Sustainable sneakers that help the planet? Allbirds ticks the box. Comfortable bras for modern women? Harper Wilde is top of mind. This brand recognition makes the entire marketing funnel more effective. It’s easier to influence a purchase—even at higher prices—with someone who knows your brand and what you stand for. If you brand yourself correctly, and your product plus customer service align perfectly with this brand, customers will develop a preference for your company and its products. Moreover, branding helps define what your customers can expect from the company. Meeting these expectations is what leads to the establishment of trust and loyalty between you and your customers.” Patrick Crane, CEO of Love Sew Old vs. new brand marketing strategies For many ecommerce merchants, brand building fell on the backburner. It was something that came as an indirect consequence of traditional performance marketing. You got brand awareness by spending thousands on advertising, right? The traditional marketing landscape is changing rapidly. Paid advertising is a lifeline for many ecommerce brands. Granted, it might be more expensive to run these campaigns than to invest in brand building, but for many merchants, it’s the fuel that gets the customer acquisition engine running. The oversaturation of advertising slots—particularly on social media—means your customer acquisition costs might be feasible for a few months. Expect it to take a greater stake of your profit margins by this time next year, when new brands are competing against you for those already limited placements. Some brands are seeing ad costs go five times higher than [before] to drive the same amount of traffic.” —Ben Jabbawy, founder and CEO, Privy If that wasn’t scary enough, consider the looming death of the cookie. Limitations on the data marketers can collect mean 28% of global technology decision makers expect changes to customer data and privacy regulations to hinder their 2022 growth goals (1). As we head into next year, combat these ch...
You can’t open up Instagram these days without seeing a #sponsored post, reel, or story where someone is promoting a #gifted product. This is the norm in the new age of influencer social media marketing. But if you tend to scroll right past these posts from large influencer accounts, they’re probably not super effective. The goal of this type of marketing is to build genuine connections with your target customers through a trustworthy third-party. How exactly do you do that, you ask? Well the key is authentic marketing that customers believe in and trust. One of the best ways to accomplish this is with a little something known as micro-influencer marketing. It’s time to learn what exactly a micro influencer is, how they differ from a regular influencer, and if micro-influencer marketing is something worth testing out for your own brand! What is a micro influencer? A micro influencer is a bit different than the traditional influencer who could be a reality television star with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. Micro influencers have smaller followings and are typically concentrated in a specific industry. “A micro-influencer is an individual who has between 10,000 and 50,000 followers on social media.” Association of National Advertisers These influential experts in their field post on social media promoting products they thoroughly enjoy in exchange for some type of compensation. As a brand, you benefit from this because they are promoting your products to people who trust them. By using social commerce tools like referral links on stories or shoppable posts on Instagram and Facebook, micro influencers can be a great revenue generator. Influencers vs. micro influencers We’ve covered that micro influencers have smaller followings than influencers, but that much was probably a given. So let’s dive into how else these two influencer types differ. For starters, micro influencers are typically concentrated in more niche markets and work with fewer brands than influencers. Whereas an influencer might promote hair supplements one day and then a mattress the next, micro influencers tend to stick to one industry and potentially even a specific geographic area. As we’ve already covered, the most notable difference is in the follower count. You may be thinking that influencers are the way to go to get your brand in front of the biggest audience possible. And while you may be exposed to a wider audience, it’s all about how this audience engages with the influencer. “The engagement rate for Instagram influencers with at least 10,000 followers is steady at about 3.6% worldwide. Influencers with 5,000 to 10,000 followers have an engagement rate of 6.3%.” Marketing Dive Micro influencers tend to have higher engagement rates with their audiences. This is because with a smaller follower base they truly become a thriving brand community and users actually feel connected. Their love for the person posting translates into trust in the products the micro influencer is posting about. Micro influencers also tend to promote fewer products for longer periods of time. It is common to see a micro influencer post about the same product multiple times and potentially even have an established partnership with the brand. On the flip side, influencers are often flooded with product promotion opportunities and some will jump at all of them! This is why you may see influencers posting about dozens of products in just one week. The problem with this is the promotion of all these very different products makes it hard to know which ones they truly love. This can reduce trust in your brand, can be unreliable, and overall come off very advertise-y. How Social Media Influencers Can Destroy Community Chances are that you and your business have considered influencer marketing. Ina survey, 93% of marketers planned to put over $10k into influencer marketingchannels this year, making influencers one of the fastest growing trends formarketing ad spend. But...
did you know Omnisend customers automate 32% of their email conversions. Are you maximizing sales? automate my sales Reading Time: 9 minutes Since it launched in 2009, BigCommerce has been a major player in ecommerce. Its user-friendly interface provides endless options for growth, making Bigcommerce platforms a no-brainer for ecommerce retailers seeking agility and flexibility. One of the key factors in the success of BigCommerce is its huge range of third-party apps and integrations. In this article, we’re going to check out 12 essential BigCommerce apps to supercharge your online store. From marketing automation to gathering reviews and streamlining your shipping, these powerful and efficient apps will provide you with the maximum benefit for the minimum cost. They’ll also ensure that you’re not slowing down your store’s performance with unnecessary and poorly-built downloads. Ready? Let’s jump straight into it. 1. Omnisend Category: email marketing and marketing automation Omnisend is a powerful marketing automation platform that allows you to reach out to your customers with personalized messaging. It is one of only two email service providers (ESPs) chosen by BigCommerce as an Elite Technology Partner. You’ll be able to target different segments of your contacts with email, SMS, push notifications, and more for a seamless omnichannel experience. Getting started with Omnisend is a breeze, with pre-built automations such as Welcome Series, Cart Abandonment, and Order Confirmation set up and ready to start driving revenue straight away. Key features include an intuitive drag-and-drop builder, which makes it easy to customize your emails, SMS, and automated workflows to precisely fit your strategy. There are also interactive list-building forms to help you grow a highly-engaged subscriber base quickly and efficiently. Smart segmentation and reactivation workflows encourage repeat purchases and keep customers coming back for more. Add in comprehensive analytics and reporting, and you’ve got everything you need to run growth-driven marketing campaigns on autopilot. BigCommerce integration is easy—simply download the app from the BigCommerce app store and your contacts, products & orders will be automatically synced with Omnisend. Every new user can get started on a Free plan that gives full access to all of Omnisend’s features, with the possibility to upgrade to a paid plan as your business grows. 2. Yotpo Category: Generating product reviews Reviews are vital for building trust and loyalty among customers. They also help in building a solid brand reputation. Products or services that have very few reviews risk coming across as unpopular, or even untrustworthy. That’s why ecommerce businesses are increasingly investing in review marketing to bolster the number and quality of reviews on their site. Yotpo specializes in gathering user-generated content and helping you to integrate it into your online store. Key features include automatic review requests, which are synced with orders placed via your BigCommerce store. It also has a handy social curation tool that can find and gather the best customer-produced content on social media. On-Site Widgets bring it all together by showcasing the reviews that you’ve collected on relevant product pages. There’s a Free version of Yotpo with basic but very useful features. Premium features such as Customized Loyalty & Referrals Programs come at a cost but are well worth the money for brands looking to boost their loyalty and reputation. 3. Printful Category: Print-on-demand drop shipping Printful is an online drop shipping and custom printing fulfillment service. With Printful, you can create custom designs, place them on products from Printful’s catalog, and sell them on your online store. Printful handles inventory, order fulfillment, quality control, and shipping, so you can focus on the fun part of building and running an ecommerce business, like marketing and creating new designs. B...
Blazar Capital is an incubator and venture capital firm specializing in direct-to-consumer brands. With 8-figure businesses in a multitude of industries, Blazar Capital’s brands span everything from home goods to fashion to cosmetics. CEO Christian Arnstedt launched the business in 2017 by building brands from scratch. Now as an investor on Denmark’s Shark Tank (Løvens Hule), he’s helping other founders reach their potential. In this episode of Shopify Masters, we sit down with Christian in his Copenhagen office to hear his learnings from building direct-to-consumer brands, what he looks for when investing, and how he navigates failures. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters. Show Notes Website: Blazar Capital Stores: Nordgreen, MessyWeekend, Moonboon, Chamberlain Coffee, Scandinavian Biolabs, Project Nord, Copenhagen Cartel Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Leaving a successful career in consulting to building Blazar Capital Shuang: Tell us about how Blazar Capital was founded. Christian: Blazar was founded by me and a couple of partners called Pascal (Sivam) and Vasilij (Brandt). Pascal was an old colleague from my former job in McKinsey, and Vasilj came from an ecommerce company called The Hut Group in the UK. And we teamed up some years ago, and I thought it could be a lot of fun to make a house that helps to incubate new consumer brands. So brands that are typically born digitally, many of them are actually born using the Shopify platform to do their sales on. And then help scale and scale these brands fast. We have this house that we have set up to support new brands in the way that there’s a tech team that supports them with everything they need. On the tech side, we have a paid media team and an agency that supports everything that’s needed on paid media. And then we are also supporting on other functions, such as handling logistics globally and setting up finances in the first couple of years where a founder may have a lot of other tasks on hand. So we try to really set up a house with all the different things that you need as a new business. Shuang: It’s impressive because your team also built your own brand and within a couple of years it’s scaled beyond 8-figures. So tell us about the first brand that you built, Nordgreen, and how it all started. Christian: So Nordgreen was one of the first things we started out with Pascal and Vasilij. And it has just been a great ride. It came from the idea that Danish design is known in many countries as high-end design and aspirational. And then we got an opportunity to work with one of the lead designers who has designed a lot of the collections for the Danish brand called Bang and Olufsen known for its headphones, speakers, televisions and so on. And Jacob was just an international design star, and being able to do Danish design together with one of the leading Scandinavian designers was just a very interesting opportunity for us. So we launched this watch brand called Nordgreen with Jacob. And the name Nordgreen stands for Nord is because we are from the Northern part of Europe. So it’s N-O-R-D, the Danish way of writing that. And then green comes from that the fact that brand is very dedicated to CSR and to making a positive impact in the world. So that was the start there. So it’s been a combination of a design story and a CSR story. It got good traction within a few years. Within the third year it got to be an 8-figure brand. And it’s still growing nicely. That has been one of the fun journeys that we have been so lucky to be on the last couple of years. Shuang: It’s amazing that within a few years since 2017, your team was able to scale so much. What are some key pivotal decisions that you felt really contributed to the scaling? Christian: I think a couple of different things. The reason why we are able to work across multiple brands is that we have a good strong team on each brand. So every brand has a dedicated leadership that is able to fu...
A few years ago, very few people might have guessed that cloud computing would become such a big part of our lives. Today, it’s hard to imagine living without the cloud. There’s no doubt that cloud computing is the future, and that future is looking very bright when it comes to ecommerce. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the role of cloud-based ecommerce in the future of online shopping, discuss the benefits that it has to offer and why increasingly more businesses are moving to the cloud, as well as show how you can make the switch. Let’s dive right in. Cloud computing and ecommerce Have you ever wondered how online stores keep their websites running so smoothly? The answer, in most cases, is cloud computing – a type of internet-based computing that provides shared processing resources and data to connected devices on demand. In other words, cloud computing is a way to store and access information remotely. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms therefore store all of a business’s data – such as product information, customer details, and website files – on remote servers. This means businesses can access their data from anywhere in the world, at any time. For example, there are many London IT support companies who can help your business to transfer from on-premises to cloud solutions. The benefits of cloud-based ecommerce There are many reasons why eccomerce businesses use cloud computing to run their online stores. We’ve identified the four biggest advantages below.
1 Cost-effectiveness
With cloud computing, you only pay for the resources that you actually use. Compared to the costs of setting up and hosting your own ecommerce website, this can lead to significant savings in the long run. Additionally, cloud-based ecommerce platforms are often subscription-based, which means that you’ll have a predictable monthly fee. This makes it much easier to budget for your ecommerce business compared to traditional hosting models, the costs of which can fluctuate month-to-month.
2 Performance
Cloud-based ecommerce platforms are designed to provide a fast, smooth, and enjoyable experience for both customers and store owners. With cloud computing, businesses can take advantage of the latest technologies and innovations to ensure that their websites are always running at peak performance. What’s more, cloud-based ecommerce platforms are updated regularly with the latest security patches and features. This means that business owners can rest assured that their online stores are always kept up-to-date with the latest industry standards.
3 Scalability
Another advantage of cloud-based ecommerce platforms is that they are designed to be highly scalable, and so they can easily handle sudden increases in traffic or spikes in sales volume. This is perfect for businesses that experience seasonal peaks or are rapidly growing and need to scale their websites quickly and efficiently. Scalability is one of the biggest advantages of cloud-based ecommerce, and it’s something that traditional, on-premise solutions simply can’t match.
4 Security
When it comes to security, cloud-based ecommerce platforms are in a league of their own. Thanks to having their data stored on remote servers instead of locally, businesses can rest assured that their information is safe and secure without having to worry about losing it if something happens to a computer or document storage. Additionally, cloud-based ecommerce platforms often have built-in security features such as firewalls, intrusion detection, and data encryption. This further protects businesses from the threats of cybercrime and gives them peace of mind that their customers’ data is always safe. Taking your ecommerce business to the cloud The advantages of cloud-based ecommerce are clear, but making the switch from traditional hosting can seem like a daunting task. However, with a little bit of planning and the help of a professional, you can make the transition quickly and smoothly. How to cho...
Having reliable IT support is crucial for any business, but especially those that sell products or services online. It can help you manage your website more effectively, increase your online sales, and improve customer satisfaction. In this blog post, we will discuss these and more business benefits of IT support for ecommerce. So, without further ado, let’s get started. The importance of IT support for ecommerce Every business is, to a certain extent, reliant on technology. But for businesses that are 100% online, the importance of having a sound IT infrastructure and support system cannot be understated. Here are 7 benefits of IT support for ecommerce businesses:
1 Increased sales and conversions
With a reliable IT infrastructure in place, an ecommerce business can be sure that their website is easy to use and navigate for visitors. This means that potential customers will always be able to find and purchase the products or services listed there, in turn leading to increased sales and conversions. One common mistake that ecommerce businesses make is not having a clear and simple checkout process, which often leads to prospective clients abandoning their shopping carts. This and other troublesome aspects of an ecommerce site might lead to huge losses for the business, but fortunately your IT support can identify troublesome parts in the customer journey where visitors drop out by analyzing heat maps, click maps, and session recordings, etc. IT support can also help you streamline your checkout process and make it as user-friendly as possible, ensuring that visitors can easily find what they are looking for, complete their purchases, and ultimately convert into paying customers.
2 Improved customer satisfaction
Visitors who are able to find what they’re looking for quickly and without any issues are more likely to be satisfied with their overall experience. IT support can help you troubleshoot any customer satisfaction issues you might have by identifying technical problems with your website and providing solutions to fix them. Additionally, IT support can help improve customer satisfaction thanks to providing features like live chat, 24/7 autoresponders, or a self-service portal. This way, website visitors will always be able to get some assistance or find answers to questions themselves, even outside of your regular business hours.
3 Reduced downtime
Maintaining uptime should be a top priority for every ecommerce business. Not only can even a moment of downtime lead to lost sales and unhappy customers, but it might also damage your reputation in the long run if such incidents occur repeatedly. With a good IT support team in place, such as Mustard IT, IT support in London, you can reduce the likelihood of downtime and resolve any issues that do arise quickly and efficiently. IT support can also help you create a comprehensive disaster recovery plan, so that your business can bounce back even after major incidents.
4 Greater security
An ecommerce business must be vigilant when it comes to security. In addition to the threat of hacking and data breaches, there is also the risk of fraud and identity theft. A good IT support team can help you implement the necessary security measures to keep your website safe and secure. IT support also means maintaining a secure website with robust anti-virus and anti-malware protection. As such, customers can have peace of mind that their personal and financial information is safe when shopping on your site, thus building trust and loyalty in your brand.
5 Better search engine rankings
A well-designed website with a solid IT infrastructure will typically fare better in search engine rankings than one that is poorly designed and not properly supported. The reason for that is because search engines like Google take website performance into account when determining where to rank websites in its search results. IT support can help you make sure that your website is designed in a way that is...
did you know Omnisend customers automate 32% of their email conversions. Are you maximizing sales? automate my sales Reading Time: 7 minutes BigCommerce and Magento are two of the most widely used ecommerce platforms in the world. In fact, these two services are behind ecommerce stores for major global brands including Skullcandy, Ben and Jerry’s, and Burrow (BigCommerce) as well as HP, Rossignol, and Food Service Direct (Magento). While both BigCommerce and Magento are extremely powerful and flexible, you shouldn’t invest time, money, or other resources into a new ecommerce platform until you’ve thoroughly weighed your options. Our BigCommerce vs. Magento comparison is a great resource for any vendor that’s struggling to choose between these two providers. Features Both BigCommerce and Magento are full-service ecommerce providers. In other words, they come with everything vendors need to set up a completely functional online store. However, there are significant differences in features between these two platforms. With BigCommerce, you’ll get a drag-and-drop editor and built-in mobile optimization to streamline the customer experience on smartphones and tablets. BigCommerce also offers a WordPress integration that enables store owners to build a digital storefront on top of their WordPress site. Marketing and sales are two other strengths for BigCommerce. Social selling is particularly helpful for contemporary ecommerce vendors as it allows customers to buy products directly through outside platforms like Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Instagram. To minimize abandoned carts, BigCommerce also includes a one-page checkout experience that helps buyers complete their orders more quickly. You can get in touch with their customer support team 24/7 if you run into any technical issues or simply have questions about the platform. Magento’s features are a little more limited, especially for users who stick with the open-source version of the software. According to the website, Magento Open Source is limited to these basic functions: Mobile-optimized shopping Global selling Catalog management Access to extensions in the marketplace Instant purchasing Site search Page builder On the other hand, the managed Adobe Commerce service comes with all of those tools plus the following advanced features: Reusable dynamic blocks B2B support Business intelligence dashboards Advanced marketing tools Content staging and preview Customer loyalty tools Visual merchandising AI-powered product recommendations Customer segmentation Live site search Pick-up in store functionality Gift cards Additionally, Adobe Commerce Hosted Cloud users get cloud hosting with SLAs guaranteeing availability up to 99.99%, plus associated tools like performance monitoring, CDN access, and a web application firewall. Pricing After a 15-day free trial of BigCommerce, you can continue with one of three paid plans: Standard ($29.95 per month), Plus ($79.95 per month), or Pro ($299.95 per month). While Plus and Pro come with a 10% discount when paid annually, Standard keeps the same rate of $29.95 per month paid monthly or annually. If you need more than any of the pre-set plans offer, you can also talk to the BigCommerce sales team about a custom Enterprise solution with variable pricing based on your needs. Enterprise users gain access to advanced features like price lists, unlimited API calls, and priority support. BigCommerce doesn’t charge any transaction fees of its own, but you’ll also have to pay a third-party payment processor. A wide range of payment gateways are supported including Amazon Pay, Chase Integrated Payments, PayPal, QuickBooks Payments, Square, and Stripe. Magento Open Source is free to access, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be cheaper to implement in the long run. For example, while every paid BigCommerce subscription includes hosting, you’ll need to work out your own hosting arrangement if you decide to go with Magento Open Source. Furthermore...
When many businesses are first starting, the idea of global marketing is usually thought of as a positive goal to reach for. The thought of expanding to markets around the world sounds like an excellent way to expand a business, however this is not always the best business move for every company, due to the many laws and shipping regulations that surround sending products overseas. There are a number of ways a company can evaluate their ability to sell their product abroad, as well as a number of ways they can be successful in doing so should they choose to go global. There are two major questions that should be asked before choosing to expand to a global market: What is the demand for the product overseas? What taxes and shipping costs should be accounted for when shipping to other countries? It’s important for any company looking to expand to understand the demand for their product in other cultures. Some products that may be very useful in one country may have little use in another. If customers in global markets do not want the product, there is no use in expanding globally, as it will not result in a better bottom line as a result. If a company has recognized that they do have a potentially profitable market in other countries around the world, there are a number of ways they can cut down on costs to distribute their product: Work with local distributors. Offer only limited products to international markets. Use local marketplaces to gauge interest and sales numbers. When companies work with local distributors in other countries, they can save immensely on shipping costs and import taxes. In addition, offering only a small selection of products can help to ensure that profits are being made. While it may be profitable to sell a certain item overseas, it may not be the same for smaller products with the same shipping costs. It’s advised to offer only a limited number of products to international markets in order to cut costs. One way to know which products are in demand specifically is to start selling on local marketplaces, such as local eBay equivalents (such as Rakuten or Taobao). When products are sold here, businesses can get a realistic idea of what’s in demand overseas and what isn’t. Once the overseas market has been identified, there are many other questions that must be answered. It’s important that companies understand what kind of local and import taxes they will be dealing with, and they must understand how foreign currency and prices translate from those in a business’s home country. Miscalculating taxes, shipping costs, and currency conversion rates can be detrimental to any company looking to expand to foreign markets. With currency conversion in mind, it’s important to offer customer-friendly options for payment, as some countries may not have access to certain payment options that are common in other parts of the world. Offer a wide array of payment options that will appeal to a large, international market. Including PayPal as a payment option is usually an effective way to ensure that people around the world can pay for their order. One way to avoid any payment issues is to launch a localized site that is written in the language of its intended audience, with payment options that will work well for them. Language can also be taken into account with packaging, as instructions in English will do little to help a buyer that only speaks Japanese. Products should include any safety information in the customer’s native language as to prevent any accidents from happening, and in many cases there are laws that make this absolutely necessary. Finally, it’s very important to be on the lookout for fraud. It’s not uncommon for companies to purchase large orders, only to resell them at a higher price to local markets. Be sure to have a highly-trained customer service team in order to address any such issues, as well as issues with the products themselves. If an increasing number of complaints begin to come through...
Successful e-commerce business owners know that part of the key to winning is an optimized logistics system. The role of logistics plays an important part in e-commerce. And there’s a huge potential for improving it, gaining an edge in a progressively crowded marketplace and satisfying savvy customers. Here are a few ways to determine whether you need to improve your logistics plan. 1. Constantly Losing Inventory Nothing is more unsettling than purchasing a product and finding it missing. This is often because of disorganization and can leave negative impressions of your online store. To avoid this situation, you must check your stock regularly — checking in and out and keeping track of inventory with software. It’s also a good idea to assess the condition of your products. Additionally, it helps to keep the difference between the quantity of your product and what you offer to customers at a minimum. In essence, it’s helpful to have more items in case of defective or damaged products. You’ll boost consumer confidence knowing that you have items available for purchase. 2. Inaccessible Product Return System When customers buy from your online store, you will have at least one exchange or return—however, the process of returning or exchanging needs to be adequate to keep your customers satisfied. The first thing you should have is a defined return and exchange policy to avoid the interruption of a seamless return process. A clear return policy can safeguard your company and reassure potential buyers. Furthermore, you can take steps to ensure you’re automating the process. This makes it easier to accept and receive returns because it reduces the time to manage them, increasing productivity and saving you money in the long run. Plus, it can decrease your overall return rates and boost customer lifetime value. 3. Missing Delivery Deadlines If you’re constantly missing delivery deadlines, this can be a significant problem for your business. That’s because it breaks the customers’ trust. After all, they buy from your store because the information you provide feels secure. If you feel your customers are complaining left and right because of delays — you can make changes to your logistics plan. One way to avoid this issue is by setting the delivery terms one to two days more than the delivery deadline. The good thing about using this tactic is that you’ll hit your delivery deadlines more often. As a result, you avoid disappointing your customers and delight them by ensuring the delivery is early or on time. 4. Shipping Is High-Cost Expensive shipping is the primary contributor to shopping cart abandonment. Most customers expect to receive value throughout the entire journey of their purchase. This includes product quality, great prices, and cheap or fast shipping. Since customers need your products, offering more than one shipping option is only fair. Doing so helps cater to their shipping preferences. Some customers want faster shipping while others are in no hurry but expect an excellent price in exchange. Consider searching for carriers that offer the best value for money. Even though you’re using a third-party service to perform your shipping service, it’s still vital that you keep customer satisfaction high for every delivery. One other thing to ensure is that you work with companies that provide tracking codes. This avoids customer eagerness and complaints and allows them to follow the shipping process. Optimize Your Logistics Plan Consider making improvements if your logistics plan lacks in any of the abovementioned areas. You can put these tips into practice and guarantee customer satisfaction. Once you gain their trust and loyalty, customers will speak highly of your e-commerce store, which pertains to your business growth.
Do you know what really motivates your sales reps? You might think it’s an easy answer: money. But it’s not that simple. Sales reps generally fall into two categories—or somewhere in between. Understanding what motivates each of your sales reps is the key to unlocking their best performance. The illustration below shows You-kai Cho’s interpretation of the “Core Drives” that influence whether motivation is extrinsically or intrinsically driven. To visualize this, Cho has mapped the core drives relative to the two sides of the brain. This distinction doesn’t refer to brain geography in medical terms. It’s a simple way to conceptualize the core drives of employees who are intrinsically motivated versus extrinsically motivated. In this sense, left-brain core drives are those that are associated with logical, higher-order analytic thinking or ownership. Whereas the right-brain drives are underpinned by creativity, curiosity, and social tendencies. Extrinsic Sales Motivation Factors Likely, your middle-performers are extrinsically driven. The main motivating factors for these sales reps are things like money, rewards, and other material recognition. Their best results occur in short, heavily incentivized sales cycles, and they love external rewards and status symbols such as having their conversion rate, win rate, and call data displayed on KPI dashboards around the office (like you can do with the Plecto and Aircall integration). These are reps who pull out all the stops to outperform their teammates during each sales cycle to grab the bonus. Extrinsically motivated reps love to see their hard work translate into higher earnings. They equate effort with potential income, so it’s a safe bet they’ll work the phones and burn the midnight oil when there’s an opportunity to make more money. Intrinsic Sales Motivation Factors Contrary to what you might think, your top sales reps are likely to be intrinsically motivated by truly enjoying their work and achieving their personal goals—even more so than money. Their main sales motivation factors are things like recognition, fulfillment, and their love of the job. They produce consistent results time and time again. Intrinsically motivated reps are willing to invest the necessary time and effort needed to perform. They’ll often seek out licenses, certifications, and professional development courses to help them learn new skills and improve their sales techniques. You may not even notice, but they’ll be keeping a keen eye on how many calls they’ve made in Aircall, to see where (or if) their effort is lacking. They see themselves as their biggest competitor, and they’re always striving to be better. “In a sales team, you need to understand what motivates people. Some people want to get a promotion, whereas others prefer recognition—and others focus on the money, a pat on the back, or any kind of reward. It depends, as it’s quite individual.” Alen Mayer, Author of Selling Is Better Than Sex Many companies design their incentive programs to cater solely to extrinsic motivators and later discover that employee motivation plummets when they remove the incentive—sometimes even diminishing lower than before the incentive was introduced. That’s why it’s so important to understand how employees are stimulated. With this knowledge, you’ll know exactly how to motivate sales reps to achieve the best possible results over the long haul. How to Motivate Sales Reps—Regardless of Motivation Factors A little recon is the first step to motivating your sales reps. Your job as an effective leader is to figure out what motivates each person on your team. Observe them and bring your observations to your one-to-one coaching sessions. Encourage each employee to share their thoughts and make sure to listen. Some effective opening questions could be: What do you enjoy about sales? What’s your least favorite part of sales? How would you like to be defined as a sales rep? What are your personal and professional goals?...
did you know Omnisend customers automate 32% of their email conversions. Are you maximizing sales? automate my sales Reading Time: 6 minutes Mailchimp recently announced that it will be increasing its prices again. This time by 11% on average. This follows on from the news in November 2021 that Mailchimp was to be acquired by global technology platform Intuit, something that may have had an impact on this decision. This isn’t the first time that Mailchimp has surprised its users with sudden price increases. In May 2019, Mailchimp made a huge announcement—they were pivoting from an email marketing platform to an “all-in-one marketing automation platform.” They released an email with updated Terms of Use and pricing changes that were effective immediately. For most marketers using the platform, pricing plans would change dramatically. On top of that, Mailchimp stated these changes would not affect “Legacy Paid Plans.” These were users who were on a paid plan before the price increases rolled out. However, Mailchimp soon raised prices for Legacy Paid Plans anyway, causing a ripple of discordance across the email marketing industry. Today, we’re going to go over the latest changes in Mailchimp’s pricing. We’ll learn how they might affect your business and give you some solid options on what to do next. What Changes Can You Expect In Mailchimp’s Pricing? Mailchimp recently sent out an email informing customers of changes to their pricing plans: As you can see, the pricing increases are effective February 1st, 2022, giving users very little time to figure out the impact on their business model and adapt accordingly. If you’re a long-term Mailchimp user who was using the service before the pricing structure changes of 2019, you’re probably still on a Legacy Plan. Legacy Plans are governed by different payment terms to more recent subscribers. So you might be wondering, do these new prices increases affect me too? 2022 Price Increases Compared to Mailchimp Legacy Pricing According to the email, only customers on the introductory tier of Mailchimp’s Premium Plan will avoid an increase in prices. Sadly, this means that Legacy Plan users will be affected. There are currently 3 Mailchimp legacy plans available: Mailchimp Legacy Monthly plan: This plan charges once per month and is based on subscriber numbers or send volume. Prices increase as your subscriber numbers rise, up to 52,000. Users with more than 52,000 subscribed contacts are considered high-volume senders and face extra charges. Mailchimp Legacy Pay As You Go plan: This is a flexible plan that’s best for infrequent senders. It includes the same paid features as the Monthly plan and offers buyable email credits to cover your particular sending needs. Mailchimp Legacy Free plan: This is a free plan that allows you to send 12,000 total emails per month and have up to 2,000 total subscribers. Adding certain features, like new audiences, is limited. With add-on contact blocks also set to increase in price, Legacy Pay As You Go users are likely to be affected the most. How much are Mailchimp credits going to increase in price? If your business is growing rapidly, these extra Mailchimp costs will soon add up. It remains to be seen exactly how pricing for each individual Legacy Plan will be affected. Users will find out on their next billing cycle beginning February 1st, 2022. Where Can You Go from Here? Some of these changes are going to make Mailchimp an impossible option for many ecommerce marketers. Sure, pricing increases are expected from time to time to account for new features and inflation. However, it might be difficult for some businesses to keep up with these Mailchimp pricing increases. At the end of the day, you’ve got to make the best decision for the health of your business. Luckily, there are a few options available. A great Mailchimp alternative exists that doesn’t have these problems in billing, and you’ll still have access to an intuitive and revenue-driving pla...
The pandemic has been a double whammy for entrepreneurs. On top of the personal stress of enduring the virus, they’re dealing with constant delays and shortages impacting every part of their business, frustrating customers and owners alike. Global supply chain disruptions have become common amid the pandemic, with shortages, rising import costs, and delays interrupting the normal flow of goods. The impact has been felt by the world’s biggest companies and small businesses trying to secure the materials they need in a timely manner. According to our Future of Commerce report—a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Shopify—shipping delays, shipping costs, and manufacturing delays are the top supply chain concerns brands expect to encounter in the next 12 months. Brands also know this is a problem worth solving in 2022. According to the report, brands are planning to invest in these areas this year: 45% plan to invest in increasing manufacturing capacity 44% plan to invest in increasing the speed of their supply chain 44% plan to invest in improving collaboration with supply chain partners 30% plan to invest in decreasing associated supply chain costs Another method to lessen global supply chain disruption is to make your supply chain less global. It’s a solution that’s certainly not one-size-fits-all and comes with its own challenges, but it is one way to add stability to your supply chain. We’ll go over why businesses are localizing their supply chain and how you can take steps to do the same. Bring your supply chain closer to home The concept of making your supply chain local or even just domestic isn’t new at all. There’s always been a market and an associated ethos of buying products made in your own country. In a globalized economy with so many products made with cheaper labor overseas, it’s increasingly rare to find goods made domestically, especially in the US and Canada, giving the ones that are a certain prestige. However, amid the supply chain disruptions of the pandemic there’s renewed interest in bringing the process closer to home. This is known as “reshoring” or “onshoring.” There’s also the concept of “localization,” which means bringing points in the supply chain closer, such as localized distribution centers. Each part of the supply chain you can bring closer to home is an opportunity to lessen disruptions. According to The New York Times, some corporate giants such as tech companies and car manufacturers have accelerated efforts to bring at least some of their manufacturing capabilities back to the United States. And that’s especially true for those with manufacturing in China, where a trade war with the US and rising shipping costs have had brands rethinking where to produce their goods. “It’s a big endeavor, but it’s the future,” a Toyota executive told the Times. This process can look like a lot of things—from moving just part of the process to a brand’s home country, or investing in upgrading existing facilities. According to Deloitte, 75% of brands surveyed in 2020 were planning some sort of reshoring efforts. Small or medium businesses may have less complex supply chains than these big brands, but reshoring is still a challenge. Domestic production is generally more expensive and it might be hard to even know where to start. But each part of the supply chain you can bring closer to home is an opportunity to lessen disruptions. The benefits also go beyond lessening supply chain disruption. The Reshoring Institute—an organization that advocates for bringing manufacturing back to the US—found in a survey that nearly 70% of respondents preferred Made in America products, and 50% were willing to pay 10% more for products made domestically. How Franc built a made-in-Canada company Brandy Mercredi started her clothing brand, Franc, in 2017 and knew she wanted to build her company in a different way. She’d been working in the apparel industry for years and was frustrated with wastef...
Shopify’s mission is only possible with best-in-class commerce apps that let merchants customize Shopify for every kind of business. That’s why we’re laser focused on providing the tools that developers need to build better apps and succeed in the Shopify ecosystem. At June Editions we launched a host of new features to help create world class app experiences. Developers can now take advantage of full-screen mode to create immersive experiences in the admin. You can also integrate your app’s own navigation as a subnav within Shopify. Plus, apps now load 2x faster on mobile devices when you turn on App Bridge mobile enhancements. Now, we’re improving load time and introducing new performance standards that make it easier for merchants to access the apps they need. Here’s a detailed breakdown of what’s changing. Updated OAuth recommendations First impressions are critical and we need your help to improve a key part of the app experience: the initial load. Until now, our recommended OAuth flow added unnecessary time to the app load and created significant visual disruption. Today, we’ve updated our recommendations to make the initial app load faster, cleaner, and more enjoyable for merchants. For apps created with Shopify templates before August 23, 2022, you need to update your OAuth following these migration instructions. For new apps, you will automatically meet our performance guidelines by building with the latest app templates or simply following Getting started with OAuth. Our performance improvements We’re also updating all we can to improve performance without developer action. This starts with pre-loading. Shopify will automatically preload frequently used embedded apps, significantly improving load time. You may see extra traffic to your app as a result of this change. Shopify will also improve the app loading user experience, giving merchants a faster and less painful experience. We’re doing the heavy lifting here, so no need to worry about these details unless you’re curious. We will pre-load the app header (app name and icon) before merchants open an app so it’s available instantly and add a new loading indicator so it does not appear that the page is unresponsive before the app has loaded. Looking ahead As the saying goes, “you can’t improve what you don’t measure.” That’s why, later this fall, we will introduce new App Bridge APIs that will make it easier for you to measure your apps’ Core Web Vitals. This performance data is important because, following the release of these APIs, we will also release guidelines for Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, and Cumulative Layout Shift performance. Apps that meet these guidelines – in addition to having implemented our updated OAuth recommendations and enabled optimized loading on mobile devices – will be eligible to be featured on our highest-converting surfaces. Your apps get more visibility, and business owners get access to the best commerce apps available. Let’s grow your digital business Get design inspiration, development tips, and practical takeaways delivered straight to your inbox. No charge. Unsubscribe anytime. Thanks for subscribing. You’ll start receiving free tips and resources soon. This article originally appeared on the Shopify Web Design and Development blog and is made available here to educate and cast a wider net of discovery.
And just like that. it’s 2022. While everyone is talking about the new Metaverse, the rise of NFTs, and whether the pandemic will end anytime soon, you might be wondering what the future holds for eCommerce and how your business will fit in all this. Staying ahead of the new marketing trends is crucial for brands who want to outshine competitors and be top of mind for customers and prospects. Let’s take a look at our selection of 6 major eCommerce trends you need to prepare for in 2022, and how a solid SMS marketing strategy can help you maximize results with every customer interaction. Mobile-first Еxperiences & SMS Nowadays, it is easier than ever to shop online with just a few taps on your phone, so it’s not surprising that mobile commerce sales are expected to reach $700+ billion by 2025. To get a slice of the pie and remain competitive in this new mobile-first landscape, brands need to readjust their marketing strategies and reach out directly to consumers on the most personal medium – their phones. One of the most popular myths about text marketing is the archaic perception of SMS as spammy. And you know why it’s called a myth, right? A recent consumer survey breaks this stigma once and for all, showing that, in reality, over half of shoppers (51%) expect and prefer to be able to text with their favorite brands, and 54%+ want to receive coupons, discounts, and promotional offers via SMS. A relatively unsaturated channel with a 98% open rate and read time of 3 minutes or less – SMS is quickly becoming the go-to choice for businesses that want to be in line with the trends and interact with their customers on a more direct and personal level. Texting is how modern consumers prefer to communicate. Especially now, when the shopping power of millennials and Gen Z audiences is on the rise, and the only way to grab the attention of these fast-paced, tech-savvy generations is through mobile-optimized, unique experiences. Key Takeaway: Brands that cater to mobile consumers and offer frictionless shopping journeys are the ones who will thrive in the new age of mobile commerce. Customer Privacy & SMS Privacy was, no doubt, the hottest topic of 2021. On the one hand, Apple released important iOS 14.5/15 updates, imposing strict limitations on app users’ targeted ads and data sharing. For the first time, people actually have control over personal data being used for marketing purposes. On the other hand, Google has announced it will join Safari and Firefox in blocking third-party cookies in its Chrome web browser in an attempt to make data tracking less intrusive. Both events shook the entire digital universe to its core, triggered massive waves of concern among marketers, and initiated privacy-centric conversations on a global scale. As modern digital ads heavily rely on data, the changes meant that brands needed to find new ways to collect information and engage with consumers. Zero and first-party data quickly became more precious to companies than gold. SMS is an integral part of the equation and helps brands respect customers’ privacy, while also successfully gathering even more valuable and truthful information straight from the source. In 2022 getting shoppers’ personal data, such as emails or phone numbers, will be considered a value exchange. In return, brands would have to offer unique and personalized shopping experiences such as loyalty programs, personalized offers and product recommendations, early VIP access to hot deals or new collections, and, of course, stellar customer service. Due to higher acquisition costs, marketers must rethink and adjust their strategies. Rather than spending more on ads to acquire fewer customers, brands should focus more on retargeting, building relationships, and growing their own zero-party database. “Privacy compliant engagement tools like SMS, loyalty programs that build lasting relationships, and UGC that creates trust all offer a clear and sustainable roadmap for brands in the post...
TikTok marketing is one of the top tactics for video-obsessed marketers to try. Even if you’re a little late to the social media party and just learning how to use TikTok for marketing, understanding this channel isn’t difficult. TikTok is a video-exclusive platform, and marketing on TikTok means authentic, relatable videos – regardless of your budget. There aren’t many rules when it comes to creating the videos, basically the more natural and spontaneous they look, the better, you just have to remember to rotate the video in the right position, as most of the TikTok content is shot vertically. Creating that content is often the biggest challenge marketers must overcome before launching their TikTok marketing plan. But similar to many other channels, successful TikTok marketers are learning to embrace the power of user-generated content (UGC). Why TikTok Marketing? Using TikTok as a marketing medium can really pay off. There are plenty of benefits that come from a solid strategy on this platform, even without paying for ad placements. These include: Higher brand awareness. Since there are so many TikTok users today, this gives you a chance to tap into a huge audience and generate brand awareness. Connecting with your target audience. This platform is a great place to share snackable, fun content and continuously inform and entertain your audience. Access to new audiences. While this platform was mostly focused on Gen Z users in the past, its reach is much wider now. Brands that are targeting younger audiences can use this platform to get their name out there to new people. Greater conversion. TikTok can be used for every stage of the funnel, including revenue and sales. Research shows that 92% of users take action after watching a quality video on the platform. Stronger online presence. Your online presence is more important than ever. You can use TikTok to create your videos but also share them across different platforms. You can use influencer marketing to enrich your strategy and build a more trustworthy online presence. Your options are limitless. 1. TikTok Helps Build Compelling, Bite-Sized Content According to recent social media statistics, users love TikTok for its short, 15-second videos. Jumping on the TikTok train would mean the opportunity to start building more creative content to increase brand awareness in a quick, easy-to-consume format. Adapting your brand to the TikTok style could broaden your user base, especially to younger audiences with shorter attention spans. And two, it could also help you carve out a more defined and interesting brand voice. Start by looking at your existing content and brainstorming how you can redesign it to match the TikTok style. This might look like: Educational videos (product tutorials, how-to videos, recipes, etc.) Funny skits Inspirational videos on how to use your product or service Trend-based videos (dances, hashtag challenges, etc.) Video commentaries 2. TikTok Helps you Reach Millennials and Gen Z It’s widely known that TikTok is most popular among Gen Z and millennials. If your product or service hopes to target these audiences, then you should try your luck on TikTok. These groups, especially Gen Z, have different expectations from brands than the generations before them. They are looking for more authenticity, purpose, and transparency. How can you meet these expectations on TikTok while being entertaining at the same time? Here are a few tips: Stop being salesy. Don’t try to sell them on something in every video. Add some personality. Use employees in your videos or skits. Adapt to the platform. Use popular TikTok hashtags, filters, stickers, emojis, and language. Experiment with different video formats. Either keep your videos simple to maintain authenticity or go all out and hyper-optimize for engagement by resharing user videos, participating in TikTok challenges, or even putting together captivating social videos. Check out some brands like Redbull and Alo Yog...
The unfortunate simple answer is no, you cannot use an auto loan to offset your credit card bills. The reason is that no bank or financial institution will grant you a car loan in cashable form. All auto loans are awarded as transferrable checks which can easily be passed on to your preferred car dealer or vehicle vendor. Therefore, there is no such opportunity or grace of being able to utilize the loan for other purposes. Most lenders will demand the vehicle identification number (VIN) of the car intended to be purchased during the paperwork and contract agreement of the loan grant. This is done to prevent a case of veering off the original agreement of what you wanted the loan for. Auto refinance is an escape route from an unbearable and inconvenient loan term with your current financier/lender. Although choosing to refinance your auto loan may require certain sacrifices ranging from over-extended repayment period to an outrageous overall interest in the long run. Hence, to make life more bearable financially for yourself, especially if you must pay off your debts while servicing an auto loan simultaneously, here is a wiser route to follow: Apply for a cash-out auto refinance instead. Confused? Well, this is what it entails: Did you know the equity on your existing auto loan made possible by your car’s worth can be cashed out? Of course, it can!!! And here is how: the difference in the value between your car’s worth in cash and the amount you currently owe is cashable. Here’s something you should also know: that difference in value is what is referred to as “equity.” Automobiles depreciate with use and lose their value as the years run by. Auto loans are therefore granted according to a car’s worth based on its current value after proper assessment. A vehicle with a longer useful life would fetch a higher loan package than another with a much shorter useful life. Still not very clear about the cash-out auto refinance process? Let me give you a simple illustration. Assuming you have an outstanding payment of $9,000 (nine thousand dollars) and your car is valued at $15,000 (fifteen thousand dollars). The $6,000 (six thousand dollars) difference is then considered your equity. That $6,000 can be cashed out for settling personal expenses. Seems quite easy to bargain, right? But seamless as it sounds, not all lenders practice it. Therefore, if you decide to opt for this solution, do your research to know where it is rendered. Another point to note is that your current financier will not suggest nor render such to you. Instead, you will have to consult another cash-out service provider whose role will be to offset your outstanding bill and then permit you to cash out the balance. The cash-out auto refinance method is also an auto loan refinance process just that the former helps you obtain cash at hand for miscellaneous expenses during your loan repayment period as explained above. There are additional channels that you could leverage which are cheaper means than refinancing your car. Let’s discuss the feasible processes: Passive or Full-time Hustling: There are many auto rental or car hire businesses you could engage in with your car to fetch you passive income in addition to your major paycheck. Depending on your free time outside official duties, you can do this part-time/passively or full-time if you do not have a 9 to 5 job schedule. Modify your Loan Terms with the Lender: To make repayment more convenient for yourself, contact your financier for reconsideration regarding the unbeneficial terms backing the contract. They may sound indifferent initially but if you hit the right buttons and happen to get lucky by reaching the appropriate official in charge, you will be considered. That would save them from going through endless protocols of trying to repossess your car if you default in payment. Credit Card Borrowing Advantage: Although some credit cards are issued with zero percent interest charged for the first year of use...
First things first.What is a customer loyalty program and why should I implement one for my Shopify store? Every successful business approach is based on establishing good and strong relationships. Customer loyalty programs are business initiatives that help develop a deeper connection with current customers and assure their satisfaction with your service. However, you may not be aware of the many additional benefits loyalty programs can bring to your business. On the other hand, there are many pitfalls you have to be aware of when developing your program, like security and taking proper care of your customers’ data. Since loyalty programs require customers to give access to their personal data, they’re often reluctant to join to avoid becoming a data breach victim. Additionally, loyalty programs often include the use of apps that can threaten users’ privacy, so you’ll have to ensure your customers’ data stays safe. To help you avoid security risks and upgrade your business approach, we listed some of the most lucrative benefits a customer loyalty program could bring and added a few tips on starting one of your own. Benefits of customer loyalty programs Improved customer engagement Connecting with your target audience is essential for creating engagement and increasing brand awareness. A gift or a discount is an excellent motivation for customers to engage with you and share their positive experiences with potential new customers. Increased brand affinity and loyalty Since rewarding your customers can contribute to their overall satisfaction, they will be more likely to identify with your core values and principles and strengthen your brand in the long run. Focus on creating a feeling of mutual trust since that tends to be one of the most frequently highlighted traits customers look for in a brand. Moreover, 82% of customers said they’re likely to continue buying from a brand they trust over the brands that are currently trendy. Increased sales Loyalty programs are all about putting a continuous effort into keeping your current customers happy rather than focusing on attracting vast numbers of one-time buyers. Here you’re concentrating on people who already trust you, and you’re not trying to beat the competition. Additionally, customer loyalty programs can help you keep your sales high throughout the year, regardless of seasonal trends that every brand is susceptible to. How to start a successful customer loyalty program Analyze your audience A study conducted by McKinsey & Company showed that two out of three Americans say their social values determine their shopping choices. Before making any drastic changes to your business approach, select the target audience for your program. Analyze customer behavior and decide how to tweak your strategy to meet their needs and expectations better. Determine what type of reward system would be suitable, and don’t hesitate to ask for their feedback before outlining your plan. Send them a survey with precise questions that could give you an overview of their expectations and habits, or call them in person and talk to them to get more personal input. Choose the right name for your program Choosing the right name probably isn’t something that’s on top of your mind when creating a loyalty program. However, it’s essential to creating a sustainable approach that’s in line with your brand’s core values. Ensure the name of your program shows a direct link to your brand and that it resonates with customers’ aspirations. Since people want to feel unique and valued, creating a name that would indicate exclusivity and appreciation of their individual selves is an excellent way to go. In fact, 94% of Americans said they would use the advantages of an exclusive program. A great example is brands that use “silver,” “gold,” and “platinum” tier loyalty programs where customers feel like they’re a part of an exclusive club. However, it is always essential to keep the name of your program simple and des...
Online shopping has gained more recognition globally since the pandemic, and rightly so. However, many still struggle to set up their small businesses and run them online. They tend to find the process frustrating and very overwhelming. Too many times, college students also look for opportunities to start small businesses but are frustrated by the process. Thankfully, Shopify exists to ease these problems and make it easier to own a small business online. This platform has a user-friendly interface and offers an affordable price. This makes it ideal for college students to achieve their small business objectives. Here’s how to use Shopify to create your online business. Be clear about your idea. This is the first step to creating your online business. You must be sure about what you want to do and how you’ll execute it. Before you design your website, you must have a clear objective for your business and what it offers to the target audience. You must know the services or products you want to offer and be clear about your ideal customer. This makes it easier to create an impressive brand image. Once these basics are decided, you can now look to add other resources Create a fitting logo Your logo is an important part of your brand and gives people the first impression of your company. The best way to create such an impression is to create a logo that the customers can easily relate to, so it sticks longer in their memories. Make the logo design neat, and use simple words and the right colors. Once you’re sure about your brand identity, you can decide to use the logo maker on Shopify or create a design from scratch. Set up your Shopify account The next step in creating your small business is to set up your account. Shopify gives its users the first 14 days of free trial, and you can use this period to play around and experiment on the platform with your website. You don’t even need to enter your credit card information before signing up for the free trial until you’re ready to continue using the platform. Shopify’s pricing is accessible and adaptable to your business needs. It uses your business information to create a customized website for you. To do this, you’ll have to write about your company, the nature of your products, and the platforms you’re looking to sell in. If your store already exists before now, it’ll ask for your current revenue. You also have the chance to design and develop your online store for another person to use it. It’s a straightforward process with a few clicks. Choose and customize your theme With Shopify, you can choose from several free themes that are highly customizable. When choosing a theme, let the end users be your main objective and think about how they will browse your store. While Shopify gives a template that’s good for your business, you should still try to prioritize the personality and image of your brand. When considering the different themes, check for specific styles, features, and businesses they’re most suitable for. This will help you determine the ones that are good for your business. Once you’ve added the theme, then try to customize it. You’ll see how users will see your store on the interface. You can change the screen view by clicking on the desktop or going to the upper right side of your mobile phone. As you personalize your chosen theme, remember to always save your progress after each modification at the top right corner. This ensures you don’t lose what you’ve done due to connecting loss as it’s saved on Shopify’s servers. Add products While on your dashboard, you can click the products tab to add or manage your products. Ensure that you only have high-quality images and videos of your products, and write a short but compelling description of each. As far as pricing is concerned, it’s possible to show comparison prices for promotion and sales and to enter the cost per product to generate profit and margin information. You also have an inventory section for your produc...
Ecommerce is one of the most profitable business endeavors one may engage in after its demand has increased drastically, thanks to the pandemic. Ecommerce forecasts show that its popularity is only going to increase year-over-year. By the end of 2022, global e-commerce sales are expected to increase from $4.28 trillion (in 2020) to $5.4 trillion, which is more than 25%, and a trillion dollars in just two years. It is a flourishing, competitive environment, and it won’t be wrong to say that the boom in e-commerce will continue for a long time. Since e-commerce is flourishing, competition is intense as well. You can either adapt or fail miserably. Therefore, as the owner of an online store, your attention should always be on the future, looking for growth prospects wherever and whenever possible. Even if your company is expanding on its own, you still need to take several steps to keep up. So let’s scale your business to its utmost potential. This guide examines the most crucial areas to concentrate on to help you successfully scale your e-commerce business into 2023. Why Should You Scale Your eCommerce Business? E-commerce scalability is the ability to expand your e-commerce platform to match the demands of your company’s online development. Once you have set a strong foundation for your e-commerce business, you should be looking for ways to scale it in order to increase your profits. Scaling a business successfully makes all the difference between experiencing a sudden increase in sales and having every procedure fall apart and experiencing a sudden increase in sales while managing every order efficiently and providing excellent customer service. Scaling your business sustainably will require proper planning, knowledge, and financing, as well as being equipped to tackle any difficulties that may arise. In addition, a Google study found that 53% of mobile users will leave a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Having an eCommerce site that can easily scale to fit your web store’s increasing traffic is therefore essential. What is the difference between scaling and growing your business? Most people mistakenly think that scaling an online business is the same as growing one. What makes the two different, then? Growing a business is the process of generating more revenue by utilizing additional resources such as employees, investors, and product offerings. In this way, the company expands in size but may not always turn a profit. Take the situation where you already have 4,000 customers and gain 10,000 more. Then, in order to help you serve your new customers, you will need to hire more customer service agents and delivery personnel, among other things. Therefore, operating costs will increase as your business grows. Scaling, on the other hand, is the process of increasing profit without significantly raising costs. In other words, you generate more money while maintaining or even decreasing your overhead. By scaling your business, you can serve the newly gained 10,000 customers we discussed in the above example without materially raising your costs. Additionally, because the process has been automated, just two or three customer support agents are now needed instead of ten more. 11 Tips to Scale Your Ecommerce Business into 2023 1. Planning The ideal course of action would be to plan and prepare for your e-commerce company’s expansion. The initial step is to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of your business, look for opportunities to expand your reach, and establish goals. But setting unachievable goals and objectives is useless. Your objectives should be driven by facts instead. So take some time to research your competitors, identify the areas in which you can make adjustments to better support your goals, and then develop a step-by-step plan describing the steps you’ll need to take to get there. 2. Put automation in place. It’s common to discover that you spend more time on some tasks while negle...
With eCommerce sales rapidly on the rise, packaging waste has reached shocking amounts. The US alone produces nearly eighty million tons of packaging waste each year. To put that in perspective, the cardboard waste alone results in the loss of one billion trees annually. Just the ice packs Blue Apron sends end up adding the equivalent weight of two million adult men a year to landfills. By 2050, there will be more plastic waste than fish in the ocean. Not only is it ethically irresponsible for brands to ignore the environmental impact of their practices, both packaging and otherwise, it’s bad for business. 61% of consumers will switch to an eco-friendly brand if they find out their current favorite brand is not using eco-friendly practices. 59% of consumers are even willing to pay more for eco-friendly packaging. Of course, it’s one thing to decide to use eco-friendly shipping practices. It’s entirely another thing to implement them. So let’s look at some tips and tricks that you can borrow from pioneering brands to get started, some of which can even save you money! 1. Use recycled cardboard boxes. Using recycled cardboard boxes, rather than virgin cardboard boxes, is a very popular green move amongst retailers today. It’s also highly effective. Recycling just one ton of cardboard saves 17 trees and 7000 gallons of water. Recycled cardboard doesn’t need to be more expensive either. The Bircher Bar was able to save $0.10/box by switching to recycled boxes. Many, many packaging material companies now produce recycled cardboard boxes, making this switch low hanging fruit. 2. Reuse boxes. Simply using recycled cardboard boxes doesn’t have to be the only way you recycle boxes. Reusing boxes is also a good idea. Plaine Products, a personal care company, uses reusable aluminum shampoo bottles that customers send back to be refilled. In order to maximize the environmental impact, Plaine also reuses their boxes (already made out of recycled cardboard) up to five times before recycling the box. Plaine estimates their reuse system has saved 15,000 boxes in the past eighteen months. Jennifer Bucholz from Plaine says, “We have found that the easier we make the process, the more customers we have adapting to eco-friendly, no-waste products, which is good for our business and good for the Earth.” Then there’s Returnity, a company that is taking reusing boxes to the next level. They create reusable mailers that are guaranteed to make at least forty trips. At the end of its lifespan, the packaging is recyclable. Returnity is on track to save more than ten million cardboard boxes and poly mailer bags in 2020. For companies with circular shipping models, like Rent the Runway, these mailers pay for themselves within 15 trips. Returnity does recognize that their mailers face a challenge in cost-effectiveness for standard one-way shipping companies, as they require customers to return the mailers. Returnity is currently working with shipping companies to design cost-effective closed-loop logistics systems to spread the use of their mailers to all types of companies. 3. Minimize packaging. Minimizing packaging (both of your products and your shipping containers) is a simple change that can make not only a huge impact on the environment but also on your bottom line. Nick Schiffelbein from LOCATE Inventory points out that using a fulfillment software tool that can automatically choose the optimal size box for a shipment not only saves packing materials, but it can also result in a massive amount of freed up labor. He points out that even just a single second saved in the box choosing process results in one freed up hour for every 2,000 packages. 4. Use cornstarch-based packing peanuts. Styrofoam packing peanuts are made from petroleum and result in the release of 57 chemical byproducts during creation. Companies have been offering more environmentally friendly alternatives to the traditional styrofoam packing peanut since the mid-1990s, perhaps th...
If you’ve ever considered using Instagram influencer marketing for your business, now is the time to start! Adding Instagram influencer marketing into your overall strategy for Instagram can help to increase your brand awareness, grow your follower base, and drive major sales! Ready to get started with Instagram influencer marketing for your business? In our Ultimate Guide to Instagram Influencer Marketing, we cover everything from how to find the right influencers for your business, to properly disclosing sponsored posts and determining if your Instagram influencer marketing strategies are actually working for you. Table of Contents: Influencer Marketing: What Is It and Why Your Business Needs It How Much Does Instagram Influencer Marketing Actually Cost? How Small Businesses Can Leverage Instagram Influencer Marketing with Micro- and Nano-Influencers How to Find the Right Partners for Your Instagram Influencer Marketing Campaigns How to Properly Disclose Your Instagram Influencer Marketing Sponsored Posts How to Track the Success of Your Instagram Influencer Marketing Strategy Influencer Marketing: What Is It and Why Your Business Needs It If you’ve spent even a few minutes on Instagram, there’s a good chance you’ve come across an influencer post. And when it comes to influencer marketing, Instagram is by far the best performing platform for brands to reach new audiences quickly. It’s also the best channel for social action — with an average 3.21% engagement rate compared to 1.5% across all social networks, Instagram users are more likely to comment, like, and share the content they consume. So what makes influencer marketing so effective? Well, part of it has to do with trust. Instagram influencer marketing removes the barriers of traditional advertising because customers are introduced to your brand from a trusted source (the influencer) on an authentic, casual platform (Instagram). When an influencer recommends a product or service on their channels, it can come across as a trusted recommendation from a friend. This is obviously hugely advantageous to brands — it gives them direct access to target markets. By partnering with relevant influencers who have an engaging and authentic voice, your business is placed in front of people who are already interested in your niche, so it’s easier to make a real, lasting impression! Authenticity is key. When an influencer is consistent with a niche market, for example, cruelty-free cosmetics or vegan workout supplements, their followers will hold that influencer as an authority on that topic and will grow to trust and be guided by their recommendations. As a result, partnering with influencers can be an incredible channel for promoting your products and brand on Instagram! Ready to get started? Take our free 30-minute Influencer Marketing 101 course with Gretta van Riel. Watch it here: How Much Does Instagram Influencer Marketing Actually Cost? It’s one of the biggest questions in the industry and it all comes down to who you want to partner with and the size of the project. In the earliest days of influencer marketing, rising social stars would take on brand partnerships in exchange for free product. But for most, those days are long gone. While there are many micro-influencers may still be willing to exchange free products for promotion space on their profile, today’s biggest Instagram influencers are charging a lot of money to create posts for brands as their accounts have become their main source of income. In fact, some influencers report charging as much as $5,000 to $10,000 per sponsored post. There’s no question social media influencers have become an indispensable asset for brand campaigns, especially on Instagram. But how do you come up with a fair price when there are so many factors to consider, like the scale and scope of the partnership or the number of sponsored posts and stories you require? If you want to work with influencers in the 100k+ range, you may have to pa...
The ecommerce industry is a thriving marketplace that is expected to continue growing at an accelerated rate for the foreseeable future—from $4938 billion in 2021, the global retail ecommerce sales are expected to increase up to $7391 billion by 2025. However, with so many different players operating in this space, it can be difficult for smaller companies to carve out a niche for themselves and stand out from their competitors. With so much competition at the macro level, these businesses must find ways to give customers a reason to buy from them instead of their competitors. At the micro level, ecommerce businesses must tackle so many challenges to keep their stores running smoothly. Whether you’re in the early stages of launching your site or have been operating ecommerce business for years, there are always new challenges to face. From streamlining shipping processes and optimizing product pages to ensuring your store is mobile-friendly and customer supportive, there is so much that needs your attention as an ecommerce business owner. However, finding the time to tackle all these challenges can be difficult in a fast-paced world where you must always be on your toes. Thankfully, there are software solutions that can help you with these challenges. One such solution is transcription software that can assist you with a variety of tasks so you don’t have to worry about them quite as much. In this blog post, we’ll explore some of the benefits of using transcription software to know its significance for ecommerce stores. Before getting started, let’s have a sneak peek at what a transcription software is: What is automatic transcription software? A transcription software automatically converts audio files into written text. This software can be used to provide audio transcripts for podcasts, interviews, or any other audio files that need to be transcribed. Amberscript’s automatic transcription software is a good example of it.. Since the transcriptions are AI based, the accuracy is a bit compromised. However, it isn’t much of a concern for many as long as the accuracy is fair enough to serve the transcription’s intended use. A great benefit for which it is opted by many is that it saves time; the transcriptions are generated in minutes by AI so the users don’t have to wait much. For those concerned with accuracy, many transcription software as the one mentioned in example above provide manual transcription services as well to ensure maximum accuracy. A manual transcription service takes accuracy a step further by outsourcing the entire process to transcription specialists, so you don’t have to do any of the work. You simply upload the audio or video file, then the transcription service will create a transcript of the file and send it back to you. You can then use the transcript in a variety of ways, such as posting it online, creating subtitles, or attaching it to an email. In What Ways is Transcription Software Important for Ecommerce? Transcription software is important for ecommerce businesses in a variety of ways, including but not limited to: Increases video accessibility Source One of the most important things to do when creating video content is to ensure it’s accessible to everyone who may wish to view it. This includes individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing who may not be able to understand video content if it isn’t subtitled or captioned. When you create videos that are captioned or transcribed, you open up your video content to a wider audience who may have previously been unable to access your information. Captioning and transcription software allows you to create captioned or transcribed videos and upload them to your business’s YouTube channel, or host the videos on your own ecommerce website. This practice will also earn you a reputation for being inclusive. By ensuring accessibility through your videos, none of your potential customers will feel excluded, and that will add up to your ecommerce business’s ...
Isn’t it weird how our photo-sharing apps have turned into major sales channels? Yes, today we’re talking about social selling. NOT to be confused with social media marketing or advertising! In this article, we’ll cover: What Is Social Selling and Why Is It in Demand in 2022? How Shopify Stores Can Use Video Marketing for Social Selling in 2022 What Is Social Selling and Why Is It in Demand in 2022? Social selling or social commerce is selling your products and services directly through social media channels. It’s not about writing cold messages to strangers or binge-following everyone you see in Recommendations. It is about: Building a brand Making every interaction represent your company and its values Offering solutions to the target audience’s problems Garnering social proof which helps build trust That’s what makes this approach so in demand in 2022. People trust transparent brands that have solutions to their problems. Social media has all the tools for that. If you still doubt the trendiness of this approach, Statista reports that by 2028, the market may grow to more than US$3 trillion (yes, with ‘tr’) worldwide. Trillion! Using Video Marketing As a Part of Your Social Selling Strategy Speaking of visuals. 9 out of 10 users say they’re looking for more videos by a brand (those they like, presumably). Moreover, 79% of marketers said they would start using video content in their strategies in 2022. Why is this important for social selling? First of all, video content converts viewers into customers. 55% of consumers say watching videos have helped them choose what brand to purchase from and what product to buy. Besides, on Instagram, you can now tap on a video and see links to the products shown in the video. We knew you could do that with pictures, but now, video is becoming the trend! Why not include links to your Shopify products there? Plus, by creating high-quality, engaging, and informative videos, you build trust with your target audience. Furthermore, collecting reviews with photos and videos and sharing them on social media helps you garner social proof. In Judge.me, just enable the review photos and videos so your customers can share these media in their reviews. Video is the most engaging content on social media. And we’re not just talking about videos of funny cats (but they’re included). Cisco reports that in 2022, at least 82% of Internet traffic should be video content. You don’t want to miss such an opportunity. Any tips? Sure! Provide solutions to people’s problems in your content. Focus on the aesthetics and philosophy of your brand. Always know your social media video specs to upload your content in the right format. Use Reels to promote on Instagram for free. Hire professional operators for video and copywriters for text. Apply an effective SEO strategy to make the content visible in search results. The first thing you should do is market and competitor research. If you don’t know where to start, use an automated SEO competitor analysis tool by SE Ranking that will help you identify your competitors and spy their most performing keywords and content. It’s better to analyze them by target countries, so this tool by SE Ranking comes in handy with its databases covering the whole world. How Shopify Stores Can Use Video Marketing for Social Selling in 2022 Many social selling platforms can become the top places to draw customers. How can video marketing for your Shopify store fit into this? Let’s discover next. Social Selling with Facebook With 1 billion active users, Facebook is the top choice when coming to social selling. You can add Facebook as an additional sales channel on your Shopify store. Then, you can sync your Shopify products to Facebook and display them on your Facebook Page. Once connected, you can also create and track your Facebook ads campaign directly from Shopify. Since video production takes more time and effort, it is important to predict how much traffic you can get using this typ...
Picture it: a crisp winter evening in New York’s fabled SoHo neighborhood. And on this particular December evening, Shopify’s 8,000-square-foot space on Greene Street was abuzz with more than 200 entrepreneurs who gathered to mingle, make merry, and talk shop. Through the festively-adorned doors, a small forest of metallic Christmas trees stood guard over gift-wrapped presents piled underneath them, to be awarded to lucky guests. Smartly curated shelves bearing canisters of Bellocq tea, botanical soaps from Redoux, and Boysmells’s aromatic candles, promised a lifestyle of luxury, light, and fabulous smells. Servers circulated, offering bites of Deconstructed S’mores by Chef Dominique Ansel and cocktails from the trendy East Village barbershop and cocktail bar Blind Barber. For a community so often working in isolation—and during a time of unprecedented aloneness—the party was a rare occasion to gather and indulge. The chatter of bonhomie (and the scent of aromatic candles) filled the space. But the evening’s draw was about more than an opportunity to connect: these business owners were here to learn from the best. Down a flight of stairs, an evergreen-boughed stage featured two empty chairs. Shopify President Harley Finkelstein was co-hosting the evening with Martha Stewart, the Patron Saint of Entrepreneurs. Finkelstein, an accomplished entrepreneur and established voice in the business of business, brought a unique perspective as Stewart’s interlocutor. “This is not just the year of the entrepreneur—this is the start of a new era where being an entrepreneur is people’s first choice for a career,” he recently commented, following the revelation that ‘how to start a business’ dominated Google search trends over ‘how to get a job.’ Stewart took the stage in a holly green wrap dress and after a warm, almost rapturous, welcome, she got right down to business. “Being an entrepreneur is hard work. It takes a tremendous amount of sleepless nights,” she said, “and yet when success happens it is so inspiring and so self-enhancing that you want to keep going.” Stewart should know. An entrepreneur from childhood (she started her first party planning business when she was only nine), she grew a modest catering company into a vast media empire, becoming a lifestyle and business icon. In a lively discussion with Finkelstein, she shared her experience and advice on starting, building, and maintaining a business. Here, she shares what it takes to find success—and how rewarding it can be to support others in their pursuits, too. Your first business isn’t always your best business—don’t be afraid to try something new. Though Stewart’s business empire now encompasses everything from NFTs and CBD to Dutch ovens and Christmas trees, her path to the top wasn’t straight. “Every seven years I metamorphosed into a different business,” she said, ranging from model to stockbroker to caterer and gourmet food store manager. Then, in 1982, she hit her stride. “I finally found my voice writing books,” Stewart recalled. Finding her voice in writing soon cascaded into other ventures. “The book gave me the idea for the magazine [Martha Stewart Living] which grew to encompass a media brand [Martha Stewart Omnimedia] and then, because you could whet the appetites of many people—and those people want the same product you’re using—I started making products as well. That’s when the business really took off.” The takeaway for the audience was clear: success doesn’t often come by luck or chance, but from hard work, remaining curious, and never being afraid to try something new. “Need” and “want” are the two most important words in business. Stewart believes the secret to entrepreneurship is actually simple. She boils down the fundamentals to two simple words: need and want. She said: “Does the customer need it? Does the customer want it? If the business or product idea answers yes to either of those two questions, you’re probably onto something that will be succe...
Writing a business proposal is something that few new business owners know how to do. In the early stages, you’re focused on your product, your business plan, and setting everything up. Considering proposing your business for projects might not seem like the most pressing issue. But it’s actually more important than new businesses realize. Even if you don’t have an immediate use for your business proposal, it can help create a plan of action for your business, help secure funding, help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your brand, and act as a reference point for the direction of your business. Whether you’re looking to do business with another company or just want to create a proposal for prospective clients, here’s our guide on how to write a business proposal. What is a business proposal? A business proposal is a document sent to prospective clients in the hopes of working with them on a project—whether it be a partnership or wanting to be the company who helps with a specific project. Business proposals can range in the topics they cover, depending on the nature of the involved businesses and the project your business is proposing. Business proposals are about addressing the needs of prospective clients and showing them why your company is the best to fit those needs. For businesses focused on B2B services, knowing how to write an effective business proposal is crucial to growth. What are the types of business proposals? Business proposals can vary depending on the service and nature of the project proposal, but they typically fall into three distinct categories: Formally solicited proposals. This describes proposals wherein the business you’re hoping to work with has formally asked you to submit a proposal. They’re usually written in response to published requirements from the business looking for proposals. Typically, this is the result of a publicly posted request for proposals, where a prospective client is going through many proposals and finding the best one. Informally solicited proposals. Informally solicited proposals typically occur following conversations between a prospective client and a vendor. Usually, the customer in this case is not asking for competing proposals and there tends to be fewer formal requirements. Unsolicited proposals. These proposals tend to be more generic in nature, acting as a sort of marketing brochure. Unsolicited proposals are typically used at trade shows or other public venues, where a business is shopping around for prospective clients. Not all proposals will fit neatly into these categories. There are proposals that might start off formally solicited but then be adapted into unsolicited proposals. What are the different sections of a business proposal? Business proposals can vary slightly in how they’re formatted, but there are a couple of crucial elements that all business proposals should have. 1. Title page The title page acts as your proposal’s “cover,”, so it’s especially important in terms of aesthetics. Your title page should convey a couple of pieces of basic information about your business and the proposal, such as the title of the proposal, your business’ name, contact information, and the date you’re submitting the proposal (or the date the proposal is crafted, in the case of unsolicited proposals). Your title page should be professional, but should still seek to grab the reader’s attention and draw them in. It’s pivotal in setting the tone of your proposal, so, like any advertisement, it should convey your brand’s aesthetics and character. It’s usually a good idea to include your company logo somewhere too. This is the first thing your client will see, so it’s important to convey your brand and proposal in a way that’s succinct, yet specific. Think of it like any visual content: viewers will only glance at it for a brief moment, so it must convey a lot of information very quickly. Avoid complicated graphics that may distract from the central message of t...
David Gaylord and Tim Burns started Bushbalm as a side hustle while they both worked at Shopify in 2016. Over the years, the duo grew the company into an 8-figure skincare giant and brought on Rachel Kerr as their first full-time employee. In this final episode of the Bushbalm Miniseries by Shopify Masters, David is joined by Rachel and Tim to chat about all things team and culture. The trio reflects on what they did to build Bushbalm, how they source talent, and craft a company culture they envisioned. For the full transcript of this episode, click here. How these cofounders went from friends to business partners David: For the final episode, we’re going to be chatting through all things team and culture. I brought on my two special guests, Tim and Rachel. Let’s do some introductions, Rachel, why don’t you kind of go first? Rachel: My name’s Rachel Kerr. I’ve been with Bushbalm for officially a year now. And I look after most of our brand and marketing. Some have paid mostly organic everything from influencers to partnerships, to building a community online. And I’m really happy to be here. Tim: And I’m Tim and I am one of the co-founders and I guess I’ve given myself an official title of CPO, but I do a lot of different things. So I kind of take care of all things, product and getting products in the hands of our customers. So anywhere from manufacturing to logistics, shipping, that sort of stuff. And then kind of double a little bit into finances and HR and kind of all back of post sort of stuff here at Bushbalm. And there’s some design in there a little bit. David: Tim, you’ve obviously been around the longest out of anyone on the team. So maybe tell us your version of the founding story. Tim: I guess it depends on how detailed you want me to get here. So I’ll give out some of the finer more intimate details. It’ll be TV or podcast friendly. So I mean, it all started with a bit of a weird fluky discovery on my honeymoon. And I kind of took an interesting idea through self-testing on a bus trip to, I think it was a work conference that we were on our way to, and I pitched it to David and everyone else on the bus, and everyone kind of laughed except for David. He had a kind of a smirk and was like “Okay. Yeah. That could work.” David: And the idea was scented pubic oil. Tim: It was. Definitely different than where we’re at today. Definitely a use case. And then fast forward, you jumping in and saying you wanted it in. We ran it very much a side hustle, on the side of our full-time jobs for three years for that case. David: Three years. And I guess most people watching would know or might not know is that we were at Shopify. So this was starting a business and starting a Shopify source especially was promoting it. They want you to do that, to try it. Tim: We did it part of a contest actually. It was an internal build a business contest that we lost. David: We lost. But long term, I think we’ve won. So maybe let’s go into the early days of when it was a serious side hustle. I guess, what was the dynamic that we had back then? Tim: Back then I wouldn’t say that we had a lot of structure. It was kind of a very much this needs to get done, so let’s do it and who’s going to do it. We co-operated quite a bit of stuff. Shipping was handled by both you and me at one point during Bushbalm. Marketing was all you, I don’t know a lick about marketing. The design was all me, although you were doing some design work for all packaging design. And then the website was split. It’s very much a blended effort early on. But when things started to get a little bit more serious it took a lot of time and a lot of effort on top of our full-time gigs. I think the things that became obvious were manufacturing was a ton of work and effort and time. Then all of a sudden shipping was a ton of effort and your apartment or your house becomes chaos with boxes and packaging material everywhere. I remember a photo of you that you shared. I think you filled...
How to Align Your Brand Values with a Cause Written by Dayana Mayfield When you align your brand values with a cause, you can make your brand more meaningful. 78% of consumers believe that brands should do more than just make money, and that they should also have a positive impact on society. More and more consumers (especially Gen Z and Millennials) are purchasing products from brands that have a positive impact. But the brands who appeal to conscious consumers the best are the ones that align their brand values with a specific cause. This way, their positive impact feels like a natural extension of the brand—rather than just slapping on some corporate donations in a feeble attempt to pander to conscious consumers. Here’s everything you need to know about choosing the right cause and making it a natural part of your brand. Brand values are what your brand stands for and prioritizes above all else. Your brand values should be intrinsic to your products and also something that your entire team can stand behind. Most brands have 4 – 6 core brand values. If people believe they share values with a company they will stay loyal to the brand. – Howard Schultz Not sure what your brand values should be? Brand consultant Lisa Furze put together a list of 200 different brand values. Here are just a few from that list to get you started: Accessibility Discovery Innovation Resilience Reflection Fairness Courage Compassion Wonder Knowledge Connection Your brand values should be non-negotiable. Your brand won’t create any product, conduct any campaign, or make any hire that goes against these brand values. Instead, your brand values will serve as a guiding light for everything you do. Why brand values are changing to include causes For many companies, brand values are no longer just about how they design their products or speak to their customers. Brand values are now also about giving back. 60% of consumers believe that when brands begin to address social justice issues, we’ll be able to see real change. And 62% believe that cause marketing can help to normalize social justice issues. Meanwhile, 77% of consumers prefer to shop with brands that are environmentally responsible. The currency of universal values makes brands innately shareable. – Simon Mainwaring When you have strong and clear brand values, customers will be more likely to share about your brand online and recommend you directly to a friend. Just think about it. “I got this new soft sweater from a company with a low water and carbon impact” sounds a lot better to a conscious consumer than “I got this new soft sweater.” How to choose the right causes You need to align your brand with a cause that fits your values, and hopefully can be tied to your products in a meaningful way too. Start with a strong understanding of your brand values, and then choose causes that match up. But what causes should you pick? Our suggestion is to check out the United Nations 17 Goals for Sustainable Development. The goals include not only environmental sustainability but also social equity and development. By choosing a cause that matches the UN 17, you’re choosing a UN-approved cause—meaning one that has been vetted and is known to be critical for the planet and humanity. No poverty Zero hunger Good health and well-being Quality education Gender equality Clean water and sanitation Affordable and clean energy Decent work and economic growth Industry, innovation, and infrastructure Reduced inequalities Sustainable development cities and communities Responsible consumption and production Climate action Life below water Life on land Peace, justice, and strong institutions Partnerships for the goals (strengthen partnerships related to the other 16) You don’t have to state on your website that your company is working towards a UN goal. Rather, you can just use these goals as inspiration. Of course, if you want to include messaging on your website about the UN goal(s) that your company aligns with, you...
As an employer of your Shopify powered brand, you need to provide regular paystubs to your employees. This is essential for tracking vital things like tax and income, not just something nice you can do to fill job vacancies. Working out the information you need to include when you fill out a pay stub can be difficult, though, so we have put together a guide to the basics to help you. Below, you will find a guide to the basic information you will need. If you want to simplify the process still more, though, you could try using paystub generator software. Click here to discover more! What is a Pay Stub? A pay stub accompanies a paycheck and contains important information about the recipient’s pay. A paystub must be attached to each paycheck without fail. Employees can use pay stubs to help understand their take-home and net pay, clearly spelling out any deductions such as benefits or tax that may affect them. Pay stubs also function as proof of income for essential things like rent payments, as well as helping you to keep track of company finances in clear detail. What Information Goes On A Pay Stub? When you fill out a paystub, all of the following areas of information must be fully present on the payslip. Basic Information The first thing that needs to be included at the top of a pay stub is basic identifying information for both employee and employer. That includes things like name, address, contact info, and identification numbers. Gross Wages The gross wages of an employee are their total pre-tax wages. That means all the money they earned in the pay period before any deductions are removed from their pay. Gross wages should show how they are calculated, though certain states may require additional information to be included, such as overtime or time off accumulated. Check your state’s regulations. Deductions There are several deductions that are subtracted from an employee’s wages before they actually receive their pay, and all of these deductions need to be included on their payslips. The employer is responsible for withholding taxes, so you need to do this carefully and diligently. Employer Contributions Employers are required to make certain contributions for their employees, most of which are tax based. There are also some voluntary contributions you can optionally make, like insurance, retirement, or savings contributions. These can be included on payslips but do not have to be. That being said, including them can improve the ease of tracking finances for both parties. Net Pay The net pay the employee gets to take home is the number everyone cares about the most. Pay stubs should show both the net pay for the individual pay period and for the entire year to date. Conclusion Understanding how to fill out a pay stub is an important part of running a business in any sector include online commerce. Hopefully, the guide above should help you to get started with correctly filling out pay stubs for your employees with all of the essential information on every single one!
Implementing a multichannel sales channel strategy has become a requirement for every business. The strongest brands are the ones that meet customers where they already spend their time. These businesses offer exceptional commerce experiences and establish strong brand identities. They create resiliency by fully owning their customers and the customer experience, selling to them through an online store that they control. Getting these elements right first will help you reach previously hard-to-access customers through different sales channels, but with the capability to maintain a strong relationship with them. We’ll take a deep look into the different types of sales channels and how you can set your business up to be more resilient in the long term. Types of sales channels The different sales channels include: traditional and modern marketplaces, retail and wholesale, and through your own online store. All of these channels have their own pros and cons, which we’ll cover a little later on. For now, let’s get the overall options straight. Traditional marketplaces Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Walmart Marketplace, and Google Shopping are examples of traditional marketplaces. These channels feature a wide range of product offerings and, for the most part, customers search by the product they’d like to buy rather than the brand they’d like to purchase it from. While traditional marketplaces come with a preexisting customer base, these platforms require you to give up control of customer service and fulfillment speeds, and to compete on margins. Modern marketplaces Modern marketplaces are content-driven platforms that enable commerce. This includes social media channels like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Pinterest. It also includes places like Spotify. One of the reasons these modern marketplaces are so successful as sales channels is because buyers are already there. Adding a Buy button allows you to meet buyers where they are. Retail The retail channel includes both permanent and pop-up shops, like a short-term rental in a mall, a booth at a craft fair, or a stall at a local farmers market. Retail channels provide the opportunity for you to build relationships with your customers in person and get real-time feedback. Retail is a powerful piece of the modern commerce playbook. Wholesale Wholesale involves selling your products to other businesses who then retail them. Some businesses choose to make wholesale their only sales channel; others use wholesaling as one leg of an omnichannel sales strategy. Wholesale is a great way to move a lot of inventory at once. The power of multiple sales channels A single sales channel limits your ability to engage with your customers on different mediums—and assumes they don’t like shopping anywhere else. Adam, owner and founder of The Poster List, a poster, t-shirt, and sticker shop based in Long Beach, California, uses wholesale, in-person shows, and internet sales as the main three channels for his business. Since starting the business in 2006, Adam found that some channels boom while others dip, an unpredictable ebb and flow influenced by outside factors like the COVID-19 pandemic. “Starting out, shows were definitely the majority of where the money was coming from and then, 2010 through 2015, it flipped and it became more wholesale,” says Adam. “In 2016, 2017, the apparel space got soft at retail and so we started doing shows again.” By building out multiple sales channels, The Poster List was able to adapt quickly to the changes happening in the larger market. Meeting your customers at the channels relevant to your brand helps you build a more resilient business. Using multiple sales channels is a common strategy shared by many entrepreneurs. Mary, co-founder and owner of Maryink/Abracadana, a shop selling screen-printed bandanas, agrees. “It’s good to have a couple of venues for selling,” she says. “Sometimes I feel like one is pulling me, like Etsy is pulling me away from Shopify, or if I’m ...
2021 is coming to a close and it’s time to look back at what made this year one to remember. It’s time to celebrate the brands that made shopping with them a top-notch experience. It’s time to announce the top customer loyalty programs of the year! Before diving into the who, let’s look at some quick reasons why brands even provide loyalty programs for their customers in the first place: Create a brand community for the customers to feel a sense of belonging Motivate shoppers to provide email and other data for future marketing opportunities Customers that are part of a rewards program are less likely to shop with a competitor Loyalty program members spend more, and more often You can launch an on-brand, engaging rewards program in literally minutes Let’s dive into the best loyalty programs of 2021! Top 10 Customer Loyalty Programs of 2020 It’s that time of year again – time to take a look at the brands that made beinga customer in 2020 not just a tolerable experience, but a rewarding one. Whatare the top customer loyalty programs of the year? Before diving into the who, let’s look at some quick reasons why brands evenprovide loy. The Smile.io BlogTim Peckover Solo Stove Customers have access to more information than ever before, and they look at all of it. This is why your loyalty program has to be on-brand, well-thought-out, and valuable. One brand that seamlessly ties in their rewards program to their brand is Solo Stove. This outdoor brand sells small portable fire stoves for camping and fittingly named their loyalty program, Firestarter Rewards. The point of any loyalty program is to make your customers feel special and let them know you appreciate them. Birthday points are a great way to do this—it doesn’t get much more personal than someone’s birthday. Solo Stove rewards up to 3000 birthday points (a $30 reward value) to their highest-tiered customers in their VIP program—one of the most generous birthday gifts we’ve seen from a loyalty program! Firestarter Rewards continues the personalized experience with custom redemption offerings. Customers can select how many points they want to redeem, with 100 points = $1. This lets customers save points up for a big purchase or use just a few for a little discount. The point is, customers can spend their points however they want and that’s how you deliver a rewarding customer experience. The Body Shop The Body Shop’s Love Your Body Club has been a staple in their brand for years, standing out for the social causes tied into their program. With the ability to use loyalty points for monetary donations to various charities, customers can feel good about shopping with The Body Shop. As the world continues to recover from the impacts of Covid-19, brands are changing how they communicate with customers based on what matters most. The Body Shop does this by choosing relevant charities based on trending issues in the broader social environment. For example, customers can now donate to Black Lives Matter and NO MORE, which supports victims of domestic violence, a rising issue as people were at home more than ever during the pandemic. Love Your Body Club has also veered away from the typical “exclusivity” messaging that is common with VIP loyalty programs. With a message saying “There’s room for everybody at the club”, The Body Shop reflects the new social norms of acceptance and inclusivity. One way to build a great brand community is to encourage everyone to join and make sure they all feel welcome. Unbound Merino Having a loyalty program in the fashion industry is almost a must these days. However, having a loyalty program and effectively using your loyalty program to create a thriving brand community are two different things. American men’s clothing brand, Unbound Merino does a great job at the latter, making it one of the best loyalty programs of 2021. Unbound Merino uses referrals as part of their Unbound Rewards to build their brand community, with their “Give $25, Get $25” ref...
Performance Max (PMax) marks the biggest shift towards complete, unmitigated, and unforgiving automation in search engine marketing to date. Google’s promised to move all advertisers onto the platform by September 2022. For many, that promise feels more like a threat. Far from an incremental advance towards more machine learning, PMax changes how we buy ads, structure campaigns, and drive success. With this change comes a flood of documentation. Worse — as we’ve experienced before — often what Google says to do is tactically different from what we end up doing. Make no mistake — we are the test subjects. Despite all that, we’re bullish on it. PMax is Google’s largest step towards audience and intent-based advertising. Demand creation, not merely demand capture. To unlock Google Ads in a new way — to acquire new customers — we must understand the fundamentals of Google Performance Max: What? Performance Max Definition, Comparison & How It Works Why? Five Benefits of Performance Max Campaigns How? 10 Best Practices for Ecommerce What? Performance Max Definition, Comparison & How It Works Google Ads consists of separate components — think: Google Shopping Ads, Google Merchant Center, and Google Search Ads (Adwords) — that make up the platform’s overall ecosystem. Performance Max is the latest system built on a new set of technologies intended to streamline advertising within the platform. Google began automatically transferring existing Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max campaigns in July 2022. By September 2022, all advertisers are expected to be transitioned in time for holiday shopping. Getting ahead of the PMax transition now means one less thing to worry about come Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Simplifying the Definition of PMax PMax defines a new advertising system within Google in which each campaign accesses all of Google’s ad inventory — think: YouTube, display, search, Maps, and more, all in one campaign. The new system continues the trend towards automation that Google Ads has been shifting towards over the past five years. Taylor Holiday, CTC’s CEO, views PMax as Google’s assault on Facebook advertising. And we’re bullish on it. Our Paid Search team continues to dive into the available research and create best practices for our ecommerce clients — with continually improving results. How Is PMax Different Than Smart Shopping? Previously, Google buyers used a funnel approach for ad spend. Allocating a small portion of budget to the low-hanging fruit of brand search, investing heavily in Google Shopping, and then dividing the remaining budget among other areas like non-brand search and YouTube. We relied on campaign type, mining the available data to optimize as much as possible. Unlike Shopping, PMax does not allow you to allocate budget by campaign type. Each campaign now accesses all of Google’s ad inventory at once, then PMax automatically optimizes. This shift means that we have to rethink: How we set campaign goals and budgets How we build creative assets How we evaluate success The learning curve feels steep, but it will be worthwhile. Ultimately, Google is ushering us into a more streamlined process (more on this later). Facing Automation Fears Handing the reins over to Google sparks anxiety in those who seek control. The best way to cope? Learn as much as possible so you can use Google’s Performance Max campaign’s robust automation to your advantage. In fact, the more you learn, the more control this new automation actually puts in an advertiser’s business-goal achieving hands. How Does PMax Actually Work? With PMax, buyers provide the following inputs: Creative assets: Text, image, and video CPA and ROAS targets (optional) Language and geo-targeting Signals and audiences Campaign goals Budget Feeds With these, Google’s machine learning works its magic, providing a mix of campaign types, ad formats, and more to yield the best results for the chosen goals. Early PMax Results Are Mixed Even Google is ...
Metafields sound technical, but with a bit of time they can be simple to understand. At the core, they’re about adding additional information into your admin or storefront that doesn’t come standard across Shopify’s platform. Many businesses have specific needs that are unique to what they sell, their customers and their business goals. We created Metafields to help you customize and manage the information you need to grow your business to match your ambition. While metafields are easy to understand, creating a metafield strategy and taking the time to deploy it effectively can be time consuming. That’s where you come in. As a Shopify partner, you can help guide metafield strategy and / or put it into action. Ultimately, Metafields are about sharing the right content with the right audience in the right context. They offer a simple, flexible way to build a personalized storefront and deliver experiences that delight new and returning customers—and keep them coming back for more. You can also help your clients use Metafields to organize your back office operations by centralizing data like customer details, shipping information, and inter-departmental notes. The best part? You can deliver all of these benefits without writing any code. With just a few clicks, you can create and reuse customized data-collection fields, and add them to your admin or to your online store, without touching a line of code. With Metafields, all of your store’s unique data —whether it’s related to customer birthdays, care instructions, material lists, or the packaging requirements for orders—has the potential to become actionable insights for any ecommerce business. Read on to explore how two organizations are using Metafields for easy, reusable data collection and management. These merchants implemented metafields on their own, but these examples illustrate just how big of an impact metafields can have on a business. La Boutique MOSO La Boutique MOSO is a French retailer offering cosmetic and hygiene products. With both a physical store in Paris and an online shop, the company sells almost 3,000 products from 50 different beauty brands, including organic and natural products with sustainable packaging. A lean and nimble company, La Boutique MOSO is led by co-founder Jean-Baptiste Lainé, who also oversees the store’s online development efforts. “With Metafields, we can have much better content on our online store, and we can scale our store much more easily because everything is structured in a way that allows us to add products and brands a lot faster, with the same consistency, and the same level of quality across the entire catalog,” Jean-Baptiste shares. “So for us, Shopify is becoming not only one of the best ecommerce platforms, but it’s also becoming a full-featured content management system.” Shopify’s Metafields also extend the search and discovery aspects of the store. By adding Metafields to products, and creating new filters in the Shopify admin, it opened a world of filtering options for shoppers. The Metafields act as a type of tag system, classifying product types into easily sortable categories using the storefront’s search feature. “If you go to any collection with a lot of products, you can use Metafields now to filter the products,” Jean-Baptiste explains. “For example, you can filter the products based on your type of skin, you can filter the products based on your skin problem. You can filter the products based on their certification, whether they’re made in France or not, whether they’re certified organic or not, and even whether the packaging is sustainable or not.” Metafield Lists Use Metafield lists to show multiple pieces of content in one metafield, for example a list of ingredients. You can also use lists for more powerful storefront filtering–all through the admin without any coding. Learn more at the Shopify Help Center. As an added benefit, Metafields helped improve La Boutique MOSO’s SEO search results and conversion...
Ecommerce businesses face many different kinds of cybersecurity risks as attacks become increasingly sophisticated and more frequent. Malware, viruses, bad bots, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are just some of the threats they face. Not only large businesses are targets because small businesses usually have more security weaknesses cybercriminals can exploit. Educate employees One of the best steps ecommerce businesses can take is to educate employees about data security and privacy practices to protect customer data. For example, information sessions about how to identify suspicious emails can help to reduce phishing attacks. Kaspersky predicts there will be more focus in the future on targeted ransomware. Attackers can install ransomware, a type of malware or malicious software, on a system and lock victims out until the attacker receives a ransom. In this way, they can get a big payment from a major company rather than many small payments from random victims. Educating employees on how to use company hardware and software will minimize malware threats. This includes installing antimalware software, avoiding downloading suspicious files and making regular computer checkups for virus removal and optimal performance. Malware is the blanket term for viruses, trojans and any codes that enter your system to corrupt or destroy the files or programs. Therefore, you need to keep your laptops and PCs in the best health. Maintain a strong password policy A 2020 Verizon data breach investigation reports that 37% of data breaches are due to weak or stolen credentials. Some of the most common attacks include phishing, credential stuffing, brute force, and man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. Brute force attacks involve using a program to generate passwords until hitting the right ones. Ecommerce businesses work with customer data all the time, so they need to have a physically powerful password policy in place. Employers must know how to create strong passwords that are at least eight characters long and a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special symbols. Employees should change passwords at least every three months and never share them. Regularly review all third-party integrations and plugins E-commerce businesses usually use various third-party solutions within their stores. They need to keep an inventory of them and constantly assess whether the level of trust they place in them is warranted. They are responsible for implementing any vulnerability patches to the software powering a store, implementing updates and fixing bugs. When third-party solutions are no longer used, removing the integration is the best practice. The fewer third parties that have access to customer data, the better. Some plugins may have potential security weaknesses, so it is important to know more about them and their security before installing them. Websites that have outdated plugins are prime targets for attackers, so it’s important to keep them updated. For example, to sell products online the ecommerce business related to event tickets needs to make sure the online ticketing system offers good security. Every ticket sold should be tagged with a unique, scannable QR code to help prevent fraud. Enable two-factor authentication for sensitive accounts Two-factor authentication can help to prevent phishing attacks that involve sending a compelling email with a link that takes users to a fake website where they type in a username and password. Attackers take advantage of the fact that users often have the same password for multiple sites and can gain access to multiple sites and apps with credential stuffing. Inserting a program between a user and an app is called a man-in-the-middle attack, and it allows an attacker to gather login credentials. Two-factor authentication requires users to enter their login details, and another piece of information, such as a code sent to their phones. This helps businesses to protect ag...
After Dana Jackson was diagnosed with Lupus she dedicated her career to creating products that repaired her skin and hair. Having bootstrapped the beauty brand Beneath Your Mask, Dana reflects on her journey of building a skincare company from scratch. In this episode of Shopify Masters, Dana shares insights around product development and retail relationships. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters. Show Notes Store: Beneath Your Mask Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Recommendations: Klaviyo, Yotpo, Quick Announcement Bar The health scare that sparked a passion for helping people Felix: You started the business after a personal experience. Tell us about how it all began. Dana: My background was not in beauty at all. I worked in the entertainment industry as a business manager. I was living in Atlanta at the time–I’m originally from Chicago–and I was experiencing cystic acne. I went to the dermatologist about it and they prescribed me a medication called Bactrim. Once I started taking that medication, I would wake up and my eyes would be swollen shut, my joints would be locked closed. The dermatologist said, “Well, stop taking the medication. Those symptoms should go away.” Three weeks and several steroid shots later, the symptoms did not go away. They said, “You should get an ANA test, It sounds like this could be lupus.” I got the ANA test. It came back positive and I had to go get tested for lupus. Initially I was doing all this research. How is this happening? I didn’t know anyone with lupus at the time. There was this thing called drug induced lupus. I thought that must be what I had, so when I went to the doctor to get my results, they said, “You have lupus.” And I said, “No, no, no. I have drug induced lupus. This will go away.” She said it won’t. We went back and forth until somehow the doctor agreed with me, which is ridiculous. From there, I ended up going and getting other opinions. I went to doctors in Houston and Chicago. They did biopsies on my skin and kidneys. Not only did I have lupus, but I had lupus nephritis, which means it was also in my kidneys. I was retaining water weight. I had gained about 100 pounds in water weight over the course of 30 days. I had rashes head to toe. I had lost all of my hair. I ended up going through a really depressive state. I shut down. A friend of mine convinced me to talk to a friend of hers that was a doctor. She lived in Abu Dhabi and she said, “We really want to help you. My husband and I. I’m going to send him to the US from Abu Dhabi. You have to go to Los Angeles because I feel like you aren’t happy in Atlanta. Trust, A, that you’re sick. Accept it. Accept that any doctor is going to put you on steroids and all of these medications.” At that point I was really reluctant to do it. I was in denial. After I got to Los Angeles, the rheumatologist immediately sent me to the emergency room. Everything they warned me was going to happen started–the doctors, the steroids, the chemo, everything going on with my kidneys started happening. In addition to doing steroids and chemotherapy to stop the inflammation in my kidneys and the edema, I did a lot of Eastern medicine. I started a vegan diet. I did a lot of juicing. I did a lot of mental and spiritual work. My health began to really turn around. As I got better, I moved back to Chicago, which is where I’m originally from. I still didn’t know what was going to happen. When I moved back, I continued to improve my health, but now I wanted to improve all the damage that was done to my hair and my skin from the disease. I became hypersensitive to what I was putting in my body. Prior to getting sick, I never treated my skin like an organ. I started researching products out there and I couldn’t find anything that I wanted to use, whether from an ingredient perspective or from an aesthetic perspective. Back then “clean” was very granola. I always say I’m a girl that lives in both worlds. I’m not a granola girl...
More than half of consumers in the world are on social media, and 54% of these consumers use social media channels to research products before buying them. Hence, distributing your reviews on social media can help you build trust and drive more traffic to your online store. In this article, we’ll talk about three Judge.me features that assist your reviews sharing on social media: Automatic social push: set conditions and share your reviews automatically. Manual social push: handpick specific reviews from the reviews dashboard for sharing. Facebook Reviews Tab: create a tab on your Facebook Page with Judge.me reviews. 1 – Automatic Push on Facebook and Twitter Need an efficient way to share a huge number of reviews? Connect your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter account to Judge.me and let our app share the reviews for you based on your predetermined conditions. For example: Share 50% percent of reviews your store receives Share reviews with a minimum rating of 4 Share only reviews with photos Share only verified reviews Share a new review 3 hours after the last push You can also customize your message template to spice it up. For example, the default template is: But you may want to make it more engaging like this: If you want to schedule new reviews to go live at a specific time (e.g. the peak hours of your social channels), try using the automation between Judge.me and Buffer on Zapier. Learn how to create this automation in this blog article. 2 – Manual Push on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr Besides automatic push, you can push your reviews manually from the reviews dashboard. Using this option, you can share not only on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr. A manual social push gives you more autonomy over which reviews to share and when to share them. For example, if you receive an extremely positive review, you may want to bypass all the predetermined conditions and share it right away to gain immediate exposure. For Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, you need to connect your accounts in Settings > Social Media before sharing the reviews manually. You can reuse your social push templates in Settings > Social Media, or edit the content to push a completely new message. Note: If you have pushed a review manually, we’ll exclude it from the automatic push queue, so rest assured that your reviews sharing won’t be duplicated. 3 – Setting up the Facebook Reviews Tab Besides the news feed, your Facebook Page’s tabs are also potential interaction points. How about adding a tab for product reviews? If your Facebook page has more than 2000 likes, our Facebook Reviews Tab lets you display the same reviews as in your Review Widget on your Facebook Page. You can customize the name of this reviews tab, and display the “write a review” button to let your customers submit reviews directly when they are on Facebook. Ready to go social? Judge.me helps you not only collect and display reviews but also spread them to the world. And you can’t miss such a bustling channel as social media to enhance your social proof. Go ahead and try out our social push features and Facebook Reviews Tab to promote your products to more potential buyers! Special thanks to our friends at Judge.me for their insights on this topic.
Brands with exceptional checkout experiences see between 20% and 43% higher checkout completion rates than their average and under-performing peers, according to Bold’s latest Checkout Benchmark. For a brand with $20M in annual online revenue, moving from average to leading checkout performance could generate up to $5 million more in annual revenue. The Checkout Benchmark data looks at the aggregated and anonymized checkout data from 3 million Bold-powered checkout starts and 1.5 million checkout completions to reveal the true story behind checkout performance. Leading brands — defined as the top 25% of merchants by checkout completion rates — see desktop checkout completion rates of 73.2% while average brands have 52.6% rates and low performers are at 33%. Between top performing brands and their peers — and even among top brands themselves with desktop and mobile — it is clear there is a checkout experience gap that reduces checkout completions resulting in lost revenue potential. Lower completion rates are a clear sign of friction in the checkout experience. Here’s why current checkout experiences have shoppers abandoning their checkouts and what brands can do to become a checkout experience leader — and increase revenue. Cart conversion rate vs checkout completion rate: What’s the difference? The Checkout Benchmark by Bold looks at the checkout completion rate (or checkout conversion rate), which is the number of completed orders divided by the number of shoppers that proceed to or start a checkout. It represents how many shoppers start a checkout and complete the purchase. Checkout abandonment happens when a shopper has proceeded to the checkout but drops off before completing the purchase. Drop off typically occurs at the shipping or payment details steps within checkout. Traditionally, many brands have monitored the cart conversion rate, which is the number of completed orders divided by the number of carts created. Or, brands have kept track of cart abandonment, which is when a shopper adds items to a cart, but leaves a site before proceeding to the checkout. The difference between cart and checkout metrics is whether a brand is measuring from the count of carts or from the moment shoppers advance from the cart into the checkout flow. As brands embrace one-click checkouts and other checkout flows by experience type — from QR codes, Internet of Things devices and more — shoppers will increasingly bypass the cart altogether. This makes the checkout completion rate an even more critical metric to monitor and optimize. What is a good checkout completion rate? There are many well known benchmarks for cart abandonment and overall website conversion rate, however, there are fewer sources of data that explore checkout completion rates. “The Checkout Benchmark is a powerful tool for brands to understand what is causing checkout drop off. While many know their site’s overall conversion rate compared to industry benchmarks, brands have not had clear industry benchmarks to compare how their checkout is performing — until now. With these benchmarks, brands can begin exploring different steps of the checkout experience to uncover where their experience is lacking,” says Anatolii Iakimets, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Bold Commerce. Based on The Checkout Benchmark by Bold, the average checkout completion rate on desktop is 52.5%. If a brand’s checkout completion rate is 73.2%, its checkout is performing in the top quarter of checkouts. If a checkout completion rate is lower than 33%, the brand’s checkout is performing in the lowest quarter of checkouts. For non-desktop shopping, the average mobile checkout completion rate is 42.4%. If a brand’s mobile checkout completion rate is 65.3%, it’s performing in the top quarter of mobile checkouts. If it’s lower than 22.5%, the brand’s checkout is performing in the lowest quarter of checkouts. For enterprise brands, there is a tremendous opportunity for checkout experience optimizat...
In 2019, Katie Carson found herself at the year’s biggest event for YouTube creators, brushing shoulders with the platform’s top stars. It was a party at VidCon, the annual convention that draws top talent from YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok. “There were lots of very, very famous—as in mainstream media famous—people there. And it was really, really bizarre, as I’m, you know, sipping on my Sprite in the corner, to see Tana Mongeau walk by with her posse,” Katie says. For Katie, it was all strange and unexpected. She had started her soap business, Royalty Soaps, as a teenager, making hand-poured cold process soap from her parents’ house in Texas. She didn’t set out to be a YouTube star, but that’s exactly what happened. Katie now has more than 880,000 subscribers on the platform, and her biggest hit has more than eight million views. Her decision to use YouTube for business contributed to a huge boost in sales to the point where her video views let her know how much soap to make for a new collection. Her YouTube channel has completely transformed and grown her shop in ways she couldn’t have imagined, and she’s happy to share what she’s learned along the way. From soap to stardom Katie caught the soap bug when she was 16 and took a soap-making class for homeschooled teens like herself. “I just really loved it,” she says. “I talked to my parents, and I said, ‘Hey, I think this is something I really want to pursue.’” After a full year in the class, Katie bought all the ingredients needed and started producing soap at home. When she was 17, she launched Royalty Soaps as an online business. She chose to start her business online because it meant lower start-up costs and skipping the fees that come with selling at fairs. She started on Etsy but then outgrew it and switched to Shopify, where she’s been selling ever since. When it came to social media, Katie didn’t go in with a specific plan but decided to try everything and see what stuck. She launched Royalty Soaps on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube within the same week in 2013. Initially, she didn’t even intend for her YouTube channel to be part of her marketing strategy. She started the channel as a way to connect with other soapmakers she’d met on Facebook who were posting video content to show where they work. “My original goal was just to connect with people within my own community,” she says. Her first videos were more inside baseball—testing scents and reviewing soaps from other makers. But as she started to post videos of herself making her soaps, she started to attract new viewers. Plus, she loved doing it. “That was my primary motivator: this is fun, it’s a cool way to connect with people,” she says. “Maybe this is a way that I can reach other people in an entertaining way, to learn more about the craft I’m really passionate about.” Turning views into sales Katie was not an overnight YouTube success—it took posting consistently and fine tuning her video content to get to where she is. As she continued to post, her subscriber count crept up and she started earning money from her YouTube channel itself. And then, when she had around 15,000 subscribers, she started seeing a clear correlation between views and sales. She’d look at her analytics and see 90% of the visitors to her shop were coming from a link on YouTube. “Every single time, we’ll see a spike in sales once a video goes up.” “That’s when it became clear that this is something that’s actually influencing the revenue here,” Katie says. She also made some smart decisions, like tapping into trending topics that play well with search engines. One of her first big hits was showing herself making a soap inspired by the Unicorn Frappuccinos from Starbucks that were all over social media. “It did almost 12 times better than anything else I had done. And I was absolutely shocked, because it was kind of a video I had thrown together at the last minute,” she says. Another hit was a video of her reacting to viral soap hacks tha...
One of the most effective ways to drive new and loyal customers to your business is to create a solid co-branding partnership. Effective co-branding campaigns should combine the proprietary uniqueness of each company to deliver more traffic, sales revenue, and brand exposure. Arguably there are really only two broad ways to increase a company’s profitability: Get a better return on investment (ROI) for every dollar you spend. Get more people in front of your website. An effective co-branding strategy aims to hit both of these goals in a way that is directly tied to a company’s revenue stream, making it an easy way to not only drive more traffic and gain revenue, but also to easily MEASURE the effectiveness of the campaign itself. What is Co-Branding? Co-branding is where two different brands collaborate to create a new product or offer a service. Not to be confused with co-marketing or a cross-promotion campaign, co-branding is different from where two brands only collaborate on promoting each other. A Recent Example: When Budweiser launched this video in 2019 to promote the final season of Game of Thrones, it was in collaboration with HBO. This is co-branding at work. And as a result: Budweiser sold more beer, HBO picked up more subscribers and it opened up an opportunity for both companies to access a potential new demographic to focus their marketing on in the years to come. Co-branding can focus on the creation of an new idea or image in itself like with 2019 Budweiser and Game of Thrones campaign or it can create an entirely new product or service like you’ll see in the following three examples: Examples of Co-Branding Done Right There are a WEALTH of examples out there, but here at the Fastlane we want to show you how these co-branding can be effective for both the Fortune 500 Company and also the new start-up that has just started to grow. Betty Crocker and Hershey’s Back in 2013, Betty Crocker and Hershey’s chocolate had the brilliant idea to co-brand brownie and cookie mixes. This campaign was so effe ctive that in 2021, it is being used to teach marketing students at the college level. Entire studies have been done, in fact, to help us understand why it was so successful. Here are the two reasons why it was so effective: Hershey’s customers bought the mixes made with their favorite chocolate. Betty Crocker fans got a chance to taste a variety of chocolate and peanut butter candies in their favorite baked goods. These well-established companies, thanks to their co-branding campaign, both introduced their loyal customers to one another. It was easy for them to tell that the campaign was a success given how fast the new co-branded products began flying off supermarket shelves. The campaign reduced the risk associated with the introduction of a new product on the market because it was distributed between both the companies, meaning that they both were fully-invested in the co-branding ventures result. Bonus: these co-branded products also led to the receipt of additional sales revenue because it also led to consumers purchasing each of the companies individual stand-alone products not part of the co-branding as well. Taco Bell and Doritos In 2012, Taco Bell and Doritos partnered to offer the Taco Bell Doritos Locos Tacos. This tasty, new menu item was made available at the fast-food chain across the United States. And much like Betty Crocker and Hershey’s, this new menu item resulted in revenue increases for both companies. The new item drove Doritos fans to Taco Bell restaurants; it exposed Taco Bell fans to that iconic Doritos flavor. It also led to an opportunity to put variations on the new product into the Taco Bell restaurant, it also allowed for them to put it on grocery store shelves. This IS the main appeal of co-branding partnerships. Well that, and it was easy for both Taco Bell and Doritos to gauge the success of the campaign thanks to having a unique product which both were invested in promoting. Ugly Chr...
In 2020, holiday shoppers spent a record-shattering $10.8 billion on Cyber Monday alone, which made sense given the shift to online shopping during COVID-19. A year later, many people wondered whether ecommerce retailers could top that performance. Here are the highlights, based on Adobe Analytics data: Brands rang up $8.9 billion in online sales on Black Friday (down slightly from $9 billion in 2020) Shoppers spent $10.7 billion on Cyber Monday (down 1.4% from 2020) Sales during Cyber Week (Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday) totaled $33.9 billion (down 1.4% from 2020) Brands may not have beat last year’s sales benchmarks, but that’s still a ton of transactions – which means there’s a ton of data to unpack. Our team analyzed the biggest shopping weekend of the year to see how brands adapted their BFCM strategies, how shoppers responded, and what it all means for the future of ecommerce. Here are 5 insights we’re paying close attention to. Get our best content on ecommerce marketing in your inbox 2 times a week 1. Revenue from SMS doubled from last year SMS (text messaging) has long been an underutilized marketing channel, but its performance during BFCM 2021 will surely change that. Brands generated over $830 million from text messaging during Cyber Week in 2021, according to Attentive, nearly doubling growth from last year. Furthermore, brands got 8.5 million new SMS subscribers, which suggests they offered deals in exchange for phone numbers. This echoes our own findings: with the Privy Growth Plan, total texts sent in November were up 2,700% from 2020. The instantaneous nature of texting is perfectly suited for BFCM, where urgent, limited-time deals are the name of the game. The takeaway SMS is poised to become one of the most lucrative sales channels as customers look beyond their email inbox to engage with their favorite brands. 2. Brands bet big on email to drive sales Ecommerce brands predicted another big year for online shopping, as evidenced by the sheer volume of emails sent during BFCM weekend. Ecommerce brands using Privy sent 56.6% more newsletters this Black Friday compared to 2020 and followed up with a 43.8% increase from last year on Cyber Monday. Considering Shopify merchants using Privy generate an average of $581.71 per email sent, it makes sense why sellers doubled down (literally) during Cyber Weekend. The takeaway In a time when social media timelines are cluttered and in-store shopping isn’t as popular as it used to be, building an email list for direct selling is a must for ecommerce brands. 3. Mobile sales kept climbing In 2014, mobile sales surpassed desktop sales for the first time ever, according to Shopify. Since then, shoppers have continually preferred to browse and buy on their smartphones and tablets – especially during Cyber Weekend. In 2021, more than 70% of BFCM purchases were made on mobile devices, according to Shopify – a jump of 4 percentage points from last year. Just 29% of purchases were made on desktops. Average daily smartphone screen time in 2021 hovered between 5 and 6 hours, not including work-related tasks. If people use their smartphones to chat with friends, read the news, and pay bills, it stands to reason that holiday shopping gets thrown into the mix. Not to mention, text marketing and tools like one-click checkout turn mobile shopping into a seamless experience. The takeaway As mobile shopping becomes more popular, it’s essential for ecommerce brands to optimize their websites for mobile browsing and checkout to capture as many sales as possible. 4. Many shoppers got a jump-start on their holiday lists In 2020, shipping delays turned the “most wonderful time of the year” into a disaster for shoppers and brands alike. And this year, some experts predicted out-of-stock messages online to jump 172% from last year. These concerns about shipping delays and supply chain bottlenecks meant shoppers weren’t waiting until Cyber Weekend to make purchases. During the three we...
Reading is fundamental. It’s one of the first skills we’re taught in school, and yet, few of us realize how important it is after we’ve graduated. Reading regularly in adulthood helps us develop analytical skills, makes us better communicators, stimulates the creative centers of our brains, and strengthens our ability to recall information. Books can cheer us up when we’re feeling sad, motivate us to make improvements, and teach us new skills that can help better ourselves. Skills like these can benefit just about everyone, but for entrepreneurs, the ability to analyze a situation, apply lessons learned, and come up with innovative solutions is crucial. If you’re looking to put together an entrepreneurial reading list, here are the best business books to include: The Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf: 29 of the best business books 1. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . and Others Don’t by Jim Collins In Good to Great, business management consultant Jim Collins describes how good companies make the transition into great ones, using case studies (both good and bad) of businesses that have succeeded in and failed to make the transition. Collins’ book is perfect for entrepreneurs looking to understand what gives successful businesses an inside edge. The insight offered by Good to Great has been praised by a number of CEOs, with several members of The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council citing it as the best management book they’ve read. Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. 2. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters Peter Theil is a billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist, and co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund. Zero to One is based on a series of essays taken from notes of a lecture Theil gave on startups in 2012. Zero to One is a primer on innovation that explores how entrepreneurs develop new ideas by learning to think outside the box, making it a great book for business people looking to carve out a profitable niche. Atlantic writer Derek Thompson cited Zero to One as maybe the best business book he’s ever read. The founding moment of a company, however, really does happen just once: only at the very start do you have the opportunity to set the rules that will align people toward the creation of value in the future. 3. The Ten-Day MBA: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering the Skills Taught In America’s Top Business Schools by Steven A. Silbiger In The Ten-Day MBA, MBA and marketing director Steven A. Silbiger gives readers a crash course in everything he’s learned in his years teaching business, covering theoretical concepts along-side practical skills like accounting, finance, marketing strategy, quantitative analysis, operations, economics, organizational behavior, and ethics. Silbiger’s internationally acclaimed comprehensive guide compiles lessons from business schools across the world, based on the notes of MBA students attending programs at Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and the University of Virginia. Marketing is a special blend of art and science. There is a great deal to be learned in marketing classes, but no amount of schooling can teach you the experience, the intuition, and the creativity to be a truly gifted marketer. That’s why those with the gift are so highly paid. 4. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber Michael E. Gerber is the founder of Michael E. Gerber Companies, a business skills training company based in California. In The E-Myth Revisited, Gerber explores why 80% of small busi...
Influencer marketing is a billion-dollar industry now. As the opportunities come in, so do the challenges. The market will become crowded very soon. If you, as influencers, can’t find a way to differentiate yourself, there is little chance for you to win the brand deals. To showcase your uniqueness and stand out from the crowd, make sure you have good personal branding. Want to learn more? Let’s dive into this article that covers: the definition of personal branding, why it is crucial to influencers, some tips for building your personal brand. What is personal branding? A personal brand is what people perceive about you based on your experience, expertise, competencies, actions, and achievements within a community, industry, or the marketplace. It’s the unique story about you that you want to tell the world. Personal branding is the process and strategy that helps you build your personal brand. If done well, it will be a powerful tool for you to grow your reputation and become successful as an influencer. Why do influencers need to build a personal brand? People may haven’t met you in person, but what you demonstrate in your personal brand, either the pink pants you wear in an Instagram photo or your soft voice in a YouTube video, will make you memorable to them. The pictures you post, the stories you share, and the collaborations you take can help you build a level of trust and connection with your followers. If your content is genuine and authentic, people will trust you more. For example, posting photos of your daily life proves that you are a real person and makes you more approachable to your followers. Good personal branding lets you showcase your uniqueness, proves your knowledge and skills, and makes it easier to pitch yourself to brands. Tips for building a good personal brand 1 – Know yourself and how you want to present that First and foremost, you need to find your niche: what’s special about you, what you are passionate about, and what you are good at. In short, your personal brand needs to be about you. Don’t try to imitate another person, you won’t succeed. If you try to focus on too many things at the same time, you won’t make an impact either. Just one thing, the most special thing about you, is going to work. Nas Daily left a $120,000 job at Venmo to make videos because he realized that we are born to create something, and he wants to become a creator. By traveling around the world and making videos, he now has more than 20 million followers on Facebook. 2 – Know your target audience & build your brand to match their needs While your personal brand is about you, it needs to be relevant to the target audience. You should make sure your content is inspiring to your followers and encourage them to take action. For example, if you are a beauty blogger who wants to promote organic skincare, research the most trending products and recommend them to your followers. 3 – Be consistent from copy to visuals If you are wearing a green hat today, people may forget it the next day. But if you consistently wear a green hat 365 days of the year, “green hat” may become your style icon. When building your personal brand, being consistent is the key to success. You need to act in a way that matches your personal brand. For an influencer, it’s not just about the content you share, but also your tone of voice, the color scheme, and the fonts you use in your marketing materials. It will be helpful to write down a set of branding guidelines that you can follow all the time. Victoria Paris, a Tiktok influencer who gained one million followers in less than six months, shared in an interview hosted by Colin and Samir: “I don’t view myself as creative at all. I’m not a creative person like if anything. I’m a consistent person.” Agreeing with Victoria, the hosts said: “I actually think creatives oftentimes are not consistent, and consistency is rewarded in business. It’s rewarded in algorithms.” With a consistent process on Tiktok: c...
The subscription business model has grown tremendously over the past few years. It especially surged through the pandemic as consumers looked for alternative ways to make purchases from the safety of home. Customers today are subscribing to more than just software and entertainment services. They are joining memberships for products across food and beverage, health and wellness, fashion and beauty, and many other less-traditional verticals. In order to explore this emerging market, Bold hosted the Expert insights: Formulas for subscription success webinar, which featured Forrester Senior Analyst Lily Varon, and Robbie Kellman Baxter, business strategy consultant and best-selling author. The conversation was rounded out with Bold Co-Founder and in-house subscriptions specialist, Jay Myers, host of the Own Your Commerce podcast. Key themes that emerged from the insightful conversation included the role memberships play in subscriber retention, how brands can scale by reducing subscriber churn, as well as strategies for reducing subscriber fatigue and preparing for future trends in this rapidly evolving industry. Download our in-depth analysis of the conversation for your further consideration and review. Let’s continue the conversation around key formulas for subscription success, starting with memberships. Build subscriber retention through customer loyalty Getting customers to subscribe is a valuable first step, but retention is the true goal of successful subscription companies. How do you get customers to sign on for 6 months, a year, or even a lifetime, instead of churning out after the initial welcome offer or discount has expired? The most successful subscription companies have found treating customers like valued members is paramount to optimizing customer lifetime value. Here are some tips for increasing subscriber loyalty: Provide genuine value beyond the product itself. This could include ongoing perks and discounts, exclusive benefits, or even tertiary goods and services that make the subscription too valuable to cancel. Invest in personalization. Personalization doesn’t only mean making product recommendations and giving customers the ability to customize their purchase. Invest in removing the friction from the shopping process, reducing the number of clicks and forms customers need to fill out, and adding flexible payment options. Create a sense of membership. Appeal to customers’ emotions by connecting with them frequently and always being available for a customer service call or follow up. Provide spontaneous rewards, perks, gifts, and make them feel like they are part of an important membership. Scale by reducing churn Though some amount of churn is inevitable for subscription brands, there are strategies that can effectively reduce customer churn while increasing the number of longterm subscribers. One of these is to invest in a great onboarding experience. What does customer onboarding mean for subscriptions? A strong onboarding starts with the first time a customer interacts with your brand, enters your site, or begins filling out a form to inform the type of subscription. The impression you make on a customer is the first step towards creating brand loyalty and reducing their likelihood of churning. Take the friction out of the onboarding process by making sure it is enjoyable, inspiring, and reinforcing the value in their purchase decision. Customers will reward a good onboarding experience with increased customer lifetime value. Check out our free and useful customer lifetime value calculator for subscriptions. On a recent webinar Subscriptions 2021: The new pillar of ecommerce, Chris George, CEO and Chairman at SUBTA, spoke about the importance of having a strong onboarding — but also outboarding — process in place. This means tackling churn head on by finding out why customers are churning, and looking into if there are ways of winning them back, either through the right offer, discount, or adjustment...
When David Gaylord and the Bushbalm team invested in new packaging for a 10,000-unit product run, they only discovered that the bottles were leaking after shipping out orders. In this episode of the Bushbalm Miniseries by Shopify Masters, founder David Gaylord shares all the biggest failures and small mistakes that could have caused Bushbalm to go under. From adapting to fine tuning, learn from David’s way of handling failures while building an 8-figure business. For the full transcript of this episode, click here. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters. How do you define failure? Shuang: How do you define failure? David: I don’t actually associate failure to much because I see it as learning. We’ve talked about this earlier in previous episodes, but anytime you do something that doesn’t work, it might be a failure per se, as whatever you define a failure. But I look at it as just an opportunity to learn something new and do something different. I don’t see it as something that brings me down. I see it as something that I want to change and try something new with. Shuang: I also think it’s just a moment in time. You’re at a period where something didn’t work out, but there are things you can try to move out of that period. David: And if you think about failures in some ways, something could be a failure right now, but two years from now, it could be a huge success, exact same thing, product, whatever it is, just because of the timing. So that’s why failure for me is more about learning and doing something different or in a different way. Shuang: Looking back in the early days, what were some of those moments where you were in a bind, but you did learn a lot from them? David: Probably the earliest failure moments were around packaging and branding. We learned quickly. One thing is, we called our products, Bush Oil, which didn’t resonate and people thought this is strange, that’s an odd product. That was a quick learning lesson. We quickly failed there. The other thing we realized is, although we’re trying to really destigmatize people talking about ingrown hairs, razor burn, different products, five years ago, we used branded packaging tape on our boxes and people really hated it because they didn’t want a package with Bushbalm coming to their place of work or house or whatever it is. That was a quick failure, that we stopped using that custom packaging tape. I’ve probably got 10 miles of it sitting at our office right now. We learned quickly that packaging is pretty important and if you screw it up, it’s also a big investment because it’s thousands of bottles, boxes. It’s a lot more than you think if you screw that up. Shuang: What’s your personal take on launch versus perfectionism? David: As far as perfectionism, I think there are two elements that come up a lot. The one side is on the product. We’ve had some big failures around even how people use the product. So doing kind of your own QA (quality assurance) or usability testing of how would you use this? For us, a failure was our bottles. They were a shaker at the time. Not enough oil came out, so people didn’t enjoy using it because it wasn’t efficient for them, quick learning lesson. The other was one time we had caps that didn’t tighten enough and they’re metal, so they leaked in transit, quick learning lesson. We had to change everything. The other side is the perfectionism on the website and design and how it looks. A lesson I learned early on, which was frustrating, was a lot of what I did on the website. I’m tinkering, I’m changing the colors, the images, I’m trying to make this look better, I’m putting this here, I’m doing that. None of it almost mattered, because none of it was tested and I wanted to see if this worked and then I’d wait, and then it would work or wouldn’t, I didn’t have enough data. If you’re the person who’s tinkering with your website and tinkering with your Shopify store and trying to make it look perfect, that’s almost too much...
Avid readers know that there’s nothing like curling up with a good book. The weight of its pages, the library smell, and the anticipation of being transported into another world. Have you ever imagined a life where you could be surrounded by books every day, delivering your joy of reading to the masses? Opening a bookstore in the age of Amazon and massive retail chains might seem like an impossible feat. But despite the perception that independent booksellers are diminishing in the shadow of these giants, there’s still plenty of room to make it in the world of books. Niche bookstores offer something that massive retailers could never replicate—and customers are even willing to pay more for the same book because of the personal touch. Clever book business founders who discovered a gap in the market, a unique value proposition, or a way to create personalized customer experiences have found success—even during a pandemic. Niche bookstores offer something that massive retailers could never replicate—and customers are even willing to pay more for the same book because of the personal touch. Turn your hobby into a business by launching your own bookstore and selling books online. Or, circumvent publishers to transform your manuscript into a real book to sell directly to your fans. With books being such a wide-ranging product, there are infinite ways to differentiate yourself. Whatever your angle, let’s turn the first page on the story of your future. How to open a bookstore and sell books online In this guide, we’ll focus primarily on the steps to opening an online bookstore. We’ll look at how to sell books online through multiple online business models from resale vintage to subscription boxes. But, there’s something here for everyone, including authors looking to self-publish and those considering a brick-and-mortar book business. We spoke with thriving independent booksellers and a self-publishing expert to get their advice on everything from working with publishers to providing winning customer service. Meet the experts Dominique discovered the power of books while she was working as a youth advocate, supporting high school students who needed help graduating. “I watched them light up as they read books they could see themselves in,” she says. “It was like magic.” The experience inspired her to imagine a bookstore that celebrated underrepresented voices and stories. When her dream became “too loud to ignore,” she launched Itty Bitty Bookstore in 2020—in the middle of a pandemic. Dominique’s leap made history and the business became the first Black-owned brick-and-mortar bookstore in Madison, Wisconsin. Kerrie scoured the web to find the perfect book-themed subscription box—and came up empty handed. On a road trip with her husband, Mark, she mused about starting her own. That dream quickly became a reality for the couple, and Sweet Reads Box was born in 2017. Each box combines a book with lifestyle and food items that complement the story. The business has grown from the basement of their house to a third-party fulfilment center, shipping monthly to customers across Canada. With the massive growth, Kerrie still personally reads each book and picks every item in the box. Joanna is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 30 books, selling more than 600,000 copies in 162 countries and five languages. Her catalog includes non-fiction that helps aspiring authors write and publish books, and thriller fiction under the name J.F.Penn. She is also an award-winning podcaster, entrepreneur, and professional speaker. We’ll also be featuring examples from other successful booksellers, including a children’s bookseller and publisher focusing on South Asian themes and a trio of women creating a new comic book series. “My learning curve was everything!” says Dominique. She, like many entrepreneurs before her, started her business with little more than a dream and a lot of ambition. Though she says networking and community b...
The festive season is already upon us, which can only mean one thing – it’s time for presents! Santa came early this year, and guess what came out of his gift bag. Meet the ultimate holiday SMS Playbook – built to maximize your success through the rest of 2021 and beyond. Learn how to successfully engage with your customers, gain new ones, and keep the sales rolling throughout December. You’ve got 8 proven strategies and 10 inspirational templates to take your SMS marketing to the next level in the busy weeks ahead. And, as with every solid action plan, we’ve outlined the most important time periods and pointed out the best dates to launch a campaign. Ho-ho-let’s go! December 1 – December 15 The beginning of December is the time when merchants must step up their game and show the world what they’re made of. Even if the BFCM craze is already behind us, you need to continue the momentum and make sure your SMS strategy is on point. You want to provide excellent post-purchase care for the people who trusted your store around Black Friday/Cyber Monday and send follow-up offers. You want to re-engage with inactive shoppers and lure them back with attractive holiday offers. And all this while making sure your audience keeps growing. But don’t stress, we got you covered! There is, literally, an SMS for everything, and we will now show you how to use the channel in the best way possible, make sure Santa fulfills your wishlist, and all your marketing goals are accomplished. Holiday strategy #1: Approach BFCM purchasers and non-purchasers with timely and personalized SMS campaigns Kick off December by reaching out to the people who have placed orders around Black Friday/Cyber Monday. This will help you show some extra care, keep your brand top of mind, and, while we’re at it – drive more sales. Activate a Post-purchase Cross-sell flow to recommend shoppers a product that will complement their previous order. Send follow-up offers or introduce them to your hot December deals. You can also use SMS Review Requests flows to collect valuable product reviews and boost social proof. Customers will appreciate your interest in their opinion, which will additionally help you create deeper connections and nurture loyalty. Even if someone skipped on your BFCM deals, it doesn’t mean they won’t appreciate a jolly Christmas treat. Approach your inactive customers with daily or weekly deal drops, or send your gorgeous holiday gift guide to help them make the best choice. Combine this with a small incentive in the form of a discount, gift voucher, or free shipping to make them hit the Purchase button. Another great way to interact with shoppers is to use advanced conversational flows to ask for their preferences or who they are shopping for. This will help you get to know your customers better, create lists of SMS subscribers based on that information and use it, later on, to offer ultra-personalized customer experiences. Holiday strategy #2: Capture on-site visitors and grow your SMS audience Traditionally, around major holidays, stores get an influx of new visitors lurking around for good deals. Use this opportunity to massively grow your SMS audience with our powerful and engaging subscriber collection tools. Whether it will be an appealing pop-up, showing just at the right time, a cheerful footer form, or a floating button on your product page – your goal this December is to provide mobile-optimized subscriber collection experiences and use the busy shopping period to acquire valuable first-party data. Entice your potential SMS subscribers with a small incentive with their next purchase, a promise to keep them up-to-date on all your hot deals and exclusive offers, or to keep track of their orders. On-site experiences are important, but you don’t need to stop there. Brands that utilize omnichannel subscriber collection strategies enjoy 2x more subscribers. Leverage your social media channels to reach customers where they are and launch festive holi...
The archetype of an entrepreneur often conjures images of a scrappy store owner packing items from their kitchen table, an artisan meticulously making bespoke goods, or a merchant building an online store to ship products to customers around the world. But entrepreneurs come in all stripes, creating what’s innovative and selling the unexpected. This description certainly applies to online course creators, a category of entrepreneurs selling their expertise. Online course creators package their insights—knowledge, know-how, and experience—into a digital bundle for customers, without worrying about packing tape, shipping labels, and tracking numbers. There’s a good chance you have specialized knowledge or expertise that others can learn from. You might know how to edit and produce videos, have unique insights on growing social media channels, or be uniquely skilled in digital design. Creating an online course is about taking your knowledge and skills—often honed over years, or even decades—and developing a curriculum to compress and share your expertise with others, so they can learn too. With just a laptop and access to the internet, your online course can enrol students around the world, helping them master important skills for much less money than traditional education. There’s never been a better time to sell digital products like a course and be part of a movement and industry that’s democratizing education.In 2020, the global market for e-learning was estimated at $250 billion and is projected to reach $650 billion by 2026. With just a laptop and access to the internet, students around the world can enroll in your online course, mastering important skills for a lower cost than traditional education. This article will take you through a 10-step process on how to create an online course, while making money and having an impact on your customers in the process. You’ll walk away with a blueprint on how to create an online course that positions you as an expert in your industry, generates a meaningful amount of money, and sets your students up for success. The benefits of creating an online course With no inventory issues or supply chain problems to solve, creating a digital course is an online business idea with benefits worth considering: Online courses are scalable. It takes a lot of time and effort to create an online course. However, with digital products, you can create a single resource and sell it to hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people around the world. This process can be entirely automated so anyone can buy your course with a few clicks. With digital products, you’re not limited by the constraints that come with selling physical goods, like product inventory and packaging costs. Online courses are low cost. It’s often inexpensive to create a course. Depending on the type of course you create, you may just need a few software subscriptions for hosting your course, sending emails to prospective buyers, and building a community of learners. While creating a full-fledged video course can be more expensive, you can cut costs by opting for an inexpensive camera, using basic lighting and a mid-range microphone to start—aim to make your video course look “professional,” not necessarily “high-budget production.” Aside from production costs, marketing can also be manageable. Online courses have high margins. After the costs that go into production and marketing, the remaining revenue from a course can be profit. While many traditional entrepreneurs selling physical products have slim margins, digital products like courses can have margins as high as 85%—for instance, selling a course for $100 and keeping $85. Online courses generate passive income. While passive income is never truly passive—there’s upfront time, money, and effort—online courses are close. Once you’ve created the course, you can generate income from it continuously. This is especially the case if your course is download-only and isn’t a cohort-ba...
Product returns can have a serious impact on a retailer’s bottom line. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation, returns accounted for over $400 billion in lost sales for U.S. retailers in 2020 alone. Ecommerce brands are particularly impacted by product returns—with 20% of online-bought products returned on average, compared to just 9% at brick-and-mortar stores. The most popular time for returns? December, January, and February—following the holiday shopping season. Many shoppers tend to overbuy during the holiday season, resulting in a surge of product returns in the weeks following the holiday shopping frenzy. While there’s no way to get around returns as part of the cost of doing business, there are steps you can take for your ecommerce store now to help reduce returns in the new year. First, it’s helpful to know why customers return products—specifically products purchased online. Take a look at the most common reasons why customers return ecommerce products: Received wrong product We all know that sometimes mistakes just happen. From warehouse mix-ups, to inaccurate sizing information, 23% of ecommerce returns are due to the customer receiving a different item than the one they ordered online. Product looks different You know the feeling when you’re really excited to receive something you ordered online, but when it finally arrives it just isn’t quite what you thought it would be? Whether it looks different from the product photos, doesn’t match the product description, or just isn’t what the customer expected, this experience accounts for 22% of ecommerce product returns. Damaged product While no ecommerce retailer ever wants their customer to receive damaged products, it happens more than you would think. In fact, customers receiving a product that is damaged upon arrival accounts for 20% of ecommerce returns. Let’s face it. Returns are something that all ecommerce retailers have to deal with. The good news is that there are steps you can take to handle them. Let us break them down for you. Craft detailed product descriptions Your product descriptions should include as much information as possible—especially when it comes to describing the product’s materials, ingredients, and dimensions or sizing. Apparel items should always be accompanied by a size chart with accurate measurements that customers can use as a reference when deciding on a size. Your product descriptions don’t have to read like an information manual. In fact, you should be using your product descriptions as an opportunity to really sell customers on your product. As an ecommerce retailer, you don’t get the same opportunity that brick-and-mortar stores do to give customers a sales pitch while they’re right there in front of you. So your description will have to do the work of a stellar salesperson by helping customers learn all about your awesome product and why they should buy it. We love how Little Party Dress includes information about the features, fit, and fabric of their dresses along with an easy-to-follow size guide. We really love how they use storytelling in their descriptions to help the customer envision themselves as the proud owner of a new Little Party Dress. Bonus points for providing some helpful styling tips too! Include multiple product images As we said before, ecommerce retailers don’t have the same advantage as brick-and-mortar stores do when it comes to the customer actually being able to see the product in front of them. This means that ecommerce brands have to work a little harder to make sure they’re giving their customers all the info they need to finally hit the “Add to Cart” button. Including different views of the product from varying angles gives customers a better sense of what it will look like IRL (in real life) so they know what to expect in the mail once they’ve placed their order. Product photos should be high quality with natural lighting and minimal background. If you’re an ecommerce retailer selling...
Created by an ex-Navy Seal, Kill Cliff is a clean energy drink that has donated over $1 Million in proceeds to the Navy Seal Foundation. In this episode of Shopify Masters, we chat with ecommerce director Ryan Roberts about why not all retail expansion is beneficial and how Kill Cliff differentiates within a saturated market. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters. Show Notes Store: Kill Cliff Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Recommendations: Klaviyo How Kill Cliff found its niche–and its target audience–unconventionally Felix: Tell us a little bit about the origins of the Kill Cliff brand. Ryan: The company was founded in 2011 by Todd Ehrlich, who’s a former Navy SEAL. Todd was tired of everything available in the marketplace. All the drinks that were available at the time were either sugar water, or extremely high doses of toxic fake ingredients. When the company was first founded it wasn’t actually clear what direction we were headed. Todd came up with the original idea of Kill Cliff, as a healthier replacement of other products in the market. We talked with some investors, and ended up going to market with our original Kill Cliff, which is now tagged as our Kill Cliff energize and recover tasty, flood orange. That was the product we originally launched with and went to production for about 80,000 cases, stored in his garage. Todd and our very first employee GW decided to start pushing the product. They started hitting local Atlanta bars during original testing. They realized, “Okay, well this drink–while it does provide hydration benefits–it also helps with muscle recovery after a workout or a long day, but it also helps with hangovers.” It’s a funny by-product of the brand. They started going to a lot of bars in Atlanta and literally selling out of the trunk of their car and grew the brand from that. A couple of years later, we started getting into CrossFit, which was really big at the time. As CrossFit was growing, we naturally grew along with it. We started selling it to some of the gyms and we found a very good fit there. CrossFit athletes, typically like healthier products, they’re counting their macros all the time. They’re always conscious of what they’re putting in their body. That’s how we found our fit. Our product was made of clean ingredients, better for you, and functional. We weren’t sitting here and selling snake oil to anybody. It was just basic ingredients. We have B vitamins, electrolytes, enzymes, and plant extracts that help through the recovery process with muscle fatigue, inflammation, soreness as well as the hydration benefits after a tough workout, naturally. It is an absolutely perfect overlap with CrossFit. Around 2013 through 2015, we realized we were growing so fast that it was time to start looking outside of the CrossFit market. The struggle we ran into at that time was that everybody perceived us as an energy drink. A 12 ounce slim can looks like an energy drink. We struggled early on fighting that stigma that, “Oh, we’re not an energy drink.” Now we’ve got to get into a science fight and do all these explanations for questions like, “okay, well then what are you?” Because a recovery drink didn’t exist at that time. People were used to, “Okay, I’m used to Gatorade for hydration, or I’m used to something for energy,” but this space really didn’t exist. We started getting into that struggle of explaining, “okay, well, we help after a workout or we help after you’ve been working all day and you’re exhausted, but it’s too late in the day to really have an energy drink.” We fit that use case perfectly. We started trying to expand and brought in two people at the time that would help through the expansion. Natural for the CBG world and drink world in particular is to expand into retail. Unfortunately we were a little aggressive at that time and tried to go retail before our brand was really well known. We saw some of the struggles trying to get into the retail space. Th...
The coronavirus pandemic changed how the world did business in 2020. In 2021, we saw a number of trends take off and make their way into B2B ecommerce: mobile-first sites, personalization, and adopting omnichannel selling being just some. If you didn’t take advantage of these trends in 2021, you have another chance to improve your marketing and sales strategy. 2022 is expected to push the envelope further in terms of B2B ecommerce. This article will walk you through the best of the best. What happened in 2021? As we entered Year 2 of the COVID-19 pandemic, many consumers were still working from home and preferring to make purchases online rather than in-store. This set the scene for unprecedented growth in ecommerce sales and businesses across the board. However, even before the pandemic, online sales were steadily increasing, meaning ecommerce businesses have had to keep up with new trends and customer expectations each year. In 2021, this meant a shift to a mobile-first focus, personalizing the customer experience, and more. Let’s dig into some of the themes that characterized the industry over the last year. Mobile-first websites In 2021, nearly 73% of ecommerce sales are expected to come from purchases on mobile devices The mobile customer experience needs to be top notch. Especially considering statistics have shown that people are 62% less likely to purchase from a brand after a negative mobile experience. Whether companies chose to create a responsive mobile website or a downloadable mobile app, having a focus on mobile-first was an exciting trend in 2021—and if you’re behind on this, it’s time to catch up before heading into 2022. Personalized experiences Personalization is key for creating a buying experience that makes your customers feel special. This involves tactics like: Personalizing product recommendations based on pages customers have already viewed Using retargeting initiatives to push hesitant customers toward making a purchase Creating campaigns around abandoned carts to remind customers of forgotten items Showing customers that you’re paying attention to what they’re shopping for helps improve the user experience and increase B2B sales all in one fell swoop. Omnichannel selling 2021 cemented omnichannel selling as the standard for B2B businesses. Omnichannel selling allows customers to make purchases or shop around from a variety of different channels, whether via traditional methods, remote interactions, or self-serve options. A recent McKinsey report shows that two-thirds of customers prefer a remote human or digital self-serve option, so having an omnichannel experience ensures you’re able to reach each customer where they prefer to find you. Supply chain resilience Avoiding any kind of disruption in the supply chain is essential to customer satisfaction, which is why supply chain resilience has been a major trend. There are a number of supply chain resilience strategies that companies have taken throughout 2021. A couple include: Nearshoring: using distributors that are nearby or within the same region to have more control over the supply chain Multisourcing: having a wide range of distributors as a backup plan in case some are unable to deliver Having suppliers close by as well as a number of options in case a disruptive event were to occur helps to build resilience and ensure your company always has access to new inventory. What are the predictions for 2022? Your first step is to catch up with any trends you may have missed from last year. Then you need to get a head start on the trends we’re predicting for 2022. We’ve got a list of six trends we predict B2B ecommerce will see in the coming year. Brand strategy in the metaverse You may have heard about Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious goal to pioneer the metaverse, and his company’s rebranding itself as “Meta.” This is because the metaverse is something that businesses are going to have to start paying attention to. In just a few words, the metaverse i...
“Which is better: Google Ads or Facebook Ads?” “Which is cheaper: Paid search or paid social?” “What’s more efficient for my stage of ecommerce growth: advertising on Google or advertising on Facebook?” Those are just a few of the questions owners and operators bring to the table when they’re putting together a digital marketing plan, navigating ecommerce trends, or just thinking about growth strategies. Unfortunately, they’re the wrong questions. People interact with Facebook Ads and Google Ads in fundamentally different ways. It’s not about either-or. In fact, you might already know, the right question is . 1. Generate Demand with Social Media Advertising Platforms “What’s the ‘fundamental difference’ between paid social and search?” One word: intent — search has it; social doesn’t. Those aren’t weaknesses; they’re strengths. As long as you know how to unite them. For our growth-team clients, that union comes from using paid social to generate demand; paid search to capture it. Facebook advertising delivers value because it’s not intent-driven at all. It’s about having an open mind. Browsing. Curiosity. Social ads present an opportunity to reach potential customer even when they’re not looking for you. If you’re used to the AIDA framework — particularly as it relates to marketing and advertising — then your focus will be on the first three letters: Attention, Interest, and Desire. That doesn’t mean relinquishing ROAS (i.e., Action). Far from it. “Alright, so how do you do that? How do you use Facebook ads profitably?” Brilliant question. And one we’ve covered extensively. Here are a few of my favorite paid-social resources . Start by setting your foundation on a consolidated Facebook campaign structure. Center it on costs (CPAs) and budgets calculated off your own profitability targets. Rapid growth comes from two sources. First, letting Facebook do what Facebook does best — scaling through campaign budget optimization (the machine-learning side). Second, honing your ads through the offer: the sum total of your product, price, and positioning (the human-creative side). “That’s pretty, Tony, thanks. But I need to see the differences in action. Can you get specific and show me that?” Of course, I can. Throughout this article, we’ll focus on three brands: Incrediwear, Manly Bands, and West & Willow. I’ll use them as throughlines to illustrate the remaining steps. 2. Capture Demand with Paid Search (PPC) Advertising Once you’ve invested in creating awareness and demand, it’s critical that you have a plan to capture that demand with paid search. Specifically, how to handle (1) branded and (2) categorical search. First, branded. Quick definition — when we say “branded search” we mean showing ads on Google Search for your own brand terms. For West & Willow, these are the terms we advertise for: west and willow westandwillow west willow west & willow the west willow west and willow pet portraits westwillow The awesome reality is that paid social advertising creates significantly more search volume for your brand on search engines. It’s relatively predictable and you can use your paid social budget to estimate how much you’ll likely spend on brand search campaigns on Google. Approximately 8% of your total paid social budget. Pretty easy math: If you’re spending $20k per month on Facebook and Instagram, then you’ll want to budget about $1,600 for Google brand search. “Wait a minute. Why do I need to buy my brand terms on Google?” Great question, and there are a bunch of factors. The most important one: Are your competitors showing ads on your brand terms? If the answer is yes, then you’ll need to play “brand defense” so you don’t lose out on potential customers. Second, categorical. Categorical search is defined as all search terms that are related to your products. Let’s use West & Willow again: pet portrait pet pictures dog painting custom pet canvas art puppy portrait draw my dog Search is intent-driven. Users are seeking soluti...
It’s that time of the year: Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM). And our globe is back with one new slick AF vibe, two new metrics, and three hidden surprises. Last year, we witnessed the impact commerce made around the world. We watched the following key metrics: Sales per minute Orders per minute Carbon removal But this year, you can follow two additional metrics that highlight consumer interests and insights: Unique shoppers Product trends And with that, we invite you to explore the globe, watch commerce happen live, and let us know what you think, as we continue to grow and build the future of commerce together! Watch the globe Try to find them. Good luck, but most importantly, have fun! Join 446,005 entrepreneurs who already have a head start. Get free online marketing tips and resources delivered directly to your inbox. No charge. Unsubscribe anytime. Thanks for subscribing. You’ll start receiving free tips and resources soon. In the meantime, start building your store with a free 14-day trial of Shopify. This originally appeared on Shopify and is made available here to cast a wider net of discovery.
Kristi Soomer created Encircled as a womenswear brand focused on sustainable, comfy, and stylish clothing designed as essential pieces for travel. Since launching in 2012, the brand has grown from designing for traveling light to living light, creating pieces that do more with less in customers’ closets. In this episode of Shopify Masters, Kristi shares with us the process of working with designers and how pitching her business on national TV propelled her business. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters. Show Notes Store: Encircled Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Recommendations: Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business, Klaviyo, Acuity How this slow fashion brand positioned its MVP for success Felix: Where did the idea behind the business come from? Kristi: Originally the business started as a travel clothing line. In my previous career I was a management consultant, so I worked in strategy consulting and retail. I used to live out of a suitcase. I would travel to client sites weekly via plane, and I really got obsessed with the idea of packing light, but being stylish and comfortable while sitting on those long flights. I came up with a product idea which we still have in our collection today called the Chrysalis Cardi. Essentially it’s an eight-in-one garment that can transition from a one-shoulder gown into a cardigan, a scarf, or a dress, and it’s made from really beautiful, luxe, sustainable fabric. It’s super comfortable and really versatile. That became our first piece and the foundation of the brand. It was known as a travel piece, but over the years we’ve evolved our positioning to focus on the idea of everyday essentials that people can wear over and over again to maximize versatility in their closet. Felix: Your business merges the worlds of slow fashion and technology. Tell us about the challenges that you’ve faced in your unique position. Kristi: I come from a very corporate background, so I was 10 years into my career when I came up with this idea. I have a finance degree and an MBA, so I have no business designing fashion products, and I had no idea what I was doing. And back then–was around 2012–the internet was not where it is today in terms of online courses and up work and all these freelancer databases. A lot of it was figuring it out on my own and using resources locally in Toronto. We have an incubator in Toronto called The Toronto Fashion Incubator, and they had a resume database. I was able to find a technical designer through that. That was key in helping me figure out how to create the garment. I had ideas of course how I wanted it to function and I sewed up my own prototype on a sewing machine that I bought off of Craigslist that I broke the first time I used because I didn’t know what I was doing. I was able to play around with it, figure out the concept, and take it to somebody who knew a little bit more about design to create a pattern and then find manufacturers locally who could make it. That was definitely one of the most challenging parts because the garment was not your standard garment. A lot of people thought I was crazy for what I was doing, and a lot of manufacturers laughed me out of their factories. It took some time but with some persistence, I was able to find a manufacturer in Toronto who really believed in what I was trying to do. It connected with him, so he was able to convince his boss to take us on and make the first run of them. Felix: What is the process like collaborating with a technical designer? How do you work to incorporate the vision with the expertise? Kristi: There’s been a bit of back and forth. We have an in-house design team, and we also use a few freelancers, but a lot of the time the ideas come from me. I have these really crazy, zany ideas of things I want to do. I want a blazer that looks like a blazer but feels like a sweatshirt, and I want to do certain things like put cool pockets in different places. I would pitch that idea to a...
Beauty ecommerce is on the rise. Take a look at the numbers: In the United States, beauty ecommerce accounted for 7.4% of total ecommerce sales in 2020, and it’s rising at a 4.75% annual growth rate globally. For beauty brands—skincare, haircare, grooming, fragrances, period care, and more—there are many opportunities up for grabs. If you don’t know what to focus on next, we’re diving into 10 examples of successful beauty ecommerce websites. You’ll find the tools, strategies, missions, and products they use to hit huge milestones. Jump in: Hismile: Influencer-fueled global ecommerce powerhouse ILIA Beauty: Tools that make online beauty shopping easy Beauty Heroes: Putting customers first online and offline 100% PURE: Leaning on customer feedback and rewards The Skin Nerd: Education first, products second Beard & Blade: Free returns as the ultimate quality promise Boie: Minimal product range with strong branding Soft Services: A resource that helps people feel good in their skin Blume: Challenging the status quo with a bold mission Skin Dope: Resources that break down barriers and doubts Stay on top of fashion ecommerce trends and best practices By submitting this form, you agree to receive promotional messages from Shopify. Unsubscribe any time by clicking the link in our emails. 1. Hismile: Influencer-fueled global ecommerce powerhouse Hismile is known for home tooth-whitening kits that have taken the world by storm. The brand launched in 2014 with its two founders’ $20,000 investment; in 2020, it saw an estimated $250 million revenue. In its early days, Hismile grew by working with micro-influencers in Australia and worked its way up to household names like Kylie and Kendall Jenner. “You must have all the other stuff in your business churning at 100% before even thinking about reaching out to one of these big names,” Nik Mirkovic, co-founder of Hismile, told Collabstr. As Hismile rose through the ranks, it had 2,000 brand ambassadors promoting its product at any one time. When you consider its paid ads on Instagram and Snapchat on top of that, it’s easy to see why Hismile’s website had to work smoothly for everyone. That’s not just about withstanding heavy traffic, but also about looking great no matter which channel and country the visitor came from. Over time, Hismile implemented a global ecommerce approach that supports different currencies and shipping details through six storefronts. The shipping information page removes clutter and information overload and instead detects the visitor’s country to serve only the relevant pricing and delivery estimate. Hismile has shipped products to more than 90% of the countries on Earth and grown its key market sales stronger. “We initially went global on one website, but our sales multiplied by 10 in each market as soon as we sold our products in Australian dollars, US dollars, the euro, and British pounds,” says Nik. 2. ILIA Beauty: Tools that make online beauty shopping easy ILIA Beauty is a clean beauty brand known for products that enhance natural beauty and protect the skin. Its skincare and makeup products generated $22 million in sales in 2017, and are on track to exceed $100 million in sales in 2021. ILIA’s products are sold through retailers like Sephora and Nordstrom. Lynda Berkowitz, ILIA’s CEO, told Glossy that direct-to-consumer sales through its website account for close to 50% of total sales. This is a result of an intentional effort to create an enjoyable online shopping experience. ILIA allows customers to find their ideal shade using the Skin Tint Shade Finder. They can upload a selfie to get matched by ILIA’s team or complete a shade match quiz. The shade finder is easy to access through the menu at the top from any page, as well as from relevant product pages. Product pages also feature a “see it in real life” section, with photos and reviews uploaded by verified buyers: ILIA’s customers can rest assured they’ve picked the right product for their skin type, ton...
Pop-ups are far from the most beloved ecommerce email marketing tactic. Truth be told, they evoke a bothersome, in-your-face sales style. So hated, in fact, that most browsers automatically assume you want them all blocked. And yet, giving visitors an easy, obvious, and incentivized opportunity to sign up for your mailing list leads to stronger email list growth. The problem lies in poorly executing the pop-ups. Assuming they’re a one-size-fits-all solution, when there are near limitless options available for more sophisticated targeting. By testing a variety of methods and using a proven checklist to guide that testing, you’ll be able to create pop-ups that target the right audience, offer the best incentives, and convert website visitors into strong leads to build your email list. Your Ultimate Goal: Not Ecommerce Email List Building Pop-ups do not exist to drive traffic from your website to your email list. No, instead, they exist to turn website visitors into revenue and ultimately loyal customers. However, since new email subscribers indicate the success of your pop-ups, we’ll start with the mechanics of email list building. Baselining Conversion Rate for Banners & Pop-Ups in Ecommerce For anyone skeptical, the sign-up rates of high-performing pop-ups speak for themselves. Anecdotally, we see sign-up rates for spin-to-win creative as high as 24%. A reasonable benchmark would be somewhere between 6% and 14% overall, depending on the style (design), quality of leads, and the incentive. Trigger rules will greatly impact the number of impressions you can expect across your pop-ups, so our checklist will explore how to best attract your target audience in a manner that yields strong results and increases sales without burning out visitors or increasing bounce rates. Choosing the Best Ecommerce Pop-Up & Email Marketing Tools Before getting into best practices, let’s talk about technology. If you’re using Klaviyo as your email service provider (ESP) and Attentive, Postscript, or Yotpo (formerly SMSBump) for SMS, you’ve got native functionality available within those platforms. As a quick plug, our preferred pop-up partners are Justuno and Privy. Justuno has a lot of capability beyond the pop-up, with a robust design canvas and great integrations with a variety of other apps. Privy’s pop-up tool is comparable to Justuno. It was recently acquired by Attentive SMS, and while it’ll continue to operate as an independent entity, we predict even more integrated functionality as a result. There are pros and cons to each digital marketing platform. Determining the best-fitting tool for your brand will require exploration. Spend some time documenting your needs, wants, and nice-to-haves to help guide the vendor selection process . How to choose your ecommerce pop-up platform . Integration with your ESP and SMS Most of the platforms in the Shopify ecosystem have easy-to-execute integrations. If you don’t have a dedicated developer on staff, or you’re paying for hourly support, this is important to verify. Why is ease of integration so important? Because the ability to swiftly mix, match, and test is crucial to optimizing your approach. Data collection and application This ties back to integrations, especially for SMS programs. What data can be collected natively through the platform and how easily is it passed into your other systems? Want to create email marketing campaigns one day for people who’ve seen and engaged with particular pop-ups? Track data from the onset to save your future self the headache of backfilling. Wide range of pop-up displays Some use cases call for a lightbox while others lend themselves to a banner or exit pop-up. Make sure your tool has a variety of displays and types of pop-ups to choose from. Hoping to prevent people from prematurely leaving your store? Use an exit intent pop-up. Eager to convert first-time visitors? Try a lightbox with an incentive. Success lies in your ability to play with a number of soli...
Welcome to another edition of API deprecations at Shopify, where we dive into the breaking changes coming into effect for all supported versions. In this edition, we’ll review the breaking changes in the 2021-04 API version, the oldest supported version as of January 1, 2022. This includes vital information for developers of private apps. Let’s take a look. Build apps for Shopify merchants Whether you want to build apps for the Shopify App Store, offer custom app development services, or are looking for ways to grow your user base, the Shopify Partner Program will set you up for success. Join for free and access educational resources, developer preview environments, and recurring revenue share opportunities. Sign up A quick refresher on versioning Before we dive into the changes headed your way, let’s revisit how API versioning at Shopify works. We release a version every quarter. These releases typically happen on or around January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1. Versions are named in a year-month format (e.g. 2022-01), ensuring that it will always be easy to identify the time the version became stable, as well as compare the timelines of multiple versions. Apps make requests to a specific version of the API by specifying it in the request URL. While the Shopify APIs continuously evolve, apps can be built on a stable version to ensure that the API contract remains constant. Keep in mind this means that any features released after your targeted version won’t be accessible until you update your request URL. We release features to merchants continuously. To ship features without affecting the latest stable APIs, we use release candidates. The release candidate is simply the next API version, and can be targeted for requests using the same year-month format. In the release candidate, you’ll find the latest set of features that have just been released. However, since it’s continuously evolving, you should avoid using the release candidate for your app’s general everyday consumption of the API. To have both the benefit of stability and access to the latest features, we recommend keeping your app’s everyday requests on a stable version, and only moving specific calls that deal with newly released features to the release candidate. Apps that do not request a specific version are served the oldest supported version. This allowed existing apps to continue functioning when we shipped versioning, without having to update to the new URLs. This concept also applies to apps explicitly calling versions that are no longer supported. While every app will benefit from this mechanism preventing all of their requests from erroring out after a version switch, we recommend targeting recent releases intentionally. Versions are supported for one year. Removing support for versions allows us to stay agile and make the changes needed to best serve our merchants and the Shopify platform for the long term. While versions are supported for one year, this means that apps actually only have nine months to adopt these new changes and take advantage of new features before the old behavior is no longer available. With this refresher at the top of our mind, let’s review the key information you’ll need to be ready for January 1, 2022. What’s happening on January 1 On January 1, 2022, the following changes will come into effect on our APIs for both public and private apps: The 2022-01 version will become stable and ready for general usage. The 2021-01 version will become unsupported. Requests that have been deprecated by changes in 2021-04 will cause your app to be flagged. To minimize merchant impact, Shopify will de-list flagged apps from the Shopify App Store and block new installs. Additionally, we may notify merchants that your apps are no longer supported. Shortly afterward, at our discretion: Requests with no API version specified will be served the 2021-04 version. Requests for the 2021-01 version will no longer receive that version. Instead, these ...
Experimenting is a great way to improve your business – and we’re not talking about the exploding volcano experiments from your high school science fairs. One of the best forms of experimentation is A/B testing or split testing. Even if you’ve heard of this term you may be wondering “What is a split test?”, “What does ecommerce A/B testing look like?”, and probably most importantly “How do I run an A/B test?”. We’ll cover all of these topics and more in this post so let’s dive right in. What is A/B testing? A/B testing, or split testing, is a tool that marketers use to test the performance of a certain variable with their audience. It’s a great way to get real-time insights and feedback from your audience. “A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a marketing experiment wherein you split your audience to test a number of variations of a campaign and determine which performs better. In other words, you can show version A of a piece of marketing content to one half of your audience, and version B to another.” Hubspot Let’s look at a very basic example – if we wanted to see which blog post title would lead to more visitors on this page we might test the 2 following titles: What is A/B Testing with Practical Ecommerce Examples A/B Testing for Ecommerce: A Beginner’s Guide We would create two versions of this post, one with title A and one with title B, leaving the rest of the post completely the same. We would then set our test so that half our audience was exposed to the first version and half got the second version. We could then analyze which version got more reads, click-throughs on CTAs, and engagement. Then we would know which title to permanently leave on this post. This is just one example, but there are hundreds of variables you can A/B test (but more on that later). Why is A/B testing important? We know what you’re thinking – why would I do twice the work and make two versions of my campaigns? I don’t have enough time as it is! Here’s the thing – effective A/B testing can actually save you time and money in the long run. And the best part is, you don’t have to (and definitely shouldn’t) A/B test every part of your business. Effectively testing only the key elements of your business will help you to effectively spend less resources to gain more traction with your customers. Some of the biggest benefits you can experience from strategic A/B testing are: Increased conversion rates and higher return on investment (ROI) Improved user experience (UX) through leveraging live customer feedback Reduced customer acquisition costs (CAC) Increased purchase frequency rate Reduced churn rate and cart abandonment rates Increased email open rate Allows data-driven decision making Can prevent expensive and time-consuming relaunch or redesign projects Customer trends change daily so launching a website and logging off won’t cut it these days. Consistently testing and challenging your business’ standards helps to ensure you’re always set for success. How to effectively run an A/B test? Running an A/B test does not need to be complicated. Breaking it down into five key steps like A/B testing company VWO has done in their infographic makes it manageable for even the smallest of brands with limited time and resources. Let’s take a look at each step in more detail here. A/B testing checklist Step 1: Research The first step in any good experiment is research, research, research. Studying your brand’s current performance is key to determining what elements you should be testing. You will want to analyze your current performance metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). This can include checking your website performance with tools like Google Analytics, your social media performance with Facebook or Instagram Analytics, or even your email marketing results with your preferred customer relationship management software like Hubspot or Mailchimp. No matter what metrics you are looking at, ensure that you are comparing them to your previo...
At Shopify, we believe climate change can’t be ignored. That’s why, for the second year in a row, we’re addressing the environmental impact of the global shopping weekend known as Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) by counteracting the carbon emissions that come from shipping every single order on our platform. That’s five global days, tens of millions of purchases from over 1.7 million Shopify merchants, and countless packages being transported around the world. So how will we do this? We’re purchasing enough carbon removal to pull the equivalent amount of carbon that is released by Shopify merchant shipments over BFCM out of the atmosphere and safely store it. In 2020, we offset nearly 62,000 tonnes of carbon emissions, the equivalent of carbon captured and stored by 80,970 acres of North American forests in one year. In 2021, we anticipate it will be even more. As the number of merchants on our platform grows every year, this initiative grows in importance. With every additional purchase, Shopify is channeling more money into carbon removal. Investing in carbon removal is critical According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world needs to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Achieving this across all sectors globally isn’t going to happen with emissions reductions alone. Enter carbon removal. While the world rightly pushes to reduce emissions, capturing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it permanently can help us slow the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere now, not to mention pull the past 200 years of emissions back out of the air. The problem is that most carbon removal solutions are expensive and in short supply, and they need more customers to reach the scale the world needs. At Shopify, we’re committed to being a customer of carbon removal to kickstart the market, and we’re bringing our merchants along with us on this journey. Atmospheric carbon removal This year our BFCM offsets will come from four leading carbon removal companies, across four verticals. It’s important to note that these aren’t your average offsets with questionable climate impact. These are companies pursuing high-quality carbon removal technologies and solutions that are already working to reverse climate change, and will do so even more as they scale. CarbonCure: CarbonCure’s technologies inject carbon dioxide into concrete, with zero impact to the material’s quality and performance. We’re supporting the company now as it scales its technologies and lays the groundwork for atmospheric capture paired with permanent storage. It recently passed a milestone of 15 million cubic yards of carbon mineralized concrete, the equivalent of taking more than 29,000 cars off the road. Charm Industrial: Plants are very efficient at capturing carbon from the air. Charm turns plant waste into bio oil and safely stores it underground. Having permanently stored the most atmospheric carbon to date, it is one of the leading carbon removal companies in the world. Grassroots Carbon: It helps ranchers modify their land management practices to improve soil and ecological health, which captures and stores more carbon in their soils. The company just measured soil carbon on the first group of ranches and will release carbon credits after independent third-party verification. Pachama: Pachama uses satellite imagery and machine learning to measure carbon captured in forests, ensuring every carbon credit purchased delivers its stated climate impact. For BFCM, our purchase will prevent deforestation and support the communities of Acapa and Bajo Mira y Frontera in Colombia. Most importantly, we need to decarbonize transportation Of course, there’s a more efficient way to eliminate the climate impact of shipping packages over BFCM. Instead of releasing carbon into the atmosphere only to pull it back out, let’s not release it in the first place. This is certainly the goal, but even with re...
A great international shopping experience is one that may not immediately indicate you’re buying from another country. It’s an experience where things like product descriptions are translated into languages you understand, prices are represented in familiar currencies and cadences, and preferred payment methods are available to you at checkout even though you’re buying something from half-way around the world. Most importantly though, it makes you feel confident and comfortable in your purchase. The process is called localization, and represents one of your biggest growth opportunities. Whether you’re a Shopify Partner, Developer, or merchant. With more and more consumers shopping cross-border, it’s becoming more obvious that global ecommerce isn’t just an option anymore; it’s a necessity, and your client’s success depends on it. For instance, COVID-19 fuelled rapid acceleration of online buying in several markets that were previously lagging. India, Brazil, Russia, and Argentina are all projected to post at least 26 percent growth in retail ecommerce sales this year. Are your clients’ online stores or your app equipped to leverage this trend by selling to a customer in Spanish? What about displaying prices in rubles, or displaying the duties and taxes to a customer in India? Today, more than 27 percent of all traffic on Shopify online stores is from international buyers—and yet cross-border traffic continues to convert at a significantly lower rate than domestic, in large part due to poor customer experiences. Shopify Markets, our new global commerce solution, aims to fix this with custom buying experiences by market, while also enabling you and your clients to reach new markets and customers, and scale faster with settings that automatically optimize businesses across markets. And you can now further improve your client’s customers’ experience by providing them with exclusive content or products based on where they’re shopping from, such as: Displaying a different home page banner to different countries Hiding products on collection pages that don’t ship to certain countries Changing content on a product page based on country In this tutorial, we’ll cover how to serve content and products to targeted countries or regions, so you and your clients can maximize brand reach and improve customers’ and users’ overall experience. Let’s get started. Prerequisites to customizing content by country or region NOTE: This is an advanced tutorial that requires knowledge of Shopify Liquid. First, you’ll need to be logged into the store you want to work on and have permissions to access Online Store Theme editing as well as Products, which is where we will be working out of. This could be your own store or a collaborator account on your client’s store. If you don’t have a login, then request one from your admin or client directly. This tutorial will use Shopify’s Dawn theme as an example, however, the approaches outlined below are theme agnostic and can be applied to your theme of choice. Install the Dawn theme if you want to follow along to this tutorial exactly. Second, country is considered a context on the Shopify platform. To change content based on a customer’s country, you need to place them into the correct context. To do this, you should be using a country selector, at a minimum. Country selectors allow your customers to choose their context (e.g. Canada, United States, Australia). Dawn comes with country selection built-in. If you’re using another theme, you can also add your own country selectors using this guide, or by using Shopify’s Geolocation app. If you’re using an old currency selector, you should update it to use the country context. Finally, you should be familiar with both the localization and country Liquid objects to leverage this tutorial. How to customize content by country in Shopify Using the localization and country objects, you can wrap content that conditionally shows, hides, or changes content based on the ...
Leili Farzaneh and Kevin White’s cat dislikes wearing collars and went missing one day. When they finally found their cat, Leili and Kevin looked into why cat collars were so uncomfortable and discovered they were designed with dogs in mind. The duo started Supakit to design their own cat accessories. In this episode of Shopify Masters, Leili and Kevin share their process of product development and how they expanded their business with an online course. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters. Show Notes Store: Supakit Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Recommendations: Learnworlds, Loox, Klaviyo How these founders stumbled across their winning business idea Felix: The birth of this idea really came out of a scary time for you. Tell us more about what happened. Leili: It was a real nightmare. A strange way to start a business. We have a cat called Lola, and she was quite young at the time. We live in London and it’s fairly normal to let your cat have access to the outdoors, at least for certain parts of the day. We’d let her go out and about, but one day she didn’t come home. We were really worried about her, not just because we were concerned about her whereabouts, but she didn’t have a collar. She had removed every single one that we tried to put on her. We were burning through cash. It was getting so frustrating that we gave up. When she went missing, we knew that we’d messed up. She had no collar on, she had no ID, and she was just roaming the streets. We were distraught cat parents. Kevin: Luckily, we did get her back. Through a local group we put a message out, and we got her back. We promised to try harder. We were like, we have to make it our mission to get her to wear a collar, and to keep it on. Leili: It was really serendipitous at this time. Our two cats were fighting quite a bit, and we’d been in touch with our veterinarian about ways that we could help them More specifically to help our more active cat expend her hunting energies in play, and not towards her sister. The vet had recommended that we try to find natural materials and create homemade toys out of them, for Lola to play with. I had loads of scraps of leather and other materials lying around, so we just started experimenting. Our big breakthrough was when we realized that A, it’s not a dead set that cats are going to remove their collars. They don’t have to be intrinsically uncomfortable. They also don’t have to intrinsically be bulky in a way that can snag on things. We knew we wanted to put a safety buckle in. That’s the tricky thing, is it should spring open in an emergency scenario. When we started using natural materials, we found that our cat was just so much more comfortable in them, because scent is a really important sensory modality for cats. Then, we also started working with materials that were really lightweight and slim lined, so that we could create a collar that didn’t have a profile on our cat’s neck, so they forgot it was there, and it couldn’t get snagged. Kevin: The leather just seemed to come together. We had to make it strong enough, but also light and flexible enough so that the material wouldn’t aggravate the sensation that a cat has against its fur. It’s so important, we hadn’t considered it enough. When we found that leather stayed on, we were like, that’s great we’ll make a collar out of leather then. Leili: We knew we kept our one tricky customer happy. She was tricky. That was how it all started. Then, we found that other cats were just as fussy about their collars, and it went from there. Kevin: We realized it when we researched, “how do you get your cat to keep their collar on?” and realized that loads of people had the same problem, and that collars were almost considered semi-disposable, in that you’d buy a pack of five from Amazon, and you’d get through them in a certain amount of time. Then you’d just go and buy another one. We thought, that doesn’t seem to make sense. They’re obviously not ha...
To say the fitness ecommerce industry is jacked would be an understatement. Boxraw hit £5.2 million ($7 million) in sales in 2020 and intends to double its 39-person team in 2022. After Crossrope replatformed to Shopify Plus during the COVID-19 pandemic, the brand saw a 90% increase in revenue and a 94% boost in transactions. Active Truth’s site migration increased conversion rates by 50% and doubled its site visitors. Worth nearly $160 billion in 2021, the fitness industry is expected to grow 172%, to $435 billion by 2028 (with much of this growth attributed to the online/digital fitness industry). The COVID-19 pandemic has affected parts of the fitness industry disproportionately: The gym, health club, and boutique fitness studio industries declined nearly 59% during the COVID-19 pandemic but are recovering as restrictions loosen. Meanwhile, the online/digital fitness, fitness apps, fitness equipment, and fitness tracker markets experienced revenue growth of 40% in 2020 and are projected to rise 66% by the end of 2021. Of course, market growth is both a blessing and a curse. With opportunity comes competition—fierce competition. It also reflects a larger trend in commerce itself: brands that don’t go digital might as well go home. To help guide you, we’ve rounded up 15 of the most cutting-edge and high-growth fitness ecommerce brands. Gymshark Crossrope BPI Sports Altitude Sports 310 NOBULL Boxraw Women’s Best Campus Protein Sweetlegs GuardLab Fabletics Active Truth Mava Sports Kayla Itsines 1. Gymshark: from URL to IRL How do you build an army of millions of loyal customers across 131 countries? If you’re Gymshark, first, you create a multi-channel online presence that spans social networks and onsite experiences with a consistent brand aesthetic. The kind of presence that gets you a shout-out from Cheryl Samberg during a Facebook earnings call. (No, really!) Then, you bring that online experience, offline . into the real world. Gymshark has mastered the art of online-to-offline (O2O) commerce through international pop-up shops. These pop-ups include meet-and-greets with some of the most popular fitness experts and influencers, and sell merchandise IRL. “It’s a customer experience second to none,” says Daniel Knight, Gymshark’s Website Manager. “It bridges the gap between the digital and physical worlds and creates emotional customer experiences that can’t be had online alone.” 2. Crossrope: re-platforming on the move Can you build a fitness program and brand around jump ropes? Crossrope did, and the brand is growing exponentially—during COVID-19, no less. When the pandemic hit and people were forced to exercise from home, the Crossrope team saw an opportunity to expand its customer base and market its simple at-home workout. The Crossrope routine caught fire and entered a period of intense sales. However, the team wasn’t confident in their ecommerce platform’s ability to scale with the demand. “While it was risky to re-platform during a period of intense sales demand . the risk paid off, and today we’re optimized for incredible international growth,” says Chief Marketing Officer Srdjan Popovic. With Shopify Plus, Crossrope saw a 90% increase in revenue and a 94% boost in transactions. The takeaway? There’s never a perfect time to invest in the future success of your ecommerce company. Whatever growing pains your business is experiencing, don’t let them stop you from preparing for explosive growth down the line. Who knows? A major change may be what you need to catalyze that growth. 3. BPI Sports: boosting its D2C presence Today, BPI Sports products can be found on the shelves of every fitness brand’s dream retailers: GNC, Vitamin World, and The Vitamin Shoppe—just to name a few. The Florida-based nutritional supplement brand is well established as a wholesale company, with its B2B sales accounting for most of its annual revenue. Yet, BPI Sports wanted to strengthen its D2C channel. The team also wanted to improve the BP...
Certain stores on the Advanced Shopify or Shopify Plus plans may have access to a beta feature that allows them to collect duty and import taxes at checkout. Importing goods into the United States, and subsequently working with US Customs, comes with extra process and paperwork. US Customs requires businesses to declare the items they’re importing into the country using an important identifier, known as an HTS code. Understanding how to import your goods through customs, including the proper use of HTS codes, will help you avoid headaches at the border and ensure there are no hold ups or delays when it comes to shipments and eventually getting products into the hands of your customers. Here, we’ll outline how HTS codes work, how to determine the HTS codes for your goods, and the ramifications of improper usage—including fees, unexpected inspections, seizures, and penalties levied by US Customs. HTS code definition An HTS code is a unique 10-digit number that determines the tariff tax or duty incurred on items imported into the United States from other countries. HTS codes are maintained by the United States International Trade Commission, but enforced by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of the Department of Homeland Security. HTS codes: understanding the terminology The world of international ecommerce and imports can feel complicated, in no small part due to a slew of terms and acronyms that make understanding processes even harder. Before we dive into how HTS codes work, let’s define some of the governing bodies and terms you’ll encounter as you navigate the world of imports: World Customs Organization Established in 1952 as the Customs Co-op Council, the World Customs Organization (WCO) is an independent intergovernmental body representing 183 customs administrators around the world, responsible for approximately 98% of international trade. They work to create uniformity, harmony, and efficiency in customs regulations across countries. The WCO established and maintains the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, typically referred to as the Harmonized System or the HS. Harmonized System (HS) Formally known as the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, the HS is a universal language for identifying and coding goods being traded internationally. In other words, it’s a nomenclature for transportable goods. Almost all countries use this system for their customs tariffs and for trade statistics. The last version of the HS was put in place in 2017, while a new version will be introduced and take effect on January, 1, 2022. HS code A six-digit code that categorizes each imported good. The first two digits represent the chapter, the middle two digits represent the heading within the chapter, and last two digits represent the sub-heading within the heading. Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) Brought into effect in 1989, the HTS is a hierarchical numerical structure for describing goods for duty, quota, and statistical purposes in the United States. The system is based upon the HS. Be aware that the HTS is sometimes referred to as the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS). HTS code A 10-digit code that categorizes each imported good. The first six digits are an HS code. The subsequent two digits identify the US subheading of the HS code to determine the duty rate, while the final two digits are a statistical suffix. United States International Trade Commission (USITC) Established in 1916, the United States federal agency in charge of trade-related mandates. It maintains the Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS). Customs and Border Protection of the Department of Homeland Security (CBP) Established in July 1789 and consolidated into its current form in March 2003, US Customs and Border Protection is charged with maintaining the integrity of the country’s borders and ports of entry. It enforces the HTS. Statistical Classification of Domestic and Foreign Commodities Exported from the United Stat...
As COVID-19 continues to disrupt the retail industry, more and more shoppers are purchasing online instead of visiting a brick and mortar store. As a result, eCommerce has never seen the boom it has over the past two years. This means it’s essential for businesses to have an effective eCommerce strategy in place. In this article, we’ll discuss four ways you can maximize the benefits of your eCommerce business in the unpredictability of COVID-19. 1. Create a Seamless Customer Experience As eCommerce continues to explode, the need to differentiate yourself from the competition has never been greater. One way to do this is by providing a seamless brand experience across all of your digital channels, which can be vital for retaining loyal shoppers. Promotions are another great way to gain and keep the interest of your customers. Therefore, you mustn’t neglect the power of promotional incentives even in uncertain times. However, to resonate with consumers and encourage them to make a purchase, relevant communication is vital. This should be done in multiple ways, including promoting your eCommerce site on many channels such as social media or email marketing campaigns with effective calls-to-action. 2. Optimize Your Cross-Border Shipping Strategy for COVID-19 For those that sell online, a cross-border eCommerce strategy is also increasingly important. Because COVID has aggravated importing and exporting goods from one country to another, it’s more difficult for shoppers in foreign countries to buy products from you. However, this doesn’t mean they can’t be reached or don’t want your products anymore. To reach these potential customers, companies will need a well-thought-out plan to help them navigate COVID guidelines while maximizing their brand exposure across borders. Part of a successful strategy includes: Partnering with qualified logistics partners; post-COVID, one of the factors of logistics partnership that has become more important is reverse logistics, the ability to return items — ensure the partner you choose has a smooth process for returning inventory. Acquiring competitive shipping rates; container shipping rates from China to Europe have increased six times over since COVID. Creating the business systems and investing in the staffing necessary to maximize international shipping efficiency; business systems, the series of processes, tasks, and activities linked together to complete a goal, are unique to each organization. 3. Consider Evolving Your Sales Strategy For many manufacturers, decisions are made early on whether or not they want to sell their goods through retail and distribution or directly to customers. COVID-19 has challenged brands that don’t have a strong B2C (Business-to-Customer) sales strategy and forced them to start looking at new ways to diversify their revenue streams. Depending on the needs of your business, your eCommerce strategy may need to change over time. Having all of your eggs in one basket can be a mistake. A good sales strategy needs to be fluid and flexible enough to change with COVID-19 while also helping you sustain your revenue. While some businesses may adopt a hybrid business model that blends both B2B and B2C components, others may find profitability is higher, relying on only one path. In Ireland, sports uniform maker Intosport diversified by reconfiguring its factory floor and beginning to make personal protective equipment like scrubs and hospital gowns. They went from canceled orders to taking on more staff to keep up with their PPE orders. 4. Place More Focus on Online Data Security Making sure your customer data stays safe needs to be your top priority, given the significant growth of eCommerce since the start of the pandemic. To keep your customers’ information secure, make sure that your customers are protected by adequate online security measures. You can do this by protecting your site with SSL certificates that offer Domain Validated (DV) or Organization Validated (...
Bushbalm’s 8-figure success and its array of “skincare for everywhere” products have come a long way since its ideation moment. In this episode of our Bushbalm miniseries, David Gaylord shares the origin story of the brand’s first product, with insights on formulation, package design, and scaling production. Learn how Bushbalm found production partners and worked through its production challenges to land deals with major retailers. For the full transcript of this episode, click here. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters. The honeymoon experience that sparked a business idea Shuang: This business started five, six years ago at a time where we weren’t talking about ingrown hairs or struggles with your bikini line a lot in public. So, how did you get the idea of creating skincare for everywhere? David: In the early days, we actually weren’t talking about those things either. We were, on the periphery, thinking about them potentially, but the first product was actually called Bush Oil. And it was mostly focused on scent and just general moisturizing. So, it did take us a couple of years to find our niche and the markets we were going after. But that was a learning process for quite a while. Shuang: Your co-founder, Tim Burns has a pretty interesting discovery story of how the idea came to be. Tell us more about that. David: Tim and his wife, Mel, were, they were actually on their honeymoon, so I won’t go into too much detail. But Tim ended up using a face oil down below the belt to freshen up after the beach. So, they came back from their honeymoon, and they told this story, and they said, “You know what? It’s an interesting moisturizer. There’s a little bit of scent in some face oils. It’s interesting.” And obviously, face quality skincare is what we cherish. So, it’s like, how do we bring that to a part that maybe many of us have neglected? Shuang: When they approached you, what made you say, “You know what? That’s actually a good business idea.” David: I was working at Shopify fresh out of the university with a degree in marketing. And both of them are more on the design and product development side. So, they had great branding. They understood what it took to design logos and websites. Whereas I had more experience in Facebook and email marketing. They thought maybe it would be a perfect connection between they want to develop the brand, the products. And then, I get to bring those products to the world. And at the time, we just thought it was, hey, you know what? It’s a really good way to learn. Let’s start an ecommerce store. Let’s see what it’s like. And over the last six years, we’ve learned a lot of what you should do and a lot of what you shouldn’t do, which has been great. Shuang: I think that’s such a defining moment for a lot of people. For yourself, what was that switch between just a funny story to a business idea? David: With Tim and Mel, when we got into it, we thought, you know what? We’re going to do something, and worst case, we just do it for a year and we learn. We learn what it takes. We learn a few skills that work or don’t work. So, for us at the start, it was all about like learning. And at times, say you were investing in a business, and say, raising money or putting your own money in, and in large sums, that’s where it does get, for sure, scary. But for us, it was all about starting out. And it’s really, really easy for someone to make their own objections. When you start out, I could have said, “You know what? I don’t want to go with a business partner because it complicates things.” And then, we might not have ever started Bushbalm. We might not have started a business at all. Whereas by just saying, “You know what? What’s the first step? Let’s do it.” That actually got us through many cases. And for us, the first step was let’s just buy a domain. So, we bought the domain. And then, we were a little bit more committed. And then, every week, we thought, okay, what’s the one small thin...
The rise of the creator economy promises budding influencers and entrepreneurs-to-be more than the opportunity to create content. Instead, it extends the idea of earning a living or building a business. Many creators have drafted the audience-to-business blueprint, laying out the steps for influencers to find financial independence. Take Emma Chamberlain who parlayed her YouTube channel, where she shares intimate vlogs, into Chamberlain Coffee. And Hila Klien, a YouTuber and podcaster, now runs Teddy Fresh, a streetwear brand with over 100 employees. While creator-centered businesses might begin with a notepad scribbled with hopes and aspirations, they’re built day-by-day with trusted tools. These include apps, platforms, and sites that creators use to craft content, distribute it to an audience, engage with their followers, monetize their fan base, build partnerships, run the back-end of their business, and more. An independent writer with thousands of subscribers might use Google Docs to pen their articles, Substack to share essays with an audience, Canva to add in graphics, Twitter to distribute their content, Discord to build a community for paid newsletter members, and Shopify to sell special edition supporter pins. This collection of tools is their creator economy tech stack. While creator-centered businesses might begin with a notepad scribbled with hopes and aspirations, they’re built day-by-day with trusted tools. The tools creators use are worth paying attention to: creators are cultural curators, irreverent innovators, and early adopters—their tech picks are often an indicator of “what’s best” and “what’s next.” This article will dive into the tools powering creator-centered businesses that interact with thousands or millions of followers—from the apps TikTokers use to edit quick bite-videos with millions of views to the hosting platforms podcasters use to transmit their voices to thousands of earbuds around the world. The creator economy tech stack: 160+ tools to power creator businesses The creator economy boom is hard to ignore: the total creator economy size is estimated to be over $100 billion and venture capital firms are increasingly focused on funding creator platforms, while creator-focused companies have seen over $1.3 billion raised in 2021. Influencers of every stripe can monetize their passions and build an audience in nearly any category—writing a food newsletter for baking enthusiasts, creating TikTok dance choreography for followers to mimic, or playing Fortnite with thousands of onlookers. Focus on investing in creators has led to a Cambrian explosion of creator tools entering the market, competing alongside incumbents and newcomers. This wide range of creators means a category-specific section of the tech stack, with each influencer curating and culling a list of their essentials—a photographer might include photo editing tools while a podcaster relies on audio editing apps. Focus on investing in creators has led to a Cambrian explosion of creator tools entering the market, competing alongside incumbents and newcomers. However, as different as creators might be—from writer and photographer Craig Mod to dance TikToker Hannah Kaye Balany—many online creators converge on running small or large companies that require business tooling: project management to plan out content and campaigns, commerce platforms to sell products, membership sites to monetize an audience, back-end tools to look after financials and legal, and more. This infographic captures each layer of a creator economy tech stack, as well as a range of apps and tools in each layer that online makers and web entrepreneurs use to build creator-centered businesses. Creator category tools From podcasters charting the course of history to streamers playing Final Fantasy, there are a host of different online creators. While many creators have more in common than apart—a magnetic online presence, creativity, and a love for their audience—diffe...
Developing a strong sense of empathy can help you to truly understand the needs, fears, and desires of your users, customers, and clients. And when it comes to designing a great product, you must develop a deep understanding of the people who will use it. In this article, we’ll introduce you to a tool called an empathy map, and share how it can help you as a product designer learn about your end users, figure out what they care about, and help your products succeed. What is an empathy map? Empathy is the human ability to identify and understand another person’s situation, including the emotions that they are experiencing. As the name suggests, an empathy map is a tool that can help you build empathy with your end users by helping you to understand, visualize, and then to articulate what a product team knows about its users. It helps the team find answers to the “Why?” questions (such as, “Why do users do what they do?”). The tool was initially created by Dave Gray, the author of Gamestorming: A Playbook For Innovators, Rulebreakers, And Changemakers, who also created something called an empathy map canvas. The canvas is divided into several sections, and the user (the person who will use your product; the one you want to understand and empathize with) is located at the center of the canvas. Each area explores the user’s mindset, as well as what happens in their environment while interacting with your product. Here are some essential areas of an empathy map: Think and feel. This section contains information about the user’s emotional state. What would the user be thinking and feeling while using your product? All too often, product designers tend to focus only on positive thoughts, but negative thoughts are equally important. Aspects of your product that make the user feel bad can hurt long-term user retention. Hear. What would people around the user say while the user is trying your product? Consider personal connections with other people (like family, friends, and teammates) because they have a tremendous impact on how users think about your product. If the user hears a lot of great things about your product from the people they trust, this will create a positive impression even before they actually start using it. See. What the user sees while using your product. For example, you can describe what people around the user might do while the user experiences a product, or if the user might be seeing something in the environment around them. Say and do. What might the user be saying and/or physically doing while using your product? You should collect the actual phrases that the user says out loud while interacting with a product. These phrases can be collected during usability testing. Pain. What are some of the user’s pain points when using a product? Try to capture challenges and obstacles that stand in the user’s way. Gain. What does the user stand to gain from using your product? Think about what success looks like for the user—what dreams or goals do they have? A simple framework will help you summarize these gains: “The user wants _______ because _______.” Focus on the second blank, because it’s directly related to user motivation. While there are no strict rules about what order to fill in your canvas for your empathy mapping exercise, it’s worth starting with the see, hear, say, and do sections because they are easier to fill out, and will help you create a foundation for your map. It’s also important not to exaggerate the role of your product in the life of users. Build your empathy map around realistic scenarios, and don’t assume that it will be life changing if that’s not the actual case. Grow your business with the Shopify Partner Program Whether you offer web design and development services or want to build apps for the Shopify App Store, the Shopify Partner Program will set you up for success. Join for free and access revenue share opportunities, developer preview environments, and educational resources. Sign up...
The other day I went into a Starbucks and as the baristas were furiously working to prepare a massive order for a nearby school, they were apologetic about the longer than usual amount of time that it was taking to make my latte. “We’re sorry to keep you waiting, Sarah” the barista said. This was the first of many through my time there where I was referred to by my first name. Now, I don’t want to pretend that this is something more than it is. It was clearly a technology-enabled interaction that printed my name on the order label affixed to the cup because I used a Starbucks card registered to me. The fact that Starbucks trains its baristas to leverage this information to create a better customer experience isn’t particularly surprising, especially since Starbucks has always focused on a consistent and familiar experience across their stores. But what I found fascinating was how this small programmed gesture caused a chemical reaction in my brain that just made me feel good. And it was 6:30 AM on a particularly cold autumn morning and I hadn’t even had my coffee yet. via GIPHY Starbucks has always been one of those brands that prides itself on great customer service. But this time, I couldn’t help but think that they won. They won by leveraging something so small at a time when customer delight isn’t what it once was. The in-person experience now has layers of plastic protection paired with generous doses of sanitization. And there is some debate as to whether the digital customer experience was ever able to truly achieve the same wow factor experienced in person. Can we still deliver a wow-worthy digital customer experience? Perhaps the world has changed. Perhaps we tried too hard and were unsuccessful. Who knows. One thing that I do know is that I’m not ready to declare customer delight dead just yet. I think that there is a huge opportunity for us customer experience professionals. The time is now because so many people have simply been worn down by overly common lackluster customer experiences—as evidenced by one too many friends who aired their grievances on social channels. The bar in many cases has been lowered because too many brands have simply failed to meet simple expectations. The good news? Now the little, seemingly obvious, service quality promises are where delight has the opportunity to shine through. And no, I’m not changing the definition of delight. I’m actually taking it quite literally—”a high degree of gratification or pleasure” as defined by Merriam Webster—because I truly believe that a great customer experience where we focus on delivering a consistent level of quality can bring a high degree of pleasure. Especially at a time when the average customer service interaction tends to skew towards disappointing. Customer Experience Trends to Watch Out For in Ecommerce E-commerce has revolutionized the way we shop forever. Today, you can buy almosteverything online – from essentials to luxury cars, as brands embrace digitalretail in hopes to succeed in the post-pandemic world. Data indicates that e-commerce accounts for over 14% of worldwide retail sales[/. The Smile.io BlogSavan from Acquire When I joined Smile, the structure and mandate of our customer-facing team were very different. But so was our business and, frankly, so was the world. With a vision of helping as many entrepreneurs as possible, I knew that we needed to make a lot of small changes that would add up to a big transformation. To accomplish this, we needed our values to be seen and to make the most out of every customer interaction so that they could feel that we cared deeply about their success. How Smile delights thousands of global customers around the clock In a high-volume, 1:many SaaS environment where we support tens of thousands of customers across the world, here is what we did to start driving a better customer experience for our merchants: Remove silos One of the first things that we did was create a centralized inbox for the...
A financial statement is an official document that details your business’ money- and capital-related activities—a formal record to summarize all sorts of money-related data. There are many different kinds of financial statements for different contexts and uses. The person responsible for putting a financial statement together depends on the situation. Sometimes you, the business owner, have to prepare financial statements. In other cases it may be your accountant, bookkeeper, account manager, or even an auditor. There are lots of uses for financial statements. Below, we’ll dive into why you need them and how to prepare financial statements for your ecommerce business. Benefits of financial statements Financial statements are beneficial in small business accounting for a number of reasons, the largest one being they provide a big picture view of your business’ financial health. Financial statements make it easier to understand the data and get an idea of where you stand financially. You can use financial statements to determine if you have enough money to reinvest or grow your business, as well as pay yourself and your other accounts payable. Knowing your business’ finances also helps with cash flow management. The benefits and use cases of financial statements also expand beyond the obvious. Financial statements can also help you to: Secure investors. If you need funds from investors or want to raise capital through crowdfunding, financial statements can prove your business is worth investing in. Get loans. When applying for small business loans and funding, potential lenders will also want to review your financial statements to assess the likelihood of being paid back. You can look for funding through Shopify Capital and government relief programs for small businesses affected by COVID-19. Deal with audits. Your local tax agency could audit your business at any time, and financial statements will help you weather those storms more smoothly. Value your business. You might want to sell your business on Shopify Exchange or elsewhere. Financial statements help you value your business so you can establish a fair price. Plan better. When you regularly prepare financial statements, you have more data to see trends. You can use historical data to forecast, and these projections will be more accurate because they’re based on actual data. Your financial statements also inform annual reports. Annual reports are financial and operational summaries for each year a company operates. They’re comprehensive reports that are distributed to shareholders so they can get an in-depth understanding of your business. We publish Shopify annual reports for investors and the general public to see, along with a few other financial statements. Types of financial statements There are lots of different types of financial statements, but the three most important and commonly used are: Income statement Balance sheet Cash flow statement Income statement Your business’s income statement—also referred to as an earnings statement or profit and loss statement—calculates revenue minus expenses to tell you how much money your business is earning. Income statements are also prepared on a regular basis, perhaps monthly, quarterly, or even annually. Here’s an example of what a small business income statement might look like: The income statement is the first financial document to prepare. This is because you need the calculations from the income statement to plug into your balance sheet and cash flow statement. Without the information from the income statement, your balance sheet and cash flow statement will be incomplete. Balance sheet The balance sheet lists your business’s assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity. Balance sheets are typically prepared monthly or quarterly and serve as a quick glance at how much your business is worth after all liabilities or debts and shareholder payouts have been accounted for. Here’s an example of what a small business bala...
This month, we have begun to roll out new payout methods for all Shopify Partners: app developers, theme developers, experts, affiliates, and agency partners. The new payout methods give you more flexibility in how you can receive payouts, more coverage and support for more regions and countries around the world, and industry-leading fees to give you more control of your earnings. We’re committed to helping our entire community of partners thrive, which is one of the reasons why, this year, we updated our revenue share plan, giving partners 100 percent of their revenue on the first $1 million they earn, per year. But we want to do much more, so we’re making this update to make it even better to partner with Shopify, and our millions of merchants around the world. In this article, we’ll share details on our new payout methods. These updates will help you invest in growing your business, build your team, and create more amazing experiences for Shopify merchants. Grow your business with the Shopify Partner Program Whether you offer web design and development services or want to build apps for the Shopify App Store, the Shopify Partner Program will set you up for success. Join for free and access revenue share opportunities, developer preview environments, and educational resources. Sign up New payout methods with Hyperwallet We have partnered with Hyperwallet to introduce more flexible payout options for partners. Starting this month, new payout methods are available via the Partner Dashboard. The benefits of this for partners are: More flexible payout methods Industry leading pricing and fees Expanding regional coverage Read on to learn more about the new methods, how to enroll, and where to get support. More flexible payouts We have heard from the partner community that you want more flexibility in how payouts are made. We’re pleased to share that with Hyperwallet, payouts can be made in new methods depending on your local region. These can include local bank transfers, wire transfers, and other payout methods, in addition to PayPal. “We’re pleased to share that with Hyperwallet, payouts can be made in new methods depending on your local region. These can include local bank transfers, wire transfers, and other payout methods, in addition to PayPal.” Partners may also specify the currency to receive payouts in, depending on region. We have secured competitive foreign exchange fees, helping partners keep their earnings and enable better business decisions. Partners can make such changes to their payout method within the updated Partner Dashboard. Invenire, a Shopify Partner since 2018, is a development agency based in Queensland, Australia. The company specializes in SEO and analytics for Shopify stores. Invenire was one of several Shopify Partners that struggled with the previous payout methods. Arve Sølland, founder of Invenire, says his team has experienced a drastic improvement using the new payout methods. The new payout via Hyperwallet works great! It’s saving me transaction fees I used to pay every time I transferred from my PayPal account to my bank account. It’s also saving me the hassle of manually logging in and initiating the transfer. Something that saves both time and money has to be good news, right? “The new payout via Hyperwallet works great! It’s saving me transaction fees I used to pay every time I transferred from my PayPal account to my bank account. It’s also saving me the hassle of manually logging in and initiating the transfer. Something that saves both time and money has to be good news, right?” Sølland says. Industry-leading fees We have worked with Hyperwallet to secure new, preferential transaction fees. While the specific fees may vary based on payout method, and each partner’s region, they are more competitive and intend to give you more control over your earnings, and your business. Lizuna, a Shopify Partner since 2018, is an app development company based in Tokyo, Japan. Their app, Beacon Fraud...
When a seven-year-old Yelitsa Jean-Charles opened her present—a Black Barbie doll—on Christmas morning in 2001, she burst into tears. She later recounted this story in a TEDx talk, telling the audience that her reaction surprised her parents. But it shouldn’t have. All around her, media and toy companies told her that the beauty ideal was white, blond, and blue eyed. “I started distancing myself from anything that could associate me with Blackness,” she says. Little did she know this experience would be the catalyst for an idea that would fill a gap in the toy market and forever change the trajectory of her life. When little girls can’t find dolls that look like them, it negatively impacts their self esteem. Years would pass before Yelitsa would confront her relationship with her own identity again. While studying art at the Rhode Island School of Design, she had an epiphany: it is the responsibility of artists to react to and solve problems around them. She began to investigate how representation in stories and toys impacted the way Black girls saw themselves—and their hair. “When little girls can’t find dolls that look like them,” she says, “it negatively impacts their self-esteem.” Yelitsa’s research took her down a rabbit hole and a class project morphed into a force to watch in the toy industry. Her brand, Healthy Roots Dolls, was born in 2015 and has since raised $1.5 million in funding, secured a partnership with Procter & Gamble, and recently landed a deal to sell dolls in Target stores across the US. How Healthy Roots Dolls found—and filled—a market gap Yelitsa drew on her own experiences growing up to form an idea: a doll that focused on education and hair play that celebrated curls. She pitched a variation on the classic Rapunzel character for a project in her illustration program at school, and the idea took hold. She saw that there were Black dolls on the market and those that leaned into hair play, but none, in her experience, that empowered children to learn to love their natural hair. “I applied for a social innovation fellowship through my institution,” she says. “They gave me a grant to work on the company over the summer.” Accepting the fellowship and applying for other grants, Yelitsa says, forced her to conduct deep research on the idea and approach it in an informed way. Brands have been making dolls with different skin tones, different body shapes, tall dolls, short little round dolls. It’s interesting seeing how they have approached representation and variety. In order to determine whether the product she was designing actually solved her identified problem, she looked into children’s products on the market and systemic issues around race and identity. “I saw that hair play is not new when it comes to toys,” she says, referencing a doll with hair that kids could straighten with a magic lotion. “That’s not what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to change the curls.” Yelitsa acknowledges that dolls have come a long way in recent years. “Brands have been making dolls with different skin tones, different body shapes, tall dolls, short little round dolls,”’ she says. “It’s interesting seeing how they have approached representation and variety.” But her product research also uncovered a gap in the market and sought to fill it with her solution—one that went beyond “just painting a doll brown.” In 2015, Yelitsa launched a Kickstarter campaign for Healthy Roots Dolls and introduced the brand’s star, Zoe—an 18-inch doll with washable, styleable hair—to the market just two years later. Through the first few years of the business, Yelitsa juggled being a full-time student and a full-time entrepreneur. We asked how she balanced the two. “I didn’t,” she says. “I had to step down from multiple student leadership positions. It was very, very hard.” Being a student came with additional challenges as Yelitsa sought to grow her brand and get funding. “I’m young, I don’t come from this space,” she says. Systemic racial and...
When Kelly and Laura Moffat were looking for clothes for their wedding, they were faced with a mutual frustration for the options. The styles in the women’s section didn’t feel right and menswear options didn’t fit right. The shopping experience inspired Kelly and Laura to launch Kirrin Finch, a gender-defying fashion label that’s focused on using sustainable and natural fabrics. In this episode of Shopify Masters, we chat with Kelly and Laura about becoming accidental designers and how working through the pandemic challenged them to grow in new ways. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe to Shopify Masters. Show Notes Store: Kirrin Finch Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Recommendations: Loop, Gorgias Identifying a gap in the market as a consumer— and filling it as a business Felix: The idea behind it all started when you were looking for clothes for your wedding, right? Laura: It was 2014 and we were organizing and planning our wedding, obviously clothing is a key component of that. Neither of us are really into dresses and they aren’t part of our wardrobe. As a woman that was getting married, if you didn’t wear a dress there weren’t a lot of options back then. We were looking online, in stores, and it was a really demotivating and frustrating experience. We ended up getting custom suits made from a local Brooklyn tailor, which was an amazing experience, but it made us realize that there was an opportunity for people like us, for clothing outside the traditional binary of women’s wear and men’s wear, there was a big unmet need. That was the impetus for us starting the brand. Felix: You noticed that this was a problem for yourself. What made you start to see if others were also experiencing this problem? Laura: I was a marketer by trade before I started the brand, so for me, I was always very focused on, “Okay, that’s great. That’s a great idea, but what’s your research to support it?” I had done a lot of market research in my previous life, so for me, the first step was like, “Okay, let’s validate the business.” We did surveys and one-on-one interviews with people to find out if there was a true unmet need here. What was the underlying frustration? What could we do to solve it? What are the products that people were looking for? We were able to validate the initial idea by talking to those people. We went to friends and friends of friends beyond our network. Kelly: We even spent some time going to local bars and combing folks out in the wild, so we spoke to everyone–from the folks that we knew to complete strangers. That’s something that’s really important. A lot of folks, when they first get this idea of a business, they’re like, “Oh, I’m not going to tell anyone someone’s going to steal my idea.” Quite frankly, it is really hard to start a business and no one has the same passion that you’re going to have for this. Maybe there’s a few other folks, but taking that activation energy is a really big leap into the actual creation of your business. The validation from folks is far more important. Felix: When you were conducting your market research, were you just looking at peoples thoughts around wedding attire specifically, or was it broader than that? Laura: It was much broader than that. We didn’t really get into the wedding market until much later in our business. Basically the impetus came from us searching for wedding clothing, but at the end of the day, what we discovered from our own thinking and speaking to other people was that the overall shopping experience was incredibly demotivating for our customer. They would go shopping, everyone’s like, “Oh, let’s go shopping, let’s get excited, go buy new outfit,” and then you would go, and then you’d see stuff in the women’s section that really didn’t feel right for you and didn’t match your personal aesthetic. Then go to the men’s section, see stuff that you really, really liked and want to wear, but then ultimately it’s not designed to fit your body. We heard th...
BFCM Resources for Ecommerce: Strategies, Tools, and Metrics One of the biggest shopping holidays of the year is just around the corner. For ecommerce brands, this is a huge opportunity to reach new customers and secure their loyalty long after the buzz of Black Friday and Cyber Monday has disappeared. But with so much competition and only a few weeks to get in on the action, it can be a challenge to focus your efforts and make the most of deal-seeking customers. If you’re ready to align your strategies with shopper interests, here’s a guide to everything BFCM, from resources that help boost online sales to tools and strategies that turn one-time shoppers into returning customers time and time again. The Potential Ecommerce Growth During BFCM There are not many other times of the year you can capture in-the-moment shoppers who are ready and waiting with their wallets poised. The trouble is, a lot of brands focus on offering heavy discounts to attract new customers without thinking about their long-term strategies. However, BFCM provides the perfect opportunity to show prospects who you are as a brand and retain their loyalty for months and years to come. In 2020, online shopping spending rose 22% from the previous year to $5.1 billion on Thanksgiving Day. At the same time, online spending shot up by the same amount to a total of $9 billion during Black Friday. Many consumers plan in advance to cash in on huge discounts from their favorite brands, but it’s also a time for them to branch out and try something new. 64% of US residents said that planning ahead financially for the holiday season is critical, and brands that are able to tie into this trend will reap the benefits. 8 Handy BFCM Resources to Help You Boost Sales 11 Powerful BFCM Sale-Boosting Strategies 1. Optimize your mobile site Many BFCM shoppers aren’t sitting at their desks checking out deals, they’re on the bus, taking a coffee break at work, or scrolling on their phones while watching TV. Optimizing your ecommerce site for mobile creates a better experience for shoppers that are on the go, providing them with a slick journey from start to finish. As well as making sure your site is mobile responsive, optimization involves implementing a design that’s made specifically for handheld devices. This includes: Quick and easy navigation Less text and more white space Clear calls-to-action Bigger, floating buttons Oat Haus Granola uses bold colors and contrasting CTAs on their mobile site. 2. Level Up Your Abandoned Cart Strategy As it stands, the current abandoned cart rate is 69.80%. We can probably assume that this figure is higher around BFCM when shoppers are browsing new brands and hunting down the best deal. As a result, you could potentially be missing out on a ton of custom if you don’t follow up with shoppers who leave items in their cart. Set up a robust abandoned cart email campaign in advance of BFCM to lure back consumers. Emails should reiterate what products are waiting for a shopper and give them a good reason to return–this could be through social proof and customer reviews, an added discount, or a fun and friendly branded message. Nomad lets its brand personality shine through in abandoned cart emails. 3. Reward Loyal Customers While BFCM is prime time for attracting new customers, it’s also the perfect opportunity for rewarding your existing customers. Set up a loyalty program around the holidays to give people who have already bought from you even more incentive to buy again. Offer points in exchange for purchases, provide a unique coupon code that gives them a little more discount than your usual deals, or give them an exclusive first-look at your latest product line. Sephora’s loyal members can get additional savings at seasonal events. 4. Segment Shoppers Based on Their Intent Not all shoppers are equal. Some are ready to buy right away while others might need more convincing. This means they all need different information before they feel co...
Cause-related marketing is poised to grow. Millennials and Gen Z already wield $350 billion worth of buying power in the US alone. Both generations care more about fair wages, racial equity (not just equality), and sustainability when compared to their parents and grandparents. 76% of Gen Z and Millennials will pay more for a sustainable product. 90% of Gen Z supports Black Lives Matter. And when it comes to fashion, Gen Z cares more about finding pieces that express their individuality than about buying the latest trend. According to a recent Depop study, 75% of the platform’s Gen Z shoppers buy second-hand to lower their carbon footprint, 55% have started eating more environmentally friendly food, and 35% are working on minimizing their use of plastic. The short and skinny of it? Any company wanting to sell to Gen Z and Millennials needs to tie its brand marketing to important causes. What is a cause-related marketing campaign? A cause-related marketing campaign is one that puts a social or environmental cause front and center. Instead of just marketing your products for their utility or attractiveness, you market your products’ impact on important causes—whether directly via sustainably sourced materials, indirectly through donations, or both. 17 cause marketing examples Examples always make things easier to understand. Here are 17 cause-related marketing examples across a variety of product categories. Type of cause marketing: Donation incentive for shopper. What you can learn: Terez makes bold leggings and activewear for women and girls. In one of their cause marketing social media posts, they supported Pride Month by offering a $25 donation to a charity of the customer’s choice after a qualifying order of $200. On their Givz donation page, they featured LGBTQ+ nonprofit organizations. If your brand doesn’t have dedicated causes you’re aligned with, you can change the causes you support throughout the year. Type of cause marketing: One-for-one giving What you can learn: Following in the footsteps of shoe brand Toms, Bombas gives an item of clothing for every item purchased. All donated items go to homeless communities in the United States. The brand has over 3500 giving nonprofit partners, (local shelters and organizations). With so many brands choosing to give to impoverished communities abroad, you can stand out by choosing to help your home country. Type of cause marketing: Donation incentive for shopper What you can learn: Kencko is a subscription service for smoothie packets that can be mixed with water or plant-based milk. Their customers care about both their health and reducing the use of plastic bottles and cups. They use Givz’s donation incentive platform to offer a $50 donation when a customer subscribes to a 60 pack. The takeaway here is that high-bar donation incentives can help increase your average order value. Type of cause marketing: One-for-one giving and corporate-managed donations What you can learn: ThriveMarket offers an annual subscription to its platform for a family in need, every time one is purchased. This helps increase accessibility for low-income families in neighborhoods where healthy food is hard to find. In addition, the company has donated millions in healthy groceries and disaster relief. While you might start with just one type of cause marketing, you should layer on different programs in order to show your target customers that you are growing your impact as your profits grow. Type of cause marketing: Donation incentive for shopper What you can learn: Sakara is a plant-based subscription meal program and nutrition education site. During the Thanksgiving season, they used Givz’s donation incentive software to easily manage donations to Feeding America. The brand offered a $30 donation for every $75-order placed. Donations are better than discounts because they foster customer loyalty and cost less too. Since not every customer will complete the donation process with Givz, you can inc...
Customers Want to Know Their Purchase Matters: Here’s How to Prove it Does Discounts will hurt your brand in the long run. Instead, give shoppers the option to donate to charity with their purchase plays into the increasing interest in conscientious shopping. Claiming a charitable interest is no longer enough for a business. Customers want to know that their purchase directly contributes to a non-profit — something Givz’s closed loop experience provides. Here’s a secret: Whereas everyone will claim a discount if they can, not everyone chooses to donate their allotted money. Not only does cause marketing help your brand, but offering the options to donate can be less expensive than discount pricing. 3 ways discounts cause long term damage to your brand If your eyes have ever lit up at the sight of a 20% off label, you already know first hand that retail customers love a discount. However, when overused, discounts not only attract the wrong kind of customer to your brand, they can change your relationship with previously loyal customers for the worse. Here are three ways discounts damage your brand: 1. Discounts destroy your margins The most immediate impact of regular discounts is lower margins. When customers are consistently paying 20% less, say, than the retail price, the amount of profit you make per unit goes down. Spread over a long period of time and over thousands of transactions, that can have a significant impact on your revenue. 2. Customers looking for discounts have the lowest LTV Brands often use discounts to entice new customers. This may work the first time: but from the start of the relationship, you’re training these customers to expect a lower price. To turn them into long-term customers, you’ll have to keep offering regular discounts. Hence discount-seekers have the lowest lifetime value (LTV): You either have to lower your prices to keep them, or you lose them entirely when you stop doing discounts. 3. Discounts devalue your brand These bad habits can also transfer to your loyal customers. Initially, they think of discounts as a way to get a product they like for less money: But over time, they will also start perceiving the regular price as too expensive, and the discount as the fair price. Eventually, no one will be willing to pay full price for your brand. Shopping with a conscience is on the rise The baby boomer generation — people born between 1946 and 1964 — typically prioritizes discounts above all other incentives. But that’s changing with upcoming generations. Millennials (born 1981 to 1996) and Generation Z (born in or after 1997) are more likely to factor brands’ perceived ethics into purchasing decisions. This concern is partly because individuals are thinking more carefully about what kind of companies their money is supporting. But it’s also because they’re aware that it shapes how others view them because supporting certain brands associates them with the brands’ values. Buying a particular brand today isn’t just about its logo: It’s about consciously taking sides. We can thank the internet for this trend. We have more access than ever to companies’ mission statements and charitable claims. And via social networks, we have more opportunity to showcase the brands we use in our daily lives. That means we know more about brands’ ethics, we know who’s buying what, and we know other people know what we’re buying. This shift to conscious shopping seems to be happening at all levels of commerce. Shoppers have always been willing to spend more money for higher quality — if they could afford it. Now, more of us are also willing to factor in ethical concerns. Unlike with quality considerations, this trend isn’t just for luxury shoppers. Even affordable brands like Givz customer H&M have found success with campaigns that offered charitable donations over discounts. How to do cause marketing well Cause marketing is connecting a for-profit business to a non-profit cause — or many causes. This obviously...
Knowing how to create and iterate on a sales funnel is one of the most profitable concepts an entrepreneur can master. In fact, virtually every business on the planet that has success at scale uses some type of sales funnel. Turning a consumer into a customer requires a logical series of steps. First, a consumer in your target market sees your ad and becomes a prospect. Then, they land on your website and become a lead. Finally, they make a purchase and become a buyer. A sales funnel is a curated series of relationship-building experiences that help turn prospects into buyers. Research also shows that nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured prospects. In this article, you’ll learn how to build a one-page ecommerce sales funnel with leading ecommerce expert and founder of Smart Marketer Ezra Firestone. How sales funnels work A sales funnel is a visualization of the path customers take to purchase. It represents the marketing strategy that turns cold prospects into paying customers by moving them through various stages. The “funnel” involves taking large groups of people and turning them into high-value customers. According to Salesforce, a full 68% of companies have not identified or attempted to measure a sales funnel, and the same survey showed that a whopping 79% of marketing leads are never converted into sales. The goal is to map the route to conversion and automate sales. A sales funnel shows you what to do to influence potential buyers at a specific stage. It starts the moment they become aware of your brand, and continues until they purchase a product and become an advocate. Say you see an Instagram ad for a new pair of running shoes. They intrigue you, so you go and check out the shoes on the company’s website. You’re now a prospect. On the site you take a quiz, check out a blog post, look at other pairs of shoes, and maybe even sign up for an email marketing list. Now you’re a lead. Eventually you receive an email with a discount off your favorite running shoes. You buy them, maybe even some recommended shorts too, and you’re a happy customer. You’ve come to like the brand’s products, so you promote them online. This cycle then continues with one of your friends or family members. That’s how sales funnels work in action. They are pre-planned stages a company brings you through until purchase that also include retention tactics to keep you happy and promoting the brand’s products. At a high-level view, sales funnels consist of three parts: Top of the funnel (ToFu): your target audience Middle of the funnel (MoFu): your potential customers Bottom of the funnel (BoFu): new and existing customers Sales teams or small business owners can create sales funnels for one product, an entire category, or specific target audiences. If you don’t have as many resources, you can create one for your bestsellers. Regardless, sales funnels work when they’re built correctly and provide relevant content for buyers. 87% of consumers choose to do business with companies that provide valuable content at all stages of the customer journey. The sales funnel helps you know what customers do at each stage of their journey. They allow you to understand which marketing activities work, and which don’t, so you can invest in the right channel and realize a higher return. Sales funnel stages: the AIDA framework The AIDA framework, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action, is a funnel model that represents the consumer thought process at each funnel stage. Many ecommerce brands apply this purchasing funnel because it’s effective and easy to comprehend. The AIDA framework helps you identify what buyers need at each stage of the funnel and support them until purchase. Let’s look at the different stages of the sales funnel, with examples of how you can apply them to your online business. Awareness The awareness stage is where you catch a potential customer’s attention. It can be an ad, a YouTube video, an Instagram p...