CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2110

Flirting with CharmingCharlie.com — Shopify Website Teardown +BONUS Content

March 16, 2021

Hello - 

Do you remember Charlie’s Angels? I

thought

I did. 

About 20 years ago there were a 

 with Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, and Drew Barrymore playing private investigator ninja chicks. Not that I watch that kind of thing. But then I was talking to this guy — 

meaning a guy WAY older than me

 — and he started acting all dreamy about Farrah Fawcett on some 

. And then some other dude — 

meaning a guy WAY younger than me

 — says we’re both nuts and it’s a stupid 

 with Elizabeth Banks.

Turns out we’re all right. And that makes me the millennial cheese in this inter-generational Charlie Angels sandwich — between some Gen-X’er with a poster fetish and a neo-goth Gen-Z’er listening to 

 tracks.

Can you freak’in believe it? I’m the cheese! I’m WAY too young to be the cheese!

That reminds me … here’s this week’s Shopify 10-minute teardown.

Happy Selling,

Zachary

This Week’s Target: CharmingCharlie.com

Company Profile

Charming Charlie has done a good job of navigating the new economy. They used to be a larger chain of physical stores. Now they are a smaller chain of physical stores and a big online retailer. They opened in 2004 and are famous for their women’s accessories — purses and whatnot. They're a top 140 site on Shopify, a top 250k site worldwide, and yes … I find their website charming. Not as charming as Cameron Diaz, but quite charming as far as Shopify websites go.

They sell on their site, sell the crap out of everything on Amazon, and sell on Facebook/Instagram. More on this at the bottom of this email.

The Theme They Use

When we use our state-of-the-art scanning tools, we’ve determined that the theme appears to be a heavily-modified version of the 

 from Style Hatch.

The Good Stuff

The layout is structured well. The main menu wastes no time and gets right to selling.

I also love the “5 Hero” image approach to home pages. Still works. Remember that search results tend to land on collection and product pages. Most people arriving at eCommerce home pages are repeat customers and your site should sell that way.

Needs Improvement

Want to beat a store like Charming Charlie? You can do it with SEO and time. The VAST majority of their so-called organic search rankings are navigational. If they invest a few more hours per week on simple SEO Best Practices their brand would be bullet-proof.

I’m not going to hit them too hard on page speed. They are a bit bloated and have an average grade of “C” … they should fix this because in May the gloves come when Google's new algorithm goes live and they WILL feel the need … the need for speed.

It feels like they are just phoning it in here. 

. Zero description, zero trust badges, zero effort. I saw several lazy-butt product pages like that.

Apps They Deploy

We ran a scan to see what Shopify apps & supporting services they are deploying. Let’s take a look:

Yottaa — Page speed optimizer.

Bronto — Campaign platform.

Attentive — Messaging platform.

Jebbit — Engagement marketing.

Nosto — Personalized shopping experiences.

Back in Stock — Inventory Alerts.

Afterpay — Installment payment option.

ShopPay/PayPal/AmazonPay/ApplePay — The 4 horsemen of the Express payment options.

Modernizer — Browser optimization.

Boomerang — UX performance.

DoubleClick — Ad network.

This may not be a complete list.

Marketing Stuff They Do

Charming Charlie advertises extensively on social media. 

Below is a sampling of their 3 most recent Facebook ads running now. In that first one the model kind of looks like Cameron Diaz, right? Not that I noticed ... that might sound creepy.

These guys have invested heavily in Amazon. It makes sense for them. With in-person stores, their Shopify site, social channels, and Amazon it is a 4-legged stool. Amazon can't push them around too much.

Sponsored

Want a Shopify website that's got all the bling? If you need help making Shopify website tweaks or fixing those little nagging things on your Shopify store, let’s get stuff done. 

.

Share the Love

Sharing is good, and it's time for you to share your favorite Shopify newsletter. How about you forward this email to a worthy entrepreneur right now – just 

 and share the love.

And if you're lucky enough to have a friend who shared this awesome email with you, Welcome! 

 for yourself. You’ll be glad that you did.