CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2123

Keeping It Covered with ChubbiesShorts.com on Shopify Plus

June 15, 2021

Hello - 

This Sunday two things happen. First, it’s Father’s Day. So, if you haven’t called your Dad in a while make sure you do that. Second, it’s June 20

 … the first “official” day of Summer. Sure, it’s been like 90°f for a few weeks now. But Summer ain’t Summer until a government bureaucrat says it is. 

Time to break out the shorts.

When I said that to a friend of mine, he suggested that I look at chubbies shorts. I thought,

“How rude!”

I immediately set down my box of chicken nuggets and proceeded to remind him that I’d lost a lot of weight since last year.

Turns out he wasn’t commenting on my waistline at all — which is good because

I be look’in fine!

He was talking about ChubbiesShorts.com. I took a look and they are a Top 100 Shopify site and I have an email to write. So, here’s this week’s teardown.

Happy Selling,

Zachary

This Week’s Target: ChubbiesShorts

Company Profile

Let me tell you about four fraternity bro’s from Stanford. Kyle Hency, Rainer Castillo, Preston Rutherford, and Tom Montgomery graduated from college at the same time. Part of their schtick on campus was to wear crazy and retro-themed shorts when the weather was nice.

I know what you’re thinking … they probably all wore the same cologne and popped the collars of their polo shirts too, right? Well, the Magic 8-Ball says, “Very Likely.”

Anyway … they all started careers. But they went to a 4

 of July party at Lake Tahoe in 2011 with matching shorts that they designed themselves and decided to make a business of it. The following year they pooled their cash and made as many shorts as they could afford. Then they called all the fraternities and pitched the idea of getting popular bro’s to wear the product. Kind of a fraternity-based social influencer campaign. It worked and the first batch of shorts sold out in a few days. Since they are still a private company, sale numbers are dang near impossible to get. But they have been on Shopify since 2013, are a Top 100 Shopify merchant, have an Amazon storefront, and I was able to confirm at least two rounds of venture capital funding (VC) over the years.

The Shopify Theme They Use

They 

 — an agency in San Diego — since virtually day one. The theme is custom.

The Good Stuff

The site looks pretty good on laptop and desktop computers, but the REAL magic is when you look at the site on mobile. Go ahead and select a product and see how the style and size selection functions work seamlessly. Just fiddling with it made me want to click the Add to Cart button. Really strong.

Notice that the mobile view/experience is different from the desktop view. That is a premium-level thing for sure. They understand human behavior well and have the budget to cater to the differences. The desktop view feels pretty standard to me. It seems like they invest more in the mobile experience. That’s probably smart.

Needs Improvement

For a bunch of former Frat Boys from Stamford, they sure are slow. And by “slow” I mean page speed. Come’on “DUDES” … it’s the 2020’s.

Apps They Deploy

We ran a scan to see what Shopify apps & supporting services they are deploying. Get a load of this list:

  • Klaviyo — eCommerce marketing and automation.

  • Hotjar — Heatmap analytics.

  • Dynamic Yield — Conversion optimization.

  • Yottaa — Experience optimization.

  • Nosto — Website personalization.

  • Gladly — Customer service.

  • Forter — Fraud prevention.

  • Customer.io — Behavior-based email automation.

  • Attentive — Personalized messaging.

  • Carro — Marketing automation.

  • GRIN — Influencer marketing. (this is a big deal for ChubbiesShorts)

  • Heap — User action capture.

  • Lucky Orange — Real-time user monitoring and interaction.

  • Amplitude — Mobile analytics.

  • Back in Stock — Inventory alerts.

  • Yotpo — Social review widget.

  • AfterPay — Installment payment option.

  • PayPal/ShopifyPay/ApplePay — Express payment options.

  • DoubleClick — Ad network.

This may not be a complete list. There are ridiculous levels of junk in the code. And there are 303 external calls and nearly 6.6MB of heft on the home page alone. 

 and it had 383 external calls and nearly 9MB in heft — failed all tests. Completely unnecessary. Crazy crap. Sloppy code with tons of 404 errors. 

Marketing Stuff They Do

A Focus on Inflencers

Interestingly, even though ChubbiesShorts has Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts I did not see any ads running. YouTube hasn’t had a post in more than a year. But the others seem active with photography … but no ads.

Their primary marketing channel appears to be influencer-based. Makes sense … that’s where they got their start. 

Here are some screen captures of their social and Amazon presences.

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