CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2124

Hello -

Now that it’s officially summer and all, folks are talking about doing summer-ish things — playing more golf, baseball, taking vacations, fishing … you know. A friend of mine said that he was going to go on a ten mile hike. My first thought was that obviously we can no longer be friends.

To each his own, I guess, But stop and think about it. If I went on a ten mile hike I’d need at LEAST a quart of sunscreen and one of those big ugly hats. And I’m sure that they’ve got some kind of special shoes or something. And come’on … a ten mile hike … you KNOW that I’m going to get hungry and there’s no way my chicken nuggets would stay hot. And what about the ranch dressing dipping sauce?

So, anyway … this whole “hiking” thing sounds to me like something you do when you can’t afford a hotel or are on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list. Seriously, think about it. That’s where they always find the bank robber or terrorist — somewhere out in the woods in a hidey-hole with two granola bars and a three-day growth of beard writing a manifesto on tree bark.

But I looked into it and it turns out that lots of folks want to go out and experience nature, get some exercise, and expose themselves to manifesto-writing fugitives. And they need a way to carry around all of the sunscreen, chicken nuggets, and whatnot. Hiking and camping stuff is actually big business.

Let’s take a look at a company that does just that in this week’s teardown.

Happy selling,Zachary

This Week’s Target: ZPacks.com

Company Profile

In 2005, Joe Valesko was preparing for a hike along the Appalachian Trail and wanted a lighter, simpler backpack than the heavy, over-featured ones on the market at the time. So he literally sewed one himself. Other hikers liked his work, so he turned it into a side hustle. He hired his first employee five years later. And since then that side hustle has become a multimillion dollar business shipping lightweight backpacks and accessories all over the world.

Their online store is a top 100 Shopify site, they have a fairly active social media presence, and aggressively use affiliate marketing. 

The Shopify Theme They Use

Our super secret double-dog-dare analysis tools say that this is a custom theme.

The Good Stuff

The site looks great and has what is obviously professional photography. I can see how this site is designed to appeal to their target demo and audience.

The product pages work well. Great info above-the-fold. Nice implementation of color options. And I like how that make regular use of video content as you scroll down the page.

The text content is also well-balanced between human eyes and feeding the Google algorithm.

They implement some of the top Express payment options AND offer installment payments through Affirm. When you have expensive items this is critical.

Needs Improvement

Maybe this works for them, but the navigation feels a bit off to me. I appreciate a good charity and environmental consciousness as much as the next guy. But the main menu AND top image/Call-To-Action content steer folks away from buying. Generally that is a no-no. But it is possible that they have some actionable insight into their specific customer base that indicates that they benefit from it? In any event, for most sites we need to keep customers in the path of products first and causes second.

They are doing their best to balance the quality of content with Google’s Web Core Vitals — so I want to recognize that right off the bat. They score fairly well on them except on blocking scripts. But the home page itself has 181 external calls (nearly 2x standard) and is nearly 8MB is size (4x standard). And I looked at a example product page and it had 277 external calls and was OVER 8MB. Some app is calling a service “zdassets” many many many times.

Anyway … all that is like walking around with buffalo crap stuck you your new hiking boots. It just slows you down and makes the website smell funny.

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.

Affiliately — Affiliate marketing.

Hotjar — Heatmap analytics.

Searchandise — eCommerce product search.

Doorbell — Customer feedback.

Stamped — Reviews.

PayPal/ShopifyPay/ApplePay — Express payment options.

Magnific — Popup app.

Affirm — Installment payments.

DoubleClick — Ad network.

This may not be a complete list. As we’ve said many times, you do NOT need a bazillion apps to have success in the National Park of Shopify.

Marketing Stuff They Do

ZPacks,com has Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube accounts. They do not have an Amazon page. But they obviously have an affiliate program in full swing — that’s where they pay a commission to reviewers and content creators for linking back to specific products. That seems to be working for them.

They are advertising on Facebook and Instagram, but they do not run a lot of ads there. Here are three of their most recent ad campaigns for your inspiration.