CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2134

*|FNAME|* … Let's Ge O-Mazing on Shopify

Hello -

Do you realize that summer is almost over? Officially there are three more weeks. But this next Monday is Labor Day. So, while Neil deGrasse Tyson might look down his nose and lecture us — in that professorial tone of his — that the celestial calendar does not tick over until September 22, the rest of us will be having a BBQ on Monday to kiss the warm days goodbye. While I was thinking about that, I reflected on the biggest stories of the season. One in particular still makes me laugh. Remember a month or so ago … when we had billionaires racing each other to be the first spoiled rich kid in space? Richard Branson jumped the line (and probably jumped the shark) to go first. And then Jeff Bozo Bezos went all Mean-Girls and stomped his foot quibbling about some arbitrary altitude marker or what not. Nice to see that the billionaire moguls who rule our lives and interwebs haven’t lost touch with the common man. You know … stayed grounded … so to speak. The only billionaire space jockey who actually looked cool was the one who did NOT go into space. While Branson and Bezos where comparing rocket size, Elon Musk was in his garage eating a kale salad and engineering another technological miracle. And somewhere in North Korea, Kim Jong-un asked a minion to strap him to a missile because ... how hard could it be? Anyway … All this talk about celestial cycles, astrophysicists, and rocket-billionaire elitists got me surfing around the web. You know what I found? There’s a website selling raffle tickets to win a trip into space on a billionaire’s rocket-plane. For reelz. The site did NOT look like it at all, but it turns out that it was built on Shopify and they are in the business of charity raffle tickets. And it ALSO turns out that if I use this site in this week’s newsletter I can probably write-off all the tickets I buy as a business expense, because … you know, “research.” So, sit back, relax, put on your favorite astronaut-themed playlist — I recommend Major Tom, Rocket Man, or Bowie’s Space Oddity — and get ready to blast off my fellow eComm-onauts. Let’s see if Omaze has the right stuff. Happy selling,Zachary

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This Week’s Target: OMAZE.comCompany ProfileOmaze.com is a for-profit company in the business of raising tons of money for non-profit organizations. If you have seen one of their BAZILLION Facebook or Instagram ads you might have paid a few bucks to win a James Bond-themed Aston Martin or for the chance to appear in a movie as a walk-on. Most of the time the prizes are purchased from vendors by Omaze, but the money raised nearly always exceeds the cost of the prize and promo. Charities get most of any profits with Omaze getting between 10% and 20% depending on the deal structure. The company was founded in 2012 by Matthew Pohlson and Ryan Cummings and is based in Los Angeles. They are privately owned, sell only online, and are the 7th most successful shop on Shopify and #16,579 of all the sites in the universe. Those are cosmic traffic stats. Oh … and the prize drawing to win two seats for a trip into space on Branson’s Virgin Galactic ends at midnight tonight (Tuesday). The Shopify Theme They UseThis site design is not just custom … it’s super-custom. It doesn't look or feel like a Shopify site. I ran our super-cool analytics scanner to make sure. The Good StuffWebsite performance is not great, but it’s not bad either. This site is very complex and loads faster than I expected. I want you to take a good look at the donations pages (otherwise known as “Product Pages”). Here's an example. If you're on a desktop/laptop, note that when you scroll the basic description, urgency (expiring), and call to action button slide down the page with you.The call to action is not “Add to Cart” it’s “Enter Now.” And on mobile that Enter Now button stays with you as you scroll down the page. Whenever the customer is ready to make the purchase, that button is right there waiting. This cost a lot to implement this way and it is very impressive. The entire site builds up urgency and enthusiasm. The copy is well-written and engaging. They are doing a good job. Needs ImprovementI am not going to quibble about a thing. This site is impressive. Except maybe mobile page load … which is choppy at best. Apps They DeployWe ran a scan to see what Shopify apps & supporting services they are deploying. Get a load of this list:

  • Optimizely — Optimizing experiences and A/B testing.

  • Hotjar — User heatmaps.

  • Ipstack — Geolocation for personalization.

  • SEO Manager — Manages SEO … duh!

  • Bugsnag — We’re seeing this a lot more … it finds code bugs.

  • PayPal/ApplePay/ShopPay — The quartet of Express Payment options for the win.

This may not be a complete list. But notice how SMALL this list is. That is one of the reasons why this content and image-heavy site is only sort of slow.

Marketing Stuff They DoIt will not surprise you that Omaze is a Social-Media advertising powerhouse. They advertise on social media, and social media, and — when they have extra cash — on social media. Sales are slammed into their website for conversion and marketing happiness ensues. They run those social ads (Facebook and Instagram) in heavily targeted demos. And they run hundreds and hundreds of them … each in multiple versions, and in multiple languages. They also have YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter pages. Don’t look … you’ll end up buying raffle tickets. Here are some examples for your inspiration.

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