CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2143

Hey *|FNAME|* — Feeding Superheroes … on Shopify

Hello —

So, Michigan State lost to Perdue this past weekend. This brings our record to 8 – 1. Still really good and it proves that our quarterback — Payton Thorne — is not Superman.  But “Payton Thorne” sure sounds like a superhero name, doesn’t it? “Payton Thorne” is WAY better than Clark Kent or Peter Parker … it’s even better than Tony Stark. Tony Stark sounds like a porn star (not that I would know). “Peter Thorne” sounds like a superhero secret agent who drinks shaken martinis while defeating the forces of the evil Dr. Bezos and his Amazon Empire. But no … turns out that no matter how good their overall performance, our beloved Michigan State Spartans are not bulletproof after all. You know who does have bulletproof performance? Bulletproof.com … they’re killing it in the keto diet supplements space. And just like every other mutant superhero, it all started with a strange formula whipped up in a laboratory. Here’s this week’s Shopify teardown.Happy Selling,Zachary

This Week’s Target: Bulletproof.com

The story of Bulletproof goes back exactly ten years. Dave Asprey combined coffee, MCT oil (medium chain triglyceride), and butter made from milk that came from 100% grass-fed cows. The idea was to have a coffee-centered energy drink that provided a shot of caffeine with keto-friendly oils to provide energy and stimulate fat-burning.

So, if you ever wondered whether the internet can help you find a narrow specialty niche market and get rich, allow me to point you to this coffee-butter-coconut-oil-drink that tastes like armpits.

How successful is this Franken-Beverage? Very successful. Over the last ten years they have used their Bulletproof Coffee to launch a keto diet empire and rise to their current position as #13 in Shopify-land and become a top 20k site on all of the interwebs. They sell on their website, have an Amazon storefront, market and sell through social media, and have a HUGE distribution into vitamin and health food stores across the country … including Puerto Rico which matters to some of us in the office. They even have distribution deals with some of the big boys — Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods.

The Theme That They Use

Like many Shopify stores at this scale they use a custom theme. Most of the time it’s not necessary. But in this case I get it. They are balancing multiple distribution channels and physical locations and once you get past “hundreds” of those things the standard Shopify deployments can choke.

What They Did Good

This site is completely on-brand. I do not know who put it together for them, but the colors have energy, the logo is spot on, the images are darn near perfect.

The email subscribe message is strong and clean. I especially like the “Unlock 15% Off” button which works for me.

I almost never say this … but this site is fast. For a Shopify site with this much going on and so many images it certainly loads with performance on both computers and mobile devices. Maybe there’s something to this coffee-butter crap?

The product pages are a case study in Shopify success. Everything you need above-the-fold, solid social proof, great SEO, discount messaging …

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Even the add-to-cart function is solid with a really slick price counter bar that lets the customer add their way up to free shipping. That thing looks great. And 3 Express Checkout options jump right up top the top of the Cart page to reduce friction of trust and work to fill out the forms.

What Needs to Be Improved

Aside from murdering coffee there’s nothing to gripe about here (The Old Guy in the office is a coffee fanatic and has been in a bad mood since I started working on this newsletter).

The Apps That They Use

  • Klaviyo — Customer lifecycle management.

  • Nosto — Personalized shopping experience.

  • Elevar — Data collection tool.

  • Hotjar — visitor usage heatmaps.

  • Kount — Fraud prevention.

  • Back in Stock — Inventory alerts.

  • Klevu — In store search.

  • Yotpo — Social media review widget.

  • Yoast — SEO tool.

  • Student Beans — Student discounting tool.

  • UserWay — Accessability for folks with a disability.

  • AmazonPay/ShopPay/PayPal — Express Payment options.

  • DoubleClick — Ad network.

This seems like a relatively low number of apps. But there is a LOT going on here.

A Franken-Site for Franken-Coffee

This is another site that is actually 2 sites in 1. It is a blending of Shopify and WordPress to capture the best attributes of both.

Marketing Stuff That They Do

These guys are a social media machine. Not only do they OBVIOUSLY have a team of folks working on organic posts, but they have a ton of social ads running everywhere.

First you will see an image of their Amazon storefront, then a set of 3 recent social media ads that are running on Facebook and Instagram in Meta-land.

Sponsored

Is your Shopify site lacking performance? If you need help making Shopify website tweaks or fixing those little nagging things on your Shopify store, let’s get stuff done.

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