CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2147

Hey *|FNAME|* — Getting Small  … on Shopify

Hello —

Remember last week? I barely do. Things are so darn busy and this is the busy tome of the year for all of us in ecommerce. But “if” you remember last week’s email I promised to get you some stats on how BFCM. But that can be a problem because everyone is using different stats and everyone has an agenda. For example, Shopify is reporting a big increase in sales, but they are not talking about an increase per store. They are just reporting total sales without telling us how many new store are included. So … “meh” to them. But I looked at Shopify’s numbers … and I looked at OmniSend, Nosto, and read reports from Adobe. What follows is a derived set of stats that roughly averages all of them.

  • Average number of store visits — Down 7%

  • Number of Sales per store — Up 2%

  • Total conversion rate — Down 2%

  • Average order value — up 12%

  • Views — roughly 70% mobile and 30% desktop pcs.

  • Sales dollars AND orders both — about 55% mobile and 45% desktop pcs.

  • Conversion rate comparison — 4% on Desktops and 2% on mobile.

Lots of people still search and discover on mobile but BUY on their computer. And these next 2 stats were REALLY interesting:

  • Cyber Monday saw its first ever DECREASE in sales — Down 1.4%

  • “Out of Stock” product messages — Up 168%!

This suggests that those pesky supply chain issues are freak’in real.And remember that the gap between BFCM and Christmas is extra short this year — just 23 days. So the holiday sales numbers this year so far are coming up a bit … short … of expectations.Speaking of short, here’s this week’s teardown.Happy Selling,Zachary

This Week’s Shopify Teardown: Under510.com

Did you know that the average height of a man in the US is about 5’9”? I didn’t until

. Under510 specializes in fashions for men who are of average height and … let’s just say “lower.”

Personally, I am WAY over 6’ tall … when standing in the bed of my pickup truck. Otherwise, let’s just say that I an squarely in the target market of this online business. Their mission statement is spot on:

“AT UNDER 5'10, WE MAKE PROPERLY FITTING CLOTHES AT GREAT PRICES FOR MEN UNDER 5'10.”

Not only is this a clearly-stated mission, but it carves out a niche that is easy to remember and navigate to. It’s a brilliant strategy branding-wise, don’t you think?

The business was founded by Elie Robinson in Long Island New York and is supported by his partners in size — Greg Grinman and Jonathan Glaubach. And the company embraces its … ahem … shortcomings. The blog is even called “The Short Report.” They are a top 12k site in the US, and a top 62k site in the world … and those are really good numbers for a small, independent business like this. They are doing well.

The Shopify Theme That They Use

I am proud of these guys. They probably get a bazillion pitches to build a custom Shopify site, but they use a “normal” premium theme that you can use too. It is a version of the Prestige theme from Maestrooo with some solid but minor customizations and tweaks.

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What they Do Right

There are a TON of temptations for Shopify brands to step outside of their niches and carry a wider range of products. Thee guys resist that temptation. Their product mix is completely focused on their target audience and they let nothing get in the way of that branding identity. Bravo guys.

When you look at the raw automated speed reports, they get failing scores. But this is just not so. The site actually load rather fast and the code is fairly clean with only a few errors. But the email subscription form lightbox delay is running in the wrong place so they automated scanners think that the page is running slow. So, I give them props for “actual” page speed but I have to ding them for not fixing the lightbox delay. They have happy users and customers but the internet bots are cranky.

The product pages are clean and all the sizing and color widgets work really well. It’s not fancy and is actually pretty standard, but it is all there and it works. The content is smart and custom to the product with regard to sizing information and how the products fit the model. Clean, simple, and thorough. There are even nice risk reversal and trust badge icons.

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The checkout process is standard too, but it is well-executed. In my test, 3 Express Checkout options displayed, which is good. They are also localizing with solid geographic detection that calculate shipping — even to exotic locations (I used a VPN to ping the checkout process from 3 different countries).

Love the Home page video “Dating Tips for Short Guys” …. That has to be performing well for them. So, they have their content marketing stuff together.

What Needs Improvement

There is not a lot to criticize here. But I have a few quibbles. For example, the geographic detection is running, but they did not display prices in the local currency. That’s pretty easy to do these days if you are selling internationally. It is also worth mentioning that the SEO could be better and that is likely costing them some free discovery and sales from search. But like I said … this is a solid shop overall.

The Shopify Apps That They Use

  • Klaviyo – Marketing automation.

  • Lucky Orange – Real-time analytics.

  • Digital Window – Performance monitoring.

  • Back in Stock – Inventory notifications.

  • Searchanise – eCommerce search.

  • Stamped – Rating and reviews.

  • Bugsnag – Becoming the hottest code improvement tool in Shopify-land. Seems like all the cool stores are using it these days.

  • ShopifyPay/PayPal/ApplePay – Express payment options.

  • Boomerang – Website performance tool.

  • Flickety – specialized image carousels.

That’s all of the Shopify apps we see right now. Not too many.

Marketing Stuff That They Do

Under510 has a presence on lots of social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. They are running social media ads, but it seems that they rely more on organic social posts and engaged followers. They also run a lot of search ads, and I have put 3 current examples below for your reference.

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We can help your Shopify site reach new heights. 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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