CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2148

Hey *|FNAME|* — Flipping the Bird … on Shopify

Hello —

I figured something out. So, you know how when you use that certain gesture … the upraised middle finger universally understood everywhere? Well, that’s called “flipping the bird,” and now I know why.  It just HAD to be a guy …. just some normal everyday guy like me, let’s say. And let’s just say hypothetically that this normal everyday guy has just washed his shiny pickup truck and paid extra for the spray wax because he’s feeling good about life. And then this normal, mild-mannered truck-driving technology guy just happens to park his newly washed and waxed Chevy under the wrong tree. And I … um, this other guy could swear that it sounded like those darn birds were laughing at me … I mean him. This HAD to be the way the whole things happened. And that, dear friends, is why the rude gesture is called “flipping the bird” to this very day. Not all birds are evil. I’ve never had a hummingbird do anything but fly backwards and hum. But pigeons and those black mynah birds … what could they possibly be eating that could transform into that demonic car-staining super-glue? Anyway … like I said, not all birds are evil. Some birds are just fine … the non-pooping-on-your-truck kind are just fine. But while we’re on the topic, AllBirds is the opposite of evil. They are a true Shopify success story. Let’s take a look at their website and see if there is any evil to be found. Here’s this week’s Shopify teardown.Happy Selling,Zachary

This Week’s Shopify Target: AllBirds.com

AllBirds was founded by New Zealander Tim Brown and an engineer named Joey Zwillinger in 2016. They started making shoes from wool. This wasn’t an accident. A few years earlier Tim had received a research grant from the New Zealand wool industry to engineer a sneaker. Once he had that figured out, he used a kickstarter campaign to fund the company as a startup and get the sneaker to market. That doesn’t sound like it would be something revolutionary, but turns out it was.

Last year they sold more than $216 million worth of their wool sneakers. In fact, the company just went public on November 3

of this year. They sell through their company website, have physical retail locations in New Zealand, the US, The UK, the EU, China, Japan, and South Korea. They do special partnership “limited edition” releases with Nordstrom, Adidas, and others too. I did not find them on Amazon, but Amazon is letting folks rip them off and do that stalker-SEO crap like they do. I swear … Amazon is the crapping pigeon of eCommerce.

And oh … I had to look long and hard to discover that the name “AllBirds” is a reference to the fact that New Zealand has very few native species of mammals and reptiles … the animal life is nearly “all birds.” OK … whatever.

The Shopify Theme That They Use

Ooooooo …. another custom theme. Whatever. They should have used the Drop Theme.

Speaking of the Drop Theme ….

You know how all the hip and trendy stores are doing special releases and timed product launches? Well, they call those “drops” and it can be a great way to build anthusiasm for a new product. Well, our good friends at We Are Underground have built a theme that has this functionality built in. And you know what … it’s pretty darn cool.

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They even named it “Drop.” They’re just smart that way.

What They Did Good

The product pages are pretty slick.

. There are plenty of images and even a video snip. The color selector works really well and feels high-end. And the content from those product pages is on the mobile experience as well, but it’s laid out better for mobile. They really thought this out. Makes me want to dial back my criticism of their bazillion dollars they spent on a custom theme.

The checkout process works well, speeding the visitor to conversion. And there are plenty of the right express payment options.

The images and video snips are well shot and professional. They are selling on their looks … and that likely works for them.

What Needs to Be Improved

They rely a LOT on ads, as we will see down below. But they neglect many aspects of SEO that could get them some “free” traffic. And part of that is the abysmally slow page speed. When I ran their pages through Google Page Speed Insights, the response was not eve a score. Google simply says “Failed.” That’s harsh, even for Google. They also skimp on the custom content for each product, making each text feel generic … because it is.

The Shopify Apps That They Use

  • Simon Data — This is new one on me. It calls itself a “performance marketing platform.”

  • Yotta — Customer experience optimization through A/B testing.

  • Interable — User segmentation and more A/B testing.

  • Hotjar — heatmaps and user stats.

  • GRIN — Influencer marketing app.

  • Dynamic Yield — Automated conversion optimization.

  • Findify — Personalized search.

  • RudderStack — Customer data pipeline? What the heck?

  • CleverTap — Behavioral analytics.

  • Mizpanel — Optimizing funnels and work-flows.

  • Namogoo — I havce no idea what this does. The description says “Technology to win back stolen online revenue.”

  • FullStory — Customer experience.

  • DataDog — Cloud monitoring application.

  • Branch — Increased engagement on mobile.

  • DoubleClick — Ad network.

  • Algolia — Search API

  • Okta — Identity management.

  • Yotpo — For the collection of yots …. Just kidding. It’s a social reviews widget.

  • AmazonPay/ShopPay/PayPal/ApplePay — Express payment options.

  • Rubicon Project — Advertizing optimization.

  • Taboola — Content curation.

  • The Trade Desk — Data-driven marketing.

  • LiveIntent — Email advertising.

  • OutBrain — Content engagement.

  • Podisghts — Advertizing Tool.

  • Impact — Optimizing paid marketing campaigns.

OK, that is a terribly-long list of apps. Many of them do the same thing. It’s like they were experimenting with apps and never uninstalled the old ones. No wonder this page is being marked as “Failed” by Google. All those apps take FOREVER. To fully load.

Marketing Stuff That They Do

AllBirds has an active social media presence on

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,

, and

. But man … they sure buy a TON of ads on Facebook. They also buy a TON of search ads. There’s no way I can show you all of them here, so I am putting 3 of each below for your reference and inspiration.

Sponsored

Is your Shopify site just sitting on its perch? 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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