CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2203

We’ll Pump [clap] You Up ... on Shopify

Today is January 18th. Remember last week when I was jabbering on and on about holidays? Well … today ain’t one. Seriously … I can’t find a single place in the world that celebrates January 18th for any reason what-so-ever. Yesterday — of course — was Martin Luther King Day. That’s cool, and means a lot more than just a 3-day weekend. But today … today ain’t noth’in. Well, that’s not entirely true. I found this really really bad-looking website that says today is a bunch of stuff, including Winnie the Pooh Day and National Gourmet Coffee Day. How do you go about getting some random-butt day designated National Gourmet Coffee Day? There’s got to be a campaign contribution and greasy politician in that process somewhere. But we are two weeks into the New Year, so I say that today’s the day all the New Year’s resolutions die a lonely death of regret and neglect. Speaking of regret and neglect … The Old Guy got back in the office after a week of drinking Tiki Cocktails, found out it was National Gourmet Coffee Day, and headed back out the door to grab a latté.  Me … I’m sticking to my goals, building a kick-butt business helping entrepreneurs like you make kick-butt Shopify websites and sticking to my exercise routine. No joke. Started stepping away from the computer to get a little exercise a few years ago, lost a bunch of weight, and am feeling good. Some of my shorts are too baggy now — which is super-cool — so I looked for a Shopify site to buy some new workout gear.  Found one. Great stuff to sell, but they need me … professionally. So, let’s see how we can help, shall we?Happy Selling,Zach

This Week’s Shopify Target: Vanquish Fitness

Vanquish Fitness was created in 2015 by school chums Oliver Maloney and Ruben O’Brian. As you might expect, they sell fitness gear … shorts, tanks, hoodies, sweats … that kind of stuff. They’re based in London so when they are working out they probably say things like “pip pip cheerio!” and “top ‘o the morning to you guv’ner!” 

They are growing so fast that they kind of snuck up on me. They jumped up to become the #26 site on Shopify with a 10k Alexa rank … and those are serious numbers. And since they are so successful, naturally Amazon let’s internet pirates rip them off 

 and 

 — bastards.

The Theme They Use

Happy to see this … an up-and-coming Shopify site doing serious sales while using a premium theme that anyone can buy. Sure, they have done quite a bit of customization and tweaking … that’s what you need to do sometimes. But they did not go all crazy and spend tens of thousands on a custom theme.

The theme they use is a modified version of Turbo from Out-of-the-Sandbox. Turbo is one of the perpetually most popular themes in the Shopify ecosystem. 

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But just thinking about all that working out and exercising and stuff makes me tired.

What They Do Well

I like the product pages. Clean, simple, efficient … but also with nice little trust badges and decent content. The images even have decent ALT tags, so you know they got some SEO game going on. And the image gallery clicks across well.

They are using ClearPay for their installment payment option. Installment payments work really well with this demographic. I also note … as I am wont to do … that they make good use of Express Payment options. GooglePay, ShopPay, and PayPal displayed for me properly and this, I trust, helps with conversions nicely.

What Needs Improvement

There is no doubt that they are focused on social media. But 

 about mid-way down the page – under “Latest From @VQFIT.” It is a freak’in mess. Not only does it sometimes fail to load all the images – especially on Safari – but it is putting written content above the images sometimes and below the images other times and loading images without fixing their scale consistently. Whatever app that it … it’s broken.

The website smells of testosterone and Old Spice.

The Shopify Apps They Use

  • Hotjar — Visitor heatmaps … lets you see into behavior.

  • Nosto — Personalization.

  • Loyalty Lion — Custmer loyalty program.

  • Preact — customer support.

  • Zendesk — More customer support.

  • Bugsnag — The hottest code error app going these days.

  • YotPo — The Po of Yots … actually, it’s a way for customers to write reviews and such.

  • POWr — Social media galleries … is this the app that is so ugly on the page?

  • Kiwi Sizing — a clothes sizing plugin. And it looks pretty good here.

  • AfterPay and Clearpay — Installment payment options.

  • PayPal/GooglePay/ShopPay/ApplePay — Express Payment Options.

  • Klarna — Mobile checkout.

  • Boomerang – Website performance measurement.

That’s only 13 apps … not bad.

Marketing Stuff They Do

Vanquish Fitness is an ad machine. I found dozens and dozens of social media and search ads running in real time. This is where they spend their marketing dollars.

I have included 3 examples of search ads and 3 examples of current social media campaigns for your enlightenment and inspiration … and to make us all feel a little out of shape.

Sponsored

We’re here to Pump [clap] Up Your Shopify Site! We can help. 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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