CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2206

Serve Up Some LOVE ... on Shopify

Yo -  So, like usual I am writing this on Monday. That means that we are exactly 1 week away from Valentine’s Day. The next time you read this newsletter it will be the day AFTER that particular holiday. First piece of advice … not trying to be sexist here, but this is “guy advice.” So, fellow guys … even if she says that you do not need to buy her a gift on Valentine’s Day because … ahem … you HAVE to buy her a gift. Next, being in the Valentine’s mood and all, did you know that there is a Shopify App for Valentine’s Day? No fooling. It’s an app that makes it rain hearts on your Home page with little romantic icons. You can see the demo site running here. This is not an official TaskHusky recommendation or anything, but it’s right there on the App Store. I tried to think of a Shopify store to review this week … something famous …. Something related to the holiday. And then it occurred to me. I said to myself, I said, “Self, you are a sports fan. What is the most romantic sport?” Obviously, the answer is tennis. I mean the score starts out “Love – Love” for goodness sake. And then I thought, who is the most romantic tennis player. Duh! VENUS Williams, right? So, if only there were a tennis related website from Venus Williams on the Shopify platform it would be like an eCommerce miracle for the best Valentine’s Day ever, right? Get ready to celebrate kids.Happy Selling,Zach

This Week’s Shopify Target: EleVenbyVenusWilliams.com

Venus Williams is one of the greatest tennis players of the era. She and her sister Serena won tons of championships playing Doubles and they both won a bunch of single titles too. IN fact, they often end up player each other in the finals. Anyway ….

Venus partnered with national retail chain Steve & Barry’s to create the EleVen fashion line in 2007. The line was delayed by the bankruptcy of her partners, so she retooled and launched on her own in 2012. Even though Venus consistently topped the tennis charts, her Shopify store is a middle-ground player in terms of volume. In addition to a line of fashion-forward tennis and athletic apparel, she has diversified into skin care. In addition to her Shopify site, we found the products 

, on the 

, and inside Facebook and Instagram.

The Shopify Theme They Use

EleVen has deployed one of the most popular themes on Shopify — 

. It’s clean, modern, responsive, and a real winner as far as we are concerned.

What They Do Well

This may sound like a half-hearted compliment, but it’s not. When I say it’s a “simple, straight-forward eComm site that just gets down to business” I mean that in the best way possible. 

They are true to Venus’ brand. This means more than “just” athletic apparel. Many of the styles have the eclectic, vibrant hues and patterns that Venus was famous for wearing on and off the court. This is more of a niche market, but it is authentic to her and likely has a more loyal following.

The product pages make deploy sizing and color selector apps well. They also prominently display PayPal Express payments and AfterPay installment payments. This likely increases the conversions. Once you start checkout ShopPay becomes available, so obviously they prefer PayPal.

On the home page I like their technique for deploying user-generated content but ….

What Needs Improvement

That content rotator displaying all the user generated content is glitchy and takes too long to load. It blinked out on me several times while I was watching and is dinging their speed analytics.

The Shopify Apps They Use

  • Rapleaf — You think that you’ve seen every possible Shopify app and then you see another one you haven’t seen before. It’s a marketing automation app for engagement.

  • LiveRamp — CRM for retargeting mostly.

  • Klaviyo — Customer lifecycle management with is just a fancy way of saying marketing automation.

  • Mixpanel — Basically an analytics tool that draws from multiple sources  to optimize workflow.

  • Attentive — Mobile messaging.

  • PayPal/ShopPay — Express payment options (GooglePay is in the code, but not displayed, which is interesting).

  • Lotame Crowd Control — Social media targeting.

  • Digital Window — Performance marketing solutions.

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

  • Stamped — Customer ratings and reviews.

  • Zemanta — Blog composing tool.

  • ShareThis — Instant sharing app.

  • AfterPay — Installment payment option.

  • Reffersion — Affiliate tracking app.

  • AWIN — ANOTHER affiliate marketing solutions.

  • DoubleClick — Ad network.

  • Adstir — ANOTHER ad network.

  • Rubicon — Advertising optimization.

  • Pubmatic — ANOTHER ad optimizing solution.

  • Criteo — Behavioral targeting.

  • Drawbridge — ANOTHER targeting app.

  • eXelate — ANOTHER behavioral targeting analytics app.

  • Outbrain — Content engagement.

  • TripleLift — Advertising system.

  • The Trade Desk — ANOTHER advertising app.

This list is TOO long with TONS of duplicate functionality.

Let me tell you how this happens folks.

You have a webmaster or IT person playing and trying out lots of new apps, but that IT guy is not uninstalling the apps that they decide to not use. This send free data to outside servers, is a persistent security risk. And it slows down the website a lot, and therefore decreasing search ranking.

Marketing Stuff They Do

It’s pretty clear that EleVen by Venus Williams replies on a 4-part marketing strategy. Affiliate marketing, Amazon discovery, social media ads, and paid search. Here are three samples of their social ads and search ads for your inspiration.

Sponsored

Let’s play doubles and serve up a winner together. If you need help making Shopify website tweaks or fixing those little nagging things on your Shopify store, let’s get stuff done.