CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2207

Trying NOT to be Bitter ... on Shopify

Yo - Don’t worry … I’m not going to talk about football again. I mean, just because the Rams stole the quarterback – our quarterback – from the Detroit Lions and then go on to win the Super Bowl. So, no … I’m not bitter. Especially since our Lions won their fair share of Super Bowls … wait, let me look that up … never times and haven’t even won a playoff game in my adult lifetime.So, no … I will not talk about football this time.But as long as I’m not talking about football let me just say that tempering my deeply grumpy demeanor this morning is that Matthew Stoddard – the FORMER Lions quarterback who left us behind like a sack of moldy bread – well, Matthew is a decent guy with a great family and story. So, good on him.But I’m still glad that we’re not going to talk about football today.I don’t know why, but I went out and found this little micro business Shopify store to review today. For some reason it just seemed like the right thing to do this week.Happy Selling,Zach

This Week’s Shopify Teardown Target: TheBitterHousewife.com

Not only is Genevieve Brazelton the co-founder of The Bitter Housewife, but she is a serial entrepreneur with lot of marketing experience out side of the bitter realms too. If you check out her LinkedIn profile you’ll see that she has worked on a string of small businesses and served as the marketing go-to for them. She started her bitter little business selling bitters and bitters-infused beverages in Portland, Oregon, back in 2012.

The Bitter Housewife is ranked in the Top 500 of all Shopify stores, so they are a smaller-ish but successful operation and if Genevieve’s profile pic is any indication, she is happy with what she is doing – doesn’t look bitter at all.

She must not be from Detroit.

The Shopify Theme That They Use

If you looked at the site, you know that it looks pretty good, right? This is the power of consistent photography, focused branding style, and relatively minor development tweaks applied to a basic Shopify theme from Shopify. This is the Dawn theme … and it’s a FREE theme. This is a testament to solid best practices applies to maximize a FREE resource. I love to see it.

Things They Do Well

It is worth repeating again that what makes this site look as good as it does without spending a fortune is the tireless commitment to great photography and brand style. The site looks cohesive and tight. So, they spent zero to little on the theme and deployed that cash to content and minor development tweaks. I say it’s worth it.

Take a look at

. It’s clean and tight. I can see the AfterPay link clearly for installment payments and the PayPal Express payment option is clear as day. Do you like cocktails? I find that I have been drinking considerably more since Super Bowl Sunday. And even if I was deeply steeped in drowning my gridiron sorrows I could still stumble my way to a one-click purchase of

.

I am making some jokes here folks, but pay attention.

You know what … in all of the hundreds of reviews I’ve done, this is the first real in-the-live deployment of FACEBOOK Pay I’ve ever seen. Sure, Zuckerberg still sucks and his also-ran keeping up with the Apples strategy is lame as crap, but The Bitter Housewife has five Express Payment options displayed.

Things that Should Be Better

Well,

, but I can’t find where on their site that they link to it. That’s just weird.

And normally we have a marketing section in these emails. But our analytics tools do not detect any search ads running right now. They are running some ads on social media, but I do these review from anonymous browsers to get clean speed and SEO readings and so they are blocking me from seeing those social ads. This might be because The Bitter Housewife sell products used to make flavorful adult beverages, so the screening filters can’t see me, so I can’t see the ads. I’ll call this one a wash.

The Apps that The Use

  • Klaviyo – Customer lifecycle marketing.

  • Preact – Customer support.

  • Closeby – Store locator for retail channels.

  • Okendo – Customer reviews.

  • Bugsnag – that app that snag code bugs in themes, sites, and other app deployments. All the cool kids are using it these days.

  • Recharge – Subscription payments.

  • AmazonPay/ShopifyPay/PayPal/GooglePay … AND FACEBOOKPay – Express payment options.

  • Flickity – Touch responsive image carousels.

  • Fancybox – Basically a “fancy” lightbox for popups.

That’s a tight little grouping of apps. Not too many. I do not see a lot of marketing optimization apps though. But this is in keeping with everything else they do … clean and tight for the win.

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