CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2215

Solving for the Date … On Shopify

Yo - Calendars are funny.In the United States and most of the western world we use what’s called the “Gregorian Calendar.” Why? Because Pope Gregory said so, that’s why. And he famously wrote that memo in 1582 which is like 500 years before I was born and he didn’t leave me a note explaining the big change.But there are dozens of calendar systems still in use today which is why we have the Chinese New Yew and the Hebrew New Year and the Orthodox New Year and so on. Heck, India alone has 9 different New Year’s thingies. So, why is your good buddy Zach talking about calendars? It’s because something happened last weekend that happens only once every 30 years or so … Easter, Passover, and Ramadan all occurred at the same time. That’s pretty cool. It’s like an alignment of the religious spheres … a syzygy, to be precise (look it up). No matter what you celebrated this last weekend, I hope it was a good one.But all that thinking about calendars and holidays made me look ahead a few weeks. Did you know Mother’s Day is coming up on May 8th? Well, our Shopify teardown target this week knows it. In fact, they’re already promoting Mother’s Day specials and gifts right now — and you should be too. And it just so happens that they specialize in selling calendars … a LOT of them.I wonder if they sell a calendar listing Maithili New Year Aakhar Bochhor? Let’s find out.Happy Selling,Zach

You Can Be Next!

Well, not “you” exactly. Who wants to get a newsletter about ”you,” right? But if you have a Shopify site and want that site to be front and center in an upcoming TaskHusky Checkout Weekly newsletter this is kind of cool.

Here’s the deal … we have spent the last few years focused on the larger Shopify stores. That’s great and all, but I thought it would be cool to give a few “normal” sites a load of free advice and such. And I will do just that. But keep in mind that I tell marginally humorous jokes and poke fun at everything. So, well, you get the idea.

Just reply to this email and say

“Tear me down Zach!”

and I’ll put you on the list for an upcoming issue.

This Week’s Shopify Audit Target: CalendarClub.ca

CalendarClub has their head office in Paris … Paris, Ontario, Canada. They opened their first real-world retail store nearly 30 years ago. They are the largest retailer of calendars and puzzles in Canada. Have you ever gone to the mall during the holiday season and seen those pop-up stores that open in late October and then sell the living daylights out of calendars until they close up in the first week of January?

These guys do that. In fact, each year they open upwards of 250 of those seasonal shops in addition to selling tons of calendars, puzzles, games, and toys all year long through their online shop. Looks like the online store was started in about 2013 or so along with their social media accounts.

And no, the website does not have any products that mention the New Year’s celebration of southern Tibet. But they do have a

, so good on them.

The Shopify Theme That They Use

As successful as these guys are – they sell a sh*t-load of calendars every year – they are also smart and savvy. They use a nice, standard premium theme — Showtime from Mile High Themes. Specifically, they use the FurnishTime variant. This theme is especially good when you have serval brands and product types.

.

What They Do Well

Since they have used a high-quality premium theme and resisted the temptation to junk it up, it is super responsive. The site looks great and is super-easy to navigate on mobile.

. We do not have access to their internal analytics, but I’ll bet they close a lot of deals on cell phones.

They sell a

and that made me laugh.

The shopping cart is super clean and simple too, but you can see the Express payment options clear as day with big, bold buttons. Buying is a snap.

SEO is decent, but there a little more target content and enhanced alt tags would get them a bunch more free traffic.

What Needs to Be Improved

The shopping cart is actually just a little bit too simple. They are not taking advantage of up-sell and add-ons. Seems like an easy miss.

You know … there are a few apps that allow Shopify stores to ship to multiple locations in a single order. This kind of thing is super valuable for stores that specialize in selling gifts. One example is

. CalendarClub should take a look and see if that’s a good fit.

The Shopify Apps They Use

We used our top-secret Shopify scanning tools to determine that this site is using the following apps and plugins:

Are you paying attention? That’s 12 apps.

Marketing Stuff They Do

CalendarClub has 3 social media accounts:

,

, and

. They are very active on Facebook, somewhat less active on Instagram, and post only occasionally on LinkedIn. It’s interesting that they do LinkedIn at all … most merchants forget all about it, but they shouldn’t. I imagine that calendars as business gifts during the holidays is big business.

They do the biggest chunk of the business every year – by FAR – during the holidays. So, they just are not running a lot of ads right now. I was able to find only 1 social media ad and a handful of search ads which I have included below for your inspiration.

Sponsored

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