CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2221

Feel the Need, the Need for Speed … on Shopify

Yo - When you read this it will be the day after Memorial Day. Of course, that means that I am writing it on Memorial Day.Memorial Day is kind of a big deal. So, let me get one thing straight right now … if you, your family, or friends have sacrificed for your country, I am thinking of you. I like to kid around about a lot of things … well, I like to kid around about darned near everything. But this is an exception. Let me just say “thanks.”

Now, I got a question for you.

Do you think it was a coincidence

that the new Top Gun Maverick film was released on Memorial Day weekend? Had to be a total accident, right?

Don’t get be wrong … sure, Tom Cruise is bat-sh#7 CRAZY, but that so-and-so makes him some good movies. And he is famously not a tall guy. Various reports place him at between 5’5” an 5’7” … there is even an article called “

” which is just funny as heck (number 11 is “Brittney Spears Wearing a Top Hat”).

I am not one to judge. It has been suggested on rare occasions that I myself may be consider by some insensitive people as “height challenged” … but that was said by the Old Guy in the office who’s a freakish 6’3” and covered in fur. He’s like a Shopify content-writing, coffee-drinking Bigfoot. But that’s beside the point.

The point is that Tom Cruise is a rich, famous, eccentric wing-nut who makes good movies and every red-blooded male who saw the original Top Gun movie wanted to fly fighter jets. Can you believe that original movie came out 36 years ago? That was 1986! I wasn’t even ALIVE when it came out. Damn.

Anyway … the sequel premiered Friday and it looks like the movie is going to do nearly $150 million in domestic box office and

just this weekend. So, no doubt a new generation of movie-goers will now want to buy a stylish flight jacket and a pair of RayBan Aviator sunglass.

And it just so happens that I know a Shopify website that specializes in flight and bomber jackets … and they have since 1959. Let’s meet them, shall we?

Let’s get to it.

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 Teardown Target: AlphaIndustries

Alpha Industries is a rare clothing company that was born in the 1950’s, survived Disco, and then successfully transitioned into a modern eCommerce company.

In 1959 they were commissioned by the US Department of Defense to create jackets and parkas for the US Military. Not only have they kept heroes warm, the jackets have been worn in movies and in “real life” by tons of celebrities — like Steve McQueen and, well … like

. You can

.

The Shopify Theme That They Use

Fortunately, the good folks at Alpha Industries spend their money making great products … not overpaying for unnecessary stuff like a custom theme. It looks like they have a tweaked version of the Warehouse theme from Maestroo. Good choice. It’s a great theme that was designed to support large SKQ catalogs and drop-shippers.

You can take a

here. But if you are like me, you will spend an hour

.

What They Do Well

Well, this is one of those interesting reviews … there is a LOT to like about this website. But there is also not a lot to love. This is a compliment ...

basic competence is a good thing

.

When a site gets too fancy-dancy the function of the site distracts from the products. Sure, sometimes a web developer and designer execute things so well that a site has amazing interaction and animations that appear seamlessly and disappear into the background while the products get the spotlight …

but that’s rare

. I can’t tell you how many times at a Shopify development gathering someone tells us all about the cool site they saw and all the amazing fiddly things the code does. But then you ask them about the products and they have no idea.

On the AlphaIndustries Shopify site, all you see are the products and intuitive navigation to take you exactly where you want to go. If every Shopify site did that, there would be a lot more rich Shopify entrepreneurs.

What Needs to Be Improved

This site is WAY too heavy. And I am NOT just talking about images here, folks. At the time of my tests, the color selector and available sizes on product pages were taking a full 5 to 7 seconds to load and making the pages jump around. I pinged the servers to ensure that there were no network ltency errors … nope. The apps and databases were just crapping out. Maybe the success of Top Gun Maverick has a million new visitors trying to look like Tom Cruise … but not this time IMHO.

And clicking on different color options caused everything to keep resetting … each time with a delay and page shift.

This is fixable stuff people

.

AfterPay (installment payments) and Express checkout options were all available, though they need to be moved up the flow in order to improve conversions. You can put the Express payment stuff early in the cart.

They added 2 extra clicks before I get to the 1-click checkout

… which makes no sense.

The Shopify Apps They Use

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

  • Klaviyo — Email Marketing & SMS

  • Curalate — Image analytics

  • Attentive — Mobile messaging

  • Nosto — Personalized shopping experiences

  • Visual Website Optimizer — A/B testing

  • Lucky Orange — Real-time analytics

  • Loggly — Log-based analytics for app performance

  • Woopra — This was a new one on me … a specialized real-time analytics engine

  • Yahoo Dot — I have NEVER seen any Shopify community project associated in any way with anything “Yahoo” before. Looks like an advertising thingy.

  • Riskified — Fraud prevention

  • Yandex Metrika — The description says “A free Russian tool ….” What could go wrong, right? This one analyzes user behavior … I guess so Putin knows what your customers are buying.

  • New Relic — analytics dashboard

  • Zendesk — Customer service app

  • Algolia — Website search

  • Bugsnag — The coding helper that all the cool sites are using these days

  • Weglot — Translation via API automation

  • AddShoppers — Network effect marketing tool

  • Yotpo — 100% certified cage-free Yots …. Naw, it’s a customer review app

  • There is a Russian translation thing imbedded in the code. Don’t know what that’s all about. I’ve seen the word “Russia” twice in the app list now which is freak’in strange

  • PayPal/ShopPay/ApplePay — Express payment options

  • Socket.io — Cross-browser compatibility

  • Tadpad — Engagement and tracking of customers across platforms

  • Impact — Ad optimization

That’s 23 apps and widgets right there … too many. And I am certain that all the apps are not being detected. That’s right … they have a bunch more. Like I said, this site is WAY too heavy.

Marketing Stuff They Do

These guys do EVERYTHING on the advertising and marketing side. Sure, they have their online Shopify store … obviously. But they have a full-blown

too. They also run a lot of search ads (examples below) and they have a solid social media presence — organic and paid — across

,

,

,

, and

.

As I said, they are running a TON of ads on search and social. 3 examples of each are displayed below for your inspiration.

Sponsored

Yes, I am referencing the

.

Let us help you kick in the afterburners. If you need help making Shopify website tweaks or fixing those little nagging things on your Shopify store, let’s get stuff done.