CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2224

Bacon … on Shopify

Yo -

Did you have a good holiday weekend? There were a couple of holidays over the last few days. Remember how last week we talked about Father’s Day? Well, that was Sunday. And I want to take a moment and talk about the greatest of all Father’s Day traditions – making breakfast for Dad.

When you’re a kid, you make a big mess and forget to put the eggs in the pancake batter and such, but Dad smiles and thanks you warmly before you go out to play and Mom has to pump his stomach and hose-down the kitchen because, well …

when you're a little kid you suck at making just about everything.

This year, I figured I’m a fully grown man-child in his 30s … I can handle breakfast rather well these days. At least that’s what I thought. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first we need to talk about mankind’s favorite breakfast food.

If we can, for the moment, let’s agree to stipulate that

bacon is perhaps the pinnacle achievement of civilization

. In the march from hunter-gather tribes to the bronze age and relentlessly up through the information age, bacon ranks right up there with the wheel, the internet, and Elvis Presley … I think even Elvis himself would agree. At least he 1970s Elvis would.

BUT … prepared by conventional pan-fried means, bacon is an uneven splattered mess accompanied by a series of micro 3rd-degree burns and the heartache of undercooked curls. I have lived my 30-something years under the impression this was some form of necessary penance — the price one must pay, if you will — for

enjoying the least kosher of man’s guilty pleasures.

So, there I am at Dad’s place preparing to make him a Father’s Day breakfast feast … I have the heavy cast iron skillet, the splatter screen, a face shield, flame retardant gloves, and an aloe plant to soothe the inevitable carnage to my forearms of popping bacon lava drops.

Dad walks in, sees what I’m up to and says,

“There’s a better way to do that son.”

He pulls out a cookie sheet, some parchment paper, lays the bacon out and puts it in the oven. 20 minutes later it comes out perfectly crisp and even with no muss or fuss.

Behold … my eyes have been opened. Why didn’t someone tell me about this crap like my whole lifetime ago? Anyway … it’s life-changing and you should try it. If you are a vegan, try it on some tofu or something … or don’t. Anyway …

.

Here I am, mid-30s and a technical modern man of the internet age and Dad's still teaching me. I guess all a man really needs is his Dad, some bacon, and his dog …

unless my girlfriend is reading this, in which case it’s girlfriend first, then all that other stuff.

But while I was thinking about my dog and bacon with a warm feeling inside, it reminded me of a Shopify website that is both Bacon and Dog adjacent. Sound like kismet to me.

Let’s meet this week’s Shopify teardown target.

Happy Selling,

Zach

We can teach your Shopify site to behave in front of thousands of readers. 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. 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: CliveAndBacon.com

Clive and Bacon was founded by

in 2015 in Sacramento, California. Tina was a happy-go-lucky graphic designer designing happy-go-lucky graphics. She had a goofy standard poodle named

and started hand sewing custom neckerchiefs for Peanut to “make a statement” because … well, I supposed that’s what you do.

Anyway, folks liked ‘em, she started selling them and opened her Shopify storefront. Tina still makes and sells the neckerchiefs, but they have expanded to a range of dog accessories. I looked at the Shopify rankings and this site is still ranked down around 500k. But it has risen by nearly 90k in the last few months.

This is REALLY good traffic growth.

No clue how Tina came up with the name Clive and Bacon though …

seems like there’s got to be a story behind that.

The Shopify Theme That They Use

Tina was smart. The Clive and Bacon site is using a premium Shopify theme and has focused on maximizing it and making it look good. Specifically, they are using the Venue theme by developers Safe As Milk. This theme comes in four variants, and it looks like they are using the “Weekend” variant.

if you want to see it for yourself.

What They Do Well

There is a LOT to like about this Shopify site. First, the site stays on brand and that brand does not take itself too seriously. It is all about fun and cute and dog-loving. The motto “Products that make you smile” repeats several times on the site.

Product mix is solid too and also on-brand. No distractions … fun – cute – dog-loving.

Pricing is solid … I did a little comparison shopping and they are staying competitive enough for their mid-market demographic.

They are running a feed of social proof testimonials on the home page. It works.

. Note that even at this price point they are taking advantage of an installment payment app – AfterPay. Sure, there is a cost. But there are also more conversions. This is more effective as your price point climbs, but nice to see them experimenting with it here. Also note the sizing information and customization option. And I like the product suggestive selling bar of “You Might Also Like” products.

During my test purchase the shopping cart worked well and there were 3 Express Payment options (new customers LOVE this). There is a funky logo at the top of the checkout screens. This is a simple fix …. Tina, call me!

What Needs to Be Improved

Any criticisms would be nit-picking. Is it as sophisticated as the big brands? No. Doesn’t have to be. And my scale of site critique slides up and down. No one should expect Kylie Cosmetics-level sophistication from a Mom-and-Pop operation. You take small businesses where they are and evaluate them there.

Clive and Bacon are doing a good job and it shows in their traffic numbers.

That said, they do have a common problem that a LOT of newer Shopify merchants suffer from. App bloat. They have duplicate apps running simultaneously.

See the next section for details.

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:

  • Bold Commerce — Conversion optimization.

  • Jilt — Cart abandonment app.

  • Klaviyo — Customer lifecycle management.

  • Care Cart — Another cart abandonment tool?

  • Hotjar — User heatmap.

  • Loyalty Lion — Customer loyalty program.

  • Smile.io — Another loyalty app?

  • Bugsnag — When there are little bugs, in your code no good. Who ya gonna call?

  • Judge Me — Customer reviews.

  • Photoswipe — Responsive image gallery.

  • Imgix — Image optimizer.

  • AfterPay — Installment payment option.

  • PayPal /AmazonPay/ApplePay/GooglePay — All this big express payment options.

  • Magnific Popup — Responsive lightbox.

  • DoubleClick — Ad network.

  • GoAffPro — Affiliate marketing.

They are a little heavy on the apps for a small site. And NOTE that they have a few doubled-up apps. They are running at least 2 Cart Abandonment apps and 2 customer loyalty apps. Most likely they tried different apps and never properly uninstalled the old one. This is a rookie error and is slowing down their site.

Marketing Stuff They Do

Clive and Bacon has active social media sites running on

,

, and

. All are well-maintained with nice follower counts and views. I do not have visibility to see any social media ads running at this time, and that surprises me. And I also did not find any paid search ads.

They do have an active email capture campaign that is well done, retargeting ads, affiliate marketing to let other do the selling for them, and a few other bits.

But the BIG deal is the SEO. This site is absolutely CRUSHING it on certain SEO keyword sets like “Custom dog bandana,” “funny dog bandana,” and several more. So, I have no ads to show you here.

But if you are trying to get some SEO traffic on your Shopify site, spend a little time looking at Clive and Bacon.

Sponsored

Let us help you make it a good dog. If you need help making Shopify website tweaks or fixing those little nagging things on your Shopify store, let’s get stuff done.