CheckoutWeekly/TaskHusky Curated Newsletter #2235

Going into Labor (Day) … with Shopify

Yo -

Now I feel like a big jerk.

Here am I, working on a Labor Day … AGAIN … trying to inform and entertain all you faithful readers (thanks for that by the way … the “faithful reader part). Got to make sure that your fav newsletter arrives on time tomorrow morning.

Anyway … I’m searching and searching for a Shopify site that has something … ANYTHING to do with the holiday because you folks deserve timely content. And all I keep finding are eCommerce stores with baby clothes and nursing supplies. And when I say “nursing” I’m not talking about, you know, like being a “nurse” and taking care of patients. All the sites I’m finding deal with “nursing” as in feeding babies and personal women parts and stuff.

And so there I am, saying to myself out loud,

“What in the heck do all these baby sites have to do with Labor!?”

Oh ya … so there’s THAT.

Here I am grumbling about we entrepreneurs working on holidays using our computers and I totally miss the whole “Labor / Labor Day” thing.

If I wasn’t so cute and witty all the women readers in the audience would be mad at me right now.

So, I modified my search criteria

— and my attitude —

just a bit and came across a Shopify eCommerce business that is actually named “Labor.” I assume that they are using the word “labor” ironically, because the target audience is famous for being … well, let’s just say that they are famous for NOT being career motivated. But this Shopify business is anything but a slacker. Our analytics indicate that they are a 7-figure seller, and that don’t happen without some hard work.

Let’s meet them.

Happy Selling,

Zach

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: LaborSkateShop.com

James Rewolinski founded Labor Skate Shop in the Lower East Side of Manhattan — between 2 local skate parks. The year was 2012, which means that James has been selling skateboards, accessories, and clothing for a decade. He has 2 physical locations now ever since he opened just across the East River in Brooklyn. Looks like he took his business online in December 2016 when he launched his Shopify store.

I can’t tell if he is running all of his sales through Shopify POS, but I can see that analytics support annual sales of between $1.2 and $1.3 million. That’s some decent volume by anyone’s measure.

The Shopify Theme That They Use

With numbers like those, James obviously knows about business as well as skateboards. Want more proof? James was smart enough to stick with a solid Shopify theme and then has paid as he goes for custom modifications and upgrades.

We can see that he is using the Dawn theme, and you can

.

What They Do Well

The site looks good. The images are perfectly sized and configured — optimized for both desktop and mobile viewing. We are used to giving a TON of corrective advice about how to format images for the perfect balance of speed and quality. We have nothing to teach these guys.

I know, I know … you all get bored with the technical stuff. But the code is immaculate. For cleanliness, speed, external calls … EVERYTHING … this site meets or exceeds ALL of our best practices recommendations — including low app count (see Shopify App section below). Well done LaborSkateShop … well done.

Look at the Main Menu … nothing except finding the products or brands or sale items you want. Great navigation. Everything else is still easy to find in the footer.

I have a love/hate relationship with the product pages.

. The Love part is the responsiveness, minimalist style, and the one-click PayPal express payment option right before your eyes. But ….

What Needs to Be Improved

….

has terrible SEO. I could not find the ALT tags for the images and there is almost zero text or headings. A little bit of effort here might expand the customer base better.

I think that they should add upsells. Seems like an easy thing to tie extra products with similar designs and color themes into product recommendations. But at the same time, James Rewolinski seems to understand his target audience well. Maybe he thinks his market is different? But honorable mention that additional express payment options pop up in the checkout window.

Hmmmm … there is no prompt for email subscribe. There is a form in the footer, but no proactive prompt. Generally, this is a no-no. But then again, I am not a 16 year-old skateboarder living in New York City.

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:

  • Klaviyo — Customer lifecycle management.

  • Bugsnag — The snagger of bugs.

  • ApplePay/ShopPay/PayPal/AmazonPay — Express payments options.

  • Google Ads — Ad network.

OMG … LaborSkateShop has almost NO apps! This is one of the reasons that the site loads SOOOOOOO freak’in fast. And there is one more thing … I normally do not mention it when a site is running CloudFlare CDN, but it is more relevant here. A CDN (Content Delivery Network) stores images and files in many, many locations around the world. When a user accesses a site, the images and files load from the closest point possible. LaborSkateShop has done an exceptional job of optimizing the CloudFlare CDN for image deliver. Someone knows what the heck they are doing.

Marketing Stuff They Do

Noth’in.

Technically, this Shopify store has accounts on

,

, and

. But none of these social platforms is getting much attention. Instagram gets the most love. But it is ibvious that they are NOT relying on social for sales.

Let me give you one further … I can find NO social media ad campaigns, not can I fand any search ads. Zero, zip, nada. And I cannot find any affiliate marketing programs.

They have 2 retail stores and the online shop that is not SEO optimized … AND this business is doing over a million bucks per year.

I read through the small handful of news articles listed on their websites.

. I read how James has focused on the local community of NYC skaters to build the business and loyal following. That’s the magic here. James Rewolinski knows the NYC skaters and cares about them. They are his people. They are his natural market. And they reward him for his attention and loyalty to them.

I have no example ads to show you because there aren’t any … and it’s a beautiful thing. So, here’s a GIF of a skateboarding wiener dog.

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