Hello there, movie fans!

Do you go out to the movies anymore? Me … not so much. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a social butterfly … what with the bowling and weekend-warrior sports and whatnot. Basically anything that cannot be adequately enjoyed on my premium flat-screen TV or computer, I go out. But with Prime Video, Sling TV, HBO Max, and all the rest … there are 57 bazillion things available for streaming, so why pay for a cinema ticket?

There are a few exceptions. Last year when Pete “Maverick” Mitchel returned to the big screen to trigger supersonic 80’s nostalgia in the Top Gun Sequel, I was first in line. Ride into the Danger Zone … that’s just how your ‘ol buddy Zach rolls.

The point is, it takes a blockbuster draw of testosterone-fueled jet fighters and clever repartee to pull me away from the plasma screen in my den these days. But it seems that there are plenty of folks out there whose movie-going standards are not as high as mine.

This last weekend, the new live-action Barbie film pulled in a cool $188 million in US fiat currency. That means that a LOT of you went to see it. And holy-freak’in-guacamole … the marketing geniuses at Warner Brothers Pictures have barraged social media with pink plastic promotion perfectly positioned to prompt profitable purchasing of movie tickets. Seems like you just can’t escape the Barbie pink-PR tidal wave.

Sure … Margot Robbie as “lead Barbie” is easy on the eyes and all. But there are no fewer than eleven Barbies, four Kens, and enough pink on screen to cause a seizure. But … $188 million in three days … that does not suck.

Everywhere I look, there’s Barbie this and Barbie that. Let me predict your future … you are gonna see blazing pink hues of taffeta through your doorbell-camera this year on Halloween. It’s a Barbie world, evidently.

I know what you’re thinking now … you’re thinking that there are probably plenty of Shopify sites bathed liberally in pink. And you are correct. Let’s have a look at one, shall we?

Happy Selling,
Zach

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Shopify Teardown Target of the Week: TheDollTailor.com

So, here’s the thing … my analytics suggest that TheDollTailor — a site specializing in aftermarket Barbie clothes — pulls in more than $1.2 million in annual sales.

Well … my analytics tools are POWERFUL things. But you what data point I do NOT wan to pull on this website? I totally do NOT what to know how many of the site’s loyal customer base are male middle-aged middle-managers at the DMV. I do not want to know that statistic because any number greater than zero is disturbing and I strongly suspect that the number is greater than zero.

Anyway … can you imagine … this Barbie Doll Bikini costs about as much as bikini for a real live actual woman-person. Not that I have been looking at bikini’s or anything … just say’in. But that’s not the point. The point is that there are obviously thousands of people for whom ensuring that their Barbie dolls are clothed in the most trendy attire is a pursuit worthy of serious investment capital. And I’m thinking that the success of the new Barbie film is going to be a boost for business.

And this site did not exist — on Shopify or any other online platform — prior to 2021. So, they’ve gone from zero to 9-figures in just two years by finding a niche and committing fully to it. Good for them.

The Shopify Theme That They Use

You’ve heard us mention before that one of the most popular Shopify themes ever in the history of Shopify-dom was the Debut theme. But you have also heard us mention that the theme is no longer available. Shopify updated some code os some-such and did not want any new stores using a few of the older themes that did not support their sticky-greedy … I mean, they discontinued themes that were not in alignment with current technology.

Existing shops like TheDollTailor can continue to use it for now. But eventually all those stores will have to upgrade? … side-grade? … heck, they’re have to change themes.

Stuff They Do Well

See all the ugly text at the top of this Collections page? That’s for SEO. Now … there a LOT of better ways to do this than that big ugly block of text with all of the typos and such. But the point is that they are at least SEO aware and doing something. And sure enough, in an organic Google search for “Barbie Doll Clothes” the are in position 11, just behind Mattel and Walmart and all the crappy paid search ads.

The product pages are clunky, but they are solid business. Note the oversized express payment options, solid camera work, customer reviews featured, and decent SEO on this page. They use SEO, affiliates, some email, and earned media attention as their marketing strategy. Obviously this could be improved, but it is working.

The checkout process is standard, but competent. It still surprises me how many stores mess up on checkout.

Stuff That Needs Improvement

Home page listed on the main navigation … that is just a waste of space.

This site has some slowness, and it’s not because of the apps (see below). Lots of image issues, from bad formatting for performance to loading too many and in the wrong order. All this is easily fixed.

Zach-o-meter Score

Not bad … but lots of EASY room for improvement. So, let’s say a Zach-o-meter score of 6.5 out of 10.

The Shopify Apps They Use

As usual, we used our super-duper top secret Shopify website analysis tools to peek under the hood and see what apps they are running on the site. Take a look. If you like what you see on their site you may want to look into the apps that they are using too.

• Secomapp — Conversion optimization.

• BON Loyalty — Rewards app.

• Bugsnag — This is the code cleaning tool of champions these days.

• JudgeMe — Reviews.

• ShopifyPay/ApplePay/Google Pay — Express payment options.

• Flickety — Mobile-optimized image carousels.

That’s not a lot. It’s actually not enough. There is a lot of important stuff missing here, and since the website is NO speedy-fast rocket, there are obviously serious code performance issues as discussed above.

Marketing Stuff That They Do

Whoever the mastermind behind the million dollar empire of TheDollTailor is, the first marketing move that jumps out is that they have an active Affiliate marketing program. This make TOTAL sense! Find a bunch of other doll-obsessed people out there that are active themselves on social media and get them to market for you.

What we do NOT see is any paid search ads. Fine … I have no quibble if there are companies of sound mind and gentle disposition that choose rationally to avoid paying the Dark Lords of Google any coin.

And while TheDollTailor does have social media sites on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest … the Pinterest site has been hacked and now defaults to a scammy-ish insurance broker page whom I shall not link lest such wayward link lead the young’uns astray. And they made the rookie mistake of linking their Facebook page to a dedicated “m.facebook” URL for mobile-only viewing … which kind of sucks. So I have assisted them by providing herewith a link to their proper Facebook page. But even then the site is neglected and the posts are months old.

Hard to believe that they are still being successful with easy to fix mistakes like this hanging out there like that.

And … there are no social media ads running right now either. But here’s the deal. As you may have noticed on the site, they are out of stock on many many items and are, in fact, waiting for the next custom delivery before they can stat shipping once again. So maybe marketing is not the top thing on their mind at the moment. Maybe $1.2 million is all the order flow that they can manage at the moment.

But to be fair, they also have done some of what’s called “earned media” … so their marketing relies on that, the affiliates, and decent SEO. And this arguably limited effort has yielded well over one million in annual sales.

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