Shopify Expert Insights

E-Com Advice from our experienced in-house team

I'm back in the saddle after heading to Ottawa last week to visit the Shopify mothership.

It absolutely may be the single most interesting workplace in the world.

Shopify currently occupies ten floors of this new LEED-certified building in downtown:

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Aside from a ton of neat tech and seemingly endless perks, they have really clever decorating.

Each floor has a theme, and each room has its own theme within that.

For example, one floor's theme is retreat.

That floor has, among other things, work teepees:

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My favorite floor was Prohibition in which every room was named after a cocktail.

(We did some filming in White Russian because it was naturally very white and bright.)

My favorite room was also on the Prohibition floor. It spoke to me:

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Play is emphasized in several rooms. There's even an indoor go kart track. (Seriously.)

Demonstrating both play and an eye toward the future was this VR demo room:

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Throughout the offices were many artworks promoting their mission:

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I've staked my entire business on Shopify's success so this pilgrimage was important to me.

It's truly an extraordinary place to be. I've never seen anything remotely like it.

They are also gracious hosts, and made me feel valued as a guest and partner.

More news: We're moving!

As soon as I got back to the states, I finalized the lease for our new office space.

Our new space is being built out in Old Orchard mall.

Old Orchard mall

I'm excited to be running our ecommerce consultancy from a posh retail environment.

Just today I sent the architect plans to our interior designer to help make it amazing.

(After all, Shopify has set a high bar.)

With all that's been going, I hadn't give much thought to what to discuss in today's Sunday drive.

Fortunately, a newsletter subscriber asked me a thoughtful question.

Wolfgang asked:

"What is the 80/20 you look at for shops once the fundamentals are in place and the shop is running nicely?
For example, you get to work on a shop that makes low 5 figures per month, where do you usually still find low-hanging fruit in such cases?"


My answer is the topic of today's Sunday drive...

Hope that helps because we don't have much time left to get ready for the holidays.

There are only 95 days left until Black Friday.

Are you prepared? What do you need help with?

My 1-on-1 services can help make this your best holiday season ever:

https://ethercycle.com/pricing/

In this episode, I'll explain the mindset shift that seven figure stores use to win with paid advertising.

Register for the webinar and learn why your Shopify PPC campaigns aren't working and what to do about it:

http://bit.ly/2ucca0A

We're talking themes in today's drive.

Why?

Because theme selection can be intensely overwhelming.

(I suspect some people hire me just to have someone else make their theme selection.)

To help you, I reveal my top theme choices on today's drive

As well as the one consistent pattern I've seen among my seven-figure clients when they have to choose for themselves.

The dark truth of customer service:
The bar for excellence is extraordinarily low.

That's great news for anyone who wants to put in a modicum of effort to impress their customers.

In today's video, we talk through simple steps you can take today to earn your customers trust.

It's my wife's birthday today. (She is forever 29.)

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She got the greatest birthday gift ever: comeuppance.

She's been warning me lately:

"You need to shave your chest hair before that baby grabs it and yanks."

"Not likely," I scoffed.

Then I was hoisted on my own petard.

This morning, I heard tiny baby Kennedy was awake, and went to go pick her up out of her crib for our daily 5 am baby party.

At which point, she full on death-gripped my chest hair for stability and wouldn't let go.

I squawked, but adults yelling in panic/horror/disgust at the things she does happens to be the most funny when you're five months old.

I don't know if you know this about babies, but they have vice-like grips.

Even better: the baby monitor broadcast this in perfect 2.4ghz digital clarity to my wife's nightstand.

Happy Birthday, Julie.

So now I have to shave my chest hair because I have a baby who thinks it's positively hilarious to hear me yell.

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"This morning I yanked on daddy's chest hair. What's new with you?"

In Shopify news...

We built a custom crowdfunding page for KeySmart (around our Crowdfunder app) a couple weeks ago, and it has since raised $270K (in a week!!) primarily through email marketing.

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https://getkeysmart.com/pages/introducing-keysmart-pro-with-tile-smart-location

A great product presented to past customers in a way that makes them feel part of something with both social proof and urgency is powerful.

Does KeySmart have some tremendous advantages that most ecommerce businesses don't?

Yes, absolutely.

Most successful businesses have unfair advantages that they readily use to grow.

I am one of your competitive advantages.

There are 400K Shopify stores. You are one of around five thousand store owners who listen to me in one way or another.

So what can we do to help scale your business like KeySmart has?

We can increase two metrics:

  1. Average Order Value
  2. Average Customer Lifetime Value

I'll discuss a fool-proof, easy way to do that in today's drive.

Want to increase conversions from visitors to your home page? In today's drive, I talk through the elements you need to have a high-converting home page.

Yesterday my wife jumped in the Jag and took our oldest boy to see Aladdin for his birthday.

(Side-note: When I drive that car, about once a week, I get a thumbs up, "nice car!", or even the occasional "fuck you, yuppie!" from young guys.
When my wife drives it, she gets approximately 1,000% more attention than I do from those same young guys. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Julie in front of the Cadillac theatre

With two members of the Elster household gone, I got to spend quality time with our six-year-old couch gymnast Tanner and tiny baby barf wizard Kennedy Elster.

After getting some ice cream, we spent the rest of our mom-free time in our living room reading.

That's right, four hours of quiet reading with a six-year-old. It was his idea, too.

How the heck did I manage that?

It certainly wasn't by forcing him. No one responds well to that.

It was by inventing a system that makes good choices easy.

I call it the Marble System.

Every week, our kids get 24 marbles each.

Each marble is worth $0.50 or 30 minutes of screen time.

They can choose to spend their marbles however they want.

For example, they can spend them on watching YouTube videos or playing Mario Kart. Or they could save them up and spend them on plush toys on Amazon.

They can also get bonus marbles. If they choose to read a book, they earn a marble for every 30 minutes of reading.

The end result is that we no longer have arguments about playing too many video games.

They effectively manage their own time and make their own choices because we've given them the tools to easily do so.

Your website is not much different.

It's a framework to help your customers make decisions. Should I buy from you? What should I buy from you?

In today's drive, we'll discuss the elements that your home page needs to have to support those decisions and convert well.

The most valuable email workflow you can add to your store is the Abandoned Cart sequence. In today's drive, I walk through a proven 3 or 4 email sequence you can use.

Links mentioned:

  1. Shopify Abandoned Cart Template
  2. Klaviyo Free Trial

Today's drive comes from the beach where I'm on vacation, answering a question from Andy Bedell, "how do you go on vacation as a business owner?"

You know what my biggest pet peeve is?

Shopify stores with an unstyled checkout!

I've seen beautiful stores with great products...

and they completely fail the user when it comes to checkout time

In today's drive, I walk through the steps to setting up a checkout for maximum conversions