With all the inflation talk there’s a lot of attention getting paid to costs. Reducing costs might not be the most efficient use of your time but that balance might change when times get rough. I’ve always been a fan of running lean with lower costs when possible. Customer acquisition costs are a whole category …
Category: Articles
The curse of discounting in your abandoned cart emails
This weekend I ordered some new headphones from a Shopify store. At first I wasn’t quite ready to order but I added them to my cart so I can take a look at them later and pick which color I wanted. Couple of hours later, I get an email from the store with a 10% …
Inflation eroding growth metrics
I had an interesting thought. Average Order Value (AOV) is one measuring stick that Shopify stores use to measure growth. When it’s going up, then the store is growing and management is making the right decisions, right? I wonder how many stores are adjusting AOV changes for inflation though. Are you? If your AOV goes …
Non-financial rewards for your most loyal customers
When you’re trying to reward your most loyal customers, it’s common to give a discount to free product. There are non-financial rewards you can give too: early access to new products free guides, manuals, or other educational products invitations to events (physical or virtual) creating case studies or interviews of customers priority customer service All …
Develop samples to give away to new and repeat customers
Samples are a powerful tool for attracting new customers. I was considering buying a book this morning but I wasn’t sure if it would be relevant. Luckily the publisher created a PDF sample I was able to read before I bought it. Samples are pretty much required with digital items and items that can be …
Work with your business cycles instead of against them
Now that winter is well underway, it’s time to prune our fruit trees. By doing it during the dormant season, the plants aren’t hurt and can grow better throughout the upcoming year. Similarly your Shopify store follows a cycle too. It could be the regular commerce cycle (busy in Q4, light in Q1) or a …
Use your variant data to see how your products actually perform
In Shopify, how you organize variants is a big deal. Do you have one product with a bunch of variants? Or make each variant its own product? There’s pros and cons for each method and it’s been discussed to death. One aspect that’s not mentioned much is how your organization decision impacts your reporting and …
Getting the 2nd order from one-time customers
A Shopify store using Repeat Customer Insights recently asked me: I see that once a customer orders 2 & 3 times, they become long term customers, and that is my challenge. Do you have any specific suggestions on how to do this? Getting one-time customers to buy again is the central challenge for the majority …
Time to build foundational strategies to attract customers
Friday the 13th came early this year. I’m not sure if it’s lucky or unlucky anymore. At the very least it’s a herald of an “interesting” time ahead. More and more industries are reporting their growth during COVID has now disappeared and they are contracting back to regular growth or no growth (the “COVID-bump”). Unfortunately …
Analyze your 2022 holiday performance to see what your Shopify store accomplished
With the winter holidays over, now is the time to really dig into how your Shopify store did. Here’s some important metrics and behavior to examine. Overall view of business growth: Total sales for Q4. Average orders per month for Q4. Profit for Q4. Total marketing costs, direct and indirect. Total discounts given. Customer base …