The Ecommerce Uptick

Finally you want to prototype and test your products. This is something that is often overlooked. Sure you may try it on or your product developer may say it is “fine” after trying it, but this is not enough.

This is the process I followed that works every time.

In this video i go through the exciting challenges of going fully in-house in the Agency and building the agency i wish i had access to when i was running my own ecom brands.

The biggest mistake I see is launching based on subjective opinions only. Employees, CMOs or designers have their opinion about what could work.

Most of the time there is no data behind it.

I made a huge mistake myself when I ran Rockay. I had some of the best running socks in the world (all top magazines praised them) and I had a romantic idea about what I should launch next - apparel.I could have used data to drive this decision but I guess you learn with every mistake.

Start off by collecting data on your customers. You will want to set up automatic workflows via your email software to ask customers what products they want to see next.

By asking this information you actually get so much data on what to improve, what to develop next and even what trends your clients find interesting.

The problem is that most brands either don’t collect this data or they don’t have a dedicated person to analyze this and take action on it.Here is what you can do.

Alternatively you can do all this manually and we have done this many times in PurpleFire for our clients because it is so powerful.

You can also use this to find competitors you might want to explore. Make a list of products they sell and what seems to be the biggest and most important attributes.

You also want to launch new variations based on answers from question 1.

Now you have a completely data-driven approach to your product development and this should always be the case.

Do not trust your designers, product engineers and any other industry professionals. Sure they have a big role to play but they will design for their own portfolio and career goals, not based on what your customers actually want. You can’t leave this up to chance.

If you are reading this as a founder, or partner - consider not outsourcing your product development totally to an employee or external company. In the end the product development, quality and future designs are so connected to the health of your brand. You need to be relentless in your pursuit to make the product better.

In this episode i go over what i am working on right now for my software "Supersonic" and the future plans to build our this SaaS app.

Here is the software if you want to see more

https://gosupersonic.ai/

1. Sorting.

Sorting out of the box is terrible.. you need to get an AI engine to run your sorting.

by default you wanna go with best sellrs,

but there is so much more to it.

each category is unique and has things to consider.

make sure you use short data ranges when sorting on best selling as you dont to sell bathing suits cus thats your best seller for the year when you are in deceember... keep the best seller data range 2-4 weeks.

I can really recommend a sorting app call kimonix.

you can let AI take over complete or you can add weight to each area like, should it prioritize new arrivals, or things on sale.

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make sure you push out of stock to the bottom. this is just gonna hurt you if you dont.

3. offer the ability to see more images for each product if your slide to the side for any product on your collection page.

4. offer the ability to see all colors for each product directly on the collection page and if you click on the color then it will take you to the PDP with the color selected.

5. show reviews on collection pages if you got them. we done so mcuh testing. it works.

6. consider adding a "see more" button so people know and will take action..

7. at the top of your collection pages, create " word cloud" with other similar categories so it is easy to go there

8. as you scroll down on your collection page, have filters and your "collection word cloud" become sticky so it follows you down.

that includes the store navigation above.

go to Mejuri.com to see a great execution, its a jewelry brand.

9. if you have categories with tons of products, make sure you dont have to click "page 2,3,4,5" to see the rest.. just loaad more as you scroll down.

10. dont fill up your collection pages with 10% off, chat etc... people wanna browse and be ableto see the products.. clean up the view.

Really excited to launch our new tool even though it is a totally new area for us. This will be the first of many episodes where i talk about the specifics of the tool and how we are going to build it.

the tool is going to be the ultimate companion for any serious ecom brands out there!

Check it out on gosupersonic.ai

How to raise your AOV using an "offer ladder"

Ok so lets talk about your to raise you average order value. This is often much easier than raising the conversion rate. Lets face it, if a client has decided to buy, then increasing the basket size is a smaller commitment than deciding whether to buy or not at all...

so the best way to do this, (according to our AB tests) is through the cart.

The cart has become so important on mobile and today you got tons of tools and apps that do this.

on shopify you got apps like upcart or rebuy and they make it easy to customize your cart.

The best cart today is a "drawer cart" this is the type of cart that slides out from the side but doesn't take over the entire screen, so you can easily get back to shopping again.

In your cart, you will want to implement a progression bar at the top that shows how far away the customer is from free shipping...

but it doesnt stop there.. you should also be adding additional thresholds...

if you want an example, just check out trueclassic tees. they have free shipping and then 2 free gifts as you add more to cart...

this incentivates people to increase their order size because people hate missing out on free stuff, especially if the free stuff is useful.

the free stuff should always be 2 different product categories if possible. that way you introduce people to other products that they may love and come back to buy more of later on.

Remember that your free shipping threshold should always be 10-20% over your avg. order value, so you can squeeze out more AOV. Test this.

any additional unlocks can be tested, free products, discounts, free upgrade to expres shipping and so forth.

you could even give extended return periods as a very low threshold that basically 90% of all clients reach...

so if you wanna try this, download something like rebuy and setup these thresholds and experiment with what works better

10 Reasons Why You Should add Phone Support to your Ecom Brand

1. Build trust and improve your conversion rate by adding it above the fold.

2. Convert declined sales to purchases (purchases where the card declined or they abandoned checkout)

3. 10x the quality of your customer experience - enable reaal time problem resolution.

4. build meaningful and emotional connections with your customers

5. Product feedback: Ask people straight up what they like or dislike

6. Service feedback, like shipping options, delivery time, website UX feedback.

7. Reduced Cart Abandonment: Customers may feel more confident completing a purchase if they know they can easily get in touch with the company in case of questions or issues.

8. Sales Opportunities: Phone calls provide a direct sales channel, allowing brands to upsell, cross-sell, or address objections effectively.

9. Competitive Advantage: Many e-commerce businesses do not offer phone support, so adding a phone number can set your brand apart from competitors and attract more customers.

10. Improve LTV of your customers.

How to reduce your order returns by at least 30% before BFCM

1. Track your returns. You need to understand why people return items. Work with a return platform and give people options to pick from such as (size too big, size too small etc), leave one option open called "other" for freeform answers.

You need data on why people are returning items. This way you can change your sizing chart and talk to production if sizes have to be adjusted in the future.

Bonus: you can recommend the right size to people based on returns and purchase histories. There are many apps that can do this for you today.

2. Add a clickable element on your PDP gallary that says "model size" When clicked it shows the model height and size used by that person.

3. Sizing charts are not made equal... People don't like to review charts.. they are complicated.

fix this by using a "fit finder" app. People add in their height/weight and it will tell you what size to pick... Make it easy!

4. introduce "final sale" items to your store. Final sale are discounted and often because it is discontinued. No returns are offered here. Way too many brands are forgetting about this and their logistics are killing them because of it.

5. setup rules for returns such as: The product must be unused and in the same new condition as when it was received. The product must also be in its original packaging, with intact labels.

6. Implement reviews that focuses on rating these 3 things: "size, Comfort & Durability".

Show your reviews so people can see how ratings appear for each area. If the sizing runs small, more people will size up before ordering.. This will GREATLY reduce returns..

7. Focus on offering product exchanges, not returns. Have you every wondered why so many brands just accept returns, instead of offering a product in the correct size? This is a huge mistake. Setup your returns portal to instantly offer an exchange instead of just a return.

8. send a post purchase email that reduces buyers remorse and get people excited about the product. Educate your customers and reduce common issues that lead to returns.

9. Segment out "Wardrobers" people who are frequently buying and returning most if not all items. These people are a huge loss and might even be using products for a week to return it later. Did you know that businesses like Zalando ban these people from buying from them?

Consider banning them or simply have them pay for returns.

10. use live chat on your returns page. Did you know that most returns could be avoided with an offer to exchange instead? This is best done by setting up an automated chat window pop up on your returns portal.

11. optimize the speed of delivery.

one common reason why a customer may choose to return a product is that the product showed up late and they no longer need it.

12. Introduce a loyalty program. This can be an absolute game changer. Offer points for every dollar spent. Offer bonus points for every order without any returns (exchanges are ok).

This is one of the best loyalty programs out there right now: https://www.thenorthface.com/en-us/xplrpass

this will not only return returns, but also greatly improve your LTV

IF you want to work with me and my team, you are welcome to email me at [email protected] or go to our website purplefire.io

the 10 best performing A/B tests of September

1. Return policy in cart + phone number

2. Return policy and 2-3 other key USPS at checkout.

3. Upsells on cart + checkout using Rebuy or aftersell

4. discount ladders on cart (free shipping, freebie, discount %)

5. Adding shipping protection for 3% of order value.

6. asking customers to upgrade to express shipping for cost of shipping + 20%

7. adding split-payment info on PDP, CART + a banner with how it works on checkout.

8. sorting by best seller on cat pages, but making sure you got best sellers of every sub category at the top.

9. adding category "clouds" to every cat page.

10. adding the 3 most popular filters as suggestions at the top of cat pages.