Squeezing More Lemonade: What I Talked About on the Shopify1Percent Ecommerce Podcast

Jay Myers:

Welcome back to another episode of the Shopify 1% podcast. Real quick before we get started, I mentioned this on our last episode, but I just want to say it again. We're starting to take a lot of listeners, sorry, a lot of questions from listeners. So, if you head to shopify1%.com, go up to the top, there's a big ask a question button. And if you click that, you can type in a question or you can just click record and it will record it. And about once a month or so, we're going to pile all the questions together and do an episode where we answer all the listeners questions. So, if you've got a question about anything related to growing your Shopify business, go there, ask it, and we'll make sure that it gets answered on the show.

Okay. And without further ado, let's get into today's episode because it's an interesting one because every merchant I talk to wants the same thing. They want more traffic. They want they more ads, more SEO, more reach. The buy a lemon, squeeze it once, throw it out, buy another lemon. And my guest today says that's actually backwards. And he's spent close to 20 years, I think officially 19 years, running a Seattle agency that does something most agencies don't.

They actually barely touch your ads. They focus almost entirely on what happens after someone lands on your store and what happens after they buy because that's where not just the cheap growth, but the really good growth actually happens. So I have with me Wes Buckwalter. He runs Sea Monster Studios and he came up running marketing for a coffee roaster.

So, he's lived on both sides. He's been a merchant as well. And he'll tell you that the revenue you're chasing is already sitting in your store, in your checkout, in your customer data, and in the roughly, we're going to get into this, but the one in four shoppers that you're quietly turning away without even knowing it. I know Wes, you're thinking right now, oh yeah, we're going to get into that. I know exactly what he's talking about. So, his whole pitch is squeezing more lemonade out of the lemon you've already got. Let's get into it. Wes, welcome to the Shopify 1% podcast.

Wes Buckwalter:

Thanks very much. Really appreciate being here.

Jay:

So, everyone's obsessed with buying more traffic, but you've built a whole agency on the opposite idea that the cheapest growth is actually already sitting in the store you've got. So, what does this squeezing more lemonade out of the lemon actually mean for a Shopify merchant? And where is the juice usually hiding?

Wes:

You know, usually it's hiding in the loyal customer base that you don't know you have. So, meaning you've got repeat customers who show up to your store at a frequency, especially if you're in a renewable type product scenario or something where you're not selling a one-time product that somebody only ever buys once and then goes away.

Most of the merchants we work with tend to focus on CPG, food and bev clothing, beauty products, things that you would eventually use or run out of, but we have worked on those those clients as well that have had a you know buy a one-time thing from me and then you know then what and you know and I think that tends to be the toughest e-commerce position to be in in so far as then how do you figure out how to generate revenue from somebody who you paid to acquire or acquired through an uphill battle of some sort?

You either entice them to come to your store because you have an amazing thing and it took a long road to get there. But once we've got somebody through the door and they've made a decision that either they're thinking about purchasing whatever it is that you're selling or they're excited about your product or products, that's I think in my case or in my opinion our most apt customer to buy from us more than one time.

And so once we've convinced them to become a customer either through having an amazing product or having a great sort of value proposition or something that's valuable to them, we've already determined that they have some amount of loyalty to us at least in so far as they can buy something. And so as a result, I think often, you know, we're talking about something like a subscription program or a marketing program that happens after you've gained knowledge of who the customer is to sort of say, "Hey, you should see this thing that you bought and here's maybe some knowledge about how to use it or why it's important to your life and we're curious to find out if you like it." And at the same time, we have more of what you like for you to grab whenever it's appropriate to do so.

And so I think there's a pretty high acquisition cost for any any sort of market segment. You know, whether you're selling, you know, food and beverage, we do a lot of work in the coffee world, for example, or you're selling, you know, makeup or clothing or something. It's really expensive to get that customer through the door the first time if you're running advertisements or, you know, just building your website to be amazing so somebody's willing to convert and trust you and those kind of things. And so once you've earned that trust, you have much less of a problem to solve when it comes to reearning that trust or re-upping from that customer's purchase.

And so a lot of times once they're through the door, you know, we're trying to focus on everything from increasing the average order value, so finding reasons for a customer to spend more with us on that first conversion. But likewise, that's not always an opportunity we have. So looking to figure out when's the right time to talk to that customer digitally or otherwise to say, "Hey, you got something. We hope you like it. Could you tell us that you like it? And if you do, here's other things that you might like that we have or another reason to spend more money with us.

And when is it appropriate to do so? And I think the answer to that is a little bit unique for every customer. There's probably cadences that can be applied uniformly, but most importantly, it's a matter of saying like, hey, in the brick-and-mortar world, I would treat you well at the front counter and shake your hand on the way out the door and thank you for your business. We don't always have that opportunity in the e-commerce world or sometimes we think we don't have that opportunity in the e-commerce world because we have this barrier of the internet in between us and our clientele and really I think applying traditional brick-and-mortar techniques in that way to say thank you and to make the customer feel like their money is valuable to you and that their time is valuable to you and that you've helped them spend it well I think are the things that matter most to consumers.

It's not just did the product do its job and did it show up on time, but is this merchant actually thankful that I bought this product from them and have they supplied me with something that makes me feel good about being their customer? And so we really try to come up with strategies from the moment that somebody hits our store to the point where they're putting something in their cart for the very first time to whatever they do after that process. Make sure that they feel welcome and that they feel like we care about them as an audience member and that we can entice them to make a second purchase or a larger order or find them a thing that has more value to them than just what they're imagining they need without sort of doing two sort of yucky salesy kind of things, right? Like people want to be spoken to like humans.

They want to be treated like they're important and everybody's just as important at the end of the day. when we have a customer in our store, whether it's a little purchase or a big purchase, you never know who that person is going to turn into when it comes to value that they may have to your company. And so, it's always a process of figuring out what is your brand's values when it comes to how you would talk to your customer. If you did have a store with a counter that you're face to face with somebody in, how do we leverage that language or that methodology into making that customer feel welcome even though we have this big barrier in between us?

And then what do we do after that first purchase to make sure they know we really want you to come back and we really care about your business. And I think what that pans out to for merchants is it's much less expensive to reacquire an existing customer who already has an affinity for what you're up to, whether it's your product or your service or whatever. And so we can focus on a lower dollar spend on making sure that person has a great experience. And most likely they'll repeat their purchase frequent more frequently than say a brand new acquisition would.

And I think what we found that we can specialize in quite nicely is really understanding the consumer. How do we segment them appropriately? How do we speak to them appropriately with your brand values in mind? And then likewise, how do we coach your team to apply those values uniformly in a way that when you are doing that sort of secondary marketing or that followup or whatever it might be, you know, how do we make sure that it sounds the same or is applied uniformly, I think is a more important way to think about it to to your audience.

And then likewise, I think what digital mechanisms can we put in play in your tech stack to provide you with opportunities for efficiency in those realms? How do we make sure that everybody's experience is good, that they feel like things are usable? You know, there's a lot of these technical under the hood things that aren't super glamorous on the how much money did I make kind of conversation, but we want to make sure that your audience has high ease of use, a great experience in all formats of the interacting with your business.

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

And it all kind of plays into a combination of language, service, technology, you know, sort of checks and balances being put in place in a way that makes sure you can maintain things appropriately.

Jay:

I read an interesting stat the other day. We're doing not sure exactly when this I know we're recording it right now, but sometimes they take a couple weeks. So when I'm not sure exactly when this is going to come out, but just earlier this week on this podcast, I started a series and our listeners probably know this.

We're doing about 20 episodes all about repeat commerce and just focusing on like everything after the first sale and strategies. And so I was doing a lot of research related to it. And in the first episode, we kind of set the stage on the importance of repeat commerce. And one of the data points was in 2013, the average merchant lost about $9 for every new customer they acquired. So whether that was through ad spend, returns, that's just the cost of like getting that customer, there was $9 lost. Today on average, it's $29 lost per customer, first customer. I think a lot of stores are way higher than that, too.

Like this is just average. So it went up $222%. the - on the second order and beyond the average store makes $39 average per repeat order. So like the importance of that second order is crucial for a business and the third, fourth, fifth and so on. But most brands on average are losing money on their first order. And if they don't have a good strategy for getting them coming back, their business actually doesn't even work. which is it?

Wes:

I think it spawns a sort of businessy conversation about if you know if your acquisition cost is $29 and you make $39 on the second purchase only you're really only $10 ahead. So you have to have somebody come back twice essentially their initial purchase and their second purchase just to net $10. And so really it's that second, third, fourth, fifth, 25th purchase that really matters, you know. And I think there's a combination of I think in the Shopify world, it's just called loyalty.

But it's not about loyalty. It's about affinity. Do people actually like you? It's not about, you know, we're not trying to earn somebody's repeat business. We're trying to earn their trust. And the repeat business flows with that. And I think one of the things that happens in a world where we've got a monumental amount of great creators, wonderful products, things that are competitive with each other, and there isn't just a best solution for everything out there. There isn't always the, you know, best cup of coffee or best t-shirt or whatever it might be.

It's that there's 50 choices. And so, how do you make sure that person is willing to trust you enough to buy again? Did you satisfy their needs in all formats: quick shipping, great purchase experience, thankfulness, like some of those things that I think are still, you know, like I said before, those brick-and-mortar values. And really, if you're only going to make $10 by that second purchase using this math equation, like it's really the third, fourth, and fifth purchase where it really shines for your business. And once we get to that 25th purchase, like that's the best customer you could possibly ever want, right? somebody who turns trust into loyalty, which is, I think, a way down the road step beyond just I got points and I'm going to come back because I got some points and things like that. It's about I appreciate the product and the way that it was received. I think that matters the most.

Jay:

Yeah. So, what are some of the strategies you would say because there's the before purchase exper experience that merchants can do to improve their site and then there's the post-purchase experience. Like maybe let's talk about the UX prior to buying something. That's like everything they could look at optimizing from like checkout like user experience, education. What can brands do on their site to and then we'll talk about post after, but if they're want to spend some money or time or resources on improving their site to optimize for repeat commerce, what are some things like you would recommend brands look at?

Wes:

Yeah, I mean I think in that initial purchase phase, all the same rules that have always applied still apply. Meaning technically fast load times, you know, appropriate use of language, making sure that your site's compliant from a usability standpoint, whether that's in the US WCAG compliant, or simply just following best practices from user experience, are wayfinding techniques appropriate.

Can somebody get from point A to point B easily? You know, the sort [clears throat] of analogy I used to use was don't put a wall in between your customers and their wallet. You know, make sure that somebody can make a quick decision knowing that we've got an average of like 90 second attention span in North America. How do we help somebody make a quick decision to buy, not just a quick decision to think about buying? And so, you know, the goal being, can we have somebody who's 100% ignorant to everything you do other than you're selling something they want, show up to your site, learn enough about it to find value in it, put it in their cart, and hit the checkout as quickly as we can within that 90 to 180 second window, and feel satisfied with what they've done.

And so, some of it's about speed of service, and some of it's about making sure the customer feels great about their purchase. And so I think some of the things that we apply in the states here which I think is statistically true in Canada as well is we have to think about attention span kind of reading level and competency to consuming information sort of the idea of what attracts you know our average customer and that may be depending on your age demographic or your product demographic like different techniques but you know I think in the US the sort of average is something like a sixth to nineth grade reading level. So, we want to make sure that we're leveraging language that's both constructive and easy to consume. It doesn't put somebody in a I don't get it position because that I think is the most difficult spot to be in.

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

I think leveraging media in an effective way to show somebody something versus tell somebody something I think is a big deal. You know, if we have to demonstrate why the product works great or if we have to show somebody its specs or its features, how can we use media to maintain some attention span there to help somebody become attracted to it?

And then likewise, it's just a matter of do we have attractive offers? Do we have appropriate pricing that feels competitive? You know, are the strategies to merchandising effective? You know, and I think it's getting a little tougher and tougher these days, especially when we have like large product cataloges. If you think about a specialty food purveyor, they might sell 50 types of caviar and we know we have a high value, high expense product, but how do I know which of these 50 types of caviar is right for me? And the answer is probably they're all right for you.

And so then if we can use tools like behavioral metrics that don't sort of infringe on people's privacy to appropriately serve up products that based on their behaviors that we can measure are the most likely tools for them to buy. So we can use AI and machine learning to accomplish these things and push products into their face that are the highest converters based on their behaviors which is a different piece for sort of different audience segments.

We also increase our opportunity to get that first conversion. But then likewise in that I'm going to I got your caviar. I love it. I want to come back and buy some great olive oil now. We now have knowledge of who that person is and can likewise remchandise to them on their second visit based on their account or their behaviors to serve up another product that other folks have liked or that our aggregate customer base has enjoyed when they've already bought this wonderful caviar or whatever it might be.

And so we use a lot of data systems to try to figure out in a way that doesn't creep out people from a privacy perspective or violate any rules like how can we make the best choices with knowledge that doesn't get weird that helps a user find what they want quickly and it likewise as our business needs our service surface. How do we find the things that are most important to our business that have the highest margin that are also the most likely to purchase things and serve those up to a person?

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

In the context of a subscription, I think the post-purchase experience is like a customer portal experience. How easy is it to manage my subscription, add new things to it, be encouraged to try new things, swap, cancel, pause, all the usual techniques. And I think most subscription tools that exist out in the wild these days do that pretty well. Like the mechanisms are similar, the terms are similar. You know, our audience is educated pretty well on what a subscription is.

And so, how do we find little wins in that vein to make that easier? Maybe it's an SMS-based scenario or some something that's more likely to fit our audience's behaviors or needs or convenience kind of tools and stuff like that. And so I think all of those are sort of swirling around in this tornado of awesome that we all have to figure out together. Yeah. Are somewhat unique for every business but can be applied in a very generalist way to almost every business and then conform to a more specific way along along the path I guess.

Jay:

Yeah. Couple thoughts. So then going from the the post-purchase like after they purchase like a lot of brands will say, "Oh yeah, I've got a I've got an email flow that goes out or I've got that they're in some automation or like there's a lot of like the standard things brands do, but what do the bre the best brands do to really make a customer feel connected with the brand, engaged, knowledgeable on the product, and want to come back over and over versus the typical typical I have an email flow set up. What are you seeing the best brands doing to after the purchase?

Wes:

So, a brand that we work with that seems to be highly successful in this way has a sort of handwritten thank you card that goes in every box that just says like I'm the owner. You know, every purchase matters to my company and even though we seem like a big company, I actually wrote this card and thank you. And that owner may fill out 5,000 of those cards every week or something like that that are just stacked up and ready to go, but it's a personal thank you that somebody who matters in the company's or chart spent the time to fill out.

And I think saying thank you is a big deal. And especially a personal thank you that's not some digitally printed looks like ink, you know, kind of fakey thing. I think people can judge the authenticity of some of that stuff. Although the techn is getting pretty good to make it look like it's real when it's not as well. But the gesture of saying thank you in a I opened my box or my product showed up and something personally was slipped in, it has my name on it is a big deal.

I think we've seen a lot of other companies as well put like little sample type things in. You know, you bought this thing, we think this other thing also is cool and we just wanted you to try it and you know, take it or leave it, no big deal. I think is a cool gesture. I mean, I like little freebies or like, you know, I think about I bought some vitamins a while ago and the vitamin company was like, "Well, if you know, you've identified yourself as this age range. These other vitamins are great for somebody in your realm that's a male and like we thought you would want a couple to try and, you know, see if it matters to you or whatever." You know, I came back and reconverted on five new vitamins and it totally got me.

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

And and they had a great product to begin with and I think that's a big deal. I think a lot of companies forget to ask their customers like is the product actually awesome you know and I think it's they assume it is because people are buying it but I think gathering a real opinion you know here's a mechanism you can tell us exactly what you think about our product whether it's a survey or an email or how to get in touch or something is there an area to improve I think asking your audience like is there anything we could be doing better maybe it's in that thankful card or maybe it's in another mechanism of some sort I think also is really helpful and I genuinely listening to somebody's opinion and thanking them for it, I think, is a really big deal. And so that could be everything from like a little form to a chatbot to a human interaction, you know, employing some help desk that, you know, helps your customer feel like they talked to a human and their voice was heard, I think is a big deal.

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

And you know, those email flows still work, too.

Jay:

Yeah. The comment about the handwritten notes I am such a firm believer in. I had his name is David. He's the founder of handwritten and they actually have these like machines that use real pens and they write notes and to your point you maybe could tell that it's written by a machine but it's with a real pen like you can see the ink on the notes and not all the letters are identical and but I asked him about that.

I was like, "Well, did you notice any difference with customers engagement with it because they can track like they sometimes will it'll be like a postcard with a handwritten note and there'll be a QR code on it for like a some offer or something and like do you notice any difference in engagement if if they're printed versus handwritten because he does both like they can do it and he said there isn't really a difference like they the customer still feels appreciated.

It's the most important thing is that something sent direct mail ends up on someone's counter and on average it's touched seven times before it's thrown out. And I can't remember the exact number, but like it sits it's touched seven times and it sits on a counter for like 13 days or something before it's thrown out and like it'll sit on their island or whatever wherever people put their mail. And so there's a the a huge impact on like brand recognition like you're seeing it there just touching it and it kind of just escapes a lot of the noise of the email inbox too.

But so I would I'm a huge proponent of sending them and you know put some offer in there too like have well he his thing was he said the first note you send should never have an offer. It should just be a genuine thank you, maybe a picture of the team or something and then send a second one a month later with checking in how things are going and if at that point have some offer or some discount or something. So, I think right now there's a window of opportunity to take advantage of this this direct mail, but like I had Neil Goyle on. I know he's not with Postpilot anymore, but he was with Postpilot and like they do direct mail and like the brands doing it are crushing it, but it seems like more and more of the better brands I talked to are doing it.

Wes:

What's interesting about direct mail, because I I was a hard sell in this vein, I think, was, you know, that feels very 1990s to me. I'm not super interested. that it seems odd, but I think the statistics measure up pretty well, you know, and I think there's some some things that happen like we're all inundated with email and marketing that's somewhat impersonal all the time. Even if it's personalized, it's I only have so much time to go through my emails. You know, I think one of the challenges I've got is I'm also trying to run a company and so I get marketed to a lot and there's only so many I can read before I have to get to my day or whatever. And I assume everybody has that same scenario.

And so what's interesting about direct mail is that I'm finding that there's probably a good statistic that readership is higher than when you get a email, even a personalized email, you know, and so when you start to talk about those statistics, uh, sits on the counter for so much. I think that's true in my household. I think, you know, I'll get a postcard from something and maybe it sits for a few days before I look at it, but I look at it and I consume it, especially if it's a written one versus a printed, you know, ad or something. And I really do like the concept of like don't always be selling in that first thank you.

Just be thankful, you know, let your audience know like your purchase is very excitable to us and like we welcome it, you know, and save the always be selling methodology maybe for that email flow or something like that or, you know, and I think going back to the sort of thank you and maybe the free sample is if you think about cost of acquisition or cost of reacquisition, maybe you put $3 worth of sample product into a box and your labor on that's 10 cents to put those extra things in or whatever for your pick, pack, and pull.

But if your cost of acquisition is $29, you just spent $3 on a reacquisition. And I think that's so much more valuable than like reacquiring a customer through ads or otherwise as well. And so I think a lot of merchants that we've talked to about these sort of methodologies just didn't look at it that way, you know? I mean, it wasn't that they didn't understand it, it's just that it wasn't on the radar. And so I think it's like, well, would you rather spend $3 of product that somebody might be more excited about versus $29 to get the next person through the door?

And then all of a sudden it starts to make sense. And then it the proof is in the pudding, right? Like when you deliver a postcard or a thank you, what's our measurable to say that it's successful or not? And I think you can do all of these things. You can send a sample or send a postcard, but you have to know that it's working and find a mechanism in which your goals are met. And I think one of the challenges that we have as an agency that we try our best in these conversations to to work with our clients to sort of I guess surface is how do we know we're successful?

Like people buy a little bit more. What does the lift that we're looking for? How many purchases are we chasing? Can we assign a statistic that we can measure that says we're successful? And likewise, if we're if a 100% is a second purchase, what if we only get 50%. Then what? Do we know we have to pivot away from this tactic and try something new? Or is that enough success for us to keep going with it? And you know, how do we measure those things against margin and behavior, you know, and that kind of thing? And I think a lot of folks will sort of make a plan to do these cool things and then not really have a measurable goal in mind until after the fact that it's been executed. And that's just a common thing, right? Like I think businesses are busy and they think it's cool. It sounds cool. Everybody agrees it's cool. How do we know it's cool? And that's really what matters is we have to know for it to be determined to be successful.

Jay:

You know that my first thought went to when you're sending like postcards like yeah but how do you track it? It's not digital there. like you can't track attribution across there's no link to click but you actually can track it quite well because you know the address like you know where something is physically being shipped and so like generally if that person orders they're going to be shipping to the address that you sent the postcard to.

I would bet any money if you took a cohort of your customers and you sent a thousand handwritten notes to a thousand customers after they place an order like within a week or two and another and another thousand that you didn't and you looked at the lifetime value of the customers that got a hadn't written note, I guarantee you it would be higher. And I don't know any data on because I don't know anyone that's run this test. I just know qualitatively that like it would it does impact them. And you can track it because you can track that you have their address and you can see any reorders that come from any of those addresses and just track the cohort of those customers. Like it's money well spent. whatever the postcard is like $1.50 or $2.

Wes:

Well, I think there's an interesting debate that, you know, folks like Postpilot and others, you know, sort of make as well is that the the thank you should come separately from the first delivery. Should be a card sent in the mail versus stuffed into the box. Like, is there any measurement there? And, you know, it's a one extra step that somebody recognizes was taken that didn't just like slide something into a box and move on. It's not pulled from the, you know, the shelf or whatever. It's somebody had to put it in an envelope, close the envelope, put the address on the envelope. It's another touch point. It's another point that they're interacting with your brand. Yeah.

And I think what's attractive about that to me is like an effort was made. Even if it's an automated effort, some expense and effort was made and I know what that costs because I'm in the industry that I'm in. But I think regular people who don't maybe have the same knowledge as me recognize that is a cool effort as well. And I think again, it's just, you know, when somebody high-fives you or says thank you or whatever it is, you feel good. And you know, yeah, that's the goal with any of our audience members is to make them feel like they we care about them and that they have value to us, even if it's just a transactional experience. It's, you know, it really doesn't hurt to say thank you all the time.

Jay:

Yeah. And then the only other thing I'll just add there that I've I noticed with myself, I see some brands doing this and it works really well like educating through those touch points as well too because when if you're a consumer of a product, let's say it's like some health gummies or gut vitamins or hair product or something, the more you know about that product and like where it's made and how it actually works, the more educated you are, the better of an ambassador you become for your friends.

Because the number one referral channel is peertopeer, one person to one person like "Wes, oh man, I've been taking these whatever supplements and they're just they're working awesome. Like you should try them." Like and that referral is the has the highest conversion. And also people that are referred from a direct friend, they also have the highest LTV. They stay around longer because generally one person who recommends another person is a really high qualified customer. But I can't recommend a product if I'm not educated on it and if I don't know how it works and or whatever the value is, right?

Like if it's like coffee, I want to know that it's how it's made, how the beans are roasted, the fields that it comes from, and how it's like fair trade and I need to know all that stuff. And if I don't, if I just know that I like the flavor, I am not armed to refer it. So working that in to these I think is a big part of it. Are you seeing like that with the brands you're working with as well?

Wes:

I think so. Yeah. I mean, I'd say especially when we're talking about things that have qualitative values or quantitative values. So, like, was the coffee tasty? You know, the tastier it is, the more likely somebody's going to recommend it. I think likewise, the ethics behind how it was grown and some of those things matters to a pretty large portion of at least the domestic US audience, truly the North American audience as well, I think.

And so giving the customer an opportunity to know those things whether they get to discover them or you just tell them. I think both are a presentable method for getting there. But you know number one there's always the the Pepsi challenge of your product. Was it good enough that I liked it? And then after that it's about do I also feel good about using it? Is it sourced ethically? Is it made in the US or whatever it is that's matters to me? I think is a big deal. And then you know I find that behavior happening all the time. I ask my friends like, "What do you do for this?" You know, "Is your, you know, could your teeth be white?" Or, "What do you use for toothpaste?"

Or like, whatever the silly question might be or why does it cost this much? Is it really that good? You know, some of those kind of questions. And a lot of times I get to like, oh man, it's worth it. You should do this or it's great, I like it, or my wife loves it or, you know, whatever it might be. Definitely is the number one influencer for like why I do things you as a consumer anyway, you know.

And then there's those sort of unicorn type products like if you think about a MacBook. Well, you have a MacBook and you have everything else, you know, and Apple has built this sort of following based on like everybody knows that their products are both expensive and super high quality. Like everybody knows that, you know, it's very rare that you find a a PC user that doesn't know those things.

And so then the question becomes for them, I think, like, have you dove in on our ecosystem or our tool set and you're locked into it because of you've made that choice? And so, you know, I think for products like that where it's either you pick option A or option B and those are your two choices, it's really a question then about, well, option A is a twice as expensive thing. How can I make sure my consumer feels that it's worth paying twice as much? How many times have I told somebody I use a Mac because I love this thing about Apple or this ecosystem around it or it has the best software for my needs or whatever, you know.

And so I think that's a different style of product and recommendation or referral type sort of mechanism where there's limited choice in the world and I think a different strategy applied especially when I can go buy you know a regular PC laptop for $500 or something and the Apple counterpart to that is $1,300 or $5,000 or whatever it might be. How can I tell my friend that it's worth spending three times as much for this thing because it's better? and how do I get educated as a consumer to be able to give that messaging appropriately even if I haven't really spent a lot of time being a power user or power consumer or whatever you know?

And so I think I see this a lot in the coffee world there's prices all over the spectrum you can have inexpensive really good coffee you can have very expensive really good coffee and likewise you can have lowquality versions of those things as well and so in a world where I have infinite choice and a spectrum of prices really based on what the market is or that kind of thing how do I get my audience to understand like why it's important and how to make, you know, that value proposition to their friends?

And not only that, but in the coffee world, it's especially complex because like there's 10 different places coffee might be coming from that this company's roasting from or creating from, and each one has its own unique flavor profile and its own unique experience and some of those things. It's still all coffee. It's still all caffeine. It's still all highly addictive or whatever.

But option A in this coffee world may be great for person one and option B may be great for person two and as person one I'm going to say like well I bought this Brazilian coffee and I thought it was delightful and then somebody that I recommend to drinks it and goes well I didn't like that and then so [clears throat] you know maybe my answer as a coffee nerd would be well you should try the Ethiopian one then because it's got a different flavor profile or something like that and so how do I educate my consumer when they're going to be that advocate for my product that the thing you're buying is also there's other flavors and genres or other experiences that can be had within our product line that maybe aren't for you, but you could also point your friends toward or recommend or whatever and you know that kind of stuff.

And I think again that's an education sort of point. But I think especially in sort of a food and beverage world or a varietal type product world, getting somebody to try something outside of their comfort zone and find out if they like it is also part of the educational experience. Like I didn't know I liked tea until somebody sort of handed me a cup of tea. And it was a hurdle that as a consumer I have to be educated about like just try it just this once, see if you like it kind of thing.

And you know it's pretty irregular that a consumer gets outside of their standard comfort pathway, right? And so how do you provide enough experience or education to do that from a marketing standpoint or a language standpoint that entices somebody to try something new? I think is a really tough thing to encounter and a a strategy that matters to most businesses. I think that tends to be somewhat of an afterthought. You buy my thing, it's on a subscription, it's the same every week. You know, off you go.

What you're losing is that sort of gigantic ven diagram of but I have 10 things. This person's only ever experienced one. They're only ever going to tell their friends about the one. And what if their friends don't like it? How do we also then get them to leverage the other nine products in our product line to say you should try the other ones then or there's other things out there for you? Yeah. So I think that's a a really tough kind of six degrees sort of version of how do we educate our consumer I suppose.

Jay:

Yeah. Well it's I always say there is no such thing as true value. It's only perceived value. So like if I'm buying a guitar, I don't know anything about guitars. There could be a $10,000 guitar or a $300 guitar and I'll say just give me the guitar. They the guitar is a guitar, but maybe I know everything about canoes and paddles and the different types of canoe material and that. And so when I am knowledgeable on a subject, I value it more, right?

And so I think a lot of it goes to brands think that they're a premium product. They price it premium, but they're selling the flavor. And like with wine, for example, I think a great example of this is like the value is in the story. It's why the somalier comes out to the table and shows you the bottle and tells you where it's from and the farm and how the grapes are grown and everything. And then like then you value it more. But if I walk by an aisle and one's $10 bottle, $50 bottle, 20, like I don't know.

I don't perceive the value in it. And I think a mistake a lot of brands make is they think that once a customer purchases it, the... they're educated and they made the decision, but they're actually not. They're like they're trying it. And from the moment they buy it, it's your job as a brand to continually educate them. Like the second they buy it, they should be getting an email, a welcome video, a couple hours later, something else showing about like the farms where the grapes are grown and then another one about like the best foods to pair it with. and like you're continually educating them on now that perceived value has like doubled in their head or it's like someone who knows what a good guitar actually sounds like versus someone that doesn't, right? And so I see a lot of brands that don't get that right. They think that the education happens just on the product page, which it should, but they think that kind of like that's okay, they've made the purchase and then it's over.

Wes:

I think there's only a percentage of our audience that buys that $10,000 guitar that finds just the I bought a $10,000 guitar and so it's awesome. Like I think if you're a great musician, that $300 guitar is going to sound just as good and you're going to be able to play it just as well.

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

And so it's rare that we have an audience member who will divulge value based on the premium nature of your product alone. meaning I paid 50 bucks for it and I want to tell all my friends that I buy really expensive cheese.

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

Nobody cares. You know, it's very rare that the I bought a $50 block of cheese argument matters to your group of friends or your peers or whatever. What it is is that I bought this amazing $50 block of cheese and even though it was expensive, it was the tastiest cheese I ever had and I just found out it's totally organic. Right? And that's a big deal to me because that's the type of consumer I am or whatever.

And I think there's a lot of folks, especially in a high dollar product realm or an expensive in the marketplace that it's in realm that assume that because it's expensive, your audience will have the same perception of it that you have. But you forget that you're a highly educated cheese maker or a highly educated coffee roaster. You got into the business that you're in because you already love what you're building or making or whatever. and there's a that value prop exists for you because of the knowledge that you have. And if you don't leverage that knowledge to your consumer in a very consumable way, they don't understand the nuance of those points.

And I think just saying it's premium and I'm better than others or my reviews are great or whatever isn't going to make your consumer love you. It's just going to make them think it's expensive. And I don't think there's a giant portion of our audience that cares to tell their friends how much they spent on something. They care to tell them about the wonderful experience that they had. And I think they'll tell a lot more people about that thing, that experience as well versus it was expensive and I'm awesome because it was expensive. That's not really a thing that anybody ever says to anybody, right?

Jay:

I want to pivot a little bit because I think you're you've got a lot of experience in another way that helps stores grow that stores probably don't traditionally think helps them grow, and that's accessibility. And it's something that a lot of brands just they ignore until they have to pay attention to it. But you... what there I think your exact stat was one in four customers. You're blindly turning away one in four customers that visit a site if you don't do it well. So like maybe can you talk to me a little bit about why accessib accessibility actually matters and what it's doing to your numbers and why stores should think about it?

Wes:

For sure. Yeah, I think you're accurate with the statistic. You know, if you think about me here on this podcast, I'm wearing glasses. My vision is not perfect. And so, I have some minute impairment when it comes to seeing things. And so, making sure that me as a user who's the least impacted by this scenario can see everything, read it, you know, consume the information is vital. But really, what we're talking about is discrimination. And so, in the US, it's called WCAG compliance, the web content accessibility guidelines.

A lot of folks refer to it as ADA compliance, which is the Americans with Disabilities Act, which are two unique things. One governs brick-and-mortar things, one governs what happens on the internet in Canada or Europe. There's different acronyms, but they all generally apply a similar standard, which is you have to provide a reasonable accommodation for every person who visits your business online or otherwise, to be able to do what their goals imply. And if you don't do those things, you're being discriminatory.

And merchants don't set out to be discriminatory. They're not saying, "Yeah, well, if one in four of my audience members doesn't have hands, well, that's just too bad for them and they can't use the internet." Like, that would be insane. And no merchant would ever say that. The reality is most commonly it's that we design something or build something that we don't know has faults in it and thus we're accidentally discriminating against somebody who needs some form of assistive tools to get the same experience that a fully abled person would. And so that can be everything from how your site is visually perceived to the ability to not listen to an audio track and instead read a transcript, to see things with the right level of contrast or the right font size, or to be able to apply their assistive tools that might be something like a joystick or a keyboard or a braille reader, or something that allows them to consume your information in exactly the same way that somebody who doesn't need those tools would.

And there's a lot of programmatic challenges when it comes to building a website that present unique problems to solve. And so when you think about Shopify and Shopify themes, they have a specific standard that a theme author has to apply to meet a specific level of standard for compliance that is enforced when you're buying something from the theme store, licensing something from the theme store. In a totally custom site, it's sort of no holds barred. Did we follow best practices, etc.

Yeah. in the context of why WCAG compliance matters. It's become a very letigious thing in the United States. You know, there's a lot of precedent. It's not necessarily governed by any specific body and the rules are not always applied evenly even though we have a standard that we should all be following. And so one of the challenges there is that everybody's problem that might be a lack of compliance for something could be everything from your brand colors when leveraged on the internet don't maintain a contrast ratio that matters to 100% of your audience and thus we have a problem to solve that's a branding problem.

Your brand colors are not good for this purpose. And so what do we do about that without corrupting the brand that you spent so much time and money building? A lot of it could be something like I can't navigate this site without using a mouse and that's problematic and so maybe that's more of a technical problem to solve and we need to make sure that we're solving it.

Likewise, it's also about letting your audience know that if you do encounter a problem, here's how I can help you solve it. Here's the accommodation I can offer. a chatbot, a phone number, a human touch somewhere along the way to help you achieve your goals and to try to do our best as a company to both learn from the problem that you've encountered and solve it and then likewise get you through whatever it is that you need right now as well as quickly as you want us to help you out.

You know, it's sort of like saying I think the easy analogy is a brick-and-mortar one where let's say you have a store that's a brick-and-mortar store and its doorways aren't wide enough for somebody who uses a wheelchair to roll through. You would never in your life consider saying, "Well, we have a tent out back that's for the folks in wheelchairs cuz our doors not wide enough. So, just roll yourself out there and there's a guy standing in the back and he'll help you out or whatever."

That's not that's not something that anybody would think is anything but insane. And so we have this brick-and-mortar standard that makes perfect sense because it's concrete and you can sort of see it. The under the hood version of it on the internet is a little bit more discreet when it comes to a normal lay user. How do I know it's right? What do I do to see that it's right? How can I accommodate this person who needs this help? And it's a lot harder to determine are you doing anything right or wrong?

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

I think for a business owner, the benefit to having great SEO or accessibility in this case is great SEO. So meaning the things that you would do that help a screen reader read the information that's on your website back to a user who can't visually see it is also great for SEO. It feeds that information back to search engines or it's good for GEO. So feeding it back to you know chat GPT or other sort of generative tools that would help me understand like what's the best podcast about Shopify or whatever. As long as you have great under the hood tools, well, Shopify 1%'s going to show up in that chat GPT search or whatever.

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

If you don't do those things, you're missing out on that SEO, but you're also telling that user, I don't want you to be my customer is really what's happening. And so, as an agency, what I thought and philosophically, I guess I've been an internet user for a really long time. I'm really old in this industry for somebody who's been around the block a bunch of times and sort of said like, well, you know, I truly believe the internet is for everybody. E-commerce is for everybody. We have, you know, in modern times, it's very hard to go to a store for everything, you know, and so we must provide an avenue for anybody who wants to approach us to buy from us or to consume our information.

And it's not such a bleeding heart kind of thing, but it's a like why would I not want everybody in the world to do my whatever it is that I'm up to, buy my t-shirt, drink my coffee, whatever. They're all their money all spends the same. they're all just as important to me as a business owner. And so why would I shut off a portion of my audience just because of my own ignorance or otherwise? And so it became really important to us as an agency, not only to solve situations where litigation occurs and our clients would get sued because they've discriminated without knowing they have, but more importantly, how can we unlock that 25% or 20% of audience that can't buy from us and maybe doesn't sue us? They just leave and they never come back.

Jay:

Yeah, and you never know.

Wes:

And like so, you know, it's a combination of how we apply design, what tactics we use to build things. Are we making choices that don't put somebody, you know, painted into a corner as they're trying to put that thing in their wallet or in in their cart and, you know, again, putting that wall up between their wallet and us? And what can we do to make sure that any user, no matter who they are, whatever abilities they have or don't have, can buy from us or work with us in a way that makes them feel great. And I think at the same time, you know, when you talk to folks who have true disabilities that are very prohibitive to use things on the internet, any one of them can rattle off a handful of websites that this site I can do everything I want on and thus I've become loyal to them.

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

It's not even then at that point about convincing that your product's the best. It's just the most accessible. It's the most convenient thing for them to get. And at the same time, I think if you were to think about yourself being put in the shoes of struggling to just put something in a cart and give somebody money, there's no reason that you wouldn't become loyal to the system that allows that to be the easiest. I think this applies to fully abled people as well, but most importantly, it applies to folks that need extra assistance to get there.

Jay:

So, obviously, there's money being left on the table when your site isn't accessible for everyone. So, what about all these like if you go in the app store, there's dozens of these accessibility widgets you can just throw on your site, little bubbles that show up on the top that people can click and that people just think that I have got this accessibility widget, I'm covered. What are your I know you've got some kind of spicy opinions and takes on these. What should a brand think about or consider when they're just looking at a one-click accessibility widget install?

Wes:

Well, let's see. So to back that up, I guess take one step back. I mean, as an agency, we chose to focus on certifications of various things. And so I have an employee who's extremely passionate about this and has led our charge. His actual job title is now "Captain Accessible". And so I have become very reliant on him to keep all of us as an agency trained and up to date on the best quality information.

And so as he went through this like massive level of certifications and training and seminars and like a monumental amount of work, he started to dig into exactly what you just asked about. And what these tools are called most commonly is overlays. So you see the little Vuvian man icon and you click on it and it says like I'll change your color contrast or I'll make the fonts bigger and things like that.

Those are essentially placebo and you know they do positive things to a certain degree and they mostly help folks like myself, somebody who has a slight vision impairment or a slight problem and I can click a button and make things bigger or easier to read and that's beneficial to me. For somebody who is truly blind, can't see anything, relies on a technology that reads things back to them or a braille machine or something like that, those tools actually often tend to get in the way of those assisted technologies. And there's the great website that we reference all the time.

It's called overlayfactsheet.com and it basically spells out a combination of most of these overlay companies have been sued for not being compliant. There's also opinions by organizations like the Americans With Disability. There's various organizations for folks with blindness in the US or deafness in the US and commentary like actual feedback about these tools of why it causes unique problems for somebody who's using assist of technology and it really doesn't actually provide true assistance. And so there's really no substitute for good code, whatever that means in this context. And these tools tend to provide a placebo sort of effect of, you know, I I installed this tool, I paid $9 a month for it, and my problems are solved. Most commonly what we found with the folks that we've worked with who've received the lawsuit, the target was that tool.

Jay:

I was just saw this. You read my mind. I was literally going to say if I'm a quote unquote ambulance chaser looking for like to go after lawsuits. I'm going to go in a tool like store leads or anything else. I'm going to find every Shopify store using this widget because then they think that they're compliant and that's they're probably a sitting duck.

Wes:

Well, and I think if you just go to your old friend the search engine or chat GPT and say, "Give me a list of lawsuits that were leveraged against overlay companies," the list is very long and a lot of them are from merchants who installed the tool and then got sued anyway or different organizations that support people with disabilities in various ways that show that this tool wasn't doing its job, things like that. And so, you know, I think it makes its own case. the litigation against those organizations or companies that didn't actually truly solve a problem I think spells out enough information in most cases.

But I think at the same time, you know, you look at the lawsuits that come about. I think it's probably based on this is a person who phoned it in to solve a problem and didn't actually make the effort to truly solve the problem and so I'm sure I can find problems that go beyond what this tool is solving. And I think it's sort of painting that target for most of our audience. And our especially when you start to use these very specialized assistive tools, what you'll see often is that the tool that you've created in this overlay is in the way of those those kind of things.

So it actually prohibits the braille machine from doing its job because the overlay machine or system is trying to take over. I think there is a several different platforms that are coming up that actually do uniquely solve problems. And if I can throw one out, a somewhat new SAAS type provider that exists in the Shopify world and other places is called "Test Party". And what makes them really interesting and unique is they don't provide an overlay. They provide a cost-effective, reasonably affordable like mitigation type service that's AI-driven. And what's interesting about it is even though AI can't solve every problem, it can find many.

And what it actually does is it attaches to your store, your GitHub repository or wherever your store theme is sort of being deployed from and it will scan it for problems. It will visually regress the visuals of your site and it will actually propose or execute code solutions into your theme, publish it to a dev theme, and then you push it into play. And so it's creating, you know, just like clawed code would write a new section for your Shopify theme, it will solve some of the problems that exist in the site. And I'd say it's a good 50 to 75% solution.

There's no substitute for humans using the internet. But if you think about the cost of me to go from zero to 100% versus the cost of a tool like this to get you to that 75% mark where a specialized agency can solve the remaining 25%. It's an amazing value and it does a great job. The unique challenge you've got, I think, in any circumstance where AI exists today is let's make sure it's actually doing its job. So again, employ some kind of human testing or some opinion where an actual user is using the fixed thing on top of just believing that it's fixed.

Jay:

Yeah,

Wes:

But it's pretty good.

Jay:

Oh, "Test Party". Okay, I'll check it out. I haven't haven't played with it or I don't I haven't even heard of it actually. So that sounds super interesting, though.

Wes:

It's a killer use of AI that solves a lot of, you know, challenges that, you know, if you look at the WCAG guidelines, they're extensive. It looks like the building codes, if you've ever built a house...

Jay:

Yeah.

Wes:

they don't ever get smaller. They don't ever get more concise. It just keeps getting more and grows more and more. And I think the goal though is intentionally there to make sure that the internet is truly democratized for everybody. Any user of any place can use it, and we have to do the right things. Typically what it means for merchants, I think that's also a unique challenge is you can't just make a video now. You also have to make a transcript.

You also have to make sure that you have all of these extra things available in your marketing that again don't close that door. So effort has to be made and paid attention to. There's typically routines. You have to have oversight at all times. You know, in the same way that you wouldn't not refill your fire extinguishers every year in a brick-andmortar scenario, you wouldn't not pay maintain compliance every every year in your website as well.

And it's sort of a never-ending battle, especially as your content managers change over or new product lines come out. There's a lot of checks and balances in play that need to be paid attention to. And as an agency, our job is to either solve those problems for you or teach you how to solve those problems for yourself and provide you with the knowledge and oversight necessary to do it and fly on your own. And I think once we get past the barrier of how does this make me money or why is this non-glamorous thing possible or whatever, it really starts to make sense, right?

I think if nothing else, it's you won't get sued for this reason. And that's a big deal. But more importantly, it's you've just left 25% of a possible audience on the table. they're never going to come back. They're going to lose entire loyalty. Even if you solve your problem later, they're not coming back. It's just how it is. And so, you know, when a merchant starts to understand those things, it makes perfect sense. They dive right in.

Jay:

Well, maybe this is a good spot to wrap up. I know we've already even gone a little bit over time, but I know you mentioned before we got on air that I asked, is there anything we can kind of leave our listeners with as a bit of an offer? And I think you mentioned something about if there is anyone interested and I'll let you speak to it, but in in having a highle audit that was related to this, right? Can you maybe speak to that?

Wes:

Sure. Yeah. I think we tend to look at a website holistically. So when we're talking about an audit, it can be everything from its performance to its compliance to maybe its tactics. And so I'd love to offer the audience that sort of an audit, which is engage with us for free. We will spend some time pouring through your site and divulge any opinion or issues that we can discover that would help you improve your sales, help you improve your compliance, help you improve your conversions, all the above.

And I think specifically, obviously, we specialize in Shopify and Shopify Plus, but we're very happy to talk to any merchant, even somebody who's considering heading that way and [music] maybe wants to understand, you know, how do I look today? And if I got to Shopify, how would that look differently? But yeah, it would be our pleasure to help any of the listeners along the way with this this style of free audit and you know focus on areas that maybe are their high priorities or focus in a generalist way across all the things I just mentioned.

Jay:

That's amazing. And just for those listeners, Wes's agency has been around is it 19 years now?

Wes:

We're just about to cross the 20 year mark. So coming up here in about a month.

Jay:

like I mean that's you're in the top half percent of agencies. Like I don't know many out there even half that long. So you've been seen it all and you've been on both sides of the fence. So like if there's anyone you can trust in the space, it's Wes and his team. So where can where can I point people to connect with you on that?

Wes:

So you could visit seammonstersstudios.com. Just drop in a contact on our contact form and say that you saw me on the podcast. You can reach out directly to me, wes we seammonstudios.com and you know hit us up however you'd like. You can also find me on LinkedIn if you're one of those folks. And so however you want to get in touch, we'd love to chat and help out. And you know, there's no obligation for anything. You just let's have a great conversation and see if we're the the right folks to help [music] you out somewhere along the way.

Jay:

And worst case scenario, it might save you a lawsuit because I know a lot of brands that have gone through that and it's not fun. Wes, thank you so much. This was this was a ton of fun and I'll make sure to include all those notes in the show notes and we'll have to have you back on someday in the future. This is very informative. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. [music]