Welcome to episode 35 of Getsitecontrol Insider!
Our invited guests for this episode are Chase Clymer – the Co-founder at Electric Eye, the top agency that helps ecommerce brands using Shopify to power their business, and Giorgia Mangoni – our customer happiness manager at Getsitecontrol.
Tune in to hear about the biggest challenges ecommerce brands face today!
Questions discussed in this episode:
Bonus: Chase's favorite ecommerce tools!
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Welcome to episode 35 of Getsitecontrol Insider!
Our invited guests for this episode are Chase Clymer – the Co-founder at Electric Eye, the top agency that helps ecommerce brands using Shopify to power their business, and Giorgia Mangoni – our customer happiness manager at Getsitecontrol.
Tune in to hear about the biggest challenges ecommerce brands face today!
Questions discussed in this episode:
Bonus: Chase's favorite ecommerce tools!
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Hi, you are listening to Getsitecontrol insider, a monthly podcast where we talk about all things. E-commerce the topic of today's episode is the biggest challenges e-commerce brands face today. If you own an online store and especially if you're using Shopify, stay tuned to learn more Today, we're welcoming two new guests on our show. It's Giorgia Mangone- our customer happiness manager at Getsitecontrol. Hi, Gio, how are you doing?
Gio:Hi, Anthony. I'm glad to be here.
Anthony:Thank you. It's good to have you. And Chase Clymer- the Co-founder at Electric Eye, the top agency that helps e-commerce brands use Shopify to power their business. What's up Chase? Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming.
Chase:Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to talk.
Anthony:Yeah, man. So, before we get going on everything, you know, with Ecommerce, tell us a little bit about your agency: how you found yourself getting into this and consulting store owners, et cetera, et cetera.
Chase:Yeah. Once upon a time I was in a punk rock band and traveled the country, and it was a lot of fun, but that did not pay the bills. So I was freelancing the whole time I was doing that and actually I met my business partner through the band. Him and I partnered up- we created my band's album Mart together like 13 years ago or something. So a friendship happened from that. And then, obviously, I'm not a rockstar, so real life happened at some point. And I was like, still consulting, still freelancing, doing all that stuff when the band kind of hung up their hat and once he left his job- he was like a third at a big vintage direct and consumer brand outta Columbus here- once he left there, he started freelancing a bunch. And just through trying to help educate him, get better at his kind of freelance consulting career and, and whatnot, we started tag teaming, some e-commerce projects together. Funny enough, I wasn't really much in the e-commerce space before that I was more like strategic marketing, paid ads, paid social, things like that. But we started taking all these e-commerce projects together and a lot of'em were on Shopify. Um, and we must have just struck a chord with how we were trying to help these clients and the results that we were getting them. And we kind of like had to start an agency. So we kind of picked a name out of a hat. It was Electric Eye and the the rest is history.
Anthony:That's awesome, man. Okay, so you were in a band when you played punk rock.
Chase:Yeah, that was awesome. I finally got good about the time we ended
Anthony:That's always the way it happens. I played bass for like a summer in a band, and that was just- there was never going back, after that I was done. Um, so I think my next question to you after listen to that is- and I always ask this, everybody I work with- from when you started to where we are now, in today's age in 2022, you know, would you say it's easier or it's more challenging? I mean, freelancing has definitely become a way of life. I know it's changed my entire life and it seems like it's a trend that's not going away. W ould you think it's more c hallenging o r e asier to grow an online store today as opposed to when you s tarted?
Chase:Okay. So I, I saw two questions in that. So the first one is, do you think it's easier/harder today to start a business? I think it's never been easier to start an online business, especially with the powerhouses like Shopify and all those platforms out there. I think the second part of your question though, is it harder to launch a business today? I think, yes, it's harder. It's because there's so much more competition you have to stand out and that takes hard work. Nobody wants to talk about it. There's no such thing as overnight success. There's no silver bullet in e-commerce. You gotta put in the work, you gotta find product market fit. And I think that just with how mature paid ads are these days, and what's going on with influencer marketing, just having a strategic way to grow your business with marketing is difficult. And you know, five years ago were all of these crazy case studies and stories of just striking gold on Facebook- that doesn't work anymore! That will never work again. Just get that outta your mind. It's gonna take hard work.
Anthony:No, absolutely. I think with that you answered the next question, which would be, you know, what do you think has changed? And I definitely agree. I think the accessibility to everyone being able to start their own business, basically no money, has flooded the market, which means you have a lot of people. You have to be able to stand out. What do you think, Joe?
Gio:It was very insightful. Thank you so much, Chase, for sharing your experience with us. And for those of our listeners who are just getting started with e-commerce, what would you say are the top three beginners' mistakes to avoid?
Chase:Absolutely. The first one that comes to mind is trying to do everything at once. I feel like, uh, everyone's like initial marketing plan is like a shotgun approach to marketing and they're like:"We're gonna do this on social and we're gonna do this blogging". And it just is very sporadic. And if everything's important, nothing's important, nothing's gonna be done. Well, there's not gonna be anything without a good strategic thought behind it. So, obviously, the first thing to do is to, you know, focus on a channel that works and maximize that channel, until you're getting the results that you want and then, you know, pivot in one or two other channels. So you're not like putting all of your eggs in one basket or like putting all your risk in one marketing channel. So that'd be like the number one beginner's mistake to avoid is focus. You gotta focus on these things. Maybe not so much of a mistake, but a piece of advice. The second thing here would be like, the money never comes as fast or as much as you think it does. If you talk to any entrepreneur or business owner, it takes a while and it's a grind. And if you're looking to start an e-commerce business, you know, it's gotta be kind of related to something you're passionate about. If you're in this to make money, you're probably not gonna be passionate about it and you're going to give up. You know what I mean? But if it's something you're truly passionate about, if your product solves a problem for people that you really care about, you know you'll be willing to put in those long hours and you'll be willing to fail repeatedly trying to learn from your mistakes. And I think that the last one I kind of already just added to in my last statement. I think when people fail for the first time, they just give up and that's... You can't do that with any type of business- eCommerce or consulting- or even like starting a service business, you're going to fail. It's inevitable. But the mistake is letting that happen and then just giving up. You just need to learn from it and move on, and keep doing stuff, cuz you're gonna fail again. And again! I've been doing my business now for six years at, at the agency Electric Eye. And I've been freelancing since...I don't want to admit how old I am. I've made so many mistakes! But the best thing is, none of them are detrimental. None of them are really gonna ruin your business. You're gonna learn from it. As long as you have people skills, you can make things right.
Gio:I totally agree. So, to sum up your answer, it would be to focus your effort, be passionate and patient, and basically don't give up.
Chase:Um, yeah, you make it sound a lot better than I.
Gio:Okay. So now, I know we are all sick and tired of the topic of the pandemic, but it's hard to ignore it given how much it has boosted online shopping. On the other hand, it has also dramatically increased consumer expectations of online stores, right? So many people now want the speed and convenience of Amazon from small e-commerce brands. So my question for you is how can merchants tackle this challenge? Is there anything they can offer that Amazon can't?
Chase:Absolutely. So the coolest thing about having your own store, you know, on whatever platform- obviously I'm gonna say Shopify cause it's great- but, you know, any platform, is that you have full control over the user experience, the customer journey, and more importantly, the customer relationship- how you interact in the customer service. Like those are things that Amazon isn't gonna budge on their experience, it's the same for everybody. You know, the product pages all kind of look the same, there's just a little bit of areas where you can tweak them. The customer journey's always the same, and Amazon won't budge it. But on your own website, you can build beautifully tailored educational content that really speaks to the features and benefits and problems that your product solves. You can use awesome retargeting strategies through email, SMS, paid ads that speak to the same things. And that's something that Amazon won't do. And then, you know, the real key here is truly being passionate about your customers. Amazon's at a scale where the customers are kind of secondary to the business model now, and they will never be as nice as your reps or yourself. If you're still answering those emails to your customers, and just listening to your customers and iterating upon their feedback- it's something that Amazon doesn't really do.
Anthony:Yeah, I totally agree. And I also think, you have to think that because of the change in everything, people do want that personal, just like you said, that personal experience. Like they're actually working with someone real, even though it's online, we want to be in a real world yet be able to still work online, you know? So I think that's a big thing. Another challenge we have on our blog and podcast, and actually I'm very passionate about this too, is bringing people back to your store. You know, it's expensive, it's difficult whenever you gotta get out and get someone as a first time buyer, getting them into your store as a customer. But turning an existing customer into a returning buyer, um, what's your take on this? What's the best way for brands to create that loyal audience of returning customers?
Chase:It's hilarious because we see this all the time with brands that are talking to us for consulting. They're scared to even just send the email! They have the email and they're scared to send it. It's like, if you're adding value to your customer's life, like they don't care. You're adding value to their day! Reach out, they want to hear from you. Um, and also there's just so much low-hanging fruit.I kind of hate that term, but it's real. Like you can build out really simple retargeting strategies through Facebook and Instagram that will return well for your brand. If you're organically getting people to visit your website, or your other marketing efforts are bringing people in, in a way that's affordable and you're not retargeting them, you are spending so much more money per sale. Then if you start to build out the other kind of retargeting strategies further down the funnel, you also wanna do that through email and SMS. Let those really do the heavy lifting. Like one of the most simple funnels to build out for an e-commerce brand is find a good way to do prospecting at the top of the funnel, through like paid acquisitions. So Facebook or Google shopping or TikTok, whatever you're using at the top of the funnel, you know, you gotta go where your customers are. You gotta think about that. You find a good way to bring people to your website, and then you have a, a good position to offer, to get people onto your email list. Maybe it's like it doesn't always have to be a discount. You know, most people always default to the discount, but it could be like, uh, you know, free shipping when you first purchase or free gift with your first purchase. That one's great. Or, you know, maybe you give away a bundle every month of your product-"sign up to get the bundle!". Like there's a bunch of ways to do it, but you get their contact information and then you let your email automations do the heavy lifting: you walk'em through a welcome series that kind of lets them know who you are. You win the trust, talk about the features and the benefits and the value proposition. And you walk'em through that whole thing. So you're priming them to buy, when you really go for that right hook, as Gary V would say, and ask for the sale.
Gio:Thank you, Chase, for your very detailed answer. And would you name some of your favorite ecommerce tools you typically recommend to your customers?
Chase:I was kind of alluding the email automation just a second ago. We're Klavio gold partners and we're, we're pretty fancy when it comes to that. Some other tools that, you know, if you're thinking about subscription, Recharge is probably the best in the bunch there. Um, obviously Shopify is my favorite ecommerce tool. Um, you know, and there's just the one thing I will say about the tools in general. A tool without a strategy is useless. So you still have to be very particular about the apps you install on your store. Um, you know, if you install an app on your store, it's installing another JavaScript code, and then when you press uninstall, it's not removing that code. So if you're testing a bunch of apps, you're basically making your website worse and worse and slower and slower, and it's more detrimental. And I'll tell you right now, no developer wants to go in there and clean up that code. So be very thought about the apps that you use on your store.
Gio:Smart. Thank you. So I would like to link back to that human factor we were talking about earlier. My next question is really, interesting for me because part of my job is to answer our customers' questions, concerns, and saolve their issues using our chat service. So I'm a real person behind the computer. And here comes my question. What do you think of chatbots? I, I have an idea about what you may think about it, but I'd like to hear it from you.
Chase:It depends, which is the answer most consultant will say. Are you gonna do the work and build out a chatbot sequence that speaks to your customer journey and the questions that you're actually your customers are gonna have? Or are you just gonna turn on some things and let it run, and it will be a bad experience? Like you're probably not gonna see the results that you want. Every tool without a strategy is useless. So you gotta think about it. I think that chatbots are amazing and I've seen amazing results for them, for some of our clients. Other consultants I know in the industry, like really love to use them. And even beyond that! Just live chat in general, it does work, you know, you have to man it with the tool power to answer the questions that your customers could have.
Anthony:Thank you. Yeah. I was gonna say about the chatbot thing is that I think the biggest challenge... I can't stand going to websites and you know, like, hey, you know, there's a live person. You're like, this is great. And you hit the chat and they're like:"But we won't be back until tomorrow morning", you know? And you clearly, you know, that's understandable because if you have a live person, who's gotta be someone there all the time. So, I think chat bots can be very useful, but you're right at the same time. Ssometimes you type in-"We don't understand your question". So it makes a lot of sense.
Chase:I think if you have a very small skew count and you know what the questions will be about, you can be pretty well armed from an automation standpoint, but if you have like a larger skew count, or there's a lot of variables to your product, it might get a little more difficult to have a coherent autoresponder.
Anthony:No, definitely. All right, man. Hey, listen, this has been great. I have one last question for you, and it's on shopping cart abandonment. We know that it's virtually inevitable, and abandoned rates could be over 80% for certain industries. It's a lot of money left on the table! What are three key steps brands can take to reduce the number of abandoned carts in their stores?
Chase:Absolutely. I think the first one is, if it happens on your product page, answer the questions that your customer is gonna have about your product. Like half of cart abandonments is:"I don't understand if this is gonna solve my problem". So go the extra mile and make sure that the information's there. Talk about your product, and then de-risk the transaction as well. What that means is have a shipping policy and a return policy and shipping charges that make sense, and so that your customers actually wanna do it. I think another thing that you can do to reduce the number of abandoned carts is- don't use the one"out of the box" email solution on Shopify. Use another one where you can send way better abandoned cart emails, and beyond that, you can send more than one. That's where the real money is, you know? We see touchpoints of two to three touches for abandoned carts. Again, you gotta be strategic about it. And it really has to come down to your product and your offering, and all that. But yeah, that was like two and a half answers.
Anthony:<laugh> no, that was good. That was good. Um, I actually do something crazy. I came up with this story about toasting to the person's success, as they were purchasing the product, but then when they decided not to, I was frustrated and I threw the bottle of champagne, and it almost hit my cat, and my cat was really angry at me. And I did this whole thing and I have to tell you, I get so many responses from people who sent me back an email.[They] just wanted talk about it. That email was crazy. Cause then you strike up a conversation with them, right? And, and then you have those touch points and now they become like a part of your family.
Chase:If you wanna look at it that way! You can ask,'em why they didn't check out. And now you're just doing CRO in a one way, and you're getting that insight from the customer. Then you use those insights to make your product page better and to answer their questions or, you know, understand maybe, you know, there's absolutely nothing wrong with your product, it's just the marketing. There was something off with the marketing and they should have never been there in the first place. You know what I mean?
Anthony:Absolutely.
Gio:Thank you, Chase for all of your answers. It was very informative and I'm sure your advice will help our listeners make better decisions and grow their stores faster.
Anthony:Absolutely man, thank you. And what would be the best way for them to reach you? You know, if they have any questions or need your help.
Chase:Absolutely. If you're liking what we have, you can head over to electriceye.io. You can click on contact and apply to work with us and we'll hop on a strategy call and see if we're a good fit to help you grow.
Anthony:Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, this was Chase Clymer. Thank you for joining us today, my friend, it was a blast talking to you.
Chase:Thanks for having me. Awesome.
Anthony:Starting an e-commerce business may seem very timely today, but it also brings its share of challenges and we've covered some of them today. Follow the link in the description to this episode and read more on this topic in our blog. You were listening to Getsitecontrol Insider. Remember to subscribe! Until next time.