The Future of Online Retail: How Shopify is Transforming the Brand Experience With Guest Brian Peters Head of Platform Partnerships at Shopify

Erik: 00:00:50

Welcome to the show today. I'm very excited because I have two guests. And so this is going to be a jam-packed episode where we're going to gain some insights into Shopify like never before. We're going to learn what that the leadership, what's top of mind with the Shopify leadership along with just, you know, leadership. Because today I have my my co-founder, Travis Logan, CTO of just, you know, on the show and Brian Peters, head of platform partnerships at Shopify.

Erik: 00:01:22

So hang on, today is going to be a very insightful show. So we're going to jump into it. And the reason I have Brian on the show today. Welcome, Brian. Well, thank you.

Brian: 00:01:33

Thank you. Good to be here.

Erik: 00:01:34

I have Brian on here because I was down at the Shopify Enterprise event down in L.A., right by where that I-10 fire was, what, two days ago? I'm not surprised because that, you know, no Shopify, they like to select very colorful neighborhoods to have events like this colorful, really cool spot in the heart of downtown L.A. Brian got on stage and gave a presentation and he had a slide that stood out to me.

Erik: 00:02:06

And that's what we're talking about today. The quotes from the slide were, according to a survey of Shopify Plus merchants, 35% have seen smaller cart sizes and 50% are seeing less site traffic and lower conversion rates. Now, we also the second reason we're here is Travis and I were at the Google next event in San Francisco wandering the expo and we stumbled upon a Shopify booth at Google Nexus conference.

Erik: 00:02:46

Which one was surprising? And two, the big letters across it were the number one converting checkout in the world. So today we are going to talk about Shopify and conversions and no, no one better than Brian Peters to join us and no one better than Travis who's working to build into Shopify Viser API server pixel event publishing segment extensions, everything we're building into right now.

Erik: 00:03:16

So that's setting the stage for what you'll hear today. So Brian, thanks for joining us for taking the time. Brian Brian has been a Shopify for just about five years now. We've been working together for years and watched Brian grow up in Shopify as well. Congratulations on Running and heading the partnerships and the ecosystem that slide you shared.

Erik: 00:03:45

Let's start there. Where did those data points come from? how did you come to present that slide?

Brian: 00:03:56

It's kind of funny. That was probably the most asked-about slide in many of the presentations that happened at the summit. And it was I don't think I realized at the time when I put the deck together that that was going to be such a controversial slide. I was like, wow, I should have put that in there because it kind of freaked people out a little bit, to be honest with you.

Brian: 00:04:23

The data came from a survey that we ran with a lot of our Shopify Plus merchants and here's a little bit of juxtaposition here where if you look at Shopify this quarter, their earnings call and just like DTC in general, like Commerce continues to grow online, commerce continues to grow. Shopify merchants are kicking ass. Honestly, quarter over quarter, more people are becoming entrepreneurs than ever before.

Brian: 00:04:50

Our brands are growing, larger brands are joining Shopify. So on one hand, you have this incredible growth in the ecommerce space. On the other hand, you have this kind of looming like, wow, marketing. Marketing is hard. And I think that even when I first joined Shopify, when I joined Shopify five years ago, I was hired to basically run the marketing technology vertical.

Brian: 00:05:13

which I love because every single quarter we would run a merchant survey and the number one challenge is like, okay, what is your biggest challenge about running the Adidas E-Store online store? Every single time and I'm pretty sure that data holds. Today is like marketing. Marketing is by far the hardest thing I do. I've actually talked to we have some really great or we did at one point, like entrepreneurs and residents where they have like a full-time Shopify job, but they were kind of running stores on the side.

Brian: 00:05:42

And I would talk to these people and they'd be like, You know when I first started a brand, I was like, I thought the hardest thing would be like finding the products or like, you know, like packaging them or shipping them. But like really what you are as an entrepreneur is like you're a marketer and then like, you run this like clothing or jewelry or whatever business on the side because you can't get people to come to your website, then you're you're just not going to survive.

Brian: 00:06:06

I think what we're seeing is like the top of the funnel stuff is, is people are getting better and better at and like things like Facebook ads have made that like great. But it almost seems now and the reason I showed that slide to kind of close the thought here is like it's more like first-party data and converting the sort of like competition's fierce, right?

Brian: 00:06:29

So like converting the most amount of people you possibly can on your website is the absolute most important thing you can do when you're thinking about building your site. And so that's that. That side sort of reflection is like new paradigm of marketing that we're in, which is like a major focus on conversion, not just top of the funnel.

Erik: 00:06:48

The that paradigm shift, you know, with costs across the board rising everywhere, it's harder to get that get those visitors to the site. It's it's really trying to figure out the word conversion. You know, Shopify is never use the word conversion before. And that's why I'm so happy to see Harley out there talking about how important conversion is, how checkout so important.

Erik: 00:07:15

The it's never been used, but, but people need to now because it's so expensive to get these visitors. Harley when he was on stage speaking, I forget his name the guy from Nike, you know they talked about, you know, with enterprise commerce, the focus there of the brand experience and understanding the consumer demands. And he talked about in order to do that, you have to have that first-party data, zero-party data on the customer.

Erik: 00:07:41

I thought that was really interesting. You know, hearing Shopify is trying to understand Shopify as perspective of how do you influence conversion rates? And it's really coming down to this identity, to personalization, to segmenting your visitors so you can target them with the right message at the right time with the right customer. The you know, I think it might be good to just pause right now and thank our sponsor better than Audi Components.

Travis: 00:08:12

So I employees I have a little side shop my side shop better than Dutch shop where I sell these Audi digital gauge displays that I built for myself and gathered, you know, a following of people who wanted them. I was like, okay, I could build some more, I suppose. And it actually has been a fun side hobby of mine.

Brian: 00:08:38

So do you agree with the the statement of conversion is more important than ever, but yours is well, interesting because you have such a loyal following start.

Travis: 00:08:46

That's my mind's a very Yeah. Mind is not your typical DTC at all. And by the way, I don't know if it was mentioned, but it's on Shopify of course, and I hope so. And I was going to say as well, like you were just speaking earlier about marketing, of course being the hardest thing. Of course, I totally agree.

Travis: 00:09:03

But I think Shopify is just done such an amazing job at making every other part of it so dang easy that it has shine a light on how much, how hard the marketing aspect of it is left to do. Because I know, like you mentioned, you know, product designing, shipping and overall like site functions, I don't have to think about, you know, my site going down on or how am I going to add another product or how am I going to offer international, you know, UPS or international DHL or whatever.

Travis: 00:09:39

It's just it's all how to take credit cards, PayPal, all that fun stuff. It's just like all out of the box experience with Shopify and it's been on was amazing. I knew that, of course, upfront and that's why I chose it. But yeah, as far as my experience on that site, it's very different because I, my, my market, my possible market is 3 to 4000 people strong, I think because you have to have this special component for your car for mine to work with.

Travis: 00:10:06

So literally it's just all my marketing is on Facebook, it's Facebook and word of mouth people, people will have my thing, they go to shows and they this their favorite upgrade they done on the car. So they tell everybody about it. But I don't bother, you know, doing Google advertising or anything or even Facebook advertising like that because I just joined the Audi groups and I post it and everybody allows me to post it because everybody loves it.

Travis: 00:10:28

So I have it now front. But the same time, my expansion capability is really is really limited.

Erik: 00:10:35

Paris is being very modest here. And his what he's done well, I love it for two reasons. One, you know, it's so fantastic that Travis himself is a Shopify retailer. Our CTO is like when he has like he's breaking things on both sides to make both. He understands Shopify so deep now and with our product. That just is a perfect recipe for anyone I know.

Erik: 00:11:00

Like a lot of other like I remember, you know, like with Tobi still runs his shop and everyone still runs their shops. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know Shopify encourages employees to do it, but what he's not telling you is it's the classic DTC DTC product where if you have a great product, it potentially can sell itself because it makes marketing so much easier when you have a product that people are willing to write to create their own YouTube videos and post it, or they're so excited about their product, they're doing a video and posting to social channels is getting all this viral marketing, which you don't hear that word viral marketing anymore.

Erik: 00:11:41

Really. It's maybe it's just it's you.

Travis: 00:11:44

It's really only, you know, if the Kardashians post something like that's about it.

Erik: 00:11:48

It's influencer marketing, but that's what drives Travis's business and he doesn't spend a dollar on marketing. Those are the ones we love or it's like incredible products. You just have to and make sure that brand experience carries through which Travis is talking about The basic things that chef has simplified. They follow through with it because, you know, we talk about retention.

Erik: 00:12:10

If someone buys something from Travis, they got to have a great experience. They got to it's got to be shipped to them on time. You got to communicate shipping, you know, the whole shipping world on the product page. And part of the experience, which I think is critical and makes marketers' jobs easier if they're second third touches are positive ones versus negative ones, right, with customers?

Brian: 00:12:34

Well, that's what I think about a lot too, because like, not everybody is like I feel like there's probably more brands out there that have a great product that people don't know about that the brands like, I feel like we get to see. I mean, why there's 3 million businesses on Shopify. Like, how do you get to the Travis point, right?

Brian: 00:12:51

Which is like, I have a like a super loyal following of ten, 20,000 people buying my products and talk about my products. I think the interesting thing is, is like that's why conversion so important because a lot of these entrepreneurs are starting out new and they may not have that like product market fit and immediately or like Travis, it sounds like your product is like pretty niche, which actually like is the best.

Brian: 00:13:13

Probably one of the best parts about it is it's quality, its niche and the experience is good. Like a lot of these, you know, a lot of these people, right? A lot of people like starting in a space is pretty crowded, you know? And like if you get ten visits, ten visitors, your website in the first week, like how do you I mean, and that's like and you're right, Travis, I think you made a good point, right?

Brian: 00:13:33

Like if all the toil, if you will toil is a word we like to use now, trough by like if all the toil of starting a business is gone and the only thing left to do is market. And you have a million people like, wow, Shopify made starting a business super easy. Now everybody's competing over who's better at marketing.

Brian: 00:13:53

it's tough. And then so like every single visitor matters, whereas before it's like the people are winning. Like we're really good at Facebook ads or like, yeah, they had custom-built websites like no one else can do. But like now all that those tools like in your hands. So then it does become like it almost becomes like a marketing function and then it becomes the experience function on top of that.

Erik: 00:14:14

That's what marketing is. It's brand experience, right? To have a positive experience. It's when you're on the site and then once you engage and purchase for that, for the secondary purchase or if they land on the site as a first-time visitor, you're building that trust. You're providing the information that they need to take that next step and that or.

Brian: 00:14:42

In addition to building trust too, which is what I think Justuno does great, is like they may not be ready to buy. Right? And so, like, trust could be a lot.

Brian: 00:14:54

Of different things, you know, And that's what I think that a lot of people are talking about like zero party data now is like zero party data is like expands away from just people who have signed up to your email list. And I know that in the early days Justuno you like were the most powerful email converter on a website now it's expanded, now we're an identity tool and I feel like Eric you were saying this you right like this term identity is like very it's been around forever but no one's really talked about it because it was always like kind of a negative connotation, right?

Brian: 00:15:28

Like, oh my gosh, date is going to be used to like creep on Instagram and then they're going to target me. I think what people are realizing is that they actually like, like personalize ads and they just didn't know it yet, you know? But they want to have agency over the brands that show that to them. And so I think people are willing to give up data to brands they trust, and then brands have like the power to use that in a responsible way.

Brian: 00:15:52

So I would say we're not.

Travis: 00:15:54

You know, going to see that business one way or another. It's whether or not the advertisements are at all meaningful to you. So I totally agree. People do, whether they admit it or not. I think, generally speaking, people do like the personalized identified experience.

Erik: 00:16:11

Well, and that's where retail has shifted, is that now the consumer is in charge of how they want to purchase where they want to, how they want to and when. And that's what retailers are trying to figure out is, okay, well, each customer has different needs. We can't just hit them with a 10% off coupon lead capture anymore.

Erik: 00:16:33

We need to really engage them in a meaningful way. And there's so many creative, cool ways that that you can engage with users now.

Brian: 00:16:42

Yeah.

Travis: 00:16:43

I agree. I also think that it's interesting it's always been the case but you know the bar just keeps on getting higher set higher and higher Of course with respect to how easy is the checkout experience going to be, right? So you're on your phone, you're lying in bed, Do what I did most nights around 11:00 am. I got the TV on the back and I'm still on my phone looking.

Travis: 00:17:03

I might be I might spend 5 minutes window shopping for whatever. And then and I see it and it's like, I just I don't feel like getting my credit card, all that stuff or whatever. And yes, I know my iPhone has my credit cards, but it like always has something wrong. Some other room with my app or just something has my old credit card in or whatever.

Travis: 00:17:26

And I already like I already know that's going to be the case. So breaking down those barriers, you know, with the likes of Shop the shop instance and trying to bubble that up early on. So because I don't I might not know I'm on a Shopify side of course, like me being Travis, you know, CTO Justuno, working with Shopify every day.

Travis: 00:17:47

I know, you know cuz that it's a Shopify website, I can recognize things and things like that, but the typical consumer doesn't, so they don't know that that might be available as an easy win when they're ready to check out. So seeing something like that come up earlier, it's not almost on the first page would be, you know, those types of indicators really help me continue on that checkout path in that time period.

Erik: 00:18:12

So you mentioned shopping, you know, to keep us going down the path of understanding why Shopify is the number one converting checkout in the world. You know, talking about smaller card sizes, lower conversions. Brian, is there kind of when you had merchants respond to you about that slide, what were they talking about? Are they and is their response like, what can I do?

Erik: 00:18:42

You know, it's like, what should I do? Well, you know, it's like, oh, are you using shot? They're using, you know, buy now, pay later. How do those conversations go within your world?

Brian: 00:18:53

Yeah, it's a good question. I think it definitely is a lot of like the is less of like what can I do because I think everybody is generally aware of like the main tack. It’s funny, like there's, there's not like a limitless amount of, like marketing tactics. And so I think everyone's pretty generally aware what they could do.

Brian: 00:19:16

I think it's yeah, the conversations are like, What do you mean by like smaller card sizes? Like, what do you mean? My conversion rate is shop. Hey, like what, what should I be thinking about? And it really what the conversation always gets back to is like identity online and they Travis to your point it is like shocking. Now if I'm on a if I'm on a brand's website and I like to check out experiences just like actually worse in just regular checkouts on the web.

Brian: 00:19:45

And I don't mean that I'm biased or anything, but you're right. If I'm sitting on my phone like I don't want to go grab my credit card as want to type in my email. I think what brands also forget to is like, I mean, Shopify for sure. And think about the hundreds of thousands, millions of people, young like high earners that are working for technology companies that like Shopify doesn't allow me to have my Google save passwords.

Brian: 00:20:08

We have to use like encrypted one password plus Two FA like all that stuff. So where do purchases like I know there's like there's studies that show you might browse on your mobile and check out on your computer, which is, by the way, really hard for attribution. But think about all the people that like it by thinking on their computer because they're like because their company is not a lot of buyers.

Brian: 00:20:30

Like shop solves a lot of weird situations. But yeah, like the merchants are often the what we're seeing is that checkout is, is probably the main reason why large brands are considering us now and, and it's also really interesting to see this mental shift away from like and one of the things I talked about in my segment, my summary presentation is like there's this like old theory that if you build everything custom, it's going to be really high converting because it's going to be something that people are like really in love with experiencing right?

Brian: 00:21:07

Like you can't you have to build everything custom to get the experience that you truly want. And when you really drill into that, there's really not a lot of customizations that are going to help you perform better because a lot of like the like the stuff that you need, like buy online, pick up and store discounts, functions, whatever.

:: 21:24:24

Brian

But at the end of the day, people just want a super simple checkout process and they want to just do it quickly. So every second matters. And so the brands that we're seeing coming on over or like converting to shop air or whatever it is, they're like, you know what? It's a lot to maintain this infrastructure and this checkout experience, and we're like willing to give this a shot.

:: 21:46:11

Brian

So they might start with a small brand coming over first. They might move like one of their, you know, maybe a conglomerate. They'll move one of their brand tests out. And I think slowly but surely, we are seeing that like, yeah, the customizations that we, the brand thought were super important to have. All the stuff like are not honestly.

:: 22:04:05

Travis

And also.

:: 22:05:08

Erik

Back and digest.

:: 22:07:04

Travis

There's a little bit of history behind though that that idea of needing those customizations because today what used to be a customization that people had to go down that route for is an out of a box experience with Shopify. So you know it's it's I think yesterday it was important to be able to have those basic things or slightly less basic but still important things.

:: 22:32:04

Travis

But now that you know, you can get via Shopify and if you can't get it out of the box of Shopify, 99% chance you can get it with one or two apps that you've had, Shopify apps that you've had it on.

:: 22:41:13

Brian

So yeah, it's comparable to like cleaning out your garage. You know, you get a lot of really cool stuff in there, I'm sure. But like when's the last time you used it type time situation? You know, it's like if you get rid of it, you're less cluttered your, your sites probably faster and they get in there and I were talking about this in Los Angeles, but like I think a lot of especially major cities or developers or partners or whoever, like, oh my gosh, like we need to hold on to this customization because that's how we, like, make a living.

:: 23:11:23

Brian

That's how we like help brands is how we deliver value. But it's like the age old question of like, is AI going to replace every single job? Like, yeah, it'll replace the jobs that are around today, but that means there's going to be even more challenges and solve in the future. So that's what we really think about as Shopify is.

:: 23:27:20

Brian

And Travis, I think you said it perfectly is like the the stuff that required customizations yesterday is now out of the box today. But guess what? There's 100 other things that need be done that are actually going to make these experiences and conversion even better. So like focus on those.

:: 23:45:03

Erik

Right. Part of the communicating to your your visitors is that brand experience of what isn't being done. I think today is the saying to that is are we we get you and we understand you and and you're going to have this experience to get them to the checkout, you know, telling them you can do one one click checkout, you know, if they're from, let's say another country, you can communicate, hey, we you can pay with your local currency.

:: 24:11:22

Erik

You know, those little things are adding up now. How much you need to communicate just to get them to that checkout. And then once you're in the checkout, you have to follow through with the simplicity. Yeah, I here's a question for you. When Charles and I were building serious snowboard, we spent a lot of time looking at competitors in the space and anyone that was ahead of us understand what what they were doing.

:: 24:35:07

Erik

And then then we'd also look elsewhere for inspiration, so to speak. I often say to my one phrase, I really kind of held on to you recently is “Don't make me go to Amazon”. It's like when you're shopping with someone online, it's like, Just don't make me go to Amazon. I want to support you. But so many time, like seven out of ten times, I can't trust that retailer that they're going to ship, you know, is going to take what are they going to ship?

:: 25:01:05

Erik

And I don't even know that. So as you look at that checklist of, you know, Amazon being customer centric from day one, you know, they built their check out their experience. So that it's so easy is shop where is Shopify looking? You know, as Harley says, they want to be a 100 year business continue to grow. Are can I ask this is Shopify looking at Amazon and what they're doing right and and and applying that to Shopify as checkout experience.

:: 25:39:13

Travis

It's not to answer to Amazon right there for sure.

:: 25:44:16

Brian

Yeah yeah 100%. And I think like there's probably multiple ways to answer that question without getting me in trouble. Well we signed the deal with Buy Prime, so I think like that's like kind of an indication that and we've always thought this right is it's silly not to think that brand shouldn't be expanding on every single marketplace or channel they possibly can if it makes sense for their business.

:: 26:11:19

Brian

And like the fact of the matter is, is that Amazon has some ridiculously high number of prime users eyeballs and like brand recognition, and that is never I shouldn't say never. It's probably not going to go away. So to say, like I think when you ask Toby this question, I forget the exact word that he used, but he's like, you know, it's not competition.

:: 26:33:09

Brian

They're like our like inspiration in many ways, right? We look at them and we say like, damn, they've done a lot of things really good. And I think if you look at our our entry into like and Eric, you made a good point. A lot of the reason that Amazon does such a good job is like their fulfillment services.

:: 26:49:02

Brian

I mean, come on, like one day shipping sometimes is delivered friggin same day and I know I can return it, I can go to Whole Foods and return it. I could throw it back in the same box. It's incredible. I think Shopify, like we thought about that, right? Like the Shopify need to be in the logistics business to make to compete for those, for those like for those merchants.

:: 27:08:17

Brian

And I think we really I was like, no, actually we need to make building an online business and like allowing yourself to own the full merchant experience is what we do best. And Amazon does another thing really well. And, and so what we hope to do, I mean, I'm speaking on behalf probably like some leadership that I don't know if they share this exact view, but I think what we want to do is just reduce the share that Amazon takes, right?

:: 27:36:00

Brian

f a merchant relies if it's a: 7030

:: 27:54:03

Erik

Or, you know, what are the pitfalls of a retailer. You know retailers they do have their Amazon channel but you know what are the pitfalls of doing that? It's you don't get any data right And it's that visitor data that is critical to winning a customer's loyalty and trust.

:: 28:13:10

Travis

Although get you your first sell, you know, and you have branded products you know that that can lead into a direct sale. Yeah. So there are some learning opportunities there too for sure. I think for me personally, there are two things that drive me to Amazon. One, the fulfillment side, as we already know right now, and specifically about that is I don't have to wait till I get to the checkout page to see when I'm going to get my order.

:: 28:43:02

Travis

I'm looking at a product and it tells says right there, if you order before 3 p.m., you will receive by X day. That is critical. And it it surprises me that not every single store has jumped on a solution like that yet. That's that's number and I think number two that I do it and I think tons of people do it too is the reviews.

:: 29:05:19

Travis

You know there's just so many for a product so Shopify so you don't know how I'm looking on the the the brand's website. I might still go to Amazon just to go look at the reviews. And then unfortunately from there.

:: 29:17:12

Brian

It's if it's yeah, yeah.

:: 29:19:21

Travis

I'm going to get Amazon and there you go. So yeah so there are them in.

:: 29:26:04

Brian

I am really now if we’re going to say let's just say I'm so surprised on how many DTC brands do not give you an indication on how long your product is going to take to ship.

:: 29:36:24

Erik

It's you know, what's amazing about it is that shipping companies like I've told Jarvis this a million times when we started Justine and got out of retail is that I never want to see inventory again. I never want to deal with anything to do with post-purchase and friends that started shipping companies. I'm like, You're crazy. Like, it's just logistical, boring this.

:: 29:57:18

Erik

I'm so excited to see that shipping is sexy, you know? And these, these apps now have plug ins that will tell you this stuff. Yeah. So on product pages is actually becoming more common. And now we're seeing the PDP, the product display pages being I it's probably where Shopify is going to go next. Now that they're nailing Shopify, they're probably going to say the highest converting product page because they figured out that is the most critical page.

:: 30:27:20

Erik

You have to communicate the core right of building shots.

:: 30:32:19

Travis

Yeah, a lot of times this is for sure, as well as the exit page from there. And I is already done as I've seen it. We poked around and I actually reached out to Megan on a team about trying to implement something with with Justin's help to get it in the face earlier. With respect to what you guys are doing in your shop that says you all right, This is called the guarantee or the commitment or something where you do show that shipment date or that delivery date.

:: 30:59:04

Brian

Shop Promise? Yeah.

:: 31:00:21

Travis

Promise. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But I want to using Justuno, just get that right. In the very beginning, the second they look at a product or even sooner, not just to give them that commit.

:: 31:10:08

Brian

Yeah. I think a tangential I'm not sure the type of audience is mostly merchants listening to the podcast or whatever, but I think related to that is is shipping cost right? Is everything on Amazon free? I'm pretty sure like I think all shipping on Amazon is free.

:: 31:27:23

Erik

But it's but that's a thing shoppers are willing to pay something if it's like a guarantee like you. You're right. If it's the right price item, you'll pay 5 to 15 bucks to if you know you're going to get it. Like, yeah, that that is proven, you know, even if it's like it is true.

:: 31:47:11

Brian

I mean look at Patagonia, right? Like we even with pad I've noticed I've noticed this like if I buy a Patagonia or shorts or whatever, it's like, it's like the shorts are 40 bucks and the shipping is $10.

:: 31:57:24

Erik

And like, how does.

:: 31:59:06

Brian

That happen?

:: 32:00:00

Erik

But in today's world, don't they know that I'm not going to buy that? Yeah.

:: 32:04:14

Brian

shirt with: 1099

:: 32:30:09

Brian

The first one is kind of what we we talked about, which is like this idea that they need to customize everything in that Shopify is not ready for, for them to do that. Our position is like we can it will allow you to customize the stuff that we believe you should customize, but like let us do everything else for you because we have like thousands of people that are thinking about this all the time.

:: 32:49:08

Brian

So just like, let us do that. That's a that's a longer sort of like uphill battle. I think, in terms of enterprise businesses. And yeah, then the other one is like, well, not going to shift all my resources to Shopify because like I have this good thing going with other with like Amazon.

:: 33:05:17

Erik

Back to your checkout. Is that why is that the reason Shopify kind of closed off their checkout?

:: 33:16:11

Brian

Yeah, just very bluntly, yeah. Like the amount of stuff that we saw going on in checkout that merchants thought they wanted or needed that was just absolutely demolishing their like their conversion rates was like, you wouldn't even believe it. And we've we've been in this four year long migration of the most amount of possible scripts and functions you could possibly imagine in checkout.

:: 33:41:03

Brian

It's just it's been a long journey. And I know it's not it hasn't been easy for partners or merchants, but it's really the reason why we're saying “Best World's Best Converting Checkout” now, because you don't have like this, this insane amount of customizations at checkout. That and you guys are you guys developers You know this like a merchant will inject a script on their website to try it out and they'll forget about it.

:: 34:05:08

Brian

It'll never use it again. And then every time the page loads, they're now loading 100 scripts like that. That can't be good. So we're like, Okay, if you want to do that on your website, we get it. Don't recommend it. You should probably use like an app that is knows what they're doing. But we can't let you do that on checkout because if we're going to survive A you're going to survive a brand.

:: 34:26:07

Brian

You have to convert a checkout and trust us, it's not going well over there.

:: 34:32:07

Erik

Travis What's what's your feeling on that?

:: 34:34:08

Travis

Yeah, well, I could look at it from a consumer standpoint or your generalized from Shopify standpoint, and I could agree or I could look at it from Justuno standpoint.

:: 34:46:18

Brian

Yeah, right. Please.

:: 34:48:12

Travis

A look, if you used if you used Shopify checkout as it is out of the box, which is which is great experience and you add in just the right amount of sugar on top, Justuno, done right, you absolutely can increase your conversions but I but I hear you and yeah I mean that definitely happens. I know I know how how many people use our freemium plan in Justuno and or I should say have a freemium plan and have the embed code installed on their site.

:: 35:24:04

Travis

Don't use it. Yeah I mean there are thousands of our baker on our site and they definitely don't know they have it on their site anymore because it's.

:: 35:32:22

Erik

Funny what that brings up, Brian, is. We have when a new opportunity comes our way and we're talking with the client prospect, they say, what should we do? You know, or like can you give me some ideas? And what we find happens is a lot of what our team is doing, and this goes for our current clients too, because they'll get a message from somebody saying now that “Justuno is crashing your site” or something, which isn't happening, is they run through the experience with the client.

:: 36:05:02

Erik

Go, Are you aware what's going on on your site? Yeah, yeah. Have you shopped your site recently? Like your chat window is being covered by your cookies window? I can't even close it. Or like, you know, Travis can speak. You know, Z-indexes like Travis could probably talk for ad nauseum of everything he's found wrong with people's websites.

:: 36:27:08

Erik

That's not us. It's just they haven't been maintained.

:: 36:31:13

Travis

I look at when like he said, you got just things overlapping and things. And then the other one I see commonly is why is it taking Justuno 20 seconds to load. Yeah. And look at the network analyzer of their website as I load the page and the requests to load even Justuno’s first script doesn't happen for 18 and a half seconds, right?

:: 36:51:24

Brian

Right.

:: 36:52:23

Travis

As I see literally a thousand of the request come through. And I can look at the domains that they're being requested from. I can see like, oh, these ten are coming from this plug. This Shopify app, and these ten are coming from this Shopify app and so forth. And yeah, it's like, okay, well here's your problem. You're just going on what.

:: 37:10:19

Erik

We're going to come up with a product for that. Yeah. Would that be Brian Like, I think.

:: 37:16:22

Brian

Well, I think like apps like, like Taboola do that don't they. They like, they perfectly implement scripts at the time and place they should. I think there's apps out there that do that.

:: 37:30:00

Erik

Well but more like an audit you know like a right here's the thing about conversion right people out time they have the resources or knowledge or know how and it's like we've gone to the site, we're done. Forget it. Yeah. And that's what excites me about Shopify talking about conversion now, because now we finally are at that point in our industry where people are taking notice of the brand experience.

:: 37:57:13

Erik

Yeah, and now that we are, we're recognizing that 99.9% of websites have opportunity to be optimized more. Yeah, I'm just sure go ahead.

:: 38:11:14

Travis

On back to that slide, obviously this.

:: 38:15:07

Brian

Is not the slide. Just kidding.

:: 38:17:17

Travis

There's some very successful brands that are growing, but we also know there's more and more small businesses. Right. Which add to the the overall revenue growth you see online. So I wonder if it's if that's part of the bigger reason. I mean, consumers are spending less because of inflation right now, but at the same time, it's still a lot of money floating around, hence inflation, Right?

:: 38:46:05

Travis

Yeah. So so I wonder, though, like it's just the influx of small brands that are all taking their little piece that is actually is just lowering everybody's overall general speaking other than not really.

:: 39:00:11

Erik

Yeah I've got to put an asterisk here Travis for brand sake it is Shopify Plus merchants.

:: 39:06:04

Brian

Well there's more and more of those though and I think but right but to Travis's point, though, small businesses could be taking business from the plus merchants to the plus merchant. Just seeing this, I actually wonder what that that data would look like for for small brands as well. I actually think Travis that's probably the reason that I there's probably the reason that we all get up in the morning.

:: 39:27:14

Brian

You know, I think I think that just general question of like, what does the future of commerce look like? If you look at, you know, like social media platforms, everything is just gone into like three companies. Even if you look at like the largest tech companies the last 30 years, everything is just kind of slowly but surely been Microsoft or Google or Meta or whatever it is you got to want.

:: 39:54:16

Brian

And then like in the past, you had the same thing play out in commerce. I think I'm literally making this up right now, so I'm not 100% sure. But like you had retailers like Macy's and Nordstrom's and Sears and whatever, and then slowly but surely you had this like decoupling of that like DTC and you have like, oh, I can now buy a my favorite jeans, shirt, pant, whatever that I used to find at Nordstrom's.

:: 40:18:15

Brian

Now that like all my favorite DTC spots and like you all now everybody has like there's a line in like, I love a hat, but I also love a different shirt and I love all the stuff I do. What I do wonder, to be honest to your point, Travis, is that like how long this lasts and if it's around to stay, like, are we going to see that people continue to buy from 100 different micro brands, which would be great because that means more entrepreneurs?

:: 40:48:13

Brian

Or are we going see companies like Sheehan or Fashion Nova like continue to dominate And like a lot of that is trying to answer like what people will be into and trends that happens. That's probably pretty hard to do. But you do wonder, like, is it going to stay in that if all the same path as like big tech companies were like it slowly but surely over time becomes like 50 to 100 DTC brands that control everything.

:: 41:12:00

Brian

I know there's more than that because not tech in commerce, but I don't know. I think that's a great question and something that we're like we're investing in obviously more businesses, but you got to wonder what how that's actually going to play out.

:: 41:24:12

Travis

I mean, I feel like, you know, since the work from home, so many more people now who have their 9 to 5 also have their little sidekick, their little online e-commerce business sidekick now, because they have a little a little time on their hands. It's so I think that and then, of course, you couple that with just how easy it is, you know, by the likes of Shopify and others, how easy it is just to spin up the economy for not just how easy it is, but also how cheap it is.

:: 41:54:20

Travis

It's yeah, it's really cheap these days. So all of that definitely influences it. I will wonder, you know, I think who knows? We'll see what they as well.

:: 42:03:09

Brian

I think that increases the trust too, right. Because I think before you would see these websites seem like they don't look that good, like I'm not going to buy some random like I bought my one of my neighbors started like this pickle shop and he sells pickles online. I probably wouldn't buy that from just a random DTC site, but because it looks good and there's shop pay check out and like, I think you're more apt to like trust brands now too, right?

:: 42:26:15

Erik

You are, but you're are. And on that note, I got hit with an Instagram. You know, there's just the Instagram sales pitch ads are so good, like they're so tailored to so being they had that the head shaver it's like this three wheeled one and it's like, oh, like this is like perfect. Like it looks like so easy.

:: 42:47:14

Erik

So I was like, I literally had it in check out when I was at woken up in the morning, it was already on my phone. They had shop, hey, they needed.

:: 42:55:13

Brian

A head shave.

:: 42:57:16

Erik

And, and then there was this one line that said you will be, you know, every six weeks build $24.99 And and I was like, whoa, like this is a subscription business. And that they didn't speak about it at all. But you get new razor sets every like five weeks or something. They never communicated that. And then I think the second thing that is critical to these Instagram, these DTC brands, is the trust of the reviews.

:: 43:27:12

Erik

They had 21,000 reviews and I was like.

:: 43:30:21

Brian

Five stars, I'm sure.

:: 43:32:03

Erik

Yeah, I'm like, Yeah, is this this seems just all too good to be true and I'm not buying.

:: 43:38:15

Travis

I don't trust the review unless it's either a positive review with what looks like candid photos of the product. Yeah, or it's a negative review. Any negative review I'll immediately trust.

:: 43:49:17

Brian

Yeah. 100%.

:: 43:51:12

Travis

And positive reviews with photos.

:: 43:53:11

Brian

Only. See what photos. Agreed. Yeah.

:: 43:56:01

Erik

You know, back to your question of like, what does the future look like? You know, talking about the fashion nova is we've worked with so many brands that that road that Facebook rise like 100 million and sales because they could get customers so cheap that games over you can't be the all everything store and just buy your traffic you can't do that anymore.

:: 44:19:10

Erik

The innovation I love the innovation of you know, DTC brands. It's like there's always we're always going to have that I think and it's a matter of their their platform and channels to get that message out. And, you know Shopify is building for that. The they what they have to look out for is in this let's go back to this Amazon conversation of they invest all of their you know their life savings into these products get to market and then they get in the Amazon app store the market and they get ripped off.

:: 44:55:10

Erik

You know, you see it time and time again. And you know, where Amazon even saying they're cutting back on their their white business.

:: 45:02:24

Brian

Yeah well I consulted for an Amazon brand for a while I did about I think 750,000 on Amazon and it was very I like I'm pretty proud that I worked on it It was like this tool where you would you can hang your hair extensions and wash them and color them and it was like actually a very she had a patent on it.

:: 45:22:18

Brian

It was like legit. There's was a Travis kind of like your product, a very like a pretty decent size market of people to actually use this.

:: 45:30:15

Erik

And then the learn how your hair was so thick. Yeah.

:: 45:33:18

Brian

I mean, these are extensions that you haven't noticed. And then she got ripped off on Amazon. And the tough part is like, to your point, and this is not stereotyping, but it's just kind of a fact, like a lot of brands I saw on Amazon are in China and good luck. Good luck filing a lawsuit or even getting touch with Amazon.

:: 45:51:24

Brian

We actually did end up getting in touch with Amazon, right? Well, they're not breaking your patent, are they? Because you can see like the different designs try to reach out to the brand. Yeah, it's that is the game you play by going to Amazon, which is why there are a lot of brands that don't even sell on Amazon.

:: 46:06:05

Brian

Now the problem is, is like if you're not the problem, it's it's okay to be on Amazon if you're Callaway like I golf you know like there's only one, there's only one... or Titleist like there's only one brand and PRO V1 and its Titleist and like, so you're probably not losing you're maybe losing a little business to like some of, like his offshoots.

:: 46:25:11

Brian

But if you had that like legacy brand, Amazon is like probably great for business because people are going there for the name recognition anyways. You're probably going get a little bit. But yeah, if you're starting a new product and you're selling on Amazon, either Amazon is going to Amazon basic you, which you'll lose some business to are, you're going to get ripped off and it's a long road.

:: 46:43:04

Travis

So you save big brands that somebody is looking for anyways then it my argument is why do you need to be on Amazon Because right into buy yours and you're not on Amazon, they're going to go to your site because they already have that trust in.

:: 46:58:03

Brian

You goes back to fulfillment though how it.

:: 47:00:15

Erik

Will you know this is what shocks me every time.

:: 47:03:21

Travis

Not buying or is it are we talking about the company just doesn't want to deal with the fulfillment side of.

:: 47:08:08

Brian

Right right, right.

:: 47:09:22

Erik

So answering your question again, where is the future? So and what's happened? You know, we used to be retailers and we were brands. What are they great at developing a product and marketing it. And they left distribution. They left retailing to retailers. That's traditional retail retailers. Are retailers a brutal business? Brands are doing their thing. And then we had the shift with the Internet and going direct and everything and then the DTC rose.

:: 47:40:18

Erik

What's happening now is and then the big, big brands got run over because they were too slow to move. Meaning like if you try to shop Hurley or Billabong direct like surf industry and no idea what they're doing, they're checkouts, they're using, they're using you can tell they're on like some antiquated platform where their checkout is horrific. I Yeah, and they don't understand customer service when it comes to read that the brand's going direct and then they're saying customer service.

:: 48:12:06

Erik

There's so many factors, but point being is that you mentioned big brands. This is the biggest opportunity because their their experiences are horrific online. They don't understand online retail still. And you can just go by trying to shop their site and it's it's always a horrible experience. So that is why I feel like Shopify, that enterprise or plus whatever they're going to call it, is going to win because there's still so much shift that needs to happen on those big brands.

:: 48:45:23

Erik

Yeah, so maybe we finish with that.

:: 48:48:16

Brian

I didn't like. I'm not even going to try to add to that wonderful ending there.

:: 48:52:14

Erik

Yeah, I guess I said even stance sucks. I nearly I sent their CMO a message on on LinkedIn. I was like, Are you kidding me? What are you doing? Yeah, well.

:: 49:10:16

Brian

I do. I do. I do try to help. If I'm checking out, I'm like, hey, I legitimately just tried to buy a product on your site and like, I tried to check out, like, I've had a lot of experiences where, like, you know, like the other day I was trying to enter my phone, my, my, my credit card number, but they had a pop up to your point, that was like literally covering half of the credit card.

:: 49:28:17

Brian

And I kept trying to push submit and it was like, Sorry, you can't read credit card number. I'm like, and I just gave up. And then I emailed the brand. I was like, I love your rugs. I think it was like an outdoor rug. I was like, I love your rugs. I tried to buy it and I couldn't.

:: 49:40:09

Brian

So like just go to Shopify. At this point.

:: 49:44:22

Travis

So just a couple of months ago, because I was I forget what it was, I was trying to check out same thing. And I had a problem and I emailed them kind of same thing. And I was like, Hey, like, please tell me. It was like, you know, I was late at night. I wake up in the morning and they're like, Oh, sorry, you're having a problem.

:: 50:01:14

Travis

And I and I, and I hit them back and I'm like, Hey, so here's the deal, actually, because they gave me a discount code for my problem, right? My, my, my experience. And I came on back. I was over it. I truly was over. I wasn't sure how hurt them for the.

:: 50:22:02

Erik

Scale, how often that happens.

:: 50:24:00

Travis

Right. And and then I, I want to hand let them know that, you know Justuno might have helped save the experience because there was a competitor who was bugging out, kind of like you were saying, the public was blocking me and stuff. Yeah, I ended up closing the deal, but it wasn't my intentions, but it was nice to read it.

:: 50:45:20

Erik

I think as we finish up on time here, you know, the message is, is that just as the last five or ten years online retail has been in its infancy and we really, you know, really you know, it was less than 10% of of retail numbers. I don't know where it is presently today. It's got to be high teens, if not 20% plus.

:: 51:06:08

Erik

You might know brand.

:: 51:07:05

Brian

Online to retail. Yeah, I think I saw the address or 10 to 15%. 16 maybe. Yeah.

:: 51:14:01

Erik

There's still so much to be. Yeah. Yeah. And when we talk about the the brand experience you were I well I read day one still with Yeah you know just us two alone three talking about all the negative experiences we've had shopping online. Yeah. So and the fact that Shopify is talking about it, the fact that the market's where it's at, it excites us.

:: 51:39:11

Erik

So you know with that I Brian thanks Thanks for coming today and chat with us.

:: 51:45:14

Brian

Appreciate you having me. I'm glad I got this first experience with Travis as well.

:: 51:50:15

Erik

Yeah. Travis, can we make this a more common thing?

:: 51:53:23

Travis

Absolutely. I hope so. And looking forward to you guys recently released your segmentation. Yes. Yes. Because you guys are really, I think, definitely thinking the same way we are when it comes to conversion. Literally, our new platform has a huge emphasis on creating dynamic segment support. So the fact that I can actually poll in the Shopify segments and also push my segment data to Shopify is we're able to just kind of make that seamless connection.

:: 52:25:11

Travis

So between the the, the new profile API, again, really real synergy there too. We've always dealt or for a long time now, you know, we put our profiles forward so lots of fun synergy happening that you know, we're excited to be working with Megan and the rest of your team.

:: 52:42:03

Brian

I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, marking is obviously near and dear to my heart, as I said earlier, and the team that you're working with on the product side there is super talented. And yeah, to your point, I think there's there's some really exciting stuff coming out.

:: 52:58:01

Travis

Excellent.

:: 52:59:07

Erik

All right. Well, I hope everyone enjoyed the show today. I, I was going to say you can find Brian at Shopify dot com.

:: 53:06:13

Brian

Just or just come on over.

:: 53:10:08

Erik

If.

:: 53:10:11

Brian

You can find me. Come over. Yeah.

:: 53:12:00

Erik

All right, cool. All right. Well, thanks. And take care, everyone.

:: 53:15:07

Travis

That is a.

:: 53:16:22

Erik

Wrap. So we and cars like peace out, and that's fun.

:: 53:23:18

Brian

Eric. Thanks for having me. I got to jump to another beat. I appreciate the time, man.

Erik: 00:53:26

Yeah, me too. I appreciate it.