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

The Conversion Show

In this episode of "The Conversion Show," Erik Christiansen, CEO of Justuno, is joined by Travis Logan, Co-Founder & CTO of Justuno, and this week's guest Brian Peters, Head of Platform Partnerships at Shopify. The conversation kicks off by looking at the most talked about statistic from Brain's presentation at the Shopify Enterprise Partner Summit 2023, 35% of Shopify Plus merchants have seen smaller cart sizes and 50% are seeing less site traffic and lower conversion rates. Brian breaks down what this means for merchants and what the future looks like for E-commerce.

Erik, Travis, and Brian discuss:

• Finding the right product-market fit.
• Brand identity online.
• Influencer marketing
• Marketing is brand experience.
• Does high customization equal high converting?
• To survive as a brand you have to convert at checkout.
• Zero-party data expands beyond your email list.
• Why Shopify is the number one converting checkout in the world.

Host: Erik Christiansen, CEO of Justuno

Guest: Travis Logan, CTO at Justuno

Guest: Brian Peters, Head of Platform Partnerships at Shopify

Transcript:

Erik 00:00:50 - 00:01:22

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 - 00:01:33

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 - 00:01:34

Thank you. Good to be here.

Erik 00:01:34 - 00:02:06

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 - 00:02:45

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 - 00:03:16

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 - 00:03:45

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 - 00:03:56

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

Brian 00:03:56 - 00:04:23

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 - 00:04:50

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 - 00:05:13

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 - 00:05:42:04

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 - 00:06:06

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 - 00:06:29

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 - 00:06:48

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 - 00:07:15

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 - 00:07:41

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 - 00:08:12

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 - 00:08:38

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 00:08:38:24 - 00:08:46:09

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

Travis 00:08:46 - 00:09:03

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 - 00:09:39

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 - 00:10:05

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- 00:10:28

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 - 00:10:35

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

Erik 00:10:35 - 00:11:00

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 - 00:11:41

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 00:11:41:13 - 00:11:44:11

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

Travis 00:11:44 - 00:11:48

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

Erik 00:11:48 - 00:12:10

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 - 00:12:34

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 - 00:12:51

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 - 00:13:13

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 - 00:13:33

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 - 00:13:53

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 - 00:14:14

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 00:14:14:21 - 00:14:42:09

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 - 00:14:53

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 - 00:15:28

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 - 00:15:52

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 - 00:15:54

So I would say we're not.

Travis 00:15:54 - 00:16:10

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 - 00:16:33

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 - 00:16:42

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 - 00:16:43

Yeah.

Travis 00:16:43 -...