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Hey y’all and welcome back! Today we have a very special reappearance from our CEO Eric Yonge. He’s an elusive creature come Halloween — if you wait long enough, you might even see him disappear! Joining us as well, we have Jay Brimberry, COO, Emily Faulkner, executive producer, and a new guest, Jessica Richmond, our new Digital Content Specialist. We’ll be continuing our new format of diving into this week’s eCommerce news but first, we had to get some discussions of Assassin’s Creed, Halloween, and baseball out of the way, naturally.
Eric told Jess no one would get her costume: June Cleaver with a cleaver in the head and her dog Freya as a beaver. And she promptly told him she didn’t care. Emily and Jay will be cheering on their Atlanta Braves during the world series, just around the corner from our office (okay more like 20 minutes, but, who’s counting?) Everyone chimed in that they didn’t like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla all that much, but Jay and Jess finished the game at least. Eric invested a grand total of 30 minutes while Emily took over 12 hours before making a decision that the game was too repetitive. Before almost becoming an Assassin’s Creed podcast, we turned back to the topic of this week’s eCommerce news.
All three articles we will be talking about are from retaildive.com, we usually have more variety of content but we felt these articles were most representative of this week’s news.
Our first article we’ll be talking about is: Paypal douses reports of a Pinterest Purchase
This is a follow-up to the article we spoke about last week concerning the possible purchase of Pinterest by PayPal. PayPal denied media reports that it was in talks to purchase Pinterest on Sunday. Pinterest’s shares surged Wednesday after the initial news report, but PayPal’s stock slumped that day.
Jay started the discussion by asking Eric if he used Pinterest. He said that he does, dispelling Emily’s previous (humorous!) theory that only old ladies used Pinterest. He uses it for backyard ideas and as an artist, he uses it for reference ideas.
ERIC: Listen, I’m a visual guy and (Pinterest) is all about visuals. I actually enjoy Pinterest more than Instagram.
Jess also uses Pinterest but for different reasons.
JESS: I’m in the market for my first house so I’m pre-planning all my furniture and wall art. And I’m obviously setting my sites on way too expensive furniture and think I’m going to be a billionaire in the next few months based on my Pinterest. I also have some weird interests. Like, I have no interest in having children but I love baby names. Weird fact about me. So I pin a lot of baby names. That’s a really popular topic on Pinterest. So, yeah, there’s just a weird little niche: Eric found the backyard one, Emily found the old lady one. Wonder why they targeted her…
EMILY: Hey now. Watch it!
Jay then asked Eric what he thought is going on with this possible acquisition.
ERIC: Well I think the shareholders are obviously up in arms over something. My thing is it just doesn’t seem like a seamless fit overall. When you take into account their respective brands, their user base, and how all that works together. I just don’t see this being a happy marriage in terms of how the users would ultimately accept it. I could be totally wrong but that’s just my take from the outside looking in.
JAY: We touched on this last week too. I mean, remember Magento and PayPal. Remember that moment in time? They just didn’t know what to do with a platform like that. I just don’t see what would be different with Pinterest. It’s just not in their wheelhouse. They need to keep collecting like Braintree. But yeah like you said, it just doesn’t seem like it aligns.
ERIC: Just interacting with folks from both companies, it doesn’t seem like a good fit culturally. I don’t know if that got in the way of the deal but when you have an acquisition of this sort you have to think about all of those details. Like you mentioned with the Magento and PayPal example.
JESS: I will say, I’m a former newspaper editor, and from a journalistic perspective this seems like they leaked the story themselves. And are trying to get a pulse on what people think of this possibility. Now they’re saying ‘of course it’s not true’ but I think they were really just trying to get a reaction. That’s my theory anyway.
We then moved on to talk about Pinterest’s move toward eCommerce in general. Jay asked if anyone had ever bought anything off Pinterest before and Eric replied that he had but the whole process was a little clunky. Jay pointed out that PayPal might contribute to making this process smoother but Eric thinks they can do that themselves.
ERIC: You have to think about how they’re going to monetize this thing going forward. Make it a little bit more seamless than it has been. Just thinking about the UX, you’re just flowing through a ton of images. Sometimes it gets a little awkward when it’s just peppered with obvious commerce placements; It doesn’t flow. So I think if they could figure that out that would be nice. Just giving them some free advice. If they ever do get to that I would segment it completely. I wouldn’t just mix it all in there. Maybe I’m wrong but I just think it creates a kind of disjointed experience.
I will say about Pinterest that I think that there’s a lot of potential to take their brand further. One of the things that Pinterest has done is they’ve invested so much into how their algorithms work and it’s stunning when you really see how all of that works together. And I think that as we look to drive commerce, when you can take some of the advancements that Pinterest has achieved with their technology and you can apply that to eCommerce I think that the sky’s the limit. Like we mentioned before, it can be a little funky in terms of how they rolled out their efforts up until now, but I think there’s a lot of blue skies ahead.
And what’d I say, again from a UX perspective, I’m always pushing for more advancements in the PLP, product listing pages or section pages and how those are laid out. As we all know, thumbnail city on on your your average eCommerce site is a boring experience and as people scroll through products we have to do everything we can do to make that experience better and create visual variety the way Pinterest does.Just barely even varying the size of a thumbnails the way Pinterest does can have a big impact on engagement. I think that that has the potential of really changing up the game similar to Amazon creating a new standard with longer product pages.
Emily’s theory was that PayPal listened to last week’s Southern Fried eCommerce podcast, listened to our feelings, and adjusted accordingly. Eric agreed this was the clear reason.
Our next article we will be discussing is “Hasbro hit by supply chain woes as $100M in orders go unfulfilled” Jay asked Jess for her initial response to this article and her response to the supply chain woes in general.
JESS: These are the guys that have Barbie, Transformer, they also have Marvel and Star Wars, some of the really big ones that are really going to affect Christmas. I mean what is Christmas without an Easy Bake Oven under the tree, right? I think it’s basically like getting news that Toys R Us is running out of toys. Back in the day because that’s not the place anymore. But yes, this is really concerning with all the ships just sitting off the coast and empty ships across the ocean. I’m interested to see how Christmas goes off this year and if parents will try and trick their kids and tell them that December 27th is now Christmas if their toys don’t come on time.
I will say that this whole thing has helped with excuses. My husband forgot about his father’s birthday so we just told him it was on the way and stuck on a ship somewhere. It helped.
Jay then asked Eric if this shipping crisis has affected him personally in any way.
ERIC: I think it really depends on what you buy. I’ve not seen any type of slow down in some purchases but of course others are massively slow. As you know I’m big on collectibles which Hasbro is all about and so I know, whether it’s for me or my son Henry, if it’s anything like that, I have seen a big slow down.
Jay’s next question for Eric was what role an agency like EYStudios should play in helping businesses with this type of slow down.
ERIC: That’s a great question. I think that if we put our heads in the sand and act like it’s business as usual we’ll be in for a rude awakening. And I see a lot of that, unfortunately. I think that even something as simple as making sure you really look at shipping deadlines in context with everything that’s going on. To communicate that to your customers, that’s critical. And I would say really start to up the time frame with your promotions. I mean even before the shipping crisis started we were seeing this, we’ve been seeing this the past few years, right? Before you couldn’t really do anything until Thanksgiving hit and now you’re seeing Black Friday deals and that sort of thing announced very early. Get folks on that initial energy and not wait till later. I think that’s the greatest piece of advice right there. To make sure your promotions are rolled out as early as possible but you don’t want to give away the entire store, so to speak. You want to make sure that you’re thinking about your promotions during the entirety of the holiday season and not just putting everything you’ve got in the tank upfront but you do want to maximize those initial sales to make sure people get their product as early as they can.
JAY: Absolutely, I think we just need to start beginning to prep our merchants that just as a whole this is going to be a different holiday season. And people are a little bit on edge. It’s going to be a weird holiday for folks. I hope that it’s prosperous, I think it still can be prosperous.
Jay then turns to Jess to ask her about how content can help gain you that extra customer this holiday season when things may be a little bit more competitive.
JESS: I think content really gives you the opportunity to talk directly to your customers. You really need to develop your voice, develop your brand, know who you are, and who your customers are supposed to be. So just focus on being relatable, being a person. A lot of the ads that are thrown in our faces these days are written by robots or sound like they’re written by robots so I think the key difference that you’re going to be able to do this year is really relate to people, really talk to them on their level. Like ‘hey you looking for your last-minute dad present well you know what, shipping deadlines are coming up, we’re really sorry last minute things aren’t going to be a thing this year, Black Friday is gone.’ Just really be honest with people that they need to start preparing and make it relatable.
ERIC: Jess is giving some really good advice there. I really like what you’re saying about being relatable; I really think that that’s the secret weapon that your mid-market or smaller eCommerce sites have in their arsenal. I mean that the big box chains can’t do what Jess is saying and come across as legitimate, as authentic. So I think that being personable like that particularly in the wave of a shipping crisis. Jay, as you know I’m kind of remodeling one of the rooms in my basement for a home office. And I wanted a nice Captain America statue, I’m a big Captain America fan. So I ordered this thing like two months ago but the company CEO was proactive about it.He was having a problem with not only my Captain America statue but a lot of customers were also concerned about where their ‘fill-in-the-blank’ statue is. So he hit the newsletter, got on social media, and was very transparent: ‘here’s what’s going on, a lot of you have asked where my products are and I want to be very transparent about what we’re facing as a company.’ So what happened was, it engendered a lot of goodwill not only from me but from the rest of his customer base as well. He’s not trying to make excuses, he’s just saying ‘here’s what’s going on.’ He can’t control everything that’s happening in Los Angeles, but he’s keeping his customers top of mind. And I thought that was great. It turned a situation that could have been very negative into a positive. I got my Captain America statue, Jay, and I’ll be shopping from them again. I like that level of authenticity that smaller e-Commerce shops can do effectively.
Our final article of the day is “Tractor Supply boasts 22M loyalty members, many of them young and ready to spend money.” We take a deeper look at loyalty programs and if chicken pandemic raising has anything to do with this. Jay starts off by asking Emily how many loyalty programs she’s a part of, specifically unpaid programs.
EMILY: That’s a really good question. I would actually say I’m a part of a lot of them. They were really, really big a few years ago and now I’ve kind of stopped. I’ve lost most of the physical cards. I think the one that I’m the biggest loyalty member of is Sephora. I invest way too much money into their company. The best thing about their loyalty program since COVID times is that you can actually use loyalty points to get dollars off your purchases now, which is probably the biggest improvement they’ve had. They used to have like ‘do you want a travel-size lipstick’ and like please I have so many lipsticks but I’ll take it, put it in the bag. Now I get $10 off.
JESS: I think the only one I pay for besides he-who-shall-not-be-named (Amazon) is Barnes & Noble. And that’s just because I buy enough there to make it worth it. And I think that’s obviously where the pay vs. unpaid balance comes in. If you’re a really loyal customer it’s going to be worth your while.
Jay then asked Emily if she had a Tractor Supply loyalty card to which she replied with a vocal eye roll. She is not a tractor kind of person. Jess though had a theory about why Tractor Supply might not just be for serious tractor folks anymore.
JESS: I don’t know how popular this is in Georgia but in North Carolina, Tractor Supply has become some sort of fashion thing. Not high fashion, I mean no one’s going to wear a Tractor Supply hat to like the Met. But people that wear a tractor supply beanie or hat or jacket, it’s like saying ‘I’m super rural and work my own land and I’m cool’ kind of thing. And I think this was all inspired by the whole Fixer-Upper Joanna Gaines, Chip Gaines thing where everyone decided to own chickens during the pandemic. So I think that everyone just went to Tractor Supply and decided to get their chicken supplies and their cool beanies
Jay doubts Jessica’s chicken theory but continues on to ask about how Emily feels loyalty programs mesh with smaller or mid-size merchants and if she’s ever set one up herself.
EMILY: Oh absolutely! We have lots of customers that utilize BigCommerce’s customer group features. So if certain people are part of different groups or different loyalty programs, they can log in and see different things in the admin, they have different discounts and they really make a lot of money that way. There’s a lot of people that are very loyal to brands that maybe I don’t understand, you know the beanie folks, and I know a lot of people make money that way.
Jay then asks Jess for her feelings on loyalty programs from a content perspective.
JESS: I think one of the best large businesses that does this well is The Body Shop. They talk about what you’re going to get for your purchases in their initial posts. So it’s like if you buy this, you’re going to get this free, save this amount, and save this many turtles. I think the way that you go about this is by promoting the pros of your loyalty program but also pushing that sense of community. Also just getting on their level, like I was saying before, being personable and really understanding that not everyone’s going to want to pay for a loyalty program for every small business that they like but you can still get their loyalty, you can still get their community value, without having them pay for it. So it really comes down to talking to people and getting them to see the value of your company.
Eric is then asked about loyalty programs from a design perspective.
ERIC: Well, you have to advertise it! I see a lot of people just kind of assuming that customers will come across their [loyalty program] and completely understand everything. If you’ve got something to brag on, brag on it. I’m all about USPs, unique selling propositions, and if you’ve got something about this be upfront about it. Don’t just wait for someone to stumble upon it. And once they do get to the landing page about your loyalty program you want to summarize what’s great about the program in bite-sized chunks so they get it right away. I’ve seen the opposite, where it’s either it’s too wordy or just a couple of words. You want to give them enough information about what this thing even is, so that they get it, and they understand exactly what’s required of them, the benefit to them as a customer, and they understand next steps. It shouldn’t feel like homework, it shouldn’t be too complicated to get it going. I think the main rule is be clear and be upfront with the customers about any merchandising with the service.
Emily closes out our episode this week by saying if you have any questions about loyalty programs don’t hesitate to ask EYStudios for more information about them. In short, if you don’t have one, you should probably get one.
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