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Hey, y’all! Welcome to episode 12 of the Southern Fried eCommerce Podcast from EYStudios. Today on the podcast we have Jay Brimberry, our Director of Operations, Emily Faulkner, our Digital Marketing Lead, and a special guest calling in from BigCommerce in Austin, Juan Jacinto.
We started out by having Juan discuss his role at BigCommerce. If you’re unaware, EYStudios is an Elite agency partner with BigCommerce and Juan has been working with us for some time now. BigCommerce is an open SaaS eCommerce platform that works with all business types from small startups to Fortune 500 companies.
After a brief discussion about Thanksgiving plans, we jumped into our first article of the week: Honest Messaging Drives Conversions this Holiday Season from Practical Ecommerce.
This article details the unusual 2021 holiday season and ways in which honest messaging will be helpful to consumers. It includes a list of ways to address customer concerns beginning with ‘display accurate inventory counts and expected restocks.’ Jay asked Juan what his thoughts were. Juan began by saying he thinks this is best practice year-round but will definitely be critical during this holiday shopping season.
JUAN: I just had this experience this morning. I was purchasing a replacement part, Googled it, and it bounced me to a link. I fell right into the product page, went to check out, and then next thing it was an error: this product’s out of stock. But it didn’t say that on the actual [product] page. So I hop back out. So obviously that merchant paid for the ad to drive the traffic there but then just literally just lost my business and I went somewhere else and purchased it. That’s going to be a conversion killer immediately but it’s also psychologically like you’re going through the motions of buying something like that, you expect to see it but you don’t know when it’s going to be restocked…you’re probably not going to come back. It’s simple but it’s also complicated. I know I’m oversimplifying it; I know there are a lot of supply chain issues.
JAY: You’re right it is a little oversimplifying it but it is simple in a way. You should know that that can be something that can frustrate your customer. That vast majority of eCommerce is about convenience, I don’t think anyone can argue with that…It will frustrate your customer. So the not so simple thing is you have to have the infrastructure in place. And this goes to what [BigCommerce] does, right Juan? Making sure that you have good software, good platforms that can accurately keep up with inventory. There are things you might need to connect to your ERP system, your drop shipping vendor, fulfillment center, whatever it is; it can be a technical job to correctly do this. And for some merchants who just aren’t that technologically inclined or don’t have the budget to be that technologically inclined, this might be a little bit tougher.
JUAN: Exactly, you hit the nail on the head. You’re right, the infrastructure needs to be in place. I think the vast majority of sites that are out there are still using something legacy and not a commercial software. So I can see the lift being a lot harder for something that seems to be relatively easy these days.
JAY: That’s one thing you might want to do, if not this Christmas season; you want to make sure you’re auditing what kind of software you’re using so that you can be prepared for stuff like this. You need to have those contingency plans and this is a big part of it…In this day and age, you need to be very transparent. The shopper is looking for transparency. And eCommerce allows you to do that more so than a traditional brick-and-mortar store.
The next suggestion we discussed for addressing customer concerns was ‘offer worthy alternatives to out-of-stock and low-stock products.’ Jay asks Emily if she has seen messaging like this on eCommerce sites.
EMILY: Absolutely, I’ve seen it across the board. And I think kind of like the previous one, this is something you should be offering year-round, not just around the holidays. I also think it just kind of depends on what you’re trying to purchase. So if you’re looking for something extremely specific like maybe Juan’s Thanksgiving meal, he wants exactly what he wants and he might not want the next best thing but you know for me, maybe if I can get it sooner I’ll go for it. I’ll buy it, why not?
JUAN: Yeah I think it’s vertical dependent. I think if it’s fashion then that makes a lot of sense. You can offer up an alternative. It applies to a lot of different categories of businesses for sure. The example I mentioned earlier about the replacement part, I need a specific part or it’s not going to work for what I’m trying to fix. So they can’t really serve up a different part for me to want to buy. But, yeah, I think this is an awesome one. We do have where if you land on a category or on a product specifically it does say it’s out of stock but then have something below it that scrolls saying related products or here’s another offer. Or I’ve also seen where you’re looking for a product and it takes you to the broader category, knowing that that item is out of stock. That’s a native feature that [BigCommerce] offers. It might not be the best experience, it might not be applicable, it’s based on if it makes sense for that merchant or brand. But just food for thought if you’re having trouble with inventory.
JAY: Right. And like you said, you have to be smart about it. You can’t have an out-of-stock t-shirt and then try and sell someone a pair of shoes. You gotta think about it. I think platforms have come a long way, BigCommerce included, in really putting AI and algorithms together to really help the store owner with something like this. You want to make sure you’re checking though. A machine can’t replace what you know about your customers. You want to make sure you’re checking, double-checking that everything is going the right way. And it should already be there but you’re just double-checking that things are looking good on that side. So you do want to be smart about it, you gotta think about it. But this is a good thing to do if you want to retain that customer, especially in this environment.
The next point to help appease customers mentioned in the article was, ‘showcase staff picks with personal stories.’ The article goes on to mention that these messages remind shoppers their purchases support real families.
JUAN: I think it does move the needle for me, personally. Because it also ties, in general, into user-generated content; this is another flavor of that…I think it’s super applicable. I think brands should use this.
EMILY: This is something I’ve seen businesses do in the past. Especially very small businesses and I’ve loved it. I think with the holidays, yeah I’m trying to get my mother and my sister something that will make them very happy, something that they like, but I also like to support small businesses. You know, try and make somebody happy for the holidays. A couple of years ago, I came across a post on Instagram where this girl sold her art online. And she had made a post about how her and her boyfriend can’t go home for the holidays because they live across the country so she was doing a sale on her website. ‘Any sales we make before this date will help us get home for the holidays.’ I bought a ton of art, it’s still in my house, and I was so excited because a few weeks later she had made another post on her account saying ‘we made so much money and I get to see my family. I haven’t seen them in three years.’ So it was really nice to know that I got something for myself, something for my friend, and also helped somebody. I think it really helps humanize businesses and brands and just really shows that at the end of the day: yes, it is incredibly frustrating that you might not get your product on time or things like that but we’re all people. We’re all just trying to get by. We’re all just trying to get through the holidays and spend time with our loved ones.
We discussed a few of the other items in the list including ‘disclose shipping carriers and expected delivery timelines,’ ‘be transparent about production times,’ and ‘keep buyers informed along the way.’ Jay mentioned that he thinks these are all important items to keep in mind throughout the year.
The next article we discussed was “Despite Supply Chain Challenges, ‘shoppers won’t go home empty-handed’” from the National Retail Federation. This article takes a deep dive into why the supply chain is an issue and how the issue began. Jay begins the discussion by saying that the supply chain has become antiquated and we’ve never really had to think about it until there was this problem. He continues by saying that innovation and improved logistics are vital right now and asks Juan how he feels about the current situation and where we could improve.
JUAN: I attended a manufacturing summit last week in south Florida and that was a topic. Just to summarize, because it was an all-day event, but just like two or three main bullet points from it; is that you’re right, we’re running manufacturing, like conglomerates and even smaller regional ones, on antiquated processes. They’ve been embracing, supposedly, ‘smart manufacturing.’ That was a phrase they were throwing out: smart manufacturing. Which is basically the equivalent of the digital revolution but from an eCommerce perspective like we had in the mid-2000s and now. But I think everyone has been caught off guard, somewhat flat-footed, especially with the pandemic. Now we’re seeing kind of glaring issues. So they wrapped up the summit by saying we need to embrace and invest in innovation and take ROI out of it. Let’s say I’m a manufacturer and yeah we desire to level out our back office and four structures A to Z but it’s going to cost us millions of dollars. As the CEO or senior leader, we’re thinking ‘what’s the ROI in X time period’. That’s very basic, I think everyone thinks that way as a business owner. But I think now it’s a necessity and it’s a matter of factoring in how do we recover that cost over time rather than thinking of the ROI. Let’s think about this like we have to do this to level up. Manufacturers are competing and have been competing globally. Where other countries are manufacturing at faster clips. Right now the pandemic has just shed a big light on all the antiquated processes. That’s what I took out of this and this is a good article because it really just summarizes all the challenges we’re seeing.
Jay agrees and reminds listeners that this isn’t going to be a quick fix, it’s going to be years of slowly updating the infrastructure so that eventually it will be seamless. He then asks Juan if he thinks that the supply chain issue will lead consumers to shop more traditionally in brick-and-mortar stores that have more local products rather than eCommerce sites that rely on the supply chain. They discussed specifically food shortages where supermarket chains might be low on steak but that doesn’t mean your local butcher is. Juan agreed and said there are a few items on his shopping list that he’ll be shopping for locally this year.
Jay then quoted a piece of the article where he mentioned that shoppers that start earlier this year are more likely to get what they want but other shoppers won’t go home empty-handed, they’ll just need to be more flexible.
EMILY: Yeah I think that comes back to making sure that your business has good messaging because I don’t think we should blame people for not thinking that Black Friday is the end-all-be-all of getting your products purchased. Because that has never been the case ever. Usually, personally, that’s when I start; I get all my cheap stuff and then I pick and choose what I want so this year’s been really interesting. And I think you as a business need to make sure that you’re being as loud as possible saying ‘no really this is the time to do it, these are the deals were running, if you want everyone to be together and have a gift, now is the time, if you’re fine just being alone without a gift that’s also fine too.’
JUAN: Black Friday is no longer a holiday, it’s the month of November. Specials shouldn’t start on Black Friday anymore. It should be the month of November. Even before the pandemic.
Jay then asked Juan what role agencies like EYStudios and platforms like BigCommerce should have in helping merchants/clients with this messaging. He notes that it’s a little late not but asks about in hindsight what he thinks should be happening.
JUAN: The short answer is: yes, we should be. As thought leaders in the space that support mutual clients and prospects and are evaluating you know optimizing their sites we should be highlighting best practices. Also, you know, applicable to the current climate right now with supply chain issues. The benefit is that it as a “smaller” retailer, and when I say smaller I mean compared to the Walmarts of the world, you are typically more nimble to adopt change quicker. It’s much easier to make these kinds of changes and switches without having to disrupt so much, like the decision-making process as a typical large company would have to do. But you’re right we should have been discussing this already front and center. In the [eCommerce] space, we’ve known this is an issue, we’ve been talking about it but you but you’re right more client-facing messaging that would be easy to consume. Because you’re right, not everyone is reading the NRF blog.
The third article we dove into during this week’s episode was “Hasbro launches first livestream shopping event” from Retail Dive. Virtual shopping is a topic we discussed in last week’s episode of Southern Fried eCommerce and wanted to discuss it further. Jay is excited about the prospect of virtual shopping and asks Juan if he is as well.
JUAN: No for me personally but I do see a big application for this like if you’re a big follower for a brand, then yeah you can hop on. I’ve seen this on Instagram as well where influencers are talking about a product and then at the very bottom that you can click and shop and buy. I’m very bullish on this, this is actually an interesting concept that we should be doing. Let’s see how this holds out with what if you’re doing this kind of shopping in the new world of Meta with Facebook.
EMILY: Actually I’m very intrigued by the fact that the way that they’re trying to get users to come in is by saying they’re going to donate to Toys for Tots. Which comes back again to the holiday idea of helping others and you want to do good by others and plus it’s Hasbro. I think this is great.
The last article we discussed was “Wayfair’s sales in Q3, it announces plans to open permanent physical stores,” from Digital Commerce 360. Their focus will be on the home furnishing category as data supports the fact that consumers prefer shopping in-store for furniture. Jay pointed out that Amazon did something similar with opening brick and mortar stores but that this is still fairly new for an eCommerce store to branch out into physical locations. He asked Juan for his thoughts.
JUAN: It’s an interesting trend especially given that Wayfair is not a manufacturer nor a brand, per se. They’re not manufacturing products, that I’m aware of, they’re exclusively retailing other people’s products. But with the home furniture category, I do agree, having an in-store presence will help. Just because a lot of people do need to touch and feel you know their couch or your bed or whatever. So I find it very intriguing. On the same token though you see digital brands start online and then the next thing you know they open up a showroom for their product. So it’s an interesting trend that makes sense in the right market right. I don’t think you can probably go nationwide if you’re a smaller brand but Wayfair has a reach. You can probably pick up on like three or four major cities and clean up.
Jay asked if Emily and Juan would be interested in going to a Wayfair store and they both said they would be.
EMILY: I’ve seen this kind of thing popping up. Shien is a clothing company that sells very very cheap clothes but they did a pop-up store and they cleared out in like a day. And now they’ve discussed opening permanent physical locations to just shell product. And I used to be a very big fan of ModCloth, before they got bought by Walmart but that’s a whole other story, and they did pop-ups around the country where they would sell their physical products. And they would clear out. I think that there is a really good market for this. I find this extremely fascinating and I kind of want to see if it would look like a store store or if they would kind of go with the Amazon model. I don’t know like if you have seen those things in New York where they kind of go in digitally and kind of look at a few things and then leave. Like a hybrid model. So I don’t if they want to do that or if they really want to go full, traditional physical location.
Juan added that he thinks the home furnishing vertical is prime for this kind of disruption because a lot of current furniture stores are stuck in a more archaic model of business. Jay agreed and added that he thinks that vertical-specific platforms hurt furniture manufacturers and that by maybe becoming a more hybrid type of business they might be able to really capitalize on an industry that hasn’t been optimized yet.
And with that, we closed out our episode with a brief discussion of Willow, the 1988 cult fantasy film that Jay is obsessed with, as per usual. And then Emily revealed that she didn’t like Lord of the Rings to which Jay immediately (and appropriately) ended the podcast.
We hope you liked this episode of the Southern Fried eCommerce podcast, make sure you subscribe to get a glimpse into eCommerce news every week served Southern Fried style.