The Unofficial Shopify Podcast

Creative husband and wife team Matt Snow and Meredith Erin, owners of Boredwalk T-Shirts, take us through their entrepreneurial journey building a cult of customers around their lifestyle apparel brand. You'll hear: Why you should embrace the suck The one tactic that helped me them gain early sales Why they hate Amazon The customer-centric content-first marketing strategy that has grown their busi...

Instead of waiting until November to take action, let's discuss what you can do right now to put your store in the best possible position to capitalize on Black Friday sales. You'll hear: high ROI traffic options other than paid Facebook, Instagram or google the best way to get featured in places like Buzzfeed converting lookers into buyers! Top conversion rate optimizations techniques for product...

Want to know what's working with Facebook ads right now? We turn to ecommerce marketing wizard Kurt Bullock to learn the exact blueprint he uses to achieve 10x returns on ad spend. You'll learn: The exact strategies & tactics working for us right now Specific examples of targeting new customers The hot ad formats to try now What's new: Broad Match Dynamic Product Ads and strategy for September's c...

Facebook ads are getting increasingly competitive and expensive– and it's not stopping anytime soon. That's scary for those of us that rely on Facebook ads to power their business and their income. In this episode, social media advisor Andrew Foxwell talks us through tactics to make Facebook ads a more reliable part of your business. You'll hear: Why Facebook ad costs are rising How to recognize a...

In this listener mailbag episode, you'll hear the answers to: What is the biggest factor conversion rate? Where should you send cold traffic? What should go in a email welcome series? What are typical image requirements for Shopify product photography? and what to do if you have a cash-eating monster business Plus Julie gets a surprise, we geek out about cars, and Kurt disappoints Paul. Show Links...

What happens creativity and comedy empowers your business? Weekend shorts purveyor Joey Avery, the Ecommerce Content Manager at Chubbies, will tell us what's working when building a shorts empire, and reveal solid gold advice on finding your brand's voice and entertaining your customers. You'll learn: The origins of the Chubbies brand voice and messaging Why they hired a comedian with no marketing...

In this episode, we talk about why we choose to stay small, and the tools we use to maximize efficiency and profits. Ultimately, our goal is to build a business that supports the life we want. A life that lets us enjoy time with our families. We’re running a small business by choice. We don’t want to spend our days managing employees. Instead, we want to treat our time as a scarce resource and inv...

In this episode, you'll learn how to use YouTube Ads to grow your brand and drive sales from recurring guest Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, a digital marketing agency and Google Premier Partner. You'll hear: What does YouTube advertising look like? Who is a good candidate for YouTube ads? How do the YouTube ad types work? Keys to a good YouTube ad How to retarget store visitors with YouTube ads...

On this show, we've found a common pattern to merchants' entrepreneurial journeys on Shopify. This is not one of those stories. This is the journey of Cesar Torres who turned a merch store for his sci-fi book series into a fitness leggings brand with a big impact on LGBTQ+ fans of the brand. You'll hear: What Cesar learned working at the Wirecutter How listening to customers pivoted his business t...

If this show had a mantra, it might be, "People buy from people, not brands." There is no personal commerce channel than conversational commerce. Today, Shopify and Apple announced that Shopify Merchants can now use Apple's Business Chat, a tremendously powerful new way for organizations to connect with customers directly from within Messages. Previously only available to Fortune 500 bus...

Last week Shopify announced their most ambitious features to date at the fourth annual Shopify Unite partner conference. Paul and I attended, and break it down for you here. How Shopify is going after Amazon Why it's going to be easier than ever to manage your store And why Shopify is now the entrepreneurship operating system Show Links Shopify Blog: Everything Announced at Shopify Unite 2019 Shop...

In this listener mailbag episode, you'll hear: The hardest decisions we've ever made in our business Why Kurt thinks retail arbitrage is better than dropshipping Why business partnerships are sexless marriages and a spirited debate on toilet paper Show Links Spotify: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals - The 1960s, Vol.1 App of the week: Bonjoro BioBidet Supreme BB-1000 Never miss an episode Sub...

Four years ago, today's guest found herself dreaming of pursuing a more creative path, and she started to look for alternatives to her in-house legal job. She explored everything from teaching yoga to becoming a freelance graphic designer to opening an Etsy shop. In the process, she ended up coming full circle by creating a business that brought the benefit of her legal training to help her fellow...

Today's guest put his money where his mouth is when he joined ecommerce incubator Chillest Capital to launch and manage direct to consumer brands selling things like premium beef jerky, CBD supplements, and more. You'll learn: The legality of CBD Why CBD is so hot right now How a lifestyle brand is an acquisition channel Working around advertising limitations for sensitive advertising The dangers...

In today's listener mailbag episode, we discuss topics and questions chosen by you. You'll learn: How the shadiest internet villains illicitly advertise How to advertise when you can't use Facebook or Google How to make Shopify Plus make money for you and the "must have" mostly-free apps for your store Show Links “What’s Shopify Plus got that regular Shopify doesn’t?” Metafilter: Where w...

According to Wikipedia, Hoonigan Industries is "an apparel brand for auto enthusiasts." According to its 20 million fans, it's an car culture movement. Either way, they're on Shopify Plus, and have an incredible story to share starting back in the 2000's when co-owner and rally driver Ken Block appeared on BBC show Top Gear and filmed the hit YouTube video "Gymkhana 2", making...

Websites should be fast. No one is arguing about that. What constitutes fast has somehow been perverted by an anxiety-inducing score assigned by the cruel mistress known as Google PageSpeed Insights. In this episode, we throw Google PageSpeed in the bonfire. You'll learn: Why Google PageSpeed Insights is an awful boogeyman that needs to be stopped A sane approach to making your website faster When...

At the age of 24, she quit her job to freelance full time— and in her first year, she earned $137,000. Joining me in studio is Kelly Vaughn, founder of all-female Shopify agency The Taproom. Kelly will tell us how she got her start, and how she helps high-growth Shopify stores go from six to seven figures. You'll hear: The tactics Kelly uses to scale stores from six to seven-figures Recommendation...

Last fall, my wife started a Shopify store and told us the struggle is real in a podcast episode. It became one of our all-time top ten episodes. On May 14th, she returns to the show to update us Just six months after launching her first Shopify store, we check in with Julie Elster about her experience. She'll tell us what's worked, what hasn't, and the content marketing strategy that's generating...

In this episode recorded in front of a live audience, CRO Wunderkind Nick Disabato will teach you his exact methodology for winning 67.2% of split-tests over the past five years. Through his consultancy, Draft, Nick conducts research-driven optimizations of online stores, so they can grow without needing to increase their ad spend. Rather than running the usual marketing playbook, Nick uses design...

In this episode, you'll learn how the customer experience extends beyond support tickets. Automated emails, on-site messaging, and even the 'from:' name in your emails impact the overall experience more than you might realize. You'll hear: How a welcome series can make or break your brand The business case for personal branding When not to send promo emails The email framework that will make you m...

You can use Shopify's analytics and reports to learn about your sales and customers in great detail. Or you can tear hair out, create unnecessary panic, and make rash decisions. In this episode, we'll break down a sane approach to your Shopify analytics complete with example benchmarks for your key performance indicators. You'll hear: Which stats measure the health of your store Ranges for convers...

At 53, Paul Miller began his private label business on Amazon in 2015 selling headphone headbands called CozyPhones. Two years later, he had grown his brand to $4 million in annual revenue. So what happened in between? Paul locked in a licensing deal with Nickelodeon that skyrocketed his brand he received advice from a friend to pursue licensing for his products. After a deep-dive into the world o...

In the wake of the Shopify x MailChimp breakup, we're talking nothing but email in this episode. You'll hear: What's going on behind the scenes with MailChimp Your options now What drives good open rates A practical intro to segmentation How to clean your list Which email automations drive revenue Plus Paul talks some trash. Tune in for more details! Show Links New site launch: Hoonigan Racing Sho...

Revenue is a great vanity metric, but profit gets you paid. In today's episode, we talk through a simple strategy to get yourself profitable, then brainstorm practical tactics to boost profits. We ask the expert: What is the biggest reason why most stores can't scale? What is the biggest opportunity for most store owners that they don't take advantage of? How do you know if you can hire someone? H...