The Unofficial Shopify Podcast

Joining our episode is special guest Paul Jarvis, a self-described freelancer evangelist who teaches creatives & freelancers how to make their businesses work on their own terms. Paul's worked with companies like Microsoft, Yahoo and MTV, plus entrepreneurs with massive digital empires, including Danielle LaPorte, Alexandra Franzen, Marie Forleo and Kris Carr (and a whole bunch of amazing folk...

"A trusted referral is the Holy Grail of advertising." - Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO Why doesn't everybody do referral marketing, then? Why isn't it more popular? Because referral marketing is notoriously hard to execute properly. It requires a significant investment of time, energy and resources. It requires commitment. It requires a quality product that's worth talking about. It requ...

If you've ever run a Shopify store you've almost certainly taken a stroll through the Shopify App Store and installed some of the Apps on offer. But what are Shopify Apps, really? And how can store owners make sure they pick reliable, well-developed Apps that provide a measurable return on investment? In this episode we talk to Gavin Ballard, founder at Disco and author of Mastering Shopify Themes...

We've got a mini bonus episode for you on getting your store ready for the holidays! The holidays are a stressful time. Your in-laws fly in for a long visit, the weather is lousy, you spend more than you anticipated on gifts, and you can feel yourself coming down with a cold. For 72 hours or more, your life turns into a bad sitcom. Oh, and if you're reading, you're probably also a retailer. On top...

After a brief hiatus, we're back with season 2 of TUSP! Last month, I spoke at The Double Your Freelancing Conference that took place in Norfolk. It gave me the opportutinity to pick the brains of a lot of great people, and now I want to to share that information with you. In this episode, Kai Davis, who spoke with me at the conference, joins me to discuss what key takeaways we got from the confer...

Have you wondered why your store doesn’t get more conversions? There are two types of businesses: 1) the kind that intimately understand their customers, and 2) the kind that shoot aimlessly and occasionally hit the target. Both types of businesses may succeed for a while, but let’s face it: the second type of business isn’t sustainable. You know that talking to your customers is the the only way...

New store owners often look to social media to kickstart their marketing efforts, yet rarely succeed. To help break the social mediocrity that most brands engaged in, we talked with Mojca Marš from http://superspicymedia.com/ about how to achieve it. Mojca Marš consults with companies on the use of social media, email marketing and content marketing. Since social media is her passion, and she love...

Ever wonder how to buy or sell a website? We did, so we talked to David Newell, an experienced business broker. David is Brokerage Director at FE International. Starting out as an banker, he moved online to use his transaction experience for website brokerage. At FEI, he spends his time speaking with buyers, executing deals and working on raising industry standards to encourage more investments. I...

Yesterday I spent the whole day at the Shopify Retail tour. They'd invited me, along with a few other folks, to answer questions about Shopify and Ecommerce from existing and potential Shopify customers. From 10am until 4:30pm, I talked to a diverse and interesting lot of folks. But every single person asked me some variation of one universal question: "how do I SEO?" I get why they're a...

What happens when a new visitor hits your website? They don't buy. And that's okay! In this episode, we skip the guest interviews, and instead Paul and Kurt talk through the strategies and tactics involved in building trust with customers. The Chain: Anonymous visitor Engaged prospect Cart abandoner Buyers Repeat buyer Brand evangelist You'll learn to visualize your relationship with your customer...

Jordan Gal is the Co-Founder and CEO of CartHook , an effective abandoned cart recovery solution. CartHook tracks and captures the email addresses of visitors going through your checkout process. When a visitor abandons a purchase, an automated email campaign is triggered that is designed to bring the customer back to the site to complete the purchase. CartHook customers are recovering an average...

Josh Highland Giese Better known as Josh Highland, owns and operates Venntov.com, a software and services company focused on the Shopify platform. Venntov.com has been a certified Shopify Expert since 2011 and has assisted hundreds of Shopify shop owners. Josh has literally written the book on SEO for Shopify stores. We talk to him about what that means and why you should care. You'll want to take...

Zach is a lifelong watch collector and has the stash of scratched up Swatches to prove it. He holds a B.A. from Bard College in Studio Arts and a Masters of Design in Designed Objects from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. As a working product, graphic and packaging designer, he views watches as the perfect synergy of 2D and 3D design: the place where form, function, fashion and mechanic...

This week we talk with Jeff Sheldon from Ugmonk. It all started with a simple idea – design fresh high-quality unique items. Just one month after Jeff had graduated college, married his high-school sweetheart, moved to Burlington, VT, and started a full-time design job, he found myself brainstorming about launching his own brand centered around a love for typography and minimal design: Ugmonk. Wha...

This episode is a little bit different in that we talked to the owner of a closed but beloved Shopify store called United Pixelworkers. UPW sold a collection of niche t-shirts for graphic designers and web workers in general, each themed as a local labor union. They were great, and we even have one. If you'll join the three of us for 40 minutes of value-packed advice, Nathan shares with us his sto...

Ever dream of quitting your 9-5 job to do your own thing? How about manufacturing your own product and selling it direct to consumer? That's what Kyle Bardouche did. But get this, he launched 7 different products in 3 months. That's crazy, right? It gets crazier. Kyle was selling his products on Etsy, and ended up in GQ. Most people would be happy with that level of success, but Kyle then cracked...

Michael DiMartini from Everest Bands come on the show to chat and share his success with us. He's gone from failed businesses to two successful Kickstarter campaigns and an amazing product line sold through Shopify. Michael doesn't just sell watch bands. He sells literally the best rubber watch strap made- and it's for a Rolex. We discuss: What Everest Bands is all about (it's more than just swiss...