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Unlocking the Power of Personalization

Posted on by Taylor

What is Zero-Party Data?

Zero-party data is data that is voluntarily provided by customers, and is collected directly from them. This type of data could be information such as a customer’s preferences, lifestyle, life stages, opinions, and values. It is different from other types of data, such as first-party data, where we’re indirectly learning about the customer through website analytics, social channels, and other sources.

Why Do We Need it?

We’ll tackle this question two fold: 

  1. Because third-party cookies and new privacy changes to iOS, retailers across the board are facing difficulties in data collection. Brands will need to draw from reliable data more in the face of stricter (and more consumer-aware) privacy rules, and this is most succinctly achieved through zero-party collection methods. 
  2. Learning more about your customers on an individual level provides opportunities to create personalized flows, honed retargeting strategies, and custom shopping experiences. For example, personalized emails have a 26% higher likelihood of being opened, and a 760% increase in revenue from these segmented flows. 

Ultimately, collecting zero-party data will be a requisite for success for all merchants across B2B and B2C because it provides companies with more direct and valuable insights into their consumers.

How to Collect Zero-Party Data

This all sounds well and good in a brick and mortar business, but how do you collect data directly from your customers in a digital environment? Here are a few methods of collection to get in touch with the customer on your site as an e-Commerce brand:

  • Whether it be through a subscription, membership, or loyalty program, allow customers to create an account through your site, saving their preferences while signing up. Customers who receive offers and recommendations that are customized to them are more inclined to purchase from brands, according to 91% of consumers.
  • Build a survey/questionnaire into your customer journey. Quizzes are such an engaging way to interact with your customers, and our brilliant partners over at Okendo have tackled this and more.
  • Create an email preference center where customers can specify the kind of content (and product categories) they would like to receive from you.
  • Conduct a drawing or contest using a landing page form, gathering more information with embedded forms on your website than just an email address.

The Power of Personalization

To a consumer, privacy is power, and it is ever slipping through the cracks in a digital world. With consent at the core of its concept, zero-party data is quickly becoming a hot topic among marketers and merchants alike, and for good reason. In the future, companies will need to create a balance between providing customers with personalized experiences while respecting their privacy. This means that companies will need to be more transparent about how they’re using their customers’ data, and provide customers with better control over their data.

If there’s improvement to be had with your business strategy, submit an inquiry today, and let’s talk. Our initial conversations are always free, and informal, so let’s sit down for a chat.

Looking Forward to 2023 Growth

Posted on by Taylor

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

 – Peter Drucker

Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, planning for 2023 growth is essential for success in the coming years. To ensure your business is ready to take on the future, it’s important to consider key areas such as customer acquisition, customer retention, product development, technology, and data. Here are a few tips to help you plan for growth in 2023.

The GA4 Migration

If you haven’t already done so, you’ll need to migrate to Google Analytics 4 from Universal Analytics. Google has announced that they will be discontinuing UA in July of next year. We’ve done a full write up on the other reasons for making the transition, (and a few tips on doing so along the way). We have helped a few of our merchants from the transition to setting up, and we’d love to walk you through it, too. Drop us a line for a free consultation today.

Early Planning = Sooner Success

This year, several early Black Friday sales began in the middle of October, allowing customers more time to spread out their buying. In a Justuno poll on Christmas trends for 2021, 65% of US consumers said they will buy their holiday gifts even before Thanksgiving. While Black Friday sales fell 31%, overall November 2021 sales increased 10% over the prior year.

“U.S. consumers continue to give contradictory signals.” 

–An interview with McKinsey & Company. 

In today’s e-commerce landscape, it’s important to stay ahead of the competition. Research the latest trends and technologies and invest in the necessary tools and resources to ensure you stay ahead of the curve. As we move into the new year, we’ve heard the same question “How early do we start planning and then promoting?” The answer: Plan earlier than you think. 

Build a Data-Driven Tech Stack

Invest in the necessary tools and resources to ensure you have the insights to make informed decisions. Utilizing predictive analytics and machine learning to uncover customer insights and staying ahead of the game is key to building a strong e-commerce plan. Is your tech stack built out?

Finding the right tech stack for your business is a time-consuming process, with plenty of trial and error if you’re not familiar with the apps. If this is an aspect you’re struggling with, it may be time to schedule a huddle with us. 

Own Your Audience

By owning your audience, you are able to build trust and loyalty, stronger brand awareness, and retargeting during your promotional seasons. Implement strategies for cross-channel communication (i.e. incentivizing email subscriptions, running email campaigns to build your SMS list, etc.). 

Having a comprehensive marketing plan focused on owning your audience is essential to success in an e-commerce marketplace. An estimated 67% of consumers have spent more online than before the pandemic, along with a 22% increase of contactless payment from 2020. This is indicative of a younger audience growing into money-power. This means that now is the time to invest in leveraging social media audiences, subscriptions, and the value of BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up in Store).

BOPIS and BOPAC

In-store and curbside pickup are two fulfillment alternatives that customers have grown to love, and it’s not just because they’re the more health-conscious choices. The perks of in-store and curbside pickup can be significantly greater than more conventional shipping methods to a growing number of consumers. Buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS) and buy online, pickup curbside (BOPAC) allow customers to browse your products from the comfortability of their mobile devices and pick up their order when it’s most convenient for them. 

E-commerce companies will need to consider their BOPIS and BOPAC initiatives and strategies for 2023 to stay on top of demand, above the competition, and satisfy the customers’ expectations for order fulfillment.

Practice Some Brainstorming

Sometimes, it’s most advantageous to mind-meld with an experienced Shopify Plus agency. 

Just to come back to this – If you’re looking to get serious with a Shopify Plus agency, it’s important to find a partner that has the necessary experience and expertise to help you succeed. Look for an agency that has a proven track record of success and can offer a comprehensive suite of services such as strategy, design, development, marketing, analytics, and support. Make sure you’re comfortable with the agency’s approach and can trust them to deliver results. 

If you’re still not sure, see if they offer a free consultation (like we do) so you can sit down in an informal environment and discuss. We would love to work closely to ensure you have the right strategies and resources in place to succeed in 2023. Submit an inquiry today.

Rebuy: 5 Questions with Ambaum

Posted on by Taylor

Recently, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Miles Shattuck, Rebuy’s Senior Content Marketing Manager for a think tank of Shopify Plus solutions. Our Founder, Chad Fisher, and our COO, David Stober, hashed out legacy D2C brand potential, professional recommendations for online store improvement, and exciting projects on the horizon. Check out the full article through Rebuy here, and a TL;DR 10 minute video below.

Key Takeaways

  • Ambaum provides Shopify Plus users with the resources they need to grow their businesses, integrating into unique templates to raise performance indicators.
  • Every three to four years, revitalize the template for your Shopify store to stay current with software updates and improve performance metrics.
  • Although top-of-funnel awareness can be generated from social selling on sites like Facebook or Instagram, Shopify businesses are best benefited by driving traffic to their online store.
  • Future ecommerce tech stacks must be adaptable and agile, able to react swiftly to shifting trends.

Whether you are an entrepreneur with an idea on a napkin, a bootstrapped startup, an SMB re-platforming, or a high-flying CPG brand, we help accelerate your growth through world-class strategy, design, and development. Get the most out of your Shopify Plus store, and schedule your complimentary consultation today.

RAM® Mounts

Posted on by Taylor

Previous Platform: Custom

Industry: Mounting Solutions

Use Case: Integration to Shopify Plus

Company Summary

Created in 1990, RAM® Mounts is the manufacturing leader for mounting solutions that are reliable and adaptable for almost any application or device. RAM® Mounts is the most cutting-edge product line of its kind, including almost 5,000 modular parts. These parts, built on an interchangeable ball and socket system and built around an elastomeric rubber ball, include anti-slip properties as well as shock and vibration absorption. The innovative RAM® Mounts system’s patent-protected design offers easy installation, adaptability, and durability at a reasonable cost.

Project Summary

Ambaum helped RAM® Mounts create a plan to replatform from their own custom ecommerce site to Shopify Plus. The project broke out into 3 phases: create a custom theme for RAM® Mounts, assist the merchant with data migration, and help them create custom functionality on their new site by building a custom application. The final outcome of the project was a new Shopify Plus site with functionality similar to their old site plus UI updates and the ability for customers to build their own RAM® Mounts.

RAM® Mounts Custom Theme

To create the new theme, Ambaum worked closely with RAM® Mounts to make sure all of the functionality on the old site was recreated on the new Shopify Plus site. We worked with RAM® Mounts to build a more robust mega nav and developed templated landing pages that were reusable for many of the brands that RAM® Mounts supports.

Ambaum created a custom theme for RAM® Mounts and made sure to incorporate all of the latest Shopify infrastructure updates that rolled out in the summer of 2022. There were a number of important features added, the first one was we created the custom theme with sections everywhere which allows RAM® Mounts to use the Shopify UI to drag and drop sections on the site without having to get into the code. In addition, Ambaum used metafields in multiple places on the site, one example is on the product detail page where we were able to create a “complete your solution” section which is effectively a recommended products section, as seen here. The product template uses variant metafields to easily swap product data based on the variant selected, for example: images, tabbed data, pricing, title, description, etc.

About Us Page Customization

The about us page template is a custom page we created within the theme that allows the merchant to easily manage the content of the page. The about us page has multiple tabs, and each tab is a unique page that can be edited within the Shopify Editor. The benefit of this is the ease of use for the merchant going forward as opposed to requiring custom development to update and maintain.

Collection Page Functionality

RAM® Mounts products all had “facet data” aka metadata on them which allowed for very custom filtering. There are “tiles” on the existing collection pages and some of them have size data that is needed for extra filtering. Ambaum helped RAM® Mounts think through a couple paths for their collection filtering; path 1 was for us to create custom filtering logic and path 2 was to utilize a Shopify app to give them the required functionality. We eventually settled on using Product Filter and Search, a powerful app that gave RAM® Mounts the ability to leverage the metadata on all of their products and give them the custom filtering they needed.

RAM® Mounts Custom Builder

RAM® Mounts requested that Ambaum help them create a brand new feature on their site that allows customers to select the optimal mount based on vehicle, device and mounting location. With this custom builder, the user is prompted to go through a set of questions  to determine which products are most  applicable for the customer’s situation. If you take a look at the images below you can get an idea of what it looks like from the customer’s perspective to use this custom mount builder.

RAM® Mounts had their own internal IT team and was very hands on with us as we created their new Shopify Plus site. One example of how we worked very closely together was around the API feed needed for the custom product builder. RAM® Mounts provided the API feed that sent the data to the product builder to enable a customer to make their selections from the drop-down menus. Ambaum then built this functionality by utilizing Shopify’s Section Rendering API. This alters page content without reloading the entire page based on the user’s selections.

One final thing Ambaum did was develop this custom RAM® Mounts builder with Shopify reusable components that will allow us to create this same builder functionality for many other product lines in the RAM® Mounts catalog. The client indicated to us that it was important that our code was reusable as they had big plans to roll this feature out to other lines in the future. 

Summary

At Ambaum we have been fortunate to work with a number of parts companies and help them replatform to Shopify Plus. RAM® Mounts was an intense project with a lot of theme customizations, API work and data management. We didn’t want to just build a custom site for the merchant, we needed to implement reusable code to help them manage their site internally without having to rely solely on developers for future updates. As you can see from the quote above, the client was very happy with their new site and can see the benefit of a platform like Shopify to help drive their companies growth.

Have questions about how Ambaum can help your organization in the next step toward scalable success? Reach out to us today and let’s hop on a call to go over your needs.

ChargeUp New York 2022

Posted on by Taylor

Recently, I was fortunate enough to spend a lovely and rewarding day in New York attending the ChargeUp event hosted by Recharge. This was my first event since the pandemic began, and it will not be my last. With the inspiring thought-leadership (and impressive hors d’oeuvres pictured below!), Recharge has proven to be truly apt in their event planning in the new post-pandemic tide.

After checking in, I was met with accessible high-top tables and enjoyed delicious breakfast items (most importantly; Coffee).

Welcome & State of the Industry // Recharge Product Roadmap

Led by the VP of Strategic Alliances, Lindy Crea, we discussed how undeniably there has been a spike in ecommerce growth during the lockdown, and we’re now seeing the gradual descent as we settle back to stasis. In addition to this, merchants are facing supply chain issues and clogged shipping channels, which has disrupted a significant amount of delivery flows.

The supply chain is not just backlogged, but it is getting more expensive. Customer acquisition cost continues to increase in the “cookie-pocolypse” causing merchants and consumers alike to pull back from social spend. 

This has made the need for reliable revenue evermore evident for merchants.

Succeed with Subscriptions: Attract Subscribers

We then broke out to discuss one of the foundations of reliable revenue and successful, scalable, business being on customer retention, the marketing track led by Christy Ottesen, Senior Product Marketing Manager. One of the foundations of the panel; 32% of customers are prepared to abandon their loyalty to a company after one very bad experience. In a very interesting correlation, 80% of stores feel they’re delivering a great customer experience, where only 8% of customers feel they’re receiving a great experience.

Customer Experience (CX)

To add more on a merchant’s plate, buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS), is forecast to grow by 19.3% by 2027. Whether or not this is already cultivated, this will grow into a more significant vertical for merchants as the post-pandemic stasis levels out. 

Finally, research has shown that through conditioning from big league experiences such as Disney, consumers will be expecting the utmost in response time and excellent customer service. As a merchant, you are expected from customers to perform within the same parameters as those big leagues with your customer experience. So, customers are not only expecting you to outperform your competitors, but they’re expecting you to provide the same level of customer service as a multi-level, thousand-employee-marketing-team, with granular operations, and nearly 100 years of honed experience.

I know. Like, what? How the heck are you supposed to do that?

There is a ton of strategy around the best CX, and this will change as the market does. Recharge has broken it down into three major principles:

  • Speed
  • Convenience
  • Friendliness

Speed: Attentiveness in responding to your customers is key to making them feel heard and understood. Recharge has partnered with Gorgias to serve and resolve subscription questions faster. This integration allows the sales team to re-active, refund, or cancel subscriptions all within the same window, so there is no need to switch between tools. 

Convenience: RechargeSMS is a free tool for Recharge merchants that allows for subscription management through customer self-service via SMS. Providing the flexibility for customers to manage their own subscription dramatically increases customer lifetime value (CLV). All functions of the customer portal can be completed via text and this tool has proven to increase CLV up to 30%.

Friendliness: Providing an excellent customer experience on an omnichannel strategy is key to retention. Average customer behavior has been proven to pay a premium for additional benefits such as early access, a customized experience, and long-term discounts.

Understandably, lunch was buzzing with subscription strategy conversations and methods to increase retention, and decrease churn. I discussed a few areas of nuance with merchants of varying demographics such as customizations for subscription-pause, specifically around the school year, and how to automatically resume after summer and winter breaks. I also discussed how difficult the transition can be from WooCommerce to Shopify Plus without support, and how to decrease the churn that comes with customers needing to enter additional information or create a whole new profile on a new platform. 

This event quickly made me realize that as our tech partners here at Ambaum begin to scale, these merchant needs are where our services can really step in to help. Through years of agency experience with over 30 active merchants, we are able to quickly identify this low-hanging fruit to then build long-term solutions and strategies for the merchant’s success. By working with many of our preferred partners within the first few years of their conception (Recharge for 4+ years!), we are able to travel parallel with their updates, step in, and solve these types of customizations that merchants need.

Case Study: Optimize your Subscription Business with Customization and Integrations // Happy Hour

The conference ended with a case study between Klaviyo, Wandering Bear Coffee, and their Shopify tech agency, where we covered their transition into e-commerce over the pandemic. Taking on Klaviyo for email and SMS, the merchant was able to take their sales to a new level. As Recharge provided the flexibility for customers to manage their own subscription, they saw their CLV soar. Through this panel discussion we answered the question: When do you start the conversation with your customers? The answer: Either now, or yesterday.

After wrapping up the conference, we finished with a happy hour on the terrace rooftop, and plenty of in-depth discussion about what is on the horizon for subscription services. Recharge has new updates upcoming including a way to understand the entire customer experience in a single view, data consistency between Recharge and Shopify where you can perform bulk discount imports with one click, and a widget for Shopify Plus for an incredibly easy subscription service setup. As these updates roll out, you can be sure we’ll cover them here, so sign up for our newsletter now (if you haven’t already!).

Conclusion

I thoroughly enjoyed the day from the organized setup, to discussing poignant thought-leadership with peers and partners over the bustling city below. I look forward to the next event with our partners here at Ambaum, and new updates from our partnership with Recharge.

Hello, Gorgias ;-)

Posted on by Taylor

Building a brand that retains clients is the most sensible method to increase your revenue. Keeping existing customers is simpler and less expensive than finding new ones, and they are proven to spend more at a higher frequency, while providing word-of-mouth with that loyalty. A 5% improvement in customer retention can boost sales by 25-95%. 

Especially now, with privacy changes driving the rise in customer acquisition costs, the core of your retention strategy is improving your customer lifetime value, and decreasing your churn rate. You can decrease your CAC and increase your CLV by focusing on retention. However, it’s easier said than done. Let’s explore how our preferred partner, Gorgias, can help.

What is Gorgias?

Gorgias is an all-in-one, all-inclusive, customer service helpdesk software, specifically built for e-commerce as a revenue resource through customer retention. Gorgias is rated the top customer service solution in Shopify apps, and their strong Shopify integration enables you to amend shipping details, change tags, refund orders, import customer data to your helpdesk, and more. 

What does Gorgias offer over other companies?

The biggest area that Gorgias stacks up on over other companies is their all-in-one helpdesk, with customizable rules and macros which can scale as your business grows. You are able to service the customer from right within the helpdesk with direct access to order information, order refunds, loyalty point adjustments, and shipping information edits. You can then tag and automate rules using this data. In today’s digital world, the majority of consumers expect companies to provide 24/7 support across all channels, so this function frees up your agents to be able to reply to tickets more quickly and efficiently thanks to Gorgias’ streamlined process. 

They also offer revenue reporting statistics so if a customer converts after speaking with an agent prior to a sale, you can trace it back to that agent and analyze the return on investment (ROI) for your support team.

For Ambaum referred merchants, we’re offering the 2nd and 3rd month free through our partnership. (Hint, hint: set up a call today.)

What does setup look like?

Gorgias fits seamlessly into your Shopify and Shopify Plus store with the deepest support and order management integrations on the market, and partners with over 70 Shopify apps such as Klaviyo, Recharge, Attentive, and more. Migrating from another app such as Zendesk just takes a few moments, and setting up these integrations is as simple as a few clicks. The process of building your macros and rules will likely take the longest, depending on how in-depth you go, and you’ll want to revisit this on a monthly cadence as your business grows and more support solutions arise. But, the more time spent on building this out in a thoughtful way, the more time you’ll be saving in the long run.

Depending on your plan, you may also receive assistance from a dedicated customer success professional during this setup. And, when you are a merchant with Ambaum, we will set you up with a dedicated manager with Gorgias, as well as immediate escalation support when you need it.

For customers, you can set up a self-service flow for faster solutions outside of your support team. When the process is simple and quick, customers are frequently willing to use self-service tools over a chat function. Utilizing Gorgias’ self-service features can greatly improve customer satisfaction and boost team productivity.

To summarize, Gorgias is built for e-commerce brands, where many other customer support solutions simply are not. Gorgias increases customer retention while taking away the need to switch from tab to tab while managing the influx of support requests. With Gorgias, you can set up automations, customize your rules and macros, and ultimately scale your customer support with your business. Need some assistance setting up your tech stack? Reach out to us today and let’s hop on a call to go over your needs.

The GA4 Upgrade

Posted on by Taylor

Have you received notifications urging you to upgrade to Google Analytics 4 on your Google Analytics account? Are you wondering what that is, whether to commit the time to it, and why? 

Well, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of the Google Analytics platform. It was released in the fall of 2020, and is now the standard method for measuring digital analytics. In March of 2022, Google announced the full transition from Universal Analytics (UA). This means that if you are currently using UA on your website, you will need to upgrade to GA4. If you are unfamiliar with how to do so, we have you covered. And, if you need additional assistance after this article, drop us a line, and we’d be happy to hop on to talk about our services.

Why Upgrade?

Although it can be intimidating to explore the upgrade to GA4, we suggest doing so as soon as possible. We’ve assisted merchants in the transition to Google’s advanced event monitoring, automatic insights, and additional features to all of its users. By upgrading now, you will be able to onboard the team and have enough data to compare year-to-year by this time in 2023. 

In addition to that, Google has announced that they will discontinue UA (GA3) by July 1st, 2023. Without upgrading, your GA tracking will cease at this date, and Google plans to purge all historical data pertaining to your UA account in 2023 or early 2024.

Major Changes

Events

From UA, event tracking was surrounding three dimensions, and one metric. So, when a visitor subscribes to your newsletter on your website, you can send a customized event based on this customer journey. Then, you are able to establish a value on how much cost that action is worth. This type of naming convention did not allow much customization outside of these parameters with UA. 

GA4 is designed to employ deeper thought-process when planning naming conventions of events. In this example of a visitor signing up for a newsletter, you could use the event name “generate_lead”, then use parameters recommended by Google, or (in many cases) customize toward your lead and customer journey, which you could not do as effectively with UA.

Parameters

As discussed, with each event in Google Analytics 4 properties, you can provide parameters. These additional bits of information will further define the user’s behavior or provide more context for an event. Parameters can be used to define the cost of a transaction or to give background information like how, why, and where the event occurred. For example, page_title is one of the parameters that is automatically sent. You can log up to 25 parameters with each occurrence in addition to the parameters that are automatically logged. 

Sessions

A session occurs when a user views a page or screen. Regardless of activity, any new occurrence in UA would begin a new session, which may muddy the analytics when the user may just have your page open in the background. With more sophisticated development, a new occurrence does not start a new session in GA4, and lower session counts in your GA4 property could result from this. In GA4, a session is considered engaged when the user is active on your site or app for over 10 seconds.

Consider the possibility that a person lost service while using their mobile device to browse your website and then got it back 48 hours later. In contrast to UA, GA4 will process the late hit, which results in a greater session count.

If hits arrive within 4 hours, they will be attributed to UA. In GA4, they will be attributed up to 72 hours in GA4. You might notice more sessions in your GA4 property as well as fluctuations in reported data within these 72 hours. This is because GA4 events are processed over a larger time period.

Comparing Data

Prior to GA4, a business that had both an app and a website would have one account with two separate properties; one for the app and one for the website. This made it difficult to switch views and track one user’s journey across the two platforms. With GA4, you have the option to view the data separately or together, and you’re now able to track the journey between the app and the website. A user who visited both was previously considered two different users, but GA4 works to track users individually who interact with your brand across platforms. 

There are a few differences and notes on tagging and configuration between GA4 and UA:

  • The same web pages are being tracked by both your tracking ID (UA property) and tag ID (GA4 property).
  • Equal tag implementations are available for both properties. Review these factors, for instance, before utilizing related site tags.
  • Every tag is successfully firing. You can use Google Tag Assistant (GTA) to make sure your tags are functioning properly.
  • (Property settings > Reporting time zone) Your UA property and GA4 property share the same time zone.
  • You contrast a single web data stream in your GA4 property with an unfiltered view in your UA property.
  • In order to compare data in the Realtime reports, both the UA property and the GA4 property must have been collecting data for at least 30 minutes.

Data Retention

The data retention policy has been a confusing topic to many, as Analytics Help outlines that GA4 properties, conversion and user-level data, can be set to a maximum of 14 months of retention. Regardless of your preferences, the age, gender, and interest data are always retained for two months. Additionally, data that has already been gathered is carried over when the retention term is extended, and there is a 2-month limit for XL properties.

So, the concern is around the need to compare data for more than the maximum retention period for more in-depth reporting. And, how does this work with custom segments and/or aggregated reports? 

As of right now, you are able to view more than 14 months of data with an aggregate report. However, this is not the case if you are using the Explorations reporting feature in GA4. Remember that even if you make comparisons in the reports, the data retention setting in your GA4 property has no impact on basic aggregated reports (including primary and secondary dimensions). Only reports from Explorations are impacted by the data retention setting.

The Transition

Invest the time to structure your events and customer journey. Essentially, you will need to build a new set of tags that are utilizing GA4 if you currently have UA implemented in your container and want to switch to it. Try not to go too narrow, or too broad with your naming conventions. Instead, try to find the middle ground, making your parameters descriptive where you can guess the value of those leads without going overboard in specificities. 

We have recently assisted a few merchants on their transition into GA4, and above are some of the few key points we’ve learned. We won’t go too in-depth about how to upgrade, as Google has released detailed instructions (and this may be a whole other article in and of itself). But, it is important to consider GA4 as a necessity, a fresh endeavor, with a new naming scheme, new data format, and new platform. 

If you’d like to migrate smoothly with our expertise, and have more questions, we’d love to help. Drop us a line here to fully discover the expertise of our team at Ambaum, and make sure you sign up for our newsletter to keep up-to-date for all things Ambaum.

Let’s Get Ship Done

Posted on by Taylor

The order is not really complete until the customer has the product in their hands, but getting from point A to point B can be arduous and time consuming. There is so much involved such as packaging to planning, to strategy. In this article, we’ll dive into why we suggest ShipStation as our top pick for “getting ship done”.

Seamless and Fast Connection

For Shopify merchants ShipStation can connect in seconds and offers extensive customer onboarding and support along the way. ShipStation can integrate with marketplaces, shopping carts, carriers, fulfillment centers, ERP and inventory management platforms, and more. This allows the service to grow with your business, ensuring scalable success.

Shipping Carriers

ShipStation works with the most widely utilized shipping companies such as FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, and more, across the globe. ShipStation also holds their finger on the pulse of updates on these shipping carriers, and can offer premier discounted rates from select carriers. This can be extremely beneficial as these discounted rates do not typically have any volume requirements. Alternatively, ShipStation allows the merchant to connect to any existing negotiated rates, as well as the ability to compare prices and delivery times in-app and in real-time.

Bulk Processes

Whether fulfilling orders through your e-commerce site or other sales channels, manually processing these orders can quickly become extremely overwhelming. With ShipStation’s cloud-based assisted software, bulk order processing and multi-channel fulfillment creates a superiority over other shipping solutions. ShipStation allows the merchant to print shipping labels in batches, up to 500 orders at one time. The UI allows the merchant to set up their shipping settings easily so these batches can be processed successfully every time. This is a huge advantage for merchants wanting to create a one-stop shop for streamlined and organized fulfillment.  

Fulfillment Operations

In that vein, being able to customize internal operations toward the specific needs of the business is integral to streamlined and scalable growth. ShipStation allows the merchant to take out the guesswork of processes by fully customizable merchant UI, so with a bit of work the process can be as simple as a click of a button. ShipStation works if the business has multi-channel fulfillment, so creating those standard operations becomes a possibility.

Integrations

ShipStation has created and connected a vast number of APIs, making the process of setting up ShipStation on a Shopify store incredibly simple. Additionally, ShipStation will connect other third-party tools that are already integrated into a business model such as:

This ability to connect to the marketplace, selling channel, and other business integrations makes ShipStation’s fit right at home into the success of an e-commerce store.

And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg; there are many additional advantages to using this industry standard. In short, ShipStation’s flexibility allows the system to grow with the business, becoming as robust as one might need.

Excited to get started? We’ve got a special partner deal where, after starting a 30 day free trial, ShipStation is offering an additional 30 days for merchants coming from Ambaum. So, start a free trial today to get ShipStation in the toolbelt. Questions for us on how to optimize with ShipStation or our other Shopify tech partners? Drop us a line.

Updates on the horizon for our Shopify tech partner, Rebuy

Posted on by Taylor

Rebuy recently held a town hall to kickoff their agency and tech partner programs.

Back in 2017, John Erck and his brother James came up with the idea of Rebuy, born from a love of ecommerce. Rebuy is a personalization tool for driving increased AOV, LTV, and conversion rates. Personalized product recommendations can be implemented throughout the entirety of a merchant’s website to leverage the true power of upsells and cross-sells. (also offers omnichannel personalization for ecommerce brands on Shopify and ShopifyPlus!). Recently, we had the pleasure of attending Rebuy’s partnership town hall, and to say we are excited for their Q3 and Q4 would be an understatement. Let’s check out a few highlights from the event.

First, Rebuy has partnered up with Klaviyo, a leading email marketing and SMS automation platform, to bring personalized and customized email flows to customers and potential customers. This integration brings a unique product experience by directing the user to a dynamic landing page based on their behavior on-site, increasing conversion. They also plan on launching the Rebuy Smart Cart™ App Store, allowing developers to build a customer checkout experience for a more personalized and valuable customer flow.

Next, Rebuy has partnered with Recharge to launch the Recharge Customer Portal Recommendations. This partnership sprung from the need to offer up relevant product add-ons directly to the customer through their portal. With this solution, merchants can offer one-time items, subscription products, and include dynamic discounts for the customer, increasing CLV.  Customers can expect to have desired product recommendations automatically added to their next delivery date, creating a seamless experience for both their Recharge subscription products and Rebuy upsell or cross-sell recommendations.

A huge asset update here is their library for developer resources – the Rebuy Developer Hub. This includes comprehensive guides and streamlined resources to assist developers to work with Rebuy quickly and efficiently. A unique element of Rebuy is that its founders are also developers, allowing the company to have a fuller spectrum of understanding toward the merchant’s needs, and a more seamless flow of communication internally.

“We implement Rebuy in about 3 or 4 different places and it’s immediate ROI.” – Brandon Armoroso, Founder & CEO of Electriq Marketing

With a mind prioritized for personalization, Rebuy wants to continue merchant and partner driven development. We look forward to our continued partnership!
Want more information on how we can integrate you with partners like Rebuy? Drop us a line.

Interview with the Project Manager

Posted on by Taylor

Meet our new Project Manager Anne Howrey!

I had the pleasure of discussing the unique background and experience of our new Project Manager, Anne Howrey. Native to Texas, Anne achieved a degree in Math from the University of Texas, where she honed her problem-solving skills. She then began her journey into entrepreneurship and gained an MBA from Northeastern University.

“I wanted to get to a place where I could lead other people to solve problems better.”
“The way I’m going to be able to help clients is that I’ve been there.”

Anne then launched two companies, building the e-commerce of both from the ground up, growing into a Shopify Expert by necessity. Anne has been on both sides now, and the empathy that she is able to bring to the client service experience is sure to impress. Check out the full interview below for her full perspective.

Let us know how we can help you here, and meet more of our team here. Stay hungry!