Tag: ecommerce strategy

In this digital era where everything is moving at lightning speed, website speed matters a lot. A slow-loading website can make visitors bounce, costing you sales and hurting your brand’s reputation. That’s why we’re bringing you this handy guide on performance and speed audits. We’ll walk you through what to look for and how to tackle common speed issues. By following our tips, you can make your website speedy and give your visitors the smooth experience they deserve. Let’s dive in!

What We Look for in a Site Speed Audit

1. Page Load Times
   We measure how quickly your pages load on both desktop and mobile devices. A fast-loading site is crucial for retaining visitors and improving conversion rates. We use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix to get accurate load time metrics and identify areas for improvement.
2. Image Optimization
   Large, uncompressed images can significantly slow down your site. We check if your images are properly compressed and optimized for the web to ensure they load quickly without sacrificing quality.
3. Code Minification and Compression
   Unoptimized HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can increase the size of your web pages, slowing down load times. We assess your theme’s code to ensure it is minified and compressed for optimal performance.
4. App and Script Management
   Third-party apps and scripts can add valuable functionality to your store, but they can also slow it down if not managed correctly. We review all apps and scripts to identify any that may be unnecessarily adding bloat or causing conflicts.
5. Liquid Code Optimization
   Shopify’s Liquid code is the backbone of your store’s theme. We analyze this code to find any inefficiencies or redundant loops that could be slowing down page rendering.
6. Server Response Times
   We evaluate how quickly Shopify’s servers respond to requests. While Shopify generally provides fast server speeds, custom code or excessive API calls can affect response times, which we address during the audit.
7. Redirects and Broken Links
   Unnecessary redirects and broken links can degrade user experience and slow down your site. We identify and address these issues to streamline navigation and speed up page loads.
8. Caching Strategies
   Proper caching can significantly speed up repeat visits to your site. We review your caching settings to ensure they are optimized for the best performance.
9. Utilization of Shopify Features
   Shopify offers various features like its Content Delivery Network (CDN) and image optimization tools. We assess whether these features are being fully utilized to enhance your store’s speed.

Understanding the Limitations

While we are confident in our ability to improve your site’s performance, it’s important to note a few limitations:

• Platform Constraints: Shopify is a hosted platform with certain limitations, including server response times and platform-level caching strategies managed by Shopify. These are beyond our control.
• Theme Complexity: If your theme is custom-built or heavily modified, it might have a complex codebase that requires significant changes. In some cases, a redesign or theme simplification might be necessary for optimal performance.
• Third-Party Apps: Some third-party apps may impact your site’s speed. While we can identify these, removing or replacing them may affect your store’s functionality, so it’s essential to consider the trade-offs.

Key Takeaways:

1. Page load times, image optimization, and code minification are crucial for site speed.
2. Third-party apps and scripts should be managed to avoid performance issues.
3. Liquid code optimization can enhance page rendering speed.
4. Proper caching strategies and utilization of Shopify features can significantly improve performance.

In conclusion, website speed and performance audits are crucial for optimizing your Shopify store’s user experience, search engine rankings, and conversion rates. By addressing common speed issues identified during our comprehensive audit, you can ensure your site loads quickly, runs smoothly, and delivers a positive shopping experience for your customers. Remember, speed is of the essence in today’s digital landscape, so prioritize performance optimization to stay competitive and sell more products!

---

Have any questions or need help thinking through a challenge or opportunity?

Speak to one of our Shopify professionals today. We are are here to help… no strings attached.

As anyone who runs a Shopify store knows, customer accounts let your customers view their profile information, orders, saved addresses, and more. Shopify just recently rolled out new customer accounts. As a Shopify store owner, you can still offer the classic customer accounts, but the new customer accounts offer the following benefits:

• Customers can login with a one time six digit verification code, similar to when they use Shop Pay during checkout.
• Accounts are automatically created when a customer logs in using an email address.
• Customers can now edit their profile name and that will show up in your Shopify admin section (this didn’t display before).
• The branding for your new customer account pages is pulled from your checkout settings.

But, before you rush out to add the new customer accounts to your theme, there are some things to consider:

• Apps or liquid customizations added to your theme’s customer account pages won’t apply to new customer accounts. Your customers will lose access to those customizations.
• New customer accounts aren’t compatible with International.
• New customer accounts aren’t compatible with pixels.
• Workflow triggers or automations based on classic customer accounts aren’t supported in new customer accounts.

If you do roll out the new customer accounts you can always switch back at any time to restore your previous experience. As with most business decisions, it’s always helpful to discuss and brainstorm with experts before implementing. So, let’s schedule a call today to break down the new customer account format and other recent changes that could optimize and support your business needs.

---

Have any questions or need help thinking through a challenge or opportunity?

Speak to one of our Shopify professionals today. We are are here to help… no strings attached.

We often get approached by DTC founders who are just getting started with their Shopify site. They have a small product catalog and are starting to get traction on one or a handful of products. The typical persona here is one of a hard driving, DIY entrepreneur who came up with an idea, grabbed a 3rd party theme from the Shopify theme store and has found some level of product-market fit. This entrepreneur is doing everything with their company at this stage: merchandising, marketing, branding, updating their theme, creating content, and much more.

This is an exciting time for these startup brands as they are seeing growth come from their idea and their hard work is directly translating into revenue. As the brand bumps over $500,000 a year, they are going to inevitably hit an inflection point that everyone reaches: there is too much work now for one person to manage. 

What we’ve learned here at Ambaum is that there are 3 pillars required for small DTC businesses to scale.

3 Pillars Needed for Growth:

1. Dedicated E-commerce Manager
2. Marketing and Sales Team
3. Development Team

Dedicated E-commerce Manager

Choosing one person in your DTC business to be the sole owner responsible for the success of your website is the number one thing you can do to elevate your brand. Early stage founders will function as their own e-commerce manager as they learn the ropes of Shopify and test different themes, designs, and marketing strategies. However the role of the founder is broad and their time will quickly get eaten up by: shipping, product creation, finding new sales channels, and the strategic decisions critical for success.

At a certain revenue number, solo founders will bump against the wall of having too many things to do and not enough time. Typically, that kicks in between $500,000 and $1M/year in Shopify sales. At this inflection point the entrepreneur has two choices: 

1. Continue down the superman path
2. Realize that the only way to scale the business is to make the hire

Think of the dedicated eCommerce Manager as the Project Manager for the website; they are the hub for making sure the ball is moving forward every day.

We have turned away work from founders that didn’t have a dedicated eCommerce Manager because we knew the founder would be too busy to focus on the growth of the site. This role is the most important hire for growing Shopify sites and when they get this right it unlocks the ability to scale from low 7 figures a year to $10M+ in revenue.

Marketing and Sales Team

With most DTC products, there isn’t a need for founders to close every sale as the site does the selling by describing the product for customers. Founders are involved in selling, but the focus should be on setting up awareness of the product by creating a marketing and advertising function. These roles can either be handled by hiring a full time resource or using an outside agency on a contract basis. 

Side Note: Ambaum doesn’t manage marketing or advertising campaigns for merchants. We focus on design, development, and fractional CTO services to ensure our clients get the best specialized support. 

To grow sales, brands need to spend money on advertising to drive customers to the site. The key here is to test out different marketing strategies to find what works best. For some companies, it’s Google Product Listing Ads, for others it’s Facebook or Instagram ads, or for some it’s influencers/KOLs. You need quick feedback so you can pivot and test out different: ad copy, ad platforms, products, bundles, conversions, landing pages and much more. Your Marketing or Sales team needs to set up key performance indicators (KPI’s) and track them on at least a monthly basis.

This eCommerce Manager is the point person that will meet weekly (or as needed) with the marketing and advertising team to evaluate results. This constant feedback loop will drive innovation on your site: building landing pages, integrating product reviews, setting up wholesale orders, creating a robust filter and search function, as just a few examples.

Development Team

The third and final pillar a brand needs to fill is an in-house developer or a development agency. Ambaum, as an example, is a Shopify Plus development agency that also serves as a fractional CTO for eCommerce merchants. Early in the lifecycle of the company, founders are hands on and most make changes to their own site. Eventually, founders will bump up against technical limitations and will need to go in search of more professional programming help. Many founders will hire a freelancer or a Shopify expert to make updates to the site.

Hiring part-time developers will get your site to $500,000/year or even close to $1M, but eventually you will find out that part- time help is unreliable or doesn’t have the skills you need to build what’s required. The next inflection point is deciding to hire a full time programmer in-house or to use an agency like us that can supply fractional development time each month. This is the point where Ambaum adds the most value to an eCommerce brand. We step in as a fractional CTO to help advise your team on best practices for Shopify Plus and the app ecosystem.

Summary

For DTC founders at the initial stages of their Shopify journey, achieving growth hinges on transitioning from a solo effort to a structured team approach. As an entrepreneur reaches $500,000 to $1M in revenue, managing all aspects of the business alone becomes untenable. At this point, it’s crucial to establish sustained growth in hiring a dedicated eCommerce Manager to oversee the website’s success, building a Marketing and Sales team to drive traffic and sales, and hiring a Development team for technical support or a solutions agency like Ambaum for support. By focusing on these areas, founders can scale their business effectively, ensuring continued success and expansion beyond the early stages.

Ready to take the next step for your business?