Where Your Shopify Store Is Leaking Money (and how to fix it)

26:15It is an absolute game changer. So moving it to the bottom, like by the thumb area, making it easy to open up the search? Is that... Not necessarily, not the bottom, at the top. So effectively, Before the error, just after the header, putting that search bar in there, that, getting people to the right place. Because the thing that really annoys me about people talking about CRO, they will say, you need to reduce friction, you need to reduce clicks. And I said I wasn't going to throw in this podcast, Jay, and I'm not, but it's BS. Because the thing with friction is, people interpret that as, if you add more clicks to something, you're causing friction.

26:58Disagree. What you're doing, you need to make sure that the clicks they do have to make are meaningful and give them something that they want. So if, for example, like you said, the accordion menus, those are great because you are signposting where that person needs to go. Equally, the site search, you are signposting, you're getting person to a product. That's what we're there to do. That's what every single e-commerce professional should be able to do. Get the person to product. So expose search on mobile, again, massive game changer. And I would say the last one I would say that, again, everyone should definitely be looking and considering doing is also about when it comes to your subcategory visibility, making sure that is improved as much as you possibly can.

27:43So what I mean by that is that if you have, for example, in your menu, in your dropdown menu, different obviously subcategories in there, having visual icons associated with each of them so people can shop visually. And secondly, if possible, having sort of subcategory icons along again the top of the page also works very well. I guess a little bit sort of like Instagram story style. And again, the reason I'm saying this because again, yet again, time and time again, it works, it works, it works. We've done this for a casket company. We've done this for a bread company. We've done it for a drinks company.

28:21Beauty, endless. But ultimately the same thing. get people to product they buy it interesting it's funny because i see so many stores that if they have less than 20 skews there's no search bar anywhere and they go why would i need to search but i thought one of the things you might have said was because you might discover products that they are looking for a or b you might find potential ways that people are spelling your product and then maybe you can like if there's common misspellings you can work that into your SEO strategy or paid strategy. Like we bid on misspellings of our apps. Yeah. I mean, look, that's definitely part of it as well.

28:56But equally, this is the thing. And look, I get very annoyed about siloed thinking in e-commerce. If you want to tell you a story about a dog in a moment, I certainly can to explain my things like this. But again, look, that information can be passed. Passed to SEO team. Passed to PPC team. And I say team, if it's yourself, use it for your SEO. Use it for your pvc it doesn't matter yeah yeah so how do you to get a little bit i guess tactical like where do you start like how do you know when you're working with a brand like are you testing everything or is there a logical approach to start like maybe the product page that's the most important or is it the home page or what's the approach yeah i mean the thing is that when we start ultimately the way that we work is that our lead cro strategist will do what we would call a heuristic review of the site.

29:50Now heuristic is a big word for saying, we'll look at the site top to bottom. So she will start at page one and go all the way through it. She, as she'll be going through, be noting down hypotheses, ideas, things she thinks that aren't quite right. Once that's then done, she is then taking each of those maybe 100, 120 hypotheses and corroborates and those the data. Do I have data support? Do I have data support? Do I have data support? Some of that stuff, falls away. At that point, you end up with typically 50 to 60, sometimes 70 items, generally the way that we work that we get. But like, for example, if I show up at your house, I'm a realtor, who lives a realtor?

30:31No one. But ultimately, I'll go, Jay, you can add$200 ,000 to your house if you do these 50 things and you go, it's overwhelming. Yeah. So we have a thing called PECTI, which is effectively a scoring mechanism. So it's proof, ease, cost, time, impact. So P-E-C-T-I, okay. Yeah, P-E-C-T-I. And ultimately what this does is this allows us to give a score for each of those and roll that up into an index. So once we've done that, we then say to a client, right, here's your 60, 70 things, but this scored 100, this last one scored 60. Let's start at the top and let's work with the bottom. But the other thing is, like your house and like any business, it will change.

31:18As the weather changes, the roof gets worse, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Same with the business. So that PECTI becomes not a static list. It becomes dynamic. And when more data comes in, the reorganization of that happens as you go through time. So that's how you can get to a point where you're doing things that are meaningful and doing it in a way that you're going to be most impactful as well. and that is is that done from your your history of like pattern recognition that from working with other brands so like you're that's a qualitative score but based off of quantitative data in the past that you're applying like you're not actually doing tests at that point someone is assigning a score based off of previous work and knowledge right yeah okay correct so like the impact score for example that's based on looking at number one have we done this test within this vertical leash previously and ultimately then what was the uplift in revenue per session off the back of doing that particular test so it's gotcha like i say it's quantitatively done and obviously that can move for different types of brands or everyone gotcha and then from there you take the ones that is there like the two by two that's like least effort highest impact approach on stores yeah i So that kind of comes into PECTIC because the ease element of that comes into that.

32:39And then obviously the time and the impact as well. But effectively, what we do when we make recommendations is that they kind of fall into three parts. The one part is implementation, i.e. this thing is broken, or we've done this so many times before. We don't need to test. Just get this damn thing done. So like, for example, expose such a mobile. We're never going to test that again. We're just going to do it. Right. You just know. Exactly. other things are more exploratory i.e we need to do a b testing for it could work in minor work it's somewhere in the middle let's do an a b test for it and then the other ones are pure are what we call either strategy or experimentation i.e when we need to go and do either things like jobs to be done surveys or dig more into mps do customer surveys more of the kind of i guess sort of qualitative maybe things that would have a big impact but take more time to do and that's how we carve it up and then prioritize the back of it.

33:34If I'm listening to this episode and I'm a merchant, I would love to be, to walk away with like a couple wins. That's just, that's just my merchant hat thinking on. I was like, okay. And I know there's like, you know, you might say like, okay, there's no easy wins, blah, blah, blah. But like, come on, what are some quick wins? You mentioned the search, give us some of the goods, like what you're running a store. What are some things someone should do today to, I mean, obviously there's a big process, but like, what are the wins that they can, that you would tell them to look at right away? Yeah, sure thing.

34:06So first of all, your call to action button directly below that call to action button needs to be an absolute killer value prop. Now, if you look at your site and you have a homepage and an about this page saying that you are made in the USA, or you are using a very unique ingredient, whatever it might be, all of those brilliant things you talk about elsewhere, all over your social media, and I go to product page and they are nowhere to be seen, put it below the damn call to action button. Are you talking about like the micro copy right below the button? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now, if you go to our blend site, you will see an example from a car parts manufacturer or car parts work called Patron XW Wervins and still do work with those one from CRO.

34:51What we did with them was maybe a little bit more in depth in that we did adjust. We didn't survey with their 20 highest LTV customers. And what we did is we said, look, guys, you shot with Patronix all the time. What is it that keeps coming back? And they gave a very clear thing. Number one was the warranty down for on their products. And it was also the 90-day returns policy. So what we did is we slipped those two below the call to action button, straight away, 13 % uplift. I believe it. And then AOV was up by, I believe, about 30%. But the thing is, anybody could technically, easy. I'm a non-tech.

35:28I could go and do that right now. Okay. Yeah. So anyone listening can go and do that. And equally as well, in the age of AI, get AI to help you with the coffee. So go and do that if that is not in play. The other thing as well is I referred to this kind of idea of visual shopping earlier on. A lot of the time, if you go to Shopify stores that maybe have not been around for as long as others, if you typically go on mobile, you will see in terms of looking at the product teenagers, there will be breadcrumbs or little dots or blobs below, whatever you want to call them. Okay. A lot of the time, what people don't realize is that you can turn those into image thumbnails.

36:07Turn those into image thumbnails if you can. Because again, what we've seen time and time again is that people will shot visually by actually being able to see what they're going to go to first and foremost. And secondly, if you can bring video into that, wow. Like, yeah, is just incredible again not technically difficult to do go and get it done yeah i did an episode recently maybe about a month ago all about microcopy and it's one of the things that like i think is just overlooked and it's just that little bit of polish it's that yes that little bit of hesitation when you click a button or like you every every customer has a question in their head and it can just be like adding 90 day returns underneath the button or guaranteed or something satisfaction just answer one question i'm such a believer that it blows my mind how many brands don't do that like it's the easiest thing to do it just takes time but exactly and i think the other thing as well that again is another reason which is related to this is sharing more information earlier on about payment options and delivery.

37:21Because time and time again, and you've probably heard it over the years, a lot of people out to car, they get to the car, and then they just poof, they're gone. And then you look at it and you go, yeah, but you're selling a$25 product and then you're charging them$15 for shipping. Yeah, but that's how much UPS are charging us. Well, okay, but maybe you need to increase the cost of your product to show that shipping isn't such a big value because people may still pay that for it. Or you're much more open and be promoting the fact that, look, shipping is X on orders, or you gamify it. Surprises, getting people, convincing people, like the Senate market copy situation, really important.

38:03Secondly, don't surprise them. They don't want surprises. They want to know exactly what's going to happen, when, and how much is going to cost them. Yeah, and I just want to take this even one step further. Like I've seen brands, like the pushback is often well then my price goes up and i might lose them on the front end if i put the shipping in i've actually seen the opposite i've seen brands increase their price and sell more yeah because what you're doing is you're making its value is like so subjective unless you are selling the exact same product that a hundred other stores but for most stores they're like they're making their own product so it's a little bit tougher to compare but it's better for you to have that price a hundred out of a hundred times of shipping like in the cost of the product because then it also makes it feel like a premium product it's perceived more always better to have it on in baked in there and then i had this thought and i've seen a few brands do this love to get your thoughts on this but the negative surprise of checkout or sorry of shipping at checkout is one of the biggest cause of abandonments.

39:08What about a positive surprise, like a surprise gift and the exact, so, so flipping it. So not just free shipping, but getting to checkout and or to cart, it's easier to do this. There's apps that do it, but like you add something to the cart and a surprise gift. And like the analogy I sometimes think about is when you go to a coffee shop and you have the punch cards, you get like buy 10 coffees and your 10th one's free. Well, nobody ever, like with a punch card, like you don't, you're not happy when you get your 10th coffee free. You just feel like you deserved it. Yeah. You bought 10 coffees and you're like, oh, I'll get my, thank you, got my free coffee.

39:47Thank you. But imagine you go to Starbucks, you buy coffee there all the time, but then one day you buy a coffee and the barista is like, Adam, this one's on me today. And you're like, wow. Oh, geez. Like here's a$10 tip. I'm going to come to this Starbucks all the time. And you might post it on social media. Like you may have bought 50 coffees without getting a free one. But if you felt that you had to earn that free coffee, now you got your free coffee, there's no gratitude. There's no surprise. There's no. So like if you have a big banner on the top, that's like spend$50, get a free shaker bottle of pro whatever.

40:21But if you just had it, so it was a surprise. I just, I think there's something there that evokes emotion, positive emotion in someone. At the top of the show, I mentioned OmniSend can now talk to ChatGPT and Claude. And I want to tell you why that's even bigger than it sounds. So if you missed it, quick catch up. OmniSend is what I use for email and SMS on every Shopify store I work with, plus for this show as well. And you can now connect your AI, Claude ChatGPT straight to your OmniSend account. Your data, your campaigns, your flows, everything. You open a chat and you ask, what should I focus on this week to make more money?

41:01And it will come back with real answers about your store, which flow is underperforming, which automation needs improvement, which customers are going quiet, what's missing, everything. My favorite part though is AI segments. I used to build these by hand clicking through filters forever. Now I just type something like customers who bought twice but ignored my last campaign and it just builds it. And anything it writes already sounds exactly like your brand because it pulls from all your previous emails, from your website, your logo, your color, your voice, everything. I've been doing this for 15 years and this is the closest I've ever felt to having a full-time marketer sitting right beside me.

41:39I have a link for you in the show notes that will give you 30 % off for your first three months or you can just use code J30 when you sign up. J-A-Y-3-0. If you're ready to migrate from Klaviyo to Omnisend, like thousands of others, they will do everything for you. You just show up and all your campaigns and automations from Klaviyo will be set up and running in OmniSend, ready to go. And usually at 35 % less what you were paying Klaviyo. Yeah, I agree. I mean, look, we've, I mean, a few years back when tote bags were like the thing that people did that way, that worked and absolutely true. I don't know the terminology in North America is the same.

42:16with those sort of Hessian style, almost like cotton masks that you get at trade shows. And people were buying them for like 10 cents a pop. Yeah, but they're branded. They have your... Yeah. And people wouldn't want for it. And I know a color brand, not that we work with, but people that I now know. And what they will do is they will then do those surprises with last season stock. They'll do it with, there's one company I know that is a vitamin supplements company. If they have any stock this short day, invented that also then do that with it because ultimately it's going to go and get a burning incinerator but you put it in there and actually they have a taste of that thing and then they come back the next time and they go and buy the damn thing at full price you know what another good thing to do is with your old inventory is put them in mystery box either upsells or giveaways i know a guy who's made a lot of money doing that a lot of money yes yeah like it is the best and all you have to do is put on the header, like guaranteed$30 or more value and sell the mystery box for 20 bucks and you will sell them like crazy.

43:23We have an upsell app and it's one of the, it's one of the highest converting offers is a mystery box. So fun tricks, implement one of those. You guys will be ahead. When you're running AB tests and you have like something that doesn't go so well, like it doesn't, not every test is going to be great. Like, oh, we tested this and we got a winner you when it's a loss or it doesn't win like what do you do then how do you keep merchants from getting discouraged and like going back to saying like you know what i'm gonna just go with my gut feel because we tested this and it didn't work and i'm gonna stick with what i know like no it's an interesting one because look ultimately the initial things are being ab testing is working it's a failure but a lot of the time with ab testing an ab varying test or an ABC variant test usually means that there are other scenarios that are possible that you've been thinking, you're hypothesizing about as well.

44:19So it might be typically when we come up with A-B testing, we tend to create clusters. And within those clusters, you might start in one particular area cluster that may work or may not work. And then you then sort of metamorphosize up the back of it. So I think the thing is the ones that don't win, where you don't obviously get a more positive result in the current that is on at the moment and i would say this because i'm a croc but you haven't lost because you're knowing that what you have right now is better than the other scenario you had at the moment the key thing is that then pernit takes then throughout the rest of the testing you have and there are certain things that you can learn and infer from some elements of the a b test that may then also work in other elements in the parts of the site so it's this whole thing like it ultimately if you're not earning you're learning which is a bit cheesy and cliche but Ultimately, you've got to take the mentality with it because most CRO testing that happens, you will usually get a success rate anywhere between sort of 30 % to 70 % if you're very lucky.

45:20So you've got to expect this from some of your failure. And I think, okay, this is why when you do A-B testing, you also need to be at sort of 50 ,000 business a month because you need to be able to have that, again, the funds in your business to go, look, some of this stuff is more exploratory than others. Right. Right. Makes sense. Makes sense. At least you know that you have that validation and it's every single thing is learning. Like, yeah. So looking a little bit into the future, what's changing in the space? AI is touching everything. It's here. I know you've got opinions on that and you've said that AI and personalization are like some of the biggest trends right now and in the future.

46:00Like what what is good AI personalization look like? What is bad AI personalization look like on a Shopify store? and what are you seeing in the next few years, how this all plays out? Yeah, I mean, I think on the good side of using AI, there are two things I think, look, AI in general, and then in terms of personalization piece. From an AI in general point of view, what is happening now is the doing part of what people do is becoming less valuable. Whether that is the doing of an agency, that is the doing of an individual, the creation, development skills. Unfortunately, I know there are going to be people who are listening to our developers.

46:41The skills that are there, some of them are going to be defunct very soon because AI will be able to do a lot of that. Ultimately now, what people need to over-index on is the thinking part and strategic part. And that is something that AI is still not able to do that well. it can give you the starting point but all of the time the broader picture view is not quite there so i think that's the one element so if you're looking at the moment for me it would be about saying and this is what we've done in our own business is gone so look ultimately what are all the mundane all of the data and all the data input data analysis jobs that we're doing as individuals that we don't have to enroll that's the first thing to eradicate don't try and get too smart with it.

47:28Don't try and start going to NNA and building models and God knows what and bots and this, that and the other. Start with the simple stuff. Get that onto your plate. Number one, that's going to give you more headspace to be able to focus on more intelligent stuff. And secondly, be able to bring more intense things in. On the kind of AI personalization side, for me, this is what I was saying right at the start of the show about AOV. This is where this already comes into place because until now the ability of upsell and cross-sell apps to make recommendations has usually always been on effectively your browsing what have you looked at previously you looked at red dresses and they've looked at blue dresses let's show them a green dress now obviously though because of what's happening with those tools yes you can use that browser activity, you can then match them to other data from other users who match that cohort, plus any sales data we've got, plus if they're signed to email, plus if they're on WhatsApp or SMS, and therefore off the back of it, the recommendations that you should be giving are going to be a lot better.

48:35And I think for me, people get a little bit icky at the moment about AI try-on apps or visualization apps, but ultimately these are going to become more commonplace and i think any time that you have an ability to do that the initial thing from a lot of people i know is oh it's gimmicky and it's just the thing that people have to look at it for me what that is about having the person having the ai and the ar to allow to virtually try on or see what you know flooring looks like in your condo living room yeah me that's about reducing your return rates, which again is another massive killer to a lot of brands and e-commerce.

49:16So there's a lot of slop out there. And I feel like in 2025, we got force fed AI and force fed protein. There's protein in AI and everything that we don't consume. And I think it's like, sometimes I look at apps and I'm like, do you really need to have AI in what you're doing? But on the other hand, if you think of it more smartly about it and for the core problem you're trying to fix which usually is poor conversion rates low aav what are the things that are going to have to do that so just take a step back ignore the noise and focus on the problem at hand yeah is there any neat ways that you're using ai for on the cro side i don't like uploading heat maps to ai for analysis or any things like that or is there any ways it's been helpful i know you definitely gotta be careful with this stuff but have you had any like wins with it?

50:11Yeah, I mean, look, ultimately, the tool that I spoke about earlier on that we built the benchmarking tool, that is CreativeMai. And this obviously allows us to pull data sets that otherwise would be very difficult to obtain and equally to be able to scan sites to see on a top level what's going on. So that's, I think, the first route. I think with heat maps, we are getting there with it. We're developing something at the moment, a piece of software that will allow us to be able to do that more succinctly. The access is not quite where we need to be right now, but I think, look, in time that will come.

50:43But ultimately, the overall issue I think that we're going to have is that once we can plug into an API, which we can a lot of the time now, we can get access to a ton of data. The difficulty though is that for someone like me, who's not technical, how can I then best tell a story with AI in a succinct way that allows to take action and right i see a lot of people coming out with ai apps and i'm pitching all of them as an agency owner and someone involved in the e-com community in the uk and a lot of the time it for me feels like there is just okay look at all this data that we found or look at all this that we can model okay but what do we do with it what i know i feel the same way yeah there's so much noise it's like you i struggle with this so much because like i tell myself that i need to block off time every week to just play with AI in some way to stay ahead.

51:37But then I wonder like, there's a percentage of my time that I'm wasting and it's because it's what is chasing the shiny bell and whistle or whatever the saying is versus what's actually useful. And it's like, you got to be, you got to be balanced with the approach to it. Yeah, definitely. And I think I was talking about this and I said, it's almost the moment where we're in this kind of almost AI arbitrage era because ultimately the understanding and perception of AI is very different between different groups of people. Now, if you are a brand owner listening to this and you say, well, AI arbitrage would mean for me.

52:12Ultimately, what I'm saying is, if you are someone who can interpret information, turn that into a story, and then enact that information in a meaningful way, you're going to win. Because if you look at the takeover of AI at the moment although like in our world we talk about it all the time the actual take-up is just a very small percentage of the population of the world now right if you are one of the people then is going to actually adopt it and understand it and use it you're going to be ahead because so many people are going like we did a survey right without with our clients we went out and we basically said look what are you doing with ai what do you want to use it for and the same thing came back every single time.

52:57We've just started playing around with chat GPT. Now, it's good because we sit there and go, geez, they haven't even heard about Claudia. Or they haven't even heard about these bots that they could potentially build and blah, blah, blah. But it just does make you realize that there's very different perceptions of what it can do and what it can't do. And there is a big opportunity for a lot of people to get ahead of the game here purely just by understanding, interpreting some of the basic stuff that's out there right now. Have you seen that graphic going around that shows like the population of the world?

53:31That was in my mind when I was telling that story. Yeah, yeah. It puts it in good context, doesn't it? There's one dot that is like actually using it for anything more than just asking questions or no, that has a paid account out of, I think each dot represents like 10 million people. And there's all these dots. Anyways, yeah, it is. Sometimes it's easy to feel behind on stuff. And every time you open up social media, it feels like there's like, geez, like different every week and you feel overwhelmed. But as long as you're doing something with it, then you're ahead of most people. So I want to run through a few lightning round questions.

54:10I don't know if you saw them, but we've got some here that are put together specifically for your area of expertise. We used to ask the same questions to everyone, but now we try to style them a little bit. So what's the most overrated CRO tactic that merchants waste money on? Changing button colors. What is the highest converting Shopify product page element that most stores are missing? I think I know what it is. Yeah, I mean, it's the exposed search on mobile. I mentioned it earlier on. I mean, just from our own experience, every damn time. Interesting. Yeah. What's a tool that every Shopify merchant might want to install this week?

54:48I say might, not saying should, but that might help with testing, running or doing something for optimization. Do you know? Do you have one? Microsoft Clarity. Okay. Is that the main one that, I think that's gotta be one of like, it's interesting. I saw some report or someone put it out, like 87 % or something of Shopify Plus stores have it installed. Like it's some staggeringly high number. Like it's crazy. Number speak for itself. And you know, yeah, absolutely. I think I know the answer to this, but desktop or mobile, what do you optimize first? And I always ask guests some fun fact. And your fun fact was, you remember what you put in there?

55:30Oh, I think, would it maybe be that Sweden? Yeah, you're turning 40 this year. First of all, are you 40 yet or you're turning 40? No, in a few weeks time. So yeah, I'm looking forward to that in a way. You know what? I'm 46. I when I turned 40 I remember actually feeling young because it was like you're at you're a young 40 year old versus like an old 39 year old like it's a new it's a new decade so I'm like that positioning yeah that's making me better already yeah yeah so you went to Sweden to take a bunch of ice baths and you said hike hike around the mountains and minus 25 half yeah half not fully naked half naked no no I mean snow boots gloves a hat and some swim shorts on so the like the The question I wanted to ask is, what's the CRO equivalent of taking an ice bath?

56:20There has to be some analogy here. There has to be like, you got to work. There's got to be something you can draw from that. No, I mean, I sort of said, and I know exactly what I'm going to say. When you take an ice bath, there are a couple of things that happen to your body. Number one is obviously it feels very cold. The second thing is you get this overwhelming sense of mental clarity because effectively what's happening is one of the systems in your body is being reset through something called your vagus system or your vagus nerve in your head now for me after i've done an ice bath i feel clear i feel calm and i feel clarity what i would say is the equivalent in cro is calling up your 20 highest ltd customers and asking them what they like about your site what they don't like about your site and what would stop them in buying from you again.

57:09Speak to your customers, whether that is through NPS service, whether that is picking up the damn phone, it is so damn valuable. And I have to remind myself as well sometimes about my own business, but get the bravery to do it and it will seriously change your world. Amen. That is such a good way to end on. I couldn't agree more. Not only will you learn stuff, but they'll become probably a fan for life too. You know, this is how you reach out to them and you ask them. It's amazing what asking people for help, how that connects. So Adam, this has been incredible. I've learned a ton. You're super gracious with your time.

57:48I know it's late in the evening over there. Where do people obviously blend commerce.com, right? That's the site. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Blend commerce.com. And if you want to check out that benchmarking, it's just called CRO benchmarks. Top right hand corner on the screen. You'll see that. I also am quite active on LinkedIn. So Adam, P-S-P-A-R-C-E. And if anyone is listening to this in the UK, I also run an event called Econ Co-op Club, which happens once a month in London. We have about 150, 160 people each month talking about all kinds of things. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

58:23I just want to close off by saying to those listening, if you got value from this, make sure you connect with Adam, like his content, engage with him, Tell them on social media that you heard the episode and make sure you subscribe to the podcast. We are just over 85 ,000 subscribers now. It's awesome. We're having a lot of fun doing this. I'm super thankful to guys like Adam that just come and freely share their information when there's a million other things he could be doing. But this takes time and energy. So hit subscribe. Give it a like. It means a lot. And make sure you connect with Adam and check out Blend Commerce because they're doing great things.

58:58Thanks so much for coming on, Adam. Appreciate it, Jay. Thanks for having me.