Category Archives: Social Media

Showcasing Products on LinkedIn? Good Idea—Bad Idea?

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When we added the Shop with Me feature, the tech team included LinkedIn as a sharing option. I wasn’t sure if that would be helpful to merchants until I started thinking about who would benefit from curated collections that can be shared—and collections that can be shared and edited.

We worked through some real-world use cases and here’s what we came up with. But I’d love to get your take: as a Shopify merchant, would any of these LinkedIn strategies make sense for showcasing products to YOUR customers?

Why LinkedIn Might Make Sense (or Might Not)

We’ve covered how to use shared Idea Boards on Facebook and X—platforms where showcasing products and product discovery feel natural. LinkedIn is different.

Your customers on LinkedIn are there for professional content: business insights, career development, industry news. They’re not casually browsing for products the way they might on Instagram or Facebook. But that doesn’t mean there’s no opportunity. It means the approach has to be different—more helpful, more strategic, more genuinely valuable to professionals.

As we explored in Engagement Is SEO Candy, engagement compounds across platforms. If you can create genuinely useful content on LinkedIn that happens to include Idea Boards, you’re building brand authority that translates to trust and sales over time.

The question is: what would actually be helpful to your customers on LinkedIn?

Understanding What’s Possible

First, let’s clarify what you can do with Idea Boards on LinkedIn:

Read-Only Boards: You create and curate a collection around a specific theme. Customers can view it, shop from it, and share it—but they can’t change your curation. You maintain complete control over the presentation.

Shop with Me (Collaborative Boards): Multiple people can add, remove, and rearrange products together in real-time. Useful when decisions benefit from group input or when customers need to coordinate choices with others.

Both options are available for LinkedIn sharing. The question is which approach—if any—makes sense for your brand and your customer base.

Possible Use Case #1: Professional Wardrobe Guidance

Who this might work for: Apparel brands selling workwear, professional attire, or business casual clothing

The scenario: Your customers are building professional wardrobes—early in their careers, transitioning industries, or navigating return-to-office requirements. They need practical guidance, not just product listings.

How you might use Idea Boards: Create industry-specific or career-stage-specific curated boards that showcase complete professional looks, not just individual products.

Examples:

  • “Tech Startup Professional Wardrobe”
  • “Entry-Level Professional Essentials Under $500”
  • “Hybrid Work Wardrobe Refresh”
  • “Executive Presence: Investment Pieces”

Why it might work on LinkedIn: Your customers are already thinking about professional presentation. A curated board that solves their “what do I actually wear?” problem delivers genuine value while showcasing your expertise.

The question: Do your customers engage with you on LinkedIn? Would they find this type of guidance helpful, or are they already solving this problem elsewhere?

Possible Use Case #2: Business Travel Essentials

Who this might work for: Brands selling versatile, travel-friendly clothing and accessories

The scenario: Your customers travel frequently for business—conferences, client meetings, multi-day trips. They’re trying to pack smart while maintaining a professional appearance.

How you might use Idea Boards: Create “Conference Travel Capsule” boards showing 5-7 versatile pieces that work together across multiple days without checking luggage.

Examples:

  • “3-Day Conference Packing Guide”
  • “Week-Long Business Trip Essentials”
  • “International Business Travel Capsule”

Why it might work on LinkedIn: Business travel is a professional challenge, not just a lifestyle topic. Practical packing solutions deliver immediate, tangible value.

The question: Does your customer base travel enough for business that this would resonate? Would they look to you for this kind of guidance?

Possible Use Case #3: Sustainable Professional Style

Who this might work for: Brands specializing in sustainable, ethical, or circular fashion for professional settings

The scenario: Your customers want to make ethical purchasing choices but need clothes that work in professional environments. They’re looking for both sustainability AND office-appropriateness.

How you might use Idea Boards: Curate boards that prove you don’t have to compromise professionalism for sustainability.

Examples:

  • “Sustainable Business Professional Wardrobe”
  • “Ethical Brands for Office Wear”
  • “Circular Fashion for Corporate Settings”

Why it might work on LinkedIn: Sustainability is a business value topic on LinkedIn. Professionals discussing corporate responsibility, ESG goals, and ethical purchasing are actively engaged on this platform.

The question: Is sustainability core to your brand identity? Do your LinkedIn followers care about ethical fashion in professional contexts?

Possible Use Case #4: Corporate Gifting (Shop with Me)

Who this might work for: Any brand that sells products appropriate for corporate gifts—leather goods, accessories, home items, quality apparel

The scenario: Your B2B customers (marketing teams, HR departments, sales teams) need to choose client gifts, employee recognition items, or conference giveaways. Multiple stakeholders need to weigh in, but coordinating via email is inefficient.

How you might use Shop with Me: Create a collaborative board where the team can add options, remove what doesn’t work, and reach consensus together in real-time.

Examples:

  • Marketing team building “Top Client Holiday Gift” board
  • HR curating “Employee Milestone Recognition” options
  • Sales team selecting “Conference Giveaway” items

Why this might work on LinkedIn: This is a genuine B2B use case. Corporate gifting requires group decisions, and Shop with Me solves a real coordination problem.

The question: Do you have B2B customers or corporate accounts? Would collaborative gifting boards make their purchasing easier?

Possible Use Case #5: Behind-the-Scenes Business Insights

Who this might work for: Any brand comfortable sharing merchandising strategy and business thinking

The scenario: You’re positioning your brand as an innovator and thought leader. You want to share how you make buying decisions, what trends you’re betting on, why you chose certain products for the season.

How you might use Idea Boards: Create boards that showcase your upcoming collection or seasonal strategy, but frame it as business insight rather than product promotion.

Examples:

  • “Spring 2026 Buying Strategy: Why We’re Betting on These Trends”
  • “Behind Our Holiday Collection: The Data That Drove Our Choices”
  • “Sustainability in Action: Our Circular Fashion Commitments”

Why it might work on LinkedIn: Thought leadership performs well on LinkedIn. If you can demonstrate strategic thinking and industry expertise while showcasing products, you’re building brand authority.

The question: Are you comfortable sharing business strategy publicly? Does your brand have insights worth sharing beyond just “here are our products”?

Does sharing products on LinkedIn make sense for YOUR brand?

Here’s what we’d love to hear from you: Would any of these strategies work for engaging YOUR customers on YOUR LinkedIn presence? The answer probably depends on:

Your customer base: Do they engage with you on LinkedIn? Are they active professionals looking for solutions to work-related challenges?

Your brand positioning: Are you positioned as an expert in professional style, business solutions, or industry-specific needs? Or is your brand primarily lifestyle-focused?

Your LinkedIn presence: Do you have an established LinkedIn following? Are you already creating content there, or would this be starting from scratch?

Your bandwidth: Do you have the capacity to create genuinely helpful content, or would this feel like another channel to maintain?

When LinkedIn Probably Doesn’t Make Sense

Let’s be honest about when this platform isn’t worth your time:

If your brand is purely lifestyle-focused: Instagram and Facebook are better channels for casual, aspirational fashion content.

If your customers don’t use LinkedIn: No point investing in a platform where your audience isn’t active.

If you can’t commit to helpful content: LinkedIn punishes promotional content. If you’re not willing to lead with value, don’t bother.

If you’re already stretched thin: Better to excel on one or two platforms than to be mediocre on five.

What We’d Love to Hear From You

We added LinkedIn as a sharing option because the technology allowed it. But whether it’s strategically valuable—that’s what we’re trying to figure out. Your experience and perspective would genuinely help and we promise to share what we learn.

  • Do any of these use cases resonate with your brand and customer base?
  • Are we thinking about this correctly, or are we missing better opportunities?
  • Have you successfully engaged customers on LinkedIn in ways we haven’t considered?
  • Is LinkedIn just not worth the effort for fashion and lifestyle brands?

What’s Next

This series continues with:

  • When to use private Shop with Me boards for VIP customer experiences
  • How to build cross-platform campaigns that amplify results

Want to see how Idea Boards work? Visit the Stylaquin demo store and create one yourself. Or check out this live example to see how they appear when shared.

LinkedIn might be a powerful engagement channel for your brand—or it might not be worth your time. We think there are genuine use cases, but we want to hear what merchants actually think: What would make LinkedIn valuable for YOUR Shopify store?

Let us know in the comments. We’d love to get your take.

How to Turn X-Twitter Buzz Into Sales

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Twitter—now X—moves fast. A trend can explode in minutes, dominate the conversation for hours, and disappear by morning. For fashion and lifestyle brands, this creates both a challenge and an opportunity.

The challenge? Traditional e-commerce marketing moves too slowly. By the time you’ve designed a banner ad or scheduled a product post, the moment has passed.

The opportunity? If you can move quickly and tap into what’s already trending, you can ride that wave of attention directly to your store.

That’s where shared Idea Boards become powerful on X. They let you respond to trends in real-time, create shopping experiences around cultural moments, and turn buzz into actual sales—all without your marketing team scrambling to redesign landing pages. 

As we discussed in Engagement Is SEO Candy, the engagement you generate on social platforms compounds over time, improving how shoppers interact with your site and how Google rewards that engagement with better rankings.

Why X Is Different from Other Platforms

X isn’t like Facebook or Instagram. The platform has unique characteristics that shape how commerce works:

  • Speed: Conversations move in real-time, not days or weeks
  • Discovery: The algorithm surfaces trending topics, not just followed accounts
  • Conversation-driven: Replies and quote tweets create viral threads
  • Text-first: Compelling copy matters as much as visuals
  • Short attention spans: You have seconds to capture interest

For brands, this means your window of opportunity is narrow but your potential reach is enormous. When something trends, millions of users are actively searching for related content. If your Idea Board appears in that moment, you’re reaching people at peak interest. A celebrity is having a bad hair day starts trending and you sell hair care products—boom! 

The key is being ready to move fast and having systems that let you capitalize on trends as they happen.

Understanding Board Settings for X

Just like on Facebook, every Idea Board you share can be set to read-only or Shop with Me (fully editable).

For X, we strongly recommend read-only for public tweets. Here’s why:

Consistency: When a tweet goes viral, hundreds or thousands of people might click your Idea Board link. You want everyone seeing the same curated collection—not a board that’s been edited by previous visitors.

Speed: You’re creating boards quickly to match trends. Read-only means you curate once and share immediately without worrying about what happens after you post.

Brand control: On a platform where replies can get snarky and quote tweets can be critical, your Idea Board is the one thing you fully control. Keep it professional.

But remember—read-only doesn’t limit shoppers. They can still:

  • Add any item directly to their cart
  • Save products to their own personal Idea Board
  • Share the board with their network
  • Reply to your tweet to discuss the products

You maintain quality; they maintain freedom.

View of an Idea Board showing sharing options

Tactic #1: Trend-Jacking with Immediate Idea Boards

When a fashion or lifestyle trend starts gaining traction on X (#QuietLuxury, #CoastalGrandmother, #OldMoneyAesthetic), you have a narrow window to join the conversation.

How It Works:

Monitor trending hashtags and conversations relevant to your products. When something hits that matches your inventory, create an Idea Board immediately that interprets the trend through your catalog. Just, sign in, create a board, give it a name that matches the trend and drag in the items you want. Click the three dots, pick X, and press go. 

Why This Works:

You’re not creating the trend; you’re adding value to an existing conversation. People searching that hashtag find your board alongside other trend discussion. Your products become part of the cultural moment.

The replies will debate whether your interpretation is accurate, which items truly fit, what’s missing—and that engagement signals to X’s algorithm that your tweet is worth showing to more people.

Pro Tips:

  • Create the board before you see the trend (have “aesthetic” boards ready to deploy)
  • Move within the first 2-3 hours of a trend emerging
  • Use the exact hashtag people are already searching
  • Be authentic to the trend—don’t force products that don’t fit

Tactic #2: Product Drop Countdowns & Flash Sales

X’s real-time nature makes it perfect for creating urgency around limited-time offers.

How It Works:

Create an Idea Board featuring your sale items, new collection, or limited drops. Build anticipation with countdown tweets, then share the board when the moment hits.

Example sequence:

  • 2 hours before: “New collection drops at 2pm EST. First look coming soon…”
  • 30 minutes before: “30 minutes until our Spring collection goes live. Here’s a preview [teaser image]”
  • At launch: “IT’S LIVE. Shop the full Spring collection [Idea Board link]. These styles won’t last long.”

Why This Works:

Countdowns create FOMO. When multiple tweets build toward a moment, engaged followers set reminders and show up when you post the board. The real-time reveal feels like an event, not just another product announcement.

For flash sales, the time pressure is built in. “24-hour sale board—everything here is 25% off [link]” creates immediate urgency. People know if they don’t act now, they’ll miss it.

Pro Tips:

  • Use clear time stamps (include timezone)
  • Pin the final tweet to your profile during the sale window
  • Update the thread as items sell out (“The denim jacket just sold out—grab your favorites now”)
  • Create urgency without being pushy—let the timer do the work

Tactic #3: Live Shopping Events & Real-Time Curation

Turn product launches into participatory events by curating in real-time while your audience watches.

How It Works:

Announce that you’re building an Idea Board live on X. As you add products, tweet about each one with quick commentary. Your audience follows along, replies with reactions, and the board builds in real-time.

Example: “We’re styling our perfect summer getaway wardrobe LIVE right now. Follow this thread and watch the board come together [Idea Board link]”

Then thread:

  • “Starting with the foundation: this linen blazer that works dressed up or down…”
  • “Adding these sandals—they’re having a moment and for good reason…”
  • “No summer board is complete without the perfect sunglasses…”

Why This Works:

Live curation feels like getting insider access. People follow the thread to see what makes the cut and why. The conversational style invites replies (“What about [product]?” “I love that pick!”), which boosts engagement.

It also demonstrates your expertise. You’re not just listing products—you’re explaining the curation decisions, which positions you as a trusted style authority.

Pro Tips:

  • Keep the pace moving—one tweet every 5-10 minutes
  • Respond to replies in the thread
  • Announce a specific time so followers know when to tune in
  • End with a clear call-to-action: “That’s the complete board—shop it all here [link]”

Making It Work: Implementation & Timing

Speed Is Everything:

Unlike Facebook where posts have longer shelf life, X content is ephemeral. Your Idea Board link needs to go out when the conversation is happening, not hours later.

Create Board Templates:

Have “aesthetic boards” ready to deploy when trends emerge:

  • Minimalist style
  • Boho vibes
  • Corporate chic
  • Weekend casual
  • Date night

When a relevant trend hits, you just need to refine and share—not create from scratch.

Post Timing:

  • Trend-jacking: Immediate (within 2 hours of trend emergence)
  • Product launches: Build anticipation with 3-5 tweets over 2-4 hours
  • Flash sales: Early morning (8-9am) or early evening (6-7pm) when engagement peaks
  • Live events: Announce 24 hours ahead, execute during high-traffic hours

Measuring Success

Track these metrics to see what resonates:

  • Click-through rate: Are people clicking from X to your Idea Board?
  • Reply count: High replies = high engagement
  • Retweets & quote tweets: Is your board spreading beyond your followers?
  • Conversion rate: Are board visitors from X actually buying?
  • Follower growth: Are good Idea Boards attracting new followers?

X analytics will show you which tweets drove traffic. Compare those to your store analytics to see which Idea Boards converted.

Getting Started

Start with one approach:

  1. Pick one tactic (flash sales are easiest to test)
  2. Create a focused Idea Board (6-10 products, clear theme)
  3. Write compelling, concise copy (X rewards brevity)
  4. Post during high-traffic hours
  5. Engage with every reply in the first hour
  6. Track results

Don’t try to trend-jack and run flash sales and do live events all at once. Test one tactic, learn what works with your audience, then expand.

What’s Next

This series continues with platform-specific strategies:

  • Why LinkedIn works for visual commerce (even for B2C brands)
  • When to use private Shop with Me boards for VIP experiences
  • How to build cross-platform campaigns that amplify results

Want to see shared Idea Boards in action? Visit the Stylaquin demo store and create a board yourself. Or check out this live example to see how they appear when shared.

X moves fast. The brands winning on the platform aren’t the ones with the biggest budgets—they’re the ones who can move quickly and tap into what’s already happening. Your Idea Boards give you the speed and flexibility to join conversations as they unfold.

The moment is now. Are you ready to move with it?

Engagement Is SEO Candy

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In May 2025, a Shopify store selling equestrian gear saw something remarkable happen. Their organic traffic jumped 700% in a single month.

They hadn’t changed their SEO strategy. They hadn’t bought backlinks. They hadn’t published new content or launched a major marketing campaign. In fact, they’d made only one significant change to their site—and that had happened 15 months earlier.

In February 2024, they’d added a visual browsing feature that transformed how shoppers interacted with their products. Instead of scrolling through static category pages, visitors could flip through items like a magazine, drag favorites into a visual board, and curate collections as they browsed.

For over a year, this drove steady improvements. The store saw consistent 50% year-over-year growth in organic traffic. Shoppers were staying longer, viewing more products, coming back more often. The data was clear: the site was more engaging.

Then Google rolled out an algorithm update in early 2025, designed to reward sites that users found genuinely helpful and engaging. And suddenly, all those engagement signals that had been quietly building for 15 months translated into explosive growth.

This wasn’t luck. It was the new reality of search rankings—and this store had been positioning for it without even knowing it.

Google’s New Currency: Engagement

For years, SEO was about keywords, backlinks, and technical optimization. Those elements still matter—but they’re no longer enough.

Google’s latest algorithm updates prioritize one thing above all else: how users actually interact with your site. The search engine wants to reward websites that people find genuinely useful and engaging, not just technically optimized.

Here’s what Google is measuring now:

  • Time on site – How long do visitors stay before bouncing?
  • Pages per session – Are they exploring or just checking one page and leaving?
  • Return visits – Do people come back, or is it one-and-done?
  • Interactions – Are they clicking, scrolling, engaging with features?
  • Bounce rate – How quickly do they leave without taking action?

If your site scores well on these metrics, Google interprets it as “shoppers find this valuable” and rewards you with better rankings. If shoppers bounce quickly or never return, Google assumes your site isn’t meeting their needs—even if your keywords are perfect.

This shift explains why some stores saw traffic gains after recent updates while others saw dramatic drops. It wasn’t about who had better SEO fundamentals. It was about who was creating experiences worth engaging with.

Why Traditional Product Grids Don’t Generate Engagement

Most Shopify stores are built around the same basic structure: category pages with product grids, search bars, filters, and individual product detail pages. This works perfectly for shoppers who know exactly what they want.

But what about everyone else? The browsers. The inspiration-seekers. The people who landed on your site and don’t quite know where to start.

For them, a grid of thumbnails is overwhelming, not inviting. There’s no obvious path to explore. No way to curate or compare without opening dozens of tabs. No reason to linger.

So they don’t. They bounce. And Google notices.

The data bears this out. Looking at aggregate behavior across stores, typical sessions last around 4 minutes with shoppers viewing 4-5 products before leaving. First-time visitors convert at around 1.6%, and most never return.

That’s not an engagement problem—it’s an experience problem.

What Happens When You Make Shopping Interactive

The equestrian store in question—HorseWorldEU—had been using Stylaquin since February 2024. Within weeks of installation, they noticed behavioral changes. By the time they hit their one-year mark, the differences were substantial:

Instead of static grids, shoppers could flip through products horizontally like pages in a magazine. As they browsed, they could drag items that caught their eye into a visual “Idea Board” that stayed pinned to the side of the screen. No need to open new tabs or remember product names. Everything they liked was organized in one beautiful, easy-to-access place.

The impact on engagement was clear:

  • Session duration jumped from 4:06 to 5:24 (70% longer)
  • Products viewed per session went from 4.9 to 10.0 (104% more)
  • Events per session increased from 5.3 to 11.2 (111% more interactions)
  • Returning visitor sessions: 26.2% vs 14.5% (80% increase)

Most importantly: returning visitor conversion rates hit 8.13%—more than double the 3.76% for non-engaged shoppers.

These engagement signals had been building for over a year. The store was already seeing steady 50% year-over-year growth in organic traffic. But when Google’s May 2025 update prioritized engagement as a primary ranking signal, those compounding metrics suddenly triggered a 700% traffic spike in a single month.

That’s the power of engagement as an SEO signal—and the reward for building those signals over time.

The Solution: Visual, Interactive Shopping

The store in question uses Stylaquin, a Shopify app that transforms traditional product grids into magazine-like browsing experiences. But the principle applies regardless of the tool: if you want Google to reward your site, you need to give shoppers a reason to engage.

Stylaquin does this through two core features:

The Look Book turns your entire catalog into a horizontal, swipeable experience. Shoppers flip through products like they would a fashion magazine or catalog—visually scanning, exploring, discovering. It’s designed for the way people actually want to browse, not just the way databases are organized.

The Idea Board gives shoppers a place to collect and curate as they go. Items can be dragged onto a visual board with one click, where shoppers can organize, compare, rearrange, and ultimately decide what to buy. It’s always visible, always accessible, and it travels with them across pages.

The result? Shopping becomes interactive instead of transactional. And that interaction is exactly what Google’s algorithm is designed to reward.

Engagement Builds Over Time

Here’s what makes this approach especially powerful: engagement compounds.

When first-time visitors use Stylaquin, they see modest improvements—conversion rates go from 1.64% to 1.73%. Helpful, but not transformative.

But look at returning visitors: conversion jumps from 3.76% to 8.13%. That’s a 116% increase.

Why? Because shoppers who saved items to their Idea Board have a reason to come back. They’ve already invested time curating. They remember the experience. And when they return, they’re not starting from scratch—they’re picking up exactly where they left off, with all their favorites saved and ready to shop.

This creates a virtuous cycle:

  1. Better engagement → Google rewards with better rankings
  2. Better rankings → More organic traffic
  3. More traffic → More people experiencing the engagement tools
  4. More engaged users → Even better signals back to Google

Over time, this compounds. That’s how a 50% year-over-year growth rate becomes 700% overnight when the algorithm shifts to reward what you’re already doing well.

What This Means for Your Store

If you’re competing primarily on price or selection, engagement-driven SEO is difficult. But if your products deserve to be discovered—if you carry items that benefit from visual browsing and curation—this shift is an enormous opportunity.

The stores winning in 2025 aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest ad budgets or the most backlinks. They’re the ones creating shopping experiences that people genuinely want to engage with.

And Google is paying attention.

What’s Next

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be publishing a series of posts that dive deeper into specific engagement tactics:

  • How to use Facebook to turn community into commerce
  • Real-time shopping strategies for X/Twitter
  • Why LinkedIn is your secret weapon for visual commerce
  • When to use private collaborative boards for VIP experiences
  • How to build cross-platform campaigns that drive results

Each post will give you tactical, actionable strategies you can implement—whether you use Stylaquin or not.

Because here’s the truth: engagement isn’t just good for SEO. It’s good for business. Shoppers who engage convert better, return more often, and spend more over time.

Google’s algorithm shift didn’t create this reality—it just started rewarding it.

Want to see what engagement-driven shopping looks like? Visit the Stylaquin demo store and experience it yourself. Or read the full HorseWorldEU case study to see the complete data behind the 700% growth story.

Save It, Share It, Shop Together: The New Wishlist Experience

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Saving a product for later used to be a solitary act. Click the heart. Hope you remember to come back. Maybe.

But shopping is rarely that linear, and it’s almost never that isolated. People browse on their phones, compare on their laptops, text their friends, and ask for opinions. They build outfits, plan gifts, dream about what’s next. Traditional wishlist tools simply don’t support that behavior.

Stylaquin does.

With Stylaquin’s Idea Board, shoppers can now do more than just save. They can share. They can collaborate. They can shop together.

Shoppers can drag products into a beautifully visual board that lives on the edge of the screen. That board is now shareable across devices and with others. Friends, family, and influencers can all view the same board—and even add to it if it’s collaborative. It transforms online shopping from a solo activity into a shared experience.

Want to see what that looks like? Check out this live board created on jessizboutique.com. Jessi’s Boutique sells affordable fashion and accessories.

This example is a read-only board, which means viewers can shop directly from it—but they can’t make changes. If you want to experience Stylaquin’s full collaborative power, we recommend creating your own board and trying the new Shop with Me feature. It lets multiple people add to and build the same board, just like shopping together.

Whether it’s styling a birthday outfit, building a seasonal wardrobe, or shopping for a wedding, the new sharing tools let shoppers do it all without leaving your site.

Screen Grab of an Idea Board on the Unique Kulture website.

Here’s what’s possible now:

  • Shoppers can create multiple boards and return to them across devices.

  • Boards can be shared via email, text, or social media.

  • Friends can comment or add products to the same board.

  • Brands can create inspiration boards and share them with their customers.

It’s collaborative commerce in action. And the engagement impact is real.

Early data shows that shoppers who use Stylaquin’s Idea Board are more likely to return, stay longer, and convert. One store saw 27% of return sessions using Stylaquin, compared to 14% of initial visits. That’s nearly double the re-engagement rate.

In short: shoppers don’t just save. They build. They share. They return.

If your wishlist isn’t doing that, it might be time for an upgrade.

Want to see if Stylaquin is right for your store? Click here to book a demo.

Traffic Going Up but Your Conversions Still Stuck?

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Traffic ≠ Conversions

Driving traffic to your store is only half the equation. You can have a thousand visitors a day, but if those visitors don’t engage—if they don’t explore, compare, or click deeper—your conversion rate will stay stuck.

Many Shopify stores see this firsthand: ads bring in the traffic, but the store doesn’t invite shoppers to do more once they arrive. They land. They scroll. They leave.

Exposure Isn’t Discovery

Your products may be visible, but that doesn’t mean they’re being discovered. Product discovery is about interaction. It’s about giving shoppers a way to flip through your store like they would a magazine. It’s about sparking curiosity and helping them build context around what they like.

Most Shopify stores rely on filters and categories. That works for shoppers with intent—but not for inspiration-driven browsing. And that’s where conversion rates hit a wall.

What Happens When You Add Engagement

One store using Stylaquin saw a major shift when they added visual browsing with the Look Book and Idea Boards:
– Conversion rate jumped from 0.73% to 3.27%
– First-time visitor conversion went up 3.9X
– Returning visitor conversion hit 8.81%
– Products viewed per session rose from 2.0 to 6.9

 

 

Why? Because engagement changed everything. Shoppers interacted. They explored. They saved. They shared.

And with the new collaborative Idea Boards, multiple people can shop together in real time—making the experience social and more likely to convert. Fun and engagement are a big part of what makes shopping fun. Adding the experience of together, well that’s even better.

 

This Isn’t Just UX. It’s Strategy.

Improving your conversion rate isn’t about redesigning your site. It’s about changing how people use it.

When shoppers engage with your products in a way that’s intuitive and fun, they’re more likely to convert. And that kind of experience—personal, visual, collaborative—is exactly what Stylaquin was built to deliver.

Want to see it in action?

Visit the Stylaquin Demo Site (https://stylaquin-demo.myshopify.com) and try it for yourself.

AI is killing the traffic X conversions equation – boom!

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What matters when it comes to web traffic?

So much of being successful online is a complex numbers game. Opening a new store on the web is like opening a store in one of the remote reaches of the planet, putting a sign on the door, and then expecting customers to show up—ain’t gonna happen. Without advertising, there is no way anyone will find you. There are some free sources of traffic, but SEO is a long game and you pay for “free” social media advertising with time. Advertising is the time-honored way to get eyeballs but it is expensive. So what matters?

Volume

Size matters. Sheer numbers work the way knocking on more doors worked a hundred years ago. Get more people to your website and you’ll get more sales. So the most simplistic form of the sales equation looks like this: Sales = Traffic X Conversion rate. If the conversion rate remains constant, then more traffic means more conversions.

Target Audience

If you want to increase the conversion rate, you need traffic that is likely to be interested in what you are selling. This is where advertising, SEO, and Social media all act as magnets to bring in the right customers. AI is changing how this all comes together. SEO is moving from keywords to content and engagement. Here’s a post on that if you want to understand why AI is going to destroy keyword search. AI determines which people will be interested in your wares, and it predicts this better than the experts can. Privacy is coming into play with AI, but we are so connected that, using AI, Google and Facebook know what you’re in the market for and what you’re going to be in the market for.

If you post that you are expecting a child on Facebook, you can also expect to see a sea of baby-related ads in your feed. Your friends can expect to see fun baby shower gifts in theirs. Grandparents will see ads for college savings programs and a new round of life insurance ads. AI, at its core, is just a predictive engine.

If humans can’t design a better campaign than AI can, we will all get the traffic we pay for. Think about it, if someone with no marketing chops can use AI to develop campaigns that beat the experts, there is no meaningful competitive advantage in audience selection. AI is the best and everyone can use AI. Done and dusted. 

Wait, what about Social Media?

It works, and it doesn’t. If you’re friends with Beyonce or Taylor Swift you’re all set. If you sell mass-market supplies or don’t love interacting with strangers, it will be a challenge. Social media gets eyeballs, but it doesn’t always convert. It can help you find and connect with your tribe. Those who are good at it are rewarded, those who aren’t good at it are frustrated. AI is probably going to impact social media soon, then it’s going to get weird. I mean what could go wrong with letting a predictive machine try to get people’s attention? (Hint: it gets racist and offensive pretty quickly.)

Customer experience

So, if we all have the same AI marketing genius design our campaigns, how are we going to impact our conversion rate so we don’t get killed by the competition?

  1. Sell products for a defined target customer that AI can identify.
  2. Create content that is interesting, relevant, and fresh.
  3. Focus on making websites that delight and engage shoppers.
  4. If you’re on Shopify, add Stylaquin to your site.

Stylaquin shoppers stay longer, view more items, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Seriously, now more than ever, making your website fun to shop is a great way to increase conversions and get more repeat traffic. We see it over and over, Stylaquin shoppers are three times more likely to come back to a site. Think about what that does to the equation if 5-30% of your site traffic is three times more likely to come back. If you are on Shopify, you can add Stylaquin in about 15 minutes, test it for free, and it starts at $29/month. Book a demo to learn more. 

Focusing on Mobile May be Costing You Money

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66% of all online purchases are not on mobile

Mobile is important. 77% of all online retail visits are on mobile. So shoppers are coming on mobile, but they are buying on desktop. Let’s take a moment to look at what mobile brings to the table and why desktop is still where people feel more comfortable making purchases.

Mobile is our constant companion

If you look at the amount of time you spend with your phone vs the amount of time you spend with your desktop, mobile is the clear winner. It goes with you to the store, to the bank, on the train, to your appointments, and so on. We play on our phones, we explore on our phones, we converse on our phones, but we don’t always buy on our phones. 

Size matters

The advantage of mobile is that it fits in your pocket. The disadvantage of mobile is that it’s tiny so it fits in your pocket. Technology will overcome the screen size problem, but not for a while. For now, we can’t ask a phone to do for the shopping experience what a desktop does. Looking at products on a big screen is easier and gives us more confidence that we are seeing everything without all the pinching and zooming that’s needed on a phone. Having a high-speed connection allows for a more immersive experience with big images, video, and sound. Remember, most retail purchases are made in person. In-person shopping typically lets customers fully experience the products. Much like direct mail, online shopping has to work harder to both sell and educate customers in order to make the sale.

Animated gif showing a laptop that displays Stylaquin's Look Book Feature

Does Your Site Do This?

It can with Stylaquin! Stylaquin is the easy to add Shopify app that transforms your website. Stylaquin makes shopping faster, more engaging, and more fun. Stylaquin shoppers stay longer, view over 85% more products, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Find us in the Shopify App Store.

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How do you leverage both?

Mobile is the amuse-bouche of shopping. Yes, people do buy on their phones. Most people have made at least one purchase on their mobile device, but executing a complicated shopping list on the phone is hard. Considering multiple options on a phone is hard. Keeping track of multiple tabs on a phone is hard. What makes a phone easy to bring with you, makes it hard to shop on.

Where mobile shines

Mobile shines as a way to connect to influencers, get ideas, chase trends, and make easy-to-understand purchases. If Kendal Jenner recommends a new mascara, you can feel confident buying that on your phone. If Macy’s offers a new separates line, you probably want to see everything on a big screen before committing. Mobile is where you kill time, or look up info in the store. Mobile is easy, convenient, and fun. Mobile is more private and personal. You might have a family computer, but not a family phone. Mobile is where you can share ideas and inspiration. It connects you personally to the world.

Where desktop shines

Desktop is often a work tool. Shopping data shows that people shop at work, especially at lunch and after work. When you’re home, it’s easy and more efficient to pull out the laptop or move to the big computer when you want to power shop, unless you don’t want to get off the couch. Power shoppers will save items on their phones and then move over to desktops to really dive in and make purchase decisions. 

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

The Stylaquin Idea Board keeps customers engaged in two ways: it’s an interactive styling board where shoppers can collect and curate all the things that interest them; and it also acts as a wishlist that shoppers can return to. Find us in the Shopify App Store.

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Animated gif showing a laptop displaying Stylaquin's Idea Board

Which is more important?

That’s like asking which arm is more important. Having both in good working order makes everything easier. We all have a dominant hand though. The dominant hand for online shopping is desktop. That’s where you’re going to get the most bang for your buck. If you have been focusing on mobile, maybe it’s time to give desktop some love. 

If you’re a Shopify site, take a look at Stylaquin. It works beautifully on mobile and desktop, but it really shines on desktop. It increases repeat visits by up to 3X and increases conversions by up to 3.5%. Shoppers stay longer, view more items, come back more often, and buy more when they do!

How to have great online conversations with your customers

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How do you create engaging conversations with customers?

You’re probably reading this because you have a brand and you want to engage your customers so that they feel connected to your brand. You look at big brands like Nike, L.L. Bean, Sephora, and Home Depot who have huge followings and real brand connection with their customers. How do you get there when you have no control over which post, reel, video, or website page your customer will see when they start the interaction? The first thing to do is decide what conversations you want to have.

When you talk about everything, you say almost nothing

There are big box stores, like Walmart, that sell a little bit of everything. You can buy tires if you have a common size. You can buy vegetables if you don’t want anything exotic. You can buy sheets if you don’t want a lot of colors or patterns. This is actually a really hard strategy to make work. How do you advertise everything? How do you compete with everyone? They can’t effectively position themselves as the expert because they don’t carry expert-level merchandise in any category. It’s a real challenge. Big box stores typically have conversations about price and convenience because they know that they can’t have in-depth conversations in any category they sell. But they are one-stop shopping and they have great prices.

What conversations should you be having?

The ones that matter to your customers and you can support with your brand authority and key competitive advantages. To do that, you need to figure out what your customers care about. Start with what you sell. If you sell clothing and accessories online you can look at who your customer is: Age, income, gender, hobbies, and education level is a good start. Then think about how what you sell can help them, delight them, or educate them. What makes your company special? Why should they buy from you and not another company? What expertise can you offer them? Go where they’re hanging out online. Visit your competitors’ sites. Stay curious!

Does the conversation need to have a start and an end?

Yes and no. Yes, each conversation has to have a start, but none of them have to have an end. That’s the beauty of online conversations. You can add links to continue the conversation, ask for feedback, and invite the customer to return. Because the order of any conversation is random and uncontrollable you have to assume that you are always starting fresh. If you’re dropping knowledge on folks, you need to make it easy for them to self-select their level of expertise so they don’t feel stupid. A store that sells fishing gear will want to keep the conversation at a pretty high level so they don’t lose the serious fisherfolk, but the newbies will need links that make it easy to keep up. The newbies who fall in love with fishing are likely to upgrade gear faster than the folks who already have great gear they only replace when it breaks.

Do you need words to have conversations?

No, you don’t. Think of all your customer interactions as conversations. If you create a coupon for 10% off, don’t stop at 10% off. Have a conversation about why they should buy from you and what getting extra can do for them. You can do this with words or images of best sellers and customers enjoying your products. Think about the fishing store example. Offering a 10% off coupon is great, but adding a picture of a grandparent teaching their grandchild how to fish is even better. It turns the coupon into a visual conversation.

If you are a Shopify store and want to look at other ways to engage your customers visually, take a look at Stylaquin. Stylaquin delights and engages shoppers, so that they stay longer, view more items, come back more often, and buy more when they do!

Animated gif showing a laptop that displays Stylaquin's Look Book Feature

Does Your Site Do This?

It can with Stylaquin! Stylaquin is the easy to add Shopify app that transforms your website. Stylaquin makes shopping faster, more engaging, and more fun. Stylaquin shoppers stay longer, view over 85% more products, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Find us in the Shopify App Store.

Learn More

How to make a fabulous Instagram reel in under 1 minute

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You can make a fabulous Instagram reel in less than one minute with Stylaquin

BIG shoutout to John Collins for coming up with this idea! In a recent demo for Stylaquin, John pointed out that Stylaquin would make it super easy to create beautiful instagram and Facebook reels and posts. I was gobsmacked. Of course it would! He said that in order to get any traction with social media these days he had to post at least three times a day and it was taking a LOT of his time. With Stylaquin he could just use the Idea Board pages, which are generated automatically and make screen grabs and recordings. 

I wanted to see how long it took me to make an Instagram reel and, once I got the screen sized properly, it was less than a minute. I could have done a week’s worth of reels (21) in under half an hour. Talk about a time saver.  

So here’s how to make your reel. (You do need a Stylaquin enabled Shopify website to do this.) Set your screen size to about 1708 x 1174 pixels. You want the recording area to be 1080 x 1080 pixels for Instagram, and you need a little extra room to crop out the browser top and edges. I added an image of the screen area being recorded and a recording of what I did to create the recording above. 

Picture of a Stylaquin enabled site with the Look Book window highlighted.

Once you have the area you want to record selected, all you have to do is drag or flick the products you want to showcase onto the Stylaquin bar. Stylaquin’s algorithm automatically makes layouts using the images in the Shopify products carousel.

Practice dragging the products before you record, so that you’re sure you like the layouts. If the internet is slow, dragging each product will also cache the images in your computers memory so there’s no loading time. If you don’t like the layout in the Idea Board, you can easily change it by changing the order of the images in the Shopify image carousel. Because the layouts are fully responsive, they will also change when the size of the browser window changes. This means that the layout for your Instagram reels won’t look exactly like your Facebook shorts. How cool is that? 

Making the reel was quick and easy. The hardest part was remembering not to let the mouse curser go into the area being recorded. 

Pro tip: You can also adjust the Stylaquin bar position by sliding it side to side. This makes it easy to get the side to side size dialed in.

So to recap, Stylaquin makes it easy to create Instagram reels in under one minute. You can create layouts for all of your products as images even faster. If you’re on the Shopify basic plan this would only cost $29/month. But honestly, you should add Stylaquin to your Shopify site because it makes shopping more fun, so shoppers stay longer, often over three minutes longer. Stylaquin also delights and engages shoppers who use it so much that they come back to the site over three times as often, and they buy more when they do. Stylaquin is awesome on a lot of levels. Book a demo to learn more or head over to the Shopify Marketplace!