Focusing on Mobile May be Costing You Money

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Stylaquin1

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.

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.

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.

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!

What makes a sensational Shopify site?

Posted on July 15, 2024 by Stylaquin1

What makes a Shopify site absolutely sensational?

Are you a Shopify site owner wondering how to make your site really stand out? Are you thinking there’s a simple but powerful something that will magically make your site amazing? The answer is it depends on where you are on the journey.

Do you have enough traffic?

If you don’t have a steady stream of visitors coming to your site, focus on that first. If you can’t afford to run ads yet, here’s a link to a post on 11 ways to get more free traffic. Let’s assume that this isn’t your first rodeo and you want to dazzle the traffic you have and get more repeat visitors. Are you ready to go beyond good and get to great?

It’s about how the site makes them feel

Let’s be honest, online shopping is designed to find what you already know you want quickly and checkout fast. It’s the self-service line at the checkout. Online retailers are more focused on the checkout and how to track customers, than they are on the actual experience of shopping. If your idea of a great website experience is Amazon, stop reading here. If you want to make your Shopify website sensational, you’ll have to think about how customers feel when they shop. Are they in a hurry? Are they just browsing? Do they know what they want? Do they want to be entertained?

Does Your Site Do This?

Wow! is what you’re shooting for

The internet is designed for item shoppers. Item shoppers know what they want and they want to find it quickly. Item shoppers are more likely to be men and women, though we all have moments when we just need to GET IT DONE and those where we can kick back and explore. The get it done part is built into the DNA of every website. Logical groupings, meaningful filters, and general organization are what make it seamless. But browsers (A.K.A. Power shoppers) are looking for ‘Wow”. They want to see things they’ll love, from fishing lures to fishnet stockings, it doesn’t matter what you sell.

Wow can come from great products. Wow can come from great prices. Wow can come from great photography. Wow can also come from adding Stylaquin to your Shopify site. Great products are a must. Great prices can be expensive, because they cut into margin. Great photography is expensive, though if you get it right, it’s priceless. Adding Stylaquin is easy and starts at just $29/month. (Genuine bargain.) Stylaquin makes browsing faster and more fun. It also takes all the product images and creates full page layouts, like a magazine, which are more interesting than clicking through each picture one at a time.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

Is your Shopify site worth coming back for?

Let’s face it, there are millions of websites to shop from. Unless you have an established brand that has already built a following it’s hard to get site visitors to come back a second time. Stylaquin shoppers are 3X more likely to come back and they are up to 6% more likely to convert when they do. That’s because of the “Wow”. Part of the “Wow” worth returning for is the Idea board, where shoppers can collect and curate all the things that interest them. The Idea Board is persistent as long as the cookie lasts, so everything they liked is right there waiting for them when they visit next. I honestly don’t know of any other app that can give Shopify sites enough browsing “Wow” that customers will be 3X more likely to come back.

If you have any ideas for making a Shopify site sensational add them in the comments. We love to hear from you!

What Is Your Website’s Personality? Snooze Or Sensational?

Posted on June 17, 2024 by Stylaquin1

How do you get your website's personality to shine?

Have you ever been to a website and thought, “Oh this is so me!”? That is the moment when you had the internet equivalent of a cute meet with a site that shared your personality.

You won’t love everyone and no site will be loved by everyone. Think of the Spice Girls, Posh Spice, Sporty Spice, Scary Spice, and Baby Spice. There was a Ginger Spice in there somewhere… Each had their own personality and everyone had their favorite Spice Girl. You can’t win a loyal following if you don’t stand for anything. Bland is not a viable marketing strategy if you want to stand out in the insanely crowded online space. So tell them what you want, what you really, really want!

In case you are too young to remember the Spice Girls and you have spent virtually no time in supermarkets, or elevators recently, here’s a link to fill you in on their glorious time in the spotlight.

In this post, we will take a look at why developing a website personality is so important and give you tips to get you started on uncovering yours.

What is Website Personality?

A website personality is the same as any personality. According to the American Psychological Association, personality is defined as “Personality refers to the enduring characteristics and behavior that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life, including major traits, interests, drives, values, self-concept, abilities, and emotional patterns.” Okay, that’s more than most websites can take on, so let’s knock that down to the basics.

Elements of Website Personality:

Visual elements
Visual elements like images and videos are the main characteristics of a website’s personality. What do they say about your site?

Design aesthetics
Is your site chic, cheap, funky, fun, country, cool, chill or a jumble?

Tone of content
Do the words on your site read like a particular person? One of the best examples of copy with personality is Duluth Traders. From product names to DIY info their copy is funny, snappy, and unmistakably them.

User experience (UX)
Is the experience one that goes with the personality of the site? This one is harder because other than sites with Stylaquin, the user experience is pretty much the same on all sites. There are some variations, like adding filters or how the menus are set up, but in general, all sites work the same.

Does Your Site Do This?

Why Personality is Key to Customer Engagement

First Impressions Matter: Most Shopify websites have a 25-45% bounce rate. They came, they saw, they bounced. Sigh. Getting the first page right is a big driver for success. Making sure that visitors who come in through search end up on a page that answers their questions is vital. Making sure the home page shows who you are and who you serve is equally important.

Emotional Connection: We all love who we love. If you love Harleys, have full-sleeve art, and a big beard. I can try to sell you emo chic suits all day and you’ll just laugh at me. People are who they are—embrace that and be who you are. Some folks will walk away, but the ones who get you will be more loyal because you get them too. That emotional connection is the basis of all successful brands.

Brand Differentiation: You can ride along on another brand’s coattails. Safe, Sound, Sure, and Second is a time-honored strategy and many brands have used it to get part way up the mountain. Developing your own niche is easier for small brands and it has the fastest growth trajectory because it differentiates you from your competition right from the start.

Trust and Credibility: Being yourself also creates trust. If you care about your customers, it shows. If you understand who you are selling to and what you are selling in a way that creates that connection, you also build credibility. We all have choices in everything we buy. We are all more likely to buy from someone we trust and believe understands what we need.

The Role of Personality in Shopify Websites

Customization and Flexibility: Shopify gives websites lots of ways to customize websites for very little money. When you are deciding which apps to add, put yourself in your customer’s place. What will make their experience on your site better? Women shop differently than men. Men are more likely to be item shoppers who know what they want and just need to find it. So if your site sells to men you need to make sure that it is easy to find things quickly. Women shop differently, they are more likely to be browsers who want to see all the options and compare them before making a purchase decision. If your customers are women give Stylaquin a look. Stylaquin transforms the shopping experience so that browsers can shop faster and gives them an Idea Board where they can collect all the options they are considering before making a purchase.

Shopify Themes: Themes are a quick way to get the look you want without having to do any coding. Shopify has several free themes and an abundance of options if you want to get fancy. Be sure to choose a theme that is up-to-date and from a reputable developer. All Shopify themes should be based on the free Dawn theme according to Shopify developer guidelines.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

How to Assess Your Website’s Personality

The first step to assessing your website’s personality is to determine who you want it to be. Here are some questions to get you started.

If your site was a singer, who would it be?
If your site was a dog, what breed would it be?
If your site were a place, where would it be?
If your site were a food, what would it taste like?

Another fun exercise is to take one of the online personality tests and answer as your website. Be honest, have fun, and remember that no one changes overnight.

Ask your customers for feedback. I guarantee that you will be surprised by the info you get back. We always are. 😉

If you are thinking, “But I don’t care who I am, I just want my customers to be happy and buy more”, you are not targeting a specific customer. No one wants to spend time with a bland kiss-ass, you’re better than that.

Tips to Transform Your Website from Snooze to Sensational

Know Your Audience: Your target audience is the key to developing a winning personality.
Consistent Branding: It isn’t something that happens overnight, but keeping a consistent look and voice will allow your audience to get to know you, and more importantly, trust you.
Engaging Content: Be the friend they love to spend time with. Think of it like dating, what would be a great date?
Interactive Elements: Google and the internet gods love interactive elements like quizzes, polls, and live chat to enhance engagement. Stylaquin shoppers stay longer, view more items, come back more often, and buy more when they do. Stylaquin is the easiest way to create engagement there is. Check it out.

Conclusion

Whether you are a big site that has lost its mojo, or a small site just finding yourself, taking the time to dial in your personality, and yes, this is also called brand, is well worth the time. When you know who you are, and your customers get you, it’s all marketing gravy.

Site lost it’s oomph? When everything old is just old.

Posted on May 20, 2024 by Stylaquin1

It's easy to lose your mojo when everything looks the same

I just got back from vacation in Paris. It was beautiful. It was delicious. It was different. Do Parisians see it with the same wonder that I did? Truth is, It doesn’t matter where you are, familiarity breeds contempt. The same goes true for our online world. Everything gets old. What once thrilled you is now a bore. What was so very IN is now tragically out, Out OUT!

When I was an Art Director for L.L. Bean I had a delightfully huge photo budget. The ADs could basically do whatever they wanted as long as they didn’t go crazy and hire a supermodel or rent a cruise ship. It’s hard keeping things fresh on any budget, but tighter budgets require some added creativity. The magic isn’t really the money spent, it’s the ideas that make the magic.

Does Your Site Do This?

Creativity is a muscle that needs to be used

There’s a myth that creative people are born and not forged. The truth is that the people who say they aren’t creative just don’t like the process of being creative. I don’t like the process of accounting, but thankfully there are those who do. If you don’t enjoy being creative you won’t spend a lot of time honing your skills. Ten thousand hours to mastery is also true of creativity. One of the biggest killers of great creative is not giving it enough time. How often have you heard a nature show say “Play is nature’s training ground for the hunt.”? Play is creative’s training ground for the killer idea that sells. Giving yourself, or your creative team, time to come up with multiple ideas is the fastest way to get fresh ideas.

So how do you keep your website fresh?

Embrace change. You need to change things. There are things you can change easily: Images, colors, copy, and apps. There are things that are harder to change: Branding, themes, and target audience. Start with the easy stuff.

New images

Just changing images can help. If you are on a Shopify site, change the order in the carousel. Be sure to keep an eye on how different images perform. Some images just sell better than others. If you can figure out what about the image made it better you can really dial in how you show products. A good example of this is when we figured out that showing a hand on rolling luggage increased sales by about 11%. Just the hand.

New images are getting easier to make all the time. With AI you can take an image with a model or product in one location, and with a few awkward sentences, probably move them to a new location, hopefully with all their parts intact. Even without AI, it’s pretty easy to swap out backgrounds or create new ones.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

New colors

Change site colors with the season. It’s an easy way to show that your site is evolving and vibrant. If you just stick with your brand colors, that’s fine, but it’s harder to keep fresh. When we were designing the Stylaquin App we made it easy to change the colors of the bar so folks could play with color.

New Copy

It’s really easy to set it and forget it online, but revisiting copy can be an easy way to keep things fresh. No one reads copy until they are considering buying, then everyone reads copy. The tee shirt that sells all year round will still sell better if the copy changes with the seasons. Basic items may be used differently in summer than they are in winter. Refreshing product copy from time to time keeps products relevant.

New Apps

One of the great things about online shopping platforms like Shopify is that you can add new things easily. While adding too many apps can slow down a site, letting apps transform your website is easy and affordable. The Stylaquin App adds a new way to shop that transforms any website without changing much. Sounds impossible, but it’s almost magic. Stylaquin is easy to add and has a 14-day free trial.

How much change is enough?

There’s a cognitive bias called the Status Quo Bias where we prefer to keep things kind of the same. If you color outside the lines, the group think will be that you are doing something wrong. But if nothing changes then, well, you’re back in the same boring rut you started out in. So we need to keep things fresh, while not changing much, in order to get anything changed at all. Oh, the joys of being creative! Seriously though, evolution versus revolution is easier to manage and, if you make it part of the normal product cycle, it’s not as daunting as a total overhaul done in a panic.

What is the value of a repeat customer?

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Stylaquin1

How much more is a repeat customer worth?

There are a few things to consider when you look at the actual value of a repeat customer. Why they came back is important too. If you had a going out of business sale and you had repeat customers, maybe they’re not so valuable… just saying. From a more practical standpoint though, repeat customers are easier to keep, worth more to the bottom line, and will do wonders for your SEO and advertising costs. Let’s get into a bit more detail to understand why.

Lower acquisition costs

Acquisition costs are simply how much it costs to get a customer. When you look at the amount you spend on advertising, and then divide the number of new customers that advertising brought in, you get a simple acquisition cost. Repeat customers, even if they only come back once, are half the cost of new customers. If they come back multiple times, the acquisition cost drops with each visit. So the first value you get from repeat customers is lower acquisition costs.

Does Your Site Do This?

Improved site rank

While it’s easy to do the math on acquisition costs (not getting into attribution here), it’s harder to put a firm number on benefits like site rank because the search engines won’t tell you how their algorithm counts them. The best way to quantify this is to track it. Here is a list of sites that will rank your site.

Semrush for overall functionality
SEO Tester Online for an all-in-one SEO suite
Ahrefs for keyword analysis
Nozzle for data visualization
Advanced Web Ranking for reporting
Moz Pro for integrations
Rank Tracker for unlimited keyword tracking
Mangools for low-volume keyword tracking
Keyword.com for free keyword analysis

Why does having more repeat visitors improve your site rank?

Google’s customer is the person searching, not the ad revenue it earns from advertisers. In order for Google to keep its place as the top search engine it needs to make its searchers happy by sending them to sites that meet their query, and then sends them to a page they’ll like.

So how does Google decide which of the millions of sites are the best choice? It starts by finding sites that have what the searcher is looking for. Then it determines if geography is important to the search, like “best pizza near me”. Say the search is for “jeans with pockets”, well honey, there are a whole lot of sites that have jeans with pockets. Sites that have made a point to add “pockets” to their product copy will rank better than sites that just have Jeans listed. But that still leaves a lot of sites that Google needs to rank. They have a secret formula that looks at several factors. How much traffic does the site get? How fresh is the content they provide? How relevant is the content provided to the person searching? AKA is the site showing expertise in jeans? Google also looks at engagement. That is, how engaged are visitors to the site?

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

Repeat visitors signal engagement

Repeat visitors tell Google that your site was so good that the searchers they sent there, came back. Google wants its customers to be happy and repeat visits are their most reliable signal that the searcher was happy with the result. It’s like getting a gold star on your book report. There are other factors that go into a site’s engagement score, like dwell time (time on site) and the number of events they trigger. Events are things like clicks and drags. Basically, the things you do while on a site.

How does more engagement translate into value?

In terms of money, the better your site’s rank, the less you pay for ads. Google discounts ads for stores with better site ranking. It’s a way to encourage sites to step up their game, and it also makes spammy ads more expensive. So, if you’re running ads on any of the major search platforms, getting more repeat visitors is also getting you a discount on your ad spend. Who doesn’t like free money?

Brand value is the big bonus

Money is always nice, but when you’re building a business, brand loyalty is priceless. There are millions of websites out there selling what you sell and getting customers to pick you first is a huge boost. That’s when customers sing your praises. That’s when the media starts to notice. That’s when the magic happens!

The easiest way to get repeat visitors is with Stylaquin

If you’re a Shopify site and have traffic that isn’t coming back, give Stylaquin a try. It is easy to add, inexpensive, takes no work to maintain, and increases repeat visits like no other app we’ve seen. Here’s a link to the app store where you’ll find a video and lots of helpful information.

Make an amazing shopping experience a key competitive advantage

Posted on April 8, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Is the shopping experience one of your key competitive advantages?

Key competitive advantages are what sets you apart. They’re often things like a tight market niche, wide selection, exclusive products, or low prices. Take a moment to ponder your current key competitive advantages. When you look at the landscape of your competition, what makes your online store stand out? Seriously, take a minute. I’ll wait. Are they obvious, how do customers know about them, would they make prospects come back? Retailers spend a lot of time, energy and money on making the in-person shopping experience memorable and a whole lot less on the online experience. That’s not because they don’t care, it’s because it’s hard to significantly differentiate a store beyond changing the images, brand colors or theme. The actual experience of online shopping is mostly the same no matter what store you shop at.

Does Your Site Do This?

Major brands use the shopping experience as a competitive advantage

When you walk into an Apple store, the first thing you notice is how different the shopping experience is. Visit any IKEA and you walk along on a journey that is totally different than other stores. Every major department store is constantly working to engage and delight shoppers so they will have a memorable shopping experience that will make them want to come back. Then you get to online and it’s all largely the same.

When online shopping got going I had lots of people assuming that I would head for the web, or become “dot gone” as we dubbed it. The web was new and cool, but it wasn’t fast enough to be really interesting. Online design was in it’s infancy. Years later it’s fast, but still not all that interesting. This is truly remarkable because the actual shopping experience has ALWAYS been a huge differentiator and key competitive advantage for brands that understood how to leverage it. It’s especially important for brands catering to women shoppers who are more likely to shop for fun, and who look for and appreciate beauty.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

So how do you make the online shopping experience one of your key competitive advantages?

If your store is on Shopify, creating an engaging and memorable shopping experience is as easy as adding the Stylaquin app to your site. Shoppers who use Stylaquin when they shop are three times more likely to come back. What would you pay to have 20% of your visitors come back three times more often? What would that do to your SEO and Google rank? What would that do to your sales, especially since those repeating customers are 9% more likely to convert. That’s the power of being remarkable. That’s why big brands are putting so much effort into their shopping experience. That’s why Stylaquin can be your key competitive advantage.

Stylaquin is leveling the playing field for Shopify stores. Stylaquin transforms the online shopping experience. Shoppers who know what they want, and just need to find it fast, can shop the old fashioned way. Shoppers who want a different experience, one that’s faster, more visually interesting and that offers additional tools to make the experience more engaging, can use Stylaquin. It’s easy to add, takes about fifteen minutes to set up, and depending on which Shopify plan the store is on, costs less than a dollar a day.

Your key competitive advantages are what sets your brand apart and creates customer loyalty. Being remarkable is a key competitive advantage. So go ahead and be remarkable. Stylaquin makes it easy!

How to have great online conversations with your customers

Posted on April 1, 2024 by Stylaquin1

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!

Does Your Site Do This?

How many images do you need to sell a product?

Posted on March 26, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Do more images sell products better?

While Stylaquin is my current focus, I’ve been a catalog Art Director for over 30 years. In catalogs, you pay for every inch of space so understanding which images sell, and which don’t sell, is vital to success. The online world is a little different. There’s no extra cost to adding as many images as you want to any product. Does that mean more is better, since it doesn’t cost any more? No. In this post I’m going to walk you through how to find the right number of images to show for any product.

What makes a good image?

The first thing you need to consider is what the image is for. Images explain the product. Let’s start with clothing. If it’s a shirt, It just needs to look great, right? It’s a little more complicated than that. There are model shots, and pin shots. Pin shots are also called lay downs, and they show the product flat, without a model wearing it. Pin shots cost less to create than model shots, so they may be the only option available. When I worked for L.L. Bean, one of the things we tested was whether it made a difference if we showed model shots or pin shots. The answer was that having a mix was the best. All model shots was too expensive and visually cluttered. All pin shots looked empty, and sales went down. Mixing a few model shots in with the pin shots delivered the most bang for the buck.

Adding model shots can be expensive, but a great model can sell the heck out of a product. They can add excitement and movement that brings images to life. So if you have a great model shot, put it front and center. Once you have your primary shot selected, focus on explaining the product.

Does Your Site Do This?

How do you visually explain a product?

Start with the product features and benefits. Is it waterproof? Show it with water beading up. Does it have pockets? Is there a shot with the model’s hand in a pocket? Does it stretch? Is there a pose that shows the fabric stretching? Understanding what the product offers the customer let’s you choose images that quickly show customers what they’re getting. A picture paints a thousand words.

Having multiple images of the same model showing the same garment in the same basic pose isn’t going to help customers choose to buy it. I see this a lot with drop shipping sites. The vendor offers multiple images of a product, and rather than taking an extra minute or two to decide which will answer the customer’s questions, the site just adds all of them. While this saves time in choosing images for a product, it wastes the customer’s time in choosing to buy, or not to buy that product.

What's the downside of adding lots of images?

There’s an old axiom in the Art Director world. When you confuse, you lose. Let’s say you have a product with lots of images that all kind of look the same. The first question customers will have as they flip through is “What are they trying to show me?” You know they’re all pretty much the same, but the customer may assume that there are features or things they aren’t seeing. This adds the dreaded confusion element to the purchase journey.

Another thing to consider is the customer’s time. You’re always fighting with life for your customer’s attention. If they have to choose between shopping at your store or a child that wants attention, or a dog that needs to go out, or dinner that needs to go on the table. You lose. You want to get them hooked and ready to buy as quickly as possible.

One of the things that Stylaquin excels at is getting shoppers to look at more items. It does this by making shopping faster. Shoppers only have to drag a product onto the Stylaquin bar to see a layout with most of the images available. Shoppers typically view about six more products per visit. That’s a huge improvement to a site’s engagement stats and bottom line. Think about how much faster you can shop if you can see everything in a magazine style layout, rather than flipping through a carousel of images.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

What about other products?

For the most part, the same strategies that work for clothing, work for everything else. Let’s say you’re selling a shovel. Would it help customers understand the shovel better if you show a model using it? That depends on if it is very light weight and designed for women, or has a unique handle that makes it easier to use. It may be more helpful to add a simple image of the shovel on a plain background with callouts to features. Creating a single image with the front, back and side views would be more helpful than having three images they have to click through. What won’t be helpful is to have: Front, back, left side, right side, front with slight angle, back with slight angle, shovel with the blade up, shovel sideways and so on. Show customers why it’s worthy of their consideration as quickly as possible.

So how do you choose which images to show?

Choose the main image that represents your brand. Then add any images that help explain the product’s features or benefits. Try to limit your images to no more than five. If you have a lot of colors and options, think about grouping them so you aren’t asking customers to scroll through endless options. There’s something called “The Paradox of Choice” where tests have shown that offering too many choices reduces sales. You can improve sales by grouping in ways that help customers self select from fewer choices. Say you have a shirt that comes in multiple colors and patterns, could you offer the patterned shirts as one product, and the solids as another? Think about what is going to be the best experience for the shopper. What will help them see what you’re offering quickly without overwhelming them with choices. Let me know if you’ve found a better way to select images.

The future of online shopping is actually easy

Posted on March 12, 2024 by Stylaquin1

Whatever is easy to do...

A year or two after the iPhone came out on 2007 everything was abuzz with the sound of people predicting the demise of desktops. I was at a CEO roundtable when several really smart people postulated that we were going to have to immediately shift all of e-commerce to mobile, based on the adoption of Gen-X. The pivot was coming, but the timing and the demographic that triggered it was a ways off. Predicting the future of e-commerce based on usage by one demographic without sufficient context is like pointing to data on how many shoppers under sixteen rode bikes and predicting the demise of cars. The first demographic shift to iPhones was younger shoppers, but as mobile got easier, everyone started shopping on mobile. Seventeen years later, mobile has taken the lead. That isn’t bringing about the demise of desktops though. People shop on mobile, but they still buy more on desktop. Why? Desktop is a better buying experience, and grownups don’t have to pick one or the other. Shop on the commute, buy on a break. Waiting for a meeting to start, check out the sales and buy at lunch. Flash sales get more mobile adoption because they are time limited. You can’t force customers to shop a particular way, but you can get more sales by creating a better shopping experience.

In the future we will choose to do what’s easy. Period.

Younger shoppers embraced mobile before their elders for lots of reasons:

They couldn’t afford their own computers
They were concerned about parents snooping and they had more control over their mobile device
They developed the dexterity to master mobile at an age when learning new things is a snap.
iPhones were cool
Their friends were doing it
It was cheaper to buy kids a phone than a computer

Once Gen-X got jobs, they bought desktops and laptops. They still do everything on a phone, but it’s often easier to do things with a big screen, so they use both.

Does Your Site Do This?

Is AI going to make online shopping easier?

AI is great, and it’s going to revolutionize our lives in many ways. Not to be Debbie Downer but—AI is just a predictive algorithm. It looks at what most people will do/say/choose next, and meshes that with any known preferences, to come up with a really good guess. That’s an oversimplification, but it’s the gist of things.* Apple is betting on AI goggles. Asking shoppers to wear AI goggles to get a better shopping experience is a huge ask. What’s being offered by that experience that will be better than going to a store?

Is it faster? Do I need to go fast?
Is it more fun? What makes it more fun?
What problem is it solving? Do I have that problem?
Is it cool? Hard to look cool in goggles…

AI can help with predicting choices for making ensembles, and adding the mythical one more item to the cart. But does being shown lots of options make a better experience? Let’s outline the improved experience: “Hey shopper! We think you might like this, or this, or this, or this. Would you be interested in this, or this, or this?” It get’s old. Not quite as bad as getting spritzed with perfume at the entrance, but not awesome. Do you want to explore while you’re shopping, or do you want to hone in on the thing you’re looking for? These are two very different experiences. I’m going to predict that AI is going to influence the journey eventually, but I don’t see it as the holy grail of e-commerce anytime soon.

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Faster and more fun

Here’s something to ponder—is it better to predict what online shoppers may like and try to serve it to them, or is it better to just make it more fun to explore on their own? Stylaquin is a faster and more fun way to shop online. It ticks two big boxes for a better online shopping experience. And it’s cool, don’t want to forget that one, so three big boxes. We’re seeing Stylaquin shoppers coming back three times more often and converting over 4% more when they do. If you are a Shopify site, you should give Stylaquin a look. I predict you will be intrigued.

*Reading x-rays is a great example of how AI will improve our lives. AI looks at a large data set of diagnosed x-rays and catalogs the known diagnosis (broken bones, fractures, arthritis, etc. and then, using that data, predicts what most radiologists will say an x-ray shows. It can’t replace a radiologist, but it can indicate where problems may be faster and with more accuracy. It never gets tired and it never has an off day. AI makes a great radiology assistant.

How to make a fabulous Instagram reel in under 1 minute

Posted on March 5, 2024 by Stylaquin1

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.

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!