Focusing on Gratitude

Posted on November 20, 2023 by Stylaquin1

This time of year it's easy to focus on the hussle and not the gratitude

Nose to the grindstone. Peddle to the metal. Go. Go. GO!

This time of year it’s especially important to slow it down, take a breath and appreciate what we have.

I am grateful for my family. They are my best friends, my most vocal cheerleaders, and my rock solid support.

I am grateful for my friends. There are the many, who help when they can, share thoughts, opinions, and really great advice. You guys rock, and I’m here if you need the many favors returned. There are also the few, who know they can call at 3:00 in the morning and I will get on a plane or grab a shovel, flashlight and dark trash bags without pause. Love you.

I am grateful for the country I live in. I don’t always agree, but I participate, and try to hold myself to the same high standards I expect of those in charge.

I am grateful that I can do something as crazy and interesting as trying to change the way people shop online. Even though Stylaquin was designed for the way women shop, it turns out that having a more beautiful, engaging and memorable shopping experience is just another thing men and women have in common. Thank you to the men who set me straight. Each step in the journey has made me more aware of the complexities of online shopping and the web, and convinced me that creating a better user experience is more powerful than chat bots and AI.

I could go on, but I want to finish here by saying how grateful I am for the community of founders, entrepreneurs, Shopify store owners, Shopify developers and all the other people as crazy as I am, working and growing in the online space. You guy are SO interesting and a blast to be around.

I’m going to sign off and show my dog that I am grateful he chooses to hang out with me, even though I don’t give him all the attention he deserves, or all the belly rubs he asks for.

Thank you!

Enjoy your holiday

P.S. Below is an experiment I did a few months back to see if I could get AI to create an image of a turkey on a platter in the style of a woodcut illustration. Count the legs and notice which way the joints bend. Apparently AI has much to learn about turkey anatomy. We won’t even discuss the whole woodcut style thing.

Understanding customer intention translates to more sales

Posted on August 16, 2023 by Stylaquin1

Intention is key to understanding your customer's journey

There’s a marketing strategy called Jobs to be Done that goes beyond personas. A quick understanding of Jobs to be Done is that the same person may have different needs depending on what job they are trying to get done. An example is a person who chooses a fancy pizza restaurant for a date night with a spouse but chooses a quick-serve pizza restaurant when they need to get a meal for their kid’s team. Though in both instances they chose pizza, they didn’t buy it from the same place.

Personas are a general idea of the person most likely to buy your product. Usually, the more niche your product is, the better personas will work. Except… yeah, all those exceptions. Starting with personas is just good marketing, but understanding your customers’ intentions will get you much closer to creating an experience they will return for.

Why did they come to your site?

It’s easy to fall into the mindset of “I sell shirts. They wanted a shirt. That’s why they came to my site.” While true, it doesn’t get to any nuance that will reinforce branding or encourage a return visit. Why customers come to your site is a profound question. Did they experience your brand previously and are looking forward to continuing the relationship? Are they new and just taking a peek? Are they killing time, but would make a purchase if something caught their eye? Do they have something special in mind? Did a friend send them? Did an ad send them? Are they looking for a gift? Are they shopping for themselves?

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 determine intention?

When I first came up with the idea for Stylaquin, I saw it as a way to improve the online shopping experience, which was perfect for customers who already knew what they wanted, but not for customers who were interested in browsing and discovery. That basic structure hasn’t changed in 20 years. As I reviewed the data from shoppers engaging with Stylaquin, I realized that browsing and exploring were super helpful in unlocking intention. The insights panel in Stylaquin shows the most purchased items and the most abandoned items for all purchases, but for shoppers who use Stylaquin, it also shows the most viewed items and the most saved items. That’s where you start to see a more nuanced look at intention. Are your customers browsing or buying? Are they looking at two items, or twenty? Did they add something to the cart and keep shopping, or did they leave?

Back when I worked for L.L. Bean, the catalog started the purchase journey. Now it could also be a Facebook ad, Instagram post, TikTok challenge, YouTube video, Pinterest board, or a slew of online mentions and touch points. Online shopping has transformed from an online order-taking experience to part of a much larger ecosystem of online experiences and offerings. The question we should be asking is: if a customer sees something that they like enough to explore, why do websites focus on navigation, but never on browsing and exploration? When we see the delight and discovery social media brings to online shopping, why aren’t we working to incorporate it into the structure of our websites?

Customer journeys of discovery

How many times have you gone to a website with the intention of buying a specific item, say a gift, and ended up finding something for yourself? Happens all the time. The more items customers look at, the more likely they are to make a purchase. One of the reasons Stylaquin gets such great results is shoppers view 180% more items than non-Stylaquin shoppers. Discovery leads to sales. Engagement leads to sales. Browsing leads to sales. Companies are spending staggering amounts of money on creating fun and engaging experiences outside their websites. It’s time to start looking at the actual shopping experience as a source of engagement. A customer’s intention might be to buy a specific item when they arrive, but they’ll come back if they have a good experience. Stylaquin shoppers come back 25% more often, and buy more when they do because they had a fun experience shopping.

There are 3 kinds of online shoppers, can you make them all happy?

Posted on February 2, 2023 by Sarah Fletcher

There are 3 kinds of shoppers, can you make them all happy?

There are really only three types of shoppers who visit websites. Just three, the rest are bots and criminals—sigh. Let’s take a look at how each of them interacts with your Shopify website so you can make sure they all get the shopping experience that works for the way they like to shop.

The Buyer

Shoppers who know what they want, and aren’t looking for anything else, want great navigation and tools to help them get in and out fast. You can, and should, try to expose them to best sellers while they are on the site and of course try to get an email if possible, but these customers are on a mission and they don’t want you to get in their way.

How to make them Happy:

Make sure you have subcategories and attributes so shoppers can narrow their search quickly.
Make sure they can avoid distractions so you don’t slow them down.

The Casual Shopper

Shoppers who are looking for something, but who are open to exploring, also need good nav, but they are more responsive to bestsellers and new and interesting items. If you can keep them engaged and entertained, they will stay and poke around.

How to make them Happy:

Make sure your bestsellers and compelling new items are shown on the home page. Best sellers are the products most likely to spark their attention. They are best sellers for a reason.
There are Shopify Apps that can make recommendations using AI, but don’t the recommendations get in the way of their shopping experience.

Does Your Site Do This?

The Power-shopper

Shoppers who really enjoy shopping are power-shoppers, and they are the best customers to get. Power-shoppers love to shop and are often a resource for their friends who don’t love to shop. Need a gift? Ask your favorite power-shopper where to look. Not sure where the best deals, or cool gadgets are—ask a power-shopper.

How to make them Happy:

Engaging and delighting power-shoppers is what Stylaquin excels at. Stylaquin transforms the shopping experience into one that is faster, more beautiful more engaging. Stylaquin adds a thin bar to the right side of the browser window which acts as a portal to two features. The Look Book feature, which creates full page spreads of each product, so shoppers can flip through the site like they flip through a magazine or catalog. Shoppers who use Stylaquin typically view 185% more products, stay on site 70% longer. The second Stylaquin feature is the Idea Board where shoppers can collect and curate all the things that interest them. They can change sizes and colors, and move things around till they have exactly what they want. When they are ready to checkout, Stylaquin moves them to the Shopify checkout.

The items left on the idea board will remain on there till the cookie expires. Stylaquin shoppers return 25% more often and buy when they do because they can see all the things they liked and pick up where they left off.
If you’d like to learn more about Stylaquin visit the Shopify App Store. https://apps.shopify.com/stylaquin or watch the video below!

Why don’t customers return to your Shopify website?

Posted on January 6, 2023 by Sarah Fletcher

Why don't customers come back to your website?

The answer is simple: your site is boring.

WHAT???

Dropping a truth bomb here—most websites are boring, but there’s nothing wrong with that! Boring sites are great for a lot of shoppers, especially those who already know what they want and just need to buy it. But if you want to stand out from the crowd and get more traffic and sales, then you’re going to have to do something different.

The thing is, there are probably tens of thousands of websites that sell what you do. To get your site ahead of the pack, first you need to get the basics right, good products, strong brand, good SEO, but once that’s all dialed in, you’ll still be competing with hundreds, if not thousands of stores. Of course there are some time tested strategies for making your site more engaging and worth revisiting like: Exclusive products, Seasonal sales, and Loyalty programs.

Does Your Site Do This?

But let’s be honest, everyone thinks they have amazing products, most stores have seasonal sales, and loyalty programs have been around for a very long time. So is there anything new out there that moves the needle? If the simple answer to “Why don’t customers come back to your website?” is that it’s boring, then maybe the simple solution is to make your site more fun to shop. A new Shopify app called Stylaquin does just that. It gives your site the tools that power shoppers love.

So your site is more beautiful.
So customers can shop faster and view more products.
So customers can collect and curate all the products that interested them in one place, changing colors and sizes, even moving products around so they can see what they liked all together before adding anything to the cart.

It also gives you actionable insights into what customers looked at, and what they liked, not just what they bought. Here’s a short video that explains how you can transform your website in about four clicks with no monthly fee AND you’ll even get the first 14 days free. Time to make online shopping fun!

Increase engagement on your Shopify store without spending a fortune

Posted on December 9, 2022 by Stylaquin1

Increasing customer engagement on your Shopify store is easier and less expensive than you think

Are you looking for ways to increase your online sales, but don’t have the budget to pay for costly marketing campaigns. What if you could just make shopping at your store more fun and engaging?

Does Your Site Do This?

Not everyone who visits your store knows what they want and just needs to get in and out fast, but that’s the kind of shopper websites are designed for.

There are people who love to shop—power shoppers. Sure, they shop when they need things, but they also shop because they enjoy it. What if, when they went to your store, the shopping experience was just a whole lot more fun and engaging? What if they could flip through your website like it was a magazine or catalog? What if they could save all the things that interested them in one place and then play with them, change colors and sizes, and move things around till they had exactly what they wanted BEFORE they had to commit to the cart? What if everything that interested them stayed put, so when they came back they could start shopping right where they left off?

Sounds like a lot of work? Actually, there’s an app that does all this, and you can add to your site in about four clicks. Sounds expensive? Plans start at $10. Sounds hard to manage? Everything happens automatically using a proprietary algorithm. Sound like something you want to learn more about? Check out Stylaquin in the Shopify App Store!

The Power of “What if?”

Posted on June 16, 2022 by Stylaquin1

Let’s talk about “what if?”

Building a business is hard, even with great tools like Shopify. Starting out with nothing but an idea and then working through all the questions, and the million, million decisions that it takes to even open the door. Then the grind to get customers, until you finally build your store into something that can survive. It’s alternately brutal, and inspiring, and draining, and energizing, and so many things when you look back at the scope of what you’ve accomplished. My guess is that your journey started with “What if __________?” I bet a thought came into your head and your heart. “What if I______?” We all have it, that little spark, that seed of an idea, that starts with the simplest of questions. What if?

My journey started with “What if online shopping was designed for the way women shop?” Turns out that wasn’t the right question, because it wasn’t just women who were being underserved by the current online shopping architecture. The better question would have been “What if online shopping was designed for people who love to shop?” That question took years and two patents to answer. It led to other questions. What if you could flip through a site the way you flip through a magazine? What if the pages were magically created on the fly from existing images? What if it made everything more beautiful? What if you could see all the things that interested you in one place? And most recently, what if it were a Shopify App? One good “What if?” leads to another.

“What if?” is a crazy powerful question. What if you asked yourself that question every day? What if you focused on your business and asked “What if?” Where would that take you?

What if it was someplace wonderful?

If you’d like to see where my journey took me, check out Stylaquin in the Shopify App Store. Perhaps it will inspire you to take a “What if?” journey of your own.

All the best,

Sarah Fletcher
Stylaquin founder

Does Your Site Do This?

Are your customers having a “micro moment”?

Posted on March 4, 2021 by Stylaquin1

Did you know that 71% of consumers shop in “micro-moments” AKA: shopping while doing something else. More than a third say they do so at least weekly and some do it several times a day.

While what makes something worth buying is still about value, brand, and convenience, how customers get to the decision point is very different in today’s always online, always on the phone, always distracted reality.

So how do you engage with customers who aren’t paying attention?

Make it easier to shop while distracted of course!

There is a myth that we can force customers to be the customers we want, rather than who they are. Making the online experience work for the way customers really are, rather than who we want them to be, is the only choice if you want them to come back. So how do you do that?

Why not make it faster to browse? That would let customers view more items in less time.

Why not make it easy to collect all the things that shoppers are interested in, and be able to engage with them in a meaningful way—see items together, change colors and sizes, and just have fun?

Why not make it easy to come back and see what was interesting from a previous visit? Remember, they are so busy that they are trying to do multiple things at once.

If you are following this so far, thank you! I reject that we all have a shorter attention span than a goldfish.

Stylaquin solves all of these problems and makes online shopping more engaging and more fun.

Shoppers who use Stylaquin:

Increase conversion rates by up to 5%.
Increase return visits up to 10%
Increase average order value (AOV) by up to 10%
Increase time on site by over 60%

If you are looking for innovative ways to make your site’s online shopping experience worth coming back for, give Stylaquin a try. Still not sure? Read our white paper that shares the results from three years of beta testing and the decline when Stylaquin was removed from the beta site.

Engagement fixes a lot of problems—more than you think

Posted on April 20, 2020 by Stylaquin1

Engagement fixes a lot of problems—more than you think!

Every e-commerce site has the same basic goal—sell more stuff. SEO is the art of getting a site to rank higher with Google. But consider this from Google’s perspective. What is Google selling? They are selling the best search experience for users. They want you to have such a great search experience with Google that you won’t start using Bing or Ask or any other search engine. So Google’s algorithm looks at all the sites out there till it finds the ones that are most likely to make their customer happy. One of the most important, if not the most important metric for determining the best site, once the literal search criteria have been met, is engagement. Do visitors bounce or do they poke around and actually shop? Think about all the clothing stores out there, how else can Google rank a search like “White dress shirt with ruffled neck”, “Levis jeans”, or “Blue boat shoes”. Sticky wins.

This easy to understand, eight page guide, will teach you how Google sees your website (hint: It’s not the way you do) and how to leverage that for more traffic and more sales. Download your copy today!

There are several ways to make a site engaging. Having items on sale works on price-conscious shoppers. Beauty is also a big factor, we are naturally attracted to beauty. Make sure that your home page has a mix of new and bestsellers. Bestsellers are more likely to appeal to visitors and you want to get attention so visitors become shoppers. Make sure all the images on your home page are clickable. Make it easy for visitors to start shopping.

Making the shopping experience fun is going to move the needle with everyone. If you have two minutes, check out this video about a whole new way to shop online, one that’s faster, and has the tools women shoppers want. It’s a bold solution to the real problem, which is that websites are designed for speed and efficiency, not engagement.

Stylaquin

Shoppers stay longer, view more, return more, and buy more!

Tag Archives: online engagement

Focusing on Gratitude

This time of year it's easy to focus on the hussle and not the gratitude

Understanding customer intention translates to more sales

Intention is key to understanding your customer's journey

Why did they come to your site?

Does Your Site Do This?

How do you determine intention?

Customer journeys of discovery

There are 3 kinds of online shoppers, can you make them all happy?

There are 3 kinds of shoppers, can you make them all happy?

The Buyer

The Casual Shopper

Does Your Site Do This?

The Power-shopper

Why don’t customers return to your Shopify website?

Why don't customers come back to your website?

WHAT???

Does Your Site Do This?

Increase engagement on your Shopify store without spending a fortune

Increasing customer engagement on your Shopify store is easier and less expensive than you think

Does Your Site Do This?

The Power of “What if?”

Let’s talk about “what if?”

Does Your Site Do This?

Are your customers having a “micro moment”?

So how do you engage with customers who aren’t paying attention?

Engagement fixes a lot of problems—more than you think

Engagement fixes a lot of problems—more than you think!

This time of year it's easy to focus on the hussle and not the gratitude

Intention is key to understanding your customer's journey

Why did they come to your site?

Does Your Site Do This?

How do you determine intention?

Customer journeys of discovery

There are 3 kinds of shoppers, can you make them all happy?

The Buyer

The Casual Shopper

Does Your Site Do This?

The Power-shopper

Why don't customers come back to your website?

WHAT???

Does Your Site Do This?

Increasing customer engagement on your Shopify store is easier and less expensive than you think

Does Your Site Do This?

Let’s talk about “what if?”

Does Your Site Do This?

So how do you engage with customers who aren’t paying attention?

Engagement fixes a lot of problems—more than you think!

Book a Quick Demo!