The 5 Things Apparel Shoppers Want

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Stylaquin1

Knowing what your customers want makes marketing easy (er)

I ran into an interesting study by Bain & Company that focuses on what customers perceive as the elements of value. The group identified 30 separate elements and grouped them in a pyramid based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. From the bottom up the groups are:

Functional:

Saves Time
Simplifies
Makes Money
Reduces Risk
Organizes
Integrates
Connects
Reduces Effort
Avoids Hassles
Reduces Cost
Quality
Variety
Sensory Appeal
Informs

Emotional

Reduces Anxiety
Rewards Me
Nostalgia
Design/Aesthetics
Badge Value
Wellness
Therapeutic Value
Fun/Entertainment
Attractiveness
Provides Access

Life Changing

Provides hope
Self-actualization
Motivation
Heirloom
Affiliation and Belonging

Social Impact

Self-transcendence

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.

Bain’s chart says that the five most important elements in the apparel industry are:

Quality
Variety
Avoids Hassles
Design/Aesthetics
Saves Time

When you read the list, you can see how important it is to really understand your target customer. Quality may not be as valued with younger shoppers looking for fast fashion. Variety may not be important to someone who likes wearing a personal uniform (Think Steve Jobs). Avoids Hassles is less true for real bargain hunters. Though site issues are universally despised. Design/Aesthetics won’t appeal to those who hate shopping and only buy clothes so they aren’t naked and cold. You see where I’m going here.

Understanding what motivates your customers is a cornerstone of marketing. Relying on big data for most customers will actually send you down a path that has broad appeal, but no specific appeal. In other words, it will work well for Walmart, but not for a boutique.

I think some of the most important elements for smaller businesses are in the Emotional and Life Changing groups. We don’t think about clothing as being heirloom but buying a jean jacket your daughter will want to wear in 20 years is an interesting angle.

Nostalgia has appeal to everyone, and if you are selling to a niche that has a time period, you can always hit that note and it will resonate. Steam Punk, Cottage Core, 50’s – 90’s and so on all have a nostalgia element to them.

Fun and entertaining is another element that will resonate with power shoppers. Make shopping more fun and engaging and shoppers will come back. (That’s what Stylaquin does!)

Women often joke about needing some retail therapy, but it’s real, and having a great shopping experience is something those who like to shop genuinely value. When the mood strikes, there is something oddly relaxing about looking at lots of beautiful things, even if you don’t buy them. There’s also a rush when you find items that spark joy, whether it’s the prefect gift, or the perfect pair of shoes.

Social impact is another area that has trementous power. Tom’s shoes, Ivory Ella, Bert’s Bees and many more have social impact at the core of their business model. Younger customers have shown tremendous brand loyalty to companies that give back to causes they care about.

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.

Creating connection with your customers takes time. Use the elements as a guide to spark ideas for everything from sales to social media posts. Think about the ones you can align with easily and focus on them. Good luck!

3 Easy Ways Get More Sales This Season

Posted on November 27, 2023 by Stylaquin1

Here are 3 easy ways to get more sales between now and December 24th

The holidays are here and if you’ve gotten all your promotions ready ahead of time—congratulations! If you didn’t quite have time, or just want to boost the end of the month sales report, here are three easy ways to get more sales.

Bundling

Take a look at the things that you are probably going to have left over inventory on, and think about ways to bundle them, before you have to put them on sale in January. Can you sweeten the deal with another complementary product by bundling them together? Buy 3 and save also works. Think about how the products will be gifted. Can you promote them as stocking stuffers? Would they make great Secret Santa gifts? Every kid has several teachers, so if you have a great teacher gift, try offering a set of three. Bundling lower priced items and telling shoppers how to use them is a tried and true tactic.

Does Your Site Do This?

Leverage your best sellers

Send an email to your customer list with your best sellers front and center. Use headlines like “Here are XX of our customers’ favorite things!”, “Looking for gifts everyone loves? Here are our customers’ favorites!”, “Last minute gifts that are sure to make them smile—our customers’ favorites.” You get the idea. Right now everyone is in a mad scramble to find the right gifts for all their loved ones. Bestsellers have already gotten the seal of approval, so shoppers who are worried about not choosing the right items will breath a sigh of relief.

Be sure to showcase some best sellers on your home page. Best sellers are proven winners and the items that are most likely to appeal to new visitors. In Shopify, you can set up a carousel of best selling items that will adjust as your inventory levels change. This means it will automatically update with new products if you run out. (You have to set your products to not show if inventory is zero.) There is awesome power in showcasing bestsellers on your home page.

Use collections to create price ranges

If you are on Shopify, one of the easiest things to do is to create collections based on price ranges. This time of year shoppers are very price conscious, but not because they don’t want to spend too much. They want to spend the right amount. If they are buying a small gift for a colleague or friend, they have a price in mind. If they are buying for a significant other, they have a very different price in mind. In both cases they have a price in mind and they are looking for a gift in a specific price range. Think about who your target customer is buying for and make create collections with the price points that will help them find the right gift quickly. If you are selling high end merchandise, don’t be afraid to use “over” as well as “under”. This strategy doesn’t work as well after the holidays, but while shoppers have a list that they are checking twice, it rocks!

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

This time of year it’s easy to get overwhelmed while trying to get everything done. If you have time to just do one thing on this list, I would recommend creating collections with price ranges. You can set it up in half an hour, and then add it to all your emails and social posts. It’s also something that can be set up and reused every year. Good luck!

Get more WOW from the products you have now

Posted on November 13, 2023 by Stylaquin1

How to Promote the right products on your Shopify store's home page

Imagine your home page as the digital red carpet to your store, where you have the power to make a dazzling impression on potential customers. When you strategically select and showcase your products here, you’re not just displaying beautiful items, you’re creating an experience that resonates with your audience. By understanding your customers’ tastes, staying on top of the latest trends, and curating a captivating home page, you can turn visitors into loyal shoppers. So, get ready to boost those conversion rates and sales like a boss! Your home page is your secret weapon in the competitive world of online retail, and it’s time to shine!

Understanding Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is the compass that guides your success in the world of online fashion retail. It’s not just about selling products; it’s about creating a shopping experience tailored to their desires and needs. Knowing your target audience intimately allows you to speak directly to their hearts and capture their attention on your home page. To achieve this, start by identifying who your target customer is. How old are they? What do they care about? What’s trending in their world? Put yourself in their shoes.

Does Your Site Do This?

Start with Bestsellers

The best place to go for inspiration on what to put on the home page is your best sellers. Bestsellers should have a prominent place on every home page. Why? Because they’re proven winners. Bestsellers are also a roadmap to seasonality. You probably won’t have the same bestsellers in August that you do in November.

Let Shopify do the heavy lifting

Go to your Shopify sales report, make sure it includes the date the product was sold, the number of products sold as units, the product name and SKU, the price and the profit. Download the report and open it in excel or whatever spreadsheet software you use. Open the file and subtotal the report by product. Some spreadsheets call this categories rather than subtitles. You are trying to find the products with the highest units of sales. If you have Stylaquin installed you can use the Insights Panel to see your best sellers. We have a video titled Bestsellers you can check out to learn more. Just change the date range to see a specific time.

Use color

This will make spotting the winners easier to see later. Color the cells with the top ten or so products with a bright green color. Then color the next ten or so products with bright blue, and color the following ten or so with bright gold. This will give you an easy way to spot where the best sellers are showing up in each season.

Sort your table by date

This way you can see where the best sellers are working their magic. Are they all Q4 gifts? Are they summer self purchase? What can you learn from them? Are there any the show up consistently throughout the year? We call those perennial best sellers and they typically are problem solvers.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

But wait! What about new products?

There has long been a debate about which is more powerful—new products or best sellers. If you want to dive in even deeper here’s a post on the subject. But the short answer is that most of the customers coming to your site will be new. That’s just how the online world works. So showcasing new products on your home page in place of bestsellers is risky. What if the new products are a bust? There are stores that can make showcasing only new products work, and clothing and accessories are frequently about tends. How do you pick? Not to worry, you can test it!

A/B testing is easy in Shopify

Head over to the App Store and you’ll find lots of apps that offer A/B testing. A/B testing lets you create two versions of a page which are randomly shown to visitors. It allows you to see which version gets you more clicks. You can A/B test headlines, product assortments, images and offers. Be sure to keep your A/B tests clean by not changing too many things at once. It’s also a good idea to keep a diary of what you’ve tested so you can keep track of learnings.

Keep learning, growing and being creative! ““

Nail the Sale Before the Cart – Browse Baby!

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Stylaquin1

Before the Cart: Using Stylaquin's Idea Board to Curate Your Customer's Journey

We all know where a purchase begins, or do we? The cart is actually the midway point, not the beginning and not the end of a customer’s purchase journey. The decision to buy comes before the cart, not after. So we need to think about how we can help shoppers have a better purchase journey from start to finish.

Mapping the journey

Shoppers come to your store because they are looking for something. It may be a specific thing, so they use the search bar, the nav bar, or the filters to find it. But if they’re just browsing, they may not know what they want, but they’re interested enough to poke around. Most sites aren’t offering the shoppers who are just browsing a great experience. Browsing shoppers want to consider their options. Most women fall into the browsing category. Women will often open a different tab for every item they’re considering. They don’t want to lose track of things they like, but they aren’t ready to put them in the cart. That’s where Stylaquin is a game changer.

The Idea Board Revolution: A New Way to Shop

This browsing behavior, which we can easily do in any brick and mortar store, gave birth to the Stylaquin Idea Board, it allows shoppers to collect all the things that interest them, rearrange them, change colors and sizes and visualize them in different combinations, all before committing anything to the cart. Shoppers who use the Idea Board when they shop will view more items and come back more often than those who don’t. When they come back, they’ll see all the things that interested them the first time, so they can start shopping right where they left off. When you think about why Stylaquin shoppers buy more on return visits, it just makes sense, they had an engaging experience that they enjoyed, and when they returned, they didn’t have to remember, and then search for, all the things they liked on their previous visit.

Does Your Site Do This?

An Interactive Styling Board or a Wishlist?

There’s nothing like Stylaquin. In fact it’s so unique it’s patented. Stylaquin totally transforms the current shopping experience into something fun and engaging. Stylaquin shoppers stay longer, view more products, come back more often, and buy more when they do.

Think about how different the two shopping experiences are. In the experience we have now, shoppers have to click on each product and the click through each product picture. If they like something, but aren’t ready to add it to the cart they have to save what interests them in tabs, and then toggle through different tabs trying to figure out which is the best choice. If they have to leave and close the browser window they will have to start from scratch when they return. Maybe they’ll find what they liked, or maybe they won’t. Now let’s compare that with Stylaquin. Stylaquin shoppers can flip through a site like a magazine, collect all the things they like in one place, and then edit them till they have exactly what they want. When they come back to the site, all the things they were interested in are right there, so they can pick up where they left off. It’s a better journey, a more engaging experience, and a whole lot easier.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

Once you look at the shopping experience as a whole, from the moment of need or curiosity, through the consideration phase, the purchase decision, the actual product experience, and finally to embracing the brand, it’s clear that the cart isn’t last step in a journey of discovery and consideration. Meeting your customer at each phase of their journey and finding ways to delight and engage them throughout is what creates a passion for your brand.

8 Great Tips to Kickstart Your Holiday Marketing! + FREE gift

Posted on October 24, 2023 by Stylaquin1

Get Your Holiday Sales off to a Sane Start

Okay, so it’s October, and Halloween is almost upon us, which means Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and then OMG the holidays and the busiest time of the year are almost here. If you’re a Shopify store owner selling, well almost anything, getting ahead of the holiday tsunami will help your bottom line and your peace of mind. Here’s a quick list of things to get nailed down now and a free gift from me to make it easier.

Sales strategy

Unless you only sell Halloween costumes and Thanksgiving decorations, you don’t need to be having a sale. I know, I know, all the big stores are having sales and you will be killed if you don’t. Take a deep breath and consider if you can really compete on price, online, against the big box stores… If you can—then sale away! If you’re a niche boutique then think about the overall landscape before you offer up margin. Here are some things to try before resorting to sales. My general position on sales is they are the best way to get rid of unsold merchandise after the holiday, but should only be use sparingly, if at all, before the holiday.

Compete as a small business

Small Business Saturday is November 25th this year. Reach out to your customer base and remind them how great they will feel supporting a small or local business. Have a special event either in your store or online. It can be interviews with experts, meet the team, or help with the problem you solve for your customers. It can be as simple as how to find the prefect gift, or outfit, or how to spice up the holiday. Everyone is looking for tips and ways to make their loved ones feel appreciated. They want to connect, and engage, and feel the magic of the season.

Pricing

Shoppers are especially price conscious around the holidays, but not always on the low end. Everyone has a list of people they buy for and the gift they give needs to fit the level of appreciation/love they feel for the recipient. Let’s say you need to get a gift for your child’s teacher, it will probably fall in the under $20 range. Your spouse would probably feel unappreciated with a $20 gift. A big client might warrant a gift costing over $200, but a small one might only need a token. This is why making categories based on price works so well during the holidays. Gifts under $30 is a great price point, so is gifts under $50. Gifts over $100 can also work.

Does Your Site Do This?

Get attention without discounting

Hammacher Schlemmer always has one item that is insanely expensive. Think $250,000 for a personal submarine. They don’t expect to sell many (or any), but it gets attention. Think about how your store can get attention without discounting. Do you have a unique item with a story? Can you create an offer that’s unique? Can you start a challenge? Can you do something that makes your store stand out? (Hint: Stylaquin is absolutely bomb for that.)

Make a collection for sale items rather than the whole store

If you feel you simply MUST have a sale, rather than have a sale on everything, why not make a collection of sale items and call it Santa’s Bargain Bin. That way shoppers who are out looking for discounts get what they want without devaluing the rest of your merchandise.

Stocking stuffers and table gifts

If you have items that are under $20, or a high end customer base that lets you go higher, think about creating collections of stocking stuffers and table gifts. Teaching your audience how to make the holidays special is about surprising and delighting them with things they haven’t thought of. Tell stories about the most special gift you have received, or the most surprising gift you’ve received. How can the merchandise you sell surprise and delight your customers and new visitors? Selling bath products? How about a dirty Santa bath set. I have no idea what it would be, but I would look at it if you had one. Kids’ gift collections and pet gift collections are great for blog posts and social media.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

Collections are an underused tool

Every Shopify store has collections, and there is a myth that the collections need to be in the top nav. You can make collections for anything and just use them for emails. Color collections, hidden collections, magic collections, surprise collections can all exist on your store and be part of an email campaign without being in your nav. You could make a Shopify collection of products that have the most meaning to you personally and share that with your customers. Johanna Gaines would totally do that, you can too.

Put a bow on it!

I’m including a download for my simple Holiday Bow image as my holiday gift to you.
bow_red.png
Add it to any product image and voila—It’s a gift! Slap in on your home page from November 1st to December 31st. The classic holiday bow hasn’t changed in a very, very long time. Sometimes the easiest things are the things that just work.

Use Brand Colors to Make Your Shopify Store POP!

Posted on October 19, 2023 by Stylaquin1

Brand colors can make your site more consistent and more recognizable.

Think of your company as a person. The core values are its soul, the name is the body, the logo is the little black dress, and the brand colors are the accessories that tie it all together.

Great brand colors are a foundational element of a great brand. Getting your brand colors can be tricky. There are some real challenges; like if you pick pink and teal, how do you make it work for Christmas? What about pastels? They look great at Easter, but not so much at Kwanzaa. Before you give up or throw a dart at the Itten color wheel, think about what colors mean to you, then be brave.

Does Your Site Do This?

There’s a festival in India called Holi – the festival of colours – Holi marks the last full-moon day of the lunar month and celebrates the beginning of spring and the victory of good over evil. People literally throw colors on each other. The colors mix, and swirl, and drip, and go everywhere. Holi made me see that there is nothing to fear when it comes to color combinations.

So what are the rules for brand colors?

Every year Pantone picks its “Color of the year”. This year was Viva Magenta. It’s a bold choice. The actual Pantone logo is often Black and grey which, it must be said, goes with every color. By picking very neutral main colors, Pantone assures that their logo can work with any color. But Pantone also makes their logo just about every color when it suits them. They are the svenglis of color. Target and Coke just stick with their very specific and copyrighted shades of red. So the rules for Pantone would seem to be different from the rules for Target and Coke. The truth is there aren’t any rules when it comes to color but, before you regret the time you’ve spent reading this post, I’ll share a some helpful guidelines.

Add a Styling Board and a Wishlist!

Guidelines for using Brand Colors

Pick colors you like—you will be stuck with them for years and after that it will be harder to change. You can find inspiration for colors in a picture, landscape, flower, or piece of art.

Pick a bold color for your main color unless you are going for a minimalist tone-on-tone look. Again, you can make just about anything work, but you have to be consistent in order for it to be meaningful and recognizable.

Stick with it even when it’s hard. Any color combo can work. Look at Howard Johnson’s for an iconic but unusual pairing. Where things go off the rails brand wise is when folks get bored or scared. Target NEVER moves away from red, Home Depot NEVER moves away from orange. You have to commit.

Start with one color. It’s easier to have one main color than many colors. Lots of iconic brands have one main color, L.L. Bean is green, Target is red, Pacific Life is blue, Home Depot is orange, and so on. I bet you saw the color for each of those brands in your head as you read them.

If you’re brave or a pro add a second. If you want to dial up the color recognition further, go with two colors like McDonalds or Pepsi. At Stylaquin we have two main colors, Stylaquin green and Stylaquin magenta. We also have four additional colors that all work together. I chose the Stylaquin colors so that they’d stand out and get attention. Holi was my inspiration. I love bright colors. But bright colors don’t work for everyone, and we encourage customers to choose whatever color works for their brand when they add Stylaquin to their site. Working with multiple colors adds visual complexity.

Here are a few more tips on working with brand colors.

Create seasonal palettes that work with your main color(s). If you’re a Shopify clothing, fashion and/or accessories store, you will probably have seasonal items, and seasonal sales. Creating palettes ahead of time, and then reusing them, is just one more thing off of your always full plate.

Colors are like flowers, they usually work together, so don’t stress. Think of all the times you’ve seen a bouquet of wild flowers that surprised and delighted you. Colors usually magically go together. Some people have strong opinions about color and that’s okay, but I’ve never seen a garden that clashes. Once you have the basics chosen, you’ll develop go-to combos and things that just work. Forcing it just makes it harder.

You can go with the tide, or against the tide. If you sell things that fly, like kites, choosing sky blue as your main color can work. That’s going with the tide. You can also go against the tide and choose yellow, or orange, which will always pop on blue, Going with the tide typically produces a more calm color palette, Going against the tide usually gives designs more energy.

Play. Designers rarely finish where they start. They play and noodle, and make mood boards, and play some more. Then they let everything sit for a bit. Then they show it around, and then play more, and then finally make a decision. There’s an industry joke: How many Art Directors does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Eleven. One to do it and ten to say “I don’t know, what do you think?”

Consistency is the key to creating recognizable brand colors. Create a document that explains your brand colors and how to use them. Be sure to include the RGB web color codes and the matching CMYK print percentages. When you find an OMG amazing color combo that you love and goes perfectly with your brand color(s), write it down and add it to your palette. Be sure that everyone who contributes to your brand has a copy of the brand colors document, and an understanding of how to use your brand colors.

Tailoring the Best Clothing App Experience on Shopify

Posted on October 2, 2023 by Stylaquin1

The Perfect Fit: Tailoring the Best Clothing App Experience on Shopify

The Intersection of Fashion, Tech, and E-commerce

Fashion, with its ever-evolving trends and distinctive personal expressions, has always been an art form that captures both the culture today and how far we have come. Fast forward to the digital age, and we’re at the unique intersection where fashion meets technology, resulting in an exhilarating fusion that’s reshaping the very way we shop. This fusion is most evident in platforms like Shopify, where e-commerce makes it easy for fashion retailers at all levels to sell to a vast audience. But are they connecting with their audience on a deeper, more interactive level? Because to get ahead of the pack, It’s not just about selling clothes anymore; it’s about offering an immersive experience.

Criteria to Evaluate Shopify Clothing Apps

Before diving into the best clothing apps available on Shopify, it’s crucial to understand the parameters that set these apps apart:

User Experience (UX): A simple, intuitive interface is key. The user should not only find the app easy to navigate but also enjoyable.
Integration: How seamlessly does the app integrate with Shopify and other essential tools?
Features: Does the app offer unique features that can significantly elevate the online shopping experience?
Scalability: Can the app support a growing business, adapting to increased traffic and product inventory?
Support and Updates: Regular updates and prompt customer support can make a world of difference.

Does Your Site Do This?

Top-Rated Clothing Apps on Shopify

Stylaquin: At the nexus of intuitive design and technological innovation, Stylaquin stands out as a premier choice for fashion entrepreneurs on Shopify. Two of its standout features include the Look Book, offering shoppers a magazine-esque browsing experience, and the Idea Board, allowing users to curate and visualize their fashion choices in a unified space. For store owners, the insights generated by Stylaquin, concerning customer preferences, can be revolutionary in driving marketing strategies and product placements.
Size Recommendation Apps: One major hurdle online fashion retailers face is ensuring customers choose the right size. Apps like Kiwi Size, Fit Quiz, and Robosize These apps use customer data, like height, weight, and fit preferences, to recommend the most suitable size, reducing return rates.
Virtual Dressing Rooms: Giving shoppers the ability to virtually try on clothing items using augmented reality could be a game-changer. For now just being able to collect and curate the things that shoppers find interesting will improve the online shopping experience. Stylaquin has a feature called the Idea Board that does just that. Power-shoppers find this particularly helpful.
Inventory Management Tools: For the business side of things, keeping track of inventory is crucial. These apps help store owners manage stock levels, track bestsellers, and identify items that may need promotional boosts. Shopify has a full range of inventory management tools built into the platform, but stores who have special events, pop-up stores, and affiliate sales may need advanced tools that can only be found in an app.

Features That Make These Apps Indispensable for Fashion Entrepreneurs

Personalization: Modern shoppers crave personalized experiences. Tools that utilize AI to offer tailored product recommendations based on browsing and purchase history are constantly improving. Apps like Wiser, Drift AI, and Frankie AI are are showing improved sales and conversions, by helping shoppers see items they may have missed.
Interactive Browsing: Stylaquin’s Look Book is a prime example of how browsing can be transformed into an interactive experience, making shopping more engaging and enjoyable.
Insights and Analytics: Beyond the front-end customer experience, apps that provide valuable data can transform a store’s strategy. Knowing what products resonate with shoppers, and which don’t, can guide inventory decisions and marketing campaigns. Shopify makes it easy to connect Google analytics which goes into great deal, perhaps overwhelming detail for some. Stylaquin is the only app that can provide analytics on the entire shopping experience for Stylaquin shoppers. It also has an insights panel that shares the most actionable insights and explains how to use them.
Loyalty Programs and Incentives: Apps that enable stores to offer rewards, points, or discounts for repeat customers can foster brand loyalty and encourage repeat business. Shopify has too many Apps to list, all with slightly different features and benefits. Be sure you know what your customer is looking for before adding a loyalty app. Just increasing customer engagement and making your store stand out in the crowd, like Stylaquin does can deliver significantly more repeat visits and create loyalty without giving up margin or adding complexity.

Remember to make it fun!

The big truth about shopping is that there are three kinds of shoppers, Those who love to shop are the ones you should focus on first. Stylaquin was invented because women deserve a better online shopping experience. One that’s faster, more beautiful, more intuitive and one that makes it easy to explore and engage with all the fabulous products they find. That’s what makes a shopping experience memorable and worth coming back for!

Don’t get mad at Google, outsmart it! Having trouble getting your site to rank well? Wondering how to get to the top positions without paying for placement? Google is just an algorithm, once you understand how it works, you can learn how to outsmart it. Download your copy today!

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How Time on Site impacts SEO

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Stylaquin1

Enticing customers to stay longer can have a big impact on your SEO rank

Why is time on site important? It’s the often overlooked metric that measures how engaged and interested visitors are with your website. The longer a visitor spends on a website, the more likely they are to interact with the content, explore different products, and ultimately make a purchase.

Let’s break that down into 4 components.

Increased engagement: The longer a visitor spends on a website, the more engaged they’re likely to be with your content. We spend time with stores we like, so increasing time on site also leads to increased brand awareness, product interest, and ultimately, sales.
Improved user experience: If visitors are spending a lot of time on a website, it’s a good indication that they’re finding the site easy to navigate and the content valuable. This kind of positive user experience increases customer loyalty.
Better search engine rankings: Time on site is one of the metrics that search engines use to determine the quality and relevance of a website. If visitors are spending a lot of time on a site, search engines see this as a sign that the site is providing high-quality content and improve its ranking accordingly.
Higher conversion rates: When visitors spend more time on a website, they learn more about the brand and products, which leads to trust, which, as I mentioned in the Post on SEO Metrics, leads to higher conversion rates. In addition, longer time on site is often an indicator that a customer is closer to making a purchase.

Does Your Site Do This?

Okay, you’re sold, but how do you get customers to stay longer?

Here are some thing to consider:

Improve the user experience: A good user experience is crucial for keeping visitors on a site for longer periods of time. This includes factors such as site speed, easy navigation, and clear product descriptions.
Offer engaging content: Providing high-quality, relevant content can help to keep visitors engaged and interested. This can include product videos, blog posts, customer reviews.
Eye Candy: Making sure your site visually appeals to your target customer is crucial for extending time on site. High-end customers want to see beautiful photography and lifestyle images. Everyone wants to see photography that clearly shows the products. Clear photos that show features also reduces returns.
Personalization: Personalizing the user experience based on a visitor’s behavior and preferences can help to increase engagement and time on site. This can include personalized product recommendations, and customized landing pages for customers who are coming from an ad, blog, or other trigger.
Incentives and rewards: Offering incentives such as free shipping, discounts, and loyalty programs can help to keep visitors on a site for longer periods of time and increase the likelihood of making a purchase.
Optimize for mobile: As more and more consumers shop on their mobile devices, optimizing for mobile is crucial for increasing time on site. This includes using a mobile-responsive design and optimizing for mobile search. This is especially important if you have a younger customer, but granny is on her phone now and girl likes to shop.
Utilize social media: Social media can be a powerful tool for driving traffic to an online store and increasing time on site. Make sure your social media content links back to your website and also encourage social sharing.
Making it fun to shop: This is my favorite. We all do more of the things we enjoy and shopping is more fun with Stylaquin. How much fun? Data shows that Stylaquin shoppers stay on site a whopping 70% longer and view 185% more items. Here’s a link to a short video that explains how Stylaquin works.

So to wrap all this up, time on site is an often overlooked metric that absolutely impacts your site rank with search engines. Making your site more attractive, more personal, more interesting and more fun to shop will entice your customers to stay longer, buy more and come back more often.

P.S. It’s free and we will never share your name. You can unsubscribe at any time.

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?

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.

New versus Best Sellers

Posted on July 6, 2023 by Stylaquin1

New versus Best Sellers and how best to leverage them both

Highlighting new items and best-selling items is just good marketing. They are both great way’s to get customer’s attention, but they function differently in marketing, though there is overlap in the type of customer they will appeal to. Let’s start with best sellers.

Best Sellers

These are the most popular products and the backbone of your store’s sales. Never underestimate the awesome power of best sellers. Merchants have something called the 80/20 rule where 80% of sales come from 20% of products. Where stores get into trouble is that they get bored. I remember when I was an Art Director at L.L. Bean everyone was sick to death of telling the bean boot story. That’s the story about how L.L. sold his first batch of bean boots but most of them fell apart. He took back every broken pair and replaced them with the now famous bean boot and the rest is history. It’s a great story. Every time we ran it, sales went up. Especially with new customers. But everyone in the company had heard it a thousand times so they rolled their eyes when it came up. Best sellers are like that. They are often the tried and true, boring products, that just keep selling. Not the shiny new products that everyone is excited about. Do you have a best seller collection? You should, it’s easy and it works. Customers who are new to your brand will be looking to see if you have anything that interests them. Best sellers are best sellers for a reason, make sure they’re featured on your home page. Use them on landing pages for ads and promotions. Think of them as both a gateway drug to your brand and a favorite bedtime story you can tell often.

Does Your Site Do This?

New

New is also powerful, but serves a different purpose and a different customer. New is a magic word, customers never get tired of it. (There’s a Bar Hop on magic words that may be of interest.) Your existing customers will already be familiar with your best sellers so new items are the best way to get their attention. On a Shopify website it’s easy to create a collection of new items that keeps itself automatically updated. Having an automated NEW collection is an easy set it, and forget it strategy. You can also make sure your home page shows some new items, so that returning customers have a reason to stop by. There’s an important truth in marketing that it’s easier to get more customers to buy, than it is to get customers to buy more. Best sellers are more likely to get customers to buy than new items. It goes back to the 80/20 rule. If you don’t know if you should feature a best seller or a new item, go with the best seller. Most of you traffic will be new visitors and best sellers are your best bet.

Is that all there is?

So is that all there is to NEW and Best sellers? Nope. You can use this strategy in your ads and customer emails. In ads, focus on best sellers. They are already proven winners. In existing customer emails, focus on New with a dash of best seller. Think of it as you get new customers in the door with best sellers and then keep them interested with new items. Best sellers are also a treasure trove of goodness for emails that don’t offer discounts. Your customers love these items so talk about where they came from, what makes them amazing, all their benefits, and finish with other items that are similar, complimentary, or also best sellers. If you only send out discount emails you are going away free money and training your customers that they shouldn’t pay full price.

If you enjoyed this video, and got some good info, please join our mailing list. If you’d like to see a Shopify app that increases the number of items viewed by 180%, increases time on site by 70% and just makes online shopping more fun and engaging, here’s a link to the Stylaquin Video in the Shopify App Store.

P.S. It’s free and we will never share your name. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Knowing what your customers want makes marketing easy (er)

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Intention is key to understanding your customer's journey

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New

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Book a Quick Demo!