The Unofficial Shopify Podcast

Today's guest put his money where his mouth is when he joined ecommerce incubator Chillest Capital to launch and manage direct to consumer brands selling things like premium beef jerky, CBD supplements, and more. You'll learn: The legality of CBD Why CBD is so hot right now How a lifestyle brand is an acquisition channel Working around advertising limitations for sensitive advertising The dangers of high-risk payment gateways Andy has worked in eCommerce across several different categories and brands from fast scaling start-ups to enterprise level brands such as Proactiv and Coca-Cola. Prior to Co-Founding Holiday, a Chillest Capital portfolio company, he served as Chief of Stuff at Brand Value Accelerator and as a project manager at Gotham Alpha. His passion lies in driving innovation and growth within organizations looking to adapt to the ever-changing digital world. Show Links Chillest C-Star Provisions Beef Jerky Holiday CBD Gummies LinkedIn: Dylan Whitman BVAccel LinkedIn: Andy Muntean RetentionRocket Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Sponsors Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr

In today's listener mailbag episode, we discuss topics and questions chosen by you. You'll learn: How the shadiest internet villains illicitly advertise How to advertise when you can't use Facebook or Google How to make Shopify Plus make money for you and the "must have" mostly-free apps for your store Show Links “What’s Shopify Plus got that regular Shopify doesn’t?” Metafilter: Where was the effing monkey? Klaviyo Bold Brain Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Sponsors Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr

According to Wikipedia, Hoonigan Industries is "an apparel brand for auto enthusiasts." According to its 20 million fans, it's an car culture movement. Either way, they're on Shopify Plus, and have an incredible story to share starting back in the 2000's when co-owner and rally driver Ken Block appeared on BBC show Top Gear and filmed the hit YouTube video "Gymkhana 2", making the most viral video of 2009. You'll learn: The origin story of Hoonigan, Gymkhana, and Ken Block. The authentic content that got them to an audience of 20million people and three daytime Emmy nominations What's changed in social media and the one thing that will separate you Ron Zaras is a man who has somehow snuck his way into the ranks of automotive media. Starting life as an automotive journalist (read: intern) directly out of college working for 0-60 magazine, he learned that he could sustain a living telling automotive stories - and has been attempting to do so ever since. After an 8 year stint working directly for Ken Block under the Hoonigan Racing Division banner, he moved over to the Hoonigan Industries home base in Long Beach, California to help evolve their marketing in both media and apparel segments. Tune in for more details! Show Links HOONIGAN - RZARAS2042 for 20% off at Hoonigan.com! GYMKHANA TWO Garage Garage: Racecar Bed Scumbag Labs: Steer Left, Turn RIGHT?? Opposite Steering Jeep Melts Our Brains! Instagram: @roncar Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Sponsors Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr

Websites should be fast. No one is arguing about that. What constitutes fast has somehow been perverted by an anxiety-inducing score assigned by the cruel mistress known as Google PageSpeed Insights. In this episode, we throw Google PageSpeed in the bonfire. You'll learn: Why Google PageSpeed Insights is an awful boogeyman that needs to be stopped A sane approach to making your website faster When to upgrade Shopify plans and strategies to setup your main menus correctly (again) The boys get extra salty in this one. Tune in for more details! Show Links Pingdom Tools Crush.pics Paul's website - It gets a perfect PageSpeed score. Shopify Pricing Kurt's Shopify Plus breakdown Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Sponsors Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr

At the age of 24, she quit her job to freelance full time— and in her first year, she earned $137,000. Joining me in studio is Kelly Vaughn, founder of all-female Shopify agency The Taproom. Kelly will tell us how she got her start, and how she helps high-growth Shopify stores go from six to seven figures. You'll hear: The tactics Kelly uses to scale stores from six to seven-figures Recommendations for a successful subscription service What successful merchants do that others don't Kelly's advice for staying competitive in the fashion & apparel niche Kelly Vaughn is a Shopify Expert and founder of The Taproom Agency, a Shopify marketing agency rooted in Atlanta. Kelly and her team have helped hundreds of Shopify merchants build wishful marketing strategies, map out customer journeys that convert, and provide the insight, experience, and tools businesses need to keep growing. When she doesn't have her nose in a Macbook, Kelly is traveling across Europe with her 9.8/10 husband, experimenting with new gin and tonic combos, and putting on all her sweaters at once because she just loves sweaters SO MUCH. Tune in for more details! This episode is made possible through a sponsorship from Rewind. Rewind creates a daily, automatic backup of your Shopify store – protecting your most valuable online assets. Recover from small mistakes and huge disasters in minutes. Start your free trial. Show Links thetaproom.com Tw:@kvlly Kelly's Newsletter ReCharge Klaviyo Smile Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Sponsors Rewind

Last fall, my wife started a Shopify store and told us the struggle is real in a podcast episode. It became one of our all-time top ten episodes. On May 14th, she returns to the show to update us Just six months after launching her first Shopify store, we check in with Julie Elster about her experience. She'll tell us what's worked, what hasn't, and the content marketing strategy that's generating 10,000 monthly views without any paid traffic. We'll find out: what’s working & what’s not, a Pinterest strategy that works how to lose money with influencers her simple but effective content marketing strategy and her best lead magnet Julie Elster is the owner of the Disney World-planning brand Double Your WDW, which she started in September 2018. Tune in for more details! Show Links Double Your WDW Instagram: @DoubleYourWDW Tailwind <- Get $15 off when you use Julie's referral link. WorkMacro Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Sponsors Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr

In this episode recorded in front of a live audience, CRO Wunderkind Nick Disabato will teach you his exact methodology for winning 67.2% of split-tests over the past five years. Through his consultancy, Draft, Nick conducts research-driven optimizations of online stores, so they can grow without needing to increase their ad spend. Rather than running the usual marketing playbook, Nick uses design research as the fundamental tool for optimization. He also wrote design best-sellers Cadence & Slang and Value-Based Design. Tune in for more details! Show Links Nick's Slides and Notes Nick's Consultancy: Draft Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Sponsors Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr

In this episode, you'll learn how the customer experience extends beyond support tickets. Automated emails, on-site messaging, and even the 'from:' name in your emails impact the overall experience more than you might realize. You'll hear: How a welcome series can make or break your brand The business case for personal branding When not to send promo emails The email framework that will make you more money. Val Geisler is ridiculously obsessed with email. An Email Marketing Conversion Copywriter and Strategist, Val spent over a decade on the inside of companies from non-profits to 7-figure businesses to tech startups. She brings her background in content creation, customer experience, and digital strategy to her incredible clients every day. Email isn't dead, and Val is here to help you bring yours back to life. Tune in for more details! Resources Val's free Dinner Party Strategy download Val on Twitter: @lovevalgeisler Messaging examples: RecycledFirefighter, Outdoor Voices ValGeisler.com FixMyChurn.com Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Sponsors Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr

You can use Shopify's analytics and reports to learn about your sales and customers in great detail. Or you can tear hair out, create unnecessary panic, and make rash decisions. In this episode, we'll break down a sane approach to your Shopify analytics complete with example benchmarks for your key performance indicators. You'll hear: Which stats measure the health of your store Ranges for conversion rate, AOV, and RCR Kurt's KPI-based approach to analytics What successful brands get right Tune in for more details! Show Links Chicago Shopify Plus Meetup JavaHouse Klaviyo Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Sponsors Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr

At 53, Paul Miller began his private label business on Amazon in 2015 selling headphone headbands called CozyPhones. Two years later, he had grown his brand to $4 million in annual revenue. So what happened in between? Paul locked in a licensing deal with Nickelodeon that skyrocketed his brand he received advice from a friend to pursue licensing for his products. After a deep-dive into the world of licensing, and surrounding himself with a team of experts, he has executed multiple license agreements as both a licensee and licensor. You'll hear: How licensing changes the game for online sellers How Paul went from zero to $4 Million in less than 4 years How do you take your business to the next level through licensing? • Starting over at 53 - it’s not always easy but it’s worth it Tune in for more details! Resources Paul's Free Course: Licensing Roadmap for E-commerce Entrepreneurs Paul's brand: CozyPhones Licensing.org Licensing Expo LinkedIn: Paul Miller Share your thoughts Ask a question in The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Facebook Group Share this show on Twitter Never miss an episode Subscribe on iTunes Join Kurt's newsletter Help the show Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings & reviews help, and I read each one. Subscribe on iTunes What's Kurt up to? See our recent work at Ethercycle Take a ride with Kurt on YouTube Grow Your Store in 2019 Apply to work with Kurt to grow your store. Prefer to DIY? Read a free sample chapter of Kurt's book Ecommerce Bootcamp, absolutely free. Tell me where to send your sample at ecommerce-bootcamp.com Learn what's Shopify Plus got that regular Shopify doesn’t?” Sponsors Try Bold Product Upsell free for 90 days Save 20% on Turbo, a blazing fast Shopify theme Improve your shop’s search engine ranking with Venntov SEO Meta Manager Outsource your Shopify customer service with Simplr