How Presidential Candidates Maximize eCommerce Sales
This episode is available on YouTube. Watch now: https://youtu.be/mjeP1M5cgEg
Its too late to change anything on your store now this close to Black Friday, so instead, lets do something fun and talk about politics.
In today's episode: How Presidential Candidates Maximize eCommerce Sales
We'll compare the Shopify stores of President Trump's 2020 campaign, and four Democratic presidential candidates, to see where they could improve and what they did right.
Listener note: While politicians are the subject of our teardown, we have entirely avoided political issues. Nothing about this episode should be considered political commentary. Fight the urge to send us your political opinions. Please.
Kurt Elster: Testing. All right, good. Good. We got audio here.
Paul Reda: Tell us about your sweater, Kurt.
Kurt Elster: This glorious sweater, this is the Uncle Rico sweater by Hoonigan. This is their first… They did a Christmas sweater before and I thought it was really cool, but it was not really a sweater. It was a sweatshirt with a pattern printed on it, and I still wore it all the time. And then when I heard they’re doing an actual woven sweater; I’ve been wearing this for 72 hours straight now.
Paul Reda: Yeah, I recall seeing an Instagram photo of you on like Saturday, where you were wearing that.
Kurt Elster: I put it on Saturday night. Today is Monday when we’re recording this. I’ve not taken it off since. I don’t plan to take it off until my wife makes me. That’s the goal here. That’s the plan.
Paul Reda: I don’t need to know about your sex life.
Kurt Elster: No, no. Purely because of smell.
Paul Reda: Oh, all right.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. All right. Well, by the time you’re hearing this, I hope you’re going to have a great Black Friday. But realistically, what do you got? 48 hours?
Paul Reda: It’s 72 hours from Black Friday when they’re hearing this.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, so-
Paul Reda: It’s too late.
Kurt Elster: It’s too late. Whatever you’re… Even maybe make some finishing touches, fine. But I don’t want you to stress out. Whatever happens, happens. So, instead, we’re gonna do something fun today. We’re gonna talk politics. Wait, no. Not politics. That would be stupid. We’re gonna talk about politicians’ Shopify stores. Paul, what are we talking about here?
Paul Reda: Well, I went through the candidates that are currently running for president. Some of them, not all the damn Democrats, and looking to see if they were on Shopify, what were they on. Everyone I looked at is on Shopify other than Joe Biden, who is in BigCommerce. Boo.
Kurt Elster: Oh, you BigCommerce.
Paul Reda: Boo, Joe Biden.
Kurt Elster: Oh, Joe Biden and his teeth.
Paul Reda: Also-
Kurt Elster: Those glorious chompers.
Paul Reda: Here’s the thing. Shout out to Joe Biden’s store. Every single product photo, it’s a .png, so it’s like… What are you doing, Joe?
Kurt Elster: So, their category pages are like 25 megs?
Paul Reda: BigCommerce has already transferred over to WebP like Shopify did, so it’s been re-encoded in WebP, so it’s not a nightmare, but they’re saved by that. I don’t know what Joe was thinking when he was encoding those images.
Kurt Elster: As Joe Biden was personally saving out these images, like, “Do I use .jpeg or .png?”
Paul Reda: Come on.
Kurt Elster: Joe, use .jpeg. God. All right, so we’re going to do teardowns of five presidential candidates’ Shopify stores.
Paul Reda: Yes.
Kurt Elster: We’re gonna talk through it for the benefit of people listening. This will also be available on YouTube, and I’m gonna record a screencast so that you could follow along with what you’re looking at, and as well as in the post in the Facebook group. Paul, what store should I fire up, here?
Paul Reda: Well, I should just… Let’s just first start off with we’re doing four of the most major candidates. Nothing that occurs in this podcast should be taken as an endorsement, or anything like that.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. If you’re at any point in this show formulating in your head the message about politics you’re going to send me, please don’t. Just stop now. I don’t want it. This is just meant to be something fun. Please don’t ruin it.
Paul Reda: And also, apologies to John Delaney, and Amy Klobuchar, and-
Kurt Elster: People who didn’t make the cut?
Paul Reda: The other 87 people running for the Democratic nomination that we didn’t do your store. I’m sorry. You’re just not polling high enough. I don’t care.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. We’re just doing five stores. That’s all I got time for.
Paul Reda: All right, so we’re starting first with shop.donaldjtrump.com.
Kurt Elster: Current U.S. president. All right, so I land on the site. It loaded quickly.
Paul Reda: Oh yeah, and that’s the one thing I noticed. All of these sites, extremely low load times. They have all done a-
Kurt Elster: They’re very quick.
Paul Reda: They have all done a great job of keeping themselves efficient.
Kurt Elster: So, we should not bother to check load times?
Paul Reda: We shouldn’t bother checking load times. I already checked the load times. They’re all great.
Kurt Elster: The very first thing I notice is they have already optimized for the holidays. First thing is a banner. It says, “Looking for a gift? The official Donald J. Trump store offers unique one-of-a-kind gifts. Show someone you care, all while supporting our Make America Great Again Movement. Shop now.” So, they are pre-empting me. They’ve got this seasonal message. They say shop now. So far, doing a good job.
Then the second one is, “Made in the USA. Shop youth.” I don’t know that that one quite works. There’s only two-
Paul Reda: There’s only two slides in the slideshow.
Kurt Elster: Which I always think is weird. I would prefer this just be… and the second one’s not strong. This really should just be the one looking for a gift image, but if you’re gonna do multiple, you gotta do three. Otherwise it’s weird. I don’t know what’s so weird about two slides that flip back and forth.
Paul Reda: That never crossed my mind, but all right.
Kurt Elster: All right. That’s clearly a personal… I’m triggered by having two slides.
Paul Reda: I just find the navigation very sparse, where it’s like 2020, then apparel, and all apparel is just living under this one-
Kurt Elster: Men, women, youth.
Paul Reda: That’s it. And then hats, signs, gifts.
Kurt Elster: Well, what else do you want?
Paul Reda: I don’t know. Isn’t everything gifts? I don’t know. I want to see a mega menu. That was another thing I noticed. None of these sites have mega menus.
Kurt Elster: But they’re also very quick. Maybe that’s why?
Paul Reda: A mega menu doesn’t slow you down at all.
Kurt Elster: All right. You’re right.
Paul Reda: If it’s done right.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Okay. They should have a mega menu here. The other thing that’s weird is the logo.
Paul Reda: The logo looks cheap and terrible.
Kurt Elster: It’s like a campaign sign got uploaded as a logo. That’s a misstep.
Paul Reda: It’s barely readable.
Kurt Elster: It has a tagline in there that is then barely legible. Yeah, it should just say Trump Pence, and shouldn’t be… and be on a transparent background, so it’s gotta be a .png. But none of this other nonsense. That would really clean that up. And then the navigation text is a little small. After that, they do… There’s another call out for the perfect gift, and they got a little fancy with overdesigning it. It’s a .png of a woman that says, “Women for Trump,” and it overlaps the hero image above it, so it’s kind of cool. I’m a little touchy as a designer. I think it’s overdesigned. It’s not a big deal.
And then on the right, they’ve got newsletter and zip code, which clearly, that’s an important thing for them. I probably would have just led with… gotten rid of the secondary perfect gift thing and have the second element below the hero image just be, “Newsletter Signup.”
Paul Reda: Well, and if you scroll down more, at the bottom in the footer, they have another email collection down there, and let’s think about this. You know, these stores are selling goods, but the goods they’re selling are also technically campaign contributions, which comes up later.
Kurt Elster: Oh. Okay.
Paul Reda: And you will be… Campaigns live and die by their email lists, so they want as much email as possible, and they want that… Good job by Trump here, they’re getting the zip code for even extra targeting.
Kurt Elster: I noticed that. That seems smart.
Paul Reda: Yeah. That seems very smart.
Kurt Elster: But sign up for news on products and special offers, there’s no way that’s all they’re doing with this.
Paul Reda: Oh, no. That email that… You will be emailed fundraisers. You’ll be notified when there are events. So yeah, but the campaigns need emails. The other thing I noticed, they got quick view turned. No. Thumbs down.
Kurt Elster: I did catch that, so as you scroll down, it says featured products, and so that’s a miss… Featured. What’s featured about it? I want something better than that, and because it’s a political campaign, I figured all of these headlines should be in some way tied back to the message, like support making America great again more by buying these products. I don’t know. I can’t extemporaneously do this. And then they’ve only got six featured products. Why not just dump them all out at me? Give me all your in-stock best sellers right here. I bet this is gonna come up a lot.
Paul Reda: I know someone who did the exact thing that you wanted, and we will be coming up to them later.
Kurt Elster: Okay, great.
Paul Reda: So, I-
Kurt Elster: Look at this thing. There’s the ornament on here, keep America great collectible ornament. $60?
Paul Reda: $60.
Kurt Elster: All right. Last year, Julie bought one of these as a white elephant gift in a local store, and there’s no way we spent $60, or even half that on an ornament.
Paul Reda: Well, and I thought just to keep everything consistent, as we go through each of these sites, we’re just gonna pick a T-shirt, and the T-shirt will be our comparison item across all the stores, and you will see all of these T-shirts are from 27 to 30 bucks. Which seems like a lot to me.
Kurt Elster: Do you see they sell giftwrap paper?
Paul Reda: Oh, yeah. Wrapping paper.
Kurt Elster: See, I think that’s smart.
Paul Reda: The Trump campaign does have… I feel like it does have the widest array of goods. Everyone else is just hats, shirts, and then stickers.
Kurt Elster: I feel like there’s almost the expectation that they would, when you’ve got, when the president is the host from-
Paul Reda: His entire career is branding.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. His whole thing is branding, so you would expect this to have the best products. The other thing I like here, and I would… of the six featured products, four are lifestyle images, and three of those are Christmas lifestyle images, so it’s so timely. It’s very… That’s smart.
Paul Reda: Yeah, it’s not just a standard product photo. I didn’t think of that.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Two of them are just like the product on white, and it immediately does not look as nice when you see it next to the lifestyle images and the Christmas images. And they have quick view turned on. I don’t like that. Especially if we’re concerned about load time. I wish it didn’t have quick view. All right, so what product am I picking here?
Paul Reda: Let’s go to apparel. We’ll go to men. And then, I don’t know, pick a shirt.
Kurt Elster: Well, they’ve got a keep… The first thing in here, again, super timely, Keep America Great Ugly Christmas Sweater.
Paul Reda: 75 bucks.
Kurt Elster: $75. That’s more than my wonderful Hoonigan Christmas sweater cost. Please allow three to four weeks for delivery. Oh my gosh. No Gods but shipping. You can’t do three to four weeks fulfillment.
Paul Reda: And that is on every product I’ve clicked on on that store.
Kurt Elster: Wow!
Paul Reda: Their fulfillment times are horrendous.
Kurt Elster: Okay. Not great.
Paul Reda: It’s not great. That’s bad.
Kurt Elster: No product reviews, but I’d imagine on a political site you can’t do it. You’re just gonna get buried in nonsense.
Paul Reda: Yeah, it’s all just gonna be nonsense. You couldn’t do it. I didn’t even think of that. Yeah, none of them have product reviews.
Kurt Elster: All right. Well, that’s fine. No product video, but a really nice lifestyle shot.
Paul Reda: Great lifestyle shot.
Kurt Elster: It’s a guy wearing it opening gifts, and you can see he’s got the box open with the Trump wrapping paper, and there’s what’s probably a used DeWalt drill in there, but it looks great. No size guide.
Paul Reda: No size guide. That’s what I was gonna say.
Kurt Elster: And it defaults to a size.
Paul Reda: Defaults to small. Yep.
Kurt Elster: And no info on returns or exchanges.
Paul Reda: I believe there is no returns and exchanges. I don’t know. Because that, you might fall under… We’ll go into it later about the FEC regulations when it comes to this sort of stuff.
Kurt Elster: Orders process in… Well, here, if I open the shipping and returns pages, it already… It contradicts the please allow three to four weeks to delivery. It says, “Orders process and deliver within 10 to 14 business days for delivery within the domestic U.S. only.”
Paul Reda: That’s even their standard line, is, “It’ll process within two weeks.” Really? I’m buying a shirt and you might ship it in two weeks?
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Well, their best-case scenario is a week and a half. All right. Let me add to cart. It redirects me to the cart page.
Paul Reda: Which is good. I think this is a really good cart page.
Kurt Elster: Wow.
Paul Reda: So, here’s what we got going on here.
Paul Reda: Yeah. Break this down for me, because this is nice.
Paul Reda: All right, so underneath the items, you have employer information, your occupation, and your employer’s name. This is a Federal Election Commission regulation, because purchasing these products count as a political donation. Which means two things. One, it’s illegal to get political donations from people that aren’t U.S. citizens, so they can’t sell internationally, so they need to take care of that. Two, if anyone contributes over $200, they have to have their name down, the person’s name, their occupation and their employer’s name down, and that’s collectively. It’s not $200 a throw, so even if you’re only spending $75 on a shirt, they have to have your name down just in case that-
Kurt Elster: I make a second order?
Paul Reda: You make a second order that’s $125 later. So, that’s another field that needs to be filled out, which I’m sure hurts their conversion rates.
Kurt Elster: But they do explain it. It says in here, there’s an asterisk that says, “Required by federal law for political contributions.”
Paul Reda: And I’ll note this on the Trump one. They’re the only ones that include retired, student, that sort of stuff. Everyone else just leaves it up to you to fill it out.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, it’s if I can just click a radio button, makes my life easier. Under the order summary, I can add gift wrapping for $5. Nice touch.
Paul Reda: Right in line. Very good.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Well, it increases average order value. It really fits in line with this whole gift-giving theme they’ve got going, and then I’ve got an option, a checkbox for an optional donation. The two misstep, three missteps in this cart are special instructions field. Just ditch these. This is not helpful, and you know this is just filled with nonsense.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: And it’s an optional field, so get rid of it. Then it says total, $75 excluding tax and shipping. Okay, so that’s actually a subtotal. Just call it a subtotal, then you can get rid of the excluding tax and shipping line, and then checkout, I would rename proceed to checkout. All right.
Paul Reda: I love that big checkout button. I think giving-
Kurt Elster: They do have a giant checkout button.
Paul Reda: Given the moving parts in this cart, I think it’s a great cart.
Kurt Elster: It is very nice. And then, when I go, I click to add gift wrapping, and then I click the checkout button, when I got to the cart, the checkout, the cardinal sin that every Shopify merchant does, it’s like four out of five manage this, they didn’t style the checkout!
Paul Reda: This checkout is completely unstyled.
Kurt Elster: This is the default checkout. No font. No font selected, no color selection. But the worst sin of all, the logo.
Paul Reda: No logo.
Kurt Elster: Didn’t upload that logo, and I can’t actually make my purchase. The $5 gift wrapping it let me add, it showed up as sold out, which killed my… I can’t complete the purchase.
Paul Reda: Oh my God. You added gift wrapping. They have gift wrapping-
Kurt Elster: Yeah, for five bucks.
Paul Reda: … sold out, so you can’t buy anything.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Well, hold on. It says, “Some items are no longer available. Your cart’s been updated.” If I click continue, what happens?
Paul Reda: Oh, it just-
Kurt Elster: Okay, then I-
Paul Reda: It removes it.
Kurt Elster: … end up back in the cart.
Paul Reda: But still, that’s a… You can’t throw up a screen that says, “You’re not allowed to buy.”
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Well, that’s a conversion killer, for sure. Phone number’s a required field here. They want my email, but they don’t have my opt in here. The checkbox for like, “Send me info,” is not here, which that, again, is probably because no one went and set up the checkout.
Paul Reda: And previously, in the footer, in tiny print at the footer at the bottom, it says, “By providing your phone number, you are consenting to receive calls and SMS message, including automated calls and texts to that number from Donald Trump.”
Kurt Elster: They should really include that in the checkout.
Paul Reda: That’s in the footer of the site, which no one’s looking at.
Kurt Elster: It needs to be in the checkout.
Paul Reda: Also, very important that they note that it’s you are consenting to receive auto-dialed calls, because auto dialing cell phones is illegal unless you gain permission for it.
Kurt Elster: Okay, so we need that double opt in.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: On my auto dialer calls.
Paul Reda: That’s the reason polls are having problems, because polls use auto dialers, and then they’re not getting enough cell phone sampling.
Kurt Elster: Shall we move on to Pete For America?
Paul Reda: All right, let’s move to Pete Buttigieg. I like-
Kurt Elster: I don’t know how to say his name. I’m not even gonna try. I just called him Pete.
Paul Reda: It is Buttigieg, but I like saying Buttigieg, and I know that’s wrong.
Kurt Elster: Do it.
Paul Reda: We all say it. Buttigieg, Buttigieg, Buttigieg, Buttigieg, Buttigieg, Buttigieg, Buttigieg.
Kurt Elster: That was fabulous. Thank you. So, it’s a land?
Paul Reda: It’s like Gucci gang.
Kurt Elster: We land on Pete For America’s store, and clearly they’re aware of the issue with the name, because everything is around Pete. It just says Pete 2020, Pete For America. At least above the fold on the store, I don’t see his last name anywhere.
Paul Reda: Yeah. Well, that’s what Boot Edge Edge is. On the shirts.
Kurt Elster: Oh yeah. That’s what I figured, that was a joke about his name.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: Didn’t he drop out?
Paul Reda: No, actually. He just had an Iowa poll that was great. He’s in first in Iowa now.
Kurt Elster: Oh. Okay. All right. So, couple things. My initial impression, it says Pete 2020, they’ve got very nice styled logo. This whole thing is like… It’s got echoes of the Obama campaign. It really does. Like the colors-
Paul Reda: That’s the lane he’s kind of taking.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. All right, so if that’s what he wants, it came across.
Paul Reda: What was the Trump shipping? Because I see here Pete’s-
Kurt Elster: I don’t want to put my address and email in and get spammed to death, so I can’t see what the shipping is.
Paul Reda: Yeah, because Pete right on top has free shipping on orders over 60 bucks.
Kurt Elster: I did-
Paul Reda: I would of course prefer it if Pete offered free shipping just overall, but at least he’s telling me.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, because I know they’re gonna gouge me on the prices on these things, and the missed opportunity. Put shop now. If I click this free shipping thing all day, it does nothing, so I want that to link somewhere. I like that in the Trump site… I don’t know if it did this, but in the upper left on the Pete site, it says peteforamerica.com, so even though I’m on the store, it’ll take me back to the core brochure site or campaign site. This one, no dropdowns in the menu, no mega menu, and the slider again weirdly only two slides. And it appears to be for the same damn shirt.
Paul Reda: Oh, geez. Yeah, you’re right.
Kurt Elster: Also, then the next thing on it is just featured products, and man, these designs, they’re like-
Paul Reda: And then just random crap. And then you scroll down more and it’s like, “Newest products.”
Kurt Elster: The designingest designer designed these.
Paul Reda: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It very much reeks of like, “I work for a branding agency and I live in Brooklyn.”
Kurt Elster: Yeah. This is my Dribbble portfolio, and I live in Brooklyn. Eight years ago.
Paul Reda: All right. No quick view. Good job, Pete. Let’s click on the Rules of the Road tee, black, $27 for a shirt, come on.
Kurt Elster: I think I’d just round up to 29, 30. You’re leaving money on the table with 27 as your price.
Paul Reda: Do it 30 and give me free shipping.
Kurt Elster: That’s a good point. What did yours default to for the size?
Paul Reda: Extra large.
Kurt Elster: So did mine, but it goes… The range is extra small to 3XL. Yeah, mine defaulted to extra large.
Paul Reda: That must be the first item in the stack on the item page, on the back end.
Kurt Elster: No, because they wouldn’t be in this order then. The dropdown would follow the order in the admin. I don’t know why it’s doing this.
Paul Reda: Maybe they have some sort of shenanigans, where they made the highest selling one, they somehow managed to add checked on that.
Kurt Elster: It could be their highest seller, so they jump to that. because when you sell apparel online, you often deal with returns just because… Not because it doesn’t fit because it doesn’t fit, but because the person just defaulted to the wrong size, and without thinking, ordered.
Paul Reda: Yeah, that’s a problem we have. For most stores, the first default variant is the one that’s selected. For a shirt, the default variance, the first one is gonna be small or extra small. People see a shirt, they like it, they click add to cart, they never change the size on it, so they end up inadvertently buying a small shirt.
Kurt Elster: So, the solution-
Paul Reda: So, the solution that we usually implement is changing it so no default is selected. The add to cart is then grayed out and disabled, and then once someone actually takes the positive step to select a size, then the add to cart button works again.
Kurt Elster: Yes, and the Trump site didn’t do it. It just defaulted to small, so you know they’re seeing exchanges for smalls, when really the solution is have it default to select a size, and I can’t add to cart unless I do.
Well, let’s go to a… Click new products. Let’s go to a collection.
Paul Reda: Oh, you know what? I clicked on the veterans and military tee, and that defaulted to extra small.
Kurt Elster: Okay, weird. So, maybe you were right.
Paul Reda: There’s something going on.
Kurt Elster: There’s no place to sign up for the newsletter on this site. You’d think that would be in the footer, on the homepage.
Paul Reda: Oh, good point.
Kurt Elster: Neither of these sites have had a pop-up so far. No pop-ups. And this site’s like actively trying to prevent me from getting more info. All right. The collection, real stripped down. I can’t sort.
Paul Reda: Which I’m fine with.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. When you don’t have a ton of products, who cares?
Paul Reda: We’re not searching for like computer parts. It’s not like complex things, where you have tons of different options that you need to drill down on. It’s a shirt, or it’s a sticker.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. I don’t need to compare 10 different truck tires here. I like the shirt, or I don’t. Okay, so yeah, the collection page is fine, by the book. We move, no quick view.
Paul Reda: That’s truly what this store is. It’s like out of the box, by the book.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. It’s like it’s hip. Done. That was the branding guideline. It’s hip. Go. I like the, “I work in an agency and I live in Brooklyn.” That is 100% the aesthetic here. All right, so back to a product page, and I’m looking at veterans and military community tee. A few missteps. The size is a dropdown with no label, like-
Paul Reda: Well, it says size on the left of it.
Kurt Elster: I want the size as a label on the input, but ideally, I want-
Paul Reda: I want it bigger. I want it offset.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, and I want my sizes to be buttons, so I can see it at a glance, that this goes from extra small to 3XL. They got the share buttons below the add to cart. Don’t like that. No size guide for many of these people, and then weirdly, the product… There’s only one photo of the shirt. I need multiple photos. I need lifestyle photo. And then the product description, none of them are great on product descriptions, but this one, it’s stuck under the photos, which is atypical. But come on, man. Just get me… Go to the tee, whoever makes the T-shirt blank, ask them for the size guide, put that in the product description. You will save yourself so much hassle on exchanges.
Paul Reda: Well, don’t even put it on the product description. Put it under the sizes, where people are selecting their size.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, I want that link to size guide. I want it’s one of the photos. It’s in the product description. This is literally the one key piece of info that everybody needs to decide which size to get.
Paul Reda: Yep.
Kurt Elster: And I would imagine T-shirts are like the big thing people buy from these campaigns. There’s one that’s like a ton of typography, Rules of the Road tee, which like… That’s very hipster, so I’ll do that in a large. Oh, it’s sold out, but offers, “Email me when this is back in stock.” This is the first time I’ve been able to sign up. Email me when this is back in stock, and this does not… This looks like an app. It does not look like-
Paul Reda: Oh. You know why it defaulted to extra large, because every size smaller than extra large is sold out.
Kurt Elster: Okay. We figured it out.
Paul Reda: So, it was the first available variant.
Kurt Elster: Gotcha. Okay. Mystery solved. On add to cart, sends me to a cart page. So far, this is what both sites have done. Clean, simple cart, and this one has a whole, like, “I agree to a statement.”
Paul Reda: Yeah, we got a whole mess of stuff, and I mean these are the rules of-
Kurt Elster: Oh, this is his rules. I gotcha.
Paul Reda: These are the general-
Kurt Elster: No, look at number seven.
Paul Reda: I was just gonna say. The first six are general rules. The seventh one, I am not an executive of fossil fuel lobby, that’s his rule. And you know, that’s a problem. That’s kind of a BS thing that they say… They might say, “We don’t take contributions from oil companies.” Well, they take contributions from… they can get contributions from people who work at oil companies. If I work at Exxon, I can give money to a politician, and then that’s… I don’t consider that taking money from the oil company. It’s just like a schmo who works there, who’s like a janitor, gave you money.
But then the media oftentimes is like, “But you did take money from the oil company. It’s right here.”
Kurt Elster: because all of this gets logged and is public.
Paul Reda: All of this gets logged and is public.
Kurt Elster: Okay.
Paul Reda: So, they search for everyone who works at Exxon that gave them money. It’s like, “See, this is how much money you took from this oil company.” It’s like, “Eh, not really. It’s from people that worked there that gave me some money.”
Kurt Elster: All right, I’m filling out, I’ve checked the I agree statement. It asks for my employer and occupation, and it has a whole explanation. It’s in really tiny text.
Paul Reda: Also, I want to note here, the, “I have read the above statements and confirmed they are true and accurate,” if you do that correctly, that’s a label for that checkbox, so by checking on the label, it should check the box. But they didn’t do it that way. You have to actually check on the tiny little box input.
Kurt Elster: I did not know that, and I love, I obsess over form design, and I didn’t know that. I’m ashamed.
Paul Reda: Yeah. That’s what the label is for.
Kurt Elster: All right, so under my employer, I’ve written The Unofficial Shopify Podcast, and my occupation, I have written podcast host.
Paul Reda: Oh. I just put butts.
Kurt Elster: You put butts? Okay.
Paul Reda: Yes. Also, I don’t like that the way he has it set up. I like the Trump way better, where Trump had it kind of offset from the purchase flow, whereas here, he’s just got it jammed. It’s like you can’t get to the checkout button-
Kurt Elster: For cart page layout, so far, hands down, the winner is the Trump one.
Paul Reda: Oh, yeah. Well, there’s only been two.
Kurt Elster: Out of two. We’ll get there. And again, they didn’t style the damn checkout.
Paul Reda: Unstyled checkout.
Kurt Elster: What is wrong with these people? This is so easy. It’s such a misstep. This one, they do phone number’s optional, company is optional, and they have a checkbox, “Subscribe to get updates for Pete’s campaign and special offers on Pete merchandise.” Okay, great. Fine. They finally collect my email from me as part of the standard, just, “You placed an order.”
Any other thoughts on this one before I jump to-
Paul Reda: Let’s do Yang next.
Kurt Elster: You want to do Yang?
Paul Reda: Yeah. I feel-
Kurt Elster: Shop Yang 2020.
Paul Reda: I have these set up, I feel like they’re going from worst to best, in terms of overall doneness, so shop.yang2020. Look at this navigation. Well, first off, you got this header, it’s got this giant white space chunk underneath it.
Kurt Elster: That feels like a mistake, like there’s something in there.
Paul Reda: Look, now apparel’s got a little… So, we have our main navigation. Apparels, accessories, buttons, stickers, signs. Donate. You can just give him straight money. You click on apparel, apparel hovering does nothing.
Kurt Elster: Yang is using debut theme, the theme that Shopify starts with.
Paul Reda: Really?
Kurt Elster: Yeah.
Paul Reda: You figured that, you know that?
Kurt Elster: Well, if you hit view source, they didn’t rename the theme, so it’s debut.
Paul Reda: Oh, man. Free debut theme that comes default with your store? Come on. He’s supposed to be the tech guy.
Kurt Elster: Good point. The dropdown menu, I gotta click on it to open it. Again, we don’t have a mega menu. Oh my gosh! An exit intent pop-up. Donate to Andrew Yang, $10. These are the first to do a pop-up. It’s not the most compelling thing, but at least somebody did it.
Paul Reda: At least he did it.
Kurt Elster: At the top, they have a timely message, “Debate week! Every order gets a free Yang Beats Trump bumper sticker combo.”
Paul Reda: And you’ll see later they have-
Kurt Elster: They don’t link to it, though!
Paul Reda: Well-
Kurt Elster: I want it!
Paul Reda: No, it’s you get a bumper sticker that is auto added to cart with your purchase.
Kurt Elster: Oh.
Paul Reda: So clearly, they are on Shopify Plus and they have scripts running.
Kurt Elster: Okay.
Paul Reda: So, that’s a good job.
Kurt Elster: That’s a $10 value, that bumper sticker combo. The math hat. Wait, they sell a hat that just says math on it. I don’t get it. What am I missing here?
Paul Reda: I think it’s because he’s smart and uses math. I don’t know.
Kurt Elster: Oh, he’s got an edgy shirt. Math, Money, Marijuana. That’s literally all this shirt says.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: 30 bucks. You could tweet it. There’s a vintage Yang shirt, like an indie rock star. All right, so far, his merch is the most fun.
Paul Reda: Yeah. I’ll say that. I didn’t like… But the first products on the homepage is this Yang Gang Essentials, which is like bumper stickers and yard signs. It’s like, “Come on, guy. Sell us some fun stuff.”
Kurt Elster: And they don’t use a slider, they just have a hero image, and it just says, “Winter merch.” It’s like the most perfunctory, least compelling thing ever. Literally on a gray background.
Paul Reda: Also, if you notice on the top right, they have their cart is like this little floaty guy that’s positioned, position static.
Kurt Elster: Oh yeah. There’s an app that does that.
Paul Reda: Check this-
Kurt Elster: They’re running a Shopify app.
Paul Reda: I checked this site on the phone, and that thing is just floating there, like in your way on the phone, the whole way down.
Kurt Elster: I forgot what app that is. It might be like Ultimate Sales Booster or something.
Paul Reda: It’s not the best choice.
Kurt Elster: All right, let’s hit a category page. I’m gonna shop the winter merch. Merch. Is it cool to say merch? My wife and I went to a Weird Al concert, and she’s standing in line to get her merch, and a couple comes up to her and says, “Hey, what’s this line for?” She said, “It’s the merch line.” And the woman, the guy goes, “Okay,” and then the woman turns to her boyfriend, or her companion, whatever, and goes, “Merch.” With some stank on it. So, it’s not cool to say… You can’t say merch? Is that not an acceptable word? Andrew Yang says it is.
Paul Reda: Here’s what I’m gonna say.
Kurt Elster: I’ve gone way off track.
Paul Reda: The table at a concert, where you buy the stuff for the band you’re seeing at the concert, is canonically the merch table.
Kurt Elster: Okay, thank you!
Paul Reda: Like in the dictionary, the name of that is the merch table.
Kurt Elster: Yeah! Yes.
Paul Reda: So, that is entirely separate about whether or not merch is a cool word, because that table’s the merch table.
Kurt Elster: All right, so these guys could all say merch.
Paul Reda: I don’t care about that. All I know is Julie was right, because she was at a show, and that was the merch table.
Kurt Elster: All right. Thank you. We have now established that officially via podcast ruling.
Paul Reda: Ooh, socks. You love socks.
Kurt Elster: I do love socks. They go on my feet. So, landing on the winter merch collection, they’ve got a sort-by filter, but there’s only four products, so no need. I would ditch that. I can add to cart right from the collection. This is not a quick view.
Paul Reda: Oh, it’s just an add to cart button, yeah.
Kurt Elster: So, I bet that’s an app doing that. You know, this is something I’d want to see Mr. Yang heatmap. All right, and see if people… Yes, and see if people use this add to cart button on the collection page.
Paul Reda: Talk to them about heatmapping.
Kurt Elster: All right, he’s got… I genuinely like this. He has a U.S. flag scarf. I own a U.S. flag scarf. This one’s nice. It’s 50 bucks. Let’s click that guy. And this is the first one where… Oh, my… They’ve got, the product description’s not amazing, but it says… I like this line they have. It says, “The scarf seen across America, now on sale.” And then in the photos, they have Andrew Yang wearing the scarf at his, what is clearly a campaign event. That’s great!
Paul Reda: See? Yeah. That’s quite an endorsement.
Kurt Elster: And then he’s got… It says made in the USA, is the first bullet point, and then to help me make the decision, they tell me what it’s made, the other sites weren’t doing this, and they give me the dimensions. So, this one gets best product listing.
Paul Reda: Well, and if you go to like the Yang Logo T-shirt, you will see underneath the add to cart button, size chart.
Kurt Elster: I’m on the Yang Logo T-shirt. It says select size is the label, but again, it defaults to small, so they’re gonna be doing exchanges. Good for them for… They’re also the first one to go to 4XL.
Paul Reda: Well, he’s big with computer dorks, so they gotta go up to 4XL.
Kurt Elster: Oh my God. Again, send your comments to Paul-
Paul Reda: Well, listen. You want to see… People can see me. I’m only up the three.
Kurt Elster: Congratulations. I’m still on one L, but not… It’s getting close. Yeah, he’s got a link here that pops open the size chart. Fabulous. And there’s even a note in here, “The T-shirt is in the process of shifting from a two-sided print to a one-sided print photograph. Your shirt may arrive with an additional logo or print on the back side free of charge.” All right, I would word that a little better, and I would show… All the shirts just have like one photo of a shirt. Show me the label, show me the back, show me the front. Show it on somebody.
Paul Reda: I mean, if there’s nothing on the back. I feel like with a shirt, you can get away with just one. I mean, having the-
Kurt Elster: The size guide helps.
Paul Reda: The size, I think having the lifestyle photo of like someone wearing the shirt is definitely great. Yeah, I think you want at least two images.
Kurt Elster: I just clicked add to cart. You know what these guys are running? Bold Product Upsell.
Paul Reda: Yep. That was… I wasn’t gonna do Yang originally, but then they got Bold Product Upsell running.
Kurt Elster: Bold Product Upsell. Fabulous. And it’s like, “Hey, add this T-shirt, add these stickers.” That’s great! All right, fine. I’ll add the bumper sticker combo. All right, the cart is better than Pete’s. Not as good as Trump’s.
Paul Reda: But now, do you have the Yang Beats Trump bumper sticker combo, is that zero dollars?
Kurt Elster: Yes.
Paul Reda: Yeah. See? So, that was auto added to your… I have that, too. I didn’t click on that upsell. They just auto added that to my cart.
Kurt Elster: You’re right. It was auto added.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: That’s nice. And then at the top, it says, “Would you like to make an additional donation?” And I pick it and I can add it to cart, so I’ll pick 10 bucks, add to cart. Oh, see, this is smart. There’s a note in here, “Due to overwhelming demand, some orders may experience longer than normal wait times. Thank you. #yanggang.”
So, like Trump’s are just like, “Yeah, you might get your order in three months.” Whereas here, “Due to overwhelming demand.” That’s brilliant. And then they try and make it a little fun. Yang Gang. #yanggang. Campaign finance law thing, I think this is the best of what we’ve seen so far.
Paul Reda: I mean, yeah. It’s a good one.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, I agree. It’s just formatted nicely.
Paul Reda: Also, see, click on the words, “I agree to the statements below.”
Kurt Elster: Yep. You’re right. There we go. Occupation.
Paul Reda: Butts.
Kurt Elster: All right, fine. I put butts in the occupation. Are you happy? I’ve clicked checkout. Please be styled. Please. Yes! They styled the checkout! Finally! Somebody spent 30 seconds to do this right. And put the links to their policies in the footer of the checkout. Oh. And it also… They’ve got the option to opt-in to emails, and it’s pre-checked. Okay. Oh, oh. I can sleep now.
Paul Reda: We’re getting to the good ones now.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. All right. Thank God. Can I move on? What’s next?
Paul Reda: Yeah. All right. Next, Bernie’s next. store.berniesanders.com, for those of you following along at home.
Kurt Elster: This also looks like a free Shopify theme. Let me tell you what it is. Yeah, it’s the Shopify theme is called Simple.
Paul Reda: What did Bernie do? That’s my dream.
Kurt Elster: The homepage, when you land on this site, is just the darn products.
Paul Reda: That’s right.
Kurt Elster: That’s it. This is the first… They styled the logo. It says Bernie Campaign Store. Great. Down the left side are my links. With the exception of an FAQ link, it is exclusively shopping, and then the home page is just a big scrolling list of products. Oh, wow.
Paul Reda: I love it.
Kurt Elster: It’s almost like this makes shopping really easy.
Paul Reda: Now, to be fair, all of these stores, there’s… We always talk about you need to have your story, you need to have the narrative, you need to be the focus of the sales. All of these stores have tons of other places where the stories and the narratives are happening.
Kurt Elster: Right. All of these are on a subdomain of a larger site.
Paul Reda: Of a larger site.
Kurt Elster: Which really lets you strip the thing down.
Paul Reda: No one’s going straight to store.bernie.com. They’re going to Bernie’s site first.
Kurt Elster: Well, other than me.
Paul Reda: Oh, yeah. And then they’re clicking through. But maybe it’ll work for you.
Kurt Elster: I wish this, it had a headline. It feels very sparse, but also that seems to be, like the campaign branding is very sparse, so let me just click this Bernie shirt.
Paul Reda: Now, this is a terrible thing that they’ve done here.
Kurt Elster: Oh, my… Yeah, this size dropdown.
Paul Reda: Look at this. This size dropdown is unstyled, but it looks like-
Kurt Elster: It defaults to small, and my only option is small.
Paul Reda: It looks like variant buttons. It looks like it’s buttons, and there’s only one button that says small, but once you click on it, you can see it’s actually a dropdown. But you wouldn’t know that unless you clicked on it.
Kurt Elster: And there’s like no description. Union made in the USA. Purchase is a donation. Pre-shrunk, 100% cotton. Where’s the size guide, Paul?
Paul Reda: I don’t know.
Kurt Elster: Where is it? All right, for sure this one has the worst product page. But I like the purity of the homepage.
Paul Reda: The purity of the collection page is so good, but yeah.
Kurt Elster: Oh no!
Paul Reda: That dropdown is awful.
Kurt Elster: What happens when you add to cart? Nothing!
Paul Reda: The button morphs to view cart or continue shopping.
Kurt Elster: Just take me… The other two all took me to the cart page. This is the first one that felt that was not necessary. All right.
Paul Reda: Real bad.
Kurt Elster: I’m on the cart page. This one looks nice.
Paul Reda: This one looks nice. We got our requirements. We got our contribution rules.
Kurt Elster: And I don’t have to actually check to agree.
Paul Reda: Yeah. You’re just… By clicking checkout, you agree to the contribution rules.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, they have, in advance they have said, “Your purchase is a contribution,” and then below the checkout, it says, “Contribution rules.” So, the whole thing’s implied, that it’s an agreement. All right, I’m gonna put my occupation is… Here, they have… All the others led with employer, then occupation. Here they have reversed it?
Paul Reda: I don’t know.
Kurt Elster: That’s fine. I wish checkout was proceed to checkout.
Paul Reda: Also shipping and taxes collected at checkout. We don’t need that.
Kurt Elster: Yeah.
Paul Reda: People know. They know they’re gonna have to pay for taxes. They know they’re gonna have to pay for shipping.
Kurt Elster: And now that I’m in the checkout, standard, it’s styled, but does not have me opt-in to the newsletter, which is baffling. Like are they just gonna email me anyway? They are, aren’t they?
Paul Reda: Oh, you know it.
Kurt Elster: Oh. Just have me opt-in here, and then at the end, this is the first one that has Shopify Pay Accelerated Checkout turned on. Save this information for next time is at the bottom.
Paul Reda: Also note, none of these stores have dynamic checkout buttons. Now, I assume that’s because if you-
Kurt Elster: You couldn’t do it.
Paul Reda: You couldn’t collect the employer information.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. That’s why.
Paul Reda: With the dynamic checkout buttons.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, that’s just out.
Paul Reda: That’s just a major killer for them. They can’t do those. So, Bernie makes some good choices and some terrible choices. Much like all politicians.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. So far, I think Yang and Trump are the two strongest.
Paul Reda: All right. Well, get ready to have your mind blown.
Kurt Elster: I’m going with Trump for the product mix. It’s so like Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. They’re positioning as a gift.
Paul Reda: That is a good product. Yeah, Bernie’s is just standard Bernie stuff. There’s no special Bernie Christmas collection.
Kurt Elster: And then I think for overall experience, I’m going with Yang.
Paul Reda: All right. Last one. shop.elizabethwarren.com.
Kurt Elster: Oh, all right. Like all of them, it loaded quickly. All right, it doesn’t use a white background. This hero image is the best of all. They’ve made a bold, “T-shirts that make history. We’ve got the gear you need to knock doors, make calls, and hold the big Wall Street banks accountable.” This is the first site that has done any kind of copywriting.
Paul Reda: Yeah. Yeah. They’re the first ones that actually made… I don’t know how to put it. It’s like part of her political brand is also part of the stuff that they sell. I mean, everyone else is like they got a slogan, and then it’s just the slogan.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. And Yang had socks and a scarf. He was having fun with it.
Paul Reda: Yeah. Again, the weird click down dropdowns, I hate these.
Kurt Elster: I know.
Paul Reda: Why do they all have these?
Kurt Elster: I’m sure they have to worry about accessibility. Maybe that’s like-
Paul Reda: Oh, good point.
Kurt Elster: Part of WCAG, the accessibility guidelines. It could be.
Paul Reda: Oh, maybe.
Kurt Elster: I know their accessibility guidelines are a little funny about dropdowns and fly outs, so that could be it.
Paul Reda: That could be it.
Kurt Elster: They have probably done the best job by far of taxonomy with the menu. T-shirt, they’ve led with the product types that sell the best. T-shirts, sweatshirts. Then they’ve got essentials. All right, I wouldn’t go with essentials. Like, best seller, what’s hot, what’s new, or something to make me click on it.
Paul Reda: Well, new arrivals are the first thing on the home page below the hero.
Kurt Elster: Okay, and then we’ve got an accessories dropdown, collections, apparel, and that’s where they have taken… T-shirts and sweatshirts, they broke out from there. And then a donate link. All right.
Paul Reda: So, I know we’ve been focusing on T-shirts, but let’s, just to go to your point about copywriting, click on that Billionaire Tears mug. The first thing in new arrivals. They came out with this Billionaire Tears mug last week, and that was their biggest seller. I think they’ve sold in the seven figures of just this mug.
Kurt Elster: Is this info public, that we’re able to find this? Or did they share that-
Paul Reda: I think they… You know, they PR released it.
Kurt Elster: Okay.
Paul Reda: If you read the product description here-
Kurt Elster: Oh, there’s a whole story that goes with it. Oh my gosh!
Paul Reda: Because this was a thing that happened last week. Former Goldman Sachs executive Leon Cooperman, who as recently as 2017 settled with an SEC on an insider trading charge, was brought to tears on live television while discussing this prospect that president Elizabeth Warren might require him to pay his fair share in taxes. So, that happened, the Warren team turned around and the next day released a coffee mug to collect his billionaire tears.
Kurt Elster: And in the product description the explain that, and then say, “Savor a warm, slightly salty beverage of your choice in this union-made mug, as you contemplate all the good a wealth tax could do. Universal childcare, student debt cancellation, universal free college and more. Made in the USA. Union printed. 11 ounces.”
Paul Reda: So, I mean-
Kurt Elster: Microwave safe. Wow.
Paul Reda: That’s selling with copywriting.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, that is… Yeah. I mean, if this is your audience, they will see that and love it. And it shares that story with everybody who browses the site. It’s very good. Every single one of these has those social share buttons on the product pages.
Paul Reda: Oh, yeah. Every single one of these.
Kurt Elster: I mean, maybe that works because these are campaigns.
Paul Reda: I think it does help. Normally, we talk about it, no one wants to tweet that they bought your stupid T-shirt.
Kurt Elster: It’s different.
Paul Reda: With these it might be different, because it’s very much like a lifestyle. You’re putting, you’re making a statement or a lifestyle claim when you purchase or use these products, so you might see increased traction on those.
Kurt Elster: Now, this one we don’t have a lifestyle image. Again, we just have the single product on white. This mug, in particular, has a weird issue going on in this theme with the-
Paul Reda: With the dropdown. Yeah.
Kurt Elster: The dropdown.
Paul Reda: There’s only one color.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, there’s only one color, but it still has a dropdown that says color, navy.
Paul Reda: So, anyway, so that’s just the mug. I just wanted to do that mug to show-
Kurt Elster: The description is really good.
Paul Reda: … the description, how good the description was. If you go up to T-shirts, and then just click on the first one, Warren Has a Plan For That unisex shirt.
Kurt Elster: You know, we could see what the best-selling item is by throwing a query string on here.
Paul Reda: Oh, that’s right. Tell them about your little secret.
Kurt Elster: All right. Shopify best selling-
Paul Reda: So, here, to figure out the best-selling item on any Shopify store, go to the domain, and then go /collection/all, and then-
Kurt Elster: You add ?sort_by=best-selling. And if you Google Shopify best-selling query string, you get one of my favorite threads of all time, a post from 2016 in which someone’s like, “I don’t want my competitors to be able to view my best-selling products. How do I disable this?” You dope. You can see how I feel about that kind of mentality.
You know what? I just… I did it. Either it’s disabled, or it already is sorted by best selling on T-shirts.
Paul Reda: Oh. All right.
Kurt Elster: So, I’ve got it on all, and the magnetic bumper sticker two pack is their best seller, and Warren Has a Plan For That unisex T-shirt, so the men’s T-shirt, is the second best seller. Your mug is number four.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: So, rapidly getting up there.
Paul Reda: Rapidly climbing the charts.
Kurt Elster: All right, so I’m gonna go with the T-shirt.
Paul Reda: Yep.
Kurt Elster: And, oh, they’ve got a link to a size chart. They’ve got a guy wearing the shirt. Looks like a real nerdlinger.
Paul Reda: Yeah. He’s a real wiener.
Kurt Elster: Oh, smart. So yeah, and they’ve done the same thing. The collection describes what’s going on, echoes campaign points, they’ve got the size chart. So, I’ll click add to cart. This is the first one to use a mini cart. I would prefer they just take me to the cart page.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: Cart page looks pretty good here. This whole site, though, is white text on a navy background. Not the best for readability, but-
Paul Reda: It’s good branding.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. It’s the first one to do that. Oh, look at this. So, clearly, they’ve run into this issue. There’s a note in the cart. “We cannot process refunds, exchanges due to customer error. Check your cart’s contents and enter your initials below to proceed to checkout.”
Paul Reda: And I think-
Kurt Elster: There’s a conversion killer.
Paul Reda: I think they could solve that if they just didn’t have a default size selected.
Kurt Elster: Oh, yeah. Craziness. All right. Put my initials in there, my employer is a podcast, and my occupation is host.
Paul Reda: She’s got the agreements underneath this checkout button. Note this little thing down here, the first line under the checkout. “Elizabeth loves to call grassroots donors to say thank you. By proceeding with checkout, you consent to a political call from Elizabeth with campaign staff recording the conversation, but no recordings will be used by the campaign without your expressed permission.” So, Elizabeth Warren, she might call you.
Kurt Elster: By proceeding with checkout, you confirm that the following statements are true and accurate. Yeah, that’s the standard stuff. I’m not an executive of a hedge fund. Oh, this is a much longer one.
Paul Reda: Oh, yeah. Oh, I’m not an executive of a big bank.
Kurt Elster: Not one of these has labeled the checkout proceed to checkout, but all right.
Paul Reda: I know that’s a big hobby horse for you.
Kurt Elster: It is, because it makes the button bigger, and it’s accurate. I get to the checkout, oh my gosh, this is the most styled out of all of them.
Paul Reda: We got the logo. We got the colors.
Kurt Elster: I got the email opt-in.
Paul Reda: Email opt-in checked and also, Kurt, what’s under the phone?
Kurt Elster: Whoa! Under phone, “By providing your cell phone number, you consent to receive periodic campaign updates from Warren For President. Text for help, stop to end.” This is the only one that is explicitly doing SMS marketing and opting me in in the correct, legal, proper way.
Paul Reda: Yep.
Kurt Elster: Excellent.
Paul Reda: Excellent.
Kurt Elster: All right. Okay. Is that all of them?
Paul Reda: That’s all of them that I put down, unless you wanna go to like Kamala Harris’s page for funsies.
Kurt Elster: No, we’ve been at this for almost an hour. There’s no way they want another one.
Paul Reda: So, my closing thoughts, one, the Trump cart page is great, he’s all about branding, they have a Christmas collection, it’s all about Christmas shopping. I think that’s good, but I think in terms of overall experience, the Warren site is the best one, thanks to her… She’s got the size guide, she’s got lifestyle images, she’s got text, she’s got content branding, she’s got… She’s getting your permission. She’s texting you. She’s emailing you. I mean, that is the way to do a store.
Kurt Elster: Overall experience, front and back end, I’m gonna give it to Warren, with Andrew Yang as a close second. I did like what they were doing. But the copywriting on Warren is just phenomenal, and they’re doing SMS marketing. But Andrew Yang, he was doing upsales on me.
Paul Reda: He’s got upsales. That’s what Warren, Warren needs to do some upsells. She needs some exit intent pop-ups. I mean, that’s the-
Kurt Elster: Yeah.
Paul Reda: She’s leaving money on the table.
Kurt Elster: Do you have any exciting Thanksgiving plans?
Paul Reda: No. Nothing. No. I gotta go to my wife’s aunt’s house, and then I’m going to my parents’ house, and that’s it.
Kurt Elster: While you’re there, I hope you keep up with tradition.
Paul Reda: Ah, yes.
Kurt Elster: And send me a photo of you, looking dejected, wearing a turkey hat.
Paul Reda: Yes. My parents have a comical turkey hat, and annually, every year at Thanksgiving, I look incredibly sad, and take a photo of myself wearing the turkey hat that I text to Kurt at a random point on Thanksgiving Day.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. It’s like when you put clothes on a dog, and they just… They’re like, “All right, well my life’s over now.” You’ve mastered that look with this turkey hat.
Paul Reda: That’s pretty much how I’m feeling at the time I send you that photo.
Kurt Elster: And it thrills me every time. Exciting stuff. I’m going to Disney World.
Paul Reda: Oh, really?
Kurt Elster: Yeah!
Paul Reda: Yeah, you need to make your bimonthly trip to Disney World.
Kurt Elster: I have not been to Disney World this year.
Paul Reda: That’s extremely specific. When was the last time you were on Disney property?
Kurt Elster: October.
Paul Reda: What month is it now?
Kurt Elster: November.
Paul Reda: After you go to Disneyland next week, when will be the next time you go to Disney-
Kurt Elster: You mean Disney World?
Paul Reda: I’m sorry. After you go to Disney-
Kurt Elster: Do I look like ae punk? I’m not going to baby Disney World. I’m going to the real thing, in Orlando.
Paul Reda: After you go to Disney World next week, when is the next time you’re going to Disney World?
Kurt Elster: In January with master marketer Andy Bedell from KeySmart.
Paul Reda: So, bimonthly trips to Disney World.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, but then I’m not going again until-
Paul Reda: Until like July.
Kurt Elster: We’re doing the Disney cruise in July. Yeah. Though we might switch it up and show up a day… It leaves from Florida, from the Orlando area. We may go a day early and just blasphemy, go to Universal.
Paul Reda: No. No. Oh, don’t tell anyone about that.
Kurt Elster: They got Harry Potter is up in there, they got Jurassic Park with them raptors. That might be cool.
Paul Reda: I’m disappointed.
Kurt Elster: But everything’s all 4D rides, and I get motion sick and blow chunks.
Paul Reda: I’m calling Bob Iger.
Kurt Elster: What? Don’t tell him! He’s got that new Master Class I gotta watch.
Paul Reda: I can’t believe they do that shit. There was like the Neil Gaiman one, kept getting put in my feed. It’s like, “How much are they paying these people/” Like Bob Iger-
Kurt Elster: None of those people need money. It’s gotta be ego. They’re like, “You’re the best at this, and we promise we won’t do any other course on this topic until you’re dead.”
Paul Reda: Yeah, it’s pretty much it’s just like, “Oh, will you ultra-genius please teach the plebs how to do this thing while we twiddle your balls?” That’s what it’s gotta be.
Kurt Elster: Oh God. I would have preferred chestnuts. It’s Christmas. We’ll roast your chestnuts. All right, let’s wrap it up there. We went long. I hope Black Friday goes well for everybody, and I want to see the best Black Friday emails that you receive, so screen shot those, share those in our Facebook group. I already have a post scheduled to go live to collect those on Thanksgiving, so as they come in, comment post them. I will collect them all, format them nicely, and those will get packaged up in next year’s holiday email guide, so if you bought that this year, you will get the free update next year with those demo emails, as well.
So, we all gain when we work together. That’s my plan here. We’re gonna collaborate on this together. Happy Thanksgiving.
Paul Reda: Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Happy Black Friday, the true holiday.