What role should Shopify merchants play in Black Lives Matter?
In this episode, we have an uncomfortable and necessary conversation about racism.
If you disagree with anti-racism or feel that this conversation doesn't belong in our show, then unsubscribe.
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, David McAtee, and countless others should be alive.
Paul Reda: You got one?
Kurt Elster: Did you know-
Paul Reda: We’re twinsies.
Kurt Elster: We are twinsies. Did you know that I didn’t realize that I was Mexican until my twenties?
Paul Reda: This is like a minefield I’m about to say right now, but you may be like technically Mexican, but you pass.
Kurt Elster: I pass as white. Yes. I do. In my name and my appearance. But my mom grew up in Mexico City. Her family goes back generations in Mexico. My great uncle is a Mexican historical figure, Severo Amador, and she has never once said the phrase, “I’m Mexican,” because she’s terrified of discrimination, and she wanted me to avoid the same fate.
Paul Reda: Okay, but your mother also is not… It’s that your family, you stopped, and that it was sort of like yes, they were in Mexico for generations, and before that, they were in Spain, where they then conquered Mexico, and they’re very white.
Kurt Elster: Well, yeah, but pulling my family tree, there’s clearly… I’ve got the full family tree because I’ve got this historical figure, and there are genuine Native American Mexicans in there.
Paul Reda: All right. Well, it’s just sort of like it’s interesting in that we’re opening this specific episode with a discussion of like what constitutes whiteness.
Kurt Elster: Yes.
Paul Reda: Because, you know, 100 years ago, I would not be white.
Kurt Elster: Oh, really?
Paul Reda: Oh yeah. Italians weren’t white. No, they were like-
Kurt Elster: I knew Italians were discriminated against for a long time.
Paul Reda: No, they were not white. Whiteness is an entirely invented category that only defines itself by who is not white. Like I guarantee-
Kurt Elster: Interesting.
Paul Reda: In like 50 years, and this is already starting. In like 50 years, people that we now would say are like Hispanic will be considered white. But yeah, the Irish weren’t white. The Italians weren’t white.
Kurt Elster: What?
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: The Irish burst into flame if they enter direct sunlight.
Paul Reda: Okay, it has nothing to do with your skin color. It’s entirely a construct of society.
Kurt Elster: Really? Today on The Unofficial Shopify Podcast, it’s a little different, a little sensitive, we’re doing our best, but we are witnessing what has to be the largest civil rights movement in world history. Protests occurring simultaneously in all 50 US states and over a dozen countries along with it. So, with something that absolutely unprecedented, and something we’re all experiencing and talking about, we can’t not talk about it on this show, right? Because a lot of people are looking at social media, and how people respond to it, and how brands respond to it, so on today’s show we are going to discuss how merchants are responding to the Black Lives Matter movement first.
And I don’t necessarily know how to talk about it. I don’t think anybody does, but we’re gonna honestly fumble our way through it and hope that that discussion helps people. And then after that, we got a few Q&A questions to go over from the group, a quick win that someone posted in the group that I liked a lot, and finally, a website teardown of DTC darling, Bombas. They make socks, among other things.
Mr. Reda, how was that for an intro?
Paul Reda: That was good. Sounds good.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, I feel like… Well, I think we’re in a situation where no matter what you do or don’t say, you’re gonna piss somebody off at this moment, so we may as well discuss it, and if that pisses some people off, that’s fine.
Paul Reda: Yeah. We hope we don’t piss you… Well, it depends. Depends on how we piss you off. Certain people we piss off, we’ll be like, “We don’t care.”
Kurt Elster: Right. Yes. Yeah, if you come at me with that, “All lives matter,” bullshit, at that point, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. But-
Paul Reda: I’m proud of our Facebook group in that we only had to ban like one person this week, so, you know, great job guys.
Kurt Elster: It’s true. So, on Monday I posted in our Facebook group, which has I believe about 3,300 members now, and I pinned the post, and I said, “Serious discussion. How are you handling social media right now?” And that resulted in something like 50 comments, great discussion. I opened it myself by declaring my first stance in there. And then had a great discussion, and I was terrified. I was watching that thing like a hawk for it to just explode into a complete horror show, but it didn’t. Not only did it stay civil, there was a lot of engagement, and a lot of people opening up and being honest in that they’re like, “Well, I don’t know what to do or what is or isn’t appropriate.” And so, we’ll read some of those comments, and we only had one person who showed up with stuff, with just straight up white supremacist talking points, and they were promptly removed and banned. See ya. Bye, Felicia.
But, I mean come on, only one person? I was pleased to see that things did not completely devolve.
Paul Reda: Yeah, and I was sort of like, you know, they made a shitty comment and I was like, “All right, I don’t want to ban anyone the first time they say something that’s kind of shitty. We’re not gonna rule with that iron of a fist.” And then you were like, “Fuck no. They’re banned.” And I was like, “I think that’s a little bit overreacting right away.” And then-
Kurt Elster: Well, you saw it as-
Paul Reda: And then I looked at their Facebook wall and was like, “Oh no. This is bad.”
Kurt Elster: You saw it as a teaching moment. You’re like, “Well, we could respond to this.” And I had considered that as well, but I’m like, “No, I have zero tolerance. This has gotta go.” Because I viewed it as like this is very clearly a racist talking point. Their comments.
Paul Reda: Yeah. Well, anyway, they’re gone now.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. See ya.
Paul Reda: So, I guess the question is, it’s like can you still do a business while all this shit is going on? And-
Kurt Elster: The answer, all right, the answer there is yes.
Paul Reda: The answer is yes.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. The answer is yes, like continue to do business. The way I approached it was I thought about it, and I think the bare minimum is at least for last week, I don’t know what’s gonna happen this week, because we’re recording this on Friday, what is the date today? June 5t.
Paul Reda: The 5th.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, and then it publishes on the 8th, so for last week, as of the recording, I think number one, it’s you pause social media. Like all right, step one, pause social media to show, it is out of respect, and it is so you, whatever nonsense, which like some will suddenly seem inconsequential to a lot of people, is not extra noise drowning out the signal of the Black Lives Matter movement in which people are genuinely trying to enact social change because they’re upset about the deaths of many people, like George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. So, step one is just pause your content so that that conversation could continue, right? Without extra noise in there.
Paul Reda: Well, and it’s just gonna look weird if you’re having like wacky ads appear next to all that stuff.
Kurt Elster: So, I think there’s a… When I said pause content, I think there was a distinction between organic social media content and ads. We saw, it felt like pretty much everybody paused their social media content, but I would… My suspicion is less than half of Facebook advertisers paused their ads. Now, whether they did that out of solidarity or rising cost per acquisition, I don’t know, but that’s what we saw was… I would guess about a third had paused their ads during that time.
All right, so let’s say step one is pause everything. Step two, post solidarity. We saw that on Tuesday with the social media Blackout, especially on Instagram with the Black squares everywhere. And then third, the step to go further is urge action, and ideally urge action by being the change, by demonstrating, by donating, by doing whatever it is you can do. The question is then, “Well, what’s the backlash?” I think for the people who are offended that you would post solidarity with a civil rights movement, it’s the trash taking itself out. You probably didn’t want them as customers anyway.
Paul Reda: I’ve never heard that before. I like it.
Kurt Elster: And then what we heard from the people who did post solidarity is they got a lot of… The backlash was not anywhere near what they feared, and instead they got just a lot of love and solidarity. I have been… On my personal accounts, I have been very vocal about my support, and I have not had, other than an interaction in our neighborhood Facebook group with, when I called somebody out, I have not had negative pushback, and have gotten a lot of support and solidarity. So, I think I got lucky.
Paul Reda: Yeah, those Nextdoors and stuff like that, those places are shitholes. It’s terrible in there.
Kurt Elster: Oh, it’s brutal.
Paul Reda: I don’t know. I’m just kind of wondering, can it be a little too much? Like I’m moving next week, so I am calling Comcast, and it’s funny, because I’ve been dealing with all of these other businesses, and they’ve been… and I’ve had to sit through them going over like, “Hey, during these difficult times, we care a lot about what is happening in the world.” And I’m like, “Wait, is this for the current shit show, or for the previous shit show of last month?” Like which shit show are they worried about?
Kurt Elster: Well, 2020 is dark times. There’s no doubt about that. No one is arguing that 2020 is not a wild ride.
Paul Reda: Yeah, so it’s sort of just like do you need every single piece of corporate communication to acknowledge that there’s upheavals going on right now? People are hearing it in all the other places. You don’t necessarily need to be the one to stick your nose in. Am I wrong?
Kurt Elster: Well, I think a movement looks for allies, so yeah, some people, I’ve seen people get criticized for like, “Well, you’re not doing enough.” And I don’t necessarily think that that’s right, because we should be… More voices, more allies, more support is a good thing. Even if you feel it didn’t go far enough, it’s still net positive. I think the risk for people in staying silent and saying nothing, because they’re trying to avoid controversy, is that people can and many will assume you’re a racist or a coward. Pick one. So, I think last week there was… We went beyond the point where you could stay neutral.
Paul Reda: I don’t know.
Kurt Elster: No one. Well, okay, that’s the thing-
Paul Reda: It’s like I don’t want to… I just-
Kurt Elster: No one does.
Paul Reda: I don’t like the idea of like yelling at someone like, “You need to get out here and cover your store in Black Lives Matter stuff right now.” Like-
Kurt Elster: I agree. I don’t want to feel… Certainly, you don’t want someone to voice support because they got pressured into it.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: There is not a right answer. I mean, I don’t know.
Paul Reda: Well, and there’s obviously the worry of like you trying to say something, and then fucking it up.
Kurt Elster: It comes across wrong.
Paul Reda: Yeah. And I mean, to go into our thread, one of the store owners, Orion Brown, who, doing yeoman’s work in that thread, she owns a Black skin care line and Black hair care products, she said, “If you’re unsure how to express empathy and compassion today, it’s okay. Many of us struggle to do this well. Race, politics and the like are tough subjects to broach in a professional setting, and sometimes it’s hard to know what to say or where to draw the line between support, debate, and just plain saying too much.” And you know, so I think it’s fine to kind of be like, “Hey, everyone marching in the streets, those people are right.” And making it clear that you feel that way and your company feels that way, but I don’t know, having a Black Lives Matter sale, not so good. Don’t do that.
Kurt Elster: God! No. Oh, don’t. No!
Paul Reda: Not so good? Not so good.
Kurt Elster: No. Bad. Carol in the group had said, “I’ve been struggling with how to respond.” Period. Done. I think that is how everybody felt. I doubt there’s really anybody who woke up on Tuesday or woke up on Monday and went, “Hm, I know exactly how to handle this.” Because nothing like this situation has ever happened before. A pandemic followed by-
Paul Reda: 20% unemployment.
Kurt Elster: 20%. Well, 13% now, but yeah, record unemployment, and then on top of that, record civil unrest and a civil rights movement. No one. No one knows how to respond to that. Because it’s never happened before. So, if you’re like, “Well, I don’t know what to do.” Welcome. Join us.
Paul Reda: I guess we’re just like, “All right, so just keep muddling through, I guess.”
Kurt Elster: No, my point is-
Paul Reda: But yeah, it fits into what we always preach and what we’ve preached to all of you listening for years, which is your brand is you. You are the brand. Personalize it. Make it about you. So, you, as the person, the avatar of the brand, can be like, “Yep, the people protesting in the streets are right. They’ve been mistreated by society and society needs to start fixing that shit.”
Kurt Elster: Thank you. Yes.
Paul Reda: And I think that that’s fully a move that is fitting within what we preach to business owners and with the moral requirements of today.
Kurt Elster: This is an awkward episode, but it has to be discussed. It would be weird if we did not discuss it.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: All right, going back to the comments. Gabe had said, and I think this speaks to people’s fear. “We’re treading very lightly. We usually post a couple times per day. We created a post in support of our position and got threats and harassment. We blocked someone on Instagram. They came to our store threatening and harassing us. It was scary and disheartening, to say the least.” That was the only story like that, and when he posted that, I’m guessing that it was the week prior, where the support was not as loud or as vocal as it is now.
For the most part, the sentiment was like, “I don’t know what to do and I don’t want to risk sounding insensitive.” Less than people worrying about being attacked by unhinged individuals like poor Gabe. And he added, he said, “Well, we did also receive a number of messages and comments in support of our position.”
Paul Reda: I think the way through that is if you’re like, “Well, I agree with all of this and I want to show that my corporate stance or whatever, or ethics is with this, but I don’t want to do it and screw it up.” Well, the best way to handle that then is to boost other people’s voices. That’s how-
Kurt Elster: Yeah, hit that retweet button.
Paul Reda: Yeah, hit that retweet button. I don’t know, is there like a repost on Instagram? I don’t know.
Kurt Elster: Well, you can get an app to do reshare, or just screenshot stuff, share it in stories.
Paul Reda: Yeah, share it on Facebook. Boosting the voices of people that seem to know a lot more what they’re talking about than you do, and you agree with their stances, that’s how you do it. You use your megaphone to boost others if you don’t feel comfortable saying it for yourself.
Kurt Elster: Throwing your hat fully in the ring, Courtney said, “We’re making donations and rallying our followers to do the same. We launched a fundraiser shirt for which 100% of profits will be donated to Black Lives Matter. Anything else feels wrong.” Amber, “I have two stores and one was down the street from a peaceful protest. Ended up having just a few people turn it into a riot. I wasn’t gonna say anything, but I got so many messages from our customers, I decided I had to say something. I don’t typically bring any political or social issues into my business, but it doesn’t feel like it could be avoided. I didn’t post anything else today, I just don’t want to seem totally tone deaf.”
So, I think people, they don’t want to unintentionally offend somebody. Like that phrase tone deaf comes up a lot, or insensitive. They say tone deaf or insensitive a lot, like that’s their fear.
Paul Reda: Yeah, because I think… Let’s be honest. The majority of our group is white people, and the thing is is that like they have not been taught how to discuss race in a respectful manner, I guess, because you know, like America’s so segregated, like most people don’t have a lot of interaction across their races, or if they do, it’s in like highly professional, regulated settings. So, it’s like yeah, when the time comes to kind of be like, “Okay, well, now I gotta talk about this.” Well, I don’t know what to do, and I don’t want to be a bad person. At least it’s good that most of them are worried about being bad people.
Kurt Elster: Yes. That is good. Like the people… I think there’s this assumption that if you stayed silent, it’s because you are not being supportive, and at least in the case of these small business owners, the sentiment was, “I don’t want to be supportive wrong.” And that’s where I don’t think it’s… I think people need to be really careful when someone’s trying. Their intent is they’re trying to be supportive, but they’ve never discussed race before like this, so they maybe didn’t do it in exactly the right way. So, help them, and tread lightly, and be nice, and remember their intent was positive.
Paul Reda: But again, yeah, if you’re just like… If you’re too antsy about doing it, find other people and boost them.
Kurt Elster: My wife has been very vocal about her support, and she only had… She had a couple just kind of crazy sounding messages that were incoherent, so we ignored those. Those don’t count. And one person was like… They unfollowed and they have to tell you about it. “I unfollowed you because you…” And it was literally like a week prior. My wife had said, “If worrying about a theme park being closed is your biggest problem, you need to check your privilege.” And a week later this woman’s like, “You’re too political and I unfollowed you because you said you need to check your privilege, and I feel that’s judgey.” And so, she said, “Adios,” screen shotted it, posted to stories, and just like nonstop support from people.
So, I think the fear of, “Oh, I’m gonna lose customers.” I don’t think you are. I really don’t at this point. If you want to be supportive and you want throw your… If you want to be supportive and the thing that’s stopping you is like, “Well, it’ll destroy my income.” I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think we are… The tide has turned. We are well beyond that.
Paul Reda: Yes. 100%. And I think that’s the other thing is like people feel like, “Well, people want to be part of a group. They don’t want to be out on an island making a declaration.” Or a lot less people are gonna want to do that. So, you saying something makes all the other people who also feel that way, it makes it easier for them to also say something, and like there’s all the… And you’re like, “Oh, geez. I don’t know. Am I the only one that thinks like this?” There’s like a huge group of people that all are together on that and you’d be surprised at like the outpouring of support you’d get.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve got nothing but support. I think a lot of people are seeing a lot of support and we saw that in the comments, as well. All right, now that we have discussed awkwardly race in America, any closing thoughts before we move forward?
Paul Reda: No, but just to say that we as a company, you and I, as a partnership, we’re fully on board with all this.
Kurt Elster: Yes. Yeah. We had… Two weeks ago, we were already… As soon as the protests started, my wife and I were donating to bail funds. We donated Minnesota bail fund. We donated to our local Chicago bail fund. And then our team, our agency, Ethercycle, our team is nine people. I matched any donation that anyone on our team made. If they sent me the receipt, I matched it plus 20% up to $2,500. So, certainly we’re not doing nothing, and I’ve been very vocal on my personal Facebook and Instagram stories, and then on Twitter I made my position clear, but then after that, I didn’t, because Twitter’s so great for discourse, I really avoided posting, but instead just retweeted a lot of people who were better spoken than I am.
So, but I think I really like your point that hey, we always say people buy from people, not brands. You are your brand as a small business owner, so I don’t… I think you should give up on separating that and stand up for what you believe in.
Paul Reda: Yeah. And I mean, and to all the people that are sort of like, “Well, I don’t want to get political, and this is too political,” or whatever. It’s like everything-
Kurt Elster: We’re beyond that.
Paul Reda: Well, and it’s also literally everything is political. It’s like, “Oh, well, I have a question about the shipping rates on my store.” It’s like, “Oh, you shipping? Oh, that’s political!” The existence of the Postal Service, the existence of UPS and privatized package places, the state of the roads, trucker unionization, it’s like anything you want to say. We’re gonna answer, someone’s got a question right now about SMS messaging. It’s like yeah, SMS messaging, that’s political. It’s like privacy rights, deregulation of the telecoms industry, it’s all political. All things you see at all times are political. You just don’t want to acknowledge it.
Kurt Elster: Well, that was brilliant! You should have opened with that. That’s so good!
Paul Reda: What? That’s just how I live my life, my man.
Kurt Elster: You’re smarter than me. All right, let’s move on. Let’s move to the Q&A. Liz Watson. Liz Watson posted and said, “Hey, Kurt. Is there going to be another episode on Facebook ads anytime soon? I just listened to the ones with Kurt Bullock and Andrew Foxwell. They’re gold. Thank you so much.” Yes. Yes. I’ve got a post scheduled in the group in my social media queue in which I’m gonna ask, “Hey, what are your top Facebook ads questions?” And then I will get Kurt Bullock on the show and we will go through and answer those questions for you, so look out for that post, and if you have not yet joined our Facebook group, search Unofficial Shopify Podcast Insiders on Facebook.
And then we had a question from Curtis John. Mr. Reda, would you do me the honors of reading that one for me?
Paul Reda: He says, “I’ve heard people talk about how SMS marketing is huge and very important, but I’ve not heard you mention SMS marketing at all in recent podcast episodes.” Well, we like to talk about different things. “Would love to hear your take on SMS versus email marketing.” Sully said, “It’s great to add on to your overall outbound email strategy, but not a full-blown replacement.” He’s talking about, Tyler ‘Sully’ Sullivan, I believe from BombTech Golf, or-
Kurt Elster: Sully commented on that, on his post, and I included that in the notes. Yeah. I think the two misunderstandings in this question are number one, just because we’re not talking about it recently doesn’t mean it’s important.
Paul Reda: Or doesn’t mean it’s not important.
Kurt Elster: Doesn’t mean it’s not important. Certainly. And two, without a doubt, SMS and email are not mutually exclusive things. Very few marketing channels are mutually exclusive. SMS works wonderfully in conjunction with email. All of these things are other touch points. There’s a reason why big brands buy radio ads, billboards, TV ads, PPC, every kind of ad you can come up with is because they’re trying to improve, increase the total number of touch points with their customers. That’s how you view SMS and email, is you’re just multiplying touch points, and that’s how you build a relationship with a customer, is by having as many touch points as possible. So, that’s the way I would look at that.
Paul Reda: Yeah, it’s definitely not a versus thing at all.
Kurt Elster: Oh, I want to plug something. Jeremy Horowitz has an SMS guide that’s coming out, and he sent me a preview copy. I read it. It’s really good. It’s like very much, “Here is a practical manual on how to build this.” And how to set up SMS flows for your business. So, if you’re ever like, “Okay, I got email figured out. I got my email automation going. How do I add SMS?” Someone has written an actual playbook on how to cover that. I believe it comes out this month. I know it’s June, so look out for that, and Jeremy if you’re listening, this is clearly an invitation for you to post about it in our group. There’s your free plug, buddy.
What?
Paul Reda: Nothing. You-
Kurt Elster: Shaking your head at me.
Paul Reda: You like that stupid thing too much.
Kurt Elster: That’s the first time I’ve used it in this episode, all right? In our Facebook group, there was a great quick win that Rachel Reid posted. She talked about wait list versus preorder. So, normally, she said the past, they had one of those notify me email captures, like Back In Stock app, or the back in stock flow that Klaviyo uses, so if someone visits a product and it’s unavailable, because it’s sold out, you instead have a form up with an email, and people can sign up, and then if you’ve gone through the effort and set up an automation for this, when it comes back in stock, they’ll get an email that, “Hey, that item you wanted, that Star Wars t-shirt from three months ago is back in stock.”
And when they did that, she said as an example, for one product they had 130 people sign up, then seven people convert after they noticed, after they were notified the item was back in stock, which generated $350 in revenue. All right, A, Rachel, thank you for sharing numbers. I appreciate it. So, then they tried something new, she said. Instead of using the Back In Stock thing, they set a preorder option at the variant level, so they left the item as available, but stated that it was a preorder. So, I’m not sure what the product was here, but let’s say it was t-shirts and the red color was out of stock, so they changed color red to… They renamed the variant so it said red preorder, and below it they display the approximate ship date, and then display messaging throughout the cart and checkout to let the customer know that their order will ship with the preorder item. Your entire order.
That different approach generated 51 orders and $3,000 in revenue, so basically it’s 10x more successful than the Back In Stock thing. And of course, the reason is you… The Back In Stock thing is such delayed gratification, versus this, when they want it, they’re able to make the purchase and then have it show up when it’s available.
Paul Reda: Oh, and I feel like there’s a lot more confidence in a preorder than putting your email into a capture form, being like, “Well, we’ll email you if it’s back in stock.” Like you don’t know if it’s gonna be back in stock. That could just… Who knows? Whereas if they’re still taking the orders, you’re kind of like… You trust more that you’ll get it at some point, instead of this getting a random email at some point, hopefully.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. And having… If you have a store where like stuff frequently goes in and out of stock, what we’ve found when we do our customer surveys is that’s a really frustrating experience for people, because FOMO kicks in. They want the stuff they can’t order. So, if you’ve got like a couple of items that are out of stock in there, great, that’s a little bit of social proof that your stuff sells out. But if you’ve got a third of the catalog is gone out of stock, that’s just really annoying for the customers, like, “I like this, can’t have it. I like this, can’t get that either.” Right?
Paul Reda: Yep.
Kurt Elster: Whereas if you’re like, “Hey, you could order it and we’re gonna send it to you.” Great. Now I know there is a monetary obligation that I’m gonna get my thing. I just have to wait a little bit for it. Shall we-
Paul Reda: We can tear down Bombas. Kurt, what is Bombas?
Kurt Elster: An apparel store or something.
Paul Reda: I don’t know. You don’t have to play coy about it. You could just tell people.
Kurt Elster: No! Well, they sell socks. So, no, it’s a… I see a lot of ads advertising them.
Paul Reda: Looks like it’s t-shirts, too.
Kurt Elster: T-shirts. I think though like the original core product was socks.
Paul Reda: Go to Bombas.com, B-O-M-B-A-S.com. Load that up and I’m sure Kurt-
Kurt Elster: Load it up!
Paul Reda: Kurt’s doing a screen share or whatever with it right now.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, yeah, that’s me.
Paul Reda: And-
Kurt Elster: Screen share McGee.
Paul Reda: Let’s tie the whole episode together. Right there. Hero image. “Black Lives Matter. Bombas stands firmly in support of our Black employees, partners, and the entire Black community.” There you go. Can’t argue with that. That is all you need to do, all you need to say. Well, not all you need to do, but like you don’t gotta get crazy with it. That’s exactly-
Kurt Elster: Click learn more. What’s learn more got behind it?
Paul Reda: That’s exactly an appropriate thing. Well, no, they really killed it on this page. They’re donating money. They’re talking about the organizations they’re supporting. National Bail Fund Network, thumbs up, and just talking about their corporate mission.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. You’re right. They did do a really good job with this page, and notice the message, the announcement bar on the top of the page. It says, “Useful resources to support the Black community.” And it goes to a collection.
Paul Reda: It’s the page we’re on.
Kurt Elster: Oh, it’s the page we’re on.
Paul Reda: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say, it’s weird that it’s a collection page.
Kurt Elster: Well, my guess is time was of the essence, and they were like, “Hey, this is the closest template that we can quickly modify.”
Paul Reda: Yeah, so I assume this is all like jammed into the description?
Kurt Elster: Maybe. I don’t know. This is a big store. There’s probably fancy templates we don’t know about. All right, let’s head back to the home page.
Paul Reda: But yes, good work Bombas.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. So, landing on the site, I like that the logo is in the upper left, our menu is centered. The advantage to that is people read in an F pattern, top to bottom, left to right, so when you’ve got… Whatever is in that top left of your page, you pretty much guarantee people are gonna see it, so having the logo there, I really like. Having said that, on both of our… On Ethercycle.com and KurtElster.com, I centered the logo, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Do as I say, not as I do.
And I often preach about in your main menu, you can’t… The main menu should be exclusively about shopping, and anything else should go in a secondary menu, like a top menu or the footer. Bombas has ignored my advice entirely and is far more successful than I am, so…
Paul Reda: You’ll get there one day.
Kurt Elster: Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. Fingers crossed.
Paul Reda: I believe in you.
Kurt Elster: Well, we’re business partners, so you should hope so.
Paul Reda: No, I’m just gonna ride them coat tails.
Kurt Elster: What do you think of this home page? What are we doing with this home page?
Paul Reda: I don’t know, because it’s like things are weird right now, but on a normal time, I would be like, “Can we get some products up on this home page?” Like it’s entirely about them as the brand. There’s like-
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Right. We-
Paul Reda: There’s Shop Pride.
Kurt Elster: We don’t know what this home page looks like normally.
Paul Reda: But yeah, they have their… Obviously, they have their… June is also Pride Month, to add that on top of it, of all the stuff, but so there’s their Shop Pride collection, and they do that thing which I think Toms invented.
Kurt Elster: Toms really pioneered that. Toms shoes. Yeah.
Paul Reda: Which is they, if you buy one pair, they donate a pair to someone.
Kurt Elster: Yes. And this really kicked off a charitable marketing or like social business movement, where whatever your product is, you donate, for whatever people buy, you donate one of that. And in this case, they have a giving directory on here, which is kind of clever. I’ve never seen anything like this. Find where socks are donated near you. And you can find a giving partner. If you’re interested in volunteering or locating a nearby organization that donates Bombas donation… That’s an odd phrase. Enter your zip code below.
Paul Reda: I did, and I got The Harbour, which is apparently a youth homelessness charity that provides shelters for homeless youths in Park Ridge, so that sounds good to me.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. That’s our hometown. So, I think one of my criticisms of sites that have a clear charitable or social mission is that I’m immediately cynical and skeptical, so the fact that they have prominently featured a thing that makes them no money, saying hey, we got the receipts. If you want to see where we’re donating to and you want to help, you could do that. And then in the footer, I see they are a certified B corp. So, it gives them a lot of legitimacy. And it’s not, for someone who’s like, “All right, I’m gonna do social good and talk about it as part of my business,” it’s not your fault that I am cynical or skeptical, but there’s just enough scumbags out there that immediately my radar goes off when I see these things.
Whereas here, I’m like, I’m convinced that this is legit.
Paul Reda: Two things. One, I think to go back to our everything is holistic, everything is political, I think people overestimate the amount of scumbaggery that exists in the world, or at least in terms of charitable things, where they’re sort of like, “Well, you know, I could give money to all these charities, but I know someone’s gonna end up scamming me.” That’s like, “Okay, so you’re gonna do nothing, because one out of the 20 might be a scam.” So, you end up doing nothing, so like in the end, nothing… You know, not that you made the world worse, but you kind of denied everyone because you thought one was bad. So, fix your hearts, everyone.
And then number two, I know we’ve talked about this before. There’s like a right way to do this and a wrong way to do it, and there are sites that are sort of just like, “Yeah, a portion of the sale will go to The Human Fund. Not even saying The Human Fund. Just like diabetes, like that’s it. It’ll say, “A portion of this sale goes to diabetes.” And you’re done and they have that everywhere. That, I’m always like, “That shit’s a scam.” Like who cares? Or they’re donating like a nickel out of the thing that they’re selling for full price.
Kurt Elster: Right, or yeah, it’s kind of… When I’m really suspicious is when it looks like just a throwaway, hand-wavy thing. Like just in one spot it’s like, “Eh, we give some profit to whatever, some cause.” But then there’s nothing else about it. Whereas here, what makes it work is it has become a central point of the brand, and the home page, and all of their communications. So, here I’m like, “All right, I’m all in.” But I think like you gotta go, you need to really commit.
Paul Reda: They back it up with actual information. They’re like, “Here’s what we do. Here are the places. You can find them. We’re telling you about them.” You know, that sort of stuff, and I remember the last time we talked about this, I talked about how these type of things can be part of your post-purchase emails, so like we… So, they’re gonna have your zip code, so if I bought a Bombas socks right now, pick the top one from the zip code, and in the post-purchase emails you send me, send me an email about The Harbour, and that my purchase gave them money, and here’s more about what they do. So-
Kurt Elster: That sounds like a real nightmare to build, but I see your point.
Paul Reda: Is it? I mean, they have their database of places, they have my zip code because they shipped me the socks, and then-
Kurt Elster: I guarantee there’s someone who’s like, “Well, with Zapier and Airtable I could make that work.” Like my project manager recently started using Airtable and I’m like, “Wow.” I’m pretty sure you could get this thing to do about just whatever.
Paul Reda: See, in this situation, I’m the store owner with the big ideas, so I just get to wave my hand and go, “Make that work.” And rely on you to do it.
Kurt Elster: I see. You’re the vision guy. I’m just the hands.
Paul Reda: Yeah, exactly. No, but I think that would be great if you could do something like that, because like that would give The Harbour more exposure, that would make people feel better about Bombas that this was real shit that’s happening.
Kurt Elster: Maybe they do do that. I don’t know.
Paul Reda: That would be cool.
Kurt Elster: So, I think in this episode, we’ve never done this, let’s walk through actually buying something. I’m gonna buy something here.
Paul Reda: All right. You buy them, because I don’t care about socks. You’re a real socks guy.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, I got opinions on socks. So, it’s the summer, so I think we need to go with some No Show Socks. All right. Well, first, this main menu is pretty awesome.
Paul Reda: It’s a good mega menu.
Kurt Elster: It’s very easy to navigate, like I’ve not actually been on this site before, and I knew immediately like I want to buy socks. So, men, socks, and clearly this arranged by best sellers. Socks, and it’s arranged by how I would shop for them. By height, No Show. That’s fabulous! This makes life very easy. And I like that they’re doing a bundle discount over here and they called it out in red. You know, and maybe the way, like CSS wise, if you wanted to implement this on your own store, you could set up a CSS rule called last of type. So, you go, “In this list, the last item is always red.” That’s a way to, like if you’ve got something you know in your mega menu in Shopify that you want to be bold, or a different color, that’s an easy way to do it with CSS.
Paul Reda: No offense to our store owners, but if any of our store owners implement something involving :nth of type, post that in the group, because I doubt anyone’s doing it.
Kurt Elster: Well, I’ve said that before, like HTML and CSS are… If you’re a merchant, knowing that is a superpower. That’s just unlocked so much customization for your site. All right, I’m clicking on socks by height, No Show. So, now I’m on the collection page for Men’s No Show Socks. Oh, this is good.
Paul Reda: I mean, this really goes overboard. I mean, so they got the color swatches in the collection items.
Kurt Elster: We have to talk about the hero image.
Paul Reda: Oh, you’re right.
Kurt Elster: They photographed the hero image, or combined two images, but either way, this, the hero image graphic, or photograph, was created with the collection page in mind. Because look how well it frames the collection title, and then below it they’ve got… There’s a collection filter right here.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: Oh no, I’m sorry. This links to the other collections.
Paul Reda: Yeah, this goes… No, it’s-
Kurt Elster: Like which-
Paul Reda: It doesn’t actually change the collection. It just takes you to a different collection that’s like narrower.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. They could do this if they wanted… I’m sure there’s a reason, but if they wanted to, they could do this where it filters by tag.
Paul Reda: This is way easy… This is easier though, I think.
Kurt Elster: Yeah, like it would have to be collection/men’s socks/lightweight.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: So, of the socks here, I don’t know that I’ve ever owned Merino wool, and I love Merino wool, so should I click on Merino wool? Or do we want to talk about this page?
Paul Reda: Well, I mean it’s the same thing. It’s just a… It’ll take you to the Merino Wool Collection.
Kurt Elster: All right, I’m doing it. I’m on Men’s Merino Wool Socks now.
Paul Reda: What is a Merino and why did we kill it for its wool? We didn’t kill it, we shaved it.
Kurt Elster: Well, Merino wool, I do not know what it’s made from, what makes it Merino wool, but it’s a finer, lighter cotton, or finer, lighter wool, so you get the anti-stink properties of wool, but with like the cool practicality of cotton.
Paul Reda: Is it like a different kind of sheep? Or is it like you do a thing to the normal sheep wool?
Kurt Elster: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I’m not a rancher.
Paul Reda: So, you’ve just been snowed by branding is what you’re saying.
Kurt Elster: Yes. I’ve owned some Merino wool items that I… I had a Merino wool hoodie that I loved. All right, back to business.
Paul Reda: All right, anyway, so they got all these swatches on here. When you click on the swatches, it swaps out the product photo in the collection item.
Kurt Elster: And then hover, you get an add to cart button that’s not annoying, and then hover over the add to cart button.
Paul Reda: Yeah, and then it has the sizes in there, which is crazy. That’s like so-
Kurt Elster: Wow, that’s awesome.
Paul Reda: You then just click XL and it just adds it? Oh yeah, it just adds it straight there. That’s like a-
Kurt Elster: Would you be able to build something like this?
Paul Reda: Well, having it like then add the specific selected variants, I don’t know how to do… Me telling you right now how I would do it, you will not receive an answer. If you’re like-
Kurt Elster: So, the answer is you gotta research it.
Paul Reda: If you’re like, “Paul, figure out how to do this.” I’ll be like, “Cool. Talk to you next week.”
Kurt Elster: It’s so cool, I want to do it on something. I would love to see a heat map. I wonder how many people actually use this. Because like I am about to spend $53 on four pairs of socks, and that’s a 5% pack savings, and so I’m gonna click through onto the product detail page, and part of the reason I’m gonna do that is because there are sizes, and I need to know what size corresponds to what. I’m assuming I’m a large.
Paul Reda: Hang on. I have a problem in that on… So, you know how like the collection images, they kind of fade in a little bit.
Kurt Elster: They do?
Paul Reda: When you hit refresh.
Kurt Elster: All right, let me refresh it.
Paul Reda: They got like a real quick fade effect on them, where they like blink.
Kurt Elster: Oh. Yeah, I saw that. Seems unnecessary.
Paul Reda: Once every 10 page loads, it doesn’t fade it in, so they’re just like ghosted, pure white images. So-
Kurt Elster: And we have seen-
Paul Reda: Like I got it right now.
Kurt Elster: We’ve seen consistently that any time you mess around with image loading like that, where often the way it works is like the image is set to opacity zero, and then it fades it back in quickly, it can fail. It’s just, it’s not worth it. I always turn the image loading effects off.
Paul Reda: I have sent you-
Kurt Elster: To avoid trouble.
Paul Reda: I have sent you a Skype chat.
Kurt Elster: All right. Oh, look at that.
Paul Reda: Yeah.
Kurt Elster: Let me put that. I don’t know if it’ll show in the screen share, but I see that. It’s not great.
Paul Reda: Yeah. So, yeah, don’t screw with like fade images in effect. There have been multiple times. We’ve had it happen multiple stores, different clients of ours, where they’re like, “My product forms disappeared. I can’t… No one can buy anything.” And what happened was the theme or somebody put a cool thing where it’s like, “Oh, well, the product form doesn’t actually just blink into place like every other website. It does a cool transition, where it starts out completely invisible and then slowly becomes visible.” Okay, cool.
The problem is if there’s like a weird, funky JavaScript thing, or like the browser barfs for some reason, or there’s something going on-
Kurt Elster: Or the internet hiccups.
Paul Reda: There’s an internet hiccup. The form just stays invisible and then never fades into place, and everyone’s going, “Okay, well, I can’t buy anything now, because everything’s invisible.” Like where’d it go? There’s nothing here?
Kurt Elster: Yeah. That’s the danger with these effects.
Paul Reda: Yeah. Or they hiccup and then it just ends up in a state where it’s not the state you wanted it to be in.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. You know what? And I’m like increasingly anti-design. I’m like, “That’s just extra nonsense. Get rid of it.”
Paul Reda: What have you done with Kurt?
Kurt Elster: This site is beautiful, but I’m still riding that Pit Vipers high, which I did receive my Pit Vipers sunglasses, and I love them. Thank you. So, last thing on this collection page I really like is that it presents you the savings as a percentage in addition to just showing, like the retail price is striked out, has a strikethrough. And then it shows me the sale price and then says 5% pack savings. I think that’s cool.
All right. I’m gonna click on the product detail page for the No Show Sock 4-Pack.
Paul Reda: It’s very fancy.
Kurt Elster: This is nice. And also, not unlike the Allbirds layout. It’s not the same, but it’s not that different. What does full product details do? Whoa! Why is this just not on the page? Like look at… Click on that full product details link.
Paul Reda: Where are you seeing that?
Kurt Elster: It’s right below the description.
Paul Reda: I see details and then there’s tech and materials.
Kurt Elster: Okay, I think we’re on different pages. I’m gonna send you a link.
Paul Reda: I’m on the Men’s Lightweight Merino Wool No Show Sock 4-Pack. All right, you sent-
Kurt Elster: Oh, we might be in different split tests.
Paul Reda: What?
Kurt Elster: Whoa!
Paul Reda: I don’t know. I just got… You know, there’s the sizes, then there’s add to cart, then there’s details, with like… and it’s got two little tabs, and then you scroll down more and there’s a bunch of stuff.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. It says… So, it’s the cart form, description, and then there’s a link underneath it that says full product details. That opens a modal window that has the description, the materials and care, and a features column that has lovely illustrations that I’m like, “Why did you hide all this behind a single text link?”
Paul Reda: All right, I sent my page.
Kurt Elster: Okay. The page you’re looking at is completely different than the one I’m looking at.
Paul Reda: Oh man, those-
Kurt Elster: Mine’s very simple. Yours has like really got a fancy layout and design. All right. What I like about this page, they make the sizing very clear, the variant buttons are really clear. Again, they’ve got that commitment to making it clear that it is a product with a social mission in that now that I’m looking at a 4-pack, under the add-to-cart form it says, “4 purchased equals 4 donated.”
Paul Reda: I believe it says that above the product title, not below the add-to-cart form.
Kurt Elster: Again, that’s because you’re on… Yeah, on your split test.
Paul Reda: That’s my joke.
Kurt Elster: Interesting. Yeah, mine’s a very basic page, and you’ve got like a really fancy page, so they’re trying to figure out if a new design works better or not. I’m probably in the control. To confirm that, what would be nice is if under the… Since they’ve clearly built a custom form here and it says, “Size L,” if it had… As part of the button, it said like shoe size, and then told me the range. Where does it say that on yours?
Paul Reda: Above the size picker it says like, “Size M, U.S. shoe size 6 ½ to 8 ½.”
Kurt Elster: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that’s where it says it for me, too. I’m saying make it a part of that button.
Paul Reda: Oh, okay. I mean, they’re right next to each other.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. That is a minor complaint. All right. I shall click add to bag.
Paul Reda: Well, note if you click on the unavailable sizes, it says, “Notify me,” when as we learned earlier, it should say preorder.
Kurt Elster: Oh, it should be a preorder. Well, and that’s interesting, because that’s yours. When I pick a size, it just says, “Sold out,” if it’s an unavailable size.
Paul Reda: My page is way better. It doesn’t hide any content.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. I know. The screen share would be better if I was in your split test. All right, then when you click add to cart, on mine it did something cool. The button color changed to indicate that I’d added it to the bag, and then my drawer cart opened.
Paul Reda: Oh, I didn’t notice the button change. But yeah, I got it. Oh yeah, it is. It’s now white. That just might be like a… and now it won’t go back.
Kurt Elster: Mine changed from blue to green. It looked very intentional. And then after a few moments, it flipped back.
Paul Reda: Mine went from blue to white and now it’s always white and won’t change back, so I think it’s got some weird active state that’s not turning off.
Kurt Elster: Okay. Their drawer cart’s very straightforward, but it’s very nice.
Paul Reda: Score! Your order qualifies for free U.S. shipping.
Kurt Elster: That’s right. I like that message. And clearly it’s dynamic. It’s very nice. And then they do a thing I’ve seen a few other sites do. The checkout button, rather than have a subtitle field, the price, the subtitle price is just part of the checkout button. It says checkout-53.20.
Paul Reda: Yeah, it’s good.
Kurt Elster: So, if they wanted to, they could improve this by adding some extra objection busters into the drawer cart-
Paul Reda: Upsells.
Kurt Elster: Like satisfaction guaranteed.
Paul Reda: Cross sells.
Kurt Elster: The purchased equals donated thing is not in the cart and it’s like clearly has been… It’s on the home page, it’s on the product pages. Why not do it in the cart, too? I’m gonna click checkout. Let’s see what we got here. Once I’m in the checkout, it is just the standard Shopify checkout. I’m going to attempt… Are you familiar with Honey? It’s a Chrome extension.
Paul Reda: You’ve mentioned it. I think it’s like finds product codes or whatever?
Kurt Elster: Yep.
Paul Reda: Coupon codes?
Kurt Elster: And it works with Shopify checkout, so it popped open and it says, “Coupons found! Apply 10 coupons.” And when I click it, it is now going to run through and just start applying coupon codes to see what kind of discount it can get me. It’s running. It’s like more than halfway through. This thing’s free, too. PayPal. I think PayPal bought it not long ago. All right, come on. It tested all 10 coupons, it’s about to tell me my savings. I’ve saved $10.64 with the coupon code SKIM, so Honey, cool extension. Continue to checkout.
The thing that surprises me here is this is just the entirely standard Shopify checkout. They put in their logo, and then nothing else about this has changed. The labels are all the same, the button colors are the default that Shopify gives you, and the fonts are the standard.
Paul Reda: Well, I think that light blue, the continue to shipping button, that’s the same as the light blue on all of the product page. Maybe not on your product page.
Kurt Elster: Oh, really?
Paul Reda: On my product page. So, at least that fits a little bit, but yeah, the front end of the site is very much is all-in on this blue color as part of their background. I would pop that in and have it as a background on the checkout.
Kurt Elster: I have… I filled in my info for my shipping address. I’m going to leave it checked. I’m gonna opt-in to the newsletter so I can see what their post-purchase flow looks like later, and turn that into some social media content for myself, and Matt Brody, you have to edit out my address and phone number and email.
Paul Reda: No!
Kurt Elster: Matt! Edit that out.
Paul Reda: People need to be able to contact you.
Kurt Elster: Please, no. There’d be like, “Hey, I have opinions.” Oh.
Paul Reda: You’re like “Black Lives Matter. Cops are bad. Here’s my address.”
Kurt Elster: Ahh! Oh God. The shipping method, all right, here I found the first customization they’ve done, there’s a note, and we’ve done this a lot for Shopify Plus clients, because they can customize the checkout. Beneath shipping method, it says, “Orders placed by noon ET ship the same day.” Well, that’s a missed opportunity. You could do a countdown timer where it’s like, “Order in the next 59 minutes and your order ships same day!” So, that would be cool if it were a countdown timer in the checkout. That could be on the product page. But I also get that they don’t necessarily want… Maybe it could be in the cart. But I get that the design of this site is very clean and maybe they’re like a countdown timer just does not work with that. They offer me three shipping options in which, this is not carrier calculated, this is literally just… It appears to be price or weight-based rules. So, very standard stuff. And they offer me standard shipping, UPS 2-day, and UPS overnight, and then they have written in parenthesis, “Please allow X days for delivery.”
This is great. It is very clear what, how they’re gonna ship my item, and how long I have to wait for it, so they’re setting those expectations. And the advantage to what… So, it’s four bucks for the standard shipping. One thing I’ve seen people do is like in here, include the free shipping threshold to encourage people to go back and add shipping. The downside is previously, I qualified for free shipping. Now I don’t because of my coupon code.
Paul Reda: Aww.
Kurt Elster: But I think net, it’s still lower, so I’m sticking with my… I’m gonna pay the four bucks for shipping, though it hurts my soul. I wonder if they do anything post-purchase. So, all right, I’m putting my credit card in here. Again, Matt, do not show people my credit card number.
Paul Reda: We could just like skip this part. Just fade out of you filling out all the stuff and fade it in later.
Kurt Elster: All right, $49 is what… I’m paying $10 for a pair of socks. My order is processing. Here we go. Thank you, Kurt. Your order is confirmed. Oh, I went through all that, and I was really hoping there would be something special or different. Oh, yes! It worked! Okay. Once the order confirmation page loaded, there’s a popup. It says, “Get $20 towards your next purchase. Share 25% off Bombas with your friends and family, you’ll get $20 to spend on Bombas for yourself.” And then they, again, they talk about for every pair of Pride socks purchased, we’ll donate a pair to people in need, et cetera, et cetera.
This is great. What we know about… So, this is not a loyalty program. A referral program. Affiliate program. The advantage to this is you’re gonna turn, right when people are excited about their purchase, when they first made it, is when they’re most likely to share it, and that’s why they’ve got… They do this popup right here, post-purchase, immediately. My only criticism of it is there’s no… I literally don’t know how you do it. There’s no button. There’s no call to action. There’s no instructions. My only thing I could do is close it.
Yeah, so even if I wanted to do what they offered me, I don’t know how. It was not clear. Okay. And then they also post-purchase ask, “How did you hear about us?” And there’s like a drawer part that popped up. Did you hear about us on cable, Hulu, Facebook, podcast, et cetera. That’s cool. I have heard their Sirius radio commercials, so I’m gonna check radio. Oh, and then it keeps going. Sirius. All right.
You know what I like about that Bombas site is it is extremely clean and minimal, and fairly no nonsense, and they just really focused hard on building a site that showcases their content. Where they’ve got great photos, and message, et cetera.
Paul Reda: Yeah, exactly. There’s great photos, great messaging. There’s no real doodads, like it’s all just straightforward, like you know, if you want to buy stuff, go here. If you want to learn more about us, go here. And they just do it. I mean, and the navigation, it’s just Bombas, and then women, men, kids. About, help, size guide. Like there’s nothing… Nothing stupid up there, nothing that distracts from the focus of the site up there. It’s… That’s my word for it. It’s focused. It’s really well put together and focused. They clearly cared about their imagery.
Kurt Elster: I like… Yeah, focused is good. It’s edited. It has a lot of self-restraint. It’s very easy to be like, “Let’s add this app, and this app, and this app, and this widget!” And if you could go, “No, it’s gonna detract from the overall experience.”
Paul Reda: Yeah. There are no apps and widgets on this site whatsoever.
Kurt Elster: Not until you get to the post-purchase.
Paul Reda: It’s delightful.
Kurt Elster: And my guess is there, in the post-purchase, is like it’s just the most practical way to do it. So, Bombas, good job, and I’m excited to get these socks.
All right. Any closing thoughts, Mr. Reda? How’s your new house?
Paul Reda: I’m moving on Tuesday. The day that this publishes, I will be moving. So-
Kurt Elster: Congratulations.
Paul Reda: Hopefully I will be fine, and all my stuff will be okay.
Kurt Elster: It will be. It’ll go fine.
Paul Reda: Oh no. I don’t own anything. It’ll be real quick.
Kurt Elster: Don’t own anything. Yeah, you’re kind of like a minimalist in that sense.
Paul Reda: Yeah. I don’t… I mean, I think we’ve talked about this and that we’re very much like we don’t spend very much, but when we do spend on something, we’re like, “We’re getting the best thing.” Not necessarily the most expensive thing, but the best one.
Kurt Elster: Yeah. The subjective best.
Paul Reda: Yeah. We’re not gonna buy too many things, but when we do, it’ll be the best thing.
Kurt Elster: Oh no. I have a spending problem. Speak for yourself.
Paul Reda: I don’t.
Kurt Elster: I have so much guilt about my kids being trapped in the house with us for months on end and not being able to like see anybody, go on vacation, so I’m just like making it rain toys and video games in here. Yeah. Oh, you gonna come over? Be like, “Uh, can I get…” It doesn’t work for you. You’re not cute.
Paul Reda: I heard there was new PlayStation games at your house. I would like to also play with the PlayStation games.
Kurt Elster: Join us in the Facebook group! Search Unofficial Shopify Podcast and join The Unofficial Shopify Podcast Insiders group on Facebook, and if you’ve got Facebook ads questions, look out. I got a post coming up in which I will ask for your top concerns and questions around Facebook ads, and Kurt Bullock and I will do an episode about it in the future. And until then, please go out, live your best life, and if you believe in something, don’t be afraid to share that on social media.
Paul Reda: Fight the power.