The Multi-Industry Entrepreneur Who Spots What Store Owners Miss - "I've been a shitty client myself. I think I know everything. And then after a while, once your ego kind of gets beaten down, you realize maybe I'm too emotionally involved in my own brand."
Jamil Bhuya has scaled businesses across three wildly different industries: restaurants, beauty, and now Shopify agencies. That multi-industry perspective gives him a unique superpower—he can spot the conversion killers that store owners become blind to. We talked about why fresh eyes matter more than fancy tools, the psychology behind purchase objections, and how being too close to your business destroys your ability to see what customers actually need.
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The Unofficial Shopify Podcast is hosted by Kurt Elster and explores the stories behind successful Shopify stores. Get actionable insights, practical strategies, and proven tactics from entrepreneurs who've built thriving ecommerce businesses.
Kurt Elster
This episode is sponsored in part by Swim. Okay, here's a depressing stat. 70% of shoppers who want your products never actually buy them. They browse, they consider, then they forget. That's revenue walking out the door. Swim Wishless Plus turns browsers into buyers. Customers save products they want, get notified when prices drop, or items restock. You can also engage them in personalized fashion through your marketing or sales outreach. It's like having a personal shopper reminding them to come back and buy from you instead of your competitors. And 45,000 stores already use it, and it only takes five minutes to install. You could try it free today for 14 days. Go to get swim. com slash curt. That's swimwithay. com slash curt. Turn those maybe later into sales today. Get swim. com Today on the unofficial Shopify podcast, we're gonna hear from Jamil Bouya, who is one half of a husband-wife agency, a design development Shopify studio, other half studio. who I was lucky to meet I was lucky to meet at Shopify Editions over the summer. And he had some interesting thoughts on conversion rate optimization on You know, why stores bleed money and then why stores convert? Because they have an interesting background. His wife uh did design at Shopify. at Sharma Brands. They ran a successful D2C brand together that was in uh, I believe Anthropology. And I think they were able to I know, and they had a a successful business exit. Well this seems like quite the the power couple. I want to know more. I want to know from their experience. And so joining me today is one half of that that studio, Jamil Buya. Jamil, welcome to the show.
Jamil Bhuya
Thanks for having me, Kurt. I'm super excited on this beautiful Monday morning to be on the show with you.
Kurt Elster
And I want to know. I wanna know a little bit about this background. I know when we spoke you h like had just had uh a successful exit from a previous business. Um and I recognize names here, obviously, Shopify, Sharmo Brands, Urban Outfitters. So give me the backstory quickly here.
Jamil Bhuya
My entrepreneurial experience started with um burgers and fries forever. So that's the exit uh BFF as it's you know lovingly known as. Was a burger joint I started in Ottawa. Um, for those of you don't know, that's the actual capital of Canada. Uh not Toronto where I currently live. Uh yeah, we basically scaled and expanded through franchising, opened multiple locations, went through a lot of highs and lows, including like potential bankruptcy. uh you know defaulting on some debt being sued um but also expanding rapidly uh and it all kind of led to an acquisition last year by the former CEO of a 400 unit chicken joint joint called Mary Brown's chicken. Uh so we're kind of re-expanding now. Um I'm now a minority shareholder. Uh we're opening 15 net new units this year. Um, what does that have to do with Shopify? Nothing, but it has a lot to do with kind of understanding consumer psychology and growth. Uh about 10 years ago, my wife and I had started something called Yellow Beauty. It's a turmeric-based skincare brand. We got into anthropology worldwide in under six months of launching. Uh, which eventually led to stints with Urban Outfitters, FabFit Fun, retailing the Middle East in Europe. Um That was born as a result of my wife being a product designer at Shopify. She kinda got a free Shopify store, which everyone gets when you're a Shopify employee, and did well enough that she was able to actually leave Shopify and work on that. And uh eventually after about well over half a decade of running it, she ended up wanting to get back in the design world because, you know, D2C in 2015 was relatively Easy and straightforward and as things went on it became tougher and tougher. Uh I say as a joke, everyone's grandma came up with a skincare brand, especially during pandemic.
Kurt Elster
And um, you know, she does I imagine that supplement. Herm's doing creatine gummies.
Jamil Bhuya
Yes, yes, exactly. And you know, I think that's uh across a lot of industries, but From there she was able to kind of pivot, wanted to get back in a design world that was like her passion, bread and butter. Um, so she ended up uh working for Sharma Brands for Nick Sharma. She learned so much there. And uh yeah, she ended up becoming director of design, worked on some pretty wicked eight, nine-figure brands, was able to increase conversion rates uh as high as double. Um One of them was close to 3Xing. I don't want to say it was a 3X her while she was at Charmer Brands. And I guess that eventually led to other half studio. And here we are today.
Kurt Elster
So why why go back to well why start a desi uh a D to C agency? Why do an e-com agency? I mean I like it. I love my inagcy service business. I've been doing it a long time. Um, but why f why did you do it?
Jamil Bhuya
I think the reality is um after going through probably two of the hardest industries one could get into, like burgers and beauty. And and and going through a lot of highs and lows, like I said, you know, there was just great days and then there was days I just woke up crying, just being like, My life's over. Uh, you know, I I'm gonna go bankrupt, I'm gonna lose it all I I think the exit itself, uh both for both myself and my wife, we kind of had different ads that ended up like fusing together. Uh I I I think, you know, when you go on LinkedIn and you go on Instagram and in this social day and age, there's a lot of like comparison traps that happen, and you start to forget what you care about because you're so busy being inundated with what other people care about. And I think that can be D2C as a whole because uh, you know, it's like You're getting so much information from other people and their successes and what's working for them that you kind of forget why you did things to start. And um ironically, uh the agency was just like a perfect combination of both of our strengths in a complementary way that actually worked for once. Um, because despite both brands like Burgers and Fries Forever and Yellow Beauty having over a decade of longevity, it was still really friggin' hard the entire time. You know, and um, you know, BFF had netted over 25 million in lifetime sales, but it was still like such a brutally tough business. And I think You know, when my wife had left Sharma Brands, we had kind of wanted to like slow things down, maybe start a family. So we wanted more flexibility in our lives, right? Just in terms of like time and being able to like own our own destiny, so to speak. And it just she kept getting work and business and then she eventually needed like a sales guy, sales, marketing, uh, partnerships, things like that. And naturally I just became that person. while I was exiting, transitioning out of the restaurant. And sometimes it's like a lot of people like, how do you work with your wife? It's like, well For ten years of working through Yellow Beauty, you know, my ego continually c continuously got his ass kicked by her because I tried to be a designer. And I'm actually not a designer. I'm I have like professional ADHD, which is why I went from burgers to beauty to agency. Uh I'm not super great with details the way she is. Um and like Our skill sets are actually just very opposite of one another, that they were perfect for this agency. So like, I schmooze as I call it, I get the leads, I build relationships, and I can sell And she does the complete opposite. She manages the team. She's great with feedback. She's like a creative director. Uh she knows how to recruit good talent and really keep them engaged. And she's very like great with managing timelines. So now it's almost like we leave each other alone and like let each other do what we want, so to speak. Whereas before it was always like we were in kind of each other's faces. trying to solve problems together and trying to become like one another, even though we're actually quite different.
Kurt Elster
I think that's a something that people entering business partnerships often figure out is like at the start. you try to everybody tries to adopt everyone's roles in, you know, an attempt at uh well, pr probably like equality, I suppose, or like carrying your own weight. And then you realize actually, no, it works much better if you've defined separate roles and then you know stay in your lane. And then suddenly, you know, as long as you combine that with open and honest communication, well, you could create a assuming complementary skills, you've a pretty good partnership going. Um, and certainly I think those things, yeah, th those same things would apply in most relationships, a marriage, a business partnership, etc. How long has other half studio been around?
Jamil Bhuya
That's a good question. We're still trying to figure that out because like we've hired our first official hire in January. Um like I said. Thank you. Um and and now we're a little team of five. Um we just recruited a new principal designer and we're working with a brand designer as well. So um we're team of five now. We started, I guess officially, like we didn't launch our own website till March this year. And we were using like an old corp that we were looking to wind down as like this new opco. So we don't have like an official date, weirdly, 'cause when my wife last left last Jan uh June from Sharma, it was just like strictly with freelance in mind. And um it just got to the point where we're like, crap, we can't say no to all this work. Right? If we do, like You technically, you know, you you burned that bridge uh because we were getting a lot of like referrals through like investors and like um like pretty successful founders that were kind of like, hey, like, can you do this for like this new venture that I have? And to say no to it would have been to say no to like future pipeline and new ventures. So we we say we started this year, we're still a little hazy on when that is, but you know, uh this is the year of other half for us personally.
Kurt Elster
You know, when it's a referral from someone you like, you know, you want to do right by them. And so you're like, yeah, that carries more weight than a you know someone reaching out cold. Um, and say, hey, you know, how can you help me? You know, when it's a referral, assuming that's a good relationship, well, not only does it carry more weight, but you you will You want to honor it. Um, I get it. I totally do. And so but then the you know, so the there's that pressure. to to do the work. And then you have to provide the services, do the fulfillment. And so ah, I see very quickly how like, okay, you know, this is where we're at. Let's see where this goes. Um, and especially compared to your other businesses, an agency business, a surface business, you're not dealing with inventory anymore. You know, you don't have that sitting on hand. Instead, it's payroll. um which you'd have in in many businesses. But it you know typically an agency business, a service business tends to be much more profitable than than physical goods. So it for my own entertainment, compare, contrast, you know, kind of what surprises you about service business versus your experience with you know these other um more physical businesses?
Jamil Bhuya
Well the CapEx on a restaurant alone is typically quarter million to half a million dollars just to get it off the ground. So my first restaurant it was 225 K. Uh we did what's called a retrofit, so it's existing like a hood, which is Typically one of the most expensive investments in a restaurant. That's what sucks up all the grease and the smoke and everything when you're cooking inside. And it's like mandatory across any municipal government. Uh and that's typically a six figure investment. Whereas with the agency, we were bootstrapped. Like we didn't put up any cash. And there was no payroll. It was just like, all right, we'll feed ourselves off whatever comes off Jazz's freelance. Um I but like money aside, I think the biggest things I've learned um was like What the seasonality looks like in like um the highs and lows of like agency pipeline versus restaurant pipeline where restaurants like you make money every day. You know, uh some days can be pretty rough, but like typically on average, you know, our one of my locations was doing anywhere from 3 to 9k a day, right? So it's like it was steady coming in. It was like a two million dollar a year business. It was steady. Uh with the agency, it's like You'd be happy to close one or two a month, right?
Kurt Elster
And yeah, feast or famine. It's just a it's a you're right. It is a very different cash flow cycle.
Jamil Bhuya
And I think Like for me, I I was saying this to a lot of my friends in e-commerce that I made this year. I was like, this summer, my expectations were just so off because in the restaurant business, we're busiest in the summer. Whereas B2B agency, I mean, I know you're laughing already because you're like, haha, you rookie. I was like, we killed it before the the summer ended. We had just signed a Y Combinator back company, our Shark Tank brand. and like eight other websites. So I'm going into the summer being like, I got this, I know what I'm doing. And I was like, where the hell did everyone go in the summer? And I'm like asking my friends.
Kurt Elster
They're entrepreneurs, they wanted vacation.
Jamil Bhuya
They want vacation. And to me, I'm like, wait, man, in the restaurant, like things are popping. I'm like, I'm trying to pull my hair out, trying to like keep things going because it's so busy. And I think that was like my first it was I don't want to say culture shock, but I was almost like, have I done something wrong? Like my expectation Yeah you start questioning it. Yeah, and the doubt crept back in after such a strong like Q2 that I was like, oh shit, did I did I like not take this seriously enough? And like my goal was to close four to six sites and I've I only closed two. So I was like, I was freaking out for a bit and everyone's like, yo, just relax, don't worry. Like as soon as like mid-August hits Like pipeline will pick back up conversations.
Kurt Elster
What happens in mid-August? Well kids go back to school. That's why the seasonality in you know, cause you're sir it's B2B and you're you're serving entrepreneurs. And so they go on vacation and things slow down. And so your seasonality is literally you just tie it to uh school breaks. Anytime schools on break, you lead flow will go down in in these uh these Shopify agency businesses. Yeah, it's like it's weird.
Jamil Bhuya
I think that was the biggest learning. Um, you know, so like this September I I really engaged and asked a lot of people and they were like, listen. September's gonna be crazy and then like mid-October again, it's gonna slow down because no one wants to commit to any changes a month up to Black Friday. And then December you have what's called dance floor deals. People are looking to spend their budget before the end of the year. This was a this was someone at Shopify who told me this. I was like, I love that term, dance floor deals.
Kurt Elster
They're like, yep, they look not heard that one, but yeah.
Jamil Bhuya
Yeah, they're like we're looking to spend uh budget before the end of the year. So I I would say, you know, it's the seasonality and like the deal flow Uh and and just realizing how long it takes to close a deal and build a relationship is completely different to the restaurant industry. Yeah.
Kurt Elster
A hundred percent. Ever had a customer cancel an order because they were shopping? Well hi, or because they broke up with their significant other. Those are real reasons customers could cancel, and they're a real headache for both you and your customers. Why should they have to email support to change, cancel, or update an order? Enter Cleverific. With Cleverific, your customers can edit their orders themselves through a self-service portal. That means fewer support tickets, faster shipping, and fewer returns. Everybody wins. Peter Manning, New York cut their order support by 99% with Clever Iffic. Now it's your turn. Listeners of the unofficial Shopify Podcast get 50% off the pro plan. Just $49 a month. Go to Cleverific. com/slash unofficial and use promo code Kurt50 at checkout. It's less hassle, happier customers with Cleverific. I want to talk about, because you mentioned earlier, psychology of purchase, consumer psychology, some of the things as you're you're really getting deep into this that you're discovering. Yeah, like what uh you know uh typical objections and f well, the hard part is figuring them out and then addressing them. So talk to me about that that consumer psychology.
Jamil Bhuya
I think the consumer psychology can be a bit of a tricky one, but also a rather simple one in that like a lot of the psychology is like applied to competitors, reviews, and like the information's typically right there. You just have to have like usually a third party like come in and look at it with a fresh set of eyes. So um, you know, one of the one of the jobs we're trying to win right now um literally just got off the call like right before this one. Um, it's like a children's kind of like play brand, right? Selling like furniture. And one of the objections even just like
Kurt Elster
Is it furniture that magnets together? Because I've seen a lot of that.
Jamil Bhuya
Yeah, it's like modular kind of uh like child safe furniture.
Kurt Elster
Kids like building forts. Who doesn't?
Jamil Bhuya
Kids love it, but then just one of the simple things is like from like a merchandising standpoint on their website, there's no mention of like which Products are for which age ranges? Or like from multifamily households versus like a single kid? You know, so it's like even these little things, it's like the product names are great, they're cute, right? But like From like an ICP perspective, like you're a busy parent, you're getting on the website, like you want to know right away. It's like, man, I got three kids. Like, well, this couch Well this little couch like hanging.
Kurt Elster
I CP uh I ideal customer profile, not insane clown posse.
Jamil Bhuya
But I think yeah, it's like putting yourself back in the customer's shoes, like even just something as simple as like how do you merchandise and call this product something? Or how do you like put it in front of them as like this is gonna solve your pain point instantly, right? Because like the couch itself is cool, but like How many people is this couch for? Is this for a small family? Is this for like a big space? Is this for a condo or a house? Right? All these things are like really important, but it's like When you're more of a consumer, those are the things you're thinking of. When you're I find when you're too busy being the entrepreneur, you kind of forget those. Kind of like simple things and you're thinking like, oh, why am our acquisition costs so high? You know, are we targeting the right audience? K Uh, you know, it's like, oh, like are we using like the right channels because like meta's going through the roof and now we have to get on TikTok shop? It's like Sometimes it's like the problems are way more simpler in terms of like um, you know, messaging and communicating. So I think that's what we mean by consumer psychology is just like Making it fun but easy to understand what the product is and can it solve that pain point immediately that they might not even realize. Is a pain point until they land on your side. I think that's there's like an art to that as well. It's like people don't always know what their objections are gonna be until they land on something. And I I think that's like a tricky thing to kind of figure out.
Kurt Elster
It's like Yeah, how do you that's always the the question. You know, sometimes you know if it applies to you, if you have experience with it, then you land on a site, you could pretty quickly come up with with some things that just the the business owner became blind to. Whereas you know you coming in with fresh eyes, you're like, okay, well here's here are the things I wondered that just the answer to is not immediately obvious.
Jamil Bhuya
I think right away like what we like to ask is like who are your competitors? Who are you trying to aspire to be? Who you you know and and who do you consider like I want to take these people out kind of thing? And then we go into their site and start like looking at their products, their reviews, their FAQs, and just like reverse engineering it, right? Like at the end of the day, there's nothing out there that's like truly patented where it's like a world-changing discovery. So it's like, hey, your competitors are already kind of doing something similar. So let's go find and see like what their reviews are, what their complaints are. uh you know what common questions are what are they addressing in their FAQs and then obviously like being a consumer yourself right like What do I typically care about? Shipping times, costs, free shipping thresholds, just like simple things like this. And then even like um You know, I see a lot of like product specs out there, but the product specs are so technical that if you don't understand what this means, I just want to know what's the emotional end outcome for me. Right? Like like for example this children's like furniture brand. It's like, okay, it's cool that this is like this non-polyurethane blah blah blah material, but like Is it safe for my kids to play on? Is it easy to wash? You know? Um, is it s like is it stain resistant? Um, is it slippery so they could like slip and fall? Like You know, it's like, hey, the technical.
Kurt Elster
The material itself is the feature. And oftentimes you see this, it's like because the person who the business owner also provided the copy, and they're the ones who had to go manufacture the thing. And so to them, it is very important that you know it's like, oh, well, we used N52 rare earth magnets and we've got it in uh polyurethane, and then we used, you know, um uh like that radio frequency welding you could do on plastics. That's all really cool stuff. If you're into manufacturing, if you know material science, if you don't, you're like, that sounds great. What is the benefit? You know, spell it out for me. What's the end game here?
Jamil Bhuya
Spell it out. Are these super strong magnets that like will, you know, uh like a two-year-old cannot pull apart? Or like if they're jumping on it, will it suddenly separate? Like those are the things that people care about in this specific niche, right? Um, so yeah, I think like a lot of those things is just a lot of experience too. Right. Like when my uh wife was at Charmer Brands, like the she was just dealing with a lot of these very large brands and consumers. And same thing at Shopify, it's just like It does come down to experience and just thinking of those things and being able to push back on actual like CEOs of Founders because I've been one myself. I've been a shitty client, you know, where it's like, I think I know everything. And then after a while, you know, once your ego kind of gets beaten down and you take a couple L's, you realize, like, hey, Maybe I'm too emotionally involved in my own brand. And having someone that has experience that pushes back on me, but in a way that's still professional and just kind of like You know, it's how can they communicate like my own l t tunnel vision back to me? Right? How can you professionally let the client know that like, hey, like We hear you, we understand this is super important, but have you considered this? Or, you know, um, this is something that we pulled from one of your reviews mentioning this. And it's it's it's helping the client get out of their own way, technically, right? And and really just like helping them like overcome the anxiety of giving up control. A a lot of it is like therapy.
Kurt Elster
Yes. Oh business therapy for sure.
Jamil Bhuya
Right. It's it's business therapy where they're basically like, I don't trust you. I know you just want my money. Uh I know you just want my business kind of thing. I've worked very hard for this. Why should I trust you? Yeah. And I think for me, I I always put my business owner hat on where it's like, hey, these are the things I've been through. This is how I got here. I understand what really matters to you. You know, three things really matter to you. You either want to make more money, save cost, or save headache. If I can solve one of those three pain points and repackage it with what I do, you're gonna most likely listen. And then You've gone from top of funnel slowly getting into the add-to-card phase where I can book a follow-up quote call, I can explain the solution, and then I can retarget you with like Maybe an offer or a little bundle discount, and then you're ready to convert. Right? It's like the same thing. It's like, my job is just to get you to the next stage of the funnel, not to get you all the way from top to bottom. Because that's the fastest way to churn someone, right? It's like, oh, whoa, why are we talking about this? You don't even know enough about me or my product. Why are we talking about quote right now? You know, you don't know shit, Shamil. Like, who are you? Right? So, um, yeah, I think being a founder I know the biggest thing for me was just like, I'm trying to do a million different things. I think I'm the best at all of them. I need you to prove to me that You know, you're gonna help me and that I can lean on you. Once I've decided to lean on you, you got me the whole way. So one of the things we decided to do with our agency is not hire any account managers. So our senior designers or my wife manages the project project end-to-end async. And we don't actually do weekly calls because we know how much of a waste of time that is. Um, because we're we're we're a project-based agency. We're not like an ad agency or growth where you need those weekly calls. For us, we're like, hey, Setting up these calls is a waste of time. It could take a week for us to even align on schedule. Um this could be a simple slack message or a loom, and a lot of people they're a little hesitant at first, but once they see gets going with us, they love it. Because they're like, okay, I can now send this loom to my other co-founder or like my, you know, director of e com. We can all give like streamlined feedback directly in the Figma file. 'Cause everything is like custom design. So we don't buy a theme and modify it. We build it from scratch in Figma and it becomes like a paper trail. They comment directly in the file and they're like, hey, we said this. You actually didn't do this. We go back, we're like, oh, you're you're right. Let's go change that, right? So I think we've made screencasts.
Kurt Elster
I like project-based. Uh for a lot of stuff, project-based works great, especially for uh theme builds. And I like Figma is a great tool. I mean, I was like one of one of two idiots who bothered to learn Adobe XD just in time for Figma to eat the world. And so we just use Figma for mock-ups. Um and the It's screencasts. Screencasts are such a game changer, right? I mean it such a phenomenal way to be able to show and tell. you know, in a screencast. They could comment right on it and they have it as a form of documentation. You know, I love it for like, hey, you want to learn how to do X? Here's how you manage this. And then you know, here you go. Here's the link. We're gonna you can reuse that, use it to train other people. Um, it's great. And the only thing wait, hold on, I take Umbridge. There is one thing you said, well, you know, we don't we don't build on an existing theme. But with a custom mock-up, you know, you're building a a custom mock-up. Then you could turn around and build that as custom templates and sections on top of an existing theme, and now you have the best of both worlds. Hybrid theme, right? You have all of the features that a theme approved by Shopify officially came with. And on top of it, now you're adding your additional features, custom templates, custom sections.
Jamil Bhuya
So I will push back on that with what my wife says because uh I I will caveat this with I'm not a dev, you are. Or uh so you probably know about you you know more about this than I do, but my understanding is that Building on top of an existing theme when you didn't build the code is not necessarily like the cleanest. And you know, when you're scaffolding something kind of from scratch, You know exactly like what the theme is, what's tied to what functionality. There's no like bloat, right? And and my understanding again is without spending all those dev hours going and kind of like seeing how the code is set up and the architecture. It's like and now you're trying to build on top of it. The functionality might not always work. It's not the cleanest and leanest code. And um, you know, essentially from there it it also creates limitations. Like that's my understanding where that like learning what was done can be just as cumbersome as doing it yourself from scratch. And then for us, our our core strength is design, right? Like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here and say we're the best dev agency there ever was. It's like no, our our core competency is designed So for us, instead of being restricted by like the limitations of the theme and building on top of it, we want to reimagine something net new. It's completely bespoke just to you that has scalability in mind for the future. If you want to go B2B, uh, if you want to get into retail, if you want to like build your own bundles in the future. Just have like different functionalities which we can really think through and not be limited on the creativity side of things as well.
Kurt Elster
You know, I I don't disagree. You're right. There is a caveat. The caveat is you have to really have faith in that theme. And typically you have to know the theme well. And so in our case, it's like there are a handful of themes where we're like, yes, this is pre-vetted. We know, we know this code base, we know the developers, and we know um, you know, the layout structure. And so it works. Um but even you know for the folks who are who are taking that approach and are like it's always custom. It's still built on Dawn. It's you know half six of one, half dozen of the other.
Jamil Bhuya
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, no, like definitely like you know, you gotta scaffold using that base architecture, or else like you're not gonna have even a lot of these like new AI functionalities that Shopify's rolling out. Like that's the other thing that I learned, which is like A lot of the new features won't be backwards compatible for like 2. 0. That's kind of um an important thing to kind of note, at least on our end. But I I'd love your take on that because uh like I said, I'm not the developer, so you know I've got a lot to learn in that space as well.
Kurt Elster
Well, so I actually use I mean that's the advantage of using an up-to-date theme as your base template, whether that's a Dawn uh or you know a different theme, then you know you're you're gonna have those most recent features built into it. Yeah, the downside, as soon as you customize anything, is suddenly it's not gonna update anymore um in Shopify. But it turns out, you know, customizing almost be at some point just becomes a necessity. Like you're there's always going to be situations where you end up customizing the thing, whether that's you know big or small changes. Here's a word from our sponsors at Zippify. Black Friday's coming, and so's the squeeze. Every year, the same thing. Ad cost balloon, customers want 40% off everything, and your margins get crushed. But there's a fix. Boost your average order value before the chaos hits. One click upsell does exactly that, increasing AOV by up to 30%, with AI-powered upsells across your entire customer journey. Launch upsell for every product in one click. Customers see personalized offers and spend more automatically. Unlike other apps, you only pay for results, not views, so you keep more profit. Takes under two minutes to set up and starts working immediately. Don't let this traffic season slip by without maximizing every sale. Go to zipify. com slash Kurt for your 30-day free trial. That's zi-p I F Y. com slash K-U-R T. Turn this into your most profitable Black Friday yet. I want to know from your experience. Yeah, on on both sides of the table. What are some of these these top conversion killers? You know, we've had a lot of un unmet or unrealized objections. What else?
Jamil Bhuya
Yeah, I mean, uh, I think one of the top conversion killers is just not having enough social proof on your site. Like a lot of these themes. Um They're not able to kind of pull a lot of the great assets that like you're building on IG. Like we work with a lot of brands that they have like a hundred thousand followers on Instagram. A lot of their traffic comes from there. They have great videos. They have influencers. They have like rave reviews of like customers leaving video testimonials. And I go to the website, I'm like, where is this? You know, if like looking at this site, I think like, no offense, this is all stock photos, this is all studio shots, this is all something that's rubber stamped by the company, not by the people. There's no uh democracy here in terms of like um assets. This is an oligarchy, like this is just studio shots, models This doesn't look real to me. So like I think not having enough social proof and tying in all the great work that people are doing for social media, because it's such a dynamic platform. You're getting new assets every day. So where are those assets, right? They're not reflected on your website. Another one is like way too many trust signals. You know, it's like. When you go into the PDP or the checkout and you see like all these different colored badges that looks like uh, you know, someone trying to like buy Bitcoin ten years ago, you're like, dude, what's like There's so many trust signals, I think, that um and they're and they're so kind of poorly formatted and edited that maybe people don't pick up on this instantly, but like psychology-wise, it's like This looks kind of drop shippy.
Kurt Elster
Drop shippy is a negative adjective, it's pretty good. But for sure, it you like at some point it rolls into like, oh It seems like they're overcompensating and not doing a good job of it. You've got like all these overlapping widgets. You're trying to click add to cart, but there's like a, you know, secure payment button that's floating over it. Like, what's happening here?
Jamil Bhuya
I think another one that kind of shocks me, because uh I've talked to eight-figure websites with this. It's like you go below the fold on the homepage and they have product cards. But it's not an add to cart. It's literally like a not even sometimes a shop now. Like I've seen ones where it's just like uh a variant of like, you know, this color or this, but I can't add to cart. I have to like Click the image, then I have to go to a collections page, then I have to go to the PDP, and then I can add to card and I'm like whoa Why? Like you have such a great asset right here. Why isn't there just a simple add to cart here on this product card?
Kurt Elster
Yeah, we want rather than have all that click debt of like I'm going from page to page to page. Just I'm already here. Give me the quick view. Give me the ed to cart. But it depends. If you split test it, it kind of depends on what the category is. If I'm selling nuts and bolts. uh quick view and add to cart from the collection page. Fabulous. If it's more technical, if I have a product configurator, suddenly it might hurt. But again, that's one of those it depends answers.
Jamil Bhuya
It totally does, but I think, you know, for a lot of what we deal with, it's uh more CPG brands or like more um mm not like a ton of variants, so I think that just to me is like an easy one. Uh the other one too is like just not having like great navigation. Um, you know, like just my pet peeve. Yeah, it's just like you go to cat like you go to the nav and like first of all it's a lot of text, right? And the categories make no sense and they're very like technical categories and not necessarily like lifestyle or product-based categories sometimes. And again, right, it's it's a little bit of that copywriting and just being a little bit more like Consumer top of mine versus it's like you could tell this was the founder who did this and they're like, okay, like you know, um this category of let's go with sunglasses, for example. It's like Uh I was talking to a sunglass brand last week and their categories are based off their product names. But I'm like, these are just aviators. Like again, you're trying to brand them differently, but like Just call them Aviators, right? Or like uh call these like sports classes or whatever because like if someone's new to your brand, they don't know this name that you've created for it. Right? It's and it's just simple things like that sometimes where it's like you you get too caught up in your own shit. Like I used to do that with my burger joint all the time. Oh like oh my god I'm gonna name this crazy burger this thing and it's like an inside joke. Guess what? When the joke's too much on the inside, it doesn't sell because everyone's wondering what the hell is this
Kurt Elster
Um Yeah, there is a danger to being too clever. Clarity trumps clever every time.
Jamil Bhuya
Yeah, yeah. So I'd say, you know, uh those are the big ones. I mean there's there's so many more I could go on and on about, but I think Those are the ones I've really like noticed as like how did you not think of this?
Kurt Elster
Because they're too close to it. They've been staring at it too long. You very quickly you could stare at it too long and then go and just become blind to it. Even on the websites that we maintain on retainer I'm always shocked when that happens to us. I'm like, oh yeah, there's this issue. We're all staring at it. We just all got used to it. You know? We're like, yeah, then that's just how it works. And then somebody goes, Hey, why does it work like this? And you go, you know what? There's not a good reason. We'll fix it. And oh, it's not even hard to fix. It's just like you just saw it so many times. You never you didn't see it as a problem anymore. I can't think of a specific example. It's always a little s it'd be like little annoyances. Yeah. You know that you just don't like you're just working around without realizing. But by like, you know, week week two, you're already like, yeah, that's just this fine.
Jamil Bhuya
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It could be something as simple as in the button, why isn't why isn't there a price? You know, it's like, oh well the price is actually higher up here in the PDP. It's like, yeah, but if you have a sticky add to cart, like Shouldn't the price be there if you scroll down? You know, it could just be something as simple as that. And you're like, oh shit, yeah, I I never thought of that.
Kurt Elster
You know? And I like you phrasing it as a question really changed it. You go, well, should it just be down here be you know, in this instance, like give a reason why? And then the person be like goes, Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then like in your example, it's like it's it's not even a difficult thing to fix. If that took fifteen minutes, I'd be surprised.
Jamil Bhuya
Yes. Yeah, exactly.
Kurt Elster
Yeah. And so, you know, it is a lot of it's just like approaching things with with fresh eyes. Um earlier you mentioned social proof. I think social proof's hugely important. UGC, you know, adding Um especially getting like uh customer video and photos on a site now. We just I've recently started uh started, you know, really focusing on that with like review apps often support it. Um, so I want to make sure that they're doing that. It's enabled and the widgets are set up right. And you know, I want to optimize my review uh request emails to try and maximize the number of reviews we can get. You know, should it be 14 days? Should it be 21 days? And you know, I want um if I can get like bonus, you know, video from customers in there, maybe I build that as meta fields or I use an app like most to do it.
Jamil Bhuya
Yeah.
Kurt Elster
Um any Any other thoughts there, you know, aside from like, you g just gather the content and display it, please, I beg you.
Jamil Bhuya
Well, one of the things we really actually try to do is We will take assets like I said and kind of like become the creative art director where we will edit it and optimize it to load so that obviously like number one conversion killers slow load speeds. Let's go back and edit that in uh what I think about it. But uh a lot of these review apps, while they're great or like UGC apps, they're great. You don't have curation. It'll just pull whatever in, and then sometimes you have a security breach, and suddenly you have to re-sign into your And you know, uh into that app and now it breaks and it looks all weird, so now you have these X's as boxes because it can't pull in. So like what we actually do is just like a simple solution. It's like we take the asset, we edit it, we compress it, and now we basically like build it as part of your site. So that like it's curated and technically you would have to manually change it and it's not pulling in a live feed because like You don't know what it's gonna pull in from the live feed, especially now with like uh let's use Instagram as an example. You know, people can tag you and like show up on your feed as like a collaborator, and you can be like, hey, this This isn't representative of this product, or maybe, you know, uh Tier's a great example. You're gonna do a product launch, you're doing a collab, and you're getting influencers to like give a sneak peek of something. And now suddenly they're posting, it's that's pulling, you know, the first few posts on your feed, and they're talking about this product that no one can buy yet. Right. And you're kind of like, oh crap, like this was just us generating hype and social proof to collect on an email list so that, you know, w we can announce the drop and customers are now leaving support tickets. Like, hey, I want this thing. Where is it? So um we're really like big believers in curating UGC because like again our we're a design agency so like we want to show like a good mixture of like static gifts but like product demos even You know, and and not just like be the same type of content over and over again because we're using it to kind of like merchandise a bit of an experience. So if it's like clothing, we want to show someone like trying it on, zipping it up, whatever that might be. We want to show someone like posing in it. Like maybe they're like, I don't know, in a cool park or something. I'm clearly not the creative director myself. So it's like We we want to have like different assets to show like different points and different use cases. And um that's how we think UGC should be like used. It's like It's not just social proof. It could also be like a a demonstration of a product, right? And uh, you know, being that ICP, it's like This ain't in a studio, this is in a park. Like this this sweater that you buy, like it's it's dope for everyday use. Here's it being used kind of thing.
Kurt Elster
So you're right about yeah, the danger of not moderating UGC content, especially like the review-based one. Cause I it for some of our retainer clients, I'm the one who gets to go through and moderate. What the stuff people submit. And when you go through it, most of it's like, you know, you took a blurry photo of a box? Why did you think we wanted a photo of the box? you know, of like the literal box it shipped in. You know, or they're like, all right, here's the t-shirt, and it's like in the bag at Shippedon. Like, okay, I get you know, you You you did the assignment, but we're not you're not getting an A on that one. Uh and then you know what do you do with it? It's like, okay, that really doesn't this isn't helping anybody, right? And so I'm like, eh, probably not approve this. Or it's like, you know, really what you're looking for is like, you know, show it to me in action. Show me just put it on and now take a selfie. Oh, okay, a real person wearing this.
Jamil Bhuya
One of the things I'll say quickly that we're doing for one of our clients right now, which we thought was really cool, is we're taking really cool video reviews And we're creating, um, we're pulling it in using like one of the Shopify apps, but like it's it's not updating live and like we're building a product card directly at the bottom of it where you can add to cart right off the video review. So it's kind of someone like demonstrating like, hey, look, here's this thing I bought. It shows the review, the social proof, the five stars, the actual text. And then right at the bottom is kind of like this cool little like hover state graphic. with like a little add to cart there. So for us it's kind of like using landing page principles and customizing that design so that there's a shopping experience. at every reasonable touch point because again a conversion killer just like too many trust signals there can also be way too many add to cards where it gets to the point where you're like What what do I click? You know, that type of thing. But yeah, I think that's something that's like been like a cool little customization that we've been playing with.
Kurt Elster
Do you think there's any design trends that are negative for conversion?
Jamil Bhuya
Well, let's let's touch on everyone's most popular subject using a lot of these AI tools. Right. Uh we we've actually tried to use some let's call it design-based AI tools.
Kurt Elster
Those I don't trust My experience with them has not been great.
Jamil Bhuya
It's not been good. And I think it's really important to kind of reiterate like the human experience versus What we're finding with AI then I again, we've tried using a couple like design or dev-based AI tools and like puts together such like a simple solution to something that By the time we go fix it and customize it and like actually get it to do what we wanted, we were like, it's like you're stuck with something that's not your ideal end state. So by the time you kind of end up like configuring into where you need it just ended up becoming like more work right and it's like you still need a systems tool or an operator to do the high level strategic thinking So I think this whole idea of AI taking over people's jobs and getting rid of creatives, it is creating a real problem, I think, at like entry-level jobs because now it's like Graphic designers, copywriters, all those things, they're not being valued the same way. But if you have like experience with like you know utilizing a tool for like a complex solution, There's always gonna be room for creatives and and I'll I'll leave you with this example that I I've been actually using with clients recently because they Will literally ask me, they're like, Jamil, I I get it, you're custom, blah, blah, blah, but you are more expensive than these like 510K guys. Um Why couldn't we just use a WYSIWYG, you know, like a what you see is what you get, drag and drop, or AI?
Kurt Elster
If it's so I with those, I'm like, you know what? If it's so easy, give it a shot. Let me know how it goes.
Jamil Bhuya
Well, I I literally said to one client on a call, I was like, hey. Do you have a drill at home? They're like, yes. I was like, do you live near a Home Depot? They're like, yes. I was like, so you're capable of purchasing two by fours and four by fours? They're like, yes. I was like, So did you build your own home or would you? They're like, absolutely not. I was like, so you'd still hire a master carpenter even though you have all the tools and knowledge accessible to you. They're like, okay, we get your point. So uh, you know, again, I'm gonna have to maybe not be such an asshole when I ask that in the future and maybe just like position it differently. But the point is, like, hey, AI is just another tool. If you don't know how to prompt it, if you don't know what your end outcome is supposed to look like, it's still gonna just regurgitate a solution. You have to be the architect to know what that proper solution is still.
Kurt Elster
100%. I like it. I think that's that's good advice. We'll we'll end it there. Jameel, where could people find out more about uh you and other half studio?
Jamil Bhuya
So you can check us out at other half. studio. So that's our website. Hit me up on LinkedIn. It's Jamil Buya, J-A-M-I-L-B-H-U-Y-A. And um yeah, you can also email me at jameel at other half dot studio. Always down to chat, always down to do a podcast. Uh thank you so much for having me, Kurt. This has been a pleasure. I've been super excited to be on this uh ever since I met you uh earlier this summer and I've honestly had a blast. I appreciate all the time. Thank you.
Kurt Elster
Thank you. Thank you Jamil. Enjoyed it. Jameel Buya, other half studio. Check it out. Crowdfunding campaigns are great. You can add social proof and urgency to your product pre-orders while reducing risk of failure But with traditional crowdfunding platforms, you're paying high fees and giving away control, all while your campaign is lost in a sea of similar offers. It can be frustrating. That's why we built Crowdfunder. The Shopify app that turns your Shopify product pages into your own independent crowdfunding campaigns. We originally created Crowdfunder for our private clients. And it was so successful, we turned it into an app that anyone can use. Today, merchants using Crowdfunder have raised millions collectively. And With Crowdfunder, you'll enjoy real-time tracking, full campaign control, and direct customer engagement. And it's part of the Built for Shopify program, so you know it's easy to use. So say goodbye to high fees and hello to successful store-based crowdfunding. Start your free trial and transform your Shopify store into a pre-order powerhouse today. Search Crowdfunder in the Shopify App Store to get started.