😲 $4000 gets 475+ influencer posts

Good morning! 

Here’s what’s happening in the world of Shopify ecommerce this week:

• Shipping speed Vs delivery date

• Shopify rolls out Collabs Network

• $4000 gets 475+ influencer posts

• How to write product descriptions that sell

• Over 15,000 fake reviews removed from the app store

• What can Shopify stores learn from Amazon getting sued?

Morning Commerce is once again brought to you by Nerdify, an expert Shopify Partner with over 10 years of in-the-trenches experience building ecommerce websites that convert.

ACQUISITION

$4000 gets 475+ influencer posts

Taylor Lagace shared a brilliantly simple influencer marketing strategy that netted over 475 free posts from influencers in their market.

Instead of going the usual “pay $100-1500 per post” route which can fast send a small store broke, they simply reached out to 1000 niche influencers with an irresistible proposition:

1. Your content is great

2. You’d love our product

3. Can we send it to you with no strings attached?

Out of 1000 DMs, 455 responded, and 203 ended up posting the product for a total of 475 posts. All free. On top of the millions of post impressions, tens of thousands of visitors, and hundreds of sales, the real value of this campaign is in the rights to the content… they’ve now got years of paid ad content they can leverage.

Shopify rolls out Collabs Network

Shopify Collabs helps brands recruit ambassadors and find creators to partner with. It’s less than a year old and just received a huge update: Collabs Network.

Creators can now:

1. Search for unique products across opted-in merchants

2. Earn high commissions for selling products

3. Build relationships with merchants for even more opportunities to collaborate

Collabs Network is currently available to all creators who have completed Collabs onboarding, have a public social media account with at least 1K followers, and are located in the US, CA or UK. Hopefully, we’ll see it roll out to more markets soon.

Haven’t got Collabs set up yet? Install the app and get started today.

CONVERSION

Dark patterns: What can Shopify stores learn from Amazon getting sued?

In issue #1 of Morning Commerce, we shared an article talking about which retail websites use the most “dark patterns”… deceptive strategies designed to trick online shoppers into performing actions that mostly benefit the retailer and not the customer.

Amazon was the worst offender, with a total of 11 dark patterns.

It comes as no shock then, less than four months later the FTC is suing Amazon for these deceptive practices.

“The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against Amazon.com, Inc. for its years-long effort to enroll consumers into its Prime program without their consent while knowingly making it difficult for consumers to cancel their subscriptions to Prime.”

UX Design wrote an interesting article about how to approach ethical design, and it applies to all Shopify stores.

“This FTC lawsuit against Amazon serves as a superhero’s call to action. It’s a resounding wake-up call, a beacon of light signaling the end of the deceptive pattern era. It sets a powerful precedent for other companies that may be contemplating the same dubious practices.”

They liken it to the coming of the CAN-SPAM Act and how it impacted email marketing, and layout some simple guidelines for brands to follow:

• Clear opt-out options

• Functioning unsubscribe options

• Transparent communication

Definitely worth a read, especially if you’ve been pushing customers hard into subscription options.

How To Write Product Descriptions That SELL

Shipping speed Vs delivery date

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 26 years of web development, it’s that you can never make things too simple for people. Any hint of ambiguity in an interface and you can guarantee a vast number of people will get confused.

For example, when considering an online purchase, one of the first questions that comes to your customer’s mind is “when will I receive my order“.

The way most stores deal with this is to spell out delivery times:

• Standard shipping 3-5 business days.

• Express shipping 2 days.

• Etc

However, research from Baymard Institute has shown for many people, the simple calculation of working out what “2 days” means in terms of when they will get their order leaves them absolutely bewildered.

Don’t make them think.

Instead, you should aim to provide customers with estimated delivery dates.

It’s important to get these dates as accurate as possible, because most shoppers will read an estimated delivery date as an implicit promise and hold you to it.

EMAIL MARKETING

Shopify launches Shopify Marketing Tools

Shopify has been shipping new products and features at an insane rate over the past few months, and their new marketing tools might be the biggest one yet.

Shopify Marketing Tools is designed to give you everything you need to grow your email list and market to them, all from your Shopify dashboard.

This includes:

• Shopify Forms

• Shopify Email

• Shopify Inbox

• Marketing automations

• Segmentation

An impressive list and I can see a few app devs shaking in their boots!

SHOPIFY NEWS

Over 15,000 fake reviews were removed from the app store

Inspo of the Week

Sol touts themselves as “a reading technology company creating tools to illuminate the mind” and has one of the most intriguing home page designs I’ve come across recently. “In an age of distraction, we're reimagining the reading experience to help you feel the power of being immersed in a good book again.” Gorgeous gold tones meet futuristic 3D product models and while I barely understand what they’re selling I’m hooked.

How we can help…

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