Checkout Champions: Boosting Ecommerce Revenue

Interview Transcription –

Checkout Champions: Boosting Ecommerce Revenue

(0:02 – 0:16)

Welcome to the Proof Point Podcast, where we decode digital success, one click at a time. We share key takeaways fueled by data and insights that your team can implement today to drive growth. Now, let’s get started.

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Welcome, this is Stacie Porter-Bilger, your host for the Proof Point Podcast, where I feature B2B and D2C businesses and thought leaders, sharing marketing, data tech, sales strategies, and leadership insights that kickstart your growth in the rapidly changing digital space. This episode is brought to you by Proof Digital. Proof Digital is a strategic and creative performance marketing agency.

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We partner with companies to create data-fueled marketing sales funnels. Before I get started today, I just wanna give a shout-out and thanks to Emily Grover at BigCommerce. Met Emily when we became a BigCommerce certified partner, and she has been nothing but amazing in helping us help our clients grow in the ecommerce space. So she introduced me to our guest today, Lauren Spence. Lauren is the director of the agency partner program at BigCommerce and has been with BigCommerce for nine years. She’s worked with thousands of brands, agencies, and just about any ecommerce practitioner you can think of across any type of businesses.

(1:28 – 1:35)

And have been helping them grow for quite a long time. Thanks, Lauren, I appreciate you coming on. Yes, thank you so much for having me, happy to be here.

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Awesome. Well, why don’t we start just a little bit about you, and then we’ll kind of get into a little bit more about BigCommerce. So tell me a little bit about your story.

(1:44 – 1:54)

Yeah, sure thing. And by the way, if you were amiss, if I didn’t also acknowledge Emily, fun fact, I don’t know if you are aware of this, we’ve known each other since we were toddlers. No, I did not know that, really.

(1:55 – 2:06)

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So we have a lifelong history if you will, and it’s fun to see our careers actually converge and come together, get to work together. Totally converged, that’s so funny.

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So we became ecommerce gurus, that’s so funny. Yeah, yeah, it’s great, we just can’t quit each other, you know, we’re attached to the hip. Love you, Emily.

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Alright, so a little bit about me, Lauren Spence. Yeah, at BigCommerce, as you mentioned, for nine years, you know, I’ve had a history in tech, so previously I worked at Hewlett Packard before this, but I think my most relevant experience has been the BigCommerce realm. So funny enough, I, in fact, started as one of our outbound sales development representatives.

(2:36 – 3:22)

So, you know, biz dev, cold calling, outbounding, developing opportunities, then moved into a role where I was doing full cycle sales, you know, for bid market, enterprise brands, and then pivoted my career into channel partnerships probably around seven, six years ago, I’d say. And just, you know, been very, very passionate in working with systems integrators, you know, UX, UI designers, marketers, you name it, and have moved up into various leadership roles, and now I’m the director of the Americas board for agency. So it’s been a fun ride with BigCommerce, I’ve witnessed the evolution, and for those listening, BigCommerce is the world’s leading SaaS e-commerce platform for mid-market enterprise brands.

(3:23 – 3:40)

We have about 60,000 clients across the world. We aim to help you not only reduce costs and grow revenue on your website, but every channel where products are listed online, and that’s by way of an acquisition of a company we now own called Feedonomics, which is an omnichannel feed management platform. That’s e-commerce platform, Agnostic.

(3:41 – 4:26)

But anyways, as I mentioned, being here as long as I have, I’ve really watched a very fun evolution from startups really focusing on SMBs, democratizing e-commerce, to now really disrupting and innovating, right, in the mid-market enterprise space, and bringing, you know, all the value that comes with SaaS, right, low TCO and performance features, but not compromising on flexibility, right, with the openness and composability of our platform, right? We’re in the mock alliance, so it’s been fun. No, yeah. And one thing I do love, and we’re new to the partnership within the last couple of years and growing, and what I’ve appreciated is how big commerce is invested in our success and our client success.

(4:26 – 4:35)

And it’s really, it’s shown through. So one, I just want to kind of give a shout-out because I really have seen and felt that, that investment. I mean, so it’s awesome.

(4:36 – 4:55)

Thank you. Yeah, and I really appreciate that sentiment because we’ve really kind of taken a pledge around, you know, partner first and customer first mentality. You know, we just want to be a best-of-breed commerce platform and believe that, you know, it’s folks like you all that are really going to be able to go in and really make the client’s vision come true.

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And we want to make sure that there’s no limitations for you to do that. Right. I mean, we’re growing our clients’ brands, we’re helping them reach more customers, we’re helping them beat their competitors.

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And bottom line, when we’re talking about today, how can they increase that revenue number so that they grow and stay ahead? So I think we both have that passion. So I think we’re going to get into that, some of the tips around some of those issues and opportunities that e-commerce brands can take advantage of. What’s new at BigCommerce? What’s some latest things that’s coming down the pike? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(5:40 – 5:56)

So I’d probably say most notable, we’ve got some exciting new leadership that’s joined the company. So new president, Travis Hess, very, very excited. Actually, just speaking about partners, you know, he’s built his career around, you know, SI, his agency.

(5:56 – 6:40)

So he’s joining us after leading, you know, Shopify practice at Accenture. Very, very much understands the value of agencies and SIs and engagements with customers and the value that you all bring to growth, to marketing, to continuous innovation, helping optimize checkout conversions, you name it, right? Very much growth-oriented. And, you know, candidly, why I’m really excited that he’s joining is it appears to see, you know, I’ve seen his career around Shopify, Shopify Plus in his SI days, and now he’s taking bets here with big commerce when he didn’t need to, right? So I’m really excited to see that diversification and expertise, you know, being brought to the table, you know, for our own client base, for our partner ecosystem.

(6:40 – 6:52)

So really, really excited there and just energy and he bring, you know, 20 plus years in e-com, right? So he’s a veteran. We also have another- A lot of changes, a lot of changes in those 40 years. Oh, yeah.

(6:52 – 6:56)

And now it’s rapidly changing. So go ahead, sorry. Yes, yes, it is.

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It definitely is. I feel like I can’t keep up. You know, there’s so many different evolutions of even e-commerce platforms and acquisitions and such over the years.

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And it’s been fun to see and be a part of a lot of winners, I’d say, in this space. So another interesting leadership update and really exciting update is Tom Armstrong is joining as our VP of Enterprise. So very, very extensive background history with Demandware, Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

(7:26 – 7:48)

He built a career there, nearly a decade there. Also joining us from Stylitics. So very, very rich e-commerce experience, enterprise ecommerce experience. So I’m very excited to have him. I’d say those are two pretty critical leadership updates. I think that as we continue to disrupt an enterprise, very excited for what they’ll bring to the table.

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On the product front, for those that haven’t seen, go to bigcommerce.com slash next big thing. We’ve just released hundreds of new features for folks to dive in and take a look and leverage for their ecommerce stores. So areas like AI, international, multi-storefront, B2B, checkout, you name it, right? Performance, security.

(8:12 – 8:29)

So that’s probably the latest and greatest we could dovetail into any of those enhancements. There’s a lot of innovation that we’re doing. Biggest categories, of course, are gonna be around headless commerce with our new accelerator, B2B and international, say the top three.

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Okay. And we’ve had some great experiences and been growing on the B2B side of things. We’ve had a couple of clients really take a hard look at that too.

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And I think that’s a clear differentiator for you all as well. So we see it from that perspective, your platform. Yeah, it represents nearly 40% of our client base.

(8:51 – 9:04)

Yeah, there’s a lot happening in B2B. We’re seeing certainly this evolution of B2B-type buyer experiences being the expectation, right? A lot of millennials now are these ecommerce operators, donors. Right.

(9:05 – 9:18)

They’re looking for more ways to streamline operational efficiencies, right? Get faster cash flow, right? Bringing that online. They wanna cross-sell and upsell to their base. I mean, there’s a huge transformation going on right now in that arena.

(9:18 – 9:36)

That’s where we really see a lot of the white space and a lot of the opportunity. No, and efficiency. We’re moving a client who was on another platform to BigCommerce and they’re just changing their entire processes because of it.

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I mean, and making efficiencies within the organization. So there’s such a great opportunity when you have in the B2B space. Yeah, and tell me about AI.

(9:49 – 10:00)

What’s new on the AI’s piece? Yeah, AI, the buzzword of 2024. The buzzword of, we all are talking about it. I think I had a podcast last week about AI and images.

(10:00 – 10:11)

It’s gonna be the buzzword for the next 10 years. I know, I know. Yeah, I am excited about the updates we’re talking about and just my thought and just more personal Lauren thought on AI.

(10:11 – 11:06)

It was fun being at all the trade shows and conferences this year, everyone talking about it. But my comforting takeaway was there’s still just so much in need for agencies and other e-commerce marketers and developers to actually go and implement and add on to. Right, yeah, like there’s only so, the tool only goes so far, right? Like it’s not all doom and gloom, not taking over, but sure, there’s operational efficiencies and that’s the latest and greatest for AI for BigCommerce. That’s what we’ve built out, right? So we’ve released capabilities for writing product descriptions that are SEO-optimized. You can then actually also go in and do this in different tones, different personas. There’s also, we’re partnering with Google for their AI capabilities for very, very advanced product recommendations.

(11:07 – 11:23)

We’ve seen really promising results on that actually. So it’s pretty cool too. I mentioned earlier, like the openness of our platform, we’re seeing a lot of partners build all kinds of functionality, not only to streamline back-end operations but for front-end items to help convert.

(11:23 – 11:41)

And you can do that, kind of bring your own LLM like you’re not locked in, restricted in just one. So I’d say around those two areas of product recommendations and helping streamline some back-end processes such as product descriptions are two key critical areas. And that continues to be an area where we’re doubling down and investing in.

(11:42 – 11:51)

No, that’s awesome. Now you hit the nail on the target on all those pieces. And it’s exciting to hear about your partnership with Google, that makes a lot of sense.

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And they’re also changing it on a daily basis as well. So we’re all kind of trying to keep up on that front. That’s why we partnered with them.

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Like, okay, you’re gonna keep making the rules. Let’s just partner with you on how you wanna do it. And I think that’s the right partnership to have.

(12:08 – 12:24)

And on some of the improvements, I know we’re gonna get into really kind of nuts and bolts of actually making more money online with checkout. But one thing I’m excited about seeing is the Makeswift, the page builder improvements. I know that’s gonna help a lot.

(12:25 – 12:49)

We’re looking forward to getting and diving into that. So are we, you know, makeswift is a world-class visual page builder for any sites that are on Next.js or React base. So not even on BigCommerce, right? So if you’re listening today and you have a content site and you want more, you know, freedom and flexibility for drag and drop capabilities that are very, very advanced, very slick, this is a great tool.

(12:49 – 13:10)

But we also, you know, in a strategic move to acquire this, you know, for our own merchants around the commerce side that also want that flexibility. And this is kind of in tandem with the upcoming launch of a new headless reference architecture BigCommerce is launching called Catalyst. So Catalyst is essentially, you know, higher jumping-off point for headless builds.

(13:11 – 13:34)

Unopinionated, but the most opinionated part is if you do have to be on Next.js or React, we all have options to purchase, for sale, for hosting. But if, you know, hey, you wanna bring in your own integrations like Algolia, Contentful, Contents., Gloomreach, go ahead. But this framework essentially is gonna reduce, you know, that time to market, reduce the headaches, right? Of maintaining, reduce those costs.

(13:34 – 14:00)

So essentially kind of giving folks headless without those headaches. And MakeSwift is a visual page builder that we’re going to incorporate in Catalyst. So, hey, yeah, so marketers now, you know, that have agreed to take a headless approach with commerce, they’re gonna still feel empowered, right? And not feel, you know, beholden to a developer to make changes to the site, merchandise, promotions.

(14:00 – 14:19)

Yeah, like it’s, and it’s very purposeful for developers too, various widgets and customizations there. So yes, that’s kind of our next-gen storefront capabilities you can think about for big commerce. In addition to us making headless more approachable to the market, right? Making that faster and more marketer-friendly.

(14:19 – 14:25)

No, that’s awesome. I know we’ll jump into that as well as an agency. I mean, you know, things are moving fast.

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So you have to have those tools in your toolbox to be able to help put out marketing messages quickly, landing pages quickly, all those things that we need to do. And so that’s exciting. You guys are, you’re staying ahead of the curve.

(14:41 – 14:59)

Yes, very exciting. What’s happening? Let’s shift a little bit more to, I mean, maybe we can get into some case studies so that people can visualize this. We know that I mean, from a UX standpoint, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do checkout.

(15:00 – 15:20)

So we’re talking ecommerce here, we’re talking about trying to get more revenue for our clients. What are some common challenges or mistakes that you see when somebody’s setting up an e-commerce site on the checkout side? Because that’s what we want in the end. I mean, we work to get people there, but the bottom line is we want somebody to put their credit card in.

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Yeah, yeah. It’s the whole nuts and bolts of ecommerce. It is.

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So what are some challenges and mistakes you often see? Sure. You know, it’s funny, I see lots because I think when folks are looking at transforming their online store, doing a revamp, everyone is so fixated on the UX, UI, for the whole purchase journey. But more often than not, the whole checkout itself is just so overlooked, right? And they’re nailing that front end, right? Like from a personalization and loyalty standpoint, they’ve got the right products being surfaced and they’ve had the right promotion at the right time.

(16:04 – 16:29)

But then getting to checkout, finding what we’re still seeing according to research data, 70% of shoppers are still abandoning carts. And it’s a lot of reasons that probably won’t surprise you. Like, think maybe delivery expectations weren’t set, right? A lot of people want to know that Amazon’s conditioned us to say, oh, when am I going to get this? Is it going to be today, tomorrow? Like they kind of want it.

(16:29 – 16:53)

Am I paying for it? Yeah, am I paying for it? What are these taxes that I didn’t account for? What is this extra fee? Maybe the checkout itself just took too long. Like maybe I was forced to create an account, spill out 12 different fields. I’ve still seen that time and time again, right? And there’s a couple of things, low-hanging fruit, if you will, to overcome that.

(16:54 – 17:06)

One, digital wallets. Hopefully all of us, this is a new piece of information. But it’s not enough from what I’ve seen to just have a digital wallet, say like Apple Pay and others out there.

(17:06 – 17:27)

It’s all about placement in checkout or directly on product pages, right? To help increase the time to conversion and to make that easier, right? And then I mentioned earlier, another issue I’ve seen, or that we’ve seen the data with checkout is, people don’t want to create accounts anymore. As soon as you see that like, oh, I’m a guest. Oh, I’m out.

(17:27 – 17:31)

I had to put my email somewhere. Yeah, yeah. It’s like, no, no.

(17:31 – 17:39)

Like, I just want you to, Apple Pay is what gets me. If there’s Apple Pay on anything, it’s dangerous. Use my face ID.

(17:40 – 18:01)

But the creating an account, that’s where this rise of OTPs, right? The one-time password, quick options are really, really taking flight. So some exciting updates in the big commerce world to know about, we’re partnered with PayPal, their major payment partner of ours. They’re about to go live with Fastlane and that’s their OTP.

(18:01 – 18:15)

We’re seeing really, really impressive results. Increasing time to checkout about 40%, seeing conversion rates around 70% in the beta. Yeah, I mean, it’s like, we’ve got a network of 430 million plus users.

(18:15 – 18:28)

So that’s why, right? It’s doing so well. So chances are, if you use this, your shoppers probably have an account with PayPal and are gonna- Yeah, they do. I mean, most of the time, I mean, that’s how I pay for things most of the time online.

(18:29 – 18:31)

Same. Yeah, it’s that. Mine are PayPal and Apple Pay.

(18:32 – 18:59)

Yeah, same. Those are the two. No, I will say, I’m seeing, I love Stripelink as well. So Stripelink’s another OTP. Bold, like there’s a lot of winners out there, a lot of different gateways for different use cases, right? So there’s no one size fits all. But I’d say like having the right payment options, not only for your shoppers but just for you as a brand like they’ve got way more competitive rates that will help save on margins.

(19:00 – 19:06)

Digital wallets, by the way, cost way less than processing a credit card. Like for the merchant. Yeah, way less.

(19:06 – 19:12)

Just not- And that’s a good point to put out. I mean, they don’t necessarily think about that. They should think about that, but they don’t always think about that.

(19:12 – 19:23)

Yeah, ACH is way cheaper. So I’d say those are some of the critical things. And then, you know, okay, right? The checkout itself is, you know, very, very critical to get right.

(19:24 – 19:35)

Ours on the BigCommerce side, to give you a frame of reference, we’ve optimized our checkout. I mean, this is a core area of focus. We have an optimized one-page checkout that is fully customizable, actually.

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So if you do wanna make tweaks, add fields, or let’s say maybe you’re also in B2B, right? Maybe you’re not a traditional D2C, you know, client in B2B, you wanna customize that experience as well. You’ve got full flexibility to do that. What we’ve found is brands that are leveraging our one-page checkout, in addition to one of these best-of-breed payment options I had mentioned earlier, they’re seeing checkout conversion rates about 70.9%, as well as a visit-to-order conversion rate about 3.1%. Okay.

(20:07 – 20:21)

It’s massive. It’s like 55% higher than the internet average. So not one platform, again, we’ll do it all, but ours is coming pretty close in being pretty darn good in this arena, right? Of course, that’ll depend based on the category you’re in.

(20:21 – 20:43)

But these things matter, right? So try and trim up your fields, get a digital wallet, get an OTP, trim down that process, and then think about your post-purchase journey too. Yeah, let’s talk about that a little bit more because they don’t necessarily, I mean, the follow-up piece, just like in regular sales is part of the process. True, yeah.

(20:44 – 20:49)

So talk about that a little bit more. Yeah, your website is like your number-one sales rep. Yep.

(20:49 – 21:08)

You know, yeah. Yeah, the post-purchase journey, I mean, for me, I think about, well, there’s the fun, not so sexy stuff, but so necessary, tracking, right? Tracking inventory. Did I just buy something that’s actually not in stock? Ooh, that’s rough, right? You gotta make sure you, all your systems are seamlessly integrated.

(21:08 – 21:34)

You’ve got the right inventory at the right time. Did I just choose to buy online, pick up at the store, and is that gonna be in the store, right? Did I have the right options in checking out? Yeah, if I’m shipping something, did the tracking come to me right away? Right, was it easy? I mean, did I get the right product? I mean, oh. Did I get the product? Like, you gotta nail, you gotta nail the customer service side of things.

(21:34 – 21:58)

It sounds like a Captain Obvious thing, but I’m still seeing some of those mistakes out there. And like you said, customer service, you gotta have live chat bot to help make it easy. If they have questions during checkout, like you wanna make it very, very easy for them to understand what’s gonna happen when they purchase this product, especially if you’ve got high AOV products, do you have buy now, pay later options? Like there’s a lot to think about.

(21:58 – 22:06)

Yeah, what’s your return policy, all those kinds of things too, yeah. Oh my gosh, returns. So in the post-purchase journey, two critical things.

(22:06 – 22:16)

One, especially for DTC, the unboxing experience. Yeah. I think that ecommerce, it’s just so saturated, right? There’s so much competition.

(22:17 – 22:45)

If you’re shipping me something, and I know Amazon actually doesn’t do this, so I’ll take them out of the equation, but like to get me to buy again from a branded site, if the box is pretty and I’ve got little inserts giving me ideas on how to use the product and just more info about them, what’s this company doing for the environment, like all that’s gonna emotionally get to me, I’m gonna wanna buy from you again. That is a great point. Especially, like you said, the growing consumer of the 20 to the 35-year-old.

(22:45 – 22:53)

That’s really critical, those pieces. I know. I mean, there’s such fleeting brand loyalty, right? Yes.

(22:55 – 23:05)

Amazon’s gonna eat up a lot of the purchases. I mean, we love it, we hate it, but it’s a reality. How are you gonna drive traffic to your branded site? You’ve gotta create personal connections.

(23:05 – 23:18)

A lot of that’s gonna go into your market messaging, loyalty programs, personalization when they actually get to the site, like are you servicing relevant products, basically they are. But if they buy from you, you gotta make sure they buy again. And that is through the unboxing experience.

(23:19 – 23:34)

That’s through the messaging that comes afterwards. Did you send them a sample of something that might keep them coming back for more? And I’ve actually seen a lot of people try and use promotions and discounts as a way to get that first purchase. Right.

(23:34 – 23:45)

But I actually kind of think that undervalues your brand. Like, I think that once they make that purchase, then giving them a discount can then unlock this favoritism of, ooh, I’ve earned this. Yes.

(23:45 – 23:49)

Yes. You know? I’ve earned this. And I think I’m special, too.

(23:49 – 23:54)

I think I’m special. I’ve done something. I’ve gotta use it now, you know? That’s right.

(23:55 – 24:01)

I’m losing money if I don’t. Right. And then the second one is returns.

(24:02 – 24:26)

I just went, and I won’t name the brand, but I went through a horrible returns process. I was like, wait, how have you, this major conglomerate, not figured this out yet? If I have to box up my own package, print my own label, go and figure that out, no thanks. Like, these other nice companies, what is it? Like, Happy Returns and such, where I can just go drop off at a location.

(24:26 – 24:32)

Yes. And not do anything. Like, that’s the move, right? Especially for apparel, where I’m buying a bunch of stuff in different sizes.

(24:33 – 24:41)

You know, I gotta figure out what’s gonna fit in one go. Yeah, returns. If something is difficult from a returns process, I probably won’t buy from them again.

(24:41 – 24:57)

No. And I mean, and Amazon has trained us about how one is, how I’m not paying, I mean, the shipping piece, but then on returns, I mean, I can, it’s easy to return. At least it is for most of the time when I’m doing Amazon.

(24:57 – 25:11)

So for our clients, we talk about shipping and we talk about returns quite a bit to be really clear to the consumer. Very much so, yeah. And I think that, yeah, this is very C2C focused.

(25:11 – 25:28)

Yeah. Like through that lens, but it’s very critical. Yeah, I think still for B2B though, there’s some parallels with creating loyalty, creating the right promotions or bulk pricing, creating that trust post-purchase, the customer service afterward.

(25:28 – 25:36)

Like all those themes are the same. Yeah, it’s a customer service piece. I mean, just, do you pick up the phone? Do you answer it? I mean, those type of things.

(25:37 – 25:49)

It depends on your market, your ability to do that. But I, with clients that I do well on the B2B side, it’s the same thing. You have a quality follow-up, follow, and, you know, customer service.

(25:50 – 25:55)

Absolutely. Yeah, it’s critical. You know, there’s some really good examples of checkouts.

(25:55 – 26:10)

Did I miss anything on the checkout? Did we cover everything on the checkout that you wanted to touch on? I want to get in. You know what, I think, yeah, I think that those are the nuts and bolts, right? Especially for anyone sees and kind of gets that. I think, you know, those are the critical things that you’d be surprised.

(26:11 – 26:19)

Not a whole lot of folks. Folks are ignoring it. They’re focused on the front-end theme and to get someone to add the cart, but not actually the cart itself, right? And that’s overlooked.

(26:19 – 26:42)

So hopefully you’re listening, go take a look at your experience or take a look at these sites you’re about to share. Right, and those details, I mean, we A-B test this all the time. I mean, those little details, whether it’s easy to pay, whatever payment structure you have, not, you know, making it difficult, that you have to make an account, just a one-page piece of checkout, all those types of things.

(26:42 – 27:00)

They make a huge difference in conversions, which ends up in thousands, sometimes millions of dollars just by improving your checkout. Absolutely. I love some of the big commerce sites that I was checking out and wouldn’t mind if we kind of pulled up a couple and just check them out.

(27:01 – 27:23)

One that I’d like, I’m going to share my screen if that’s okay. Can you see that okay? I really love the Dippin’ Dots. This is, I know this is more, I think this is their B2B site or it’s more of their retailers and locations, but it is a really clean site to begin with.

(27:23 – 27:41)

And then from a checkout, I was checking out their checkout and how clean it is, so clean and so easy. I know when I’m going to get, you know, the shipment. Also, you know, all the important information that you need to have from a standpoint of a buyer.

(27:41 – 27:56)

And then if you go to the shopping cart, that’s a really clean look. Any other thoughts that you have on this particular one? I just really thought it was a really easy, clean. Yes.

(27:57 – 28:14)

I mean, you nailed it on the head. And I think what I like about this, and there’s a great case study. I mean, what you showed around, you know, expectations around shipping and product delivery and those types of areas and just the cleanliness of the actual experience and UX UI.

(28:15 – 28:30)

I think they had around like 78% increase in those orders and in those transactions. And the conversion rate itself now has massively improved to close to 40%. So these tweaks made a massive difference in their overall shopping experience.

(28:30 – 28:38)

And like you said, yeah, there’s kind of a D to C and B to BS component. So you could log in here and potentially see a different experience. Yeah.

(28:38 – 28:58)

I really love their checkout from a standpoint. Another one that I liked of a big commerce site was Carewell. And theirs has a little bit more information, but then you have a little bit, you’re also doing a little bit more in this particular brand.

(28:58 – 29:16)

And you have a few more different products. You have options from a, you know, one-time purchase or if you want auto-ship, but those are also some things that they have on theirs that I thought that was a pretty, you know. It’s a very Amazon-esque experience.

(29:16 – 29:29)

It looks like they’re using, yeah, integrating their fulfillment by Amazon. You know, one thing too, I didn’t even mention, this just reminds me, you know, we’re partnered with Bywick Prime. Yeah, that’s something else that I’ve seen folks incorporate on PDPs.

(29:29 – 29:47)

I mean, that’s much like this essentially, right? Like you see the experience, you see the pre-two-day shipping, right? You see the expectations on returns. I mean, I feel safe buying this, right? I feel like I can buy this and there’s no risk. Like that’s what I love about this and it’s familiar.

(29:48 – 30:00)

And then, you know, I could save if I turn this on with auto-ship, right? From a subscription perspective, but yeah, this is great. They also had a massive increase. I think they were previously with Shopify.

(30:01 – 30:13)

There’s a lot more flexibility to do things like this, right, from a customization point on BigCommerce. So they had about 200% lift when moving to our platform. Okay, that’s impressive.

(30:15 – 30:24)

But again, I like, I think like you said, I like it a lot because it makes me feel safe. It’s very Amazon-like. Yes.

(30:26 – 30:35)

Truth to that. But all the information is above the fold, too, of my eyes and what I’m seeing, which is important. It’s giving me some options.

(30:35 – 30:45)

Like you said, the auto-ship is definitely Amazon-like. So I appreciate this particular brand. Another one, just one more.

(30:47 – 30:57)

Lark, I wanna go buy one of these, by the way. I have one. They’re great.

Do you? Yes, yes. I’m gonna shop on this one later. Self-cleaning water bottles.

(30:57 – 31:08)

Yeah, they’re very, very cool. Okay. But if I go, you know, just go from the standpoint of shop now, I’m kind of on the front end here.

(31:08 – 31:12)

Self-purification, sorry. I misspoke. That’s okay.

(31:13 – 31:18)

I know what you meant. Yeah, yeah. And I can personalize it, too.

(31:18 – 31:23)

So they also wanna collect my email. That’s good, that’s good. I like the sidebar here.

(31:24 – 31:31)

Easy checkout. And I like the promotion bar at the top, too. It was just about to show me.

(31:31 – 31:33)

Yes. Oops. You know, to unlock more.

(31:34 – 31:46)

Yep. But again, I can do, I can trust here, I can do multiple pay checkouts here. And these are places that I’m comfortable paying and paying out and checking out on those type of things.

(31:47 – 32:01)

Yeah, and above the fold, like you mentioned, right? So that flexibility to customize a checkout that way. And then I also love that, hey, I’m still here and I can see reviews, too, now on the right, just to kind of further drive it home. Yes.

(32:01 – 32:04)

Yes, you’re making the right choice. Click this button. Yeah.

(32:05 – 32:08)

Yes, exactly. Everybody loves this. I’m going to love this.

(32:09 – 32:24)

So anyway, I really liked sharing a few of those because visually, that’s exactly what we just talked about before we pulled those up. All those dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s on the checkout. Yes, yep.

(32:24 – 32:32)

It’s the nut and bolts of your business online. There’s still so much to optimize and contend. Hey, buyer expectations are going to continue to change.

(32:33 – 32:45)

That’s the one constant in this space. I don’t know what the next payment option is going to be out there, but we’ll be ready for it, whatever it is, whatever that looks like. Yeah, we have to continue to adapt and move and move as fast as it’s moving.

(32:46 – 33:08)

So one last thing, this is, although you might’ve already covered it, just that last point there, this is the Proof Point podcast. What is the one last point that you would like to kind of bring home as we kind of wrap up today? Sure. I mean, look, from a tech stack standpoint, it’s probably an area where I’m most equipped to speak.

(33:08 – 33:22)

I’d say there is no one size fits all for any brand. As you’re thinking about making critical investments in your business, really look at that through the lens of future-proofing. Go with technologies that are API first.

(33:22 – 33:45)

Go with technologies that are going to allow you to be nimble, to be agile, to be a little bit more plug and play, allow you to be a little bit more best of breed. There’s a lot of companies out there that kind of are a jack of all trades, master of none, that want to own the whole tech stack. That could be nice from a convenience standpoint, especially if you’re a smaller brand, but if you’re growing fast and growing rapidly, I think you should be in the future-proofing mindset.

(33:45 – 34:42)

Go with the best-of-breed option. There’s just so much specialization out there in marketing tools and payments tools and commerce platforms and CMSs that, man, there’s a lot of innovations now in those areas, right? So don’t get locked in and put all your eggs in one basket and think about the investments you make looking at headless commerce implementations and going with platforms like us that will allow you to do that. And maybe for a future episode, we didn’t even talk about this, now it’s, okay, how do we, we’ve optimized the branded site experience, but the lion’s share of commerce we know is happening on other destinations and channels, now how do you optimize that, right? So I’d say that’s the biggest one is just, I think now is the time, especially now that we’re kind of post some recession scares, now is the time to be making those investments in optimizing a tech stack that’s gonna allow you to stay nimble and really grow.

(34:42 – 34:53)

Yep, absolutely, great points. And I see a future podcast on that particular topic coming. So we’ll chat more about that.

(34:54 – 35:16)

Well, thanks so much, Lauren. We’ve been talking to Lauren Spence. Thank you for being on the Proof Point podcast this afternoon. Yes, thank you so much for having me. And this was really, really fun, and loved it. So thank you, Stacie. Awesome. Thanks for listening to the Proof Point podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.