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Hey, y’all and welcome back to the 24th episode of Southern Fried eCommerce from EYStudios. This week our co-hosts Jay Brimberry and Emily Faulkner start out the conversation again with a bit of sports trivia. This time, Jay asks Emily to name a famous athlete who played with the number 24. For hints, he provided that this athlete played for the Lakers and is no longer with us. Emily then was able to guess Kobe Bryant. However, I would also like to shout out Willie Mays and Ken Griffey Jr. who wore the number in baseball a little longer ago. Jay then mentions that he hopes that Kobe is tuning in from heaven for this episode and Emily gave a nice shout-out to heaven like all sane eCommerce podcasters do.
Joining our very sane podcast hosts, this week we have EYStudios alumnus affiliate marketing and data expert, Stephen Orebaugh of Branded Research, Inc. Branded Research, owners of Branded Surveys, is a tech-driven insights company that focuses on providing useful, personalized data to businesses to help them grow. As Jay puts it, “the data king of Atlanta.”
Stephen works predominantly with larger agencies and brands and Jay asks if he’s seen a larger push from eCommerce businesses doing market research on products. Stephen says absolutely yes, “They all conduct market research. You name [a company] and they’re spending money on trying to get what consumers think about their brands.” Branded Research focuses on vetting reliable users for their surveys to provide accurate, high-quality, and honest data to their clients. This allows their clients to really drill down to a specific demographic or question they may have about their product or insight. For instance, clients may want to know how women between the ages of 24-29 in Northern California feel about their products or if their audience is leaning one way or another politically.
Jay points out that he thinks this is the perfect type of job for Emily who has a lot of opinions. She laughs and mentions that when she first moved to Atlanta and was looking for a job she did consider jobs where they would pay her for her opinion. Stephen then mentions that he always uses the example of himself in college, going to a testing center and for money testing allergy medication while he watched a movie, got lunch, and gave his input on what this drug was making him feel.
Get To Know Our Guest
After discussing Stephen’s college pastime, we moved onto Jay’s standard get to know you questions for our guests:
- What’s your least favorite business jargon?
Creative titles. One that always sticks out is when somebody called themselves the Chief Rainmaker as their title. - Are you a gamer? If so, what games are you playing?
Yes, Destiny 2 is my game. It’s a grinder. Don’t you really have to think too much, you just loot and shoot.
***Stephen actually plays Destiny 2 with one of EYStudios’ Project Managers Chris Kosiba. - Are there any books that you are reading?
No, actually. Pretty boring answer. I don’t spend as much time in a car anymore and that’s really how I used to consume books: Audible. The same thing with podcasts, I don’t listen to them as much since the pandemic either. Shoot, I don’t listen to music as much. - Have you ever seen the 1980s hit, Willow?
Yes! I used to love that movie!
***Note, this is only the second podcast guest to answer yes to this question. However, that is because Jay simply didn’t ask Jess Richmond who has Willow on VHS tape.
New From The EYStudios’ Blog
Emily then jumps in to update us on the latest blogs from EYStudios:
- 2022 Benchmarks: Where Is Your Vertical Ranking (Infographic!)
- 5 Ways To Get More Sales Through Social Media
Jay then tells our audience to be on the lookout for some 1-minute video content from him and our CEO Eric Yonge.
US Shoppers Expand Digital Economy Rapidly During the Pandemic
The first article we’re jumping into this week is from Adobe, U.S. Consumers Spent $1.7 Trillion Online During the Pandemic, Rapidly Expanding the Digital Economy.
Some highlights from this article include:
- Groceries have become a major eCommerce category with a 103% increase YoY.
- Curbside Pickup and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) options are changing the way people shop with 20% of all online purchases now being curbside pickup orders while BNPL options have seen as much as a 528% increase YoY.
- Of the $1.7 trillion spent by consumers during the pandemic, $32 billion was driven solely by higher prices and online inflation.
- In the face of supply chain disruptions, consumers have seen 60 billion out-of-stock messages in the last 2 years.
Jay starts the discussion of this article by asking Stephen if he is buying more stuff online in the past few years. Stephen says that Amazon often ends up in the top 5 places he and his wife spend their money in a year and also points out that his wife uses curbside pickup as much as possible wherever it is offered, especially for groceries.
STEPHEN: Something that wasn’t mentioned in the article that we spend a good amount of money on is meal prep — those meal delivery services. We also use wine delivery services. We have a subscription with Naked Wines that sends us bottles of wine every month. And that’s always been something we’ve done in-store. I imagine [online alcohol sales] have spiked quite a bit during the pandemic.
Jay agrees and points out that eCommerce is simply going to continue to grow and grow. He points out this makes him think about inflation and how he wonders if these inflated prices will ever go back down. Emily hopes so because she’s tired of overpaying for things. She brings up the example of Disney upping their ticket prices. There’s no actual reason for ticket prices to rise but they can use the idea of inflation to increase park prices. And now they’ve basically priced out lower-income families from ever visiting. Jay brings up the example of Chick-fil-A still keeping a majority of their dining rooms closed. He suspects they’re doing this because they’re making enough money through the drive-thru without having to pay for the overhead of keeping the inside open.
In addition to the increase in prices, Emily says she’s tired of everything being out of stock. She can’t find affordable food, clothes, and even had to switch shampoos for a while (we’re going to go ahead and label this a first-world problem.) Stephen agrees, as a softball coach he has noted an increase in parents having to use secondary marketplaces to find usually easy-to-find equipment like kid’s cleats. Jay thinks there will continue to be an uptick in the use of these types of marketplaces as people get more used to the idea of buying used items from strangers online.
Stephen then tells the group about a habit of his that will definitely one day end up with him in the dog house: he sells his wife’s things on eBay without her knowing. If he sees she hasn’t used something in a while he’ll hide it in a closet or something for about a month and then sell it. We sincerely hope that Mrs. Orebaugh is not a listener of The Southern Fried eCommerce Podcast.
Trying To Pin Down A Date For Amazon Prime Day
The next article we discussed is When is Amazon Prime Day? Experts predict July 11 or July 18. The article from Digital Commerce 360 attempts to guess what day Amazon will hold its annual Prime Day sale. It also discusses the Seller Central cutoff date being June 20th, how shipping delays will affect Prime Day and how marketplace sellers can be prepared.
Jay starts out the discussion by asking Emily if small to medium-sized businesses should do Prime Day specials at all and if so, should they begin planning for it.
EMILY: The short answer is yes and yes. The long answer is that Amazon is that double-edged sword. It’s good for you to join in and be a part of it because you will see increased sales but there are a lot of drawbacks to being in the Amazon marketplace. Especially if people are just kind of buying one-off products, they might not have good brand recognition, they’re not going to really realize it’s you. I’m sure I’m part of the minority where I’ll click on the business and read their Amazon listing page to try and learn about to see if the product is actually any good. A lot of people just click buy and move on. So it’s important to know: you can join in on this fun, get some extra money, it’s good for your business, but you might not get that brand recognition or return customers.
Jay agrees and asks if Stephen is a big supporter of Prime Day likening it to a possible Christmas morning. Despite his previously mentioned Amazon spending, he says he hasn’t really seen any good deals on Prime Day for things that aren’t owned and made by Amazon and he’s not really itching for any of those products at the moment. Jay is with him in this in that he’s only really ever bought Amazon products on Prime Day like his Kindle Fire and his Echo. But other than that, he’s never really seen anything that makes him want to shop on Prime Day. They acknowledge though that they’re clearly in the minority. With that in mind, Jay would suggest that businesses run their own Prime Day sales because Prime Day is becoming as big as Black Friday in terms of revenue.
From Phone To Fridge: TikTok Partners With Instacart
Our last article for this episode is from Tube Filter, That TikTok food video making you hungry? Order the ingredients on Instacart, discussing a new feature that allows TikTok users to order the ingredients from a food or recipe video seamlessly with a click of a button through Instacart. Besides Instacart, apps like Whisk and Tablelog are also available in some areas. This article is Emily’s favorite and she shared it with Jay as soon as she saw it.
EMILY: I love this because I already technically try to do this. I’ll screenshot the video and try to get everything listed out to put it on my shopping list. So if I can skip all that manual labor, I’m just so ecstatic because there’s some really good recipes on TikTok.
Stephen thinks this is a great opportunity for affiliate marketing with specific brands of sugar, for instance, competing to be the sugar linked in a baking video. He thinks influencer marketing will also increase with influencers being targeted by food and beverage companies more frequently now. He thinks this is a home run in terms of social selling because it’s useful for the user and increases sales for businesses.
Jay then asks the question: How many followers does an influencer need to have before you take them seriously?
EMILY: I’ll be incredibly honest, I don’t need a follower count for me to determine if you’re successful to me. If you’re creating engaging content and you come across my For You page or my Instagram feed or any of those things and you are talking about something and I believe you, I’ll do it. I don’t have a TikTok following or an Instagram following or anything like that but I have friends that say if I post about something, they’ll try it too. It doesn’t matter what number you have, at least in my opinion, just do you really project it in a way that that makes me want to try it.
STEPHEN: Agreed, for me, an influencer doesn’t need to be famous. Somebody that can just make me laugh can be an influencer. Doesn’t have to be a deep reach.
Jay rephrases the question to ask if they would change their answer if they were small business owners looking for an influencer to invest in. Stephen says absolutely but it depends on the size of your business when it comes to determining that magic number. There are some influencer search tools that require as little as 1,000 followers while others require a minimum of 45,000 followers. Stephen says, “there’s definitely a science to it.” He does say to be wary of just going by follower count though, you can buy followers online but that doesn’t mean they’re engaging with the content.
Emily says in previous jobs working in influencer marketing, she saw high success with those lower follower count influencers, or micro-influencers, because like Stephen was saying, having high engagement is key. She points out that smaller influencers tend to have more loyal communities built around them and that’s worth tapping into. It’s also a more affordable route for small businesses.
Jay ends the podcast with one final question for Emily: should he download TikTok? She says yes and that she doesn’t know why he hasn’t yet. She proposes a bargain where she will watch his beloved Willow if he downloads TikTok and sends her a funny video he enjoyed.
With that, we will release you back to your workday. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Southern Fried eCommerce. We want to thank Stephen Orebaugh for joining us and we hope you’ll tune in next week as we explore more topics in eCommerce!