Southern Fried eCommerce Episode 21 Recap

Hey, y’all and welcome back to the legal drinking age (21st) episode of Southern Fried eCommerce. Our cohost Jay Brimberry starts off the conversation today with a fun fact about the legal drinking age in America. Did you know that if a state allows residents under the age of 21 to drink then the federal government withholds highway funds? Our other cohost Emily Faulkner simply responds with, “That’s a lot of information to dump this morning.” Jay agrees but then proposes that he thinks a good drinking age limit would be 27. The conversation then veers dangerously close to discussing Emily’s looming 30th birthday so instead, we introduced our special guest for the episode.

Chloe Fisher joins us for this episode from Clyde in Austin, Texas. Jay recently came back from Austin and ominously called it, “an interesting place.” Clyde is one of our partners and they specialize in extended warranty programs for eCommerce platforms. Chloe recently visited EYStudios headquarters in Kennesaw, Georgia, and finally got to meet everyone in person after years of inside jokes with Emily being communicated only via virtual means. Chloe introduces herself as very into craft beers and English bulldogs and claims she’s not very interesting beyond those two facts. We disagree though and love having her join us for this episode. Jay leads us on a nice beer sidetrack where we discover that he prefers IPAs, Chloe prefers Belgians (and even brews them!), and Emily prefers hard liquor. Emily does say though that at a Braves game she loves a nice honey wheat Blue Moon. Jay then reminds Emily about the lockout and how she might not be able to see a game this year. Emily responds, “now I’m depressed.”

Get To Know Our Guest: Chloe Fisher

With that bit of happy news, Jay jumps into asking Chloe five questions about herself:

What’s your least favorite business jargon?

When people use the word synergy.

Are you a gamer? If so, what games are you playing?

I’m the most boring gamer ever in that I’m not really a gamer but I’m into iPhone games. When I was in your office recently your team and I had a great conversation about Wordle. Wordle is the rage right now, I do Wordle every day. My boyfriend and I compete to see who can get it in fewer tries. So as far as gaming, Wordle is about as deep as I go. There’s that and then there’s this fabulous game in the iPhone app store called Water Sort Puzzle and I’m on like level 987.

What emerging technology interests you the most?

VR eCommerce. Being able to not have to leave your house and still feel like you’re walking inside a store.

Are there any books that you are reading?

I’m currently reading two books: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson and Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle. The first one is a comedy book that has had me laughing out loud in nail salons and on airplanes and I’m pretty sure everyone around me thought I was insane but it’s so funny. The second one is a memoir a little on the more emotional, vulnerable side but still a beautiful read.

Have you ever seen the 1980s hit, Willow?

I’m going to make a confession. I told myself I was going to watch Willow before I came on your podcast because I knew this question would get asked but, I did not watch it. So no I have not seen the 1980s hit Willow. However, I’m going to put it on my to-do list for this weekend and I will report back.

Jay then asks Chloe to give us her elevator pitch on Clyde and what specifically her role is with Clyde:

CHLOE: I’m the director of agency partnerships at Clyde so my role is really focusing on building partnerships with agencies like EYStudios, obviously, so agencies that are also working with eCommerce merchants to help them sell better online, improve customer LTV and ultimately drive more revenue. Clyde itself is an ownership enrichment platform that helps brands deepen customer relationships and drive lifetime value we do that through extended warranties, through registration, and through a really efficient claims process. With our extended warranties and our claims plus process, we offer a nice automated digital flow that helps end customers when something does go wrong with the products that they use and love.

One of the trends that we’re seeing right now — and I’ll say this about millennials but I’ll preface this by saying I’m also a millennial — one of the things we’re seeing right now in terms of trends is millennials are spending more investing in product than they are investing in property…what we are seeing is an actual trend where millennials are investing into buying products that they love.

And what Clyde is allowing generations that are purchasing online to do is to have really positive experiences with those brands and build relationships with those brands so that as they use those products as human error occurs, the thing I always say is I’ve never owned a laptop that I haven’t spilled a cup of coffee on. It’s not that the products are bad it’s that the end-user is a human and therefore errors will happen, mistakes will happen but what Clyde is really helping merchants to do is to have those touchpoints with their customers so that if something does go wrong they can offer them a really positive claims experience and provide a positive resolution while at the same time driving additional revenue for the merchant through those contract sales.

And then giving them visibility into customers that they otherwise would have lost during a third-party sale. Let’s say for example a merchant sells via Amazon or a big box retailer we have a registration tool by which the end customer can register the product, the merchant will then capture that data that they otherwise would have lost during a third-party sale and they can market directly to that end customer to drive more B2C sales in the future. So really it’s about improving customer lifetime value, driving revenue for those businesses, and building trust with our end customers to really expedite the resolution process and ultimately keep them coming back for that second sale and third sale and beyond with a brand.

Jay then asks, where the name Clyde comes from.

CHLOE: That’s a great question. Our CEO is a really, really smart guy by the name of Brandon Gell. Brandon named Clyde actually after a robot that he built for a project. So he build a robot the robot’s name was Clyde fast forward quite a few years and he was working for an eCommerce brand that sold 3D printers and this company decided that they wanted to be able to sell extended warranties to their end customers. So Brandon went out and he tried to build relationships with some major warranty providers and they basically said you guys are an SMB business, you’re doing sub $20 million in revenue a year so even though they felt like they had a really successful business to these major players in the warranty industry it was kind of a small prize. And so Brandon said you know what? If these major warranty providers aren’t willing to work with brands like us then I’ll go out and create a tool so that brands of all sizes have the same options as the Fortune 500 companies of the world. So he decided to name it after this robot he built, Clyde. And we have an internal tool that our team uses and a couple of years ago we voted on a name and that tool’s name is Bonnie. So we’ve got a Bonnie and a Clyde.

Jay then asks, “what are some verticals that you guys have seen success with?”

CHLOE: Furniture, mattresses, jewelry, e-bikes, e-scooters, aftermarket auto parts, we do a lot with consumer electronics, connected fitness brands, outdoor goods, sporting goods.

Chloe and Jay then discuss how Clyde has allowed the democratization of warranties to eCommerce brands and Jay extends his thanks to Chloe for being such a great partner to EYStudios.

New From EYStudios

With that, we jump into some EYStudios news. Check out our latest blog posts detailing eCommerce tips and tricks from all aspects of design, development, and marketing:

And don’t forget to check out our last podcast recap, Southern Fried eCommerce Episode 20.

Jay starts off our weekly discussion of eCommerce news by calling out author Sig Ueland for not including us on his list of 17 Podcasts for Online Merchants in 2022. He then goes through each podcast on this list hoping that one day we can be added to the list. He calls on all Fried Heads (his newly minted name for our podcast fans) to make this happen for 2023.

Macy’s Chooses To Maintain Single Brand

The next article we discussed was Macy’s rejects e-commerce spinoff as it looks to build on digital growth from RetailDive. The article details Macy’s decision to not split its eCommerce division into its own company. This decision comes after studies conducted by consultant AlixPartners.

Jay asks Chloe if she’s a Macy’s shopper and if she does that shopping online or in-store. Chloe says she shops at Macy’s if there’s a good sale but always online.

CHLOE: The fact that I can lay at home in bed with some bad reality TV on in the background and do my shopping is plenty enough for me. I don’t remember the last time I walked into a Macy’s but I do remember the last time I was on their website.

Jay also shops on their website but finds it hard to navigate.

JAY: With these big businesses sometimes I look at their website and think ‘how is anyone converting on this thing?’ It’s a chore to try and find what I want. You have all this money and you’ve almost outsmarted yourself.

Emily agrees and recently had the same thought while trying to buy a pair of pants on sale at Macy’s.

EMILY: It took me so long to finally dive down into that specific brand, the product name is different than the other site I tried to buy it from, it became this huge issue that I just went, ‘I don’t even want to save the money. I’m just going to pay full price.’ At least I know it will only take two clicks instead of these sixteen.

Chloe thinks this is a problem for a lot of department stores because they’re attempting to sell online the same way that they’re selling in-store.

CHLOE: The experience of walking in a store going from one story to the next and seeing how everything is laid out is a really tactile experience and I’m not sure that department stores have totally honed in on how to bring that experience online…There’s a lot of work for large department stores that span so many product catalogs, in general, to improve upon. I think that’s what’s interesting about this article with Macy’s rejecting these eCommerce spinoffs because they kind of had the opportunity to make these smaller niche eComm spinoffs that are more unique to home goods or just clothing and apparel or fine jewelry. But instead what they’ve chosen to do is to continue to sell online the same way that they do in stores. And I think what we’ll likely see in the next five years is more department stores making these spinoffs.

The discussion then went into name recognition with Macy’s and how a brand that large might be hesitant to step away from their main brand. And Jay ends the discussion by reminding folks that they are not Macy’s and that they can’t follow in their footsteps and expect the same kind of results.

Social Media Marketing Dominates For Apparel Brand

The next article we discussed is from DigitalCommerce360, Magnolia Boutique’s social media posts result in 79% jump in web sales. This article dives into some of the social media strategies behind the clothing store Magnolia Boutique specifically with TikTok and Instagram. We start the discussion off by Jay asking Emily and Chloe if they have ever shopped at Magnolia Boutique. Emily had never heard of them but Chloe has had their ads directed at her on Instagram. She pointed out though that Magnolia Boutique does not have a great plus-size selection and therefore she didn’t buy anything from them. She reminded clothing retailers that the average woman in the United States is a size 16-18 and urged them to provide clothing for all sizes. Emily virtually stood up and clapped.

Jay called out their astounding 3.2% conversion rate which is far above the average for clothing retailers of about 1.75% to 2.25%. The article details the boutique’s strategy for maintaining these numbers with targeted ads, Instagram product tagging, and TikTok content. Jay reminds merchants listening that if you’re not on social media, you need to be. He says it might not work for an industrial parts company but nearly everyone else can find their in, their form of content, and their platform for finding customers via social media.

Top Performing Holiday Categories: The Game

We wrapped up the podcast by playing a game with the article, “The Top-Performing categories and retailers of the 2021 holidays from eMarketer. Jay asks Emily and Chloe if they can guess the top nine categories from the article that grew the most over the holiday season. We start with the number one category guess:

CHLOE: I’m going to go ahead and guess electronics. The reason I say electronics is because I feel like there are new technologies that pop up every year. I know with myself, electronics are always the thing that I ask for for Christmas. A nice pair of headphones I’ll never buy for myself that I want someone else to buy for me. That’s going to be my first guess.

EMILY: I’m going to go with books. I know with the emergent BookTok and just this giant surge of physical books I feel like for the holidays that probably made a nice little jump.

Jay reveals that electronics was the number two top-performing category this holiday season with an 11.5% increase. Books was number five on the list but they were included in the category of ‘books/music/video’ with a 9.4% increase over the previous year. Jay asks them to guess again:

CHLOE: Apparel and fashion?

EMILY: That was also my second pick. But I’ll go with food?

And the winner was Chloe! With apparel and fashion growing an astounding 22.5% sales growth. Food and beverage was number seven with an increase of 7.5%.

The full list of categories is as follows:

Apparel and Accessories — 22.5%
Computer and Consumer Electronics — 11.5%
Auto and Parts — 11.0%
Toys and Hobby — 9.6%
Books/Music/Video — 9.4%
Furniture and Home Furnishings — 8.9%
Food and Beverage — 7.4%
Health, Personal Care, and Beauty — 6.4%
Office Equipment and Supplies — 0.7%

We end the episode with a Christmas anecdote from Chloe where she tells the tale of the year her father got her mother a toilet seat for Christmas. She claims they’re still married but that pearls may have been involved.

We hope you enjoyed our discussion of the eCommerce news of the week. We want to thank our special guest Chloe Fisher from Clyde for joining us. And we hope you’ll join us again next week, bye y’all!

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