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Hey, y’all! Welcome to another episode of the Southern Fried eCommerce podcast! This week we’ll be discussing hot topics of the week with host COO Jay Brimberry, Digital Account Coordinator, Mara Lewellyn, Solution Specialist Phil Grier, and Executive Producer Emily Faulkner. This week’s topics include TikTok and the ever-approaching holiday shipping deadline.
Our episode begins with a mini celebration for the Atlanta Braves winning the World Series. EYStudios is located in Atlanta and a lot of our employees live close to the stadium. Jay even managed to attend a few of the games.
After baseball talk, we are briefly joined by CEO Eric who is supposed to be on vacation in Pigeon Forge, TN. After a quick cameo, he was promptly kicked off by Jay who encouraged him to go drink some moonshine instead of working while he was on vacation.
After the CEO was shooed from the podcast, Jay put Mara on the spot and asked her what her favorite part of eCommerce was. She responded that she loves the marketing side of things and all of the things you can market online vs. a physical store. She also mentioned that TikTok was a favorite avenue of hers. Phil mentioned that BigCommerce recently had a webinar about TikTok for small to mid-sized eCommerce companies. Emily watched the webinar and said:
“One of the main reasons I wanted to watch [this webinar] was verticals, who they really think advertising is best for. There was a lot of really good information that TikTok provided. So a large portion of the webinar is to say that there’s an integration with BigCommerce in TikTok. It’s really easy to integrate your products within your BigCommerce store to TikTok. There’s now abilities where if you’re talking about a product, you can swipe up, the products are there, and you can go directly to the website and purchase.
There’s a lot of great advertising opportunities, some that are very similar to things like Facebook where images of the product will just show in ads but there’s also do you know the ability to promote different videos that you guys have done excetera.
Something that I was very passionate about prior to the webinar and a big reason that I wanted to listen in on it is I’m just very nervous about all of these businesses not understanding the core aspects of TikTok and what TikTok is. It’s a very beautifully creative platform, I mean personally I think it’s one of the few remaining social media platforms that still feels authentic and original. People are actually able to create content that is enjoyable. They were saying that people watch about a movie’s length of content on TikTok every day. They’re one of the platforms that organically make so much revenue for businesses and that’s the key staying at least for me: is it’s organic. It’s just normal people talking about products that they really like and it’s very easy to gravitate towards that.I have a fear that oversaturating the market with ads and just inundating us with tons and tons of content like that will just ruin a platform like this but actually after listening to the TikTok webinar I was very surprised by their responses to that. They were very adamant about creating engaging content similar to what I was worried about which was great and I also learned that they showcased less ads than every other social media platform and by showing less ads they’re actually getting a higher turnaround rate. I thought that was fascinating, I loved that, and I’m really hoping to do a follow-up webinar so we can learn more about verticals, learn more about content, etc. Because I really think if they stick with this I think there’s a lot that businesses can gain from it. It’s just really emphasizing that original, unique content that matters to people.”
Phil agreed and added that merchants should avoid the obsession with virality and instead focus on growing their social media presence organically through good, fresh content.
Jay said that he worries about small merchants not knowing where to spend their money with so many avenues for marketing. They can do email, blog posts, technical SEO, Facebook, Youtube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. He suggested that we dive further into helping small businesses make those decisions based on verticals in a future podcast.
After our discussion of TikTok, we jumped into the first article of this week’s eCommerce news wrap-up: eCommerce Product Releases: November 1, 2021, from Practical eCommerce. This week we’ll be giving the eCommerce products from this list a yay or nay in terms of whether we think this is a worthwhile new product.
BigCommerce launches Ads and Listings on Google
PHIL: Yay. It’s Google; the more integrations, the more aligned things are, the easier it’s going to be to put feeds up in Google and manage your campaigns.
MARA: Cautious Optimism. At least until we see how it performs. Since they just released it, let’s make sure that there aren’t any crazy bugs that are going to mess up your merchant center.
EMILY: Yay. I think this is interesting. I like that it’s feeding directly from BigCommerce. I think ease of use is something that people really gravitate toward.
Pinterest introduces “Takes” and new ways to watch, discover and shop
MARA: First part, Nay. Second part, Yay. (First part being “Takes”, second part being creator rewards.) I like that they’re providing incentive for creators but I don’t think it needs to replicate other platforms. It has its own thing going and now they’re doing what Twitter did with the Fleets. I don’t like it.
PHIL: First part, Nay. Second part, Yay. I agree with Mara. I don’t quite understand the “Watch” experience with the Takes. However, I think investing in your ecosystem of creators is always a good thing.
EMILY: Nay. I’m so tired of everyone just copying each other. It’s essentially just a social media arms race where they’re all just trying to get the same features and functionality. So you’ll only spend time in one place. Listen, Vine happened and everybody loved short-form content. Vine died. TikTok took its place. I think that’s fair, I think that’s valid, I think TikTok is a really nice replacement. Albeit, I loved Vine. RIP Vine. But YouTube does shorts, Twitter was doing its little thing that’s gone, Instagram has reels, Facebook has stories, like we don’t all need to be doing the same thing. Each of them are special and unique for their own reasons. We don’t need to be copying each other. Pinterest is great for all of their little inspirational images. I don’t like video content on Pinterest. I don’t personally use Pinterest but I have used it for ads and generating revenue for different companies I’ve worked for and video content doesn’t work. Quit trying to make it happen people, it’s not going to happen!
Amazon launches new local selling capabilities.
PHIL: Yay. We have seen small changes from Amazon in this direction of helping local sellers. I mean yay absolutely but it’s also buy-online-pickup-in-store so like to some extent it’s super groundbreaking for Amazon and out of character and a welcome change but on the other hand it’s BOPIS and we’ve seen it before.
MARA: Nay. I don’t think it’s necessary for the merchants to do this. It takes 20% of their profits away just straight to Amazon when the customer could go to their own website and go buy from them and pick up in store.
EMILY: Yay. I always imagine Amazon as a supervillain so this seems like a really cool thing but I have to think ‘what’s in it for you?’ And maybe it is the rev share piece. I know that I have worked for businesses before where there’s not a big brand recognition so people that would normally go to the store, they didn’t know about us. So they would find us on Amazon and they would buy lots of products from us and then eventually over time they’d realize ‘oh this is like a real company that does real things, I’ll go to their website.’ But we generated a lot of revenue through Amazon and I think this is a great opportunity for those types of businesses.
Amazon releases free cybersecurity awareness training.
PHIL: Yay. Couldn’t be happy about it. Security is a blind spot for small businesses. Anything that we can do to increase merchant’s understanding of cybersecurity and their role in it is a good thing.
EMILY: Meh. Maybe I’m missing something but haven’t we all had to take a course on this sometime over our lifetime?
MARA: Yay. I’ve worked at places where you think people understand phishing and other security risks but no.
Facebook increases intellectual property protection with the release of Brand Rights Protection.
PHIL: Yay. I’ve got my own opinions on Facebook separately that I won’t get into but I think this is a good move. Mainly because policing in your brand is really difficult, especially for small businesses. So any leverage that you know Facebook can bring to bear through automated tools. I imagine they probably are looking at the image for ads that people create to see if there’s elements of that image in other ads created by other businesses and things like that. I think it’s a good idea to try and do what YouTube is doing with trying to flag videos that use copyrighted music and stuff so it makes sense, it’s a logical move.
EMILY: Yay. I agree with Phil 100%
MARA: Yay. I’ve just been in that position myself and having something that can help you with that will be great.
After wishing Phil goodbye and Jay reminding him that there’s still work to be done today, we hopped over to our next article, “It’s a ho-ho-horrible shipping season for small businesses too,” for Emily and Mara’s opinion.
Jay begins the discussion by asking Mara’s opinion from a digital account manager’s perspective on whether or not she’s seen her small business clients starting to prepare for this unusual holiday season.
MARA: Actually, yeah, we have been talking about it in the past couple of calls that I’ve had recently about starting holiday shipping the beginning of this month, November, and cutting off guaranteed Christmas delivery way earlier than any other year, even last year.
JAY: Yeah and not just that but one of the other things that they’re going to have to combat as it says a little bit later on in the article: ‘FedEx followed in the footsteps of its competitors announcing it would Institute surcharges for peak season from October 4th through January 16th in order to keep service levels high.’ You know the price. I mean I don’t know if gone are the days of free shipping but I’m telling you, I don’t think that they’re going to be around for too terribly much longer, especially not during holiday seasons.
EMILY: [exasperated sigh] I just think it’s going to get worse before it gets better but maybe it’ll be okay in the long run.
Jay agreed and said that he thinks that it’s important for EYStudios to provide eCommerce merchants with advice. He then asked Mara about what kind of advice she’s giving her clients about this holiday season.
MARA: Oh yeah, everyone seems to be a little more stressed lately. I’ve been telling people that they should start their Black Friday sales earlier than prior years because of shipping wait times. So if they started earlier they’ll be able to get it shipped in time for the holidays.
EMILY: I’m hearing a lot of the same stuff. I’m kind of trying to give it as much of a positive note as I can. Because hey, the best part about moving Black Friday early is you don’t have to stress about it on actual Black Friday. Maybe you guys set your sales up now and let those puppies run. Spend time with your family and actually just enjoy the fact that you can’t control shipping. Let it be what it is and just be really thankful that people are purchasing from your website. Listen at the end of the day, if everybody has to have a later Christmas at least we get Christmas with each other.
Jay then asked if Mara and Emily were discussing more buy-online, in-store pickup options with their clients.
MARA: Yes, but I feel like some smaller clients might not be able to handle that. It can make the day-to-day of in-store even more stressful. A lot of them would then have limited staff running around taking orders in-store and fulfilling online orders. A lot of clients have a separate warehouse from their in-store one that handles online orders. So it could double the work of the in-store workers.
EMILY: I love the idea of BOPIS. You know me and my instant gratification. I think it’s great because a lot of stores really have this figured out. I think pre-pandemic BOPIS was really starting to take off so I do think there’s a couple of clients that have this under their belt. They’ve really worked out some really great systems to get everything together…I think it’s meant to be a low lift for everyone. It’s just another avenue to get people where they need to go.
The third and final article we’re looking at today is “What Is Live Shopping: A Guide for Ecommerce Professionals” from Ecommerce Platforms.
Jay begins the discussion by asking Mara and Emily whether they’ve experienced live shopping or know what it’s about. Mara admitted to not knowing much about live shopping while Emily said she’s more versed in the subject.
Jay suggested that this might be the next step in QVC or the Home Shopping Network.
EMILY: Oh, absolutely. I mean we’ve honestly been doing this for years. Facebook was really big on these for a while. And people would sell leggings and have parties and they’d put their leggings on camera and say ‘okay who wants these leggings.’ And I think there’s a really beautiful evolution with it where now it’s actually gotten better. So I think it’s something that can keep growing and I’m super excited to see where it goes.
MARA: For me, it’s something I’ve always associated with MLM (multi-level marketing). So it’s usually something I’ve steered away from. The “hey boss babe” crowd that invites you to these live shopping shows. It seems to be moving away from the MLM brand though and coming into more mainstream use now.
Jay then asked how Emily and Mara would talk to a client about using live shopping.
EMILY: It’s all about the branding of it. If you want someone to live sell your products, you need someone that has the personality that matches your brand. I mean essentially that’s why we do a podcast, we want to showcase our brand’s voice.We want to show the people that you can work with on a daily basis that can make your website better. It’s essentially the same thing: do you want someone at your company that lives and breathes your brand that can sell these products with gusto. And you don’t have to have a John Mayer. I mean we actually have a client of ours that does something like. They do it on Facebook and it’s been pretty successful. That client is Stylin’ Online. They do a little live show. They actually link to a category on their BigCommerce site that you can browse and peruse. I know there’s a lot of updated functionality, there’s different avenues that they could take and there’s a lot of growth opportunities that’s super great for them but right now it’s doing really well. I think it’s great because they have the people in place that understand what kind of products are going to work. The best part is, the person selling the products doesn’t even need to be the best presenter in the world. You’re not looking for the next [Lori Grenier], you don’t need a huge spokesperson. You just need someone that people can connect with. Just someone that they can become attached to can really help sell products and make you some money.
Jay pointed out that we at EYStudios need to pay attention to the different platforms that live shopping is popping up on and do a good job of guiding our clients to the right one.
With that, we wrap up the podcast by wishing Emily a lovely four-day weekend off with a slight threat to call her just to annoy her.
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