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Hey, y’all! Welcome back to episode 15 of the Southern Fried Ecommerce Podcast from EYStudios.This week our cohosts Jay Brimberry and Emily Faulkner are joined by Supro Paul, our eCommerce Consultant/Sales Extraordinaire. Supro joins us from a bare room while sitting on a lawn chair in order to have enough quiet to record this podcast with us. #WorkFromHomeProblems We started out by discussing upcoming holiday plans with Emily bringing her boyfriend home for the first time, Supro hosting his first Christmas in his new house, and Jay’s 4-month old son will be celebrating his first Christmas. Lots of life events happening at EYStudios but don’t forget to join us next week for our Festivus episode where we’ll be airing our eCommerce grievances of 2021!
And with that, we got started with our eCommerce articles of the week beginning with “Gen Zers relied on buy now, pay later during the holidays. It’s time to pay up” from RetailDive. This article discusses the popularity of payment plan apps amongst generation Z and the repercussions of this growing trend. Jay begins the discussion by asking Supro, as a member of Gen Z, to discuss his thoughts on this trend.
SUPRO: I definitely, definitely think my generation is capitalizing on the buy-now pay later. Me personally, I don’t usually do that. I’m a big believer in just buying it all upfront, having it in the books, and then figuring out the details later down the road. But I can absolutely see why people in my generation are doing this. I mean, a one-time purchase of $500 seems like a lot compared to spending $50 over the span of 10 months. It’s a really good option because I feel like especially with our generation, the article mentions us as the children of the recession, we were witnesses to a lot of foreclosures, a lot of businesses going down, and the housing market crashing. It really did open my eyes to wanting to have that financial freedom. I feel like a lot of people in my generation are doing pretty well but I think a good amount do live paycheck to paycheck. And being able to afford a $500 gift for someone as a one-time purchase is pretty hard for a lot of people. So just being able to spread that across 5 to 6 months, 2 to 3 months, whatever, that’s awesome – that’s so much more digestible. It can easily be worked into the budget. Just a lot easier overall. But there’s also the idea that’s mentioned in the article that one of the top three people do this is because they want that product immediately because it’s trendy. And I think maybe the reason people aren’t finishing their payments is that that product has fallen out of trend. You know? Something that was cool back in August, might not be as cool in a few months. It might have been canceled by the time the final payments come up. So maybe they’re thinking ‘why did I even buy this’ or ‘why should I even complete this purchase.’
JAY: Bingo!
EMILY: You still have to pay for it though! You already bought it.
SUPRO: My girlfriend has used buy-now, pay-later and neither of us were aware that it would affect your credit score. Looking back it obviously would because it’s a credit system but when you’re signing up for this, there’s no warning or details about how much interest they’ll be charging you if you don’t make the payment. It’s more so here are the dates and how much you’ll be paying on each date. They don’t really tell you any of the negatives behind it.
EMILY: Well because they don’t want to tell you the negatives. That’s the whole point. The thing is, this article is extremely contradictory in itself because it’s saying ‘Gen Zers have seen the housing crash’, ‘Gen Zers don’t like credit cards’, but then they’re so eager to put their information into a system like this and not understand the risks that come with that. And not paying for things because it’s not trendy anymore isn’t helping them.
Emily continued by saying that it’s also necessary for these buy-now, pay-later platforms to be providing reminders to their customers or offering auto-pay functionality. She mentioned that it’s easy to forget all the different accounts you have in this day and age and without a payment reminder these companies are setting you up to miss a payment.
Jay’s main takeaway was that Supro clearly loves his friends considering he spends $500 on gifts for them. Aside from that though, Jay points out that he believes there needs to be some onus of responsibility on the purchasers here. He mentions that it might be a generational gap but he thinks this article reads as a little ‘woe is me’. He points out that these are adults fully capable of deciding whether or not to make a $500 purchase and decide how to pay it off. He does acknowledge that it does seem like these companies are capitalizing on making money on younger people. However, he feels as though these customers are not completely helpless and that the information is available to them if they want to look for it.
As his blood pressure rose discussing irresponsible shoppers, Jay declared that this article has ruined his good mood.
Emily responded with an affirmative, “The youth. Always ruining everything.”
Supro brought up student loans briefly just to really seal the generational gap between him and Jay. Emily suggested moving on to a lighter topic and all parties agreed.
In hopes of calming the room, the next article we discussed was “148 Million Americans Plan to Shop Super Saturday” from the National Retail Federation. The article discusses how a little under half of the U.S. population will be shopping the Saturday before Christmas this year. This number is a drop from 2020 but an increase from 2021. Jay and Supro will be joining the crowds this weekend in person but Jay asks if it’s too late for online shopping before Christmas.
EMILY: This year has been pretty good in terms of shipping. I’ve actually been getting a lot of emails from companies saying ‘this is the last day to buy before Christmas.’ Everyone has a few different requirements and dates. So far this year, compared to last year, all of my packages have arrived before Christmas. I have one left that arrives on Sunday, fingers crossed. But everything has been really good this year. I think today (Dec. 15th) is the last day to do priority shipping and then after that, it will be express shipping. So you’ll be paying those really expensive premiums to get that stuff in time for Christmas.
Jay then asked what advice Emily would give merchants about Super Saturday.
EMILY: Despite being a person who likes branding, I don’t think everything needs to have a name. Not everything needs to be a Black Friday, Green Monday, Super Saturday. I think what’s actually beneficial is just consistently promoting to your customers that ‘these are the gifts you can get before Christmas’ and ‘these are the sales we’re running.’ And just consistently showing that information to people. A lot of businesses I follow on social media I think are doing a really great job of just consistently showcasing that information. Because if you’re constantly promoting things, you’re always top of mind for a customer. So maybe people that wake up on Saturday and realize this is the last day to really get everything done, they’ll think ‘who have I been thinking about?’
Emily also gave away an amazing eCommerce marketing tip: If you’re struggling with coming up with a promotion for the week before Christmas, go with gift cards. Give people the gift of choice. Promote gift cards on your home page, on social media, in newsletters, etc.
Jay mentions again that he used to do all his Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve and has fond memories of shopping with his family at this time. He’ll be taking his daughter shopping for last-minute presents and hopes to create memories with her as well. He also reminded folks that Christmas is more than just buying things. To quote Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch, “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”
The third article we discussed during this episode was “7 New Year’s Resolutions for eCommerce Companies” from Practical eCommerce. One of the resolutions mentioned is “know your customers” which Jay, Emily, and Supro agree with. However, the article continues to provide an example of manual data collection via weekly one-on-one customer interviews. Jay asks Emily if she feels physically talking to your customers should be a priority for eCommerce businesses.
EMILY: I think talking to people you’ll glean a lot more information than a typical survey. Although I do think that surveys are beneficial in getting a wider net of information. I do think one-on-ones could be really beneficial, the only thing that will cripple you is just time. Just making the time and making sure the customer has the time. But people like Supro, he’s really good at doing those follow-ups and getting people on calls.
SUPRO: I agree. I think surveys are kind of hit-or-miss. Let’s say I’m given a survey where I get 10% off for completing the survey. Sometimes I’ll answer it correctly, sometimes I’ll just put in some random answers just to get the discount. So I think there’s a lot more benefit in having that one-to-one with that customer but as Emily said it comes back to timing.
Jay points out that he doesn’t think it’s as easy as the article makes it seem to make the time and get the customer on the schedule as well. He then asks Supro about the next resolution: respond quickly.
SUPRO: The speed at which you respond honestly kind of conveys how much you guys care about your customers. At the end of the day, if I’m waiting 2 days to hear back from a company about a package that puts so much distrust in that company for me. Just having that quick response even if it is just ‘hey I’ve acknowledged this problem,’ just lends so much to building that merchant-to-customer relationship.
The third resolution from the article we discussed was: accelerate shipping. Jay asked how much control merchants have over shipping and how much responsibility lies in the carriers that these businesses use.
EMILY: The great thing is there are shipping partners that you can work with that have worked to get better rates for businesses. So try to utilize those. Maybe if you have the funds to do that you can make sure you’re not charging people $15 every time they want to ship, which really cripples me from wanting to buy things from people.
The fourth resolution is an eco-friendly tip to use less packaging material. Jay asked Supro if sustainability will factor into his buying choices in the next year.
SUPRO: Personally, I don’t really look out for sustainable companies specifically. But when I do get packages [that have recyclable materials or sustainable packaging] it always makes me feel a little bit better about my purchase. It’s like ‘cool, I’m not polluting the Earth by buying this’. It kind of goes back to trust. It builds a little bit more trust for me in that company.
The fifth resolution concerns the current supply chain issues and encourages merchants to ‘shorten the supply chain by 20%.’
EMILY: With the way the world is, supply chains are just a little tough right now. It’s a great idea to have but it might be more of a mid-2022 strategy.
The sixth resolution is: cut underused software. Jay believes that this is a good goal for all companies to have in the new year, not just eCommerce ones, and asks Supro if he agrees.
SUPRO: Absolutely. I can’t stress enough how many times I get turned off or don’t want to buy something from a website because I get a million pop-ups to sign-up for the newsletter or there’s a 10% off coupon and when I say no to that pop-up another pop-up comes up asking if I’m sure I want to say no to this coupon. I don’t want to have to keep clicking X just to get to my purchase. I want it to be easy and I want it to be convenient. Yeah, there are some really good things that software can do. I think we were talking earlier in our sales chat about that Google Chrome extension that shows you your abandoned carts. That’s awesome but at the same time, and I think Emily said it really well, ‘there’s a reason that cart was abandoned.’ I don’t want it to be back in my face 20 minutes down the road.
EMILY: Just to add to that, it’s mostly because I didn’t want to spend money because the cart’s really full. But you know, maybe I should utilize buy-now-pay-later.
The last resolution from the article is: get serious about content. The article suggests choosing a blog, podcast, video, and publishing weekly. Jay asked for Emily’s thoughts on content as the digital marketing lead.
EMILY: Content marketing is huge. Content is king. It’s important, you need to be doing these things not just for the all-mighty Google but for your brand as well. People want to hear from you. The more consistently you post, whether that be a blog or a podcast or anything like that, the more people see and the more people remember you. The more you’re inside someone’s head the more likely they are to purchase your items. It seems like a big, heavy lift but like they said: just pick one thing. Just do that one thing really well and you will see success. And if you need help, EYStudios can help you out — we offer content marketing services.
To wrap up our podcast this week we ended our talk by discussing “E.l.f goes long-form for meme-heavy holiday ‘movie’ native to TikTok” from RetailDive. This article details the 9-minute TikTok “movie” created by E.l.f. Cosmetics called, “Big Mood, Big e.l.f.ing City.” The film stars anthropomorphized cosmetic products voiced by the line’s creator.
Jay barely got through the article without laughing and Emily’s eye-rolls were nearly audible. Jay then puts Supro in the spotlight by revealing that his family is quasi-Tik Tok famous. Supro’s little brother and sister are successful on Tik Tok and are even making money from their creations. With Supro’s TikTok expertise in mind, Jay asked if he thought TikTok advertising would become more important for merchants.
SUPRO: Yes, but I will say that it really depends on the vertical. If you’re a B2B company that sells parts for machines, I don’t think TikTok is going to be the best platform for you. But I think verticals like apparel, accessories, makeup, maybe even sporting goods, as well. Those are some really good verticals that you can utilize TikTok for. I think one of the biggest things about TikTok is how visual it is. I’m a very visual learner, I like to see things hands-on or see things being used because that will determine if I want to purchase that product or not. So when I’m scrolling through the TikToks I get 30-second, one-minute videos showing you ‘hey this is how this product works and this is how I’m using it,’ and that gives me so much information about that product within 30 seconds, and then I can scroll onto the next thing or click shop now. I think this is a really cool way to reach out to the younger generation but at the same time, you want to make sure you’re in the right vertical to do that.
I think this e.l.f stuff is really cool with the anthropomorphic makeup products but I think what they did really well was they paired it with influencers. Let’s just say e.l.f just did those products and this movie and they didn’t tie with influencers, I think it would have been a lot lamer for my generation. For me, if I were to see something like that I’d be like ‘cool they’re just capitalizing on Tik-Tok trends just to make some money’ but now that they introduced some influencers and some thought leaders in the TikTok industry that makes it a little bit more relatable to where it’s like ‘oh I see that Kalen Allen is doing this so it probably is not as lame as I thought it would be,’ that’s just how our minds work.
Jay was shocked that Supro knows who any of the influencers mentioned were. He then went on a mini tirade about the industry of influencer marketing and only slightly sounded like an old man yelling “get off my lawn.” Emily then joined in for a little but also pointed out that influencers have changed and evolved because media companies got involved and TikTok is simply the latest evolution of that.
We hope you liked this episode of the Southern Fried eCommerce podcast, make sure you subscribe to get a glimpse into eCommerce news every week served Southern Fried style.