Shopify Gives Sellers 100+ Shiny New Gifts
Empire Flippers
The #1 curated marketplace for buying and selling established, profitable websites and online businesses.
What up dawg!
Today’s?trend of the?week?is “high-quality pet food”.
Consumers might be tightening their purse strings when it comes to their own diets, but they have remained generous when it comes to food for their fur babies.
Pet food sales raked in $77.5B in 2022,?and?are projected to reach $277 billion, with 8% compound annual growth, by 2030. The pet industry has also proved to be?resilient in recessions, making it an attractive business opportunity.
American consumers are not just buying more pet food; they are also looking for higher-quality options. The best of the best??Human-grade pet food, i.e., food that meets the legal standards for human consumption.
So, who wants to throw a dog a bone?and?open a fine-dining pet restaurant with me?
Today we have for you:
And:
Alright, let’s dive in.
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MARKETPLACE TRENDS
Here are the latest trends from last?week's marketplace activity:
Five gooold riiings!?
ECOMMERCE
Shopify Brings Us “AI-Infused, Built-For-Commerce Magic”
?10-second takeaway?
To say that Shopify has been busy is an understatement! The eCommerce platform recently released more than?100 new features, aiming to empower small business owners with productivity?and?innovation.
"AI purpose-built for entrepreneurs, a fee-free business credit card,?and?a new way to curate?and?sell products from other brands—to name just a few of?this?Edition’s product highlights.
Entrepreneurs are heroes.?And?every hero needs a sidekick.
At the heart of these updates is?Shopify Magic, a suite of AI-enabled features aimed at helping small business owners make smarter decisions?and?boost productivity. The centerpiece of?this?suite is?Sidekick, an AI commerce assistant that can answer business-related questions, assist with creative processes,?and?streamline workflows.
Additional Shopify Magic features include instantly generated blog posts?and?emails as well as FAQ?and?response recommendations.
For small business owners concerned about credit card fees?and?credit checks, Shopify has partnered with Stripe to launch?Shopify Credit, a business credit card with no hidden fees, credit limits based on sales rather than credit history,?and?the ability to earn up to 3% cash back on eligible purchases. Currently,?this?card is only available to eligible U.S.-based merchants.
Shopify also introduced?Shopify Collective, a new low-cost, low-risk way to increase business-to-business (B2B) sales. The platform enables merchants to source new products from other brands on Shopify without the need to buy inventory or find new suppliers.?This?allows them to add these products to their own stores?and?earn a margin on each sale.
The final feature that caught our eye was?Shopify Marketplace Connect.?This?app allows Shopify merchants to sell on additional marketplaces, like Amazon, Walmart, etc, while managing?and?fulfilling orders from within Shopify.
This?is just a snapshot of the 100+ features included in Shopify's Summer '23 Edition. Learn more about the rest of the features?here.
THE OPPORTUNITY
SEO - The Fine Wine of Online Marketing
When most people think of SEO, their minds jump straight to content-rich affiliate websites.
After all, SEO is a content marketer's bread?and?butter, building the foundation for many powerful, high-traffic sites.
But here's the thing:?your Shopify store or eCommerce business isn't any different from these sites!
SEO is the vital ingredient that can propel any business model, including eCommerce, to soaring heights. Yet, many sellers underestimate its potential, favoring paid ads campaigns instead.
Sure, paid ads have their place. They provide quick results?and?are a great starting point for generating traffic.
But?the magic of SEO?is that it gains momentum over time. The effort you invest now will yield exponential returns in the future, creating a steady?and?sustainable stream of traffic for your Shopify store.
That's where?this?week's guest, Benjamin Golden, comes in. Benjamin is the founder of GoldenWeb, an SEO agency focused on scaling Shopify brands through SEO.
Benjamin joins us to explain how to kickstart a thriving Shopify SEO strategy, the crucial role the backlinks play in eCommerce SEO,?and?how to strike the perfect balance between paid ads?and?organic traffic.
Download?this?week's episode?to learn how to wield the power of SEO as your Shopify store's secret weapon.?
EMAIL MARKETING
Email Marketing’s Still Got It!
Email marketing sometimes gets a bad rap. It's been around for so long that some people mistakenly believe that it is outdated?and?ineffective.
Omnisend's new analysis blows that line of thinking out of the water.
Omnisend gathered from over 17 billion emails, 107 million SMS,?and?207 million web push messages?sent by Omnisend merchants to shed light on the effectiveness of different marketing channels.
The results show that email remains the most popular?and?efficient marketing channel, generating an?average ROI of $36 for every $1 invested. US-based Omnisend customers experienced an impressive email ROI of?$72 for every $1 spent?in 2022.
Among various email campaigns,?back-in-stock emails had the highest conversion rate?of 7.3%, followed by welcome emails with 3%.
When considering different industries,?food?and?drink emails were the most effective, converting at more than double the overall average conversion rate.
Automated emails proved to be highly effective, outperforming manual email campaigns in all metrics with an 83.4% improvement in open rates, a 341.1% increase in click rates,?and?a massive 2,270% lift in conversion rates.
As brands face expected challenges in 2023, such as reduced consumer spending?and?increased costs for paid ads, the study suggests maximizing automation?and?embracing SMS?and?push notifications as critical strategies.
Get your copy of the report?here.
领英推荐
HIDDEN GEM
Listing #68941 -?$1,395,214
SAAS, DISPLAY ADVERTISING | ART, DIGITAL MEDIA?| 69X
Created in August 2012, the SaaS tool, built using Node, Vue,?and?Laravel, helps with the creation?and?editing of specific kinds of images. The business maintains a growing MRR?and?revenue,?and?includes an email list with ~26k subscribers.?This?business requires minimal time to maintain.?
We’re highlighting?this?business?this?week?because of its following strengths:
WEBSITES
WordPress Aims to Dethrone Google as the King of Domains
WordPress is making a big move against Google Domains.
They are offering to pay the domain transfer fees for the first one million customers who switch their domains from Google Domains to WordPress.com.
The announcement?comes in response to the sale of Google Domains to SquareSpace back in June 2023.
According to WordPress,?“While [Google?and?SquareSpace] mentioned maintaining prices for the first year—nothing says they won’t increase them later. Transfer your domains to WordPress.com now,?and?we’ll pay all transfer fees plus an extra year of your domain registration.”
There’s good news for existing WordPress customers too. The company intends to offer budget-priced domain names as a permanent business model,?and?are matching Google's pricing on over 400 top-level domains. They've committed to only raising prices if their wholesale costs increase.
For context, WordPress.com charges $12 per year to register a dot com domain, while GoDaddy charges $21.99 per year.
[To clarify, WordPress.com is different from WordPress.org, the well-known Content Management System. WordPress.com is part of the Automattic family of brands, offering managed WordPress hosting?and?acting as a domain name registrar.]
Head over to?this?page?for full instructions on how to transfer your domain.
ACQUISITIONS
Lulu Goes Full Tilt on?Acquisitions?
Lulu, an alternative self-publishing platform has acquired the Creator Economy Expo (CEX)?and?The Tilt newsletter, both founded by Joe Pulizzi in 2021.
Puluzzi created CEX?and?The Tilt to help content creators build financially successful businesses using a content-first approach.
Announcing the acquisition, Matt Briel, Lulu's VP of Marketing, stated that it was a natural fit.?Both Lulu?and?The Tilt believe in empowering content creators?by giving them control over their data?and?customer lists, rather than relying on social media apps or big tech companies.
An exciting result of?this?acquisition is the?launch of a new publishing imprint?by Lulu, specifically tailored for content entrepreneurs through The Tilt.?This?imprint will offer hands-on services to publish print books, ebooks,?and?audiobooks for newsletter creators, podcasters, YouTubers,?and?others in the content creation world.
If you're a content creator looking to publish a book,?go to?thetilt.com/publishing?to?be among the first group of creators to use the imprint.
Don't worry, if you're a fan of?The Tilt newsletter, it will remain free?and?continue publishing twice a?week?to its 25,000+ subscribers.
Plus, the?Creator Economy Expo will stay put in Cleveland, Ohio, for 2024, building on its success of attracting over 350 content creators from all over the world in 2023.
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
Amazon?releases new Content guide:?optimize text, images, videos, hotspots, etc
?Stripe?debuts new tax tool:?helps sellers boost their global commerce sales
?Google?expands site name support for subdomains:?on all devices in 4 languages??
Meta?launches AudioCraft:?AI tool that creates music from text prompts
PODCASTS
How to Build Your Own Micro Empire
?There's a quiet revolution occurring inside the world of micro private equity.
Mike Vranjkovic of WebStreet recently joined Andy on The Alternative Investment Podcast to explain how entrepreneurs?and?investors can get in on the action?and?invest in micro-PE.
Listen to the episode?to learn more.
DISPLAY ADVERTISING
A New Opportunity to Advertise to Small Businesses
Intuit, the company behind QuickBooks?and?Mailchimp, is launching a B2B ad network called?SMB MediaLabs, focusing on small businesses.
The network will allow advertisers to target QuickBooks' 7.1 million customers across different digital platforms. (Intuit plans to include Mailchimp customers in the advertising network in the future.)
What sets SMB MediaLabs apart is that it won't limit ads to its own websites. Instead, it will run ads across various digital platforms where buyers are already active.
The advertising network?will start as a managed service, allowing advertisers to place ads through a specific process called "insertion orders."
Intuit will use a demand-side platform (DSP) to ensure that ads reach the right audience for each campaign.
To protect customer privacy, QuickBooks' customer data used for advertising will be made anonymous?and?advertisers won't have access to any personal or financial information about the customers. Customers will also be given the option to opt out of?this?advertising.
LIVING LA VIDA NOMAD
The Boys Are Back in Town?
With a team full of remote workers?and?digital nomads, EF team members are rarely in the same place at the same time.
Against the odds, Greg, Kevin, Andy, Ross,?and?Adam managed to organize an impromptu meet-up in London. Good on ya boys!
MEME OF THE?WEEK
Been somewhere cool or seen a meme that made you chuckle?
Send us a DM on Instagram (@empireflippers) with your favorite meme or nomad shot?and?we'll include it in the next email!