There’s plenty of uncertainty around spending at the moment, but that doesn’t tell you what’s happening in an individual business.

One of our Shopify clients finished August with sales up 60% on August last year. It’s a seasonal business, so we compared the same month rather than using the normal run-up to its busy period.

Average order value rose 59%, and ecommerce conversion rate improved 15%. Larger orders were an important part of the picture. Across the store, we’d been working on search, email, paid media and problems in the buying process.

We worked through what customers were typing into the site search and how well those searches matched the products available. I used an agent to help analyse the search data and produce a synonym workbook. The team reviewed it and implemented the changes so customers could more easily find what they were looking for.

The team also optimised email flows and found broken code affecting abandoned-cart conversions, which we fixed. Paid-media work contributed several large orders. An onsite calculator we built was also used in three large orders, giving customers a practical tool to help work out their purchase.

We can’t attribute the overall increase to any one change. But we can point to the work completed and see customers using it.

The agents helped with the analysis and preparation. Our people checked the work, made the decisions and got the changes live.

I said to the team “You all have staff now. Delegate”.

We can get through more of the investigation and spend more attention on what to do about it.

If you run a Shopify store and sales aren’t where you want them, reply with your URL and what you think is holding things back. We can have a conversation about whether SAM can help.

Jim