[00:00:00] Kalen: Dude your backdrop is so fucking, is that Miami?
[00:00:03] Mark: Fucking crazy man.
[00:00:04] Mark: It's the Bay. So like nice. It's the Bay and then Miami Beach is even further
[00:00:09] Kalen: back. Dude, if I roll out there, could I just ducking stay at your place or would that be ducking Do I need to get a ducking hotel or something
[00:00:19] Mark: if I'm here or, and, or my place isn't booked 'cause I sometimes Airbnb it.
[00:00:24] Mark: Okay. So when I'm not here. Okay. Totally.
[00:00:27] Kalen: Hell yeah. Just just communicate. You passed the test, you passed the test. I was trying to figure out if we're real friends or not. 'cause I, that was my sense was that we're real friends. But that was the test. Yeah. No, but
[00:00:37] Mark: have to share a bed with me, hopefully
[00:00:39] Kalen: that's okay.
[00:00:39] Kalen: Oh shit. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Scratch that, crush that kidding ducking sleep. I'll ducking sleep in the closet before I do that shit. No, but like same with,
[00:00:48] Mark: that was a test too. You passed. If you said I'm down. I'm like, Nope, you're uninvited.
[00:00:54] Kalen: This hysterical. Oh dude. Yeah. This podcast is definitely gonna fucking go to the moon, dude. I can feel it. But like with what we were talking about I wanted to talk about it. 'cause I think it's super if you don't mind with what we were damning about. Yeah. Because I know everybody's thinking I'm a fucking psychopath right now.
[00:01:11] Kalen: And they're wondering, I think Yeah. They're wondering and I think that I. It is something I've been thinking about a lot because I've been in this kind of I guess I'm gonna just close WhatsApp, just so I don't get too distracted. But I guess I'm in this stage in my life both in with work and with life and relationships.
[00:01:31] Kalen: Fucking started believing in God again two weeks ago. That was a big part of my life for, if you ever listen to MJ talk, you would know that, me and Philip would talk about that. That was a big part of my life from the time I was 16 to, for quite a while. And, stuff happened, life happened.
[00:01:45] Kalen: I stopped, believing for the last five years. Also, my. Career started to decline and I was coasting for a while. And then I hit, I guess I would call it a rock bottom with when I realized that my, businesses were declining and and then there was a moment, and then all this stuff where, so I'm talking about like real friends versus fake friends, when, in my own little corner of the internet, I had, certain level of popularity. So I would go to conferences and people would walk up and I was like, it was weird. I'd never experienced that in my life where people would just walk up, be like, hi, Kaylin, how do you know my name, dude?
[00:02:24] Kalen: And they're, they, and then they're like very complimentary and stuff, whatever. And then, that declined at a certain point because the truth is that, Philip was the real talent in the podcast. And it took me a, maybe a decade to realize that. But and he's, I'm really I'm honestly like, legitimately impressed with what he's building.
[00:02:42] Kalen: Future commerce. I didn't get a book. I bought a book. Hopefully it's gonna get here soon. But but like then what I saw was that when that changed people. Acted differently around me, certain people. And then a smaller number of people like you, a number of others, never treated me differently, and I realized that, like I had heard this before, that people can be fake and things like that.
[00:03:05] Kalen: Like I had everybody knows that, but I experienced it like firsthand, right in the slap in the face. I've had people who I considered to be friends, not, in our industry it's always a combination of business contact and some, there's some personal component and sometimes the personal component is really high.
[00:03:22] Kalen: Sometimes it's whatever. It's like a per sliding scale. Yeah. And so I had people that I considered to be actual friends. I. That completely disrespected me and I realized that I was wrong. I misinterpreted their relationship with me. And then I had a smaller number of people that I went, oh, wow, that person was a real friend.
[00:03:43] Kalen: You, TJ Ali, AMI a group and I, a bunch of people, Joel, a lot of people. And yeah. There's a good number of people. Maybe it's 20 or 30. I don't know. It's not like I sit down and wrote a list, but it's a small, there's, it's a smaller list.
[00:03:56] Kalen: It's a much smaller list, yeah. And everything. To me, I'm thinking about the Bible. So it's like the narrow road and the wide road. The wide road leads to hell. The narrow road leads to eternal life. And it's like similar analogy with like probably if you're popular, Or if you're popular in social media or whatever, there's a 90% of people are just there for what they can get from you and the 10% actually care about you as a person.
[00:04:22] Kalen: And so I realized that. And then I. I'm in the, and then I got this new job and it's going really well, and I feel like I'm starting to grow in my career again. And social media has always been a component of that. I used to be a developer, now I'm just like a marketing, DBA or whatever.
[00:04:40] Kalen: But like it's. It feel, yeah, it feels like I'm starting to grow again and I feel like I'm starting to get that magic touch back. And like for me, like we were talking to and I value your feedback because you DMed me and you said, Hey man, like you might wanna tweak your approach. And I, because I know.
[00:04:59] Kalen: That you're a real friend to me. I value the feedback. I've had other people, I have one particular person in mind who, as I've been getting into the Shopify ecosystem, I've been meeting people. One particular person I met, I. I thought we had a real connection. We talked on the phone for an hour and then they dmm me one day and told me to sign off of social media for the weekend.
[00:05:20] Kalen: They're like, they're basically saying the same thing you said, but in a more direct way. And then I said, I first just laughed it off and then afterwards I said Hey, Can we talk on the phone? Like I, I, I, I forget what I said, but it felt like a bit of a slap in the face.
[00:05:37] Kalen: But I, yeah, because I felt I had a connection with them. I said, Hey, can we just talk on the phone? I felt whatever. And then they said no. And so then I thought about it more and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna just unfollow. And they unfollow. We both unfollowed and it's like, all right.
[00:05:52] Kalen: I thought, because I've learned this lesson firsthand, that you can really feel like a connection is real and then it can be not real. Yeah. So because of that experience now, I'm always on the lookout for it, and if I see the smallest signal that they're fake, I just I immediately react and maybe overreact, that person did that. And I was like, okay. I don't wanna wish you know them, them any ill will, but I don't want them in my life, despite the fact that initially I. I was like, damn, this is a cool guy. This is a cool person. This is a cool contact.
[00:06:28] Kalen: This is great. I'm glad I connected. Like this is gonna be a great person to be connected with on a personal professional level. Yeah. And then I changed my mind. I was like, all right, it's over. It's done. Maybe we'll circle back in a few years. Maybe we'll grab a beer at a Shopify Unite four years from now.
[00:06:42] Kalen: And we'll be like, Hey, fucking, it's cool. Who knows? But I'm moving on.
[00:06:46] Mark: Be honest with me. Was it Toby that DMed you?
[00:06:49] Mark: You're like, no,
[00:06:51] Kalen: get out man. That's hilarious. To man Toby. Toby, I had to really, I had to really correct Toby. 'cause he really needed,
[00:06:56] Mark: I thought you were my true friend, Toby and yeah,
[00:06:58] Kalen: I know, like we're not, me and Toby, we go out for beers all the time and I give him feedback on architectural decisions and stuff like that.
[00:07:06] Kalen: But so anyway, all that to say I know that. And like we were, you were talking to me about like post frequency, like I know I'm posting probably too much, but to me, like I, I was thinking, I would say for example, two people, I like their social media. Like I feel like we're all weird.
[00:07:20] Kalen: Everybody's weird. You're weird in your own way. But I think that for sure you have to find the people that are weird in the way that you like, like nobody's normal. There's this concept of normal and we try to fit in and be normal, but we're all weird. Like you're weird in your own way. And I think it's fucking cool because I like you, you're an authentic person.
[00:07:42] Kalen: You know another two people that come to mind, Dylan Whitman, Dennis Hegstad. Their social medias. And I'll maybe just do a screen share. It's like
[00:07:50] Mark: it doesn't feel filled. It's like unfiltered.
[00:07:52] Kalen: Yeah. That's what I like. And and then there's other people that. Are very buttoned up.
[00:07:57] Kalen: They have a very specific niche. And that's valuable too because Yeah, because I realize that's valuable too because I know what it's like when you're following someone. You just want to get, you just want to you, you just want the details. You just want, the, what am I trying to say?
[00:08:13] Kalen: You just want specific gil is very actionable information when it comes to, yeah, Gil is like, when it comes to technical Shopify stuff he's the goat dude. Like his feed is pure informational. He has a strong following. It's amazing, right? Everybody has their own vibe. Like Dylan, who, by the way, he went private so I don't know why he went private, but, so I can't see his feed anymore.
[00:08:35] Kalen: But because I did this stupid unfollowing, but. Dennis is a great example of somebody that, has a cool mix in my mind between see here's, he'll talk about D two C stuff. Violence is not the answer, this is a, I. This is a totally non Shopify related thing.
[00:08:54] Kalen: He has a cool mix and yeah, I like that. That's my kind of weird, like he's weird in this way and that's my kind of weird, and so anyway, that's my spiel. I just wanted to get that off my chest 'cause it's something I'm thinking about. I understand. People have a perception of me that I'm fucking off the farm and some people genuinely worry about me.
[00:09:14] Kalen: And the thing is too, man, like this one guy is like the whole, Hey man, are you okay? Like I, I get like there's somebody who I'm thinking of who I was at a conference. I was in a bit of a weird mood and they asked me if I was okay, but in a genuine way. Yeah. And again, this was a person I put into the category of a real friend and they were genuinely concerned.
[00:09:35] Kalen: I could see it in their face and it was still made me feel awkward, but they were genuinely concerned. Then there's other people who go, are you okay dude? And it's it, they're not. They don't really care. They do not. Like the guy that told me to sign off of social media, he could give a fuck about me personally.
[00:09:55] Kalen: He was trying to do a, like a, he was trying to do like a, he was trying to assert himself as. Hey, man, you don't know what you're doing in Shopify. I know what I'm doing in Shopify. You're being a fucking clown. It was like that. That's that. He didn't say that.
[00:10:11] Kalen: Literally. That was how it felt to me. I could be wrong, but that was how it felt to me. Yeah. Anyway, dude that's all I'm gonna say. But like, when you tell me something, I appreciate it because we've known each other for years. I know you're a real friend. I know you're a genuine person.
[00:10:24] Kalen: I know you're a smart person. I know you're an empathetic person. I showed somebody a clip. At my work of the last one we did. She looked at it, she said, what did she say? She said, he looks like a very kind person. I think were his exact, her exact words. I'm not kidding. And I said, you're exactly right.
[00:10:42] Kalen: You're exactly right. You're a very kind dude, you, and so anyways, man, that's yeah, I listen to you, but if Joe Schmo says that what you said to me, I'm gonna say, Hey, Joe Schmo, go climb a tree, bro, and don't ever talk to me again. You know what I mean? So that's my spiel, dude. And I know we want to talk additions We can we can jump over that.
[00:11:03] Kalen: Yeah.
[00:11:03] Mark: I'll say one clarification on that is like, when I texted you, it was really just for the like quantity of posts that you had. Got it. It got it. I felt I think if you have two large of quantity without, I agree, the quality agree, it's gonna degrade.
[00:11:18] Mark: You agree? So that was more like a business thing. I totally agree. You're crazy and you're weird, and I already know that. So that part didn't surprise me. So it's this is just Kalen but like, all right. From a business perspective, I'm not sure if this is helping you adapt many tweets and that many Instagram
[00:11:34] Kalen: post.
[00:11:35] Kalen: Yeah. And I mean it like, I mean it like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna take your advice to heart and I'm gonna adjust my posting frequency. I'm gonna, I'm also starting to use Instagram, so I'm realizing that some of my personal stuff should go on Instagram. Some of my stuff should go on LinkedIn.
[00:11:52] Kalen: I'm learning to dial in. I. My social media better so that so it's more effective, it's like you want to be authentic, you want to be intelligent, you want to be but you also want to be effective. And if you do all of those things at just the right balance, that's when you become, a really Magical Twitter account that, some of the accounts that get, hundreds of thousands of followers, it's because they strike the right balance of all of those things.
[00:12:21] Kalen: And then it's just boof. It's just to the moon, exactly. So that's the vision That's the dream, yep. Anyways.
[00:12:27] Mark: All righty. Let's talk about additions. Let's really get into it today. Let's dive last time. I think we talked dive, like about two edition thing. Yeah, totally.
[00:12:35] Mark: Maybe we should start with like first impressions, do you have any overarching first impressions and then, it's a week later, so what are your thoughts overall?
[00:12:45] Kalen: Yeah, totally. I would say that overarching I'm just gonna close out this one notification there. There's too many darn notifications.
[00:12:54] Kalen: Okay. Close that. Yeah. So overarching everybody was talking about subscriptions. That was interesting. Let me pull up this page here again. So that was definitely interesting. The collabs. Is it easy to search? Let me see, dude. Is it easy to search this for collabs, because I know there's,
[00:13:15] Mark: are you talking about collective or Oh
[00:13:17] Kalen: yeah.
[00:13:17] Kalen: Collab, because there's collective and collabs and I mix them up in my head a little bit because collabs is okay. Collabs is influencers and collective is. Allowing, yes. Drop shipping adjacent. Yeah, dude, so the Drake thing, dude, I saw Harley tweet the Drake thing. Har Harley followed me recently.
[00:13:37] Kalen: No big deal. N B D No not a big thing. Not that I'm not, that I, not that I think about it every day or anything like that, but but he described it and it's frigging magical. Let me see if I can pull this up, dude. Did you looked at the Drake thing, right? That's cool. Trying to remember the the u r l, it's some weird U R l, Drake related, I think it's drake related.com.
[00:14:01] Kalen: Here we go. So this site is a, if I, and correct me if I'm wrong, is a headless. Like crazy, like super creative. Like websites have gotten so boring in the last how many years. Everybody does the same thing. Although bro, we are gonna talk. We gotta talk. Pit Viber, dude. Oh my goodness. This is the best. Oh yeah, this is the literal best website.
[00:14:25] Kalen: Come on. How did you find that? Place. I got into sunglasses two weeks ago. I, my whole life, I wasn't into sunglasses. I like the look, I'm old as fuck, so my eyes look like garbage on camera. So this is your demographic. This is my demo, dude. So I just, it's fun man. I just, I wear 'em at pickleball.
[00:14:44] Kalen: You have to wear sunglasses at pickleball 'cause it's sunny out and I used to always just wear, gas station stuff and for some reason I just, Got, I just got a pair on Amazon and then this guy, and then this guy at my court said he had some Oakley. So I popped by the Oakley play and I just, and now it's become a hobby.
[00:15:02] Kalen: That, and baseball caps has become like a little hobby for me, like a, nice. And but so my understanding of this is that it's a, it's just a super creative headless. Is this headless? It is, yeah. 'cause Okay.
[00:15:18] Mark: And it's 'cause it doesn't have the normal structure. 'cause they have like slash rooms slash lounge.
[00:15:24] Mark: We talked about that.
[00:15:25] Kalen: So it's a headless. And you're, you blank bob, like you guys rail against headless all the time because there are so many cases you've seen your clients go, oh, we have to go headless. And then it turns out to be completely not a good idea. And so the beautiful thing about this site is that not only is the cool headless implementation, but when you click on a product, Wait.
[00:15:49] Kalen: Okay. So that went to a dude. That's a fucking awesome looking side, dude. Holy shit. But when you click on a product, okay, so here's a product page. Now, is this a standard Shopify product page, or is this a headless?
[00:16:05] Mark: It's headless. Even though it has the structure, it
[00:16:08] Kalen: still has. Okay. Okay, so my understanding is that these products are not, the Drake related site is not, these products are coming over collective, right?
[00:16:21] Kalen: Correct. Correct. Yeah. So that, dude, that is magical because. Normally you have to, you have to get some products, even if you drop ship 'em, you gotta go build a relationship with a drop shipper. You gotta fucking send them some fucking P d F form with all for them to accept you.
[00:16:41] Kalen: And it's a whole process. So like the fact that I could go right now, If I knew how to code, still I could spin up a wicked cool headless site and I could just go I don't know how the backend works for it, but I'm assuming there's a backend. I don't need any special permissions. Have you played with it all?
[00:17:02] Kalen: Directly?
[00:17:02] Mark: Yeah, A little bit, yep. Okay. Okay. There's two, two different apps. There's like a supplier app and there's a retailer app. And the supplier is like the shop that's actually like shipping the products and the retailer is like Drake related. Oh yeah. Basically, it's a kind of a, not a marketplace, but it's, a system.
[00:17:21] Mark: You connect to the other store and you pull in the products and then you can interact with the products on, the retail side, like they're your products. But then in terms of like actual fulfillment, it just routes it. To the other store. So it is drop shipping and Right.
[00:17:39] Mark: I, but I think it's like a reimagined drop shipping where Yes, I don't, yes. They're not pushing it towards like dropshippers, they're pushing it towards like legit brands already that want to like, create a collective and col collaborate with other brands where it's like totally, so there, there's a very similar app already called Carro and one of our clients Oatley uses it and Oh, nice.
[00:18:02] Mark: The way they use it is there's another retailer called Bblt. Who sells blenders, but also all the ingredients that you might want in your smoothies. So they're connected where if people check out on Blin Jet, they can add Oatley to their cart and then as soon as they check out, it comes back to Oatley Shopify store to actually do the fulfillment.
[00:18:23] Mark: Nice. So yeah, it's, I don't think it's like a super innovative concept, but it's cool that. Re pushing it.
[00:18:30] Kalen: Yeah. Don't, and sorry. Oh, go ahead. Oh, yeah, I was gonna say I agree, right? So it's funny because I always hear about the drop shipping Bross and everybody hates drop shipping.
[00:18:39] Kalen: And then, but it's still is this. Like super pop like super popular thing. And I think that the, it's a thing that there's there's this genuine demand for drop shipping because people don't wanna deal with logistics. And then there were there were providers for drop shipping that were probably a bit sleazy for whatever reason, and that's why it got a certain reputation or maybe the.
[00:19:03] Kalen: Resellers were a bit sleazy, so it got a weird reputation. And then Shopify recognized that the the value of the core innovation of not having to deal with logistics. And yeah, they built out. Because platforms always cannibalize the best features. The same with subscriptions.
[00:19:22] Kalen: Same with everything. So they cannibalized drop shipping. And so all of the drop shipping apps I'm sure are not thrilled. But from, but for, from our perspective, for a consumer's perspective, for an agency's perspective, from a merchant's perspective, it's fucking amazing because now you don't have to do any, you don't have to have any special relationship.
[00:19:42] Kalen: You go in. I haven't seen how it works in the backend. If you want to screen share and show it, feel free. But you can just go in, pick a, pick your products. I don't even know what this is like I don't even know what site this comes from. It must, this must be a product that comes from.
[00:19:58] Kalen: Funboy, some other Shopify site, right?
[00:20:01] Mark: Yeah. It's called Made in Collaboration
[00:20:03] Kalen: with Funboy. Oh, nice. Okay. Nice. Yeah, and the cool thing about it is that. The only way we knew that is because they put it in the description. Like you don't Yeah. Necessarily have to, if you want it to just be, feel totally native slash white label, like you can do that, which from a user experience is a great user experience. I don't care if I'm a customer, I don't care whose Shopify site this comes from. This is a cool side, I'm like, Rocking out. I'm like, dude, I'm super into Drake, whatever, which I'm not. Yeah. Ooh, we just found a bug.
[00:20:38] Kalen: And then I'm like, okay, cool. Oh dang dude. Let me get a frigging okay. Not found. All right so we already found a couple bug reports and then there's a Shopify Oh, that's cool. So basically it can link to. It can link to an external site, it can link to a product. Oh, here we go. So I go, yo, I wanna spend a hundred bucks on sweatpants because I got too much money to waste. And then I go, alright, cool. I don't care where this is coming from. That's a magical user experience. You're right, it's not, it is not innovative in the sense that, They're just grabbing a product, over the a p i from some other thing.
[00:21:14] Kalen: They're copying the drop shipping model. You could say it's very derivative, but at the end of the day it's frigging dope. And I'm checking out now on the Drake related, and to me, dude, that is I guess what I would say subscriptions thing is interesting. I I think what I'll go ahead and say is that this is the most interesting feature of the entire editions, just because that's interesting
[00:21:39] Mark: that, yeah.
[00:21:40] Kalen: I just, I, yeah,
[00:21:42] Mark: go ahead. I it's funny because I think like literally the
[00:21:46] Kalen: opposite
[00:21:47] Kalen: that's so funny
[00:21:48] Mark: because this has already been done for 10 years. There's already apps that are doing it right now, just as good or.
[00:21:55] Kalen: Not just as good. Not just as good, not just as good.
[00:21:57] Mark: I don't
[00:21:58] Kalen: know. Not native.
[00:21:58] Kalen: Not native. It might be just as good, but if something's native it's not, you know what I mean?
[00:22:02] Mark: It is. Isn't native though. Like you still have to install a Shopify app. Like it's just,
[00:22:07] Kalen: oh, first party like, oh, okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha.
[00:22:12] Mark: And so I, it just, it doesn't seem like particularly novel and like my theory is that Drake's management like came directly to Shopify and we're like, Hey, we want this to do this cool concept or whatever, and Shopify was like, oh, Felicity of having like Drake on Shopify, so we're gonna build this thing.
[00:22:31] Mark: Just for Drake and then they're gonna release it to everyone else, which is totally, that's what I'd do. Fine. If it was me, that's what I'd do. Yeah. But it's, it is a little weird that like they didn't use, I don't know, an existing product in the app store that could have probably done the exact same thing.
[00:22:47] Mark: Like they I see what you mean. Instead decided to like, Cannibalize their ecosystem, which is, I think that is a big topic, has always been a big topic for Shopify especially of Totally. And like on the subscriptions thing of like just, I don't get why they chose this thing. To try to cannibalize the ecosystem on yeah, it doesn't really worth it but maybe it is worth it for the publicity.
[00:23:11] Kalen: I see what you mean. Yeah. And I think that I think it's cool that we disagree about this because like to me, that's what makes a podcast great is when you can disagree, like in good faith and you know that like you, you're not like if people are arguing in bad faith or.
[00:23:26] Kalen: Harley and Aaron Sheehan are tweeting right now about BigCommerce checkout, Shopify checkout, and it's it's a bit like adorable to me that like Aaron's smart, he's probably smarter than me but it's adorable to me that they think that BigCommerce checkout is better than Shopify.
[00:23:40] Kalen: I don't know. I haven't looked at the data. Okay. I've not looked at the data. But my, I like, does anybody doubt? Does, is there anybody that thinks that the Shopify checkout, I get it, like the consulting study was a bit whatever. Like you could get a consulting study to do whatever, say whatever you want, if you pay them enough.
[00:23:59] Kalen: I get it. Like I understand the critique of that. And also I believe Aaron's critique is that, The consulting study shows BigCommerce checkout rates, and I believe his critique is that how would they know those rates if they didn't have the first party checkout data from BigCommerce? And I think that is a valid critique and I have no idea how okay, big commerce, here's the conversion, whatever the number is here.
[00:24:26] Kalen: I don't know what this even scale means. 1, 2, 3. What does this even mean on this? On this chart, but this is, this shows you that I have not actually looked into this at all. And how is Magento better than Big Commerce? That makes zero sense too. But at any rate I have no, but it feel, I think that, yeah, I suspect that Harley.
[00:24:46] Kalen: Perceives that Aaron is arguing in bad faith. And I don't think he is, but I suspect that Harley doesn't know him. Harley perceives that he's arguing in bad faith because everybody knows Shopify checkouts better. Everybody knows shop pay is better. Yeah. Does, am I wrong about that, or is that just so obvious that it's silly to even talk about it?
[00:25:09] Mark: I think it's become so ubiquitous, like everyone. And is it comfortable with the Shopify checkout, right? Like when you get to the Shopify checkout you immediately trust it now versus honestly, even like the same design four or five years ago, I would actually be more suspicious because it agreed they had more of a reputation of drop shipping, that kind of thing.
[00:25:30] Mark: Totally. It was like, okay, am I really gonna get my product? But I think that they've promoted their brand so well over the past couple years. When you get the Shopify checkout, you're like, okay. Like at least I know it's secure. Like it's, it's not gonna be hacked. There's no like fraud there.
[00:25:46] Mark: Work thing is I don't get my product and then I just go through the dispute process or whatever. And then there's shop pay, the probably more of like the converting factor. If you're already logged into shop pay, which a lot of people are, 'cause they've already bought something from Shopify.
[00:26:03] Mark: Or if you're not logged in, it's very easy. It's a quick process shop, pay account, whether they know it or not. But I get what Aaron is like, pushing back on like the scientific of the study because it, yeah, it makes it look like, oh, this is very scientific. And then like you're saying in the chart, it's 1, 2, 3.
[00:26:23] Mark: What are they comparing it to? What's the baseline? What is 0%? Yeah. Is it WooCommerce? I don't know.
[00:26:28] Kalen: Yeah, and I don't even think these are percentages. These are like, the 36% plus is the d is the diff, is the delta. I don't know what, one, two, and three. I don't
[00:26:39] Mark: hopefully some, I guess the conversion rate the actual conversion rate.
[00:26:43] Kalen: Oh, percentage. Oh. Okay, got it.
[00:26:45] Mark: 2.5% conversion rate. Got it. That's my theory.
[00:26:48] Kalen: Got it. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, and I'll be like, I'll be honest, like I have been an Amazon dude forever. Like I don't think I even ever bought something on Shopify until like the Pit Viper might've been my first actual might've been my fir Oh no, I bought something on, shout out to Dad gang.
[00:27:07] Kalen: I bought something there. I bought a hat like a week or two ago, something like that. And dude, you're totally right. Like you, once you get and then shop pay. At first I was like, I don't care about whatever this, like, when I went to the creator mart in Austin, when I met Harley for nine, like 60 seconds, shook his hand.
[00:27:26] Kalen: I just saw in his eyes that he was like fired up, and he was giving out free shop pay cash with a magic wand. It was pretty cool because it did a NF N P C or whatever it is what's that called? Nearfield Communications or whatever with the Oh yeah. Phone. N F C and I had an, yeah, and I had an old phone, so I meet him, shake his hand.
[00:27:48] Kalen: He's trying to give me cash and it would randomly, Give you a certain amount of, a random amount of cash. Could be five bucks, could be 50, could be a hundred, could be 20. And it wasn't working on my phone. So then he told me to take the case off. I took the case off and then he's and then he's I think it's 'cause your phone is old.
[00:28:04] Kalen: And I was like, yeah, dude. That was like, I did not leave. I did not leave a good impression. And then and then I ended up getting a new phone because for recording pickleball content. And I was like, 'cause I don't know, I don't like to just buy the newest iPhone. It seems like a waste. But I started recording pickleball stuff.
[00:28:21] Kalen: I was like I might as well get a, an iPhone 14, because they're basically just cameras. Those things are just a hundred percent high-end cameras now with apps on them. Yeah. And I figured it was worth it for that. And so it's neat to have a newer phone.
[00:28:35] Kalen: But anyways so I'm like, shop pay, I'm like, okay, fine, I get it. You wanna promote your shop pay. But like the other day I used it and I clicked. Dude, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do a live purchase. Is it gonna show my address or stuff like that? It might, yeah. Yeah. I can, I wonder if I can blur it out or something.
[00:28:55] Kalen: And post, fix it. And post I'll just, I'll, yeah. I'll fix it in po. Okay. What happened? Where did the shop pay go? Is that because I'm not You changed? Yeah. I changed to Firefox.
[00:29:04] Mark: I You're not sharing the Firefox,
[00:29:07] Kalen: just so know. Oh yeah. Let me, lemme just, 'cause Firefox has my As my personal all my like personal Google auth and stuff like that.
[00:29:15] Kalen: So like shop pay is frigging dope, dude. So if I like, log in and then at one point I did oh, here we go. See. So it automatically popped that up and it's gonna automatically send me a code. And it's just super intuitive, right. Boom. It's got all my stuff. Yeah.
[00:29:32] Kalen: I'm gonna have to blur this out. Oh, dang it. I have, that's not even your address. I don't know. Yeah, because of my, I was trying to send something to my friend. Who's in India, this, which was something else. And so I had that set there, but it's got everything. Dude, this is as good as am like, as somebody that's used Amazon forever, and you get used to just boom, buying stuff.
[00:29:54] Kalen: This is as good. I would even say, I'm sure Amazon's conversion rate is better because everybody's familiar with Amazon. But from a o, from a UX perspective, this is much better than shop Amazon's. I agree. UX is grimy, bro. But everybody's used to it, so they just use it. Being familiar with something is half of the battle.
[00:30:15] Kalen: And so that's what you were saying, like people are so familiar. You see the logo, you know that it's got all your stuff. Now here's the main problem, and I was talking with somebody about this and Shopify, got rid of their fulfillment arm. They offloaded it to Flexport. Fulfillment is, I'm gonna be honest, with all due respect to my.
[00:30:34] Kalen: Heroes at Shopify. This is garbage, bro. Like we need to compete with Amazon Prime, and I know that, I believe there's a feature for that or whatever. What's that feature called? The the Shopify Fulfillment. There's the fulfillment, but then there's a specifically Shopify Order. Like a trusted order or like a order.
[00:30:56] Kalen: Order. Promise. Shopify Promise. Promise. Shopify promise. Yeah. So that's basically prime, right? Yeah, that's basically right. Is this something that has to be enabled? For each site or how does that work?
[00:31:10] Mark: Yeah, I think you also used to have to use the Shopify Fulfillment network because otherwise they couldn't really guarantee the shipping time.
[00:31:18] Mark: Got it.
[00:31:18] Kalen: Yeah. So I get it like
[00:31:19] Mark: sorry. That's a merchants issue though, like they, these guys need to use like a better fulfillment network if they want to. Ship faster. True. And I think Shopify's tried to solve it in the past, decided Hey, this is way too hard, this is not true.
[00:31:34] Mark: Our like core thing. But I agree with you in terms of just like on a merchant level, like being competitive with Amazon, having fast shipping, crucial. Otherwise people will be like, Hey, I'm just gonna look this up on Amazon if I can get it on Amazon. Yep. I might as well. 'cause it's gonna be quicker and probably more assured.
[00:31:54] Kalen: And I had zero brand loyalty forever. Like I zero like Pit vipers. I bought 'em on Amazon. And then when something clicked for me, because I really am genuinely falling in love with Shopify and like I really could care less forever, I was like, dude, I could care less about your cool Shopify site.
[00:32:14] Kalen: I want to use Amazon. It's easier. I see the ratings. It ships fast. I could care less. The only thing I care about is price and shipping and, but now like the dad gang guy is super cool. I follow him on Twitter and I like, there's something that connects with me emotionally about the brand, which I'm realizing is the entire point of. Creating a brand is that it connects. See, and I needed a black hat. Dude, this is exactly what I needed. I needed a black hat, so I'm gonna go ahead. I did a one click. I've been looking for a black hat for three days, right? So I've got my stuff, it still has my buddy's address.
[00:32:48] Kalen: I'm gonna change that. I'm gonna do shipping method five to eight, which is absolute, absolutely horrendous with all due respect. But it'll get here eventually. I'm gonna hit pay now. I just paid 40 bucks for a hat, which did I overpay for the hat? Of course I overpaid for the hat like, but I feel good that I am supporting this guy.
[00:33:11] Kalen: I like him. Yeah. I believe in him. I like what he's up to. I like his mission. I think that being a dad is something that's important to me, it's something that I'm realizing more and more. I talk about it now. I post about it on social media. It's a big part of my life, man. I've had kids for 13 years.
[00:33:28] Kalen: I've, there's a time, there was a time when I was not such a good dad. There was a time when I was looking at my phone at the dinner table, constantly distracted, not present with my kids. And that's changed, and so like the if you asked me a month ago, would I pay $40 for a hat?
[00:33:43] Kalen: I'd say never in a million years, but, There's something Beau, so that checkout experience, other than the fulfillment, which I think Flexport, I realized today I was talking to somebody Ryan Peterson is going to fix that. Yeah. He is going to solve, I. The Amazon Prime problem for maybe it'll be a third party.
[00:34:04] Kalen: Flexport is obviously a third party to Shopify, but yeah, he is going, he is the guy like, I remember, do you remember the Long Beach situation? The Long Beach port situation with they're backed
[00:34:14] Mark: up with.
[00:34:15] Kalen: They were backed up. Shit was, yeah, shit was wild. And that was during Covid. And this dude was frigging, I remember following him on Twitter, he was going out to Long Beach.
[00:34:23] Kalen: He was out there sitting on the dock of the bay, like looking at boats, like figuring it out. Like the guy is an operator. Like at the scale of probably Elon not Elon, but he's probably pretty darn close. He's and it's funny because I was trying to get into, to the to the Flexport partner program for Mesa, and I like emailed.
[00:34:41] Kalen: And I was like, why won't they respond? I don't get it. And then I realized like, They're going to fix this. They're going to fix this button right here. They're gonna turn this into a prime competitive, because let's be honest, Amazon is not our friend. As a consumer, like Amazon could care less about the brand.
[00:35:04] Kalen: They want to drive costs as low as possible. They are a marketplace play. You do not own the distribution as a brand. You do not own the distribution. They own the distribution. I don't even think they give you email addresses for customers. It's not your customer. You don't, and that's what's cool about Shopify, like I'm realizing.
[00:35:26] Kalen: Toby and Harley, they believe in this stuff, dude. They believe in empowering the entrepreneur. They really do. And I and I'm frigging six months into this Shopify journey, and I will go to the mat with anybody on if anybody thinks that they're somehow faking that. Dude, I'll go to the mat on that because I could see it like in that promo video with Toby, I could see it in his eyes.
[00:35:51] Kalen: He saw this couple sell something for the first time and you could see in his eyes that he teared up, dude. Like it is real. It's real for him. And I believe it's real for Harley, so anyways, all that to say that I don't even remember how we got onto this topic, but I think we were
[00:36:08] Mark: doing the argument about like how much better, like Shopify check.
[00:36:12] Mark: Pretty universally accepted. It's a very good checkout. But yeah, a percent exact percentage is okay. Like it's not completely
[00:36:19] Kalen: scientific. Exactly. So again, dude, aaron is doing an incredible job at BigCommerce. Daniel the partner manager is great.
[00:36:26] Kalen: I went to a BigCommerce partner meetup event, dude, and I'm grateful that Aaron let me in. We were, we're probably gonna build a connector, a Mesa connector. I thought we were gonna build it this quarter, but we're probably gonna build it in, three, four quarters out. So we're, we'll get, everybody's diversifying and that's fine.
[00:36:43] Kalen: Agencies diversify, SaaS, diversifies, everybody diversifies. And that's, and that, other than merchants pick a platform and generally stick with it. I think BigCommerce was cool, man. I was at that partner event and it felt like the Magento and a lot of the Magento crowd has gone to BigCommerce 'cause it's a great transition.
[00:37:01] Kalen: It's a, arguably a better transition than Magento to Shopify as an agency, as a partner. It's a more straightforward transition,
[00:37:08] Mark: it's, yeah. It's funny because BigCommerce is very like, welcoming of like partners and Shopify is a, it's a bit more like a, it's sorry, the door's closed.
[00:37:18] Mark: Get in line. We don't even have a process for you to join.
[00:37:22] Kalen: Hundred percent
[00:37:23] Mark: automatic partner thing. Yeah. But yeah, it's, yeah, I mean they're changing that and I've talked to their head of partnerships Jim, and they have a new new onboarding process. They're onboarding a new cohort of managed partners, that, that's definitely something like in the works. But historically they've not been like super, like welcoming to partners. It's more Take it or leave it. If you wanna use the platform, if you wanna build on the platform, go ahead.
[00:37:49] Kalen: Totally. But no, a hundred percent.
[00:37:51] Kalen: And listen, like that's, even though I'm new to Shopify, I've been observing these platform ecosystem dynamics for a decade, and it's not surprising to me. The same thing happens with every platform early on in the platform's life. They're hungry for partners because they need partners.
[00:38:08] Kalen: They need partners to drive business, and then as the partnership grows, they're less hungry for partners. And when they're less hungry for partners they're less interested in spending time, communicating with new partners and things like that. They do it because of course they have people assigned to do it, but big Commerce is more hungry for partners.
[00:38:30] Kalen: And that's good. That's fine. That's. And I've heard that repeatedly. That, and the partner, the agency partners appreciate that because they have a business to run. They have clients to support and they want a platform that will take a phone call, so from, and then, they get a little bit, let's say butt hurt, if Shopify doesn't want to take a call or I don't know how it works.
[00:38:52] Kalen: I'm sure there's some partner manager that is not responsive or whatever. I'm just guessing they're gonna, they're gonna be frustrated by that because, they're trying to deliver for a client and it would make their lives easier if they could get somebody on the phone. That's why BigCommerce is a great fit for a number, for a lot of mid-market.
[00:39:14] Kalen: Essentially any mid-market brand on Magento, almost guaranteed. Is gonna make a lot of sense for BigCommerce, I'd imagine. Whereas devil's always in the details and that's the kind of thing that you do day in and day out. You are evaluating based on what they need feature-wise and, all that kind of thing.
[00:39:34] Kalen: But so I think BigCommerce is cool, man. I know I talked. A lot of smack in the past, and it was partly just joking and stuff, but I think it's cool, man. I had really enjoyed the conference when the c e o spoke, man, he's extremely like passionate and he's extremely vulnerable. He shared some really vulnerable things and I frigging respect him, dude, and I respect Daniel and my phone.
[00:39:59] Kalen: Keep, where the hell is my phone, dude, it keeps beeping and I want to put it in a do not disturb. Oh, here it is. So I think BigCommerce was cool, man. But the idea that anybody would argue that their checkout is better is just silly dude. It's silly, right? Am I crazy? I.
[00:40:17] Mark: Yeah, I think it's pretty silly.
[00:40:18] Mark: Honestly it is, it's like my checkout is bigger than your checkout at this point. Totally. Yeah. And it's just come on. I think Shopify did this study because they are trying to appeal to enterprise merchants. Totally. That, totally. That's why they did this big three consulting thing.
[00:40:33] Mark: And they're really trying to push the commerce components totally piece of Shopify where they're basically saying To even a Walmart or a Nordstrom, they're saying like, okay, you can use your old Legacy Pro platform for everything, but use our checkout for the checkout and our payments and that kind of thing.
[00:40:51] Mark: Yep. So I think this is if like us arguing. Arguing against it, it's it's missing the point. I don't exactly,
[00:40:58] Kalen: I don't think it's
[00:40:59] Mark: a hundred percent. It's not gonna really appeal
[00:41:01] Kalen: to this market. You're totally right. And I think that I'm getting a better understanding of what it means by Shopify's kind of core consumer facing product is I think is One, like whatever whether it's a business unit or whatever it is, like their core checkout for consumer facing is the main thing.
[00:41:20] Kalen: That's the arm to Rebels thing. Yeah. But they've obviously been moving up market and I believe that those are separate, like business units, I believe Those are separate teams and sales teams. Yeah, sales teams. Probably even dev teams, I'd imagine. So when you're moving up market. And again, dude, we saw this with Magento, if you're moving up market, you have to you have to do this kind of stuff.
[00:41:47] Kalen: This kind of stuff is not for the startup brands. This is for the enterprise brands that want see a study. They wanna see a Gartner magic quadrant. Yeah. To me, the garden, the
[00:41:59] Mark: brands that have a board, like they a hundred percent, the C I O C T O has to like present to the board why they want to use Shopify.
[00:42:07] Mark: And if they have this study, it's ammunition of hey, this is we're gonna save cost and also we're gonna increase.
[00:42:13] Kalen: Yeah, a hundred percent man. And it's so that's. That is the reality of why this study exists. Now, Aaron's critique is where did you get the data for this big commerce deal, right?
[00:42:30] Kalen: And that's a valid critique. I honestly do not have the slightest idea where the data came from. Either the consulting company made it up, which. Listen, I am not a gigantic fan of big three consulting companies as a, I'm not, I'm not like talking smack. I believe that Harley and Toby are extremely ethical.
[00:42:53] Kalen: I don't believe they would fake something. So I don't have the slightest idea, man. For all I know the consulting company frigging has some, I don't know, dude. Maybe they have the data. I don't know, man. That's what consulting companies do, man. They get things that other people can't get. Or maybe they just fudged it.
[00:43:14] Kalen: I don't have the slightest idea. No. And the reality is no one is ever gonna know, if you hire a big three consulting company to do a study, like nobody's gonna ever know how, I don't know is it like. Is anybody like,
[00:43:29] Mark: is I think honestly though, I think it's fair that Aaron's asking for the underlying data.
[00:43:34] Mark: I, I don't even know where to find the underlying report because like I used to work for a computer testing company and we did benchmarks and we had to publish like our whole methodology of testing and it's it's supposed to be scientific and I think, I'm sure they did follow a process, but if that's not.
[00:43:52] Mark: Publicized if you, if we can't see that process, it is bunk and it's not fair for them to be put. Yeah. Maybe I agree. It's public. You have to have a subscription or membership to something. I
[00:44:04] Kalen: don't know. Yeah, I don't know. And I wouldn't personally say it's bunk because I. I believe in Harley and Toby, and I don't know how they did it.
[00:44:12] Kalen: No, but no, I'm not
[00:44:13] Mark: saying it's false. I'm just saying Yeah, if you're not willing to publish the methodology, I think you also shouldn't push the date, the results of the study.
[00:44:22] Kalen: I agree. And I just, it's not scientific. I agree. I disagree because if it's an academic scientific study, then I agree with you if it is a business facing quote unquote scientific study, I.
[00:44:37] Kalen: It's, this is how it works, man. I can't think of another example, but if you were to look at another example of a business facing big three consulting study, like this is what they do, like what's another like it's marketing like that you're hiring them to do. Like marketing, that's science adjacent.
[00:44:59] Kalen: You know what I'm saying? Would you agree with that?
[00:45:01] Mark: But no, because I worked at a company like that and we had to publish like the methodology. Oh. So I see. So if someone could reproduce our study, basically otherwise, like people could just make up numbers and that's not what this sup is supposed to be.
[00:45:17] Mark: If you publish. Numbers, like hard numbers, you need to be prepared to back it up.
[00:45:22] Kalen: Yeah, that's a fair, that's a fair critique. I think by the way which one was it? 'cause it's McKinsey, B, C, G, and Bain. Are those the right, there's like big three. It's, this is so far above my pay grade, dude, that it like, it's like you said, man, this is so far above my pay grade that it's almost there's no point in even like debating it. Like it's fun to talk about, but it's dude, can you imagine how much they charge for this dude? This, they, this is probably this is like these people are, this is what they do.
[00:45:51] Kalen: This is what they do. It's a
[00:45:52] Mark: little weird. They just, in this article, they just say buy a big three, global management consulting. They don't even identify the consultant. And then when they like, there's a link to. Study, and if you click the link, then it goes to a Shopify article.
[00:46:10] Mark: This is not external.
[00:46:12] Kalen: I hear you.
[00:46:12] Mark: I'm gonna have to push back on Harley
[00:46:15] Kalen: on this one. I hear you. Sorry man. I hear you. I hear you. And I'm fine with pushing back because I really admire Harley and Toby, but. And I wouldn't like, say something rude to them on that level.
[00:46:28] Kalen: But I would push back and I would say that, I would say I agree with you. If you're gonna do a study, I'm not a scientist, but I agree with what you said. If you're gonna do a study and the study is supposedly scientific, then I think you do have. A responsibility to show the numbers.
[00:46:46] Kalen: So I would agree with that pushback. I would agree with that. With all due respect to Harley, please don't unfollow me. I'll, it'll ruin my week. I would I would agree with that pushback a hundred percent.
[00:46:58] Mark: Yeah. So I'm gonna tweet it right now.
[00:47:00] Kalen: So when done, that's a good pod, dude. I know we didn't, I think we.
[00:47:04] Kalen: Obviously we didn't cover most of the additions, but I think that we covered. Like to me, what's interesting, so I think I'm happy with
[00:47:14] Mark: this. I think we covered one thing, which just collectives slowly but surely. We'll addition after
[00:47:22] Kalen: a hundred podcasts, I think. I think for the next entire quarter, we'll do 12 podcasts, and by the end of it we will have covered the whole additions and then we'll be getting ready for the next one.
[00:47:33] Mark: That's fair. I think that's perfect.
[00:47:36] Kalen: Oh yeah. One we're gonna do, we're gonna go, we're gonna make this official, we're gonna do a YouTube channel and everything. Everybody like and subscribe, mark and Kaylin talk Shopify. That's the type, that's the title we're going on this one button smash the like and
[00:47:49] Mark: subscribes that card button on Twitter and support button on LinkedIn and Instagram.
[00:47:55] Mark: The fire emoji. All of it. All of it. Yeah, all of it.
