Perfidious Albert Blog

I love old vans because they are big, ignorant, and practical - a bit like me.

My oldest van (a 1971 VW) has been off the road for a few months. It was running badly, and I didn't have the confidence to just get stuck in. Maybe I was just waiting for it to fix itself. Then a couple of weeks ago I realised that was not going to happen. So, I got stuck in.

It turns out the carburettor was leaking fuel. I could have rebuilt it, but it was old and jaded so I just replaced it. The new carb worked but wasn't tuned well. It was idling high and running rough (see video!). I stuck some screwdrivers into the appropriate places and tweaked until the van sounded half normal. I then had to service the engine, adjust the valves, do the timing, and being an old engine I will probably have to do it all again in a few months.

What's all this got to do with e-commerce? It's actually very similar. No, it's the exact bloody same!

Consider an engine as sucking in fuel and converting it into movement. An e-commerce website sucks in visitors and converts them into customers.

Both have a lot of inefficiencies - an engine generates heat, and a website generates lost visitors. But the key similarity is that if it is not working well then you need to look under the bonnet and figure out why.

The carb is like your sales and marketing funnel - it needs to be tuned and delivering the visitors to the engine that is your Shopify website. Your website needs to be tuned to convert visitors to customers efficiently.

On my van there is even a pipe from the carb back to the fuel tank that sends unused petrol back to the tank so as it can be sent through again - just like we use Klaviyo to catch abandoned carts.

But most of all the similarity is a psychological one. If you want your website to work brilliantly you need to get past the fear and get stuck in. You need to be willing to break things, have occasional breakdowns, and maybe even risk a full-blown engine failure. Because the alternative is what so many classic car owners actually have - a good-looking shed ornament (or in your case a pretty website that does nothing useful).

So where do Perfidious Albert come into this? If you are really willing to get stuck in, then maybe we don't come into it - and that's ok. But if you want a good e-commerce mechanic to partner with and help you create a brilliant strategy for your website then we want to work with you. You need a curious mind and a can-do attitude to work with us anyway - we can only push so hard - it's your business. You need to own it. Call us for a no obligation consultation. We can talk about old vans or new websites - your shout! I love working on both.

Video of engine running after new carb but before tuning

Shopify released an exciting new feature yesterday. Previously when you have shipments to customers from more than one fulfilment centre or location or by more than one shipping method it would bundle them up into "shipping" and leave the customer clueless as to what was going on. All your hard work around shipping times, shipping options, and various options would not be displayed.

One place I have noticed this causing big problems over the years is with a mix of heavy and light items. For example if you are posting 4 t-shirts, 2 hats, and a giant metal poster to the United States. The clothing might cost €12 with An-Post, but the poster might need separate shipping and cost €60 with Fedex. The customer will see "Standard €72" at the checkout page. That might well be outside their budget. There is no clue given to them that if they can live without the sign then they could still get the clothes for a low postage cost.

If they do order it also causes confusion when the metal sign arrives by speedy Fedex but the rest of their order has not arrived. You can mitigate this with good emails and communications, but it is even better to set the expectations when they are paying - that is when they are most alert to the ins and outs of the transaction.

Now with Shopify there will be two or more shipping boxes if there will be two or more shipments. Problems solved. See the video below for more information.

We recently took on a few new clients for our outsourced head of e-commerce service. We promised them more sales by tweaking their e-commerce KPIs (key performance indicators) from the top end of their funnel (website visitors) to the bottom end (purchases). In all 3 cases with a few weeks of us starting we noticed their sales figures dipping slightly. Not a good look for us. One KPI (Total Visitor Volume (TVV)) revealed what was happening, but not why. E-commerce is all about psychology, but we only considered the customer. It turns out our clients have their predictable patterns as well.

But first an analogy.

You own an old house. It is cold. The house hasn’t been restored or updated since maybe the 1990s. You have old windows, little insulation, lots of draughts, and an oil-fired boiler. How do you increase the heat? You turn up the boiler. The heat is pushed in at a great rate and most of it promptly escapes through the walls, windows, and doors. But the house will eventually become warmer. Simple to understand.

In my analogy your website is a 1990s house, and your revenue is the heat. Your website visitors are the boiler. How do you get more revenue? You turn up the visitors. You blast away on Fakebook, Instascam, and TakeTok. You offer discounts and you do likes and shares. You sponsor a roundabout with a fishing boat in the middle (a pet peeve of mine) and you get a slot on Pat Kenny. You get sales, but the reward doesn’t match the effort and as soon as you stop the sales stop. Your visitors are not being efficiently turned into revenue generating customers. Your boiler is working hard and achieving little.

Let’s stick with the house and have you decide to call in the professionals. Perfidious Albert Insulation and Heating Ltd give you the best sales patter and you decide to take a chance. They promise you massive savings on your heating bill, a warmer and cosier house, and a happier life. You pay the money, and they start the work. Triumphantly and with great expectations you go out to the boiler house and unplug the boiler. I won’t be needing that anymore says you. And of course, your house goes cold and stays cold.

This is what has been happening with our website clients. They are tired and fed-up of hawking themselves on every social media channel. We start working with them and we do the website equivalent of installing new windows and doors and insulating the walls. We increase average order value (getting more heat with the same amount of oil) and we increase conversion rates by turning visitors into customers (retaining the heat). And so, our customers see revenue rise and they think it is great and they no longer need to waste time trying to get visitors.

But unfortunately, if we increase conversions by 100% and you reduce visitors by 50% the net result is the same level of revenue (and an unexpected extra invoice from us).

So, it turns out that not only do we need to be psychologists when it comes to your customers, but when you work with us you need your head examined as well (!!). Now I bet you are thinking this is easily solved – just turn the boiler back on. And you are right, and that is the short-term solution. However, if you have been keeping up you know that we dislike social media for business as much as you do. But that was another email about two weeks ago – perhaps in hindsight I tried to sell you the heat pump before the insulation.

Anyway – the purpose of these articles is to share my insights and help you grow your business. I believe I am an expert in e-commerce, but the truth is that a real expert only knows how little he knows. Learn with me and please pass this article on to anyone who it might help – they can also join our mailing list...

The TOV or trading online voucher is a €2500 grant match funded to any small Irish business to spend on e-commerce activities. Match funded means you must also pay €2500. E-commerce activities include everything from web development to photography.

There are several reasons we are not big fans of the trading online voucher.

It has increased costs for businesses.

We purchased an electric car a few years ago. We had an installation point for an electric charger at our house. We could purchase a charger for a couple of hundred euro. We then had to find an electrician to install the charger – 30 minutes work at most. They all wanted €850, because there was a grant available for approximately that amount. The trading online voucher has had the same effect on web development. It was common for lots of small web developers to offer start-up sites for a couple of hundred euro. Now they all want €5,000.

It has led to deception being an acceptable practice.

We have had many supposedly potential clients ask us for a proposal. That’s not unusual, but when they tell you that their budget is exactly €5,000 you know it is a waste of time.  Probably 50% of the requests for proposals we get now are people who already have a web developer but need 3 quotes for the TOV. I usually reply and say “that’s seems awful expensive for what you need – I think around €1,200 would be reasonable – but that’s just me being perfidious.

We have also heard of people asking if a web developer can build a website for €2500 but send an invoice for €5,000. The net result is a free website for the company, paid for by the taxpayer.

It has led to thousands of business owners throwing away €2500.

This is my biggest problem with the TOV. I have had business owners come to me looking for an e-commerce website and insisting on getting the TOV. Up until a couple of years ago I would generally say yes - it is a few bob,

I would build a nice website and I would put it live. I would a fair and honest amount of work for the money.

To this day most of those websites have never sold anything much at all. The owners invests the €2,500, the government invests another €2,500, and everyone sits back and waits for it to become the next Amazon. That’s not how e-commerce works. If you consider e-commerce to be a garden, then your website is the potting shed. The plants won’t grow themselves and the grass won’t cut itself. E-commerce needs skills that you have to learn, and it needs an investment of time and money, An ongoing investment. €5,000 is more than enough for most e-commerce websites but it is only a start.

Years ago, in the late 90s when e-commerce was starting, I remember the promise that so many companies made – open a website and you will have 6 billion customers (the population of the world at that time). It was an utter lie and a foolish promise. If you open a website, you have no customers. None. Not one. Unlike a physical retail location, you do not even get passing footfall on the web. You won’t even get an accidental customer unless you go looking for them. When you do manage to find a “visitor” for your website you probably have a less than 1/1000th chance of turning them into a customer.

E-commerce is about increasing visitor numbers and increasing conversion rates. The trading online voucher will actually help pay towards that effort (so that is a positive in its favour to be fair), but not if you have already spent it on your website and believe that is your job done. Sit back and wait for the orders? Not gonna happen sunshine.

So, what’s the answer?

In my humble opinion ditch the grant and replace it with education grants. Approve courses in e-commerce and pay business owners to take them. If you attend every session and pass the exam you get refunded. Restrict it to approved education facilities.

This starts your relationship with e-commerce in the right frame of mind – an investment by you into your business – not a one off cost that can be recovered.

But that’s just my 2c? What do you think? I would love to know your comments whether you are a web developer, a small business owner, or an e-commerce expert.