Girl Gang Craft Podcast Episode #64 “Mindful Metrics: How to Understand Analytics + Boost Sales as a Small Business”

Phoebe Sherman interview with Janine Mulone of Feel Good Retail

INTRO
Phoebe Sherman:
Welcome to the Girl Gang Craft podcast, where we dive in deep to all things business, wellness, creativity and activism for artists and entrepreneurs. We talk with impactful, female driven companies and founders for an inside look at the entrepreneurial experience where you'll come away with tangible steps to elevate your business. Are you ready? I'm your host, Phoebe Sherman, founder of Girl Gang Craft, artist and designer and marketing obsessed. We're here to learn together how to expand our revenue, implement new organizational techniques and cultivate best business practices as we work towards creating a life doing what we love. Let's get started.

00:44:00
Hey Phoebe here popping in to say that we had some audio issues at the beginning of this episode and it seems to clear up. Thank you!

Hello, hello, creatives. Welcome back to the Girl Gang Craft podcast. My voice is a little off today. I apologize. I've been sick. I've been trying to recover from my wedding at the time of this recording. I have been on the couch for a couple of days and like, man, I throw events all the time, right? But specifically throwing the wedding was just like emotionally, physically, spiritually exhausting. It was perfect and beautiful and amazing. And I know I really haven't talked about it that much yet. I would like to put out a blog post with more information about it, but right now I'm focusing on just like, getting my health back, like figuring out how to get back to work. It's a lot, it's a lot. But yeah, a couple shout outs to some wedding folks, some companies that have donated some items for the wedding that really made the wedding special. Number one is 21 Seeds Tequila. I love them. Kat, the founder, has been on the podcast before and they donated a whole bunch of tequila to the wedding. So that was really special and I want to give them a shout out because I really appreciate it and you should go check them out. They are a woman run, they are San Francisco based and we love their tequila. They have really amazing fruit infused flavors. And yeah, go check them out. You can get them on their website or in stores. So we have 21 Seeds donating. We had Wync. And if you've been at our Salem events, we've had Wynk there in person. Wink is a THC, cannabis, sparkling drink. It is like 2.5 milligrams. So it's like chill. It's a really good beach drink. It's a really good like social wedding drink. They have a really good flavors. So check out Wync. You can probably get them at your local dispensary. They donated some drinks to the wedding and that was really fabulous. So thank you, Wync. And that's spelled W-Y-N-K. And then also we had Lesser Evil Popcorn donate to the wedding. And they're just a great snack. Their popcorn is chef's kiss. It's like coconutty. They have coconut oil and it's salty and it's a beautiful snack and Himalayan pink salt. So check out their popcorn. You've probably seen their popcorn. You've probably had it. It's at your local grocery store. Check them out. Lesser Evil Popcorn. So, wedding roundup. Thank you to our wedding sponsors. I never thought I would say that. I never thought I would say the day, but this episode, Janine, Feel Good Retail. We love Janine. She is a friend of mine. She's local here in Salem. We had a good time on this episode. We're a really good pair, I think. I tend to be a little
I think I tend to be a little bit more into the creative, esoteric, creative part of the business. I don't know why I keep on saying creative, but she's also very creative, but she is like a data driven girly. She is here to help you make sure your cart order is higher cart order average. I think that's the professional way to say it, to make sure people are buying more on your website, right? She's here to look at those like barriers of entry to why you aren't making those sales. Like, do you need to get more people to your website? Do you need to just increase that conversion percentage or build your average order value? Whatever, get people to buy more things in your cart. My brain is still recovering, you guys, from the wedding, I swear. Anyways, okay, we're gonna just hop into this episode Janine's amazing. Make sure you go follow her on the gram and dive into this episode. Let's go.


Phoebe Sherman:
Hello Creatives! Welcome back to Girl Gang Craft, the podcast. Today we have Janine on the podcast from Feel Good Retail. And I've met her a few times in Salem, so we're in-person friends. And I'm really excited to have her on the podcast to talk about feeling good as you sell things.

Janine:
Hell yeah, let's do it. Thanks for having me.

Phoebe Sherman:
So tell us a little bit about what Feel Good Retail is.

Janine:
Sure. Feel Good Retail is essentially my goal with it is to help retailers feel good about the side of their businesses that maybe don't always. Like I know I work with a lot of creative business owners who are so comfortable in that creative mode. But when it comes to sales analysis, or setting up systems, or kind of those like tasks that would fall under like operations and strategy, there's a lot of fear and anxiety. So my goal with feel good retails to have like all parts of running your business feel really amazing in order to get to the size and get there at the pace that feels really sustainable and fulfilling for small business owners.

Phoebe Sherman:
And so how did you start this? What is your background?

Janine:
We’ll try not to take up so much time because I feel like backstories are so winding, which I'm sure a lot of people listening will relate to. I started my career in high-end like luxury but independent retail. So I was working with folks who were really incredible curators. And at that point in my life, I really thought I wanted to go into editorial and I wanted to be a stylist. I interviewed, interned at W Magazine. I really was in that kind of high creative space. But I figured out that I actually love business and I love strategy and where those two things can intersect. Since then I had been freelancing on and off with small businesses. And every once in a while, there would be a client who needed a lot of work or we really jived and I would go in and work with them in-house for a couple of years until, frankly, I got bored and was like, I don't want to have a boss anymore. For a long time, I was kind of doing that and then started working as a COO at a branding and design studio called JSGD in Boston. And it was really there that I kind of figured out like, okay, how to not only manage a creative studio, but also work with our clients to be able to offer some of those services through the studio. And when that business closed, the studio ended up shutting its doors. I was actually planning my wedding, which I know you’re doing right now. And I was like, “I think this is like time.” I think I just really have to go for it. I really need to make, I don’t know, ground this thing that I've been doing and that I'm seeing repeatedly. It was like everyone sort of had the same problems. It was like not making enough money but not knowing how to change it or having too much inventory or not really knowing how to like hire and onboard and manage a team or open a shop. I mean, I think at this point, I've opened like 11 brick and mortar shops in my life. So like those kind of, I guess, like, I won't call them boring. I'm trying to get away from being like, “these are the boring things that nobody wants to do,” because they're so essential. But it was really at that point. And then with the pandemic that I really was like, I cannot come out of this and realize that there are like no more small businesses. Like I can't live in world where it's like just Targets and Amazon fulfillment centers. And I really think that like, there's a lot of resources for service-based business owners, speaking as a service-based business owner, of how to price things and how to scale. And I just have never found that for product-based businesses. Then Feel Good Retail was born, I guess, in 2020, but she's kind of been kicking around forever.

Phoebe Sherman:
What does Feel Good Retail look like today? Like, what are your offerings? Do we ever know what we offer?

Janine
Right?!

Phoebe Sherman:
Always perfecting it.

Janine:
Always as a perfectionist, as a true type A. Right now, we're really in like an evolution of feel good retail and kind of really getting down to the most pure version of what we offer. Like I don't need to be the person talking about Instagram. I don't know what I'm doing on there either. You should take Phoebe's course on Instagram cause she is a genius and an amazing creator. What we're doing moving into 2024 is really focusing on like giving people confidence around sales analytics, around email automations, around systems and kind of infusing that with like how to do it in a way that's not like you have to do everything all at once. What is the season for each thing? How can we work on things slowly throughout the year to get like 10% better every year as opposed to like these kind of panics and then like moments of quiet and then I don't know just kind of the stop and start I guess of small business. So that will look like some classes and workshops and some really exciting ideas, and then obviously continuing with my podcast, which is called Retail for the Rest of Us, and consulting, but who knows what my availability will look like then, it's pretty full up right now.

Phoebe Sherman:
Okay, getting down to sort of like the nitty gritty,--

Janine:
Please.

Phoebe Sherman:
–because obviously our communities are very similar, and if you're listening, go follow Feel Good Retail right now. I think there's a lot of product-based businesses in both our communities that, whether they're comfy or not with Instagram, is besides the point. But they think it's the main thing. And if you're listening and that hurts, I'm sorry. I also love and care about Instagram. It can also be really strong and powerful, but it cannot be your whole business. I guess my question for you is like, maybe the people who are listening who have been focusing so much on social media, what are some next steps to really making sure that they can grow their sales and grow their business? Like what's the first maybe system that they should put in place, maybe public facing and internally? Maybe, that's a two-parter.

Janine:
Perfect. I think that's a great way to frame it. And I think to kind of even zoom out further, it seems to be that many of us, and I do this too, focus a little bit more on like the tool first than like the actual problem that you're trying to solve. So you're maybe thinking like, I just need to post on Instagram and you haven't really asked like, well, why? What part of the sales funnel, let's say, is that beefing up? Is that helping? Is that supporting? So the first thing I like to go through with retailers is a very simple like sales analysis, which revolves around three numbers. I know people think analysis and like, oh my god, you're going to have like graphs and charts and I don't even know what my login is to Google Analytics. But it's really as simple as looking at your traffic. So how many people either come to your spot, come to your store, or visit your website. Your conversion rate, so of that number, how many people make a purchase? And your average order value, so how much are they buying? Because those numbers are gonna add up to your total sales, and of course, I'm super, super simplifying this.

Phoebe Sherman:
Let's repeat it again, so how many people come to your website or store? So traffic, conversion rate, and average order.


Janine:
Yes, average order value. So to give you a super basic example, if you have a thousand people who come to your website and you have a 10% conversion rate, that's a hundred people who are converting, then your average order value is, let's say $10, I'll just make this super easy, so you're making a thousand dollars. Let's say that was for a month. Odds are that's not enough if you're working in a full-time business, $1,000, nothing to sneeze at, but not enough to live in these United States. So really what you want to look at is if I saw those exact numbers, I'd be like, your conversion rate is crushing it. 10% is amazing, especially online. It's literally like 2% or higher is amazing, which shocks people. Odds are if you're a smaller business and you're getting less traffic, it will be higher, but aiming to keep it at around 2% is like gold standard. In person, I would say it really ranges based on like your location a little bit more, but if you're not seeing like 40 to 50% conversion, I would say that's something to seriously look at when you're in a brick and mortar environment.

Phoebe Sherman:
Interesting. So basically every other person should buy something that locks in.

Janine:
I think you should aim for that, personally. I was at a conference recently and I spoke about these numbers and someone, a man, frankly, was like, “well, what if I'm right next to a restaurant and all my stuff is really expensive and people who are just like waiting for a table don't wanna buy things. Like my conversion rates are never gonna be 40%” And he's like, “so what would you say?” And I was like, “I would say that you picked the wrong location.” Like, that just makes no sense. If you're selling thousands and thousands of dollars of items and you know that the traffic you're getting isn't quality traffic, it's really something to think about. So those are kind of the standards that I look for. I would say 2% online and 40% in person. I'd like to see it closer to 50, but can't always be there. So that's kind of where you can start, again, for that
example. Your conversion rate's amazing, if we're talking about online. Your, depending on the price of your goods, $10 seems pretty low to me, so are your goods priced appropriately? Are there things that people should be bundling together? Do you want people to get like multiple items during a transaction? How can you kind of change your user experience to focus specifically your strategies on that? And I can tell you, to change your average order value, Instagram isn't gonna do anything for you. Like, that's just not its function. If anything, it's driving traffic. You're not getting a ton of direct sales, likely you're trying to push people over to your website to get them interested in making a purchase. Does that make sense? Am I too in the weeds?

Phoebe Sherman:
No, I think this is great. So what are some things to boost? Well, okay, I'm going to play devil's advocate for a second.

Janine:
Please.

Phoebe Sherman:
Could you do something on the Instagram side to talk about a bundle or something to get people excited to order more than one thing on the website?

Janine:
Yeah, I mean, you can definitely use Instagram, but I would say that 100% of your efforts, shouldn’t be focused there, maybe you're doing something like adding functionality, so it like pairs well with this product or there's upgrades at your checkout or you're just spending time like really thinking about how things are merchandised or how your navigation is laid out, things that are a little bit closer to that touch point.

Phoebe Sherman:
All on the website then. Sort of like looking at your customers, what's it called, Journey on the website.

Janine:
Yes

Phoebe Sherman:
and like figuring out those touch points where they could like add another pin to their cart or something.

Janine:
Yeah. And I would probably have them look at the price too, just like is your price point, does it make sense for the business you're trying to grow realistically?

Phoebe Sherman:
Love it.

Janine:
Great.

Phoebe Sherman:
Tell me more. What else are some ways that people can optimize these numbers both public facing and internally?

Janine:
Yeah. So I would say in general, like that's the first system and that’s internal, I think monthly to just be looking at those numbers. What are your total sales? Which I think pretty much everyone's probably doing, whether you have a specific moment that you're like, “I am going to sit down and look at my sales data,” or if you're just like sporadically checking the Shopify app on your phone like we all do is separate. But I would say take a 30 minute sit down every month at the end of the month, look at what your sales were and not just those top line sales, but what those three numbers are. That's going to really give you a sense of where to put your marketing energy and like the resource that you have, whether that's money, or time, or creativity, or energy behind like trying out different strategies to move those individual numbers instead of top line sales because that's a little bit more amorphous. That's the internal I guess. If you want to talk about things to do for each, traffic which is definitely where I think that like partnerships, Instagram growth, pushing sign ups for your newsletter, TicTok, even just like plain old advertising– advertising on podcast, advertising in local publications or newsletters that you really love, like anywhere that you can kind of like find new folks and drive them to either your brick and mortar location, or your next event, or your website is probably going to be more so what would fall under like marketing when you think of marketing, it's mostly driving traffic. Making the sale is not always marketing. It's not always like super direct or linear, I should say, which is what makes things like Instagram and trying to focus on Instagram growth or follower growth feel like you're playing like the same game, but like a field over, right? Like you can get really tricked into thinking that audience growth is the same as business growth, and unfortunately it just is not. And if you can't convert those people, if you have, you know, 20,000 followers, but you're only getting 500 views to your website every month, then like, that audience isn't really doing what you want them to do as a product based business owner because we're not content creators or service based business owners, we’re product based businesses. So I would say most of your like, if I say marketing, whatever comes to mind, that's probably pushing and increasing your traffic numbers, which honestly, to scale your business, you kind of always have to be working on traffic. That's not like going anywhere. You always need new folks. You always need like amazing customers who love you already to be coming back. Then when it comes to like conversion rate and average order value, you really want to be focused more on like the actual experience and the service that you're offering. So online, that's going to look like website updates. It's going to look like user experience, merchandizing photography, all the little dials that you have that you can kind of like. Again, just make a little bit better to see like, is that going to make a difference? Is my navigation confusing? Can I look at like what people have been searching for on my site and haven't been able to find? Are people abandoning their carts? Why is that happening? Is something going on with my checkout or do I have like limited payment options or is my shipping too expensive? Like all the questions. And a good way to do this and think about like, how to increase conversion rate is think about like, what makes you abandon a cart, or walk out of a store without buying anything; For me, it's like shipping is too expensive. The vibes were weird. If I’m in a brick and mortar store things are merchandised strangely. I don't feel like I have clarity on details that I need to order something or I don't feel comfortable enough to ask what was working. Those kind of things. It's usually simpler than we think. A great example is like if someone doesn't have PayPal set up and I don't have my wallet near me, like I'm just going to abandon the cart. And it's not because I don't want the stuff, I probably very much do, but hopefully when you send me an abandoned cart reminder later, I'll be like, “Oh yeah, I was going to checkout, I was going to get that stuff.”

BREAK
20:16;00
Phoebe Sherman:
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Phoebe Sherman:
I was just thinking about this last night because I at like 11:00 ordered something from TikTok.

Janine:
Yes!

Phoebe Sherman:
this is my first purchase and it's makeup. And, you know, I'm planning my wedding. At the time of this podcast I will have already been married, but I'm doing my own makeup for the wedding. So getting the setting spray and kept on seeing it, kept on seeing it. okay, I was like, and then I went ahead and ordered it. And they have these coupons right now to encourage you to buy TikTokShop

Janine:
Yeah.

Phoebe Sherman:
And I was like seeing the payment options too and I was having this thought. I was like, “wow, I really rarely make mobile payments anymore.” But I started to see myself become more comfortable with that because of Apple Pay. So thinking about like, again, the how? Well, of course it's only my business card that's attached to my Apple Pay but I had to change it because it wasn't on a business order. It's already connected. It was easy enough to do because I didn't have my credit card in bed with me. You shouldn't. But the point is, yeah, as technology is changing, like thinking about how you yourself shop and these barriers to finish the cart, to complete the order, think about how you can help other people do that. Do you offer Apple Pay or PayPal or Klarna or one of these sort of where they do multiple payments or whatever?


Janine:
Yeah, split payments.

Phoebe Sherman:
Yeah. Yeah. Just think about what sort of options you offer. I'm not saying to offer all of them at all. We don't even talk about the payment plans either.

Janine:
Yeah exactly like

Phoebe Sherman:
Yeah, that was just my experience last night

Janine:
I have felt very similarly like I was like, I will never use Apple Pay. And now it's like if I can't use Apple Pay, it's just like a real– not that I'm going to, especially at a real store I'm not going to be like, “goodbye, I don't want to get my wallet out,” but to just be able to click on my phone or to know that like I just have to sign in and it's really easy and I know what card it's going to. It's honestly easier for me than PayPal. So again, they're just things to consider because I think sometimes when we think about ways to improve our businesses, we make a much more complicated choice than we need to.

Phoebe Sherman:
Always because we need to get 1000 followers tonight, I need to make a really cool Reel instead of– I'm literally taking notes right now, too, because these are all things I know. But like, I haven't really looked at my checkout process in a while. I could probably keep an eye on what my copy’s looking like these days.

Janine:
Sure. I mean, who among us, like I am not perfect. I'm like, I'm going to have to seriously edit my website before this comes out. But like, I just think that– here's another way to frame it between those three numbers is like, let's say you're making $10,000 a month and you're like, I really want to make $15,000 because I want to keep paying myself the same. I want to start making estimated payments and I want to hire an assistant to help me at Girl Gang Craft in Salem at the holidays. So great. You need to make 5000 extra dollars a month. It's kind of just like, “Well, how are you going to do that?” And of course, there's two ways to say that. There's like, “Oh my god, how the hell am I going to do that? That seems like a lot. That's increasing myself by 50%.” But when you really think about it, it's like, okay, well, if I boost it, it's fun to play with those numbers to me. And that's why I'm like a loser who teaches about like business analytics because it's like, okay, like play with the numbers. If you boost traffic a little bit, if you do one extra event, if you run a little promotion, if you get one great partnership, like what are the dials that you can turn and what do you think they're going to result in as opposed to just feeling the overwhelm, which I know a lot of small business owners feel when they're just like, I just need to make more money. That is a really paralyzing feeling, I think, to have these kind of fore numbers that you're checking in with regularly and monitoring their health and looking at, “Hey, like when I did that Instagram live, I did get three extra sales and so maybe I should schedule one of those every month and just try to make them a little bit better next time.” Then you can kind of really build your confidence as a strategist and also feel like you're not just putting your energy through a strainer where you're just like, I'm pouring all this into Instagram and I'm getting nothing back. Like, no wonder you feel burnt out.

25:26;00
Phoebe Sherman:
Yes, yes.

Janine:
Yeah, that would be one thing. I'm a big obviously, clearly, I'm a big numbers person.
And then I think I don't really know what I would say as like an external practice. I mean, I really think contextualizing your brand is super important. I think that retailers, I know we share a love for email marketing, and I think retailers kind of forget that like part of what folks love about them is what they're doing and getting to know them and understanding kind of like the ecosystem around their brand. And so I think regular kind of like newsletters or just like check-ins that aren't selling anything that are just like, “Hey, this is what we’re up to you and this is what you can expect soon.” And I just always get such amazing feedback from retailers as they start to implement those kind of things where it's just like just once a month, a little like, “hey,” link roundups, things like that that just help folks really feel connected to you and like reminded that your business exists and why it's so awesome. And like, especially going into the holiday season, I think not only do people of course want to give like amazing gifts, but they want to be able to be like, “Oh my gosh, this is from this really cool brand. And like they’re witches and they like infuse all these candles with like crystal energies” I don't know, I like to give gifts like that where it feels like I didn't just go to like Amazon dotcom on Christmas Eve and hope for the best. So I think that giving folks that kind of personal touch point, in whatever format, I love a newsletter, but maybe that is something like an Instagram post or a Reel or I don't know, something amazing that I haven't even thought of– a podcast. I would love to see some retailers have podcasts.

Phoebe Sherman:
Yes, I totally agree with you on all of that with you. I mean, as you all know, listening. Yes. Newsletter, newsletter, newsletter. I would love for everyone listening who does not have a newsletter to start one. Like right this second, I would like you to send out an email once a week.

Janine:
Oh, same.

Phoebe Sherman:
But we can start with once a month.

Janine:
Let me make a correction. Your newsletter– Your like, “What's going on with me?” I would say minimum once a month. And then you do need to send sales emails too. Unfortunately, guys, you have to sell your product.

Phoebe Sherman:
Yeah, and I think we forget, for example, I forget that my story is kind of interesting or whatever, and we all forget that our stories are kind of interesting because we tell it a million times or feel like we've exhausted it, but there's new people not hearing it. There's people who have heard it but like love to continue to hear your story as it sort of changes and shifts, or want to be reminded about your story, these stories, and when I use story, I mean, sure, it can be “This is how I got into this thing,” but it could also be like “today was a hard day,” or like, “this is what my dog did and this is why I do this thing.” It really could be multifaceted and those are the things that keep us unique and exciting to purchase from rather than the targets and the Amazons of the world. Like these are the things that make our crystal infused candles, like really potent, right? And really valuable, and interesting, and desirable. And I understand that you might be bored of telling your story over and over again, but you should do it.

Janine:
Yes. Cosign. Like, I mean, I have to say this to myself, too, so I will put myself in this camp. But like, people don't remember anything. Like you think, I would say, especially with product business owners, especially if you're creating your own product, it's like you have the idea and then you're making prototypes and then you're sourcing materials and then you're making them and then you're launching it. It's like by the time it launches, I feel like there's part of our brain that's like, “Well, everybody already knows about this.” And it's like, nobody knows. Nobody pays attention. The algorithm’s not showing things to people. Like there's a very old, like marketing rule that people have to see things six times to even absorb that it exists. So now that we're more distracted than ever, I would say that's probably like 8 to 10 times. And I think challenging ourselves to share in a way, to your point, that's not just like repeating and repeating and repeating, but it's like, okay, I think it's a fun, creative challenge to be like, I want to talk about this new line that I created or this new product. And also this has been on my mind lately. Like at this moment in time, I'm watching The Sopranos for the first time. Very cool. After 25 years or whatever. But I'm like, okay, like, how can I talk about like retail systems and also talk about The Sopranos? Because it's all I want to talk about. And like, I don't know, that seems like a fun challenge– Like it makes me want to write a newsletter what I can like, I don't know, have a little bit of fun and play with it a bit. Maybe that's like, again, nerdy of me, but I think that people always respond not only to my work when it's like that, but for retailers who I have implemented like a lot of email marketing for. I always make sure there's a newsletter and they perform so well and just like to retain your customers. I think that's really important to give them that like point of connection human to human. Because when you get an email from Crate and Barrel, it doesn't feel like you're getting it from a human. It feels like you're getting it from like the mall.

Phoebe Sherman:
Email from the mall.

Janine:
I would love to get an email from the mall.

Phoebe Sherman:
I think that's hilarious. The like pairing what you're infatuated with right now with the other thing that you're infatuated with, your business, I think is really interesting and like you've seen that across the board right now with Barbie this, Barbie that right? this like pairing..

Janine:
Totally

Phoebe Sherman:
I've been part of pairing my wedding planning with business mindset also. What else is around your world and how can you pair that? And that makes you again stand out. I have this friend from back in the day and she's a yoga teacher and she had a bunny and I also taught yoga and had a bunny too. But she had these really amazing–

Janine:
So niche I love it.

Phoebe Sherman:
But like no one else is doing like yoga poses with their bunny, right? You know, that really allowed her to stand out. So, like, how can you take these weird ass things or weird obsessions or weird hobbies. I don't know whyI keep on saying weird they're all not weird. They're all really amazing. But like, whatever you're doing and combine it with your business, that just brings more personality into your space and helps you stand out. Okay, well, there's like 17 million candle companies in Salem, but there's only one who like, brings it into the ocean and does a special spell on Lions Gate. You know, whatever. Show your stuff. Show the things that you're doing.

Janine:
Totally. And I think that, like, speaking of Barbie, which this is going to be so, like, dated by the time this episode comes out, probably. But like, I just think that, like the universe creation is so cool. I mean in Barbie, and, I'm not really like into the superhero movies or whatever, but it's also what I love about TV shows and movies is this idea that you're creating not only the story that you're telling, but the little details. And I think that to just hear about candles all the time, sorry, we're really like going hard on the candle folks out there, but it's pretty boring unless you have invented smellevision and I can just get a whiff through my inbox, I really need there to be context around what inspired you to make that or what you could do with the jars or a playlist for whatever like said pairings. I know that independent retailers have so many cool creative ideas, they just get like really watered down I think when there isn't a really clear goal of “Why do I want to sell this?” And again, pay attention to what sparks your interest. The things that perform really well right now are like memes. Like people want to be like, “oh my god, that's so me.” It's cool to know that this person is interested in something beyond just pouring candles, because you definitely are. And I think that to your point, it's more memorable. And again, I just think it's a lot more fun when you don't have to think about emails as like, “I'm just selling,” or Instagram posts as “I'm just selling,” because odds are you don't want to consume that content. You might think you have to make that content as a business owner, but very few people want to consume content that's just like milquetoast, “Will you please buy this”

Phoebe Sherman:
“Milquetoast” I think this is interesting what you brought up about the candles not being able to smell them, right? Because candles are conducive for in-person sales. And I've been thinking about my own product line, too, and how I think a lot of people’s sales are perhaps better in person. Right? We talked about retail 40%. People are excited to be out in the world to buy things, to touch things. A lot of my items are really soft and it's hard to convey these things online. So, yeah, I mean, what are some sort of like suggestions you have for people who are doing really well in person and have sort of these limitations on them, like, staring at the ceramics thing here, like texture, like softness, like smell.

Janine:
Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we definitely experience that with Counter Magic. So Erica Feldman, who owns HausWitch Home + Healing and I have a secondary business called Counter Magic. It's all magical, intentional, ritual cleaning products. I mean, there's so much to the line, but the scent was really, really critical to us. And what is kind of like verging on aroma therapy for the intentions that we gave each product, but unless you're going to Haus Witch or finding one of our fine retailers across the country, odds are you're going to our website and for us, the way that we approached it was like multifaceted. We made mood boards for every fragrance. We talk about the notes, of course, but when I read the notes of something, it doesn't really give me much. But some people are much more adept at that than me. We made an actual like ritual for every product and tried to give each its own personality. Like they all have their own taglines. They all have these kind of like, cute little quippy remarks that aren't just like, “This is a glass cleaner,” like Gaze is our glass cleaner for protection. It smells like lime– Like citrus is really protecting. It has all of those elements we tried to infuse into the page. And I think that that is really the work of copy and photography and kind of thinking again, outside of the box a little bit. When it comes to creating your online experience. I have done a handful of website audits recently and I would say that's like my number one feedback is like, I know if I came to a booth of yours at a craft fair, like it would be a full experience of your brand. And I just am not getting that from the site. Like it's white, the navigation is super basic. Like, there’s not really any photos of you. The photos are just like not high quality. There's just sometimes e-commerce sites feel like they're the last, they're kind of like the ugly step child. They're like, “oh, I heard I should sell online, so I just like got a free Shopify template,” But to me, pay attention to the things that people respond to in person and think about ways that you can emulate that on your site. So if there are questions that people are always asking, if every time someone smells one of your candles, they're like, “This smells like sunset at the beach,” or something, put that on the product page, don't just give the notes and say that it has a 60 hour burn time and call it a day. People want to be able to if you aren't there, which you're not, when they're shopping your website to answer the questions, to give all your quippy little anecdotes that you have that you give at in person to answer the frequently asked questions. All of that information needs to be on there. I think photography is a huge place for improvement for a lot of retailers as well. I know it can be expensive, but even just like a higher quality or more well-lit iPhone photo, better than we just threw this on the ground, took a photo of it. So yeah, I would say for the most part, really paying attention to what resonates in person and what you talk to your customers about, what you say about your products and really like, again, see what lands. And then there's kind of this like really cool relationship between your e-commerce experience and your in-person experience where like, they kind of feed each other. On e-commerce, you're going to be able to see in analytics, okay, these people are pairing these two items all the time, or this is getting abandoned more frequently or X, Y, and Z. And then in person you're able to get to kind of that more quantitative information of like everybody wants to know, like what's an alternate use for this? Or people are a little confused about this, or I feel like I'm kind of going in circles. But does that make sense?

Phoebe Sherman:
I love it. I love it so much. I'm like really thinking about my own website. Yeah, I don’t even want to dive into my website.

Janine:
No, I mean, we can

Phoebe Sherman:
I could use some limitations too. I'm thinking of all this stuff too. And like, I think it is really key to figure out what platform you're using also.

Janine:
Yeah.

Phoebe Sherman:
And like what you need. For instance, I'm a hybrid business, right, service and products, so we're working with Wix and I think they're improving right now, but there is, I think our service side is better positioned than our product side, and, guess what, that shows in the numbers. So I don't know if you have any advice on Wix being better, but yeah, for us to like say, okay, let's try Shopify because there's all these other capabilities I mean we did just shut down our membership so maybe there's less capabilities right now that we need, but like I want to have access to some of those other service based things that things like Wix have.

Janine:
Yeah.

Phoebe Sherman:
That Shopify doesn't necessarily have yet.

Janine:
Yeah, I mean I'm a huge Shopify stan, unfortch (abv.) and I haven't really been inside of Wix for a while. I've moved a few people off, but your business takes so many shapes that I think that that's important that you weigh those kind of options. I would say for most people, like a basic Shopify or even honestly like Squarespace is like, okay, I don't love it. And I think if you're going to be scaling.

Phoebe Sherman:
I think they've really changed things like because I had to go on to do my wedding website on Squarespace and I was shocked at how much better that they were than five years ago.

Janine:
Yeah, I actually just moved my website back to Squarespace. It was on Showit for a while.

Phoebe Sherman:
So you're not even on Shopify?

Janine:
No, because I don't sell products. I would be and I've thought about moving, but it's just like Shopify for like the look and feel. If you're not using like the checkout, it's more expensive than you need, but there's a lot of great things about it, especially like Shopify their like shipping, you get really great rates, like their functionality, their help is really amazing, and I think they've also improved pretty significantly in terms of like how much effort it takes to like set up a website. The back end feels a lot more like Squarespace does. It's not really like a hard coded situation anymore. Website preference aside, because I could definitely go on and on, as I often do, about like the pros and cons of each, because I don't think there's really a perfect one. I wish I was a coder and could just like make a platform, but I chose other things in life. I do think that fundamentally, regardless of what platform you're on, you will have the ability to like rearrange and design your navigation and how people are like browsing the site. That's a pretty big, maybe not missed opportunity for folks, but it's usually like the last thing they think about where they're just like, okay, I'll just have like Shop All and then I'll have sweatshirts, linens, or whatever, but maybe it makes more sense to have individual collections, or maybe there's like a price point breakdown that would feel really good, like under 50, under 100, depending on who your customer is, and then copy and photography, like that's going to go with you anywhere, whether again, that's something that you're outsourcing and working with someone who is an expert or, just really giving that critical thought to like, how do I want to present this product? I think we see product description and we get very literal. I always call them real estate tours where it's like, “and this is a purple sweatshirt and it has a sunflower on it and–,” and you're like, “Yep, I have eyes like,” so try to move beyond the real estate tour. Give like a little bit of context to why you created it or what it reminds you of or what it smells like. And I don't mean like notes, but something that's like more emotive for people and that they'll be able to be like, “ooh, that sounds lovely. I do want that in my life.”
Phoebe Sherman:
I love it so much.

Janine:
Great.

Phoebe Sherman:
Okay. Well, Janine, this has been so lovely. Can you tell everyone listening where they can find you?

Janine:
Yes, you can find me @FeelGoodRetail on Instagram. Jury's out on how I will be using that platform. But I am there and I definitely like check my DMS and respond to people there. That's my favorite thing about Instagram. And you can listen to the podcast, which is called Retail For The Rest Of Us. Wherever you're listening to this podcast, you can likely listen to mine. And yeah, the best way to stay in touch is to be on the newsletter list. Depending on when this podcast comes out, I usually do something really special to prepare for the holidays, kind of like a six week guide, and I'm working on that right now as we speak, and it's really going to be good this year. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, going into the 2023 holiday season, how about the newsletter list? You'll get a lot more if you like everything I said.

Phoebe Sherman:
And we'll drop all those links in the show notes. Okay. Thank you so much Janine!

Janine:
Thanks Phoebe!

OUTRO:
Thank you so much for listening to the Girl Gang Craft Podcast. Head to GirlGangCraft.com/podcast for show notes and more. See you next time.