Captain Commerce: Shopify Superhero

(Real Name: Paul)


Why the super-hero theme? 

There's no point taking yourself too seriously. It's a bit of fun in a world full of "let us leverage our digital expertise to empower your business to scale" drabness.

Clients have referred to me as their "superhero" so I decided to build my brand around that. When you call yourself a superhero it pushes you to deliver results and a service worthy of the title.

What are your "super-powers"?

The first is having the skills of a whole team of ecommerce and digital marketing experts in one brain! Over the years I've taught myself to do everything so I can deliver projects without relying on others or outsourcing.

I started my career in advertising and I've always had a good eye for design. I have decades of experience across many different industries. I'm a natural marketing strategist. I've worked in leading SEO agencies and learned their "secrets". I'm a decent copywriter, and I've learned to code in HTML, CSS and Shopify's "Liquid" language.

Another superpower is my ability to keep clients happy. Having spent years in sales and account management I've learned what clients appreciate. Doing things when you say you will; being proactive; taking care of issues before someone asks; being transparent; good attention to detail; and communicating regularly are the keys to great service.

What's the advantage to doing everything yourself?

When you hire an agency you get a team of people who do different things. There is often a project manager, a designer, a developer, a content writer, SEO specialist and so on. Those people spend half their time having meetings and sending messages to each other, and that's where half of your budget goes.

There are huge advantages to one person being able to do everything. No time is wasted on internal communication and nobody can blame someone else for the thing that got overlooked. Clients love only having to deal with one person who always knows everything about the project.

Why do you focus on ecommerce?

I've built lots of "brochure" websites but these days I find that a bit boring. Ecommerce is more complicated and I enjoy complexity. There's more custom development needed and issues like shipping rules, product taxonomy and so on.

The coolest thing about ecommerce is being able to measure success with data. If you improve the look of an online store, make it easier to find products, add upsell features and bring more visitors, then you can see orders, conversion rates, and order values increase in real time.

Why the Shopify platform?

I've built sites in Wordpress, Squarespace and other platforms. I first started using the Shopify platform in 2017 and grew to love it. It's the world's leading ecommerce platform today for good reason. Shopify sites rank well in search results, are easy for business owners to manage, and provide a great user-experience. Shopify is infinitely customisable to suit the unique needs of any business thanks to a vast ecosystem of Apps, plus you can edit all the code that makes up the site.

What's your secret to growing online sales?

First: bring more visitors to the site. It's just like the physical world of retail - the more people that come into a store the more sales are made. Increasing visitors requires ranking well in search results, being visible in people's social feeds, and sometimes running Ads to reach a new audience.

Second: improve the site to increase conversion rates and average order values to generate more dollars from each visitor. This isn't any different from a physical store either - if the store is attractive, it's easy to find products, and customer service is good then more people will buy.

Why should I hire you?

I combine a no-nonsense hands-on approach with great service and sound advice. You save money by not needing a whole team, and my vast experience in many different industries enables me to guide you on which strategies really work.