 So, empowering local stores learn from the tech giants while staying local. So I'm speaking to you as developers, as freelancers and consultants. The WooCommerce economy was worth around 31 billion dollars in 2021, a whole lot more this year as well. But to put it into perspective, that's similar to the countries of Latvia or Estonia. Now, our statistics tell us that around 60% of stores are influenced by people like you. That's a lot of power we have in this room, and I'm glad more than five people turn up. It wouldn't quite work. So, this is me. I am Data. I did not forget to update the slides. Hopefully also, you find me a lot more interesting than this. But what really matters is this for stores. So, looking at these lines, and I'm sorry, I can't quite see it, but how likely do you think I'm in the market for a smart watch? Maybe one of those with a fancy nautical feature, a Garmin. So, I do what millions of us do every day. And that's to go to Google and find a good deal. I have a budget of around 250 dollars. But from the first instance from the search result, I realized that that's not going to get me far. You can't see the prices, but the prices range from around 200 to 2,000 dollars. Also, it's pretty overwhelming. I can see who are the dominant marketplaces that appear right at the top. Ron, you must shop local. These are some of the quotes that I used in a presentation for WordCamp Santa Clarita a couple of years ago. But come on, who shops for such a specific item at your local high street? Most likely they will not have them in stock. And, you know, what's better than next-day delivery and free returns? Exactly. It's just same-day pickup. Because local shops now can have an advantage over leading marketplaces, which is through Google Shopping. If you search for something, you can now filter by what's nearby and labels tell you how far away it is and if it's actually in stock. That's a huge advantage you can have now. So, as a local retailer, what do you have to do? Upload your whole catalogue into the Google Merchant Center. It's free and it even supports organic listings. So, my first of five points is that in shopping, you know, set up, upload all your products. If you know your audience and have demonstrated that you can filter, it's still anonymous, that's why I'm still data at the moment. So, as soon as somebody then searches for a specific product that you have in stock, you have a very good chance you appear right on top. If you want to promote it a little bit more, if you know your budget for marketing, set a return on acquisition spend and just run with it. So, now we have the customer on our side. How do we convert them into making that purchase? So, 66% will opt for the free delivery even though it's more expensive. Zero and free is a very powerful emotion because actually you get people to spend a little bit more. But in the way I see it, we still lose a third of customers. So, this is an easy way. You match the price and offer free delivery. So, now in this way we have all 100% of customers buying from you in theory. If we do a quick maths for 100 customers, you probably have a cost of an additional $1000 on a postage or shipping cost. But you don't have acquired 100 customers, so we only have to make them purchase a second or even a third time and then certainly it's seen as an investment. It's a different way of looking at it. I do understand you can't discount your products and services just to buy customers. So, let's have a look at an easy way to increase the average order value. This is a pretty tough upsell, right? Somebody comes in for the lovely grey one, but really I want to sell them the hot pink item. Suddenly that hot pink item doesn't look so bad when you match it to put it next to maybe a more expensive price. When I didn't know about the Garmin watch, when I sold myself a $250 budget, from the first instant I realized that $250 wasn't going to get me far, so I upped that budget to $500. Now I need to justify that spending that money. Think of a wine list. So, you don't know what the price for wine is, but you open the wine list, you see the budget option, you see the most expensive option and you choose a wine that sort of fits within your budget and feels like the best value. So, price benchmarking is a very common place on marketplaces. Here's another example where you bundle products and now it's almost impossible to compare this with your competitors. And remember what the emotion you get when something is for free. I'm sure you all had some lovely swag from the WooCommerce stand and it didn't make you feel pretty good, right? So, my second point is benchmark your price, benchmark it against your competitor and it will be more important to benchmark it against or within your own products catalog. Figure out what is the trigger that makes the customer feel they get the best value. And remember what happened to me when I was searching for a watch and you maybe have your own example as well. Maybe a bit of homework is to, next time you search for a product, go on a marketplace and figure out what is influencing your decision. It's not always on price, but it's also on reviews, maybe a bundle or even free delivery. So, here's a way to get customer details without them needing to make a purchase. I'm sure lots of you are familiar with this screen for browsing for an Apple Watch. It's actually really nifty because you list every single combination and you don't need to click away to go to another page and compare the different tabs on features. But it's a lead generator. Retailers have now the option to capture details and then market the product that you like pretty much straight away in your inbox. At this point I still haven't bought a watch. I've done a lot of research, but I wanted to extend my shopping research a little bit longer. So, at this point I know three stores should know that I'm interested in purchasing a garment because I've visited them on a number of occasions. I've visited one particular page many times. Remember my name is still Data, so I don't know who I am. Now this is what should have happened. If you are a retailer, if you are a store owner, if you understand or figure out when, what conversion window, let's say 80% of your customers make a purchase, that still leaves 20% who didn't make a purchase. Try to empathize with them. Are they not going to the competitor or they've lost interest? Trigger an action. Test if they're still interested. Ask, would you like to pick it up today? We can reserve it if they're interested and you figure that out through a click, maybe mail marketing. But they still haven't purchased after we offer a free gift. Maybe it's an extended discount or a warranty. But if they're interested and still haven't purchased, then go in for the deal. Maybe at this time you've only have 10% to convince and with a 10% discount across the board is one or 2% or so that you invest. So my third point is competition is fierce. Analyze your customer and build a marketing automation or as I call it a mouse trap. So back to my watch purchase and now I tell you what really happened. So I'm sitting in the car park waiting for my son to finish his 10th session. I probably should have gone for a run but that's the whole point why I'm buying the watch to remind myself to get off my lazy backside. Anyway, I do get an email and this email is 12% off if I purchase the watch in the next 12 hours. I didn't have my wallet with me. I was thinking shall I wait until next day. I probably lose the discount. Not only that, that 12% actually brings me into the bracket which I think that's good value. That's exactly the budget I set for myself. So what I do, of course I hit Apple Pay. So that's my point. If you haven't got a quick sort of no sign-in payment option available on your site, this is a really quick win and so many sites still don't have them available. So if you're a developer, go speak to your clients. It's fast, it's secure and it leads to higher conversions and they also alternative or local payment types and even now in terms as well, payment in terms. So now I've totally justified a purchase. As I said, I've had a discount that converted me to buying it. It saves around $80. Of course to my friends I will tell I saved $100. I might even tell them which shop I bought the item from which is, you know, word of mouth. There's a value in that as well. But consider would I have bought it if that quick checkout wasn't available because I didn't have my cards with me and I can definitely not remember the last three digits of the security code. The last point I'm going to make is a decided of buying an item whether to buy or not to buy which is to do with customer support and often this is happening post purchase or when you return an item. It is one of the biggest drivers to make a decision and create a customer loyal customer. And returns are impacting profits. It is really very tricky to rival the customer support of the big massive marketplace. You hear of people buying five pairs of shoes and different sizes and returning at least four of them. So for the local merchant that's really very costly to deal with that. I can't change people's behavior but I do realize out of these six common reasons to return an item there are at least four of them that we see as an opportunity for developers to take on. The first one is to describe an item really well. I know it's a bit of a cliche but set the right expectations and that of course does mean lots of pictures and even video. The second one is a confirmation email you ordered size 12 maybe it's not right and give them a chance to put it right before you send it. You might even make a second purchase or an additional purchase there. For the third reason if it doesn't fit ask the customer to buy the correct size straight away and promise an additional discount if they return the item. In that way you've secured your customer and you might even have a chance for a second purchase. And build a form to manage returns. Making it awkward is definitely not going to make you more profit. And there they are that's my final quick point and the last one is to do with returns. It's a scary cost but do analyze each of the returns and treat it like an opportunity. And remember you have fought very hard to acquire the customer in the first place. Thank you very much for listening and preparing local stores learned from the tech giants. My name is Ron.