 Hello, everybody. Today we are here with Ricky, an amazing entrepreneur and the CEO of the Beautify, the leading free Shopify theme. Today's interview is different than the other interviews that we had because we will talk more about conversion rates, about themes and about everything that's related to Shopify. I'm super excited about it. How are you today, Ricky? Hi, everyone. I'm doing very good. It's a pleasure to be here today, I'm real Thank you for the flattery. I appreciate it. It's an honor to be here. Cool. Great. Before we get started, can you tell a little bit to me and to our audience, who are you and how did you get to all this Shopify niche? Yeah, it's a long story. Like a lot of people is right. I started in dropshipping like everyone else. I've been doing it now for three years and I can't deny the first 612 months was a real struggle for me. Learning all the ins and outs of the way things work, a lot more failures than successes, that's for sure. Throughout my journey, I've done millions of dollars in sales throughout my own Shopify stores. I've helped many people as well through my YouTube channel and various other methods. And through that time, learned a lot of different skills and methodologies to help increase conversion rates on a consistent basis. And that was where the idea of day beautify came along with my business partner and that that I've always loved software. I've been a big IT nerd. So software has always been something I've been very interested in. And so the software as a service model was also very interesting and so made day beautify and wanted to basically help the community to build a high converting store quickly and easily because to me the most important part with building the business is the marketing. And the store should be something that shouldn't be your main focus because my biggest problem I spent three months on my first store trying to build the perfect store. So then quickly realized that no one cared. I didn't get a single sale. So it was a big eye opener for me about the importance of marketing. But also I just wanted to be able to personally build a high converting store quickly and easily without having to spend ages with all various integrations and stuff. So that's where the idea came from. Cool. So and are you a developer or you're just? No, no. I couldn't code at all. I'm just a marketer. So I'm very fortunate. My business partner, he's a developer himself. So he handles our development side of the company. I pretty much sort of direct and give feedback on what we want to focus and work on. But I personally have no skills and knowledge really encoding personally. And what did you do before you started the beautify? So before starting the beautify, I was primarily like most people just drop shipping and trying to sell products to customers. My main audience was in the United States. I love the whole drop shipping model very low budget high profit in the beginning low risk as well. So that was pretty much what I was I was doing. I also again did my YouTube channel. I did mentoring. I've sold my course and stuff as well. So I did a number of various things and then I sort of built up to where it is today. I still run Shopify stores through the knowledge that I've acquired through drop shipping. Personally, now I do a lot more fulfillment in the actual region rather than specifically drop shipping from China. Nice. Cool. And when you did the drop shipping from China, how did you start with the entire drop shipping like niche business? Because I want to give some relation to beginners who just come into that. Yeah, naturally. So for me, when I sort of started like most people, again, I just started a Shopify store. I at the time I just used a fulfillment app that connected into Ali Express. And pretty much learned that way like I was just running some Facebook ads. Truthfully, I think I spent $750. I think it was before I got a single sale. I had no idea what I was doing. A lot of failures there that I knew when I started out that any business can be successful. It's just a matter of being consistent and learning from your failures rather than taking the approach that failure is a bad thing. I personally take it that failure to me is just an opportunity to learn and evolve. So that always happens. And so that's sort of where I started. And as I said, it took me about three months before I got my first sale. So it was pretty poor on my behalf. And I just slowly got a few orders from from running Facebook ads. And I would just fulfill them through Ali Express and send them to the customer that way at the time. Nice. Okay. So let's go a little bit deeper about what is the beauty site. You know, tell us a brief about what is this theme? What? So, yeah, no worries. So basically debutifies just a theme. Basically, it just basically makes your store look nice has high converting factors. So we'll get more into obviously that throughout this interview. But basically the goal of it is that you can start a Shopify store and put that theme on top of it. And at the end of the day, then most of your front end of your actual theme is mostly done. And that you can focus on the marketing. So it's basically just a theme that has all the best as many, sorry, I should say, of the best conversion factors to try and help increase average order value, conversion rates, get customers to buy more items. And just overall help you to scale your business is the core core function goal. Nice. And it's like the basic package of the theme is completely free, right? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, so part of it as well being a dropshipper and that myself, I know the importance that in the beginning, you know, for a lot of people, the money should go towards the marketing. So I wanted to very much emphasize on having a free theme where people could just start with that. And then when they're growing their business, they will naturally look at potentially the paid options as well. And we found that works really well, helps phase people in and then they feel comfortable and they go from there. But otherwise, it's free. Awesome. Do you run any Shopify stores right now for yourself or as a company? Yeah, so I run my own Shopify e-commerce businesses on the side of this as well. I'm very fortunate that throughout my time I've been able to, I wouldn't be able to do it myself. I'm very dependent on being able to outsource most of my work. So otherwise, it's just too much. It's just impossible. So I run that on the side. And so I'm very big on building structure in my companies and hiring a lot of people so that I'm able to handle because no one can do that amount of work themselves just impossible. How do you hire people for these tasks? Yeah. So in the beginning, I like most people started out with Upwork. So most people generally start out with Upwork anyway. I personally have transitioned to a more third party one I use at the moment, what's called fresh teams. But basically I have a small recruitment team that they actually shortlist and find people for me. I want to get into all the intricacies, it's just boring. But basically, I like most people generally start with Upwork, put a job up, I'll try and shortlist, jump on a meeting with what I believe would be the best candidates. And then I choose who I believe would be the most suitable to work in a company. So that's generally how I do it. Nice. Okay. Let's focus a bit about you said about the conversion rate and that you think that that's the most like important part of any Shopify store and for the marketing. So what are the criteria that you think that can really increase the conversion rate of Shopify store in general? Let's start from that. And then we will also go above the product ratings. So first and foremost, speed is definitely one of, like I would say the highest. In my opinion, we live in an age where speed, people are, there's so much content and so much to do that people are inherently very impatient. So your website should load very fast. So having a very fast loading thing is very important. So that's a very high converting factor to obviously as well is it being very, very focused for mobile in e-commerce, especially 90 ish percent at something around that figure is from mobile. So it being fast and also being mobile optimized are probably the two highest sound very basic, but they're the most important from what I've normally seen. And then I would say that was probably the main two. Does that make sense? I hope I did. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we talk about the speed and about the mobile optimization. And I mean, there's plenty of others, but I just don't want to get too boring in the nitty gritty. I can be like that. And now it's a thing that's really important for any shopping place, any business, online business, basically. And what about the product pages themselves? What do we do well to reduce the conversion rate? Yeah. So that was a second part of your question. Sorry, I missed that. But so one of the most important things is that to me, I find having a sticky ad to cut basically where you add to cut follows no matter how far they follow down the page. It just means that a customer doesn't need to scroll back up usually to the top of your page. And then obviously click the button to go to the next step in the buyer journey, basically. Security badges. One of the things I really liked that I hated doing in my myself was having to manually put the code in for the security badge. So having a simple one that's embedded in the theme that just takes that away to me just saves me so much hassle. So that one as well. As well as that the images as well are very much front and center because most people will generally look at the images. And so they put a lot of emphasis on making sure that the images, the way the tiles look is very presentable and very easy for people to navigate. So that those are sort of some basic ones. And then having a really nice laid out description as well. So make sure that the default setting for how people have the descriptions is custom tailored so that people can read ability and usability to help people want to look at buying the product. Cool. And did you check that like changes in conversion rate when you do these things? That is that's also that's been a bit of a tough one to fully gauge. We are working with a lot of larger store owners to try and get that feedback consistently. And we're always trying to incorporate that into the theme. But because of the nature of our app being an unlisted Shopify app, we can't get all of that data to collectively. We're very reliant on that relationship rather than being able to have pure analytics to say that. But we're always trying to work on that and get feedback from the community to align with that. So yeah, that generally we try to but it's a bit of a tough one at times if I'm perfectly honest. Okay. After someone goes to the cart and he already added a few things to the cart and can we do something there to increase the conversion rate to check out? Yeah, so I mean there's a number of methods. One, we have the option where you can just skip the cart. So historically for me, I have chosen that option where I just skip the cart page, go straight to check out basically just eliminating a whole final step just to try and focus on getting them straight into buying as soon as possible. But I generally don't do that anymore. And I also, as a result, we made it so the cart page and drawer are very optimized so that it tries to help increase average order value so that people can add more items to cart. And also as a result, build more trust with customers as they go through that journey. So for instance, again, security badge on the cart page, time scarcity on the cart page as well. And also have one where it says how far away they are from getting free shipping so that it encourages them to add more to their cart before they complete their purchase to try and boost up average order value. And do you do any like, first of all, to ask about general stores or one page stores, does Debutify can help with both of them? Absolutely. The way I look at all these different types of stores, general store, one product store, niche store, Debutify can handle it all and same with things like print on demand and stuff too. Because, for instance, to do a general store, obviously just have a lot of products that the theme is designed so that you can have a lot of collections, a lot of products, and it's very presentable to people. For one product stores, it's also designed so that people can lock things down so that it's very focused on a singular product, especially for instance, the home page, you can have it so you have one product and you can really emphasize on that, if you want to send them there as well. So, it caters to all of them as much as possible, we're always trying to work on that more so that people have the flexibility to choose how they wish to operate their store. Wow, it's insane. How many different add-ons do have like that from different upsets and stuff? Yes, so collectively right now, we're working on a new version of the theme funnily enough too, which has more add-ons, so that's nearly released, but currently we have 29 add-ons, so collectively throughout all the various functionalities, there's 29 different add-ons to try and help with various functions. Wow, it's insane. Nice. Keeps us busy. What if we talk about the general or one product store, do you have any recommendations about this topic, something that you think that works better or the beginners should start with? Do you mean in relation to just in general or, sorry, in relation to the theme, pardon me, just to clarify? Yeah, no, in general, not about the theme. Yeah, no, no, no, no. Personally, when I started, I started with a general store, and I did learn a lot because you learn the intricacies of different products and different niches. However, my stance is I generally now recommend people to start with a brand store or one product more like specifically aimed at one specific audience. The reason I personally recommend that is I very much focus on research is king, so if you find a really good product that generally solves a problem in someone's life and you can see how you can market it to them, I'll do a lot of research on how I can really resonate with that audience, and I'll make my ads around that, and then I'll also make my actual store very centered around that as well. So as a result, I have a very, I know who my audience are, I know how to resonate with them, and I have the highest chance of converting them, so I generally go either one product stores or I'll go a niche stores focused on a specific audience personally. You go with the general store and then do you create more stores on the products that work for you or you just keep it there? Because I've made so many stores collectively, and I'll be honest, a lot of them have failed throughout time. I've just sort of learned what has, what works and sort of what doesn't. Generally what I will do is I'll stick to the top niches, so the top niche is being more focused towards women in e-commerce, generally it's women that generally are the majority of the buyers, so I'll focus on niches that are centered around them. So for example, those are fashion, jewelry, cosmetics, baby, I always forget pets and pets, like dogs and stuff. So if I can find an item that resonates with people in one of those niches, I'm very confident that I can market and scale that product on that store. Nice. Okay. It's a good information. I have a few last questions. One of them is what are your top five favorite add-ons on the Debutify? Oh yeah, that's a good question. So for me, I would definitely say the sticky add to cart is my favorite, I love that one. So that would be my favorite, the video widget add-on, so we can actually add YouTube and Vimeo videos to your product pages is a very good one. Because I sort of run brand stores, I like the collection add to cart as well, so that's just another separate add-on as well. Also the pop-up upsell is a very good one. So when someone adds to cart, you can set it so that it shows a similar item and you can offer them a discount. And we have a field where you can put in the coupon code and it will automatically inject it at the checkout. So I find that's also very good. As well as for me, the cart page with the free shipping, so that it encourages people when they go to the cart page, hey, you're $32 away from getting free shipping. I find that that works very well with increasing average order value. So those are probably my top five, if I would say. Cool. About the pop-up page, just have a question. Do you know to recommend, does the seller need to put what are the products for the upsell or do we do the automatically sample? No, you do need to manually set it for the pop-up upsell, because it's very specific. We do have recommended products that there is the dynamic option on the product page down the bottom. But for the pop-up upsell, because it works best if you choose what product works best, we find that we leave that manual in this case. Because if it's dynamic, we can, our algorithm and software could get it wrong. So we like to make sure that for that one, because it interrupts the customer journey. We want to make sure that it's going to resonate with them as much as possible, because it'll pop up on the whole screen. And so very important that it's set that way. So we generally leave it manual at this stage. Yeah, I see. Because it's like only a human can really understand what's the right product there. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. As much as any software can do a great job, you know, has its limitations trivially. Yeah, I agree. Okay, cool. And we always ask two last questions in the interviews. The first one is what would be your one tip for a beginner dropshipper who just started his way in the dropshipping domain? Sorry, can you repeat the question just to clarify? What would be your one best tip or the tip that you would like to say to someone who's just starting dropshipping? Yeah, so if I find it to be perfectly honest, I would say always look at the long term, if I'm honest. To me, dropshipping is a fantastic way to start a business, especially working from home or anywhere in the world. But it doesn't mean it's not an easy business. Sorry, it doesn't mean it is an easy business, pardon me, sorry. So I always encourage people that always look at the long term of building a business because it is going to have many challenges. To me, one of the biggest things that I personally see that puts a lot of people off is the expectation that they're going to strike gold quick. And in most instances that very really happens. So always say to people that look at the long term, be consistent with it, and you will start to see results and you'll start to build your own success. So that's what I always say to people in the beginning. Cool, so yeah, so always look forward to the long term and don't wait for immediate success, right? Yeah, that's generally how I look at it. Yeah, that's right. It'd be great in an ideal world if things work like that, but unfortunately in my experience at least it never has. And the last question is more like something general, but what do you think about how the dropshipping will look like in five years from now? That's always an interesting question. I always love listening to other influencers and figures, responses to it too. My opinion will be that dropshipping is always going to be around. There's a lot of discussion about is dropshipping dying? Obviously a lot of different opinions, but to me dropshipping will never die. Like anything in life, it'll just evolve. So I see that the landscape is going to evolve into and we're starting to see already where a big, big focus on the customer experience, whereas historically dropshipping has been about get as many customers as you can through the door, send them the product they're done, whereas now because of the rising competition and how popular dropshipping is as a business model collectively, we're saying the overall shift being that the focus is a lot more on a customer, good customer experience. And what that to me is defined as is a good product, good shipping and actual good customer service. So because now people are focusing more on lifetime value of customers rather than just one-time customers, because otherwise nowadays it's very difficult to retain a consistent, profitable dropshipping business just due to the immense competition that e-commerce has now because it's just such a booming industry. So that's sort of how I see it in the next five years. It's going to continue to grow and expand rapidly, but we're going to see a lot more players coming into it. We're already seeing what we've defined as the slow death of retail. So there's going to be even more competition in the ad space field from larger retailers. So it'll be, it's just going to continue that emphasis on a real quality customer experience from what I believe. Interesting. Okay. That was an awesome interview. Thank you for sharing all your knowledge. And if you have something, do you have something more that you would like to add or No, it's been an absolute honor to be here. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be in this interview. I really enjoy these. It always gives me a great time to reflect upon myself and areas I can improve in as well. So I very much appreciate as well. I personally have used auto DS for those who are wondering as well. And I absolutely love it. I'm a big sucker for a really good interface for one. I absolutely love your interface. I love good interfaces. And so I personally have always like that's part of the reason that I'm more than happy to be here as well is that I really like what you're doing for the community as well with your helping to provide a fill a gap for them to be able to fulfill their orders effectively and automate a lot of it. And I think that's absolutely amazing. So thank you.