How To Scale Smart: Is Shopify The Right Move For You? — Hitesh Matlani | Why Brands Outgrow Basic Shopify, How To Avoid Data Loss, How To Protect Your SEO Rankings, How To Plan A Smooth Migration, Why Rushed Migrations Fail (#469)

Please support the show if you liked today's episode:

• If you love the podcast, please get someone else to listen, too!
• If you enjoyed this episode of the Ecommerce Coffee Break podcast, please head over to Apple Podcasts, leave a rating, write a review, and subscribe.
• Share the podcast with your family, friends, and co-workers.
• Tag the podcast on Instagram @ecommercecoffeebreak and let me know what you like about it.
• If you like the content and would like to support the podcast, you can buy me a coffee here.
• Become a guest on the show or sponsor an episode.

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;24;28
Unknown
Shopify Plus is the best way moving forward because. Plus is specifically targeted towards enterprises who are looking to grow their business in a certain point, right. You get the right kind of API element. You get the privilege to edit your check out to the level you want, and you want to customize the experience of the customers that you want up to the level that you are expecting your business to run.

00;00;25;00 - 00;00;46;09
Unknown
That's all possible in job templates. Hello and welcome to another episode of the E-commerce Coffee Break podcast. Scaling an ecommerce brand sounds exciting, but behind the scenes it gets messy fast. More orders, more tools, more complexity. And at some point, every founder asked a big question is Shopify or whatever system I have really the right platform to scale this business?

00;00;46;16 - 00;01;07;00
Unknown
Or should you be looking at something else? Today we're diving deep into that. I'm joined by Hitesh Matlani, who is the founder of Avid Brio, a Shopify US partner agency managing over 160 Shopify stores. This has been in e-commerce since 2011, long time before plug and play was the norm. And today he helps brands bridge the gap between complex tech and real growth.

00;01;07;03 - 00;01;34;27
Unknown
It's great to have you on the show. Thank you so much. It is a pleasure. Let's jump right into it. Is Shopify the right platform to scale a business, or are there other options that brands should consider? Shopify is definitely the best way moving forward, and I would say Shopify Plus is the best way moving forward, because plus is specifically targeted towards the enterprises who are looking to grow their business in a certain point, right.

00;01;35;00 - 00;02;06;22
Unknown
You get the right kind of API limits. You get the privilege to edit your check out to the level you want, and you want to customize the experience of the customers that you want up to the level that you are expecting your business to run. That's all possible in Shopify Plus. Now, there's many, many systems out there, but what's usually assigned or what usually breaks first when a brand outgrows its current technical setup when they are ongoing, their current technical setup, they're actually looking for some help, right?

00;02;06;24 - 00;02;31;00
Unknown
We try to get into the pain points on what exactly is the pain point. They be are facing any issues in terms of raising the UI right, reducing the tax rate? Any problems they're facing with the current platform. So let's say they're stuck with WooCommerce. It's getting canned and the WooCommerce has issues slowing down and all of that stuff.

00;02;31;00 - 00;02;51;29
Unknown
Right. So they would then consider moving to Shopify. But then if it's a magento merchant and it has a lot of data, a lot of systems integrated, he might look to get into Shopify Plus. So we help those merchants get to the right kind of set of technologies that they want to run their solutions, like super run their business.

00;02;52;02 - 00;03;14;16
Unknown
Now a lot of brands, as they growing have these two problems, have this growing problems, and then they're sort of stuck in a situation where they transfer from what you mentioned to data. And so Replatforming is a huge pain in the neck. Let's talk through this. When you work with your clients, what's their biggest concern to move from one platform to another?

00;03;14;19 - 00;03;41;22
Unknown
One of the biggest what is they have is they are worried that some of the data might be lost, or the rankings might be lost, or whatever reputation they have built in the search engines that might be lost. So we just guarantee them that this is not something that we really want to happen. So we want to make sure that we give them the mental piece that whenever we migrating the customers from one platform to another, they're going to be super fine.

00;03;41;23 - 00;04;07;02
Unknown
After the new platform is established. Right. So that is one thing that we really take care of. Now, a lot of our listeners are on the Shopify basic plan or startups, small and medium enterprises. And as they grow, what are the differences between the normal Shopify plans and the Shopify Plus plan? So depending on the needs that you have, each of the plans have their own specialty.

00;04;07;04 - 00;04;26;06
Unknown
So let's say if you are a smaller merchant, you might sign up for basic plan. If you are growing your revenues up to a certain extent, then you might opt for a growth plan. That's where you can add more staff members into your account as well, because now you're growing. You're not alone. You have multiple people assisting you in the team, right?

00;04;26;09 - 00;04;55;06
Unknown
And then if you're going to the advanced plan that helps you get into a shipping rate from the carriers. So live shipping rates coming to your checkout when you are on the advanced plan in the advance plan, the other benefits that you also get is you get more stuff and worse to be in. Right. And if you're selling in multiple markets so you have different geographies where you are selling them, then you need to go on with the advanced plan because it allows you to customize your storefront in different languages.

00;04;55;08 - 00;05;15;24
Unknown
Right? Sorry. Not in different, not only in different languages, but also in different countries, in different geographies like you want to offer something else to the Australian customers, and you want to offer something else to the US based customers. You can do that, right? So you can create different markets like position them separately if you want to. That can happen in the advanced plan.

00;05;15;24 - 00;05;41;09
Unknown
And when you go to plus plus is when you have accelerated your sales and you you've grown beyond your expectations, right? So sometimes the clients have gone beyond what they expected that the B2C brand would talk. Right. They would now need Shopify Plus, right? Shopify plus has higher API limits. What higher API limits means is you can integrate multiple systems with Shopify Plus.

00;05;41;09 - 00;06;03;06
Unknown
It won't support them, right? How about OMS solution to manage your orders? You have a payment solution, which is a product information management solution to manage your products. And you have a taxation system. I have a Laura is one of them. Texture is one of them. You can set up those complex systems with a website. You can have say something like Cortana to manage your inventory.

00;06;03;06 - 00;06;27;21
Unknown
So all the bigger sized systems and complex systems that would come into picture can be handled by Shopify plus, of course, has its own capabilities and has its own set of features that it comes with. But the systems are definitely needed to make it a whole solution. Now, it already shows. There is a lot of complexity that goes in there and a lot of planning to get it right, and that's where you come in.

00;06;27;29 - 00;06;44;11
Unknown
Can you give me an example of and you don't need to name the brand of a brand that came to you and how the process looked like to get from a standard plan and then fast growing, probably a lot of issues around this growth and how you help them to move on and replatform to a bigger plan. Yeah.

00;06;44;11 - 00;07;02;29
Unknown
So when we initially started with one of the San Francisco based brand, right, they were selling footwear. We initially started with them when they were on the advanced, but right so directly came to us when they were on the advanced plan. They were into the business, they were not sure what was happening and the business was growing right.

00;07;02;29 - 00;07;28;29
Unknown
They wanted to organize everything really well. So we suggested them multiple tools to manage their site and to manage all their tax issues. Because in if you're in San Francisco, the tax system is very complex. So we help them with the integration. Right. That simplified the taxation so they could concentrate on the other activities. Now when the taxation was sorted we help them in with ERP integration.

00;07;29;01 - 00;07;49;26
Unknown
So ERP help them run three online stores and three physical stores with one warehouse. So that automated a lot of their stuff. So they had to update the product only once in the ERP and the ERP used to distribute it all across. Right. You don't have to worry about that now. POS also was integrated with Shopify POS Pro.

00;07;49;29 - 00;08;12;26
Unknown
So now the inventories are all in sync. You don't have to worry about some products running out and sometimes what used to happen is that the product is getting ordered on the website. If that product is not available in the warehouse, you still want to deliver it to the customers, right? So we arranged a mechanism so that the product got picked up from the warehouse and transferred into the store.

00;08;12;26 - 00;08;38;07
Unknown
So then we can pack and, deliver it to the customer from the store. We helped them in, the strategies for loyalty building systems, affiliate marketplaces. So, the retention strategies that we implemented with different email platforms, like we went in and out to help this brand grow from advanced to plus. And today they are like making about 700,000 a month.

00;08;38;10 - 00;08;59;07
Unknown
It's been about three years. We have been working with them and it's been a wonderful journey. What is a clear sign for a brand that it is time to Replatform. It's time to replatform when you think your margins, good enough to bear the cost of Shopify Plus first thing, right? Because Shopify Plus is not that it's expensive, right?

00;08;59;10 - 00;09;19;26
Unknown
It's for the brands that are selling small stuff. They're not making enough revenue. It's expensive for them. But for the enterprises, it's much more easier for them to spend. Right? Because if you have been on Magento, you have been already spending a lots and lots of money towards and managing your own servers in AWS and all the other hassle that you had with your servers, right?

00;09;19;28 - 00;09;50;25
Unknown
You had to hire someone for managing your infrastructure. You had to hire a developer to manage a website all around, and that something was very cumbersome for the users. Now, Shopify simplifies everything. Shopify gets you on Shopify Plus, which is a self-managed platform. You need developers when there's a complex thing that you want to establish, and you have to do some map in order to understand whether the monthly revenues are making enough so that you can have Shopify Plus in your system.

00;09;50;27 - 00;10;14;09
Unknown
What goes wrong when you have a rushed migration? Basically, what I'm asking is how long does it take to get from one platform to another? It depends on the data that we have, right? We would never take a project which is less than eight weeks. If the project is eight weeks, it's a reasonable time for us to migrate the data into another platform, make sure we are doing all the checks.

00;10;14;11 - 00;10;38;00
Unknown
We're making sure all the data is proper. The marketing person is going into all the Google meta tools, tick tock and everything, making sure the connections are working right before we switch the platform, right? So it requires enough time before you make that decision that you want to turn your website into a different platform. If you do it in a rush, what things may go wrong, right?

00;10;38;00 - 00;10;57;24
Unknown
Some people are trying AI to transfer their data and trying to do all of that, so that has turned into a nightmare for some of the clients. Like we worked with. So they've lost their rankings, they've lost their data at some places, and then we are trying to figure it out how we achieve that back. And that becomes very complex thereafter.

00;10;57;27 - 00;11;20;17
Unknown
If not, if it's not planned right, then becomes difficult if you're moving from one platform to another. Just having the same rating is one thing. But maybe you want to work on, let's say, conversion rate optimization. Is that something you helped to was to yes, we do help merchants with conversion rate optimization as well. Just like I give you an example of the footwear business that we were working with.

00;11;20;17 - 00;11;45;13
Unknown
Right. So we help them with the conversion rate optimizations. We help them grow from the advance plan to the Shopify Plus plan. Right, which helped through which was through different strategies that we were applying together. We were understanding what their business is. How do we position their business in the right market? Now we are working with them on the AI searches, bring them up on the AI search engines, EU and Geo, which is what we are working with them on.

00;11;45;15 - 00;12;14;02
Unknown
Right? So we really want to up their game, right? We want to work with them in such a way that they would look for us as a partner who is concentrated towards consulting and helping them grow the business, and not just a partner who is tech driven. Absolutely. Yeah. Now, one question I need to ask, because I'm so deep into it and our listeners probably have debate around themself every day, I how will I change how Shopify stores are built within the next few years?

00;12;14;04 - 00;12;35;19
Unknown
I was having a conversation with one of our friends recently about it. Right. Since last six months, we have stopped getting inquiries for people who want to develop a new website. So previously we used to get customers who would develop their own website and ask us to develop our develop their website. So now the number of inquiries of getting a website developed has reduced.

00;12;35;21 - 00;12;55;29
Unknown
We are getting more serious customers who understand that not I cannot do everything for them. Right. They would understand that if we went with AI, we might lose some of the stuff that maybe we have already games in so many years. It's so serious. Customers are only reaching out to us. And that's one good thing that I found with the AI.

00;12;56;01 - 00;13;13;16
Unknown
At least we are getting more serious. That's more than are not wasting our time with the dropshipping stores. So the dropshipping stores, of course, they grow up, like some of the serious businesses have grown to a lot bigger extent. But dropshipping stores, most of them are hustlers. They're doing it part time. They're not concentrating on it.

00;13;13;16 - 00;13;38;12
Unknown
Well, and we may not be able to help them grow. So that is not really our target market or our ICP. ICP, I would say. Yeah. On that note, who's your perfect customer? What kind of industries or verticals do you work most with? The customers who are perfect customers, maybe. Those who are serious about their business also understand they are here to solve a problem.

00;13;38;15 - 00;13;58;24
Unknown
Those who are here that they understand. This is what I'm here for. And this is a problem I'm looking to solve. This is my target customer. This is how I want to position my brand. This is how I want to focus on my market. Right? He understands whether he wants to go DTC, DTC or he wants to go B2B and all of that.

00;13;58;24 - 00;14;16;00
Unknown
So so the the vision is clear. Then we are here to help them grow. So if they if they are clear on what they want to achieve, that's what really you already said about the timeline. A little bit. It's any kind of homework that a brand or merchant needs to do before they can get started working with you?

00;14;16;05 - 00;14;37;18
Unknown
No, not really means, when when we onboard the clients, we usually start with a shared drive, which consolidates all of their, branding assets and their imagery and their UGC videos or ad videos and all of that into a single folder, so we can pick those assets when we are building their sites or migrating their sites from one platform to another.

00;14;37;18 - 00;14;57;03
Unknown
Because when we are migrating the site, obviously you won't take the website as it is and move it right. You want to improvise on it when you're moving the platform. So we do to improvise the website based on the assets that they provide and, go from there. What advice would you give to our listeners when they're thinking about retail?

00;14;57;05 - 00;15;19;11
Unknown
Replatforming. What should they work first on? Is it design? Is it systems? What kind of hierarchy is in there? They're using all to understand, why is the redesign happening or why is the replatform happening. Right. If they have a pain point with the platforms that they're currently working with, they understand why the migration is happening. The redesign might happen for certain reasons.

00;15;19;13 - 00;15;45;05
Unknown
So the current design is not giving them the right kind of conversions that they are expecting. Right. Or the current design is very old, outdated, right. Or the current design does not provide the, facility or the ability for the users to understand the brand really well. So if they are sure how they want to position their brand, if they are sure that how they want to showcase their brand to the customers, definitely.

00;15;45;05 - 00;16;04;18
Unknown
We have a good insight on this is what the customer is expecting and this is how we should be building it. And when we are migrating, some brands are really very smart. So I recently been working with one of the sales force, Commerce Cloud customers, to migrate them to shop and replace. They were really well planned with it.

00;16;04;20 - 00;16;26;00
Unknown
So what they did is instead of connecting their external systems with a Salesforce Commerce Cloud, they connected it with a third party data warehouse, and all of the systems were connected to the data warehouse, and only data warehouse was communicating to Salesforce. Now, if you want to migrate, all we need to do is just switch off Salesforce Commerce Cloud and plugin Shopify Plus.

00;16;26;02 - 00;16;42;02
Unknown
All the other systems are in place. So that was a very good move from the tech. Manager that they had the tech lead that they had. Right. And I really loved it. I wish everyone could do it, but not everyone is. That's what.

00;16;42;05 - 00;17;06;14
Unknown
Obviously, our listeners want to know on how your pricing structure works, though not really. So totally depends on how much complex their current business is and how much complex they want to go deeper into Shopify and Shopify Plus. So the pricing is all dependent based on the effort involved, based on the systems that are has to be integrated based on the kind of workflows and kind of marketing strategies.

00;17;06;14 - 00;17;25;14
Unknown
They will not like it all depends, right? Sometimes the client would migrate even when they are into the business in two months, right? So they realize that WordPress is not a good platform in two months and they will start migrating to Shopify. So they might not be the right, kind of people to say that they have a higher budget and they want to, do something bigger.

00;17;25;15 - 00;17;48;19
Unknown
Right? They are just getting started. But they they are good and they are lucky enough that they this they found out that, when prices are higher, not the right platform, but sometimes WordPress can be a good platform as well. If, you're not selling the right kind of products that Shopify doesn't support. So Shopify doesn't support arms and ammunitions or certain restricted supplements, right?

00;17;48;21 - 00;18;10;08
Unknown
Then WordPress might be the right platform for them. Before our coffee break comes to an end today, is there anything you want to share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet? So I have seen the growth of Shopify from 20 30,000 customers to now more than 4 million customers. So there's definitely something that they are going doing better than the other platforms.

00;18;10;08 - 00;18;31;25
Unknown
And which is why we like 90% of our customers consider Shopify, Shopify Plus, right? They won't consider it any other platform until and unless there is a particular restriction that they cannot fit into the Shopify framework. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. I'm biased. I was selling myself for many, many years on Shopify, and I love the platform. I started with Shopify.

00;18;31;25 - 00;18;51;17
Unknown
I think in 2015, if I'm not mistaken, and it has come a long way. And obviously the market share that they have shows that they're doing something right. It is. Where can people go and find out more about you? They can visit my LinkedIn profile. I'm available on LinkedIn. They can go to the website, drop us an email.

00;18;51;17 - 00;19;23;18
Unknown
And one of ours, one of us will get back to the I will put the links in the show notes as always. Then you're just one click away. And I hope that a lot of people thinking about Replatforming growing their business will reach out to you and hopefully have a smooth process in doing so. Thanks so much for your time today.

00;19;23;20 - 00;19;31;15
Unknown
We.