Shopify Teardown - Celtlic Serenity

CeltlicSerenity is a fairly new Shopify site that sells those little table-top “fairy lights trees.” These things are popular as gifts, and CelticSerenity sells a load of them from November through January. Sure, you can buy one from their website just about any time of the year, but during the holidays is when they pull out all the stops and push the online ads. And ... they sell a LOT of these novelties, which is why they are a top 500 Shopify store and in the top 120k of all internet sites everywhere. But that's "on average.' if you follow them you will see that they rise and fall with the seasons in rankings.

The Shopify Theme They Use

My analytics tools tell me that this is a custom theme. But I just can’t see why. The site looks fairly standard … good, but nothing work paying five figures for which is what it can cost for full custom. The performance of the site is actually pretty poor speed-wise, so they didn’t get any rocket-fuel out of it. And they are using a solid but standard deployment of Shopify apps, so that’s not it.

I have no idea why they spent all that money on a custom theme. Maybe it has something to do with Celtic Fairy Magic.

What They Do Well

These guys do great with social proof. It’s everywhere. Notice how the hero image has a 5-star quote and a list of “as seen on TV” logos right there at the top of the home page. And all that is laid over a well formatted hero image that displays the core product offerings. You know why you are here and you know lots of folks like it.

There is a judicious use of video here and there. It is delightful and tasteful … not over done or in your face.

During checkout they hit the upsells and extra sells hard. But they look good and felt like they were offering added value, so this goes in the plus column.

The cart process us busy and crowded, but they show more social proof and risk reversal text and icons. They know the rule — Always Be Selling. They do not stop until the final click and confirmation screen.

What Needs Improvement

This site loads so slow that the analysis tools time-out before the analysis is completed most of the time. That’s … um, not good.

Look at the home page again. See the first product just below the hero image? It looks like the sale price is $37.50, right? It’s not. The small print says “4 interest-free payments of” so the price is actually $150.00. I just don’t like tricky gotcha pricing and they are doing it on purpose. This is one of the peeves that is my pet.

The Shopify Apps They Use

  • Abandoned Cart Recovery by Marselo — A Shopify abandoned cart app.
  • Klaviyo — Customer lifecycle management.
  • Neat AB — Cool name for an A/B testing app.
  • Rebuy — Merchandising solution. Carro — eCommerce marketing app.
  • Wheelio — Gamification for lead generation.
  • Lucky Orange — Real time behavior analytics.
  • Preact — Customer support.
  • Smile IO — Loyalty rewards system.
  • Octane AI — Facebook messenger bot.
  • Stamped — Ratings and reviews.
  • Bugsnag — The snagger of bugs … in the code.
  • Zipify — Funnel conversion process.
  • Tidio — Live chat.
  • Fomo — Social proof app.
  • Afterpay — Installment payment option.
  • ApplePay/ShopifyPay/GooglePay/Amazon Payments/PayPal — Express payment options.
  • Taboola — Personalized product recommendations.
  • Tapad — Standardized ad formatting across networks.
  • AWIN — Affiliate marketing app.
  • Adroll — Ad network.
  • HelpScout — Customer Support.

If you were wondering why this site is so slow … well, let’s just say 2 dozen apps does not help.

Marketing Stuff They Do

Like we said earlier on, these guys kind of bide their time most of the year and then turn on the afterburners for the holiday selling period. They have a Facebook page, Instagram, Pinterest, and even a TikTok account. That TikTok page has got a grand total of 25 followers while the other have thousands, so the TikTok just ain’t working for them. You can see how the number and frequency of posts across the board increase dramatically around the holidays and then taper off.

They do not have an Amazon storefront that we could find, but there are a TON of similar products from various Amazon retailers. I don’t know who copied whom. But I dug deep and found their most current search and social media ads to share for your information and inspiration.

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