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A new home for your Instagram Pixelworkers photos: Roll Call. If you take a shot of your gear, we want to see it. Tag your photo on Instagram with #uprollcall and it will show up there.
Some of our favorites so far:
Get your fix of temporary tattoos and pixellated bikes at Tattly. $5 for a set of 2.
Thanks to everyone who said hello at SXSW this year, or, as we joked, United Pixelworkers Convention 2012. Despite the rain, we had a good time. Do: get to Franklin, introduce yourself to a few new people, and sample as many good restaurants as you can. Don't: buy a badge, attend sessions, or otherwise feed the SXSW beast.
This might be the last year for us in Austin, but part of us hopes not. A lot of good people down there. Check out our Full Stop Interactive blog for more SXSW musing.
If you live in Canada, we have a shirt (or two) for you.
If you don't live in Canada, we still have a shirt for you.
Brilliant guest designs from Tim Boelaars (White, Black, or both). Partner shirts from our friends at The Manual and Virb. Be sure to check out the detail view on those. Exquisite stuff.
Also, new Standard in Tri-Coffee + last month to get the black hoodie.
See 'em all at unitedpixelworkers.com. Subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified when new shirts are up. Pre-sale ends April 6.
It's no secret United Pixelworkers was hosted on Big Cartel for the first year. We blogged about it, and they were kind enough to write about our store not once but twice. At the time, we had no idea our store would become such a core part of who we are and what we do. It was a side project that we certainly hoped would bring in a bit of revenue and maybe even move us slightly in the direction of products. We wanted something quick, easy, and proven. Big Cartel fit the bill. It was one of the best decisions we ever made. So when we say it was time for us to move on, we want to make it absolutely 100% clear: it's not you, it's us. It's an old, old saw, but it's appropriate.
All the things that made Big Cartel great are still true—a beautiful control panel, reasonable price, responsive, helpful support staff, and enough flexibility and reliability to build a business. Big Cartel is a tremendous product from some really smart people. We owe them much more than the few dollars a month they charge for their product. If you need a hosted shopping cart, we highly recommend Matt and his crew at Big Cartel.
Briefly: we grew. First we had three products then five then 10 then 25 then 75 and now we have 107 total products with up to 15 more each month. Big Cartel can handle up to 300 products, but it was clear the software was optimized for smaller stores. When we took stock of where we were and where we hoped to go, it became clear we needed more flexibility. As we surveyed the field, we knew what we wanted, basically Big Cartel with more bells and whistles.
Truthfully, we didn't survey the field for long. Like a hermit crab shedding its shell, we weren't looking for something different, just… roomier. Shopify was a natural fit. We could use the same Liquid templating language and we could continue to use our PayPal account, so while the design would be new, our customers wouldn't need to know or care that we'd switched platforms. Plus, Shopify had some real strengths that we could take advantage of down the road like additional payment methods, a more robust API, an app store, meta fields, and a blog engine.
Now that we've been using Shopify for the past two months, here's an unvarnished look at the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Everything mentioned already plus the ability to have theme sandboxes is an improvement (for our needs) over where we were. We don't have complete control over the checkout process, but we are finally able to offer seamless credit card transactions without leaving the site. Having extra themes means we can work on new features without completely breaking the site for our customers. With Big Cartel, modifying templates meant manually copying and pasting the new code in. That's an intensely frustrating and error-prone process. Now we can upload changes via a Textmate bundle. It's not painless (more on that in the bad and the ugly), but at least it gets the job done.
The single best part about moving to Shopify has been the abstraction (mostly) of PayPal, the world's most-hated way to pay and get paid. Now we can see customer and order information in a relatively performant manner. We can look up customers, cancel and refund orders, and get all manner of statistics that PayPal believes should be granted only after extreme torture, if ever. Not only that, but we can potentially move away from PayPal completely if we decide that's a good idea. (Spoiler alert: that's a real possibility.)
Shopify has a strong system for handling email notifications complete with template-level control. We had a custom system running before using Postmark, but we don't mind handing that responsibility off to Shopify at all. If you don't have the chops to write your own, definitely consider letting Shopify handle that. (Side note: Postmark is great.)
With our old system, we were shipping at basically a flat rate. International had one rate, domestic had another. Now, shipping is calculated based on weight and you can offer as many (or few) shipping services as you like. It's a much fairer system.
Shopify also supports adding sales tax. Depending on your product type, that's potentially a big deal.
Finally, we use a handful of Shopify apps to move or analyze data. Some of them are great, others are just okay. While the marketplace is not without its flaws (more on that later), Shopify is better for them and they have the potential to incredible.
Shopify is a great service at a fair price, so dwelling on the tiny issues that we would like to see improve would be silly. For the sake of thoroughness, though, here's a quick list.
We would love to see API access for promotions so we can generate discounts programatically. (By the way, discounts and refunds are customer service's best friend.) We would also like the ability to offer someone one completely free product with no shipping charge. Since we give away bunches of shirts each month, it would be nice to not need to handle those manually.
The blog is not a replacement for WordPress. We used it because it was quick and could live on the same domain, but the feature set is quite limiting. As soon as we get some time, a more robust blog is coming on a sub-domain.
Like all extensible platforms, the Shopify application store is a mixed blessing. It's certainly good for providing new and innovative features, but it has downsides as well. Features that seem like they should be native require visiting third-party websites and the applications themselves are hit or miss. Overall it's absolutely a net benefit to have an app store. Still, the experience is fragmented and occasionally underwhelming. We have had to resort to third-party applications for administrative access to meta fields and sales statistics. (And the statistics that are available are in Flash. Come on, guys.) Those certainly feel like they should be part of the core experience.
We also still find ourselves handcuffed by the templating language. It makes complete sense for those with limited programming experience, but for us it just turns trivial tasks into obstacle courses. (While we're complaining, the iPhone app is a touch buggy and not being able to change customer orders is rather inconvenient. Though we understand why order mutability is probably a bad idea, we get 3-5 customers each month who want to make a change.)
Shopify has been a nice step up for us from where we were. We've been able to play with more features while staying within the comfortable hosted sandbox. Despite our minor gripes, we're pleased with how things are turning out and we have a lot of improvements we're itching to make. If a robust hosted cart is what you're looking for, I don't know how you can do better than Shopify. We still love Big Cartel, of course, and there are other good carts that work really well for certain people, so do your homework before jumping in.
Here's the takeaway: selling stuff online today is infinitely easier than it was just a few years ago and these guys are a big part of the reason why.
Jay and I rambled for over an hour with Adam Stacoviak on Founders Talk. Listen to us discuss starting a web design and development agency and, eventually, United Pixelworkers at 5by5. If leaving an old job, being outspoken, having a core set of principles, reaching out to people, side projects, or future plans for United Pixelworkers interests you, this is probably something you'll like.
Don't miss our brief chat in After Dark as well.
Did we miss something on the show? Ask us here and we'll do our best to answer.
United Pixelworkers is invading Canada for real this time. Expect a re-release of the Canada shirt as well as a slew of new cities when we get back from SXSW. We're almost certainly going to have Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Let us know in the comments (or on Twitter) who we're forgetting and, of course, what icon should represent your city.
Spoiler Alert: We chose Zendesk. Wait, I mean: TL;DR: We chose Zendesk.
Once upon a time, United Pixelworkers was a tiny operation, shipping but a few shirts each month. At this miniature scale it was possible—if unadvisable even then—for Union Boss Fanelli to respond personally to all incoming customer service email and Tweets™. We are happy to report that beginning December of 2011 we made a conscious effort to get better, faster, strong. That's right, we are now the proud operators of spiffy new Help Desk Software, in particular, the inimitable Zendesk.
Patience. Before we get there, let's talk about why we (and you) might need a Customer Support Solution™. Do you,
It's true you could (and we did) get by without paying a penny or taking a minute to evaluate your options and revamp your process. A shared email account, a maze of folders, and just-in-time text expansion will do the trick. Good luck with that.
Want happy customers? Invest in your process. Quicker, smarter, more reliable responses mean more sales for you. And you're helping another company meet its payroll as well. Win, win, win.
Briefly: we looked at Assistly/Desk, Charm, and Zendesk. All good, all favorites. It came down to having an iPhone app with push notifications and a gut feeling about which interface felt right.
Here's what we liked and didn't like about each:
Neat pricing model. The first user is free, additional users cost $1/hour or $49/month. That would have worked well for us since we have about 1.5 customer servicers (Jay and I).
Integration with Shopify. Now that we're using Shopify, customer order and contact details at our fingertips would be huge. It's a feature we really hope Zendesk adopts. (Edit: Apparently the integration provides only a feedback tab and not order and customer details at this time, which is unfortunate. It certainly would save us [and, we imagine, others] a lot of time.)
Easy email integration. Assistly/Desk makes it trivial to set up an email support channel using IMAP. That's not insignificant. (Charm uses IMAP as well.)
No iPhone app. I hate that it comes down to this for me as it looks like Assistly/Desk has a stellar mobile site, but I demand push notifications. I'm a little obsessive about it. Push notifications mean unique sounds and an easily identifiable alert appearance. If email is good enough for you (and it might be), this won't matter as much. For me, I need to know at a glance or even without a glance whether my phone is buzzing because a customer needs our attention, a sale has been made, or someone is talking to us on Twitter.
Noisy interface. Assistly/Desk was the first tool we tried, and I loved it. For every reason listed above, it was a step in the right direction. Yet all the dashed lines made me claustrophobic. It's a stupid, silly reason, but if I'm spending an hour a day responding to customer service requests, I want to love the environment.
Modes. Assistly/Desk has separate modes for administration, analytics, and support. It drove me crazy.
Acquisition by Salesforce. Okay, now we're getting really petty. Everything about Assistly/Desk is great and I fully expect the service to continue to improve. That said, the sale to a bigger company made me pause. There's nothing wrong with the move and I fully support anyone who wants to make that decision, but given the choice between throwing our completely insignificant weight behind the front runner or one of the smaller companies, we went with the ones that more closely matched our own temperament.
Charm is a brand new venture from Thomas Fuchs and Amy Hoy, and they were kind enough to let us in to kick the tires before it was ready for prime time.
I loved so much about Charm—the attitude, the unique approach, the modern code stack, the personal touch. It hasn't been completely exposed to prospective customers, but there's a ton of research and exploration behind the scenes into what makes customer service flow smoothly.
Charm has a fair price, a strong interface, an easy-to-set-up email channel, and a clear passion for making customer service better. I can't say anything bad about the product even in this (private) beta stage. For us, though, an iPhone app just so happens to be the one feature we can't live without. I have no doubt both Charm and Assistly/Desk will release native apps with all the expected functionality soon—which will make the decision for others in the future all the more difficult.
Finally. Yes, Zendesk is what we use to power all the loving support you receive from United Pixelworkers. It's not the simplest to get set up if you want to use your own email address. You'll need to be comfortable adding SPF records to your domain. Establishing an email-only workflow is unintuitive as well. In fact, there are all kinds of quirks that occasionally make me throw my hands up in despair.
Yet what hooked me is still what makes me happy to use Zendesk every day: a great personality, extreme customizability (we're stilling toying with our triggers, views, and macros to get that Just Right feel), and, you know, an iPhone app.
There's also never been a better time to buy. $20 now gets you one year with three agents and the money goes straight to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. I don't know how Zendesk can afford to do that, but we're not going to complain.
I don't know. We probably use less than 10% of the features and they're likely different than the 10% you'll need. Assistly/Desk, Charm, and Zendesk are all thoroughly modern and come with free trials, multi-channel support, a dozen features you've never heard of, and, most importantly, smart people who care a lot about making customer service better.
Go try 'em all, see which one works best for your needs. You can't go wrong. Unless you keep using Gmail and sticky notes in which case you've gone very, very wrong.
If you want to learn more about customer service, follow me on Twitter. Ha. Just kidding. If you want to learn more about customer service, turn Twitter off for a day, read this article from Joel Spolsky, and go get your hands dirty.
Huge apology to everyone who has emailed us in the last month and hasn't received a response. We thought we were being clever with our new customer support system (Zendesk, who are great), but we (I) actually had a rule set up that only emailed our replies about 20% of the time. If you've been waiting patiently and haven't heard back from us, please get in touch again. We'll get it right this time.
Time to reset the counter, I suppose: It's been 0 days since a customer service related incident.
