Zee Aganovic of HiConversion: How To Create A Fantastic Retail Experience That Keeps Bringing Customers Back For More
An Interview With Orlando Zayas
Automate everything: Automated eCommerce is one of the most notable technologies in this digital era. It’s the disruptive force that offers entrepreneurs an opportunity to save time, save money, and make more sales. Ultimately, it provides a platform for eCommerce businesses to scale exponentially.
As part of my series about the “How To Create A Fantastic Retail Experience That Keeps Bringing Customers Back For More”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Zee Aganovic.
Zee Aganovic is CEO of HiConversion, an eCommerce Intelligence™ provider that uses AI to personalize and grow eCommerce businesses. A serial technology entrepreneur, Zee thrives on solving onerous, real-life problems through innovative technology.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I am something of an accidental entrepreneur. I was dreaming about academia and science with the goal of advanced degrees and teaching at university. During graduate school I needed extra income, and I began taking work that eventually turned into my own start-up business. By the time I graduated, my business partner and I were generating millions of dollars in revenue and employing more than 100 employees. This laid the foundation for the next two software companies I founded, and their subsequent sale to Ricoh and Microsoft. HiConversion, my latest venture, was inspired by the shift of retailers moving to the online environment. We saw the opportunity to help retailers remove friction from the online shopping experience.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
I don’t know if I would call it a mistake because, after all, it turned out to be one of the best things I did. However, as I stated, my plan was to go into academia. I stumbled into entrepreneurism with the intention of just paying the bills before getting back on my planned career path. I never did become a university professor, and the lesson it taught me was to stay open to possibilities and always bring the best effort to anything one undertakes. Don’t take half measures or just “phone it in,” whether what you are doing is working, volunteering or any endeavor you deem worthy of your time. Because I took my “paying the bills” job seriously all those years ago, giving my best effort every day, I’ve enjoyed a wonderful career I never planned on or envisioned back then.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
- I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about Ed Iacobucci, the founder of Citrix and past member of HiConversion’s board of directors.
- I moved to Florida after my first startup gig in New Jersey in search of what to do next. A friend introduced me to the Citrix team in the spring of 1994. I visited their small offices in Sunrise and briefly met with Ed. At the time the company had just 20–30 employees. Most people I met were in shorts and flip flops. At the time very few people knew or understood what Citrix was doing. I briefly spoke to Ed whose personality and technology vision inspired me so much that I decided to start a software company that would innovate on the basis of Citrix’s server technology. Soon after the dotcom craze started, and we lost touch. Citrix went public and grew so fast that they become a Fortune 500 company. I met Ed again at a few conferences later where he was typically one of the keynote speakers. This meteoric success did not change him a bit. He always stayed the same regular and super friendly person I had met in Sunrise.
- A few years later our startup was in trouble. Our big Series-A round failed just 6 months into the process. The VC firm informed us they wanted to re-negotiate the terms of the deal. After few days of trying to find a compromise, we realized the partnership wasn’t working and we then terminated the agreement. It was a noble decision. The problem was we only had enough money for a few more payrolls. The board and the team had to scramble to keep the company afloat. It was a dark time of uncertainty for our business and ourselves.
- Out of blue, a few days later there was a knock on our office door. The person introduced himself as a local investment banker. He had been tasked by Ed Iacobucci to help us with bridge financing until we could raise more money from another VC. This was a total surprise. Ed and I only knew each other casually, and we had only spoken a few times over the course of several years. I would have assumed he knew very little about our business. Ed’s act of generosity was the jolt of energy we needed to renew our confidence and optimism.
- Instead of being defensive about our failed A round we went on the offensive. We called other VC companies and told them our round with ‘a well-known VC firm’ failed, that our legal and due diligence was completed and they could call the VC firm directly and any questions they liked. All we needed was a yes-or-no answer by a certain date. It worked. We raised our A round within next 30 days.
- Years later Ed joined the HiConversion board of directors and served us with distinction until his unexpected death in 2013.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Ernest Hemingway: To Have and Have Not
“So, anyhow, they all sleep well and where did the money come from that they’re all so happy with and use so well and gracefully? The money came from selling something everybody uses by the millions of bottles, which costs three cents a quart to make, for a dollar a bottle in the large (pint) size, fifty cents in the medium, and a quarter in the small. … Grateful users from all over the world keep writing in discovering new uses and old users are as loyal to it as Harold Tompkins, the fiancé, is to Skull and Bones or Stanley Baldwin is to Harrow. There are no suicides when money’s made that way and every one sleeps soundly on the yacht Alzira III, master Jon Jacobson, crew of 14, owner and family aboard.”
Being an entrepreneur is a complex undertaking. Building companies and making money is an exercise that will test every fiber or your physical, emotional and ethical being. To save itself from taking a wrong path along the way one needs a North Star. The one defined by Hemingway is the clearest articulation of value that every entrepreneur should deliver to their customers and employees.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
While we are technologists at heart, we’re also humble and always seek to partner and collaborate with the biggest and best in tech to give our customers access to cutting edge innovation without any of the complexity that comes with doing it themselves. For example, in the summer of 2020 we had the idea to bring Amazon’s own personalization technology to Shopify’s ecosystem of one million plus merchants. This had not been tried before. We licensed Amazon Personalize — made available through the AWS platform — integrated into a plug and play app and launched in December 2020. In the few short months since, we have garnered growing support from the team at AWS, which has led to us co-marketing the product, getting the attention of hundreds of fast-growing brands doing business on Shopify.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
There’s an old expression, “Take time to think. It’s a source of power.” Taking time to think, versus feeding the impulse to “do” something, can be challenging. It can also be rewarding as well as renewing. Sometimes, in the progress of our busy work lives, we need to step back and center ourselves. We need to take time to think; to reflect. This can often provide clarity as well as give us a moment to catch our breath. We can reflect back on what we’ve accomplished as well as what remains to be done. For my colleagues in the technology industry, I think this is valuable advice. Taking time to think through a situation, to assess the work-to-date and consider how to proceed is never time wasted. In fact, doing so can even save time and frustration, and it is often that frustration that leads to burn out.
Ok super. Now let’s jump to the main questions of our interview. The so-called “Retail Apocalypse” has been going on for about a decade. The Pandemic only made things much worse for retailers in general. While many retailers are struggling, some retailers, like Lululemon, Kroger, and Costco are quite profitable. Can you share a few lessons that other retailers can learn from the success of profitable retailers?
#1: They relentlessly invest in new product lines and even new business models. Lululemon, for example, seized on the “at-home” economy and launched an on-demand fitness program.
#2: They play to their strengths. Take Costco, they doubled down on what they know — safe and convenient warehouse-style buying experiences and continuity of supply — rather than try to be everything for everyone and (counterintuitively) over-investing in online shopping.
#3: They turn challenges into opportunities. It’s a time to commit to being different, to being obsessive about their customer experience, and innovate (even re-invent) rather than retreat.
Amazon is going to exert pressure on all of retail for the foreseeable future. New Direct-To-Consumer companies based in China are emerging that offer prices that are much cheaper than US and European brands. What would you advise retail companies and eCommerce companies, for them to be successful in the face of such strong competition?
Focus on building a fanatical audience around their brand. It is their brand which will protect them from aggressive competition. And a lot of that starts with the online shopping experience itself. It’s no longer enough to just have an online store, list your products and a way to take payment. Each visitor to your online store should be treated as an individual, shown products that are relevant to their needs and learn what your products and brand stand for.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a retail business? What can be done to avoid those errors?
The “set-it-and-forget it” mentality. Which applies to nearly every aspect of an online retail business. It’s never been easier to start a retail business online. However — like anything that grows — it needs constant attention. Technology is removing many burdens, but not all technology is created equal. Find trusted, proven partners that will help you grow, rather than just the cheapest options so you can move onto the next problem.
This might be intuitive, but I think it’s helpful to specifically articulate it. In your words, can you share a few reasons why great customer service and a great customer experience is essential for success in business in general and for retail in particular?
It comes back to the brand conversation again as well as trust. People are not just buying your products; they are buying a better version of their future. Retail is a deeply emotional experience — it’s uniquely human and influences our culture. The experience you create makes or breaks the relationship between buyer and seller.
A great customer experience can be transformational because it shapes both the perception of the brand involved as well as creating a loyalty factor that should not be underestimated. By 2025, GenZ will make up 30 percent of the shopping population, and two out of every three GenZ shoppers say they will be loyal to brands they like for years to come. For these and other shoppers, a great experience matters when, especially online, it is easy to go elsewhere.
Moreover, a great experience must reflect your customer’s own identity. Beliefs and values play a critical role in how we make buying decisions, and this is true for most generations, but especially so for millennials and GenZ.
Effortless and stress free: few things help more than being easy to deal with.
Finally, leave nothing to chance: deliberately designed and relevant experiences translate to success.
We have all had times either in a store, or online, when we’ve had a very poor experience as a customer or user. If the importance of a good customer experience is so intuitive, and apparent, where is the disconnect? How is it that so many companies do not make this a priority?
A great customer experience should be people-first, not technology-first. It is forged from human needs, emotions and desires. The best brands understand how to translate those intangible things into operational standards — but it is not easy work. So, many companies miss this important factor and get caught up in the ‘mechanics’ of operating a business.
Can you share with us a story from your experience about a customer who was “Wowed” by the experience you provided?
The most memorable ‘wows’ are those earned at the early stages of the business development when a new product is presented to early customers who never seen something like your product before. Often this new solution is something that challenges conventional thinking.
One example is when we pitched L’Oreal’s Lux division on our real-time adaptive eCommerce optimization solution. We met a few members of L’Oreal’s team at the Demandware conference a few months before. They told us they were planning to invest in better shopping experience for their online brands and invited us to pitch their executive team in New York. A month later we were in Manhattan, being whisked into a big conference room in their headquarters on 5th Avenue. We knew they had met with our major competitors prior to sitting down with us. These were well-funded companies that send ‘suits’ to present their slick sales decks. Our approach was different. Our deck was super short and simple: others treat eCommerce as a simple static medium … split test a single variation until you reach a statistical confidence then stop and manually implement if a result was positive. We explained that we see eCommerce as highly dynamic and always changing medium with almost infinite number of variables impacting revenue results. As such, we know a viable solution requires the ability to deal with many variables and the ability to adapt to visitor behavior in real time. That’s what we do, and we told them we could prove it by demonstrating as much for any of their brands. An executive at the top of the long table said ‘wow’. After few questions the meeting ended. Few days later we had a deal with L’Oreal.
Did that Wow! experience have any long-term ripple effects? Can you share the story?
That ‘Wow’ led to a multi-year relationship with L’Oreal and the opportunity to serve nine of the company’s Lux brands. But more importantly that moment reinforced our confidence in our real-time strategy that continues today. For example, we recently started a collaboration with Amazon that incorporates that company’s real-time product recommendation algorithms developed over a 20-year period. We are now including this in our new product recommendation app tailored for the needs of Shopify merchants.
A fantastic retail experience isn’t just one specific thing. It can be a composite of many different subtle elements fused together. Can you help us break down and identify the different ingredients that come together to create a “fantastic retail experience”?
Yes. There is a lot to consider. If we take online retail for example, it’s even more important to be customer obsessed — because your online store has to do the hard work on your teams’ behalf. Generally speaking, we can think of three distinct phases to a ‘fantastic retail experience:’
- Pre-purchase experience: this is usually driven by your marketing and brand. It could mean social media, advertising and word of mouth. In some ways this is the most fragile of the three, as it is often about attention grabbing which is increasingly difficult in today’s economy.
- In-purchase experience: for online retailers this is your website and digital properties — it’s where the action happens. Along with removing friction from the actual mechanics of ‘transactions’ — this phase is all about connecting visitors with relevant products through visual merchandising and re-enforcing your brand story and purpose all along the conversion journey.
- Post-purchase experience: this phase includes everything from customer support and order tracking to packaging and returns. But all of this represents a great opportunity to engage and build trust with your customers. For example: 60 percent of returns on Shopify happen because the customer receives the wrong size or style. This means most returns can be resolved with an exchange — if you have the right return policy in place.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a fantastic retail experience that keeps bringing customers back for more? Please share a story or an example for each.
1 — Over invest in product discovery: eCommerce brands are ignoring 90 percent of their potential customers because the majority of their web traffic is new and unknown. The key is to quickly determine if a visitor within that 90 percent has any interest in buying and then immediately connect them with a product of interest. Customers should not only be able to quickly find and purchase products they want, but in many cases the products will be finding them first thanks to adaptive recommendations.
2 — Create dynamic shopping experiences: While mobile shopping continues to rise year over year with the aid of social commerce and marketing, customer attention spans will continue to get shorter — we’re talking micro-seconds. This means it will only get more challenging for brands to capture sales before potentially losing visitors to a competitor or bigger marketplace. Brands can no longer afford to take a “one size fits all” approach to their shopping experiences.
3 — Personalize like Amazon: When it comes to personalization, Amazon is in another league. They were the first to implement the system in eCommerce, and over a span of 20+ years, have developed a recommendation engine that now generates billions in revenue per year. Each time you shop on Amazon.com, pay careful attention to every detail of your buying experience. You will quickly become aware of the highly dynamic nature of their site, where almost every element of every page is dynamic.
4 — Serve a higher-purpose: Shoppers seek brands and products that reflect their values and beliefs. This is a chance for retailers to develop more differentiated, authentic and ultimately profitable relationships. One practical way of achieving this is with great product stories. Answering questions such as “Why we exist” and “Why this product must exist.”
5 — Automate everything: Automated eCommerce is one of the most notable technologies in this digital era. It’s the disruptive force that offers entrepreneurs an opportunity to save time, save money, and make more sales. Ultimately, it provides a platform for eCommerce businesses to scale exponentially.
Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. Here is our final ‘meaty’ question. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I have to admire what Amazon has done with AmazonSmile. Through this service, Amazon automatically donates 0.5 percent of your total per-cart purchase to charities you designated in your Amazon Prime profile. They’ve referred to it as feel-good shopping, and like so much of what Amazon does well, they’ve made it easy. I’d like to see more retailers do this. Our world faces so many challenges. Imagine if we could make it both easy and meaningful to take a routine experience — shopping — and turn it into something that could change the world. Applying this particular ecommerce lesson would be a powerful experience not just for online shoppers, but for people around the world.
How can our readers further follow your work?
https://twitter.com/HiConversion
https://www.linkedin.com/company/hiconversion
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
