Today we would like to introduce you to Micha. Everyone running a shop and creating designs for Spreadshirt will be chuffed to read this very interesting interview. Micha is in charge of the business sector for Self Service Partners (SSP), and in this role he sees to the interests of our Shop Partners. Micha and his team work on the technical implementation of our Shop Partners‘ and Marketplace Designers‘ requests, and they keep improving the communication with our partners to make using the platform as easy and worthwhile as possible. In this interview, Micha will provide you with an insight into his work space, and he will fill you in on hot and exciting new projects.
Micha, thanks for taking the time to talk to us in the hot seat. Do tell us – who are you, and how do you make Spreadshirt a better place?
I joined Spreadshirt in 2012 as a Business Development Manager for the design community LaFraise. We conducted a complete relaunch of the community website and gave the laFraise online shop the full Spreadshirt shop technology. In doing so, laFraise turned into something like an internal shop partner in itself, and the whole process posed quite a challenge. What was difficult here was to realise our ideas about what the shop should ultimately look like by applying Spreadshirt technology.
The laFraise project was then terminated in the summer of 2014. It was at the same time that Spreadshirt put a new department in place to cater to the needs and requirements of designers and shop partners without a personal Key Account Manager – the partners we call Self Service Partners. Our laFraise team got transferred to this department as well, and in doing so became the mouthpiece of every regular partner using Spreadshirt to make money by realising creative ideas on an individual basis.
What exactly is your role in the SSP Team?
My team and I essentially pass on the feedback we receive from our partners to help other departments at Spreadshirt implement projects with a more improved focus on how our partners want to use our platform. So we are working on meeting their requirements, and you can already get a taste of some of the fruit of our work. Now the premium functionality is freely available for all of our shop partners, we have a cooperation with moo.com and the first steps in the direction of restructuring the user area. A lot of the things we’re working on will most likely be completed by the end of the year, which is due to a massive effort that needs to be put into realising the all new user area look and functionality.
What are this year’s most exciting projects?
We’re giving our best attention to the development of the new User Area for our partners. At the same time, we’re tackling long desired changes to facilitate the uploading and editing of designs as well as well as the publication of products. And since this project poses quite a unique challenge, it will take at least until the end of the year until the most vital parts of it will have been realised and visible online.
Another project is the development of a completely refurbished and newly equipped partner shop. The first steps into this direction have already been undertaken, and a mobile optimised version of our Spreadshirt Shop designed to make surfing and ordering more fun has already been undertaken. Once we’ll have realised this, a further new project of renewing the desktop shop will loom on the horizon. We hope to be able to implement it by the end of this year as well, and you’ll receive an update once this new egg is laid and ready to roll.
What’s more, we always feel that improving the communication channels with our partners is something that deserves a lot of attention, which means that we’re broadening the scope, relevance and accessibility of our service. And of course we want to generate communication on the part of our partners as well by making it easier and to have them get in touch with us more. This is important to us as partners providing us with valuable feedback help improve the overall experience considerably.
Next to these major projects, there are many smaller ones that require our attention. These result from changes in our product range, partner commission, marketing campaigns, sharing tools and other things. And our partners will of course receive an update on these changes ones we can say more concrete things about them as well.
What’s your biggest challenge?
Different partners have different demands. Our biggest challenge is meeting the demands of all of our partners. And since this is something that can easily backfire, we have decided to get rid of some of the functionality while making the most important functions in place better. What these exactly are is something that we’re trying to figure out at the moment, and we would like to glean more feedback from our shop partners to get them underway. All the functions we provide are of some value to certain partners, and there are a few functions that are absolutely essential for individual some shop partners. This is why we need to find out which functions we need to focus our time and energy on to make the most of those functions that most people use. In doing so, we’ll in turn be able to come up with a strong-selling platform for designers and shop partners.
Where do you see the partner business in 3 years time?
To be absolutely honest – that’s quite hard to tell. I’m not one to promise people the earth and end up giving them hell, so let me tell you just this: my team and I always pursue two basic principles. The first one is to keep the platform as simple as possible so that we’ll be able to convince many more people of the Spreadshirt shop system. And the second one is to increase our partners‘ success to make the overall experience more fun for all parties involved.
Of course this is a quest with a continuous strive for improvement. It’s also important to remember that a couple of things have already received a massive betterment. Proof of this is that Spreadshirt has been able to pay out almost 60 million dollars in commission (as of Feb. 2015) to shop partners since its foundation in 2002. And the recent development in shop sales makes me believe in 2015 becoming a fantastic year for our shop partners. If we got everything on the right track the way we anticipate it, then we’ll be able to see our “fantasy” come true, smiling faces all around.
We would like to thank Micha for providing us with this great insight into recent Shop Partner developments. Do you run a shop, and is there anything you would like to ask Micha and his team? Just leave a comment below this post, and we’ll be sure to pass it on.
Hi Raul,
thanks for your feedback. I need to admit, that we are currently facing some issues with the Google Analytics integration. However, our engineers are already working on this and hopefully you can use it in a much better way soon. I can not promise you that setting goals will be available in the beginning, but I will feed this as a requirement into our product backlog.
The second thing you mentioned is a work in progress and actually quite new. Therefore we don’t have any best practices and detailed documentation ready yet. You can already work with it and test it if you like, but please be aware that it is only working with the latest check-out version. If you find anything you think that is important to know also for other partners I would be happy if you could share it via the Forum or directly contacting our Service-Team.
Best,
Michael
Hello, is integration with Google Analytics goals a current feature? Or is it coming later on at some point? Having that transaction data on-hand would be so beneficial to properly optimizing my shop and boosting sales. Everyone wins, right?
I also noticed in the admin area (Appearance > Header & Footer) text area fields for “Checkout page” and “Success Page”. Is there any documentation available or best practices for taking advantage of this?
Cheers!