Andre de Freitas: Founder & Managing Director at Thails

^{Joe Fox (00:01.073)}
Hey everyone, Joe Fox here, president at GrowWave. You're watching another episode of Retain Grow Thrive, the GrowWave podcast. Today I have a very good friend of mine. He is the go-to expert for everything Shopify and Klaviyo in Amsterdam, has a lot of merchants in the US. We recently were lucky enough to host an event, which we'll dive into a little bit, but I'm really, really excited to introduce you.

to Andre from Thales Agency. Andre, thank you so much for coming on, buddy. I appreciate our friendship and our partnership.

_{Andre Freitas (00:39.864)}
Thank you for having me, Drew. Very glad to be here.

^{Joe Fox (00:41.981)}
Absolutely. So can you tell us a little bit about your kind of like professional background? What, how you got started with the agency? I think it'd be a really nice like framing point for, I know that you're very well known in our industry, but for any of the listeners that are our customers or just tuning in for the first time, can you kind of dive into that a little bit?

_{Andre Freitas (01:05.55)}
Yeah, certainly. Yeah. So Andre, I think the agency started around seven years ago, but e-commerce started much earlier. I think even when I was 16, I was already sort of like importing from overseas and then selling it on like sort of Facebook at the time. It was not even called Facebook. It was called i5 back in Portugal. And then I was like, and I started like really always diving into e-commerce even back then, like was built actually in flash with something that now

^{Joe Fox (01:24.317)}
Yeah.

_{Andre Freitas (01:35.402)}
Only older people like us actually know what that is. After the career, working in the big e-commerce brands like JBL, the AdFonds company and the agency around seven, really started the agency actually a few years before COVID and it was really because I wanted to have like a remote team, remote agency, being able to travel. Then COVID came and actually that became kind of the standard, which is funny.

^{Joe Fox (01:57.991)}
Ahem.

_{Joe Fox (02:03.29)}
Yes.

^{Andre Freitas (02:04.11)}
of being remote and so on. yeah, so at Tails, are Shopify plus partner agency, and we help brands with Shopify design and development. Also a lot focused on conversion rate optimization and really trying to be like an extension of the internal brand team. And it's funny that like grow wave is like the grow and all that we always do is really, okay, how can we grow with the help the brand grow?

everything we do in terms of the customer experience really from the homepage, collection, product page, card and checkout is really, okay, how can we help the brands grow?

_{Joe Fox (02:45.692)}
Absolutely. I think one thing that I know from our partnership and, and some of the merchants, you know, that we're, that we're working on together and that we're talking about working on together. And even the merchants that we met, you know, at that event that we did in Amsterdam a couple of months ago now, I found that you have a very, very unique, well, wouldn't, it's,

It's a very unique and informative approach to the customer journey. And I think that your merchants at tails really benefit from that. Like if I have a look at, example, Barry M is a really great example of that. Like you are an extension of their team to the fullest extent. think you provide them with so much knowledge and so much assistance in areas that they may not even know they know they need that assistance in. I think it's really fantastic how you do that.

So you very much practice what you preach, my friend. we really enjoy the partnership.

^{Andre Freitas (03:43.598)}
Yeah.

Thank you for that. To build on that, we really tried to position ourselves in extension and being proactive on coming up with ideas because sometimes we hear from other brands that they have a package of hours or something and it's like, okay, there's hours left. But we will try to build a roadmap together with the brand to have proactive approach to reach their goals or their metrics. With Barium, for example, we have been working in extension of their team for maybe three years and a half now.

And it's really like what we like to really like work on a long term because then we really know more about the brand, what it's needed, and you can achieve much better results. But to also touch on the dinner, like very happy that we put that together. It was very nice, especially on like this remote life that now most brands and even ourselves work remote, it's nice sometimes to do stuff physically. And was nice to bring like brands together.

^{Joe Fox (04:40.164)}
Yep.

_{Andre Freitas (04:45.595)}
and talk face to face and you're like, what they are struggling with and so on. So that was very nice and very happy that we made it together.

^{Joe Fox (04:54.395)}
Absolutely. And I think one of the interesting things that I kind of noticed from that event is it sounds like there is an opportunity for a continuation of a e-commerce community in Amsterdam. I think when we go to, you know, like places like New York or LA, there's a really robust kind of regular

kind of like meet up for e-commerce brands and D2C and everything like that. But it seems to me like there is now an opportunity for you to be able to continue on those events and kind of bring together people in the e-commerce space, which is super exciting, I think, you know, regardless of whether it's a grow wave initiative or not, or sometimes it is or it isn't, I think you did a really good job of bringing together a community there. And it sounds like there's a

There's a massive demand for that. that's, that's really cool. I'm very big on community. So it's, very cool.

_{Andre Freitas (05:54.478)}
I need to learn a few things from you on that. I think sometimes really when you are online remote, and we work a lot with brands in the US and Canada, sometimes you don't actually look at physically, but it's quite nice to look locally and try to build connections and a good community here, because it makes a big difference when you speak face to face. So definitely gonna build on that.

^{Joe Fox (05:56.954)}
Not at all.

^{Joe Fox (06:09.401)}
Mmm.

^{Joe Fox (06:18.746)}
Absolutely. Absolutely. And so, Andre, tell me, I mean, there's a lot happening, you know, in the industry in general at the moment, Shopify has made some pretty cool updates. it's a lot of stuff going on with AI, chat, GPT, shopping, all sorts of stuff. There's also, you know, I'd be a miss if we didn't address it. Cause it literally happened yesterday with your post sunsetting,

their email and SMS product. strangely they didn't, refer, they didn't recommend, Clavio in that they recommended some other solutions, which I found very interesting. maybe not the strategic move I would have made, but very interesting nonetheless. But tell me a little bit, you know, about, because you're so heavily focused on a customer journey for these brands, tell me a little bit about what your

kind of ideal tech stack looks like, because I know that's another thing that you do really well as you jump in with these brands and say, Hey, you know, this, you've got all of these tools, maybe there's something else that you could be using that cuts down on your cost or gets more done more efficiently. So tell me a little bit about, you know, the, ideal tech stack, the, that you recommend for your merchants.

_{Andre Freitas (07:40.462)}
Yeah, definitely. Well, Shopify, the first, foremost. Clayview, for sure, as well, for email marketing, I think is the best tool in the market, growing a lot in terms of the features and so on. I think they just launched last week WhatsApp as well for Europe. It might not be so used in the US, but in Europe it's quite strong. So that will be unlock a lot of opportunities as well. Then GrowWave, for most, I think it's really due to that

_{Joe Fox (07:44.374)}
Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (07:57.08)}
Yeah.

_{Andre Freitas (08:09.58)}
You guys bring loyalty, reviews, EGC, and the wish list all together in one bundle. Of course, same price, but also that everything is interlinked. What you see a lot is sometimes things are fragmented between different tools. You need to go to five different dashboards to manage, and it is something that brands will enjoy. And of course, price competitiveness in terms of once you have everything on one, you can also have those savings. For customer service gorgeous.

^{Joe Fox (08:15.8)}
Yeah.

_{Andre Freitas (08:38.414)}
really good tool as well. And it really comes to the specific needs for subscriptions, recharges, really solid tool. It's also a team there. And it really depends on what is their specific needs. But I would say those are sort of like the solid foundation in terms of tech stack. And talking a bit about the current...

news and so on. think that's an interesting one, two very interesting points you talked about. I think with Shopify AI, it's very interesting. So a couple of weeks ago, they launched this Shopify MCP. So you could connect in some way OpenAI chat functionalities to a store. That was great because you could build a chat experience that you could create, ask product recommendations very easily. And it was quite powerful.

^{Joe Fox (09:07.554)}
Okay.

_{Andre Freitas (09:36.29)}
But actually last night they just launched a way that is called the Shopify catalog, but also the Unify the checkout. That is basically what they are trying to do is that a chat function that you can search across all Shopify stores. So it's not only anymore like a specific brand store, but is connecting brands stores directly to the LLMs to chat with you in this case.

^{Joe Fox (09:46.422)}
Yes.

_{Andre Freitas (10:05.006)}
and being able to search across the whole catalog and being able to check out directly on the chat experience instead of having to go to the website. It was launched just yesterday, so still a lot to dive into, but it's quite interesting on the direction it's going, but also interesting to see how you can benefit without doing anything if you are in a platform like Shopify, where it basically opens up that someone

in some countries just writes on Shared GPT or Shared Function. I'm looking for these X products and this a display there and you can buy it without even going to the store. I think it will also shape how our experience is going to be in the future that sometimes you don't even go to the website. You just like ask for it a bit like sometimes like Amazon, that you would just like click buy and you actually don't even see the product. I think it will shape a bit how you interact with it.

^{Joe Fox (10:53.923)}
Yes.

_{Andre Freitas (11:03.694)}
websites, but I think we are still a few months, maybe years for that completed takeover. And I think it's still very important that you have a very solid user experience on your website because people will still want, at least now, to go and see a bit more about the brand.

^{Joe Fox (11:21.528)}
Absolutely. I just want to chime in there because there's so many good points you've made. think I'm not sure if you know Jason Greenwood, but it's a good friend of mine. He's a mentor, super well known in that B2B space. And I got chills when I chatted to him about his predictions for AI and the kind of like e-com experience with AI. And to your point, you know, it's happening, I think, a lot quicker.

than everyone is maybe even realizing. mean, obviously us working at the forefront of e-commerce, we're super and hyper aware of these changes. Like as they happen, sometimes before they even happen, we have some sort of an inkling that that's the direction things are going. But I think that process, you know, of not actually even having to interact with the website to purchase, but being more like

Approaching it more like a marketplace, which sounds like what this update does. It's like the Shopify almost marketplace as opposed to, you know, the individual store component that's terrifying and interesting, right? Like it's, it's really, I, I, you know, I'm an avid shopper. think most people who work on the, in e-commerce kind of, you know, used to checking out online and shopping online.

_{Andre Freitas (12:32.023)}
Yeah. Yeah.

^{Joe Fox (12:45.511)}
A world where I hand over my details to a bot that can check out for me is really terrifying. But at the same time, I think it's like anything. If there's this element of convenience to it and it becomes to it continually knows more and more about the user profiles. So they're sizing colors. They like all of those sorts of things. I can imagine.

_{Andre Freitas (12:54.295)}
Yes.

_{Andre Freitas (13:09.368)}
Yes.

^{Joe Fox (13:11.681)}
that it gets to a stage where it's finding really cool stuff for you and sending it to your front door without you even being aware of it. And that to me is, it's terrifying. Credit card companies are going to love it. But, I also think it's exciting. Like I think that's really cool. Like a lot, a lot of the time for me, you know, I shop with some brands and then a lot of them are kind of like niche, small up and coming brands. then

_{Andre Freitas (13:26.146)}
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 10%.

^{Joe Fox (13:40.949)}
You know, you go onto the shop app and it will automatically recommend you brands that are similar. So I think what, what you're describing with this new update is super interesting because it sounds like they've really expanded on that functionality and in a really, really big way, which is, which is cool. So I guess what I'd love to add to, so I'm sorry to go on a spiel there. I just think it's super exciting and it's, it's cool because you know, I know we'll do a part two of this and

It'll probably be in six months. I'm going to be like, well, this is how everyone's shopping now. but, but, you know, from your expertise, what are you doing to prepare your merchants for that? Like, I really love to understand, you know, because I know that you're always pushing for new things and at the forefront of things and being prepared. So what, what are the moves that you're making for your merchants to be prepared for these changes?

_{Andre Freitas (14:36.812)}
Yeah, yeah. I would say there is two answers to that question. One is, of course, experimenting AI and how can that optimize the experience. Another one is how can they be found by AI? Because right now, some traffic on some brands that we work with already are found on ChachiPT. They are not actually doing anything specific about it, but there is a lot that can be done.

^{Joe Fox (14:52.82)}
Yes.

_{Andre Freitas (15:04.802)}
Some kind of comes back to sort of the foundations of SEO. Even though now it's called J-O or A-O, there is different terminology now that is being used. What we are doing is one, experimenting, but also, okay, how can we make sure that the website is also prepared to be read by LLM, NCHPT, in terms of making sure that there is more information about the product, there is FAQs, there is like social proof on the website.

^{Joe Fox (15:16.117)}
Yeah.

_{Andre Freitas (15:33.586)}
which is a thing that actually helps the user experience to buy, but sometimes are not prioritized. And the thing is if you don't have a good product description, the AI will not have that information to read. Or if you don't have the FAQs, they cannot have that information. So more than ever, it's very important that brands' products are really complete with

^{Joe Fox (15:39.946)}
Yeah.

_{Andre Freitas (16:02.478)}
all the information, trying to optimize how that is also displayed and so on. So we have been having quite a lot of requests like, okay, how can we optimize our brand for Appian ChachiPT? And we are starting to work with brands on that on setting up a bit foundations and also like advise, okay, making sure that everything that is information about the products and even about the collections, because then everything will help at them being found. And now is the best time because it's still quite early.

But kind of talking about what I just spoke before that Shopify is opening Shopify catalog and then it's going to be even easier to find those products. If your product is not optimized, you're not going to be found. So you're going to lose a big fraction of potential revenue against other products or competitors. So I think that's very important to start doing now. Brands starting to invest slightly on these to make sure that when this is fully out.

^{Joe Fox (16:43.111)}
Yeah.

_{Andre Freitas (17:01.614)}
they can fully benefit from.

^{Joe Fox (17:04.543)}
Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that I think that we've really noticed a bit of a resurgence around, I mean, as you said, like the Grow Wave product suite, we have wishlist, we have UGC, we have loyalty, we have reviews. And obviously, you know, during different trends, different parts of the product are more focused on, you know, depending on what the end customer is really chasing, right? So like,

If loyalty is something the merchant's very focused on, typically that's the main thing that we see come through a lot in sales demo requests or, you know, our CS team, you know, get a lot of requests around how can we optimize this, et cetera, or our agency partners are bringing it up a lot. But I think to that point of the optimization and you touched on it is like the social proof component, like the way that Chad GPT

or these LLMs, talking about products. What I see is like, if you're asking for recommendations, they'll say, this product is highly reviewed. So I think, you know, once again, with reviews, it always goes in these swings of, swings and roundabouts of people are very focused on them. People aren't focused on them, you know, but I think that social proof component and focusing on getting

a lot of reviews, particularly in the use case and environment that we're talking about as things shift to maybe more of this marketplace model, it's going to be so crucial to make sure that your product is highly reviewed, authentically reviewed. The reviews are front and center so that they're put in a way that the LLMs can crawl all of that information, pull it out really quick. Because if you're a website that, you know,

is getting a few reviews, but there's no text in it. There's no UGC attached. I'm assuming, you know, and obviously I I don't want to quote this because I don't know how LLMs are ranking content or ranking products currently, but I would have a very educated guess in the fact that if the reviews are detailed and the reviews are of high quality and there's UGC attached to them and they tick off all the trust and authority components, that will help.

^{Joe Fox (19:25.576)}
those products stand out even more, not just within Shopify's ecosystem, but on the LLMs. So I think, you know, if there's, if there's a whole bunch of brains that are watching today, one, obviously, you know, you should be working with a great agency like Thales and someone like Andre, who's an extension of your team. But if you're not doing that and you want some quick optimization, you know, that can fix things.

not fix things, but, you know, help you prepare for this in a very minor way that could have a big impact. really suggest encouraging reviews. I think that is like a, is, going to play more and more of a part of things. It's already incredibly important as you know, like in terms of increasing conversion rates and building trust and social proof, but I think LLMs are going to continue like ChatGPT to really, you know,

rate that information and scrape that information in real time. so I think that's a quick little tip. Anyway, sorry to go on a tangent there, but it's, just interesting to me because I see from product side, you know, the things that are going to be more and more important as things evolve.

_{Andre Freitas (20:42.528)}
Yeah, just to add, I think completely agree with you. Just to add, think even loyalty, which is one of your arms on the app at GrowAV is already important, but will be even more important. Because if we think on a rise and where people just buy sort of like on, whatever the chat I will buy is even more important. You try to create a relation and retain that customer via loyalty program. So I think that's also super, super important to consider.

^{Joe Fox (21:06.194)}
Thanks

_{Andre Freitas (21:12.046)}
and implement right now.

^{Joe Fox (21:14.418)}
Absolutely, absolutely. No, thank you for that, Andre. And I know we're gonna do a part two on this, we're nearly at time already. And I know you and I can chat forever about these things. I think we put in place some pretty strong predictions that I'd love to, you know, circle back on in six months time when we do a part two. I guess one thing I really enjoy the content that you put out specifically.

you know, I've got a handful of, I've worked with, you know, hundreds of people in this space, but I've got a handful of people where I really actually think they hit the nail on the head with the content that they put out. And I think you're definitely one of them. think you take the time to articulate and explain why it's, I mean, it's, it's true. I'm just being honest. So I think, I'd really love, you know, for people to be able to connect with that content. So, are you happy for people to reach out and connect with you on LinkedIn?

viewers of the show.

_{Andre Freitas (22:15.106)}
Yes, please. can find me on my name, Andre de Freitas. But if you want to contact me directly also, Andre, so andre@thails.com. For sure, Joe will put us on the show notes, the website of the agency. But yeah, feel free to reach out.

^{Joe Fox (22:33.234)}
Absolutely. Yeah, no, think it's I think more than ever it's important for you know brands and for People to really be paying attention to what the best of the best are putting out there in terms of what's coming in the future So I'll make sure that's all linked in the show notes and I encourage everyone to connect with Andres Okay, lastly, I love asking this one and obviously it's relevant because you know, I was just traveling to you

But in this industry, you know, and we speak about this a lot and I know you're always going to Portugal and you're always disappearing to different parts of Europe and you really enjoy that travel component of working remotely. What is one thing and you can't say a person that you cannot travel without. And I can go first with this. I don't have it next to me, but mine is a, is like a, actually I do, yeah. Is a, like a portable travel battery.

I used this so much. I've had a lot of these over the years. Obviously when I was in Australia and I'd be traveling to the US and everything like that for work quite regularly, you go through a lot of charge when you're on a 16 hour flight. And so I have burned through a lot of these. But this one, I recently took on this Europe trip where we caught up and did this event.

_{Andre Freitas (23:31.175)}
good one.

_{Andre Freitas (23:46.605)}
Yes.

^{Joe Fox (23:57.699)}
And this thing is absolutely fantastic. It's huge. but in saying that, I think it was, I think it gets two laptop charges, two full laptop charges. And I think if you don't charge your laptop and then you just charge your phone, it's something like five or six times and you're allowed to take it on and you're allowed to take it on carry on. So, this is, this is a really cool one. I barely even used.

_{Andre Freitas (24:17.367)}
is pretty amazing.

^{Joe Fox (24:26.456)}
like hotel charges, like I really mainly use this the whole time. So that's, that's, that's what that's my item that I cannot travel without now. What's yours?

_{Andre Freitas (24:31.574)}
nice.

_{Andre Freitas (24:36.534)}
amazing. You can almost go off-grid with that one now. Now I would say for me, my headphones, like my AirPods, I think for travel is really important, like especially when you're flying and with the noise and or even when you are just like working. It's really nice to just zone out and I can really like focus and get some work done or whatever. So I think headphones, like good noise-caliber headphones makes a really big difference.

on your comfort when you travel.

^{Joe Fox (25:06.128)}
Absolutely. Absolutely. And you'll get, you're going to need them even more soon because you're lucky enough to have a baby on the way soon. So congratulations on that. But yeah, you might need an extra pair. So you can get some sleep. But look, mate, thank you so much for coming on. Really, really appreciate it. You know, we really appreciate the partnership. I appreciate our friendship.

_{Andre Freitas (25:15.264)}
Yes, yes, Thank you, Nick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

^{Joe Fox (25:34.231)}
I love what you do for the industry. I'll be sure to make sure all of those, you know, links are in the show notes. And I think, you know, as I said to the audience, really encourage you to connect, check out the content. It's spot on. You'll see a lot more predictions. And on that note, I very much look forward to discussing in six months time where we're at with the, are we visiting sites anymore? Or are we on Shopify's marketplace?

How are we purchasing and has a bot completely taken over my e-commerce experience?

_{Andre Freitas (26:09.102)}
That's good. That's a deal. I just wanted to add that for all the listeners, I'm happy to offer a 30-minute consultation to help with these things, either the user experience or in terms of how to get your website ready for LLMs as well. So feel free to reach out. But thank you so much, Joe, for putting it together. And it's a deal in six months to discuss where we are.

^{Joe Fox (26:17.774)}
awesome.

^{Joe Fox (26:26.381)}
Amazing

^{Joe Fox (26:32.011)}
Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Well, thank you so much, my friend. Take it easy. You enjoy the rest of your day. Mine's just getting started, so I'm going to go get caffeinated. But as always, thank you for coming on board and we'll chat very shortly.

_{Andre Freitas (26:45.454)}
Thank you so much, Joe. a great day, See you. Bye.

^{Joe Fox (26:46.595)}
Thank you so much, Andre. Audience, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Retain Growth Thrive. As you see, there's a lot of interesting things that are coming in e-commerce. As I mentioned earlier, I really, really encourage you to check out Thales. I encourage you to connect with Andre. Take him up on that offer. That 30-minute consultation is incredibly generous, only available to our watchers, so make sure that you mention.

that you saw this episode. But audience, thank you again for tuning in. If there's any guests that you think that I should interview, please feel free to mention them in the comments. And thank you for tuning into another episode of Retain Grow Thrive, the Growave podcast. I'm your host, Joe Fox, president of Growave.

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