 | Episode Cheat Sheet |
9 NOV 2026
59 MIN LISTEN
| Brought to you by |   |
| From Bushy |
If there's one thing you can do before peak, it isn't launching new features, expanding the range or slashing your prices even further. It's handing your website to Rhonda in finance and asking her to buy something. Then send it back. She'll find the shopping friction your team became blind to years ago. Most of the time, you can fix it before the big game. Don't take my word for it though. This week I sat down with the queen of ecommerce mystery shopping, Mareile Osthus from humii, who can land on almost any site and find something broken within a few clicks.
CHEERS, BUSHY
| 01 Skip To The Good Bits |
Tap any time code anywhere in this cheat sheet and the episode opens on YouTube at that exact moment.
| Your team doesn't see what your customers see | 7:26 |
| What mystery shopping tells you that NPS can't | 10:01 |
| Functionality, transparency and expectation management | 15:18 |
| Don't fight what customers are trained to expect | 18:46 |
| Vague returns policies cost more than you think | 26:19 |
| AI live chat and the 7% abandonment problem | 33:57 |
| A checkout with no surprises | 37:36 |
| What to check before Black Friday | 47:07 |
“The more clear and the more transparent you are, the less people contact your customer service.”
MAREILE OSTHUS | HUMII
FREE ATC WEBINAR | PRESENTED BY SHOPIFY
Join Bushy and James Johnson from Shopify this Thursday to talk through the data Shopify is seeing on how customers will shop this BFCM. We'll also do a live demo of Shopify features you can use to lift your sales. Register to get access.
Thursday 12 November, 10:30am AEST. Free.
| 02 The Big Lesson |
THE THREE THINGS BEHIND EVERY GREAT ONLINE EXPERIENCE
humii sends real shoppers through 500 to 700 online stores a week, from search right through to refunds. Mareile says every great experience comes down to the same three things. They work on a website today, in a store, and when Claude or ChatGPT is doing the shopping.
RULE 01
Functionality
Does everything work the way it's meant to? The breaks Mareile finds are rarely technical. A brand launches its Australian site and the gift cards are still in US dollars. A big homewares retailer lists outdoor tables with no dimensions. Refer a friend doesn't work, because nobody inside the business ever clicks it.
"So it is less about the skill set, but I think there's a huge part of oversight."
RULE 02
Transparency
No surprises. That means shipping costs before checkout, a clear description of what the product does and an easy way to get help if it's needed. Returns policies are the worst offender, full of "we may accept your return". Vague wording ends up biting you twice because every unclear policy turns into a customer service enquiry.
"We do it or we don't do it, and what are the conditions? It is super unclear."
RULE 03
Expectation management
The customer should always know what happens next. LSKD shows a queue number in its live chat, the same way you can see the line at a coffee shop and decide whether to wait. During a big sale, tell people dispatch has gone from two days to six.
"People are not angry if they understand that shipping time changes from two days to six days or whatever it might be."
BUSHY'S TAKE
Interestingly, customer service sits across all three things behind a great online experience, and it might just be the bit that brands are giving up on too easily. But should we?
humii measured chatbot obstruction at 3% of site abandonment last year. In six months, it has more than doubled to 7%. A bot that loops causes customer frustration, doesn't answer the question, and potentially creates more work. Before you add anything new for peak, run your store through these three checks.
| 03 Key Number |
6,000
WEEKLY RETURNS ENQUIRIES AT ONE LARGE RETAILER
The "tiny percentage" that wasn't tiny
A large retailer with cheap products told Mareile they barely got any returns enquiries. It was a very low rate, they said.
She asked for the weekly number. It was 6,000.
As a share of orders, it looked like nothing. As people, it was 6,000 customers a week having a bad time with the brand, after it had paid to acquire every one of them. Think about the number of returns, not as a percentage of sales, but as the number of customers who haven't had the optimal experience with your brand.
| 04 Test Yourself |
Shoppers have learnt where live chat lives. See if you know how many retailers put it there.
Roughly what share of online retailers put their live chat button in the bottom right corner?
Submit your answer and get the correct answer at the bottom of this email.
SPONSOR CONTENT | SHOPIFY
What Aussie shoppers have planned for BFCM
Aussies are planning to spend more this Black Friday Cyber Monday. But they're in no rush. Most would rather hold out for the right product than settle, so value matters more than ever this peak. Shopify's 2026 Holiday Retail report shows how shoppers plan to buy, and what that means for your offer.
7% more spend planned this BFCM
85% happy to wait for the right product
An Australian version, free to download
| 05 Steal These Tactics |
1
Hand your phone to someone outside ecommerce. Ask your wider team, a random customer or your mum to buy something and then return it. 49:07
2
Drop the email gate on your live chat. Asking for an email before answering a question makes people leave the site. 29:22
3
Give every chatbot a way out to a person. Make it clear whether the shopper is talking to AI or a human. 34:23
4
Show shipping costs on the product page. Ideally with a postcode calculator so nothing changes at checkout. 38:27
5
Get an AI agent to check every link on your site. Have it hunt for 404s and dead ends before the sales start. 44:46
| 06 The Stack |
Online mystery shopping that sends real shoppers through your store and your competitors' from search to refund, then scores what they find.
One-tap payment without typing card details. Mareile says making someone get up for a credit card on the couch at night is already a lost sale.
Gives shoppers their refund straight away while the return is still on its way back. Mareile names it as one of the services that reset what shoppers expect a refund to take.
A self-serve returns and exchanges portal for Shopify stores. Mentioned alongside Refundid for raising the bar on refund speed.
| 07 If This One Landed |
EP571
The CX Survival Guide: How Emily Elvey Turns Chaos into Loyalty
If the Black Friday checks hit home, this is the plan for running CX through peak itself. VIP triage, returns as a loyalty moment, and where bots help or hurt.
EP152
Return to Better: The Refundid Story
Slow refunds came up again and again as a reason customers don't come back. This is the case for instant refunds, and why your returns policy belongs on the product page.
EP633
How Amart Holds Itself Accountable for Broken Promises
If expectation management struck a chord, this is what it looks like as a weekly number. Dave Bauer tracks every broken promise from click to living room, and explains why an eight-hour delivery window isn't good enough.
| Pass It On |
Episode Cheat Sheets are built to be forwarded. If you know someone getting their store ready for Black Friday, send them this one.
| Continue the Conversation |
Where does your live chat sit, left or right? Do you ask for an email before you'll answer a question? And are you brave enough to hand your store to Rhonda in finance and share what she found?
Free to join. 800+ Australian ecommerce operators talking shop every week.
| Quiz Answer |
97%. Mareile says about 97% of retailers put live chat in the bottom right corner, so that's where shoppers look. Move it to the left and plenty of them will tell you that you don't have a live chat at all. 18:46
| 2027 Partnerships Are Open |
Want your brand in front of Australia's ecommerce leaders in 2027? Partnership opportunities are open now.
