u/Minimum_Telephone936

running a small skincare brand and did a proper audit of our inbound messages last month.

turned out 63% of what i was treating as customer support was people asking questions before they ever bought. not returns, not complaints. just people who couldn't find the answer they needed on the product page.

i had been thinking about the inbox as a cost center. it was actually a conversion problem.

curious if this ratio is normal across other product categories or if health and skincare just attracts more questions before purchase.

for anyone else running a physical product store, what does your pre-purchase vs post-purchase split actually look like? and how are you handling the pre-purchase volume at scale?

skincare brand, 8 months in. finally did a proper audit of every customer message from the last 60 days.

340 total. tagged each one.

63% pre-purchase. questions about ingredients, skin conditions, how to use the product alongside other things they were using. people who hadn't bought yet and were trying to decide.

37% actual post-sale. tracking questions, returns, the usual stuff.

i had been staffing the inbox like it was a support channel. it was mostly a sales channel in disguise. people reaching out because the product page didn't answer their question, not because anything went wrong.

rewrote the pages around the questions that kept showing up. pre-purchase email volume dropped in the first two weeks. too early to have clean conversion data but the direction is right.

the inbox problem was a product page problem.

anyone else found this kind of mismatch when they actually looked at what their support volume was made of?

I'm running a skincare brand, about 8 months in and I'm trying to figure how to solve this problem

Most of the questions in my inbox are pre-purchase questions, something like "will this cause acne?", "what is the right dosage on a sunny day?" etc. We've been working on refining the copy, trying to put out as much info as we can on the product page itself, yet these questions don't stop coming.

I'm at a point where I don't know if this is something the page should be able to handle by itself, and I should only have to cater to the edge cases?

There's a bunch of tools around that help (apparently) but I want to know if this a common problem among skincare stores in general? and if so, how do you guys deal with these questions? Maybe an automation or a tool or just better structure to the FAQs page?

continuing the ride-along. skincare brand, about 150k sessions a month now.

been meaning to do this for months. finally sat down and tagged every inbound message from the last 30 days by the actual question being asked.

224 total messages. broke down like this:

51% were some version of will this work for my skin type or condition
18% were application questions, what order, how much, how often
14% were safety questions around medication or existing conditions
10% were actual post-sale support, tracking, returns
7% everything else

the 90% is a conversion problem wearing a support costume. none of those top questions were properly answered on the product page. some were buried in the faq. most weren't there at all.

people were emailing because the page didn't answer them, not because they needed human support.

spent last week rewriting the top 3 product pages around those exact questions. too early to have clean numbers but email volume is already down noticeably.

curious if anyone else has done this kind of categorization. did the breakdown look similar for your category?

I'm running a skincare brand, about 8 months in and I'm trying to figure how to solve this problem

Most of the questions in my inbox are pre-purchase questions, something like "will this cause acne?", "what is the right dosage on a sunny day?" etc. We've been working on refining the copy, trying to put out as much info as we can on the product page itself, yet these questions don't stop coming.

I'm at a point where I don't know if this is something the page should be able to handle by itself, and I should only have to cater to the edge cases?

There's a bunch of tools around that help (apparently) but I want to know if this a common problem among skincare stores in general? and if so, how do you guys deal with these questions? Maybe an automation or a tool or just better structure to the FAQs page?

running a skincare brand, roughly 180k sessions a month. we spent a lot of time on the hero image. the headline. the before/after. all of it looked good. the part we never touched was the faqs. it was basically four lines we wrote in 10 minutes when we launched. pulled a report on pre-purchase support tickets last month. 71% of them were questions already technically answered somewhere on the page. but buried. or vague. or written for someone who already trusted us. turns out the faq wasnt actually answering anything. it was just checking a box. rewrote it completely. added 11 specific questions based on what customers were actually asking.

conversion on the hero product went from 1.7% to 2.4% in about 5 weeks. same traffic, same ads. the embarrassing part is we had the data the whole time. just never looked at the tickets as a product problem. curious if anyone else has found a section like this. the thing thats just sitting there being useless while you keep throwing budget at acquisition.

been seeing a lot more brands pushing the "human made" or "not written by ai" angle lately. makes sense with how much generic ai content is flooding everywhere.
but i think most of them are missing the real point.

it’s not about putting a badge that says "human written". it’s about creating content that’s actually hard for ai to replicate- stuff that comes from real customer conversations, specific operational experience, messy founder lessons, and actual time spent with the product.
a founder writing about what they discovered after watching 150 session recordings hits different. a team that deeply understands the exact questions their customers ask before buying can’t be easily faked.

the brands winning right now aren’t the ones loudly saying their content is human. they’re the ones whose content obviously came from someone who’s been in the trenches.
curious what others are seeing. is the "human made" thing actually working for anyone, or is it mostly marketing theater?

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for 15-25 US-based Shopify store owners to test Buffy AI, an AI sales agent that sits directly on your product pages.

It answers customer questions in real time (sizing, material safety, shipping, "is this legit", compatibility, etc.), handles follow-ups, and makes relevant product recommendations when it makes sense- all while trying to sound like a knowledgeable human associate rather than a robotic FAQ.

What you get:

6 months completely free (no credit card required)

Full access, no restrictions

No long-term commitment after the 6 months

What I'm looking for:

US-based Shopify stores selling physical products

At least ~50 orders per month

Willing to use it on real traffic and give honest feedback every 2-3 weeks (what’s working, what’s broken, what feels off, etc.)

I'm not trying to onboard a huge number of stores. I want a small group of real merchants who will actually use it and tell me the truth- good or bad.

If you're interested, comment below or visit askbuffy.ai and send me a message. I'll review every request manually.

Happy to answer any questions here.

Thanks!

this was about 8 months into running a skincare brand i helped build out. 450-500k sessions a month, nothing crazy. we always put more budget behind whatever was selling most. obvious call. bestseller gets the ads, gets the homepage placement, gets the email feature. then we actually looked at conversion rates by product and found something that made no sense. bestseller was converting at 1.2%. a product we barely promoted was at 3.8%. the difference wasn't the product. it was the page. the low-converting page was vague. the high-converting one had every question answered before you could think to ask it. ingredient breakdowns, real use cases, what not to use it with. we had been sending traffic to the worst page and wondering why we needed more traffic. rewrote the other pages. conversion on the bestseller went to 2.4% within 6 weeks. same traffic, same product.

been seeing a lot more brands pushing the "human made" or "not written by ai" angle lately. makes sense with how much generic ai content is flooding everywhere.
but i think most of them are missing the real point.

it’s not about putting a badge that says "human written". it’s about creating content that’s actually hard for ai to replicate- stuff that comes from real customer conversations, specific operational experience, messy founder lessons, and actual time spent with the product.
a founder writing about what they discovered after watching 150 session recordings hits different. a team that deeply understands the exact questions their customers ask before buying can’t be easily faked.

the brands winning right now aren’t the ones loudly saying their content is human. they’re the ones whose content obviously came from someone who’s been in the trenches.
curious what others are seeing. is the "human made" thing actually working for anyone, or is it mostly marketing theater?

quick update for anyone following. running a small beverage brand, about 150k sessions a month, started this because revenue had been flat for 3 months.

this week i finally categorized every customer message from the last 60 days. 340 total.

63% came before any purchase. questions about dosage, medication interactions, whether it would work for a specific condition. stuff i assumed was covered in the description or the faq. it wasn't.

the remaining 37% were actual post-sale support. tracking, returns, that kind of thing.

i had been thinking about the inbox as a customer service problem. it was a conversion problem. people were reaching out because the product page wasn't doing its job.

i'm spending this weekend testing a couple of AI tools on the product pages to see if we can bring that pre-purchase question volume down. will report back.

stuck at 22% repeat rate for most of last year. tried the obvious stuff. loyalty points, discount on second order, winback emails. marginal improvement.

what actually moved it was making the first purchase experience better. not post-purchase comms. the moment someone received the product and used it for the first time.

a lot of people who weren't repurchasing weren't disappointed. they just didn't know how to use the product correctly and got mediocre results. added a chatbot that answers their questions on the go. followup email at day 3 not day 7 with specific guidance based on what they bought.

repeat rate went from 22% to 31% over 3 months.

the retention problem was actually an onboarding problem.

genuine question because i keep going back and forth on this.

running content for a few ecom brands. the traditional argument is blog content builds SEO, drives organic traffic, converts over time. compounding asset etc.

what i'm actually seeing is that the content doing the most conversion work is product page content. the stuff that answers the question someone has the exact moment they're about to buy.

blogs still seem to help with discovery and top-of-funnel brand positioning. but the ROI conversation gets complicated when that traffic doesn't convert and you compare it to just making product pages significantly better.

also been experimenting with improving on-site search + making product pages answer questions instantly. curious if anyone has solid attribution data here. not asking rhetorically, actually want to know what others are seeing.

I’ve been running a Shopify store doing around 6-7k sessions a month with conversion stuck at roughly 1.8%. Like most people, I was getting ready to put more money into ads.

Before doing that, I spent a few days watching session recordings instead. Around 150 of them.

What I saw was interesting. There seem to be two clear patterns happening on product pages.

In the first pattern, people land, scroll through photos, read parts of the description, clearly show interest, but then leave without adding to cart. They spend real time on the page but eventually bounce. The common point where they leave is almost always when they have a question the page doesn’t answer (“will this fit me?”, “is this right for my skin?”, sizing comparisons, etc.)

In the second pattern, people get the answers they need on the page and either buy or continue browsing comfortably.

I had assumed that if someone really needed more information they would email or reach out. Turns out most of them don’t. They just leave.

After seeing this repeatedly, I spent the next few weeks updating the product pages to answer those common questions directly. The following month conversion moved up to around 2.6% with no additional ad spend.

I’m still thinking about this. It makes me wonder how many stores are focusing heavily on driving more traffic while missing opportunities to convert the traffic they already have.

have any of you also noticed similar patterns? places where we as owners could easily address instead of choosing the '"dark side" of switching to ads

Hi developers,
The problem I kept seeing: shoppers land on a product page, have a specific question:

"will this fit me?". "is this right for my skin?", "what are the available sizes?"

and there's no answer anywhere. So they leave. The FAQ doesn't cover it, support email takes a day, and the sale is gone.

Built Buffy (website: askbuffy.ai ) to sit on product pages and handle those questions live. It learns the products and talks to shoppers before they bounce. Launched it on a few Shopify stores and the hesitation-to-buy gap is where it actually makes a difference.

https://preview.redd.it/wcvtx2lzd21h1.png?width=2582&format=png&auto=webp&s=6313c4700ce2a0eb8f00e9c81477930f7177e704

If you're building something in the ecommerce or conversion space, would love to compare notes. And if you know any Shopify merchants who've tried AI chat tools- good or bad, curious what they found.

We're giving away 6 month for free for USA based Shopify businesses as well!

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for 15-25 US-based Shopify store owners to test Buffy AI, an AI sales agent that sits directly on your product pages.

It answers customer questions in real time (sizing, material safety, shipping, "is this legit", compatibility, etc.), handles follow-ups, and makes relevant product recommendations when it makes sense- all while trying to sound like a knowledgeable human associate rather than a robotic FAQ.

What you get:

6 months completely free (no credit card required)

Full access, no restrictions

No long-term commitment after the 6 months

What I'm looking for:

US-based Shopify stores selling physical products

At least ~50 orders per month

Willing to use it on real traffic and give honest feedback every 2-3 weeks (what’s working, what’s broken, what feels off, etc.)

I'm not trying to onboard a huge number of stores. I want a small group of real merchants who will actually use it and tell me the truth- good or bad.

If you're interested, comment below or visit askbuffy.ai and send me a message. I'll review every request manually.

Happy to answer any questions here.

Thanks!