What is Shopify?
Shopify refers to an ecommerce platform one may utilize for developing one’s store either online or offline.
Bloggers utilize WordPress. Store owners utilize Shopify.
Shopify lets one peddle products either online utilizing one’s personalized website and/or personally via using Shopify POS.
The ecommerce website builder contains features for all including amateurs and ecommerce gurus.
Shopify: Practical Uses, Functions.
Shopify offers one some ground tools for operating an ecommerce store.
Upon your moving over to virtual retail platform, one is compelled to initiate some shop space, display goods, engage clients, transact bills, or more.
Shopify offers most instruments that one requires for operating many of such sales.
Consider the Shopify platform as a tool operating to facilitate the operations for retailing goods through the internet.
Shopify Benefits: Advantages of Shopify Ecommerce
- Complex Shopify Admin
With embedded admin of the Shopify store, one may discover a comprehensive range of data or tools which let one comprehend performance of the online store overall.
One may access tabulated number of orders summarized.
One may locate the top-selling goods profiles.
Then one could then view some tracking statistics of the website visitors for gathering the degree of general engagement they hold.
Shopify remains an accessible instrument to the ecommerce retailer, letting one derive some detailed overall comprehension of many of ecommerce store’s data.
- Free Features
Suppose one is developing some fresh webpage, one possibly must pay bills to obtain themes (the design/look of the webpage).
Still, with Shopify, some free themes get loaded into your shop instantly so one could begin selecting any style you prefer.
So, Shopify perfectly suits most amateurs seeking to experiment in or fiddle about for viewing how possible outputs look.
One could even find tools to tailor the webpage for fitting overall branding tone.
One may pick cost-exempt fonts (found programmed in your shop), or alter, edit overall color themes, upload some additional photos, or more.
One may select from many ecommerce-themed stock photos one could select from installed from Shopify photographers.
One could locate these over in “free images” file of the Shopify theme.
Another possible option is sending the files over to some professional photography vendor.
Over above all this, one may seek to optimize some of Shopify functions to start crafting some improved, more optimized webpage.
Sign Up with Shopify: Visit Shopify.com. Use the signup form to create your account. Enter the necessary details and click the ‘Start free trial’ button. Your store name must be original, or Shopify will ask you to choose fresh options. After this initial screen, you will be pressed for more details, including your name, address, country, and contact number. You will also be asked if you have products and what you aim to sell.
Setting Up your Shopify Store: After you have signed up, you will be directed straight to your store admin screen. Now you can start customizing your store, uploading products, and setting up payments and shipping. Your home admin screen tells you all you need to know to get you up and running.
Customizing your Theme and Layout: Shopify has its own official theme store. These themes are all guaranteed to have full support from the designers, so you know that your store is in good hands. There are free and paid themes. All of them come with a comprehensive list of modifications you can make without having to touch a line of code. However, premium themes usually offer more modification options and slicker design.
Flip through available Themes: Log into Shopify and visit the Shopify Theme Store at themes.shopify.com. You will find over 70 theme variations to choose from, including a good selection of free ones. You also could find Shopify themes on other Marketplaces, like Template Monster. Just pick, category, features to pick your theme.
Test Website Performance: Once you find some theme you prefer, click on the theme’s sample image. You will be given more information about the theme, such as whether the theme is mobile/presentation ready among other features.
Pick a Theme: Upon selecting the theme you like, click the green button “Add theme”. Shopify will start the installation and once it is done, you will be redirected to your Shopify “Themes” manager. Under “Theme Library” you can customize your theme or choose “Publish” under the dropdown button of “Actions” to replace the current theme that you have.
Customize Shopify Settings: Many Shopify themes allow you to make simple alterations that can revamp the appearance of your store, so you can rest assured knowing you will not end up with a website that resembles a clone of thousands of other stores. These stores are all built using the same theme. On your admin screen, select ‘Themes’ from the left navigation menu. Here you see your live theme in a box at the top, in the top right corner of that box will be two buttons. First are “Actions”, which gives you some basic settings changes. One allows you to duplicate any theme. The second button says “Customize “. If you click it, you see panel that controls all the basic functionality of your store.
Font Choices: Some themes will also allow you to reposition elements on pages such as showing product images on the left, right, or center of the page. You can also choose whether you want to display social like/tweet/pin/+1 button.
Add Goods to Shopify Store: Navigating the bar on the left select ‘Products’. You will then see a green ‘Add a product’ button in the middle of the page. Use the following screen to add as much detail as needed about your products. Especially look at those that will help with SEO such as name, description, and URL. Include as many details as possible to help inform the customers about your items. This is the screen where you upload product pictures.
The Product Page: Make sure you fill out as much information as possible. Product images can make a sale so make sure you show your products off to their best and highlight any special or unique features with close-up photos. To keep your store looking tidy, it is advised that you keep all images in the same dimensions.
Customize Collections: A collection is any group of products that have some features in common that customers might look for when visiting your store. Products can appear in any number of collections. Usually, you display your collections on your homepage and in the navigation bar. This helps customers find what they are looking for without having to click through your whole catalogue.
Adding Products: The Collection set up screen works in the same way as the Product screen. Manual and Automatic Collections. When you add a new collection, you can select how products should be added to it. These are the two options:
Manually — You add and remove products in a manual collection individually.
Automatically — You can set up selection conditions to automatically include products that meet certain criteria.
Pick Payment Gateways: A payment gateway (Settings -> Payments) allows you to take payment from your customers via your website. The price and commission rate are important, but it is also important to see what features they offer. Not all payment gateways are created equal.
Transaction Fees: Upon submitting a payment, some gateways will keep a small percentage or flat fee (or sometimes both) for letting you use their service. Compare these based on what your anticipated sales are.
Card Types: You need to know what types of cards are accepted by your chosen Payment Gateway. All accept VISA and Mastercard, while most accept American Express. PayPal is also becoming more popular for online payments.
Offsite Checkout: Certain gateways may accept the payment on their own servers via their own form. This means that the customer is taken away from your checkout and they pay on the form provided by your payment gateway. They are then redirected to your confirmation page once the customer successfully pays. Payment gateway transaction fees are added on top of Shopify’s own transaction fees.
Basic 2.4% + 20p:
Professional 2.1% + 20p
Unlimited 1.8% + 20p
Depending on how many transactions you make every month, it could be worth upgrading to take advantage of these savings.
Go “Live” with Shopify Store: Before your site can go live, you need to add a few more details about your company and how you plan to make deliveries and pay tax.
Customized Settings: Make sure all your business information is filled out in the bottom left settings area. Make sure to use the Google Analytics feature. This can prove to be an invaluable source for tracking your store visitors.
Shipping: If your shipping rates are too limited, or you do not give enough options, you may lose out on sales. Shopify will calculate a shipping rate for your customers based on the rules that you define in the Shipping page of the admin. To make sure you will not lose sales:
From your store admin, go to the Settings > Shipping page.
In the “Shipping rates” section, see if you have set a weight-based shipping rate and adjust it according to your product’s specifications.
- Shopify runs upon a Cloud Platform
If you switch from WooCommerce to Shopify, your top advantage might be that websites would run upon a cloud platform rather than a server.
All who have paid bills for any server understands quite well that these crashes often take place at bad, untimely, inauspicious timings, so one unfortunately accumulates heavy profit losses over the downtime.
Servers may crash during Black Friday and during major sales.
Suppose you share the server (this is what many fresh entrepreneurs might choose), one usually wishes that the alternative webpages are less trendy.
Through running upon some cloud platform, the chances of the website tanking down remain uncommon, allowing one to operate the business very conveniently.
Also the cost gets counted into the subscription, rendering this one less issue to mull over.
- There are many optional customizable Plans
To be very frank, many overheads progressively accrue from operating some business.
One would have to foot procurement bills, marketing expenses, fresh domains, or also even Shopify.
Still Shopify holds customized pricing plans for all.
Supposing you run on a strict budget, one pays bills for Shopify Lite at just $9 each month.
Suppose one is seeking to get white-glove subscriptions, one could utilize Shopify Plus.
One might look over alternate plans upon business expansion as well.
- Multiple Optional Apps
Available at hand are apps for many options within the Shopify App Store.
One may locate countdown timers, image background options, product locating apps including Oberlo, or even more prolific options at hand.
Although you may find many varied paid apps, available are many other options of cost-exempt apps within the shop. Adding more apps to one’s webpage is not compulsory.
Still suppose one is seeking to increase products in your shop, ponder looking at the Oberlo app (the Explorer Plan is cost-exempt and covers up till 500 products within the shop).
- Strong customer support
Suppose one still wonders, why should one select Shopify?
The strength of support that company provides may provide some compelling rationales. Shopify seeks your ultimate success upon the platform.
This remains the reason they share company blogs featuring ecommerce gurus sharing business optimizing strategy.
These are reasons they crafted Shopify Academy (presently termed alternately as Shopify Compass), from which one enrolls in free ecommerce classes and study at customized pace.
So these are reasons that they hold multiple customer support representatives that may well respond to all customer queries.
Available are additional Facebook Groups made by Shopify users that seek to help fresh shop customers profit. The care ecology at Shopify is extensive.
- Minimal Obstacles to Registering
All may open a Shopify shop. This may be difficult, trying to turn profitable when just starting.
Still, this remains much easier and more convenient relative to seeking to construct, design an ecommerce business 20 years prior.
Ponder the time people needed to mail in checks to Amazon at the initial launch.
Such days have ended.
So, the facts are, with time passing, it becomes progressively easier to operate an ecommerce business.
Shopify leads as the founder that lowers obstacles to entering ecommerce.
Compare Shopify over alternative competitors, you could understand reasons why businesses register formally with their platform.
No-Fail Tips for Increasing Shopify Sales
Clearly, Shopify is one of the brilliant eCommerce platforms on the web today. We have discussed the features, but how exactly do you generate sales via your Shopify store. We spoke to several experts, and here are their insider tips for increasing Shopify sales in 2022 and beyond.
Use Dynamic Products Ads (DPAs) for Retargeting Campaigns
Facebook dynamic product ads are the best options out there for a retargeting campaign. Ensure that the ads are relevant to the target customer and alluring to spark their interest in the advertised product.
The Facebook algorithm will display the ads only to people who have visited your Shopify store and shown interest in a particular product. Instead of creating individual ads for every product, you use an ad template that automatically fetches details and images from the product data feed.
To do this, you need to connect your sync your product feed by using the Facebook Product Feed App available on Shopify App Store.
Ideally, the goal is to display the DPAs to a warm audience that has shown interest in your products or services in the recent past. The personalisation aspect will elicit positive emotions, eventually encouraging the customers to convert.
Sync your Shopify Store with Facebook Shop
With more than 2.6 billion active users per month, Facebook is definitely the largest social media platform. It’s a goldmine for Shopify users who want to promote their products without spending a fortune.
One of the highlights of this platform is its unique way of combining eCommerce marketing and social media via the Facebook shop.
Get ahead of your competition and start getting sales by setting up a Facebook Shop today. Once the shop is up and running, integrate it with your Shopify store to avoid having two different inventories. Combining the two will greatly help to manage your shop better.
Post Video Testimonials on Conversion Pages
70% of online customers read user-generated content and reviews before purchasing a product. 41% of them will read 4-7 reviews before making the final purchasing decision.
In your quest to crank up Shopify sales, you need to leverage this eCommerce secret. Post video testimonials on the conversion pages to convince the customers that your product is the best and give them insider tips on how it works.
Concisely, give satisfied customers a chance to spread the word about the value and quality of your products and the world-class customer service you offer. Tools such as VideoPeel can increase Shopify’s store conversion rate by more than 20%.
In 2021, there were more than 5,300 Shopify stores across the globe. Chances are several stores stock the same products, and so competition for customers is always cut-throat. Get ahead of the competition by renting remarketing pixels from sites considered an authority by Google and other search engines.
These sites include blogs that are highly relevant to your niche. Since the audience is already interested in the products you sell, retargeting them with Facebook Ads will enable you to generate more sales.
Because you will be targeting a segment of potential customers who are highly interested in your products, you will save thousands of dollars on advertising and ramp up sales faster.
We dare say, using remarketing pixels to generate more sales is one of the underrated ways of scaling up your Shopify store. Ensure that you optimise the ads and continuously test the results to know which ad format works best for different authority sites and audiences.
Free Shipping for Low Order Values
The secret to establishing a profitable Shopify store is going against the grind. Most of the stores only offer free shipping for bulk orders. Hence, customers whose orders don’t meet a set threshold pay shipping fees.
Be different by offering free shipping even on low order values. Trust me; if a customer is given the option of free and paid shipping for the same product, they will choose to shop at the store that offers free shipping even though the prices may be different.
Implementing this phenomenon strategy will boost your average order value (AOV). Of course, there must be the bare minimum order value; otherwise, you will cut yourself too thin. Vagabond Cookies is one of the companies that successfully doubled their AOV by offering free shipping on all orders above $100.
Run Instagram Live Shopping Campaigns
Most online shoppers rely on Instagram for information about products instead of doing a search on Google. 70% of online shoppers use this social media platform for product discovery. 87% confess to being motivated to purchase a particular product by influencers.
Like a Facebook shop, you should consider setting up an Instagram shop. Recently, the team introduced a Live Shopping feature that allows users to display and sell products, engage the fans, and collaborate with influencers via Instagram live broadcast in real-time.
If you decide to hire influencers, check their audience to be sure that they match your intended customers. For instance, if you sell watches, collaborate with influencers who are watch enthusiasts.
Your Shopify Stores Needs a Live Chat
eCommerce customers who interact with the support team via live chat are 3X more likely to purchase. Apart from answering questions, you can display personalised messages based on their browsing behaviour, such as the pages visited and products purchased in the past.
A live chat such as JivoChat will enable you to answer questions about products promptly and convince customers who are on the fence to convert. The chat also offers an omnichannel experience. That is, you can contact customers via live web chat and email, phone, Apple Business Chat, WhatsApp, and Facebook.
Check out this article we recently wrote on why you should have a live chat on your website.
Cross-Selling and Upselling at Checkout
Most people use the terms upselling and cross-selling interchangeably. There is a huge difference between the two, even though both serve one purpose – to generate more revenue. Cross-selling refers to trying to sell similar products to a customer. Upselling refers to selling higher premium products similar to the ones the customer added to the cart.
As a Shopify business owner, your goal shouldn’t be to increase sales and get more profit from every sale. Achieve this goal by applying upselling and cross-selling tactics at the checkout stage. Amazon is one of the eCommerce sites that has mastered this technique and works well.
Use popups to display the other products you want the customer to add to your cart. For instance, when you shop at Beardbrand, the checkout page is set to allow you to add a “mystery product” related to the product you added to the cart.
Personalised Product Recommendations
Personalisation is another key to success in the Shopify world of eCommerce. The target audience is bombarded with thousands of ads and product recommendations. Why would you want to join the herd?
You won’t get any tangible results if you offer product recommendations without considering the needs and intent of the customers. Personalised product recommendations based on the customer’s previous preferences and actions in your Shopify store.
There are unlimited ways of generating personalised recommendations. For example, you can use the shopper’s location – if the customer is based in California, recommend one of the recent swimwear available. If the customer is from New York, recommend a warm jacket.
Do you get the point? Ensure that the product recommendations are personal; otherwise, nobody will bother to see the product details. Alloy Apparel is a good example of a Shopify Store that uses this hack to showcase the most popular products to customers based on the trending items in their specific location.
Build a Robust Email List by Offering Exclusive Discounts
Can you imagine for every $1 spent on email marketing, you stand to get an ROI of $36? That ROI is higher than other digital marketing strategies such as social media marketing and Google Ads.
On the surface, email marketing sounds easy to apply, but one of the challenges you have to overcome is establishing an email list. It’s not easy for new Shopify stores to build an emailing list because they probably don’t have many customers.
One hack that has worked for other stores and can work for you is offering exclusive discounts. There are three primary ways of applying this strategy, namely;
- Exit-intent popups for potential customers who are just about to exit the store
- Floating bars to display ongoing promotions or offers
- Slide-ins that encourage the customer to spend predefined time on a particular product page
The three will help net the customer’s email and move on to the next stage to engage with them consistently via email messaging. Ensure that you optimise the message to encourage them to visit the store again and shop. Be careful not to bombard them with too many emails lest they mark them as spam or unsubscribe from the list.
Check out our recent article on email marketing strategies that actually work.
Post Products on Third-Party Marketplaces
Don’t limit yourself to Shopify if you want to generate substantial revenue from eCommerce. Shopify allows users to list their products on third-party or external marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.
The platforms are considered an authority and are ranked highly in SERPs. Therefore, you will profit from the massive traffic that they get without promoting the site yourself. In addition, online shoppers are already more familiar with those sites than your Shopify store, so they are more likely to come across your product.
Wondering how it works? Check out Leather Honey – their products are available on both Shopify and Amazon.
Leverage Post-Purchase Information for Future Campaigns
There is absolutely no harm in requesting the customers for additional information when checking out or joining your email list. Post-purchase information such as age and gender can help supercharge your future marketing campaigns.
Encourage the customer to create a free account and complete their profile to get personalised offers and discounts. With information about their age, gender, and birthday, you can send out product recommendations that resonate with them best. For example, send out a special message and discount coupon on their birthday.
Target High-Intent Keywords for Google Ads
Google Ads is one of the sure ways to drive traffic and sales to your Shopify store. Thousands of other Shopify users use the platform for marketing their Shopify store. Bid for high-intent keywords to get your store up in the SERPs and front of the target customers.
Some of the high intent keywords are discounts, buy, and product names. Take a moment to read Shopify’s Google Ads guide for expert tips and guidance on how to launch your first Google Ads campaign today.
Optimise your Shopify Storefront UX (User Experience)
When implementing the above strategies, it’s easy to neglect your Shopify storefront. Like a website, the store needs to be appealing and offer an exceptional user experience.
Following the launch of the Core Web Vitals Google update, user experience is one of the factors that the search engine uses to rank websites. Below are four things that you should optimise.
- Strike a balance between text and visuals
- Have easy navigation and menus to enable customers to find products effortlessly
- Optimise the store for mobile
- Use the right font and colours to draw the customer’s attention to specific sections of the page or products
- Use established payment options to build trust and security
Use tools such as Google Analytics to benchmark the performance of your store. Compare the reports with those generated by Shopify Analytics to know which areas you should improve to get better results.
Create a Loyalty Program
Even though digital marketing is the primary way of connecting with customers, word-of-mouth marketing still has a potent ability to help you generate sales. Complement it with a robust loyalty program to encourage the customers to shop more from your store.
The loyalty program will accrue points for every purchase and get rewarded with discounts and freebies. Soon they will tell their family and friends to join. Use apps such as Rise, Smile, and Growave to create and implement the program on your Shopify Store.
Shopify Overview: How Does Shopify Work?
Shopify refers to ecommerce platforms that host your virtual store.
This facilitates organizing the design of the store’s aesthetics via themes (that you remain open to customize or alter in any desired fashion).
This alternatively takes bill transactions, that let you to transact or get payments for the products retailed overall.
Shopify contains the common drop shipping app called Oberlo, that lets you pick over from millions of goods that you may begin retailing up front quickly, excluding needs for billing over inventory instantly.
