Shopify is known for their easy set-up and built-in commerce tools. It’s why many owners turn to the software to start their online business. Growing your Shopify store though can be a different story. While all the tools are there for you, it takes more than just great software to build a thriving online business.
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been selling online, there’s always ways to improve your business. Here’s our top 10 tips to grow your store on Shopify.
Start Selling on Social Media
Social media is a must-have for most brands. It’s an important channel to create and foster a dialogue with your customers, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest. However, social media is more than just a marketing tool.
Over the past few years, Shopify has added built-in social media like buy buttons that turn these platforms into additional selling channels. Your posts on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest can turn into buying opportunities. The best part is that these buy buttons make it simple and convenient for customers to make purchases, without even leaving the social channel itself. Read more about these social media platforms that Shopify turns into sales channels:
- Considering a Shopify Facebook store? Read this first.
- Marketing on Pinterest Means Rethinking the Old Playbook for Social Media
- Tagging and selling products directly from Instagram.
Expand Your Product Line
One way to sell more is to offer more by expanding your product line. This gives you more options to sell to loyal customers or market to new audiences. To make expanding your product line easy, there’s two ways to do it on Shopify:
1. Sell wholesale products. There’s all types of categories like apparel, electronics, shoes, handbags, and jewelry. As the merchant, you can purchase the products from a wholesaler in a large quantity at a discount and then mark up the retail price to your customers. You can start researching for wholesalers in places like Oberlo’s wholesale directory that connects directly with your Shopify store, directories like Worldwide Brands , tradeshows, or go directly to manufacturers themselves.
Check out this guide on how to find and sell wholesale products on Shopify, including how to spot fake wholesalers trying to rip merchants off.
2. Drop ship. Another way to start selling new products is through the practice of drop shipping. It’s a fulfillment process in which merchants buy goods from a vendor who ships them directly to the consumer. The best part is that the vendor remains completely invisible to the consumer. By drop shipping, you don’t have to keep inventory on-hand. Instead, you can sell items without ever actually seeing or shipping them yourself.
Read this beginner’s guide to drop shipping to learn more about this fulfillment process.
Both selling wholesale products and drop shipping can be a great way to expand your product catalog. They allow you try something new before fully committing to it.
Financing Your Growth
Many eCommerce businesses are held back by their lack of access to cash. At any time, sellers need capital to invest in all different aspects of their business like marketing campaigns, new employees, or bulk inventory. While you can turn to your bank for financing, it’s not always the best option.
Recognizing this, Shopify offers their own financing called Shopify Capital. Your eligibility for this program is based on your history on Shopify and will show up in your Admin if you meet their requirements. Eligible merchants can receive either a cash advance or a business loan. Funding can be anywhere between $200 and $1,000,000.
If you don’t meet Shopify’s requirements or need access to more funding, Shopify sellers can also turn to Payability, where you could get up to $250,000 as soon as tomorrow to invest into your online business. Approval and actual funding are based on your account health and sales performance across Shopify and all sales channels.
Try Text Messaging Marketing
We’ll assume that you’re already building an email list to market to. How else can you reach your customers on a regular basis?
Enter text messaging marketing. It can help turn casual browsers on your site into repeat customers. Your shoppers can opt in to receive texts from you, so you can send shoppers back to abandoned carts or send coupon codes. It can complement your email marketing efforts. If you want to learn more, check out Privy’s new SMS texting capability that already works with Shopify.
Use 3D and Augmented Reality (AR) Product Pages
It’s no secret that most of the purchasing decision online is based on your product pages. It’s how potential customers can determine the quality of your product and then what size/color to order. The sophistication of your product pages can play a role in how well you convert traffic into purchases.
Today, clean photography and rich descriptions are table stakes. Leading Shopify sellers are taking it even further by trying out product pages with built-in support for 3D models and video. These tools give your buyers a true sense of the product and the confidence to buy.
Since introducing this capability in 2018, Shopify has reported 3D models in AR can increase your conversion rates by up to 250% on product pages! Learn more about Shopify AR.
Run a Flash Sale
How do you increase sales around holidays or even during slow months? Flash sales.
Merchants often turn to flash sales to generate revenue. They’re exciting and create a sense of urgency for customers to buy right then. They can be used to attract new customers to try a product for the first time or even loyal customers to make an extra purchase.
The good news is that setting up a flash sale in Shopify is relatively easy. You can select your products, set your date and time, and then promote it via email, text or social media.
The challenge is making sure you’re set up on the backend to handle the surge in site traffic and order processing. You don’t want to run a flash sale that crashes your site or causes severe delays in shipping. That’s not a good way to impress your customers.
Read more in this guide to online flash sales to understand what it takes to run a flash sale and avoid common failures.
Automate Your Shipping Processes
One of the more difficult aspects of selling online is shipping your orders. On top of that, marketplaces like Amazon have conditioned shoppers to always expect fast, accurate, and free shipping too. Customers aren’t always very forgiving when you make a mistake.
It’s easy for the fulfillment process to go wrong. Long delivery times, costly shipping rates, shipping to the wrong address, and shipping the wrong product can all plague your delivery experience.
While you’re not a logistics expert, it’s important improve your fulfillment processes. Guaranteed and accurate delivery can lead to higher conversion rates, positive customer reviews, and repeat purchases from customers.
So, how do you improve them?
1. Invest in a backend system like an ERP – This allows you to track sales, manage inventory, and fulfill items all from a single place. Learn more what an ERP is.
2. Use shipping software – Software like ShipStation can help you print shipping labels, compare shipping rates, and track your packages.
3. Outsource to a 3PL – A third-party logistics company (3PL) can take care of warehouse management, transportation of goods, reporting, and forecasting for you. 3PLs can leverage their relationships and volume discounts for affordable, fast shipping for your customers.
4. Integrate Shopify and your ERP/3PL – Connect Shopify with your ERP/3PL/shipping software to automate your shipping processes. Automation accelerates your processes and avoids costly mistakes like shipping to the wrong address.
Create a Rewards and Loyalty Program
Customer retention is key to the long-term health of any online business. You spend a lot of time, effort, and resources to acquire a customer. So, you should always continue to market and sell to them. It’s a cost-effective way to boost sales. Existing customers can also be an effective way to refer to new customers.
Creating a loyalty program is about engaging and interacting with your existing customer base through efforts like:
- Referrals
- Pop-ups
- Loyalty points
- Exclusive marketing campaigns and sales
- Personalized perks
Shopify has some great apps to help run your loyalty program like:
Sell Internationally
How far is your market reach? Shopify merchants can also consider selling internationally to reach new audiences. This strategy can work well for aspirational, luxury, or lifestyle brands that offer unique items or a product that a consumer can’t imagine living without. If your target customer can’t find similar items in-store, they’re probably willing to search internationally for it. These types of products can span many verticals such as consumer goods, beauty, fashion, athletic, leisure wear, baby, personal goods, and home goods.
Merchants today can take advantage of new technology that removes many of the barriers to international selling. There’s platforms like Flavor Cloud that give you access to reliable and cost-effective shipping. Shopify also makes it easy to create multiple storefronts that are tailored to different countries to accommodate for local languages, currencies, marketing campaigns, and product lists.
Sell on Marketplaces
Along the lines of expanding sales channels, Shopify users can also turn to marketplaces like Amazon and eBay to reach new audiences. Amazon and eBay are two-leading marketplaces for a reason. They offer a convenient, one-stop shopping place for consumers. They make it easy to compare brands and prices all at once.
Recognizing this, Shopify makes it easy for sellers to sync
their products in Shopify right to Amazon or eBay. From your Shopify store, you
can centrally manage your inventory and orders across all your online sales
channels. Read more about Shopify and
their marketplace integration.
There you have it! What tip do you want to try out first? Have you had success
in growing your Shopify store in other ways? Let us know in the comments below!
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