Shopify has developed tremendously in the past few years. Today, it is one of the most widely used platforms by online businesses. It is primarily because the platform uses innovative and advanced technology to keep ahead of its competitors.
In the online medium, customers value and look for incredible experiences – online merchants that offer so always manage to record impressive business results.
The bottom line is to provide seamless shopping experiences to customers so that the business is still on the top.
It is interesting to note the kind of growth Shopify has had in the last decade. Today, more than 1 million retailers worldwide use the platform (as per data available) in more than 175 countries. The platform is used to process more than a billion orders daily – no mean feat that only very few can match.
As of October 2019, Shopify stores recorded about $135 million in sales. The reason why everyone seems to love the platform is its user-friendliness and easy-to-use features.
Any individual can use the software to set up an online store and become a seller. The progressive technology backend of the software makes e-commerce seamless and straightforward for online sellers. Plus, the kind of market penetration that it has offered to its users is impressive. All this is possible because of the use of top-end and state-of-art technology.
Are you planning to become an online merchant? If yes, you must consider Shopify for your venture. Here, we will share a few top Shopify success tips that will help you optimize your store’s online performance.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is a SaaS platform that can be used to build e-commerce portals fast and smartly. With the platform’s drag-and-drop store builder’s help, creating an online store is incredibly smooth, responsive, and useful.
The software has hundreds of themes to choose from, making it easy for a non-technical person to create an online store with no help. To top it, different pricing packages from the platform suit the needs of businesses of different sizes and scales. No doubt, more than 1,000,000 online merchants globally trust this open-source platform.
Why Should You Use Shopify over other eCommerce platforms?
There are numerous benefits of using Shopify for your online store. It undoubtedly offers a competitive edge to your online store when compared with e-commerce stores using other platforms.
Reasons for using Shopify are:
1. Cloud-based hosting
For small-scale businesses and startups, one of the biggest challenges is web hosting. It is an expensive and time-consuming affair finding the right technical partner. The other aspect about this is that with technical support, shopping carts are doomed.
Since Shopify is cloud-based, it offers a hosted solution to online merchants. As a result, merchants can access the site from anywhere and anytime using their admin login ids.
2. Excellent marketing tools
Merchants love the seamless experience they garner when using the platform’s in-built marketing tools. Some of the commonly used marketing tools are meta titles, meta descriptions, unique URLs, visibility and hidden pages, and many other tools that help reduce marketing costs.
3. Technical Support team
With a strong backend support team, online merchants are never alone. Shopify’s support team aptly handles all their technical issues and glitches.
4. Automated solutions
Even menial tasks are automated on the platform. Thereby, errors resulting from manual methods are effectively addressed and reduced. Things like data duplicity are things of the past with the platform.
5. Failsafe security features
For online retailers, a big challenge is about security aspects. Their online stores load fast on user devices, offering a seamless shopping experience; it is also essential that user data privacy is effectively addressed.
With Shopify, payments and online transactions are stress-free, both for merchants and users.
6. Other added advantages
Free trial and other functional value add-ons make this platform advantageous over many other competing platforms.
Nine ideas to succeed with the Shopify platform
How can you be successful with the Shopify platform? Here are the top ten Shopify success tips.
1. Be Ready for Mobile Commerce
Today, an eCommerce merchant needs to make sure that his online store readily opens on the mobile. It has to be mobile-friendly.
With the mobile penetration increasing with time, online stores need to be one-hundred percent sure that their store is adaptable with the small screen of smartphones to facilitate easy and 24×7 access to users.
Be Mobile Responsive from the beginning
Responsive is the way to go this decade. Right from the time the website is being designed, they need to address the responsiveness so that the site opens smoothly on all types and sizes of screens.
Create Apps for mobile platforms
The good thing about Shopify is that you can make an app with mobile app builders’ help. The same can then be linked to your online store.
2. Have a plan for Customer Retention
Customer retention is one of the most important strategies that a retailer can work on. It is because retaining customers is cost-effective- it involves fewer costs. It is also far easier to keep your loyal customers with you than to go out and impress new customers.
At least 65% of online sales, a report states, comes from existing customers. For your online store, too, you need to strategize well for customer retention.
Use email marketing
email marketing is a marketing tool that effectively works even though people would want you to believe otherwise. It is especially true with your existing customers. Through emails, you can keep your customers informed about the updates from your online store regularly.
Plus, sending special wishes on birthdays or anniversaries, sending invites to launches, sending emailers on special offers and discounts, etc., are different ways to keep your users engaged.
Delight Customers
Customers are always looking out for out-of-the-world shopping experiences, be it a brick-and-mortar store or online shop. That is why it is so crucial to keep strategizing to enhance ways to delight your customers.
Have unique packaging
one thing about the packaging is that you need to ensure that it meets the statutory compliances or the land laws. Besides this, you need to make sure that your customer is overjoyed with the packaging you offer. So, you need to be creative to impress the customer.
Also, it needs to be spic and span, nicely done, look chic and stylish, simplistic, and eco-friendly. Packaging also gives you a unique opportunity to create a connection with the customer.
A handwritten note or a gift voucher, an impressive carry bag, user manuals, tips on using products, booklets, a small accessory, a discount card, etc., are some popularly used ideas. The purpose is to grab your customer’s attention and give them a few good reasons to come back to you again.
Use Retargeting Ads
Retargeting is an ecommerce marketing strategy to reconnect with visitors who came to your store, adding items to the cart but did not complete the purchase process. It could also be visitors who reached your social media profile without interacting any further.
Retargeting ads offer the right opportunity to send reminders to such customers about products pending in the cart or sending an update on product lines that they looked for.
Use Giveaways
customers love giveaways – and you will too because it is an effective marketing strategy to promote your brand and push volume sales. It would help if you used the marketing tool smartly to reach maximum customers’ to derive value for money and enhance returns.
Give Coupons for Repeat buyers
This is again a very popularly used tool amongst online marketers because it helps gets you to repeat customers and pushes customer loyalty. The coupons’ most significant benefit is that customers can club discounts to buy target products at reduced prices and browse through other products.
They may be encouraged to make additional purchases in place of the money saved from the coupon. With word of publicity, there are always chances that your store gets new customers to enjoy such gifts.
Though in the short-term, it can mean fewer profits, in the long run, the marketing strategy drives sales volumes and helps you get new customers too.
Have a Loyalty Program
Even though loyalty programs are standard, these are a sure shot success. Your loyal customers love the idea of being rewarded for their loyalty. Customers earn points every time they shop online at your store and redeem the points at their will, as per the rules.
Even though the redemption is low in value, it creates a good impression on the customer’s minds. Therefore, such loyalty programs are a must-have for all online stores.
3. Build A huge email list
one great idea to succeed with Shopify is to make sure that you have a process to collect your customers’ and visitors’ email ids to the site. As the business grows, the list should also grow too.
Higher the number of customers on the list, the better the chances to reach a diversified market and customer base.
Build your list from the start
when it comes to creating a customer database or email id list, proactive working is necessary. It is not just about using a feedback form or a contact form to collect customer data, but you need to do things smartly to encourage them to provide their email ids. Towards this end, ensure that you work on the email id list as early as possible.
- Don’t just depend on the store to build a list of customer email ids.
- Have blog posts and use social media platforms to do so.
- Push subscriptions and tell them honestly what they can get in return.
- Ensure that you work hard on publishing premium quality, relevant, valuable, and authoritative content that adds value to their experiences.
- Ensure that your site is always search engine optimized because it helps the site rank high on search result pages and get you organic traffic.
- Strategize innovatively to get more subscribers besides ensuring that the content is always optimized and upgraded.
4. Have a Content marketing strategy in place
content is the bloodline of your online store. Even in a raw format, you need excellent and relevant content. It is essential because visitors to your site see the content to judge the site’s credibility or the store, deciding thereupon to continue at the site or leave it.
Some key features to take care of are
Product Images
images help attract the visitor and encourage them to browse further on the site. It would help if you strategized well to use high-resolution, good quality, fast loading images to impress your customer beyond any doubt.
Ensure that the photo gallery on the store is updated. For services or products, the best way to communicate with your customers is to use the best product images.
Product videos
videos enthrall customers far more effectively than any textual matter or even static images. These days, product videos can be improvised with the latest technology to offer real-life and 3D views of your product to your customers.
Product Descriptions
Accurate product descriptions help visitors to understand clearly the purpose and use. Remember to include the pros and benefits creatively to look the perfect fit for the customer’s needs.
Product Pages
Detailed descriptions should be backed by individual product pages. Make them as informative as possible, including technical specifications, features, FAQs, reviews, comparisons, and more.
Product Reviews and recommendations
Most customers today buy only after reading the reviews and recommendations from others. It works like word-of-mouth publicity.
5. Have a Storytelling Marketing Strategy in place
storytelling is one of the recent marketing tools that brands use to create emotional connections with their customers. It would help if you recounted the brand story to touch and impact the customer’s senses and consciousness impeccably. The better you are at storytelling, the higher the customer’s chances of interacting with your brand and indulging in a purchase action.
Use Images and Visuals whenever needed
visuals create a lasting impact on the visitor’s minds or the reader. People tend to remember details better when they see rather than read.
6. Create Interactive Contents
Interactions are crucial today, especially in the fast-evolving digital trends and technology. Interactive content helps engage customers and therefore is a significant factor in driving online marketing strategies.
Interactive content encourages your audiences to speak about their experiences, thereby creating an emotional connection with others. Interactivity also helps in the collection of data that can help you deliver enhanced customer shopping experiences.
Using Quizzes
Online quizzes are popular. It helps you know more about what a potential customer wants and offer them a relevant solution.
7. Use Paid Ads effectively
While SEO ensures that your store gets organic traffic, you need to invest in paid ads to reach targeted customers. Results are faster with paid ads, and by smart decision-making, one can make this a cost-effective marketing strategy. The results are measurable, too, helping you to tweak strategies relevantly.
Google Shopping Ads
These are the most effective considering that Google is such a popular search engine. Ads can be designed to share optimal information with customers using images and text. Many online stores are making good profits using Google shopping ads effectively.
Facebook Ads
Facebook is the largest social media platform today. Facebook Ads can target customers based on specific criteria, for example, geographic location, demographics, and more.
Instagram Ads
Instagram is another top social media platform today, with most millennials having Insta accounts. Instagram ads work wonderfully as targeted marketing.
8. Always be supportive
Customer support is more relevant today than it was ever before. Online shoppers want quick reverts and answers. Therefore, have a supportive network in place.
Using Chatbots
This is the latest technology that is becoming immensely popular as a front-line customer support tool
Using Help Articles
Helps Articles and FAQs are meant to offer customers guidance not to waste time getting through your customer support.
9. Keep security an important thing from the beginning
With rising online crime; security is of the highest relevance today. Your online store and site should be safeguarded from scams, spam, malware, hacks, virus, etc.
Especially in the payments part & customer details
Besides the mandatory compliances like PCI and others, it is essential to ensure that the payment gateway is secure. Customer details are not transferred to any unauthorized site or firm.
Two-level authentication, biometric scanning, password protection, authentication through mobile numbers, and email ids are enhanced security methods. There are many more technical tools that help make your site foolproof.
Conclusion
These are few Shopify success tips that are realistic and proven methods. These have worked for hundreds of online stores, and there is no reason why it should not work for you too. To know more about marketing tools and how to optimize, read the Selling on Shopify guide for more tips.
Guest Post Contribution from AdNabu
AdNabu helps improve sales in Google Ads for Shopify stores. If you are running google search, google shopping, or display campaigns in Google Ads, Their apps help to increase your sales.
