Currently accumulated with a user base of over 8,20,000 active shoppers, Shopify is an eCommerce platform that has a variety of businesses under its umbrella.
The platform is your best chance if you are looking forward to starting your own eCommerce journey. Things are really easy with Shopify!
Think you want to start your own venture? Need a head’s up? Relax, this piece has you covered. Let’s get started!
You don’t really need an introduction to Shopify. One of the best cloud-based SaaS solutions, this platform allows businesses with their ultimate chance to set up their digital store and expand their business. With an extensive set of tools to help you automate your business processes, Shopify serves you with a 360-degree solution to eCommerce.
Home to 5,00,000 active stores, Shopify connects you with the global platform. Let’s have a look at why you should be using Shopify over other eCommerce platforms.
Selecting your eCommerce platform is like selecting a partner for your business. You need to put in a lot of thought before you are finally selecting a platform.
But,
What if we told you that Shopify is your ideal platform to begin your eCommerce venture?
Yes, we are not kidding. Let’s back our statement with more proof!
Here’s a comparison of the leading eCommerce brands, to help you decide better.
| Shopify |
|
| WooCommerce |
|
| BigCommerce |
|
| Wix |
|
Looking at the comparison above, it’s clear that Shopify is the most versatile eCommerce platform to invest in and look your future into.
Now that we know and understand what makes Shopify a trusted eCommerce platform, let’s focus on the tips that’ll help you succeed in it.
It was only a few years ago that eCommerce was largely synonyms to desktop computers. Interestingly, the trends have witnessed a significant change with the rise of mobile users over the past few years. Currently, mobile users account for over 80% of the entire global internet traffic.
You might lose out on a great opportunity if you are not ready for the smaller screens. Therefore, while you are developing your eCommerce venture, ensure that your store is mobile responsive, from the initial stages itself.
Further, considering the stats in the display, not having a mobile application means that you are losing out on a great opportunity to improve your revenues and engagement. Today, an ideal user spends more time on their smartphones, than they do on a website. Beyond the ease of accessibility & engagement, generating revenues over mobile platforms is easier.
Advantages that mobile commerce puts in the table:
Once you optimize your shop for mobile commerce, you are ready to welcome new customers to your store.
It might come as a shocker but, your existing customers are responsible for delivering around 65% of sales to your business. These stats indicate that retaining your customers (while acquiring new ones) is way more cost-effective, than forming multiple campaigns to acquire new customers.
Understand it this way, which one’s easier? Enticing a new customer to suddenly trust a brand? Or, try pushing sales with people who already know and trust your business? Yes, retaining your customers has its own benefits.
Listed below are some of the most common channels that you can use to retain customers:
Use Email marketing
You don’t need reasons to drop emails to your customers. You can reach out to your customers, to keep them engaged. Further, with emails being one of the highest possible conversion rates, it’s more affordable and effective.
Thinking of possibilities to send your customers? Here’s when you can send them:
Delight customers
Sometimes little efforts like a hand-written letter or a special greeting card that is personalized for them.
Have unique packaging
Packaging is the future of eCommerce marketing. Today, brands are more focused on delivering value to a customer outside the box, as they are, on providing the content inside. Therefore, you should always try to keep up with unique packaging.
Use Retargeting Ads
Another sneaky but effective way of retaining your customers is to use retargeting ads in your platform. This way, you place a cookie over their browsing platform, allowing you to target them, based on the products they were looking at. These cookies later display them as ads over different Google Ads or Facebook platforms to remind them of their products and possibly entice them back.
Use Giveaways
Now, who doesn’t like to have free gifts? Yes, we’re talking of giveaways and how they do wonder in retaining customers. They also act as a reliable tool to help you build loyalty & retention for longer periods.
Give Coupons for Repeat buyers
One of the best ways to retain your customers for lifetime order values is to ensure that they shop back with you, almost repeatedly.
It’s really simple when you use gift coupons for your buyers. You can try upselling your products via enticing them with some discount (say 10- 15%) on the order they place next.
Have a Loyalty Program
Consider setting up a loyalty program to make your buyers feel like a part of the brand. This is one sure way of retaining your customers in the long run.
One of the best possible ways to flourish your business is to start building your very own emailing list from the initial stages of your Shopify journey. This way, your brand is not reliable for different lead-capturing tools like Facebook, or Google. Further, developing your own email list provides you with a lifetime of chances to reach out to your customers.
While setting up a vast email list might take some time for you, once set, you can easily incorporate different elements of email marketing via different funnels. With such funnels helping you acquire email addresses, besides managing quality marketing, you can also take control over the customer-retailer relationship.
Tip: The competition over emails is huge and the chances of slipping to the spam box are equally possible. We suggest you use creative ways to reach out to your customers and curate content that has better chances of being viewed.
Today, you can easily engage your viewers over content of every sort. Further, with the availability of several tools in action, creating & marketing content has been easier than ever. Content Marketing is the key to the engagement of your desired audience organically. It doesn’t simply promote a brand but focuses on developing interest across an array of products or services.
You might have heard the term ‘Content is king’, but when you are running an eCommerce venture, there are several areas where you need to focus, They are:
Product Images
Similar to how product descriptions work, product images are the core part of your content. These images serve as a central component for the marketing of a product. One of the first things that your viewers notice, you need to ensure that your product images are unique and of high-quality.
Product videos
Similar to images, product videos help you educate the viewers about your product. Think it this way, is it possible for you to educate individual customers about your products? Yes, that is where product videos come in handy as they allow visitors to make better purchase decisions.
Product Descriptions
So you think that a simple photo or video of your product helps you achieve sales? Think again! Your visitors need to read & understand the features of a product, besides some added information on the product. Interestingly, you can also incorporate keywords in your product description for organic SEO.
Product Pages
Your product pages are like the hotspot for your content marketing. Besides being a one-off spot for incorporating elements of moment marketing, these pages also provide you with an opportunity for sales.
Product Reviews & Recommendations
Product reviews & recommendations allow you to build a level of trust for your first-time visitors to the website. The more your visitors are able to relate to your customers who have an experience with the product, the better your chances of a sale.
Tip:
Use the most visible spot on your website to highlight reviews & recommendations!
Do you think that placing blank content & some visuals will help you sell a product? If yes, it’s time that you think again!
Your content strategy should not be a plain and simple upload of content in different forms. Try developing hype around your audience, and keep them engaged. When you incorporate the art of storytelling in your content strategy, you are at a better chance of creating a level of familiarity.
Try uploading images and visuals whenever needed. The better you are able to place images amidst your content, the better you are able to keep your viewers engaged with the message that you are trying to throw.
Some simple tweaks around your Shopify store, provide your business with a chance to stand out from the crowd. Now, when you stand out from the crowd, you have better chances of improving your sales & revenue. Let’s have a look into certain elements of your Shopify store that you can optimize.
Optimize URL structure.
To optimize your URL structure, ensure that you have removed all the duplicate URLs that were existing in the internal linking architecture. This way, your URL becomes unique and easy to index.
Optimize your Metadata.
Optimizing your metadata allows you to incorporate keywords that will help crawlers find you in a better way.
Optimize your headings
When you align with the search engine’s settings, you can easily optimize the headings of your store.
Optimize your body text with Primary & secondary keywords
Filling in primary & secondary keywords in your body text improves your chances of organic SEO. The better you can optimize your body text, the better you can index your store.
Optimize your image alt tags.
Why only optimize your titles & content when you can optimize your images too? You can easily add alternate tags to improve their relevance.
Let’s accept it, paid ads are the future of advertising. With chances of ranking over the top of SERP, inorganic or paid ads are your sure shot to improved sales & revenue.
Providing businesses with such exposure & flexibility of managing multiple campaigns with effective returns, paid ads to count for one of the best Shopify success tips. Now, this doesn’t really mean that you won’t need SEO for organic reach, they are equally necessary.
Considering the multiple options available to run your paid ads, chances are that you might end up wasting your budget behind ads that won’t bring you results. To help you guide better, we have listed the most reliable paid ads platform.
Google Shopping Ads:
Google Shopping Ads are an absolute necessity for every eCommerce venture today. Providing exposure to millions of brands every day, this platform incorporates different elements of content, image & product descriptions to help you achieve better sales.
However, don’t confuse Shopping Ads with the normal advertisements that you see on search engines. Both are very different.
Facebook Ads:
For brands that want an equal selection of both photos & videos to market their products, they should be using Facebook Ads for their business. This ad platform places your ads around the feeds of all targeted users of the platform, allowing improved visibility & chances of a sale.
Their ability to promote campaigns at almost every stage is what makes Facebook Ads stand out.
Instagram Ads:
Given their UI of dealing with images at large, Instagram Ads are a perfect spot for brands that deal with tons of products (generally around fashion, lifestyle, or others).
Instagram ads incorporate the elements of moment marketing with your product images, converting your potential buyers, directly to the store.
One of the greatest perks of operating an eCommerce store is that you get to sell your products 24*7. While it certainly improves your chances of sales, operating 24*7 also increases your responsibility as a vendor.
You never know when your customers might need help from you or ask you a query around a certain product. Being supportive is one of the best ways in which you can manage the customers visiting your store.
No, we don’t mean that you need to stay online over the chatbox all day & night, we are asking you to automate your website’s support system via different means. Here’s how you can use different chat support systems.
Using Chatbots
Chatbots have been the trend of customer support for over a few years now. Considering the ways in which chatbots save time over hiring a manual bandwidth, they are the most effective tools that you can use to manage the queries of your customers. These automated bots help your customers over an array of problems, in real-time.
Interestingly, in certain cases, these bots also help you with sales at times.
Using Help Articles
Help articles are a guide for your visitors. They help visitors to manage their own problems over a short read. These pieces include relevant information around specific problems.
However, there are a few tips that we think will come in handy when you are about to write helpful articles.
The year is 2021 and threats over websites have been one of the most alarming concerns on cybersecurity. Having an unsecured site is one of the biggest turnbacks for your visitors.
When you search Google for Shopify success tips, platform security is the most highlighted issue. When you run an eCommerce business, make sure that you maintain standard security, especially around the payments part & customer details.
You could also try adding certain security badges on your payment gateway, to improve the chances of safety & security of your visitors and also win their trust.
Test the above Ideas on your Shopify store and grow your business. Also include some relevant resources for users to check out.
Creating an approved Google Shopping Feed & running profitable Google Ads is a multi-step process. AdNabu’s app helps you to easily create a Google Shopping feed & run profitable Google shopping Ads. All changes from your Shopify store are fetched and updated automatically in the feed.
