Tips: Increase your sales and business growth with Shopify

How to succeed with Shopify? Are there any sure-fire Shopify tips to follow?

The most common problem for vendors who are new to Shopify is getting it to work for their business. That's why Shopify forums exist, full with questions and tips Shopify best practices for new stores.

Many entrepreneurs launch their shop, add products, post their shop to Twitter and set up a Facebook page. And then they wait for something to happen. This is a little like setting up a shop on the street, posting an advert in a few papers, and then waiting for people to come in the door. We all know that this is the best way to head straight to an “out of business” sign. You need to be proactive, and consider how you can best present and market your Shopify store. It requires a little time, effort and strategy. With the help of some useful tips, today’s post should help you on the way to making Shopify work for you.

Tips in this guide:

• Get your shop design right
• Give your customers a reason to buy
• Market your product directly to the right customer
• Match your product ads to the right customer
• Run Google Ad Campaigns
• Track what works and what doesn’t, and the revolution that is Push Notifications
• Newsletters, newsletters, newsletters
• Make sure delivery is fast and secure, and make your customer terms clearly visible

These Shopify guides might also be helpful:

• Strategies to Drive Traffic to a Shopify Store
• 15 Proven Ways to Promote New Shopify Stores
• How to Find Products to Sell on Shopify: 7 Best Places

Get your shop design right

When it comes to Shopify best practices, first impressions count. Even Online. Make sure your shop design is clear and user friendly. It’s not enough that it looks good, it should also be easy to navigate and use. It’s also important that your product images are large and clearly described. Don’t waste space advertising product lines that are slow sellers on your home page; focus on your top sellers as that is what will get the shoppers onto your site. Keep widgets to a minimum, they may give your store a little bit of an interactive edge, but they will slow page loading time, a real killer when it comes to keeping customers on your site.

You can always find great templates at the Shopify app store or ask for a custom solution Shopify Design Experts.

Give your customers a reason to buy

Encourage the all important impulse buys by introducing countdown timers to special offers. Add clear delivery info to each item, and experiment with free delivery on top items or multiple flash sales. Offer 30 day sale or return to inspire customer confidence or offer guarantees across selected items. You can also provide links to your website, especially when it comes to store policy to gain that extra level of customer trust. In short, don’t be scared to try out new things to entice customer engagement with your store.

Great apps to do that:

• Product Discount
• Countdown Timer Bar

Market your product directly to the right customer

You don’t need a massive marketing spend. Start small through Google Adwords and Facebook ads. Just make sure that you are careful and exact with the keywords you select. If you sell swimwear it’s not going to be any good using the term “sporting goods”, you’ll be throwing your money away on a lot of wasted traffic. And make sure that your ads are targeted at the markets you serve, it’s no use advertising in Australia if your market is in France! If you want to extend the markets you serve, increase revenue and attract new customers, consider listing all of your Shopify products to new marketplaces.

Match your product ads to the right customer

Make sure your Shopify store is ad-ready and tailor your product ads to the people that you know buy the product. Consider age, gender, location, interest and, of course, keywords when you come up with your ads. Put that customer knowledge you have to work to increase sale potential! Remember that there will be a ceiling to the options that are available for you as regards the adwords you can use, so always use Adwords Keyword planner to make the most of what is available to use. By making sure that your keywords reflect more closely what you have to offer you will always be that much closer to a sale.

Run Google Ads

It’s a pretty straight game. CTR for Google ads search is commonly 3-5%, while image ads generate a CTR of 0.1% to 0.5% depending on ad. This means that Google ads search is by far the better tool, but bear in mind what we mentioned above, make sure you make your Adwords count, as choosing too generic words will only lead to marketing budget burn. 

Remember though that your focus should not simply be on achieving more clicks but on conversion rates, so your ads should not only be attractive but also value-driven they should appeal to your kind of customer, not just to people in general.

Try Push Notifications

There is also a very nifty new marketing channel that is really coming into its own at the moment.

Push notifications allow you to send messages directly through your customer’s browser if they have subscribed to receive your messages. This means you can alert them of your products wherever they are on the web at any time of the day. The potential for this new channel is huge and there are a number of apps on the market that will allow you to send pushes through your Shopify store. Firepush, for example, provides a simple one click install that will give you the functionality to provide pushes on delivery times, special offers and abandoned cart alerts. 

Push notification apps for Shopify:

• Firepush
• Pushwoosh
• Aimtell 

Newsletters, newsletters, newsletters

Common wisdom has it that it’s 80% cheaper to retarget your existing customers, that’s why they should be the focus of a lot of your sales push. They are also far more likely to buy from you too as you are not an “unknown entity”. A newsletter is a great way of keeping your customers up to date with your products and what’s new on the market. You can also create real added value through adding that extra touch by incorporating some content and copy that matches their general interests.

Make sure delivery is fast and secure

Ecommerce shipping is an area where you can create real value. Keep an eye on your competition and always be on the lookout for logistics suppliers that can give you the best deal. If you can offer free shipping, do it, as this really drives sales and customer engagement. And be extra careful that you always include Delivery, Returns, Guarantee, Privacy Policy, and Terms and Conditions on your page as without these, you will appear untrustworthy.

That is just some handy hints to get you thinking about how Shopify could work for you.

Hayley Hemmings

Hayley Hemmings is a wordsmith, award-winning blogger and marketer, from the UK. She helps businesses all over the world with their marketing goals and content requirements. A country girl at heart, Hayley likes the quiet life and can usually be found out walking through muddy fields with her Border Collie, reading the latest page turner or doing arts and crafts.