Summary
Now that you have started your very own Shopify store, the next step that you need to go through is to try to direct as much traffic to your shop as possible. One important thing to remember is that achieving that high traffic does not mean getting more sales. Not all of the prospective customers that will find their way to your website will actually make that purchase. Some may just have been enticed by your ads and wanted to check out your shop.
Others may have also abandoned their order and did not proceed to the checkout process. There are several factors that can come into play in this aspect and as a business owner; you need to be able to figure out the exact reason why your shop is low on conversion and find some solutions to it so all traffic turns into a successful sale and therefore, an additional profit for your shop. Bringing up your sales is the goal and increasing conversion rate is just one of the solutions.
In this article, we are going to explore the top 6 strategies in pushing your sales higher and explain how each one works but before that, let’s talk about the reasons why Shopify should be your choice.
Why Shopify? Why Not?
You still might have traces of doubt at the back of your mind about your decision of picking Shopify to be your online shop’s e-commerce platform even at this stage. That is normal and no one will criticize you for that except Shopify’s top competitors of course but on a serious note, Shopify isn’t topping the list of the best e-commerce platforms out there for no reason at all. It’s on the top because it deserves that spot and here are some of the reasons for that:
- Shopify is simple yet efficient
- It offers plenty of apps that can expand features and shop capabilities
- It is well-recognized by search engines
- It offers a host of different themes and customizations
- It is easy to find guides, tutorials, and tips that can assist in solving certain issues
- There are plenty of developers to contact in case you need advanced customizations
- It offers free tutorials and lessons for marketing and promotion
- It offers automated marketing, Shopify POS and more
- They have efficient customer and technical support
- They’ve got a very helpful community of users and experts
The list can go on and on but we’ll leave you with a relatively short one so we can discuss on the real meat of this article. The bottomline is, Shopify won’t become the choice of over 2 million merchants from 175 countries for no reason at all. It simply is the most efficient e-commerce platform out there that is capable of addressing every need that a merchant might have. But let’s get back to the real topic, what are the steps that you can do in order to ensure you’re getting more sales and maximizing your shop’s earning potential? Let’s talk about that in the next section.
Increasing Sales on Shopify
So what are the things that you need to set up in order to increase sales in your Shopify Store or more importantly, which built-in features or third-party apps will you need to learn to use in order to drive more customers to your shop or make those who abandoned their orders to continue with it and do the checkout process. We’re going to learn the answers to these questions as we move along so just read on towards the end.
1. Use Discount Codes and Vouchers
Customers want to at least be able to save when making a purchase from your shop and one way that you can give them what they are looking for is by offering discount codes and vouchers. The beauty of this strategy is that you can offer it during specific occasions or when a particular customer reaches a set number of orders. There are apps that can help make the creation of discount codes and vouchers a lot easier but it is also possible to create discount codes from Shopify itself without using any third-party apps. Offering such price offs will entice customers to make more and more purchases and thereby increase sales.
Vouchers also work great especially when you want to offer customers a way to purchase on specific occasions like father’s day, mother’s day, Christmas, New Year, Easter, and many other day and date specific celebrations. So if it is enticing a customer to do a purchase on such occasions, giving them vouchers is a great tool to use.
2. Create a Facebook Page and Integrate Shopify to It
Another great method for ensuring higher sales is by opening a Facebook page, gathering as many followers as possible then integrating your Shopify store to it using API. Yes! This is actually possible and your Facebook Page can easily get that “Shop” tab so customers can place orders and do purchases form your FB page without having the need of being redirected to your website.
Ensuring a smooth process in this aspect will surely bring an increase in your overall sales but you need to make sure that you’ve got enough FB page followers. So the first thing that you’ll need to do is to first build-up your FB page then work on the Shopify integration to it at a later time when everything is already set.
With the use of API, the payments that you’ll be accepting from your FB page store will automatically sync with the payments account that you have in Shopify. This makes the managing of finances a lot like a breeze. You can explore this method by going to the the Settings -> Sales Channels -> Add Sales Channel -> Facebook section then follow the steps that will appear. If you need a more detailed guide, you can check out this tutorial.
3. Expand Your Inventory and Reduce Storage Cost with Dropshipping
You might not know it yet but most of the top Shopify stores out there don’t actually hold the inventory of their most popular products. Yes! They don’t have any physical warehouse where inventory for their products should be kept but instead, they let their suppliers keep and inventory for them. This business model is called dropshipping and it has worked miracles for several Shopify businesses over the years.
With Shopify dropshipping, you can reduce the overall operational and maintenance cost of your shop since the storage of stocks and even the shipping and processing of the products to your customers will already be handled by the supplier that you chose to partner with. With dropshipping, you will be able to sell more trending products with very minimal storage and handling costs and that means more sales but less expenses. That is the great thing about dropshipping and you definitely should look into this business model if you really want to make the most of your Shopify store.
4. Start Selling Gift Cards
The main business that you’re going to do with your Shopify Store is selling. And it’s not just products that you can sell using the platform because you can also peddle gift cards in it! This strategy will work especially on big worldwide celebrations like Christmas for instance. This time of the year always sees a rise in purchases because of the need for presents to give to loved ones and since giving material gifts is no longer that popular, some resort to giving gift cards instead.
So that’s exactly what you can do for your shop. Selling gift cards not only brings in money but also ensures continued purchases from your shop especially when those gift cards start being spent to purchase particular products form your shop. This is a clever way of increasing sales and a perfect example of hitting two birds with a single stone.
5. Monitor Your Best Buyers By Allowing Profile Creation
This strategy is effective especially when you are going towards the customer retention stage while still needing to increase sales. Encouraging customers to create an account before doing a purchase will open the door to easier monitoring and identification of the most loyal customers that your shop has. Once you know who those customers are, you can then offer ambassadorship or turn them into your business partners by enticing them to join your affiliate program.
Loyal customers are a great source of authentic endorsement which is a great tool for marketing and promotion. Your best customers can therefore become effective agents of spreading the word about your business or product which is something that you can capitalize on as part of your effort to drive sales to the next level.
6. Recover Abandoned Checkouts
Studies have shown that on average, a Shopify store will experience at least 70% of abandoned checkouts. That is a big chunk of the number of customers which if recovered can actually translate to an amount that is greater than what your shop actually earned. That is why Shopify offers a way for merchants to follow up on customers who didn’t make it to the checkout process and decided to leave their order behind and you can find these abandoned orders under the Orders -> Abandoned Checkouts menu in your store’s backend.
Once you find the list of customers who didn’t continue with their purchase, you can send them an email and even include a discount or voucher code with it so they can be convinced to make that purchase. Now that’s going to add at least 40% to the total sales of your shop assuming you will not be able to convince all 70% of the customers who deserted their order. That is already a big help and definitely an encouraging figure so start checking your abandoned checkouts section and see how many customers are already listed in it.
Conclusion
Increasing sales should be one of the top priorities that you need to focus on as you seek growth and further development of your Shopify online store and we’ve given you the top 6 methods that you can try. But everything doesn’t end there because once you start getting more sales, you also need to ensure that you’re thinking way ahead and see any other opportunities and directions that you can take your product or brand toward.
In time, customers will look for something that’s new and as a business owner, you need to think ahead of them and see which products you can add soon in order to expand your product line and ensure that your customers stay loyal with your brand.
It isn’t an easy undertaking but what’s great about it is it’s also not impossible. You just need to think in advance, be proactive, and be sensitive to any changes that can negatively affect your business and readily think for possible solutions. Be creative and innovative and you’ll surely take your business to the pinnacle of success. It won’t take long you’ll see, you just need to give it enough time and dedication!
Start your affiliate program today
Grow your Shopify store without an upfront cost.