So, you’re the proud owner of a Shopify store. That’s great - but it's just the beginning of your business journey. The hard part is what comes next; generating sales.
The task of growing a customer base can sound unfamiliar and scary, but it doesn't have to be!
E-commerce marketing is a rapidly growing industry. In 2021 online retail accounted for 4.9 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide , so, to succeed as an online business, you need to stand out.
Here's a few tips to consider if you want to stand apart from the rest and skyrocket those sales:
Turning your traffic into sales
Yes, getting traffic, wether it's organic or paid, to your website is important - but you don't want to waste resources attracting the wrong type of traffic.
The first objective for most Shopify store owners is to get as much traffic as possible. But, you have to remember; if your product isn’t right for them, they won’t buy it- not because your store is bad but because your products aren’t for them.
Here are some strategies that will turn traffic into those all important sales:
1. Make your customers trust your business
Nowadays, most online shopper's are rightfully, very cautious of scams - and will usually avoid any shop that looks bit dodgy. So, you need to give your customers a reason to trust your business. You can do this by adding reviews or high quality pictures and videos of products. It’s your job to provide that reassurance.
2. Make the shopping experience nice and easy
We live in a world where most people don’t like to spend long looking for things, especially online. You want your Shopify store to be as simple to navigate as possible so users don't get fed up and leave your website.
3. Use high quality photos and videos
This might seem obvious, but shoppers don't want to buy products they can't see properly. Photographing your products in good lighting, with nice backgrounds will seem so much more professional.
The products you’re selling are what it’s all about. You want to showcase them, highlight what’s so great about them. High quality pictures - or even videos - of what you sell will really make people want to come back for more.
4. Choose a good website design
You want a design that fits well with your business. You're not going to use a dull, muted colour scheme if you're selling kids toys, for example.
5. Make your page mobile friendly
So many people use their mobile phone, sometimes exclusively, to shop online. If your Shopify store isn’t mobile friendly you might be missing out on an entire demographic of people.
Even though we spend a lot of time on our phones, mobile E-commerce is actually a-lot less competitive than competing for desktop traffic.
6. Make sure your website attracts the right people
Yes, any traffic is good traffic but if your store isn’t attracting the right customers, this traffic won’t turn into sales.
Using a paid advertising campaign means you can target your ideal customers. This could be through search ads, to get you to the top of the search results. Or it could be paid advertising on social media through Instagram, Facebook, or even TikTok.
Customer Retention
Once you start to get customers, keeping these customers is an important factor to consider when looking to increase your sales. On average, 65% of sales come from previous customers.
Selling to previous customers can also save you money by reducing your customer acquisition cost. Your customer acquisition cost can cost you 5 to 10 times more when trying to sell to new customers rather than existing ones.
Increasing your Shopify customer retention rate by just 5% can increase your profits by 25%- 95%. So, it’s important to keep your customers coming back for more!
How do you keep your customers coming back?
Here's a few tips on how to keep your customers:
1. Use Shopify analytics to grow an understanding of your customers
To keep customers, you need to know your customers, and by checking your numbers you can grow a greater understanding.
If you have a basic Shopify membership there are a-lot of apps you can use to track these analytics.
If you have a Shopify membership that's more than a basic one you can track your sales by customer name. By checking your analytics regularly you can get a better idea of which customers are buying from you more than once, and what they are buying.
2. Offer discounts and deals to customers
Customer loyalty programmes and offers are some of the easiest ways to keep existing customers. From discount codes to online stamp cards, there are so many ways to make your Shopify store rewarding for you and the customer.
You can easily create discount codes for your Shopify store. Either by sending them out in your marketing emails or as pop ups on your website.
Online loyalty and reward cards are another fun way of making sure customers want to shop with you again. In fact, there is no better way to convince shoppers to return to your website than a loyalty program.
Studies show that 83% of loyalty program members say that a rewards programs make them continue to buy from businesses.
This is where apps like ShopHub comes in. ShopHub's engaging stamp based design that has helped Shopify stores like katepercys keep customers coming back for more.
3. Take advantage of social media:
Using social media to keep existing customers up to date with your Shopify store can be very useful in retaining their business.
You can use your platform to announce giveaways, sales, new releases and deals.
By integrating links from your website into your social media you can make it easy for customers to re-visit your store while they’re scrolling through Instagram or Facebook!
In fact, 57% of people said they like seeing polls and engaging quizzes from brands on Instagram. Something to keep in mind!
4. Personalise the shopping experience
Personalisation has become a priority for businesses as it's increasingly expected by consumers. In fact 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognise, remember and provide relevant offers and deals.
While other studies have found that 71% of customers get frustrated when the shopping is impersonal.
One way to make the shopping experience as personal as possible is through possible recommendations. If you can keep track of what items your customers have viewed, or what they've had in their basket, you can recommend them similar products!
... but it's your business!
These tips and tricks are just and advice to help you excel in the world of Shopify. At the end of the day, it's your business and you know what's best for it.
Do what works best for you!
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