How to Grow your Shopify Store
The world has reached a stage where convenience plays a big role in people’s buying decisions. The growth of online shopping has particularly underscored this phenomenon; the growing value of eCommerce platforms like Amazon and Shopify point to this. The latter alone is predicted to add just over USD 2 billion to its books. Shopify in particular provides various types of businesses with a way into the industry. From small one-person businesses to established brand retailers, the platform enables easy onboarding.
5 ways to boost the growth of your Shopify store When starting a Shopify store, it’s almost a given that there are multitudes of other business owners who are offering the same product as you. Alternatively, they might be offering an improved version of the same product. With so many online businesses jostling for traction in the same marketplace, it becomes imperative that your Shopify store can cut through all the noise so that your target market can easily identify.
Diversify your offerings When you concentrate on selling one product, you’re excluding a significant portion of the market. To make your store bring in more dollars, you need to expand the range of products on offer. This doesn’t mean that you overextend yourself. If you’re selling living room lamps. However, if you’re dealing in living room lamps, it wouldn’t be far off to also offer centerpieces. When interested parties browse the items in your store, they view it as a hub for interior design tidbits. As you gain traction, you can add other items in the niche of interior design furnishings. You could, for example, add mirror frames, couch cushion covers and bean bags.
Adopt a dropshipping business model
If you’re starting an online retail business, you are likely to have a limited amount of capital. This means that you need to critically consider how you’ll spend your money to set up your Shopify store. One of the common mistakes fledgling online business owners make is to buy stock and spend additional funds on storage facilities. This leaves them with limited capital to channel into other aspects of the business like marketing.
Enter dropshipping With this business model, you don’t have any stock at hand. Instead, when clients add items to their carts and pay for them, you use a third party to manufacture and ship the item to the customer. This means that you don’t have any capital tied up in unsold stock. You can then direct these funds to other facets of your business growth strategy. Furthermore, dropshipping also frees up time and effort that you can reassign.
Optimize your Shopify store for mobile devices In just the final 3 months of 2019, more than half of the global online purchases were initiated and completed on mobile devices. This means that you need to make your Shopify store as user-friendly as possible to appeal to your target market that uses their handheld devices online shopping. Shopify has already done half the work for you. They provide a mobile app from which you can conduct business. The app provides all the features that you need to keep tabs on your store’s performance. Now you need to do something similar for your customers. Ensure that your customers also have a great shopping experience when accessing your online store on the go.
You can do this by: Ensuring that your online store has an intuitive interface so that customers can easily get what they want without any hassle. Cut down on the amount of text. Opt for more high-quality images. Use actual photos of your products. This ensures that potential customers don’t have to quit the app and look up the item. They might not return. The most important call-to-action – “Add to cart” – should be visible at all times on the page to ensure that your customers easily buy products they’re interested in. With an optimized mobile presence, your brand stands a good chance of gaining traction in the marketplace.
Work on retaining your existing clientele It’s easier to convince customers who have already bought from you to return than it is to draw in new clients. As much as you want to expand your base, you also need to put a significant amount of effort into keeping your current customers. There are various ways you can make your Shopify store more appealing to your regulars. We’ve already mentioned one way that can do this; expanding your product lineup. If people have already something from you, they are more likely to buy a related or complementary product when you add it to your range of products. As the number of options increases, your customers will keep coming back because they already have a prior relationship with your brand. Make your regulars loyal to your store by keeping in constant regular contact with them. Send personalized marketing messages informing them of new products you have coming up.
Refine your content marketing strategy
Getting your brand name out there is one way to increase your Shopify store’s chances of achieving success. Your brand needs to put out content that draws attention and also provides quality to the masses. Although you want more sales on your Shopify store, the main purpose of content is to spread your brand name. With quality compelling content, your brand will be associated with the niche you operate in and might even become the goto for anything concerning your field of interest. Therefore, put out content that covers more than touting the products you sell. The content should appeal to potential customers by providing more information that they can use throughout the buying journey. Ideal content comprises blog posts, ebooks, guides and videos. When crafting your content, it’s prudent to employ a storytelling aspect so that your potential market can relate to it on a more personal level. Fresh content also goes a long way in building the reputation of your brand. Create and post new content every week to ensure a continued presence in the marketplace. Additionally, regular quality content improves your standing on the search engine result pages. So, when potential customers search for something in your niche, they are more likely to land on your website and funneled through to your Shopify store. Include outbound links to your store in your content. This increases the traffic to the store and increases the chances of converting. Additionally, market your content by tapping into the power of social media. These platforms connect different people across the globe, providing you with an opportunity to present your wares to a wide audience. Furthermore, they’re perfect for leveraging the growth of mobile.
In a nutshell Entry into online business on the Shopify platform is possible for a large majority of the population. Therefore, you might find yourself elbowing your way through a thick crowd of online stores that conduct business in the same niche as you. You should, therefore, find ways to distinguish your brand from all the others that are hoping to take a slice of the market share. We have shared a handful of ways to make your online business stand head and shoulders above the competition.