How To Build A Successful Shopify Store

Posted by admin Oct 29, 2020

Thinking of expanding your business? So, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

Creating an eCommerce website?

Yes, to make your business visible to most, you need to have an online store!!

Indeed, it is also an easy task, developing an eCommerce website demands a lot of stuff to manage. Above all, you need to be careful also as every element you include is not profit-generated. Assuredly, thinking, creating, and managing an online store is not an easy task!

Moving further, for building an online store, you need an outstanding platform. Of course, there are many platforms out there. But, the one that never fails to impress its customers is Shopify.

Unbelievingly, 

• $319 billion is Shopify’s contribution to global economic activity.
• Almost one million businesses are using it. 
• 47% is an increase in Shopify’s total revenue. 
• 87% of retailers use the Shopify applications for eCommerce business.

From the above statistics, it is clear that creating an online store on Shopify is worth it. Know more about Shopify below:

All About Shopify

Shopify is a complete eCommerce platform that helps build an online store and sell products across multiple channels. Building a Shopify store can be as easy as registering an account and modifying an existing template.

Essentially, Shopify considers itself a website builder. This binding tool, which Shopify focuses on, offers a Graphical User Interface (GUI) based way of building a site. You do not require technical knowledge.

Websites created with Shopify’s website builder are also hosted on their web servers. Shopify has additional apps to help eCommerce sites run. It gives them the additional functionality they might need, such as payment processing, inventory management, shopping cart functions, shipping processing, and more.

Why Choose Shopify Above the Other eCommerce Platform?

Indeed, Shopify is a great option for major businesses (of all sizes).  Below we are discussing the reasons to blow your mind and insist you choose Shopify.

• Huge Admin Dashboard

From the backend, you can monitor the store’s performance and amend your marketing tactics accordingly. It allows you to find the high-quality, best-performed products, number of orders, know the visitors in real-time to know the funnel stage they are in.  From this deep information, you can easily scale your business.

• Easily Accessibility

It is the most influential reason for loving Shopify. The average user that does not have any developing ability can simply access it. You can include the products, create discounts, and process orders; hence, you do not need extra employees to carry out this hard work. It has the drag-and-drop editing tool, from which the eCommerce website can be designed to its best.

• Less Start-up Cost

For using Shopify, you do not need to spare much. With merely $29 per month, you can start your journey with Shopify. Even though, with the mid-level plan of $79 per month, you can enjoy the best features or functionalities.

• Several Themes and Apps

It includes apps for everything, like, product sourcing, image background removers, countdown timer, and many more. Shopify’s free app can do wonders and allows customers to access the online store irrespective of the place and time. This outstanding platform also has many responsive and dynamic themes that you can choose to make it appealing to visitors.

• Best for Dropshipping

While using Shopify, you also like to access Dropshipping. It is nothing but the platform that includes the Sprocket and the Oberlo. It makes the process of handling dropshipping an easier task.

• Several Support Options

With Shopify, the customers can get support 24X7 via email, chat, or phone. Its community form is user-friendly, and also its self-help option is available to make the overall process more convenient. Choosing the retailers from the globe that provide support even after the regular business hour is a win-win.

Create Your Shopify Online Store With Below Steps

So, if you are convinced that you must start the online store with Shopify, here comes the time to know how? That is to find out the different steps to create an outstanding eCommerce website to improve brand visibility. In this section of this article, we are presenting to you the same. Read-on:

Know Your Business Idea

First and foremost, you must know the business idea. And, this is possible when you will research properly and check out which things have worked with other businesses. It does not matter if you want a low investment hustle and has a profitable idea; the best strategy is to get the product to sell are:

• Related To Personal Interests

What are your hobbies in the extra time? Are these related to the linking that you can sell?  What solutions do you have if you and your customer are frustrated?  These are some of the questions that you need to keep in mind while accessing personal interests.

• Go With the Trends

If there are some products or services that can give profitable results or are liked by many, include that. Or, if you have innovative strategies then, implement them in your online store.

• Analyze the Existing Products

Need to check out the product reviews and find out how many customers are satisfied and dissatisfied with your services and products. Know how you can fill that gap and satisfy the customers.

Do not forget that you need just an idea to start. Several thriving Shopify stores are there that have started with one product and expanded with many. With their ideas, you can initiate testing even if the customers prefer to pay you or not.

Several ways are there to execute this, like, building an online store to have preordered, building a beta version to trade or launch the crowdfunding campaign, etc. If you have some doubts, you can sell immediately to acquire customer feedback and find out how the products can be improved.

Choose a Business Name

After having a product idea, choose the business name that reflects your brand as well. According to the geographical location, you will be navigated directly to the edition of Shopify.com. From here, you can check the option to start the free trial.

Select the icon from the top-right corner of the webpage. Then, you will be redirected to the page where you have to fill in the general details to create the store name. 

It has to be interesting, short, and not be used in a similar industry.  Do not consider it an easy task as it requires imagination and effort. You can also take assistance from the free business name generators. The business names must have the below characteristics:

• Fresh

While finalizing the business name, you not only need to neglect the same name, but also need to check that your competitors are not using it.  For that, you can research the countries your business is in and check out Google and different social media websites. A similar thing is implemented for URLs, choose a domain name, and prefer searching before registering.

• Precise and Simple

If you want the potential customers to recognize the name easily, you must choose the short names. Avoid more than two words. In any case, it is essential to  make a memorable phase.

• Industry oriented

If the industry has the same tone in the business name, go with the same tone. It is to say if there is a possibility to hold a name that makes you stand out among others, then, without thinking much, choose that.

Despite the above mentioned, you have to give personal contact details.  Shopify will ask you to provide information related to the business. Fill the fields asking about revenue,  mention the goals from the Shopify store, billing details, etc. After filling in these details, you will be redirected to the Shopify Admin page

Set Up the Shopify Online Store

Once you have signed up, you will be redirected to the Admin screen. From here, you can customize the store, upload the products, and set up the shipping and products.  With the Shopify theme store, you can enjoy the best theme and template according to the business objective.

The available themes also ensure that you have a responsive design on every device and full support from the designers. From here, extensive amendments can be made to the chosen theme; the best part is that you do not need to be proficient in coding. The premium themes cost you in the range of $140 to $180 with which the modifications can be carried out at a comprehensive level. 

The themes can be filtered by features, costs, and the type of industry you are in.  There are many filter options for price, popularity, etc.  After getting the one you like, check out the demo to get more information and go through the reviews to know other viewpoints regarding the theme.  If the themes have several styles, you can choose several styles for the store.

After securing your choice on the theme, click on the purchase button. Shopify will ask you if you are assured about installing the theme, you can confirm by clicking on the “Publish my Store’s theme”.  In case your mind changes to adopt the different one, you can change it later as well.

Go to Theme Manager after installing the theme.  From here, you can check the published and unpublished themes. Then, your store is nicely set up.

Plan Workload and Solutions

At this stage, you have to analyze how much work you have to do and what essential skills are needed. With this idea, you can understand the timeline and the investment the online store needs.

If you are operating the business, you will always have a shortage of time; so, you have to hire help. Consider the time and cost involved in hiring the right employee or the freelancer. Below are some basic skills that must consider:

• Design

You have to make some design decisions for the business, from creating an appealing logo to some particular colors. If there is a need for some theme customizations then the website design would require that as well.

• Photography

Of course, you require photos of the products. These photos aim to show the working process, and the source of materials is also a helping hand.

• Marketing

Marketing needs some special skills-it is the main part of your business. Start by checking what marketing efforts offer you the business benefits. Carry out some research to know the general promotional tricks used by other businesses and understand if you have some abilities to execute them.

• Shipping

The shipping strategy is required to include the key details, such as packaging solutions, shipping price, and the locations you have to ship to. The skills of selling locally, nationally, or internationally matter a lot. It is better to set up some effective shipping goals to grow your business.

• Assistance

Though, it is not always needed. However, when there are new projects, then, you definitely need help to get beneficial results. A virtual assistant can be hired for routine tasks, or you can cooperate with the professionals for the larger projects and choose the influencers for business promotion.

After having a better understanding of how you have to achieve and who will operate the work, you can also leverage the workload management to carry out the tasks. Check out some time management tools, such as Asana or Trello to categorize, assign, and track the operations. These are especially helpful for online teams, however, the company’s structure is more essential.

Website Layout Customization

Shopify theme store has around 100 themes, most of them are free. Particularly, these are advantageous for businesses that are beginners and do not have the budget to experience more themes. Shopify’s themes are modifiable in the free and paid sections. 

Understanding general CSS and HTML help personalize the store, even though it is not a necessity. The Shopify storefronts are customizable; it does not matter if you have the coding skills or not, it will do all the hard work for you. Those who can afford well can get help from the web design agencies or the Shopify experts who can assist you with the best customization skills.

The Shopify theme can also be chosen according to the industry you are in. The Shopify website layout can make your search easy and simple.  Like; if you are dealing with apparel, Shopify has different themes (free or paid) by using which you can differ from the theme option for the travel industry. Before selecting the theme, you can check the preview of the same. Particularly, this is helpful if you are working on a paid theme. You can also check the reviews of others who have worked on the same theme.

The main thing about the best and compelling theme is to know if it is mobile optimized or not. As per the recent statistics, it is analyzed that almost 79% are accessing the website from their mobile phones. Hence, it is evident that your website has to be mobile-friendly.  As mobile optimization is also essential for search engine optimization, hence, it is something that your seller will pay more attention to. 

Upload Products

As of now, you must have an idea of how your website will look. It is also important to categorize every product you have for sale or the products or services available. From the left side of the admin panel, you will check the bar that displays Products. Choose to either upload new products to the listings or select from the previously existing products in the inventory. You can include the product name, the details of what you are selling, pricing, images, etc.

Shopify permits you to categorize some specific products you have to offer. The SEO terms, shipping information, etc. can also be added. They have an option to list the products for the customers to find out the available items.

Group and Classify Your Products

To make the overall process convenient for the customers, assure that every product is categorized properly. Like, you can sell more than only apparel, from where, you will like the age, sex, group, etc. that provides you with more relevant details. On a similar note, if your business is in selling homewares, you need to have a different category for that event.

This option also is accessible from the admin page, below the products dropdown. You do not need to include the products in the collection on an individual basis. The products can also be set up in the way that they have been integrated into some collections if they meet the particular criteria.

Launch Your Online Shopify Store

Now, we are the last step in launching the best Shopify store. As every launch is different in its way, there are a few elements that you can set up to make the online store stand out.

Want to Launch Your Online Shopify Store! Click Here

• Navigation/Main Menu 

It displays on each page on the website as the items on the header, or as a categorization of icons in the sidebar. The visitors can also use this to get products or information on the online store. Therefore, you can edit the navigation section to have a smooth browsing experience at the Shopify-> Navigation Section -> Main menu. For making the upper side more colorful, you can use the free shopping bars to alert you about free sales or shipping policies.

• Main Banner

Build an outstanding hero image or banner to get visitors’ attention instantly. Do not forget, it is the first impression, hence, make it more pleasant and engaging.

• Featured Products 

By navigating to Customize Them->Home page -> featured products, you can choose a list of the featured products. It will get displayed on the homepage from the “Featured” tag. It is the newest or best model for delighting the visitors hence, choose the best cards.

• Footer

From the Online Store->navigation->Add menu, you can create a footer and choose what you want to show here. The custom background has to be engaging. And, you can easily link to the essential pages to make the visitor stay longer on the website.

Market Your Business

After launching the online Shopify store, your job of marketing the business starts.  Though, several new store owners can promote the physical products in person. However, the reputation of the online store relies more on driving targeted traffic. According to the resources and budget, marketing tactics allow you to get the first customer.

You can check out other resources on marketing the businesses that you can save and implement.  Get focussed, know the best ways to attain more and more money.  You have to start securing traffic and convert that into revenue quickly.

Test, Examine, and Modify

From the Shopify Admin panel, you can get the analytics dashboards and analytics reports. According to the pricing plan, you can have more reports, like, marketing, acquisition, and behavior if you are into the Shopify plan. It will provide you with different metrics that you can use to have insights and boost the Shopify store performance.

For not getting lost in different data categories, below are some key measures that can assist you to know the customer behavior on the website before making the sale.

• Traffic

The first one is examining the number of visitors visiting your online store. Check out the sources from where they are coming and what is the percentage of those. After knowing the channel helps the visitors to find the store, better decisions can be made on location, shipping and marketing.

• Conversion Rates

From the conversion rate, you can check out whether the visitors are converting into customers or not. This will also be shown in different numbers. The first one is those who will add items into the cart, the second one will be those who will reach the checkout, and the third one will purchase. Every group relates to the funnel that you can adjust to have excellent performance.

• Total Sales

This metric needs to be measured closely, as it can either make or break the online store. Monitor the data for last month to know the trend in sales, and ask yourself; why this has happened. If you have seen an improvement in sales in April month, check out how the marketing has performed in that month, and it could be the starting point for the new campaign.

• Average Order Value

This measure displays the average of the customers who spend on a single cart on the online store. Also, it shows the performance of the discount strategy, product mix, etc. This measure can be increased without having new traffic sources, therefore, it is a strong metric that needs optimization.

• New and Returning Customers

It is simple to have returning customers, however, each and everyone is new at one point in time. Hence, if you want to have a balance between the new and returning customers and notice what percentage of new customers are regular ones.

Wrapping Up

Managing the successful Shopify store is an ongoing process. Examining and adjusting according to the given measures is essential. Doing it properly gives more opportunities to succeed.  

It is better to test campaigns to monitor what suits your business and secure the way to have steady success.

Hopefully, you liked this article. If there are some queries or suggestions, let us know in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!!