This article outlines five common factors that are often overlooked by new Shopify merchants.
One of the most important factors when selling products online is developing an effective shipping strategy. A lot of new merchants aren't aware of the different ways you can charge for shipping and how they impact performance online. While it can seem extremely enticing to pass your exact shipping costs on to your customers, the drawbacks to this approach can be serious. Firstly, charging your exact shipping rates can require an extremely technical solution, which will likely require you to hire an agency or freelancer to help you set it up. Additionally, exact shipping costs can significantly reduce your conversion rate. The best thing you can do is offer free shipping and bake the shipping costs into the price of your product. However, if that's not an option, the next best thing is to offer your customers flat rate shipping.
Another factor new merchants often overlook is a robust inventory management solution. It's important to keep careful track of how many products you have on hand and how many products are available to sell. Shopify offers amazing inventory management capabilities, both on a per product and per location basis.
One of the most important factors that we see new merchants overlook is a larger marketing plan to support their online store. Your Online Store is not a marketplace and it doesn't have a physical storefront, meaning you're not going to get a lot of organic traffic right away. In order to drive traffic to your online store, you absolutely need an active marketing plan; whether that's through paid advertising, social media or influencer marketing. Whatever approach you take to marketing, make sure you have a plan in place to drive traffic to your online store. If you don't actively drive traffic, your online store will sit there and you might be disappointed in the results.
Another common area that often gets overlooked is the post-purchase plan. With an online store, it's crucial to turn one-time purchasers into repeat purchasers and also ensure that they share their positive experiences to drive more organic traffic. Developing a post-purchase plan means engaging your customers with additional product information, upsells, and review requests. There are a number of ways you can achieve this. Whether you rely on an email marketing platform or build out a full rewards program, it's crucial that you engage with your customers after they make a purchase.
Finally, one of the most important factors that new merchants overlook is their review strategy. We talked about this briefly when touching on the post-purchase follow-up but it really bears its own investigation. There's no "one size fits all" approach to your strategy so take the time to develop something tailored specifically to your business. However, if you need a place to start, consider downloading a Review Management SOP.
If you have followed this entire article, you now know 5 important areas that are overlooked by new Shopify merchants and should have some things to consider. If you are looking for more e-commerce and Shopify tips, check out some of our curated ecommerce resources or take a look at our ecommerce services.