7 Secrets to Growing Your Shopify Store According to a Shopify Expert Agency

Growing your Shopify store is no easy feat. With so many other brands vying for your customers’ attention, it can feel like you’re lost in a sea of competitors. And, if you think you can just throw up some products and wait for the sales to come rolling in, think again. In today’s competitive market, it takes more than a little luck to make your store successful.

If you need help with growing your Shopify store and want to score some serious marketing advice from a Shopify expert agency that actually has the experience to back up their suggestions like Webinopoly.

Is Your Shopify Store Doing as Well as You Hoped?

If your Shopify store is struggling to turn a profit, it might not be your fault. Depending on the niche you’ve chosen, there are certain barriers that can hinder your future growth.

So, if you’re looking for ways to grow your Shopify store and add more products to your inventory without beating yourself up over these common obstacles, keep reading.

You aren’t the only one who has run headfirst into these roadblocks and come out bruised. No matter what niche you’re in or what country you’re selling from, these barriers are out there. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to get around them and continue building your business.

Before we unveil our tips, let's talk about these barriers in more detail:

1. Barriers to Entry

Anyone who wants to start a business is familiar with the concept of barriers to entry. When the term was coined, no one was thinking about eCommerce, but this barrier applies nonetheless. It’s true that you can create an online storefront and be up and running in minutes – but only if you already have a significant amount of funds or if your niche has low competition. If your business is based on a popular product, you’re lucky. You can launch a Shopify store with this product and make money right away.

If, however, you sell products that are less popular or more obscure, then you’ll run into some serious problems getting started. First off, you’ll need to order the inventory for your Shopify store – but since these products aren’t in high demand, the manufacturers won’t be willing to give you a discount. And, if the products are popular, then you’ll have a hard time competing with other more established brands that already have an existing customer base.

Of course, you can still sell these products – but in order to compete, you’ll need to invest some serious money into marketing and pay-per-click advertising. These costs can add up quickly and cut into your profits.

2. The Amazon Effect

One of the most famous Shopify stores is Jeanswest (a clothing store). In 2012, this brand re-branded from its original name – Boots and Coots. The store's founder previously worked in retail and knew it would take a lot of time to re-brand the company's image. So, he shut down the website to launch the new store at the end of 2012 when he had only $1,000 in sales.

What did Jeanswest do right? Well, they took advantage of Amazon’s huge shipping market and shifted their business to focus on selling products through Amazon. Jeanswest’s current site is a Shopify store, but the brand only focuses on their Amazon business. So, if you order from their website, you’re only buying products that aren’t available on Amazon.

However, there are hundreds of other brands that used to rely solely on Shopify for all of their sales. Now, these brands are putting more emphasis on the Amazon channel and outsourcing most of the work to third-party sellers. This allows brands to focus on branding and marketing, while someone else takes care of the administrative tasks.

When you have a Shopify store, it’s easier to switch gears and sell on Amazon as well. But if you have yet to start building your brand, this move can feel like a downgrade. Moving your business over to Amazon may not be the right choice for everyone – but it’s one of many options that can help you grow your business that much faster.

3. The Product Barriers

You may think that you can just throw up some products and leave it at that. After all, they're just products. They're not doing anything special and they won't impress your prospective customers any more than any other brand or product out there. In fact, many of these products aren't even popular. They may have been in demand a few years ago, but now the demand has died down.

However, just because there isn't a lot of demand for a product doesn’t mean you can’t sell it. If this were the case, we wouldn't have companies like Apple that are creating entirely new markets for their products.

The problem is that it's harder to market products that don't have a large consumer base. If you're trying to promote your unconventional products to these consumers, you'll need to put extra effort into advertising and finding new ways to promote your store.

As we’ve mentioned before, even the most popular online stores will struggle to turn a profit if the products aren’t selling well. If your Shopify store isn’t selling many of your products, then you’re in trouble. Your marketing is likely not as effective as it could be and you need to do something about it.

Top Shopify Growth Secrets from a Shopify Expert Agency

Now that you're aware of the barriers you have to overcome, you'll need a little help. Lucky for you, there are the experts at Webinopoly to help you out. Here are some of our best-kept secrets:

Create a Rewarding User Experience

Your store's basic layout plays a crucial role in the effectiveness of your funnel, which is like the traffic flow that leads to conversion. If you’re paying attention to what consumers want, you’ll increase your conversions by making sure that your site is easy to navigate and simple to use. You can use custom page templates and customize them to fit your branding.

But your store's interface is just one aspect of the user experience. You also need to think about the overall feel of your brand when a customer interacts with your store .

Give your site a user-friendly design. Make it easy for your visitors to navigate around and create an attractive, attractive look and feel for your storefront.

Furthermore, you should also think about every point of contact your customer encounters with your store. This includes your campaigns, customer service response, order statistics, and your reviews.

Eventually, your entire store will just be one big portal for consumers to discover products that interest them. When this happens, you’ll be able to leverage all of your critical metrics and marketing campaigns to maximize the effectiveness of each visitor.

Build a Community Around Your Brand

Every successful brand has a community behind it. Yes, it may take some time to build that community but the rewards will be worth it. When you create opportunities for your visitors to engage with your brand and share more information about themselves, you’ll have a better understanding of what you can offer them and how you can tailor your products to their interests.

You can do this by giving your customers an opportunity to share their thoughts and feedback. You can also challenge them with a survey or ask for specific feedback on their experience with the brand.

These questions and comments will give you valuable insight into the types of products they’re interested in while they’re still browsing your site. This insight will let you know what to expect from consumers who actually purchase your products.

For example, did they buy a product because it matched their needs or because the item was on sale? You can also use the feedback you receive to further customize your products or change the layout of your store.

Use Social Media to Build Your Brand

With an extra 100 million Facebook users and 6 billion messages sent per day, social channels are almost unavoidable for brands. When you join these channels, your goal is to establish a strong presence through promotions, coupons and free products. This will help build trust with consumers so they'll feel comfortable buying from you.

Social media has a bit of a learning curve, so it's important to follow the basic rules. You need to make sure you're using your company's Facebook page for posting promotions and sales. You also want to post targeted ads on Google, Yahoo, Bing and Pinterest to expand your reach even further.

You should also be aware of the type of content you want to share on social media. If your brand is image-heavy, use Twitter more often than Facebook or Instagram. If your brand is more info-oriented, you may want to focus more on Facebook or Instagram posts or use a combination of the three.

Get Your Visitors to Become Customers

The best thing you can do for yourself is to create an experience that lets visitors know they can expect good results – and they should be able to trust you. You can do this by showing off real-life customer testimonials and referencing the products they've bought on your product pages. This will encourage visitors that want a particular product to buy it early, which will lead them back to your store and make them a customer.

You can also use email marketing, especially if you have loyal clients. Each of your customers is an opportunity to reach out and use a series of emails to drive them back to your site. In fact, you can create a custom email sequence to guide each customer from the pre-purchase stage all the way through delivery.

If you can find more ways for consumers to search for your products and make them more relevant, you’ll be able to leverage that process as additional opportunities for sales.

For example, your customers could be searching for a product that you don't sell on your website. Instead of letting them find this item on a competitor's site, you can work with them to send pre-orders and ship the product directly to their home at the same time they’re purchasing it from you.

Overall, your store will improve if you create and leverage every single opportunity that exists for success. You can do this by using online tools to better manage social and email marketing for your store.

Make Sure Your Website is Optimized

The last thing you want is for people to click a link and leave your website before they learn about your brand. If you create separation between your product, service and brand information, you can increase the time visitors stay on your site and understand what they can expect.

You may be surprised to find that the layout of your site isn’t helping with conversions. It may be confusing to users or it might be missing some crucial content like contact information or a shipping policy.

Take the time to create a custom look for your store. Change your color scheme, add product images and include your company logo. You can also add a total price feature and product descriptions. When you add these elements, you're creating value for your visitors.

You may also want to remove typical navigation links and instead link every page of your site with a category or subpage tag that points directly to the products being sold in that area. This can make it easier for visitors to find the products they want and create a more streamlined user experience.

In today’s economy, conversion rates are critical. If you can improve your conversion rate by just 1&, or even 5%, you’ll be able to generate additional revenue. There are multiple ways to make sure your website is optimized. Here are some of our favorite tips:

• Make it mobile-friendly. Your customers want to be able to access your site anytime, anywhere. If you create a mobile-friendly store, users can view your site from a more mobile device and buy from your website whether they're at home or on the go.
• Make sure your website is mobile-friendly. Your customers want to be able to access your site anytime, anywhere. If you create a mobile-friendly store, users can view your site from a more mobile device and buy from your website whether they're at home or on the go.
• Google Analytics is your friend. Keep track of all the different ways visitors engage with your site so you can improve your marketing techniques. This will also show you which products or pages are getting the most traffic and which are earning you the most sales.
• A/B testing is a good way to try out new strategies and find what works best to increase conversions on your site. Create multiple versions of each page on your website, then monitor the effectiveness of each strategy over time.
• Make sure your brand is being presented correctly. In-depth customer reviews are a great way to get more exposure, so ask clients to post their thoughts about each product you sell. This will also show off what customers have to say about your company.

But what if your website isn't converting? There could be a number of reasons for this, but you can still make it better. Unfortunately, it can be a bit tricky to identify why your storefront isn't working for your brand. If you need more help, one of our Shopify experts can lend a helping hand to make the process much easier.

Look Into Building an App

There's a reason why companies like Amazon, Etsy and eBay have created apps for their stores. It's because mobile shoppers are loyal, spend a lot of money and are only going to grow more popular with time.

If your store isn't already built into an app for mobile devices, it's time to consider this option. Apps are quickly becoming a must for e-Commerce sites since they make it much easier and more accessible for your target audience to reach you and find your products.

If you're planning to hire an app developer or do some coding yourself, you should use these three tips to make sure you’re building the right app for your store:

• Don't forget about security. Creating an app is a great way to boost your store's conversion rate, but only if it's done correctly and is secure. If you build an app without taking the necessary precautions, it could lead to problems down the road.
• Make sure your app is optimized for both tablets and smartphones. You want to make sure you're keeping visitors engaged with both devices since one may be more popular than the other.
• Create a clear and simple app. An app is what people use on the go to quickly find things they are looking for, so it needs to be easy to use. The more complicated the experience, the less likely customers will buy from you.

There's a reason why companies like Amazon, Etsy and eBay have created apps for their stores. It's because mobile shoppers are loyal, spend a lot of money and are only going to grow more popular with time.

You can build a Shopify app easily as you already have the app store and APIs for your store built into your store. However, making sure that it runs smoothly and that it's geared towards customer satisfaction is harder than it looks. As such, it may be a good idea to hire a Shopify expert agency to do it for you.

Our experts at Webinopoly have a customer-first approach. We go above and beyond to understand your business and customers. Our team is also dedicated to creating a seamless app experience that puts clients first. We offer unlimited revisions and changes until you're completely satisfied with the outcome. If you're interested in building an app or want to learn more about the process, reach out today. You can also visit our contact page for other ways to get in touch with us.

Focus on Ecommerce SEO

If you're trying to build a successful retail business, SEO is arguably the most important aspect of your online presence. It's what allows potential customers to find you on Google, Bing and other search engines so they can view your products, check out your site and hopefully make a purchase. This is why it's so important to make sure you're keeping your SEO up to date on your e-Commerce store online.

If you haven't worked with SEO before and don't know where to start, use these three tips to reach your goals:

• Find the keywords that are most important for your business. You should be able to identify some of the keywords that are already bringing you business since you'll often see what people search for in your orders.
• Make sure each page on your site is optimized for the keywords you want to use. Each page needs to be relevant to the keywords you chose and should be updated with these words as well.
• Look into upgrading your e-Commerce SEO by integrating with Google Analytics. This will help you identify which keywords are bringing you the most traffic and sales so you know what type of content to create for your site.

If you're trying to build a successful retail business, SEO is arguably the most important aspect of your online presence. It's what allows potential customers to find you on Google, Bing and other search engines so they can view your products, check out your site and hopefully make a purchase. If you aren't using SEO on your site yet, these three tips should help get you started:

• Make sure each page on your website has a title tag. Every page should also have a meta description that contains the keywords for each page. These tags are how Google identifies what your website is about so it can rank it appropriately in search results.
• Pay attention to your bounce rate. The bounce rate is how many people visit your shop but only spend a few seconds there. You should make sure this number doesn't go over 50% by calculating the % of people who leave after one page and then making changes for each page that goes over this percentage.
• Be sure to upload images for all pages on your website. This helps Google know what type of content you'll have in the future and displays these images in search results instead of just text, which helps bring you more customers.

Check Out Our Shopify Expert Agency

At Webinopoly, we know that businesses need face-to-face help when it comes to e-Commerce strategies. That's why we offer expert services and help you get the most out of your Shopify store. They can help you optimize your eCommerce store for increased sales and conversion rates, as well as give you a new look that attracts more customers and helps make them feel at home. If you'd like to learn more about this or work with one of our experts, reach out today.