How to Sell on Shopify in 2024: From Setup to Success

As of December 2023, approximately 10.32% of websites globally use Shopify as its e-commerce platform based on data from Statista. Since its founding in 2006, Shopify merchants have grown extensively, making it the leading choice for ecommerce businesses.

The appeal lies in the many Shopify benefits you enjoy, especially for those wanting to build their own online store.

First, Shopify is easy to use, and you can get started with your e-commerce business website even if you have no experience creating a website or no coding knowledge.

Second, the platform’s scalability suits online business sellers of all sizes. In fact, you can set up a Shopify account, choose from one of their store subscription levels, and then gradually upgrade as your Shopify store grows.

In addition to these reasons, Shopify accepts various payment options, offers extensive app integrations, and has many built-in marketing tools. These factors combine to make Shopify an excellent option for selling products online.

Before you build your own website on Shopify, read this comprehensive guide to boost your new business’s chances of success.

 

Creating Your Shopify Store

Follow this step-by-step guide to setting up Shopify.

 

Step 1: Create a Shopify Account

Before creating your account, know the requirements for selling on Shopify.

Go to the Shopify homepage and click the Start a Free Trial button.

When you sign up, you will be asked questions with some premade choices. You can answer these questions or skip them. The goal of this survey is to assess your preferences and business needs.

Sign-up will require your email address, password, and a unique store name. Once you have filled them out, you will be redirected to the Shopify admin panel. You can now begin setting up your Shopify store!

 

Step 2: Choose Shopify Plan

Choosing Shopify plans is the next step after setting up your account. Our guide on the latest Shopify pricing plans provides a detailed overview of how much it would cost to subscribe to a Shopify plan.

Here is an overview of the pricing plans available on Shopify:

• Basic – $19/month (annual subscription) or $25/month (monthly subscription)
• Shopify – $49/month (annual subscription, or $65/month (monthly subscription)
• Advanced – $299/month (annual subscription) or $399/month (monthly subscription)
• Plus – $2,300/month (based on a 1- to 3-year term)

 

The features and functionalities you can access on your Shopify store will increase as you go higher on the pricing tier. Therefore, you can choose the right plan for your ecommerce website based on your needs and budget.

 

Step 3: Familiarize Yourself with the Shopify Admin Panel

The admin panel is where you will find all the tools and navigation you need to manage your online store. Here are some features accessible from the admin panel:

• Orders
• Products
• Customers
• Content
• Finances
• Analytics
• Marketing
• Discounts
• Apps

 

 

Step 4: Choose a Theme

The next step in this Shopify setup guide is store customization.

When you create your Shopify account, you will be assigned a default theme. You can customize the look of your store or store pages by going to the Shopify Theme Store.

Select from the free or paid themes, depending on your needs and budget. Most free themes from the Shopify Theme Store are visually compelling and interactive enough.

Still, you can choose the paid version if you want more flexibility in customizing the design and functionality.

Once you’ve chosen a theme, click the Add button and go to the admin panel. You can access your themes via the Theme library. When customizing the design and theme, you can preview the look of your Shopify storefront by clicking on the red dots next to the Theme library block.

You can continue editing until you are satisfied with your website design.

 

Step 5: Add Navigational Features

To edit the navigational features of your online store, go to Online Store > Navigation on the admin panel. You can add as many menus as you need or even create nested menus to create drop-down menu navigation on your ecommerce website.

 

Step 6: Add Products

To add a product to your Shopify store, go to Products > Add Product. Input the product’s title and any additional details, such as the product description and meta description. Click Save if you’re satisfied with the listing.

You can also edit existing products, such as updating the title or product details. However, you must go to the admin panel to delete or archive a product.

Product Selection and Sourcing

Product selection and sourcing are two of the most critical components to your success when you sell on Shopify. Any store owner dreams of gaining more online sales, and it is only possible when you choose the best products in high demand.

Employing product research tools that automate the product selection and sourcing process is crucial. This method ensures your product selection is backed by data, which guarantees that these products are what customers want to buy.

ZIK Analytics is the best tool for selling products online and generating a steady income stream. ZIK’s Shopify Product Research Tool provides valuable and relevant market insights that enable you to identify and exploit hot selling opportunities!

From the dashboard, you can find trending products and niches. You can also use this tool to find reliable suppliers so that you won’t need another tool.

Start with the ZIK Product Analyzer to find the top-selling products on eBay and Aliexpress. Using actual sales data for the past 30 days, you can find profitable products to sell on Shopify.

You can also use market insights to analyze selling trends and forecast the products that sell based on season and sales trends.

With sales data, such as the sell-through rate, sales earned, and total products sold, you can eliminate the guessing game when choosing what products to sell. You can dial in on the best-performing niches and increase your chances of finding winning products for online selling.

Shopify SEO and Keyword Strategy

Search engine and keyword optimization are critical to the success of a Shopify store. The right keyword strategy and targeting can bring your website tons of organic search results.

The first step in Shopify SEO is to identify keywords with a high search volume and low competition. This keyword strategy ensures that you will target popular keywords and increase your ranking, as there is less competition for those keywords.

The next step in Shopify’s SEO best practices is to optimize the keywords in the copy of your website. Add the keywords to your Shopify store’s title, product pages, content, and other elements, including the images.

ZIK Analytics also provides SEO tools via the Keyword Research Tool. This tool identifies the most popular and highly searched terms or keywords based on your chosen niche.

Select the best keywords to target in your ecommerce business website to help it reach the top of Google’s search results.

Follow these SEO best practices to help online shoppers find your website and generate more online sales.

 

1. Create a Logical Shopify Site Structure

Website architecture is a highly overlooked aspect of Shopify SEO. However, the structure of your web pages can significantly impact your internal linking process, directly affecting website SEO performance.

The ideal website structure is when pages with related content are grouped together with a logical hierarchical structure. Thus, it makes it easier for human users and the search algorithm to understand your site content.

For example, your home page should provide a menu with the product categories, and a drop-down menu with a list of sub-categories. From the sub-category pages, your customers will be directed to the individual product pages.

A logical site structure looks like this:

Home Page > Category > Sub-categories > Product pages

A logical site structure is easy to follow, user-friendly, and seamless to navigate. At the same time, your website users should not spend too much time clicking on links to find the page they want. Ensure it is easy to find the links pointing to specific pages in your website.

 

2. Customize the Store URL

Like the theme, you will have a default URL for your Shopify store upon signing up. A customized URL boosts brand recall and helps your site’s SEO.

Go to the Shopify admin > Settings > Domains. Choose the “Change to a new myshopify.com domain” option and then Add Domain.

A customized URL that is easy to remember helps online shoppers remember your website quickly.

 

3. Boost User Experience

User experience is a critical factor in boosting your Shopify store’s SEO. I’ll examine the different facets of user experience regarding store design and usability.

The first factor is improving site speed. Site speed improves user experience because it makes it easy to navigate your ecommerce site. If a page takes more than a few seconds to load, it can frustrate the website user, making them leave your site to find what they’re looking for elsewhere.

If you want to improve your Shopify store loading time, here are a few things to consider:

• Use a fast and responsive theme
• Use small and optimized images
• Disable unused apps and plug-ins
• Reduce HTTP requests

 

 

Utilize tools to measure your site speed. Some tools can compare your site performance with the industry standard, enabling you to identify areas where you can improve your Shopify site speed.

The next factor that will improve user experience on your ecommerce website is to improve the responsiveness of the store design. Responsive themes allow you to enjoy a similar experience using your website regardless of which device is used to access it.

For example, a mobile-responsive theme is beneficial in improving the experience of online shoppers with your website because they can easily access your website using their smartphones. This method of improving user experience is beneficial with the growing number of online shoppers using their mobile devices.

 

4. Find and Use Relevant Keywords

Keywords are the heart of any good SEO strategy. People enter keywords into search engines to find a product or information on the web.

Therefore, keywords are a crucial link between your customers, the search engines, and your Shopify store.

The goal is to find relevant keywords that customers use to find your products or services and have your website appear on the first page of Google or other search engines.

Incorporating relevant keywords into your website content signals to the search engine algorithm that you have relevant information which the customer might find useful. Keyword research is the foundation of your SEO plan, so you must invest in a keyword research tool to boost your Shopify SEO.

ZIK Analytics’ built-in Title Builder tool enables you to find the best keywords with the highest search volume and low competition. This tool can pick the right keywords to integrate into your product title, product descriptions, and other website content.

In addition to the primary keywords, you must specify additional, related keywords to optimize. The more keywords you can incorporate into your website optimization, the more potential traffic you can bring to your site.

Another tip when choosing keywords is to prioritize those terms with purchase intent. For example, a web user searches for “standing desks.” This search term can produce search results that are there for informational purposes.

On the other hand, the search term “standing desks for sale” prompts Google to rank collection or product pages.

So, you have your keywords; where and how do you place them on your website? The following are strategic places where you need to incorporate your target keywords:

• Meta title
• Meta description
• Page URL
• H1 headline
• H2 and other subheadings
• Blog posts and other content
• Page description
• Images alt text

 

 

While optimizing your Shopify website with keywords is crucial for ranking higher, don’t overdo it. Keyword stuffing could backfire and hurt your SEO efforts. Also, always consider humans when developing content with keywords.

 

5. Build a Cluster of Topics

When developing content for your Shopify site, focus on building a topic cluster.

A topic cluster is a group of web pages with similar or related content. The individual web pages focus on specific topics around the general topic, showing web users and search engines that you are an authority on this subject.

You can start with a pillar page that covers a broad topic, such as standing desks.

Next, you must build several cluster pages relating to standing desks, such as height-adjustable standing desks and fixed standing desks.

You can link these pages to each other, providing an easy flow of information across various web pages. This SEO technique boosts your authority and can also improve your SERP ranking.

 

6. Optimize Your Category and Product Pages

In addition to improving SEO with content marketing, you must optimize your category and product pages on your Shopify store using keywords and internal links.

Focus on the category title and description when optimizing keywords, specifically those with commercial and transactional intent. You can use the same approach with product pages.

Here is an overview of the SEO best practices with category and product pages:

• Optimize the title with the target keyword
• Incorporate primary and secondary keywords in the description
• Use high-quality, optimized images
• Internally link to product variants
• Internally link to related products

 

Designing Your Shopify Store

Store design is how you make a good first impression and attract potential customers. It’s unsurprising that small business owners invest in finding the right theme and visual elements to make their websites visually appealing.

However, a well-designed Shopify store is more than just about looking good. It should be easy to navigate, easy to use, and convert!

If you cannot offer your potential customers a positive shopping experience, you lose your chance of making a sale.

Consider these tips for designing your store and improving user experience.

 

Choose a Shopify Theme

The Shopify theme is the foundation of the visual appeal of your online store. Therefore, choose a theme that aligns with your niche and brand identity.

Fortunately, the Shopify Theme Store makes it easy to find the right theme with plenty to choose from, and some are organized based on the industry.

For example, you can choose appropriate themes in Clothing, Restaurants, Home and Décor, Health and Beauty, Electronics, and other industries.

Since these Shopify themes are built for ecommerce, it is easy to tweak the layout, design, and responsiveness to suit the industry needs.

 

2. Customize Store Elements

Once you’ve chosen a theme, you can explore further store customization options. Use your brand colors throughout the store design, choose brand-focused fonts, and place your logo prominently in the home page.

Consistency is important in choosing visual elements from the color, font, and imagery to achieve a cohesive and professional look.

 

3. Integrate Shopify Apps

Install Shopify apps from the Shopify App Store to boost your site’s functionality, streamline store operations, and improve usability. You can find nearly any app to create a positive shopping experience or increase conversion rates.

Here are a few Shopify apps to integrate into the store design and functionality:

ConvertWise AI Personalization—Increase conversions with a personalized shopping experience for your customers. It sets up product sliders on your pages for product suggestions and encourages shoppers to buy more.

It can also make personalized recommendations based on the last viewed items or items in the cart.

Loox – This product reviews app is built for Shopify, which ensures seamless integration. It leverages social proof by displaying product reviews with customizable widgets that are visually appealing and high-converting.

Shopify Search & Discovery – This app enhances the search and filtering process when using the search function in your Shopify store, allowing recommendations of more relevant products and improving the shopping experience. This tool has been proven to increase the average order value per customer.

Shopify Inbox – It offers a live chat functionality in your Shopify store, which ensures a prompt response when customers have questions about a specific product or recent purchase.

Setting Up Payments and Shipping

Shopify Payments is the internal payment processor for Shopify stores. However, Shopify still accepts external payment processing gateways.

You can select your preferred payment method based on convenience, but it would be ideal to provide more payment options to increase conversion. Store owners that use Shopify Payments can waive the transaction fees per sale, among other benefits.

To set up Shopify Payments, you must review eligibility first. Only select countries and regions are currently supported by Shopify Payments.

Activate the two-step authentication on your Shopify account. This process ensures your personal and financial information is protected.

Next, Activate Shopify Payments. Go to Settings > Payments > Activate Shopify Payments.

When you activate Shopify Payments, it will automatically remove other payment providers from your account and be used as the default.

You must then fill out your business and banking information and choose your preferred currency. The chosen currency will be the default currency for the prices listed in your online store.

Finish the account setup by providing additional details, such as the Business Number, EIN, Taxpayer Identification Number, and other personal details, if necessary. If needed, you will be asked to upload additional verification documents to verify your identity and home address.

You must wait for the verification process to complete your documents. During this time, any pending payouts might be on hold. However, you can continue to receive orders in your Shopify store.

Setting up multiple payment gateways on Shopify is recommended since Shopify Payments may not be available in select countries or regions. In addition, providing multiple payment options on Shopify increases your chances of gaining more online sales as shoppers can use their preferred payment method.

You can add multiple or external payment processors from the Shopify Admin panel. Go to Settings > Payment Providers. Choose the specific payment provider that you want to add.

For example, if you want to link PayPal, select Activate Paypal Express Checkout and the Activate button to enable this payment option. Open your PayPal account and grant permissions to your online store.

Once it’s done, you must go back to Shopify, and you can see Using: Paypal Express Checkout once it is successfully activated.

Choose Settings > Payment Providers > Third-Party Providers when setting up additional third-party payment providers. This section offers several payment processor options, and you can add as many as you like for your store.

For each chosen payment processor, you must enter your account details and click Activate. Repeat this step for each payment provider you add to the store.

In addition to payments, shipping is another aspect you must set up when you sell online via Shopify. Shopify Shipping is available for your own store, but to use this shipping service, your business must have an eligible fulfillment center.

You also need accurate shipment details and a printer to print the shipping labels.

You can purchase the shipping label from your Shopify admin or app. You can process this on the Fulfillment page when managing orders. Download and print the label and attach it to the outside of the package.

Before you can use Shopify Shipping, you must have a fulfillment center. Note that it does not support DDP, so you won’t be able to use the Shopify Shipping label when you collect duties or import taxes.

If your business qualifies for Shopify Shipping, you can purchase labels from shipping services depending on your location. For example, the USPS, UPS, DHL Express, and FedEx are the shipping services available in the US.

To calculate the cost of the shipping label, you must provide essential shipment details to the carrier, such as:

• Origin address
• Destination address
• Weight
• Dimensions

 

 

If the information is inaccurate, the shipping carrier will calculate a price adjustment, and you will be charged accordingly.

Knowing how to set up shipping rates is essential when setting up shipping for your Shopify business.

Go to Settings > Shipping and Delivery, and then click Manage.

To add the shipping rates, choose Add Rate and set the shipping rate details. You can designate the name for the corresponding rate based on the applicable value, such as currency, weight, etc.

Launching Your Shopify Store

You’ve set up your account, chosen a theme or design, and selected products and suppliers. Now, you are ready to launch your store!

Before you do, it’s crucial to have a launch checklist to ensure you have everything sorted and good to go. Here is a sample store launch checklist to maximize performance when you start selling.

 

1. Set up custom domain

The first thing you must check before launching your online store is the custom domain. If you don’t have one, invest in a custom domain to increase brand recognition.

You can purchase the new domain name directly from Shopify or use an external domain host.

Consider a domain name similar to your brand name or close to it if unavailable.

 

2. Review the checkout

The checkout page can make or break your online sales in your Shopify business. Therefore, it is essential that all elements of your checkout page work as they should.

Check this functionality before you publish the website live to ensure potential customers have a seamless checkout experience and reduce cart abandonment.

Some things to check in your checkout process are the shipping rates, discount codes (if they are working), and if the customers can edit their cart (add or remove products). Most importantly, check if the payments are accepted.

 

3. Double-check that the website is functioning

Look at your website and ensure the visuals are as they should be. Carefully review the website copy to ensure no grammatical errors, misspellings, or inaccuracies.

In addition, test your website across all devices to determine if the visuals, mages, and texts are displaying correctly.

 

4. Build out your pages

Before launching your store, make sure you have built out the critical pages of your website, such as the About Us, Contact page, FAQs, Shipping and Returns policies, Terms and Conditions, and the home page.

These critical pages promote trust among your target audience and guarantee that you are a legitimate business.

 

5. Test the hyperlinks

Broken links can frustrate your customers’ shopping experience and hurt your website’s SEO.

Therefore, test all hyperlinks to ensure they are working and lead to the correct page. You can use tools to automate this process and check for any broken links.

 

6. Check email status

When customers place an order, your store should send automatic email notifications about their order status and provide additional emails for tracking the order.

Now is the time to test whether those email notifications are working. You should also do this for other emails, such as shipping confirmations or updates, refund notifications, and more.

 

7. Prelaunch marketing plan

A prelaunch marketing plan is essential to optimizing the success of your Shopify website. You need a landing page to capture potential customers’ emails.

You should also post about your online store’s launch days before and after the launch. This will help build excitement about your launch and give you traction.

In addition, you can publish your store launch on PR sites, if available. You can also set up pre-orders for your products.

A good idea is to have an early access promo wherein you invite early subscribers with rewards and perks in exchange.

Marketing Your Shopify Store

There are several marketing and sales strategies you can use for your Shopify ecommerce website to help drive traffic and more sales. You can incorporate many of these Shopify marketing ideas into your overall strategy.

 

1. Email Marketing

Let’s kick things off with traditional email marketing. This marketing strategy for Shopify is essential in nurturing leads and fostering customer loyalty.

Once customers have opted into your email list, you can send them personalized emails and promotions. You can also send seasonal promotions or alert them about new products to your store.

There are third-party apps you can integrate into Shopify if you want to build targeted email campaigns or customize newsletters.

 

2. Social Media Marketing

Social media is a powerful tool you can leverage to boost sales to your online business. Businesses use it to reach out or engage with their customers. When done right, you can also attract potential customers with social media.

With millions of daily active users on platforms like Facebook or Instagram, it is the best platform to showcase your products or services.

The trick to success with social media marketing is to choose the right platform where you can find and engage with your target audience. Since the demographics for each social media platform differ, it takes understanding your targeted buyer personas to align them with your social media marketing plan.

 

3. PPC Advertising

PPC advertising or other paid ads is a valuable tool for expanding the reach of your Shopify business. This form of advertising can put your business at the top of the search engine rankings for relevant searches, thus increasing sales opportunities.

Google Ads is the number one ad platform for PPC advertising. Even with a limited marketing budget, you must allocate a percentage of your budget to paid marketing campaigns because of the huge ROI potential.

 

4. Content Marketing (and SEO)

Content marketing involves the creation of website content and copy utilizing SEO tactics.

A good SEO strategy begins with keyword research, which aims to identify the most relevant keywords to target when developing website content. Once you identify those keywords, you can use them in the website copy, blogs and articles, product pages, product descriptions, URLs, and alt text for images.

You can use various Shopify apps to help with keyword optimization. It will help you employ the best SEO practices that put your business on top of search engine results for a related query.

 

5. Referral Program

A referral program is another traditional marketing method to promote your Shopify store. Affiliate marketing is a good example.

With affiliate marketing programs, you choose content creators to help promote your products or services through approved platforms (blog or social media). They can act as brand ambassadors in exchange for a commission, free products, unique discount codes, and more.

A successful referral campaign hinges on choosing the right affiliate or referral partners. Ensure you align your target audience with your partner to maximize the potential for increasing sales.

 

6. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is a recent trend in marketing, and many businesses are capitalizing on it for expanded reach.

Influencers are individuals on various social media platforms with a huge following. As such, working with influencers t showcase your product or services puts your brand in front of a larger audience.

You are banking on the followers’ trust in that influencer and their ability to persuade their audience to boost conversions.

Another option is to work with micro-influencers or those with a smaller yet more engaged audience. This approach works best if you operate in a very specific niche.

The success of influencer marketing depends on your marketing goals and budget and the proper implementation of best practices.

 

7. Social Proof

Social proof is a compelling way to convince customers to buy your products. Adding product reviews shows potential buyers about a positive experience the previous buyers have had with the product.

Therefore, adding product reviews or a gallery of customers wearing the product you’re showcasing is a good way to boost sales and enhance the overall buying experience.

You can use a third-party product review app to integrate this feature within the product page.

Managing Your Shopify Orders

Order fulfilment is critical to your business’s success. Shopify has a comprehensive order management system that ensures efficient order processing and tracking across multiple sales channels.

Since store owners can manage orders across multiple sales channels, you can fulfill and manage orders in one centralized location.

Shopify’s order management system allows for real-time inventory tracking, which makes it easy to determine if you must replenish your stock. Inventory management is a crucial aspect of order fulfilment because you don’t want to lose sales whenever customers find your products unavailable due to low or unavailable inventory levels.

In addition, the order management system streamlines your order fulfillment process with advanced features like order tagging and filtering. This feature allows you to assign orders to specific criteria for faster processing and shipping.

In addition to Shopify’s order management system, you can employ third-party apps and plug-ins to manage Shopify orders efficiently. Some tools provide clear delivery estimates to promote transparency with customers and manage expectations realistically about expected delivery dates.

Enhancing user experience is the main motivation for improving your order management in your Shopify store. Providing a seamless buying experience encourages your customers to make a repeat purchase or share their experience with others.

Therefore, you should also adopt the best practices on customer service to increase sales performance. Here are tips to improve Shopify customer service and win over customers:

 

Create an FAQ Page

An FAQ page is an essential part of any ecommerce site. It answers customers’ basic questions about your products or services and website usage. It also boosts your site’s SEO, which is a win-win situation.

 

Live Chat

Live chat support is excellent for improving Shopify customer service. It allows customers to get an immediate response or support to their queries. Some tools provide automated responses to common questions from your website visitors.

 

Multi-channel Support

Offering support across multiple sales channels fosters a positive experience for shoppers. It allows customers to access support regardless of which platform they use to order from your store.

 

Personalization

Adding a touch of personalization to your customer service enhances customer experience. One example is to address customers by their name or refer to their order history to provide personalized recommendations in the support channel.

 

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

After receiving support, ask your customers to complete a customer satisfaction survey. This will allow you to measure their level of satisfaction with the support provided and enable you to make improvements to deliver better service.

Analyzing and Optimizing Your Store

You need to analyse your store’s performance to stay ahead of the competition and crush your sales goals. It’s not enough to list products, sell online, and leave them. You must constantly monitor and optimize your performance to find ways to improve and grow your sales.

Various performance metrics tools can help you track the performance of your store. The first and most obvious one is Google Analytics.

This tool tracks traffic and conversions in your ecommerce store, so it’s a must-have for any business owner.

The key metrics to consider when using Google Analytics for optimizing your store are:

• Total page views
• Unique page views
• Average time on the page
• Bounce rate
• Conversion rate

 

This information allows you to evaluate your existing marketing campaigns and determine whether they’re helping you achieve your sales goals. If not, you can improve your performance optimization strategies.

 

1. Use Shopify Analytics

The Shopify Analytics dashboard provides a detailed metric and report of essential data on your site’s performance. The metrics are divided into the following:

• Sales – It provides an overview of customer orders and average order value.
• Acquisition – It displays information on how visitors come to your store.
• Orders – It provides a detailed overview of the number of orders, fulfillment, and product returns.
• Finances – It offers insights into the values associated with returned orders.
• Behavior – It helps you analyze the shopping trends in your store, specifically focused on conversion factors.
• Customers – It provides an overview of customers purchasing from your store, whether new or returning.
• Inventory – It helps you analyze the best-selling products to manage when to order a restock.
• Marketing – It offers insight into the most effective marketing strategies based on traffic and conversion.

 

 

2. Factors You Can Control vs Cannot Control

There are two aspects to focus on when optimizing your store: factors you can and cannot control.

The factors you cannot control are the Shopify infrastructure, customer devices, and network location.

First, you might receive complaints about a customer’s poor browsing experience in your Shopify store. When addressing this issue, especially to avoid a negative experience that could lose potential sales, you must check the customer’s device and network connections.

The customer support team can perform audits and analysis of the site performance versus the customer’s device and network connection to ensure that the issue is from the customer’s end, not the actual speed of your site. Based on what you can gather, you can recommend improving the site speed and circumventing any issues with the customer’s network provider or device.

Next, Shopify is an ecommerce platform that provides a secure server for various online stores. When there are issues within Shopify, it could affect your store’s performance and accessibility.

If your customers cannot access your store, refer to the Shopify Status to determine if there is any ongoing maintenance or problem resolution.

On the other hand, the factors you can control regarding your site’s performance are app integration, themes, and files (images and videos). You can optimize site speed and improve the user experience by choosing themes, files, and apps that won’t significantly slow down your site.

Improving the user experience within your site can directly impact other metrics, such as conversion and referrals.

 

3. Focusing on the Right Performance Metrics

Optimizing your store performance is prioritizing the issues and metrics that have the most impact. Page load time is one such example. It refers to the time it takes for a page to load from the moment a visitor clicks on your website link.

Ideally, you should aim for a shorter loading time. Pages that load faster foster a more positive experience for shoppers.

The next important metric is the First Contentful Paint. It refers to the time the page content takes to fully display on screen. Again, a shorter time improves customer experience.

Knowing the most prevalent issues helps you develop a store optimization plan. It starts with optimizing the images and videos in your store, as they directly affect the loading speed.

While visual appearance matters, it should not come at the expense of your site’s loading speed, which can reduce user satisfaction.

Scaling Your Shopify Business

The ability to sell online with Shopify offers the potential to scale your business quickly. If you employ the right strategies to grow the number of online purchases, you can gradually scale your business and reach your sales target.

The best way to ensure the growth of your Shopify online store is to take practical measures. You don’t need to maximize your marketing spend or risk your new business scaling too fast.

Here are the best tips for business scaling:

Make your store mobile-friendly. A huge percentage of online purchases are made through a mobile device.

Therefore, optimizing your store and making it mobile-friendly is crucial to maximizing sales and achieving sustained growth.

Use SEO to leverage organic traffic. Growing your store with SEO takes a long time, but it is worthwhile once you generate a steady stream of organic traffic by reaching the top of the rankings on search engines.

Nurture your existing customers. It is easy to neglect your existing customers when considering expansion strategies. However, you must continue nurturing them as they bring consistent sales to your store.

Employ the best customer retention techniques, as it costs less to retain customers than to acquire new ones.

Interact on social media. Having a social media presence is not enough to grow your Shopify store.

Focus on customer engagement and building relationships, and don’t try to oversell your products on social media.

Marketing via storytelling. In this digital age, marketing has evolved so that you are selling more than just the products or services—you are also selling your story as a brand.

Put your face in front of your brand and connect with your audience by providing your story and making it compelling.

Conclusion: How to Sell on Shopify

Shopify success is within your reach if you follow this detailed guide. As Shopify continues to grow and so does the ecommerce industry, store owners will have more opportunities to build a strong online presence.

Now that you know how to sell on Shopify, you can use that information to set up your store and start selling online.

With the right product selection and sourcing methods, targeting your products or services to the right audience, and continuous improvement in your marketing strategies, Shopify success won’t be elusive.

While the market is ever-changing and dynamic, flexibility in your marketing approach and strategies can be the secret to sustained business growth.