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eCommerce Entrepreneurs Blog

Read about successful online stores, the best eCommerce apps, marketing strategies, store design, and much more on KeepShoppers' blog.

Shopify marketing Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate and Optimize Conversion Rates on Shopify Shopping cart abandonment is a problem that every new (and sometimes even successfully evolved) e-commerce businesses will face at some point in their journey. "Start an e-commerce store", they said, "it will be easy", they said. There are a ton of apps and resources on the internet that will help you properly optimize your conversion rates on Shopify, however, you still need to do your research and have a good strategy in place to truly reduce the effect that cart abandonment has on your e-commerce business. There are many reasons why potential customers abandon carts on your store, many of which you have all the control to fix, especially with a good strategy in place. First and foremost, though, you always want to ensure that you have a quality user experience, otherwise, you will start experiencing drop-off before "potential customer" is even a thing. Important Areas that your Strategy Should Consider 1. Trust Always make sure that your e-commerce store is fully compliant. Shoppers are still scared to perform transactions online due to their limited knowledge of how these transactions actually work, and also bad experiences they've heard about through the grapevine. Make use of all the relevant badges available through compliancy and payment providers you make use of and ensure that they are fully visible to the customer. Also, make sure that you have very detailed Privacy Policies and Terms of Service in place. Visibility and transparency go a long way into building trust in your store. 2. Hidden Costs Nothing irritates a potential customer more than spending their valuable time going through the shopping process on your store only to find out, once getting to the checkout page, about all or any additional fees being added. Again, visibility and transparency around all additional fees upfront will encourage shoppers to continue their journey through to actually purchasing on your store. If a shopper only sees these fees at the end of the journey this will also add to any trust issues they might have had to start with. 3. Window Shopping A lot of shoppers are merely browsing through the internet looking at things they're interested in buying. They're either looking for the best price or they just can't afford to buy the products they want at this time. Either way, they're still a potential customer of yours because they are looking at a specific product that they like. You should also always be aware of your competitors' pricing for the same or similar products and ensure that you can match them, beat them or offer a more valuable service to your potential customers, otherwise, they will abandon their carts. Entice shoppers with first-order coupons or bonuses such as free shipping to persuade them not to abandon their cart. 4. Complicated or lengthy checkout process Last, but not least, one of the biggest drop-off areas for a lot of new, and already-established, e-commerce stores is a lengthy or complicated checkout process. We live in an age of instant gratification, customers want to be able to find the product they want and finish the checkout process as quickly as possible. Optimizing the checkout process is probably the most important task that you should focus on when devising your abandon cart strategy. There's no quick fix or one size fits all solution here. You need to decide on the most suitable flow for your store's use case. Certain flows will allow a shopper to find their desired product as quickly as possible and checkout and pay similarly. While this is beneficial in some cases, it might also create a scenario where you miss out on any up-sell and cross-sell opportunities which obviously increase basket sizes and obviously make you more money. A good way to find the right match for your business is to have multiple checkout processes, otherwise known as A/B testing. This will allow you to test and tweak each process until you find the most efficient one. Make Use of Apps That Help Implement Your Strategy Once you have come up with a sound strategy that you think covers all of the potential problem areas, you can start making use of proven Shopify apps (plugins) that will aid your quest in increasing conversions. These apps come with loads of configuration options, to help you retarget your potential customers and keep your business top of mind for when they are ready to pull the trigger, or even entice them to make the purchase NOW, for whatever reason you might have come up with in your strategy. Examples are bonuses, free delivery options, or discounts, as discussed above. These apps use methods such as push notifications, instant messaging, SMS, or email to retarget a potential customer after they have dropped off from your store. Some stores try and capture a potential customer's email address quite early on into the journey, or maybe as they are leaving your store, with a popup. Some other stores might ask the user to allow push notifications when visiting the store for the first time. This will help you to at least maintain some sort of communication with a potential client and hopefully convert them in the future. Conclusion Spend time doing your research and coming up with a good strategy. Research apps and always read the reviews, in order to select the apps that can help you the most. Take a look at what other stores are doing, ones that are similar to yours and even ones that aren't, but that you feel have managed to convert you into a customer. Ask yourself what they did to convert you and why you think it worked. Lastly, this should be an ongoing process. Use the data you collect to continuously optimize and test the process until you find the most optimal process for your business.

Shopify marketing How to Create an Abandoned Cart Recovery Email Campaign About 70% of e-commerce shoppers abandon their carts without completing the purchase. An abandoned cart is an opportunity to get the client back to the store to complete the purchase. An opportunity that shouldn't be missed. An email campaign is one of the best tools for recovering abandoned carts. Here are some of the best practices for creating successful abandoned cart recovery email campaigns: Try to Understand Why the Client Didn't Complete the Purchase You should have information regarding the stage where the client dropped from checkout. So, you might have enough information to make an educated guess why the clients failed to complete the purchase. Did the client leave after inserting his address and viewing the shipping cost? Offer him free shipping. Did he refuse to enter his credit card information? Try to build trust. If you can understand what prevented the client from completing the purchase, tailor the email to try and overcome the obstacle. Customize the Cart Recovery Email According to Segments Different approaches suit different clients. Customize your email campaigns according to client segments - returning client vs. first-timer, client location, product type, cart value, etc. Include the Product Image and a Back-to-Cart Button You know that the client was interested in a specific product. He was interested enough to add this product to his cart. Build your email around this product - include an image of the product and a back-to-cart button to let the client quickly complete his purchase. Make it as easy as possible for the client to complete his purchase. Any hurdle is a potential cause for him to drop out again. Create an Effective Subject Line A well-written subject line can increase the chances that the recipient will open the email. It should be short and not spammy. Try to include the name of the client and the name of the product in the subject line. Include Special Offers The best practice is to include a special offer in your email campaign. Offer a special discount, free shipping, or a gift. It increases the chances that the recipient will open the email and complete the purchase. Shipping rates are one of the top reasons for abandoning carts, so it is also one of the most effective cart recovery promotions. You might not want to include a special offer in the first email. A special offer in the first email might cause returning clients to abandon their carts just to get the offer. The best practice is to send special offers to first-time clients or in a later email. Time Your Emails It is usually optimal to send the first email a few hours after the client added the product to his cart. You don't want to send the email too soon because the client might still complete the purchase on his own. At the same time, you want to send it fast enough when it is still very relevant. Use a Set of Emails A set of two or three emails is the best practice for abandoned cart recovery campaigns and should lead to optimal results. Your goal should be to maximize your sales without irritating your potential clients. In any case, you should always test it yourself to find out what works best for your store. Here is a popular general flow to start with - 1. First Email - A friendly reminder Reminds the client that he left a product in the cart. Should do the job if the client just got distracted. Best to send a couple of hours after the client added the product to his cart. 2. Second Email - Create a sense of urgency Let the client know that the product might get sold out. Invite him to contact you for help. Best to send one to two days after the first email. 3. Third Email- Offer a promotion A promotion offer might be that final push the client needs. Best to send one to two days after the second email. Measure Performance and a/B Test Abandoned cart recovery email campaigns can be very useful in boosting your sales. Like any marketing activity, there is no one-size-fits-all. The best practices should give you an excellent place to start with. The key is to measure the performance and A/B test to optimize the results of your email campaign.

Shopify marketing How to Increase the Average Order Value in Your Shopify Store As an e-commerce store owner, you should always be finding ways to increase your average order value (AOV), and even better, increasing it without a burden on your profits. In this post, we will cover a few techniques that merchants can use to grow their store's AOV. But before we start, let's first make sure that we're clear on what AOV is, how to calculate it, and why it's important to increase it. What is the Average Order Value in eCommerce? When we talk about The AOV, we refer to the amount of revenue divided by the number of purchases in any given date range. For example, if during January your Shopify store had 1,000 orders of $100,000 in total, you would calculate your AOV as follows: 100,000 : 1, 000 = $100 This means that the average purchase during January was $100. Pretty simple, right? Why Is It So Important to Increase the Average Order Value of Your Store? Running an eCommerce business involves much different expertise from marketing and branding to shipping and inventory management. But at the end of the day, when you analyze your business's performance, it's all about the numbers. And while most sellers focus on increasing traffic and conversion rates, we shouldn't miss out on the opportunity to grow revenues by increasing AOV. An eComm sales funnel is comprised of a few steps - Awareness (how many people are exposed to your brand or products).Traffic (how many visitors arrive at your site).View product. Add to cart.Place an order.Offer upsells.Complete purchase. Since every step in the funnel affects the following one, improving any step can have an incremental effect. When you if in the example above we'd increase AOV by just $10, from $100 to $110, that would be multiplied by the number of orders (1,000) and would mean $10,000 more revenue for the business. So, the more orders the business has, the more significant an increase in AOV is. And while it can often be tough to increase traffic or conversion rates, many merchants can get a better bang for their buck by improving AOV. Methods for increasing the Average Order Value There are several methods that store owners use to increase their AOV. A good place to start is to analyze your sales data and see what kind of patterns you can find in previous orders. Thereafter you can put a strategy together to cover the following methods. Upselling Upselling is a method of getting a customer to purchase an upgraded version of the product they've put in their cart. Make sure your upgrade is beneficial to the customer and that they can see the value in spending a little more money for something similar to what they originally wanted to purchase. Cross-selling Cross-selling is a method of bundling products together. A good example of this would be a jewelry store selling pendants and then trying to get the customer to add a necklace when they add the pendant to their basket. Free delivery Adding a minimum order amount to get customers to up their basket sizes is a great way to increase AOV. Other options There are a few other methods like adding discounts to higher-margin products, enabling customers to get free delivery or other discounts on their first order, and setting up loyalty programs. Another old trick that has been used in walk-in retail in the past is the "isle of death" when queuing to get to the till to pay. In the same manner, you could place certain upsell and cross-sell products on the checkout place to try and entice customers to add further items to their basket as they are about to checkout. The importance of accurate assessments It is imperative always to make sure that your costs and margins assessment is correct before applying any of the approaches I've mentioned above. Implementing them wrong could cost you more than the benefit you land up getting out of it.

Writing a product description for Shopify store

Shopify marketing How to Write Good Product Descriptions for Your Shopify Store There are a few things you should know about and take into consideration when deciding how to name your products and write good descriptions. It's useful to know that there are about 24 million e-commerce stores on the web all trying to sell their products and compete for rankings. Remember that product descriptions affect your store on many levels, from SEO and discovery on search engines, through your product's preview on social media or advertisement, to user experience and conversion rates. Research Research is essential to writing new product descriptions, so do your homework before starting to write. Competitors: Check what your competitors write about their products, the length of their product titles and descriptions, the use of keywords, images, etc.Run keyword research - Use SEO research tools to check what keywords your competitors' products rank for.Google your competitor and see if you find just their store's homepage or also product pages come up.Google your competitor's products to see how their product pages look on search results. Inspiration and best practices: Look for a few successful stores that you can learn from, even if they don't sell the same category of products as you and are not a direct competitor. Check out the length of their product title and descriptions, the use of images, whether they show a long and comprehensive description by default, or do customers have to click 'See more' to expand and read the entire description. Again, Google their brand name and products to learn what ranks well on search engines. Writing Product Descriptions When we talk about product descriptions, we actually refer to product names as well. Names and descriptions should work hand in hand. You're going to want your product page to have an in-depth description of all the information about your product, but you should also remember that the product name is as important because that's the first thing that the customer sees. Product Names Product titles don't have too much effect on SEO, but an optimized product title bundled with great images and a thorough description will go along way towards increasing your SERP rankings and, therefore, organic traffic. A good product helps customers understand the product they're looking at, hence improving your store's user experience is. Don't make your products' titles too short and also not too long. Your goal is to write descriptive product titles that contain information that is valuable for the customer. Product Descriptions Most people will want to find the most important stuff as quickly as possible when they're searching for a product or browsing through your store. They're not looking to read through long product descriptions. Nevertheless, when making a purchase decision, some customers want to dig deeper, learn more about the product they intend to buy, and perhaps even compare its features with competing products. Therefore, a product description should be thorough and comprehensive while making the most important information stand out. A good way to make important info stand out is using bullet points or other design features to create a hierarchy. To rank high on Google, include keywords that came up during research and think of other keywords customers may use when searching for similar products. Eventually, make sure your description covers everything a customer could want to know about your product. Optimization A product description isn't something that you write once and forget about. Once in a while, you should check how your products perform on search engines, ads, and in terms of conversion rate in your store. You should revisit your competitors and see whether they have made changes since the last time you checked. After you collect all the data, go back to your product descriptions to add or remove keywords, add new information, or make any other edits to optimize performance.

Setting prices for your Shopify store's products

Shopify marketing How to Correctly Price Products on Your Shopify Store Product pricing is a complicated issue for any eCommerce store owner. There are many factors to take into account, such as fixed costs, hidden costs, transaction fees, etc. Just when you think you've found the optimal pricing point, suddenly you realize that profits aren't anywhere close to what they were supposed to be. Calculate All of Your Shopify Store's Costs As with every blog I've written, I always mention how important "RESEARCH" is. Profound research is an essential step you must take before launching your store to the public. As discussed above, there are so many costs to running a Shopify store that merchants have to take into consideration when calculating product pricing: Shopify's transaction fee - Depending on your package, this fee could amount to 2% per transaction. Shopify apps - The number of apps and plugins your store requires to operate properly. On Shopify, you start off with store cost, a minimum of $29 per month, but you have to use apps for product galleries, portfolios, reviews, abandoned cart, remarketing, etc. Therefore your real starting price is around $100 per month.Payment gateways you use have their own fees per transaction on top of Shopify's price.Fulfillment costs can vary, depending on whether your customers are local, national or international.Marketing - When launching a store, many merchants don't know how to factor-in marketing costs. But as you know, every store needs marketing, and this cost can vary every month.Taxes - VAT, business tax, etc., will also significantly affect your revenue and profits. Take your time and do extensive market research to learn about all the fixed and variable fees that a store owner pays in order to run a successful e-commerce business. Thereafter, put all of these costs into a spreadsheet and use it to make informed decisions on all the products you're pricing. Understand Your Customers Remember, you're selling a product, not a price. This means that at the end of the day, prices need to reflect your products' value in the eyes of your customers. So, after you've factored in all of the costs, you'll know the minimum price that customers need to pay for you to turn a profit. But this isn't necessarily the right price; it is merely the minimum price. For example, Apple charges more than $20 for an iPhone charging cable, while its production costs, storage, and marketing don't even come close. Nevertheless, customers are willing to pay this price since they must have this cable to charge their iPhones, and Apple knows that an overpriced charging cable will not cause their customers to leave them. Check Your Competitors Comparing your products and prices with competitors is crucial for understanding your product's value in your customers' eyes. Here you'll have to look at more than just price. For example: How much do you estimate it costs your competitor to market their product?Are your competitors' brand names perceived more or less perceived valuable than yours?Does your product offer better features than the competition? Test Your Hypothesis Remember that no plan survives contact with real customers. You've based your pricing on calculations and estimations, and now it's time to test and see how customers respond to it. Look at it as an experiment. You've come up with a hypothesis and now it's time to experiment and see how close it is to reality. When you look at every new step in your Shopify journey as an experiment, you realize that each experiment's goal is to learn, and then you're not disappointed if you don't nail it on you're first go. Optimize Prices Over Time You'll never get the perfect price for your products; it is an ongoing process. Market changes affect marketing, production, distribution, etc., and this affects your competitors too. For that reason, you need to come to terms with the fact that you're operating in an ever-changing environment and that now and then, you'll have to re-assess and re-test your pricing.

Shopify marketing Using AliExpress Product Pictures on Your Shopify Store Shopify is a platform that allows you to build and grow your e-commerce business with needed solutions like inventory, record-keeping, shipping, payment, ads, and tax options readily available. However, once you have your store set up, you need to convince prospective buyers to trust you over the options available. Many Shopify store owners source their products from manufacturers and suppliers on AliExpress. This means, for the most part, that they also depend on AliExpress's product pictures. Getting the right picture is crucial, and while AliExpress simplifies a lot of the process with automations, there are more things to consider than just simplicity. So, in this piece, we will discuss everything there is to know about using AliExpress product pictures on your Shopify store. Things to Consider Legality is the most prominent factor to consider when deciding whether or not to use AliExpress product pictures. Though it is an unwritten rule, you are generally free to use pictures from AliExpress as most of their photos are claimed to be royalty-free. However, you have to consider that claim within the larger context of the company's attitude to copyright laws. It is no secret that AliExpress operates from a territory where intellectual property and copyright laws are not very well respected. As such, there is a likelihood that the pictures that have been used by the supplier and tagged “royalty-free” were actually stolen from an original creator. There are countless complaints on various forums, blogs, and on AliExpress itself, where some sellers, photographers, and content creators have noted how AliExpress suppliers use and even brand their work without permission. As such, it is vital to verify that the photos being copied are royalty-free before using them, and if they are, you may also want to contact the suppliers to obtain their permission. Another thing to consider is the fact that some suppliers brand their photos with their logos or contact details and so, after having sorted out legality and permission, you may have to go through the picture to ensure that it does not have brand markings that make them unusable. A potentially less expensive option is to make your AliExpress supplier your photographer as well. You can ask them to provide better quality pictures than what is already available on their page. Most suppliers will be okay with sending you pictures of the products because they understand that there would be no orders without them, which could lead to a lack of interest in their supply. After getting through the processes above, you will end up with a good, ready-to-post picture. All that's left for you to do is import them. Conclusion Having learned the different factors to consider when deciding on pictures to use in your store, you can make an informed decision before you decide to opt for AliExpress pictures. One thing you should keep in mind is that, even though using pictures is necessary, it is more important to focus on visuals that convince your buyers and provide them with the correct information, not tick them off or complicate their decision-making process.

Shopify marketing How Good Content Can Improve Your Shopify Store's Conversion Rates The content that you show on the pages of your Shopify store is one of the most important factors that affect conversion rates. Of course, there are other factors like the audience you target and the channels you use, but even then, the content you use will affect whose attention you can grab and whether they engage with you. The term 'content' may refer to almost anything from images and micro-copy to videos and articles. In this post, I'll focus on essential principles you should understand to create good content that converts. Reading this post will help you understand marketing in general and content in particular. Content Drives Most of Your Shopify Store's Traffic If your Shopify store is built correctly in terms of the content it shows, then in most cases, new visitors, who don't know your brand yet, will arrive at your site because of your content. For example, people who click on your Facebook or Google ads before arriving at your site do so because of the ads' content. People who click on a social media post on Facebook or Instagram do so because of the content. The same is true to tweets, WhatsApp and text messages, Youtubes, TikTok videos, and of course, organic searches on Google. People who search for products find your store on Google because of the content on your products' pages. The only visitors who arrive at your site not necessarily because of your content are people who already know your brand. These people may Google your store's name, type in the exact URL, or click a bookmark on their browser to get to your site. People Search for What They Know So, content is the source of most of your traffic. If you're not a huge brand like Coca-Cola or Nike, most people have never heard about you, and for that reason, when they search on Google, they don't search for you. They search for answers for their questions, solutions for their problems, or something they need. But if you're not famous and they don't know your brand name, they will not search for you. Good Content = Good Conversion Rates Good content increases your chances of getting discovered and noticed if it speaks to your customers' needs, not if it speaks about your business. But it doesn't end there, content plays a significant role throughout the funnel: Expert content on your store builds your brand's trust and authority. Informative content helps customers understand which products fit their needs and provides the support or education they need during their interaction with your brand. Good product descriptions and images entice customers and help them make the final decision to buy.

Shopify marketing Three Benefits of Blogging for Your Shopify eCommerce Business Having a business blog is an incredibly powerful tool if you manage it correctly. There are numerous benefits to business blogging, from boosting your online presence to establishing your business as experts in your field. Blogs Are Easy for Others to Share When you write and post a well-written and informative blog, readers will be inclined to share it with family, friends, and even on their own social media channels or websites. This means that your blog could reach an entirely new audience that not only improves your online presence but can also lead to more sales of your products or services. Blogs Help Establish You as an Industry Expert As a business, being recognized as an expert in what you do is a great way to build trust with your audience. A blog is a fantastic opportunity to do this for many reasons. A blog allows you to discuss and explain current industry-specific events, letting you demonstrate a clear understanding of current affairs. You can share key information to customers and those who are not experts in your industry, building trust and building a strong reputation as a business that knows what they are talking about! With a blog, your can write about almost any topic and share that with your audience. If you can continue to demonstrate that your business is at the forefront of knowledge in your industry, you’ll continue to be seen as trustworthy and reliable. Blogs Improve Your Search Engine Ranking With every blog that you write, you can specifically tailor the keywords you are looking to target. This allows you to experiment with different search terms and keywords and make it easier to use long-tail keywords such as "handmade wax candles in London" rather than just wax candles on its own, for example. This allows you to have a wider outreach and means that you will reach a wider audience. As well as this, search engines recognize that you have created new content, viewing these pages as up-to-date and relevant. This is a good thing as search engines such as Google will rank your site higher than websites that are not so active, helping to move you closer to the coveted first page of Google! Don't let blogs scare you. The benefits far outway the effort required to create a blog. Just give it a go, and enjoy the benefits of your hard work!

Shopify marketing How to Increase Traffic and Sales Conversion on Your Online Ecommerce Store Being an online seller getting a good conversion rate is the top priority. Whether you are running a Shopify store or owner of an Etsy shop, all the hustle is for getting decent traffic and a high conversion rate. In this post, we will discuss three interesting tips that can help you in the short and long term. # 1. Instagram shoutouts to higher traffic and conversion rate: Influencer marketing Approaching social media influencers for a shoutout is very trending now these days. It not only introduces your product/service in a compelling way but also gives you good results. All you need to do is choose the right influencer to market your product to the right targeted audience. It gives you fast results, but make sure your store is well customized with good copywriting to higher the conversion rate. # 2. Personal branding Personal branding might be a slow process, and you have to be patient, but it gives you long-term results. You have to establish a strong online presence by posting valuable content for your targeted audience. Sharing your brand vision and telling them how your product/service can make a positive impact on their life can help to build trust. Trust is the key that turns your potential followers into cash-paying customs. Kylie Jenner is the best example of personal branding. # 3. Learn SEO to drive organic traffic It becomes slightly challenging when you sell the same products that thousands of your competitors are already selling. To stand out from the crowd, you have to understand what your targeted audience is searching for. Well-optimized SEO-friendly titles, unique product descriptions, Alt tag on an image, and some additional website content can help you rank your store. I would suggest you hire a professional or learn it in-depth to get lucrative results.