How to sell on Shopify: getting started and automating

Cloud CMS for online stores (Shopify, InSales, Horosop, Tilda) is one of the most flexible and affordable tools for starting an online trading business. All technical aspects: hosting, site creation (including design) are taken over by the developer company, and you are responsible for registration, paying a monthly fee and a little effort to start: choose a design template from ready-made ones, fill in the seller’s details, upload listings and get ready for a flurry of orders, of course, provided that the product is in demand, the price is adequate, and the competition is within reason. Most often, it will take a maximum of half a day to organize an outlet on the “engine” intended for this, this is not counting the time for approving the application.

What is Shopify in numbers

We consider Shopify to be one of the smartest and most thoughtful services - it is a global market leader with Canadian roots, whose history began in 2004, with a business idea to create a store for selling snowboards, in 2006 it grew into a project of a global e-commerce platform. And in 2022, revenue reached $4.6 billion.

Today, there are already more than 1.7 million stores on the Shopify platform, among them about 10 thousand truly successful brands - Nestle, BBC shops, Collins, Decathlon, etc. The geography is amazing: all continents are represented here, but American hosting prevails, over 70%.

Customers of online stores on Shopify are mainly residents of the USA, Great Britain, Canada, that is, a solvent audience, the average check for purchases on the platform is 72 US dollars. The development of such a market is a good prospect for entrepreneurs from Ukraine, where purchasing power is very reduced due to military operations, migration and the associated economic crisis. Nearly seven dozen companies on Shopify claim to earn over a million dollars on this platform alone. There is something to strive for.

Benefits of Shopify for Retail

Among the advantages of the "engine": a quick start, the ability to create your store directly from your smartphone (mobile version is attached) in one day. A wide choice of languages ​​- 20 options at the moment.

Stylish, modern design templates - there are free ones, configured by default, no unnecessary movements. For those who like to highlight their store, including through a cool design, there are paid themes for every taste. Before you pay for the chosen one, you can play with trying on different ones in order to preliminarily evaluate how it will look.

Truly rich functionality for online trading:

- Products can be loaded in a catalog (from Excel, Google spreadsheets, imported from other sites), assigned options to them, combined into categories. There is a mass editing option, it is very convenient.

- A product card is designed quickly and easily, you can add a zoom to enlarge a photo, a video review or even a three-dimensional model to present the product to the client from all sides.

- Profiles of buyers, with full name, contacts, history of purchases (applications), preferences.

Orders window, here you can control the processing process using statuses.

- Marketing tools for promotion in social networks and search (SEO optimization), for organizing email newsletters (there are even letter templates), maintaining a loyalty program: certificates, discounts, etc.

- Detailed statistics and analytics: for the selected category (sales, goods), but only in tariffs from $79 per month.

You can add additional sales channels to your own Shopify store like Pinterest, Facebook, Amazon - the service has official integrations with all of them.

And, of course, it’s worth mentioning Shopify Ping, an aggregator of applications for correspondence with customers, works in the mobile version, but, unfortunately, is only available for iOS so far. For the standard option, there is Shopify Chat where you can chat with your online store visitors.

Shopify for commerce?

Registration on the platform will give you the opportunity to use it for free for 2 weeks, the procedure for creating an account is very simple, you will be guided step by step: fill out a form (address, contact details), answer a short questionnaire (purpose of creating an account, etc.). Click "Create a store", give it a unique name, and then deal with the 3 menu tabs. They allow:

- Add a product: you will need to enter a name, a detailed and attractive description, price, upload a high-quality photo. In the fields on the right, indicate the type of product, supplier, tags (important for adequate search results), as well as a barcode or article (for convenient inventory accounting), weight (for calculating shipping costs). If you have several products in the same category (promotional, Christmas, yoga) you can combine them into one collection. To increase the chance of a successful sale, follow the tips for creating a Product Map.

- Choose and customize the design style. There are free "themes", you will have a chance to try on different ones, watch a video about how it will look, including on a smartphone. Everything you like can be stored in your own template library, which you can always return to and update the design. You can also order a design here https://www.makebecool.com/services/shopify-design-ux .

- Specify the domain, the address of your online store, which will be visible to buyers and search engines, you can buy it from Shopify or third-party services.

Next, you need to add a payment method, it can be shopify payments (no transaction fee is charged), PayPall and specify delivery options (the wider the choice, the more likely it is to turn the user into a buyer).

Shopify CRM or App?

Inside the platform there is a whole store with all kinds of programs for trading the Shopify App Store, which is being replenished by developers from different parts of the world - applications for the delivery of Aftership, Omega (package tracking); to increase the check - Upsell, to organize mailing lists - Seguno, Omnisend, for SEO optimization - SEO Booster, Avada; currency converters - Currency Converter Bear, MLV; for quick import of goods and their accounting, for order management - Oberlo. Of course, almost any such program is an additional burden on your budget, and there are controversial points: will there be conflicts between applications; whether they will make the site heavier, reducing the download speed; whether employees will master them.

To automate trading on the platform, the Ukrainian CRM for Shopify - KeyCRM is perfect. The system works with the cloud store through the official API, integration with Shopify is connected in 15 minutes, without the help of programmers. It is built-in, so you don't have to worry about plugins interfering with each other.

Here is a universal tool that turns your trading into a pleasant and effective business, in which routine gives way to development, plans for the future. Just three steps and your store is connected to CRM for Shopify. Simple and convenient, like everything in KeyCRM.