Selling online with Shopify. It’s something many bricks and mortar businesses are now asking how it’s done. This blog post explains how.
These are challenging times for us all, and adapting to the current situation can seem like a very daunting task. In a situation where many of us now work from home and bricks & mortar stores have shut their doors, you will likely be looking for solutions to carry on trading.
If you have a bricks & mortar store and have shut your doors to protect your employees, customers, your family and yourself, then the solution could be to gain sales online with Shopify and Google Shopping. This could be either your first venture into online selling or you may want to get more from your existing e-commerce business.
There are so many tools out there to help you sell online, from website page builders to fully customised eCommerce websites and from Google Ads to Facebook and Instagram. The decision can be a difficult one to make. Selling online with Shopify is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get up and running.
If you are looking to improve your current online offering or to start your online shop from scratch, then the best solution could be just around the corner. As Shopify Partners & Google Partners specialising in Google Shopping, we are experts in getting businesses like yours the online exposure and sales you need to enhance your current operations.
Never had an online store before?
If your business has always been run through a bricks & mortar store, then moving to provide an online proposition can be a scary prospect. You will likely be asking yourself questions like “What kind of website do I want?” “Which provider offers the best solution?” “How do I get website visitors?” “How do I market my website?” among many others.
Whether you have tried online selling before and want to increase sales, or if this is your first time looking at selling online with Shopify, the team at Factory is here to help. We have taken many businesses from the analogue to the digital world and know how to get the traffic you need to make it a success. We are Shopify Partners and specialists in Google Shopping Ads for Shopify.
Already have an online store?
If you already have an eCommerce store, please ask yourself:
- Do you see the rewards you expect from it?
- Do the online sales stand up against the in-store sales volumes?
- Does your current website reflect your brand identity?
- Is your website user-friendly?
- Do you get to see a detailed analysis of website user activity?
- Have you gone through and tested the user buying experience yourself?
- Would you like to have a modern website that does all these things?
If you answer NO to any of the first six questions and/or YES to the final question, then a Shopify store could be the answer you need.
Where does Shopify fit into all this?
Shopify provides an eCommerce platform to over 1,000,000 businesses of all sizes worldwide. With our expertise as Shopify Partners, we use the platform to create an eCommerce store so your business can sell online. When people buy online, they generally prefer familiarity and usability. Selling online with Shopify can deliver what both you and your customers need.
Not only can you have a glossy and modern online store, but the Shopify platform also protects you against fraud and provides a fully secure shopping cart feature for your customers, customer support, an array of great-looking Shopify themes and Shopify apps, starting with the Shopify Google Shopping App to extend your store, a custom domain and many more out of the box features.
By opting for a Shopify online store, you are also futureproofing this side of your business. With scalability from start-ups right through to multinational eCommerce giants, you will have a platform that can grow with your business needs.
What are the benefits of Shopify?
With Shopify, the world is your oyster. This platform provides your business with the tools needed to start selling online:
- Professional storefront – Get the look and feel that matches your existing business and brand identity
- Ease of use. It’s very simple to add products and create a product page or various pages and collections.
- Secure shopping cart – Ensures your customers are protected when making a purchase.
- A payment gateway that accepts all major credit cards, debit cards, Paypal, Apple Pay, Google Pay & more. You know where you stand with transaction fees.
- Store management – Everything you would expect, from customer profiles and accounts through to order fulfilment and customer emails
- Marketing & SEO integration – Allows your products to be marketed across multiple platforms, including Google and Facebook. Shopify stores can also utilise SEO services to gain organic rankings and traffic from search engines.
- Inventory management – Everything from stock levels and product variations through to product images and organisation
- Website hosting – Providing you with unlimited bandwidth (never be charged based on the number of visitors to your website), SSL certificate (the little padlock in the browser address bar that keeps everything secure) and instant upgrades to ensure you are always running updated features
- Analytics – A detailed dashboard which shows the information on your sales, orders and traffic. Your store can also be linked to Google Analytics for even more detail on your traffic data
- Mobile App – The Shopify Google Shopping App is a convenient app to allow you to manage many aspects of your online store through your mobile phone available on the app store.
“This all sounds great, but how do I then get people to visit my shopify store when there are so many online sellers out there?”
I hear you asking. Well, this is how:
Digital marketing is the second most crucial aspect of having an online business – getting traffic to visit and buy from your website.
Ultimately, having a fantastic website without any digital marketing strategy or SEO strategy in place is a bit like owning a Ferarri without an engine. It will look fantastic, but it will not get you from A to B, and nobody will get to see it.
The great thing about selling online with Shopify is that your products can be integrated with the Google Ads platform to drive traffic to your online store. With the right expertise, any online advertiser of any size can gain traffic and sales from Google Ads.
A word of warning, if done incorrectly, Google Ads can be very costly, and you risk seeing no reward from your efforts. The devil is always in the detail with digital marketing, and you need to be able to confident in your setup and optimisation on an ongoing basis, which is why it is usually better to let the experts do this for you.
Our client’s marketing campaigns are all overseen by our ex-Googler. This gives us the perfect knowledge base to provide you with the springboard to a successful online side to your business.
To gain sales through your Shopify store, we would recommend having a Google Shopping strategy that is managed by an expert.
Shopify and Google Shopping
Google Shopping Ads is the eCommerce feature within Google Ads, which drives traffic to help businesses sell online. This feature allows Shopify sellers to feed their products through from their online store into the Google Ads network.
Nowadays, Google Shopping ads come in many formats as opposed to previously only being seen at the top of Google search results. As people’s browsing habits change, so do the digital marketing tools that we have available to us.
Google Shopping ads can show across Google Search results, Image Search results, YouTube, the Google Display Network and Gmail. Simply put – If your ideal customers are online, you will find a way to reach them with Google Shopping ads.
How does Google Shopping work?
Google Shopping ads will generally be served to a potential customer when their search term triggers your product(s) to show. This is primarily based on the product title and its relevance to their search, among many other factors.
In the ad itself, the title will show just below your product’s image. Images and titles are incredibly important to engage with potential customers. If you are going up against a lot of competitors, then you need to ensure your picture is clear and of a high-quality and the title must be compelling.
For each product you are selling, the title must highlight the most relevant product attributes. The title helps engage with potential shoppers as they can skim through and decide if your ad is what they need and if it is worth clicking.
When thinking about all of this, you should also put yourself in a shopper’s shoes. Think about what the most significant factors are for each of your products to help your customers make a purchase decision.
For example, if you are selling TVs, then you want to ensure your title includes the terms that you would expect somebody to use to find your products. By adding key points within your product titles, such as the make, model number and size, your potential customers will know if your product fits their needs before clicking.
An ad that reads as:
“LG 65″ OLED65W9PLA SIGNATURE OLED HDR 4K Ultra HD Smart TV”
Is informative and likely to gain valuable traffic to your online shop rather than one which simply reads:
“LG 65″ Smart TV”
Ideally, your product title should be no more than 70 characters. Although you can enter up to 150 characters, the system will only ever show the first 70.
Always ensure your most important terms are at the beginning of your product title such as brand, product type etc. with variations towards the end such as size etc.
Consider what your customers would expect to see as the product title and don’t confuse them by overloading with keywords – keep it relevant to the product and variation you are selling.
What next?
Thinking about selling online with Shopify? If you’re ready to move your business online or improve your existing online eCommerce offering, speak to our friendly team today, we are here to help.
The team at Made By Factory’s Construction PPC Agency in Manchester are here to set you up for online eCommerce success with your Shopify store, both now, during these challenging times, and in the future.
