21st Century Shopping Experience
Selling your products and services is easier than ever today – advanced Shopify technology empowers people to find just what they want online and purchase it from the comfort of their homes and beyond. It provides a highly customer friendly shopping experience that customers love and which is easy for shopify merchants to roll-out. Mobile shopping is widespread, yet people still value interacting with brick-and-mortar businesses. Comprehensive solutions like Shopify make it possible for you to sell online and in-person.
Powerful Ecommerce Platform Used by Millions
What is Shopify and how does it work, you ask? Shopify is a powerful commerce platform that enables you to sell across multiple channels. It offers you the foundation to build an ecommerce store and gives you the tools you need to sell from wherever you are. If you use it properly, you can boost your company’s conversion rates and grow your business.
5 Surprising Reasons Enterprises Don’t Use An ERP
What is Shopify and How Does It Work?
Though most people think of Shopify as an ecommerce platform – which is one of the primary functions of the service – it is really a robust commerce solution for businesses of all sizes. Depending on what your business needs, Shopify offers five levels of service:
● Shopify Lite: This is the most cost-efficient level of service. It’s perfect if you want to sell on Facebook or add your products or services to a website without creating your own.
● Basic Shopify: It has a curated set of features that enable you to build your own ecommerce store. This is the lowest level of service you need to use Shopify with your own domain.
● Shopify: When you are ready to grow your business, or if you need a commerce solution for brick-and-mortar locations or pop-up stores. This is the next level of service for small businesses.
● Advanced Shopify: The most comprehensive level of service. With Advanced Shopify, you can expand your business and receive the most detailed reporting insight available.
● Shopify Plus: Large companies and those who need enterprise-grade commerce solutions will appreciate this level because it is optimized for high volume businesses.
Shopify Pricing and Payment Plans
Shopify charges monthly to use the platform, but there are other fees to consider as well. While you won’t have transaction fees if you use Shopify Payments, you will pay fees for accepting credit cards whether you use Shopify or another payment platform.
Alternative Payment Mechanisms
If you use another payment gateway, such as Apple Pay, Amazon Pay or Google Store Payments, you may incur transaction fees. Shipping fees will also need to be accounted for in your costs, even if you plan to charge your customers for them.
Pros and Cons of Each Payment Gateway
When setting up a Shopify website, choosing the right payment gateway is crucial. Each gateway has its pros and cons, and it's essential to weigh them against your business's needs. Shopify Payments is a popular option that doesn't charge transaction fees, but if you prefer to use another gateway like Apple Pay or Google Store Payments, you may incur transaction fees. While shipping fees must be accounted for, Shopify makes it easy to integrate your store with other sales channels, such as Amazon and eBay. It's important to consider these factors when deciding which payment gateway to include on your Shopify website. A decision-making framework could include evaluating transaction fees, integration options, and other costs associated with each gateway. By doing so, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your business goals and budget.
Running Paid Advertising Campaigns
You’ll also need to budget for any ads you create through Shopify or third-party integrations. Some of these costs may be due upfront, while others may be included in your monthly Shopify bill.
Primary Features and Benefits of Building a Shopify Website
While Shopify Lite is a great option for creatives and freelancers, you need to invest in a Basic Shopify plan at the very least if you want to grow a small business. Starting with features from the basic plan, these are some benefits of building a Shopify website.
- Your Own Ecommerce Website and Business Blog
A Shopify website allows you to create a fully functional ecommerce store in a matter of minutes. With shop templates and an easy-to-use website editor, you’ll be able to add products and start marketing your store on the same day. You may even be able to take payments on day one.
If you already own a domain, you may be able to set up Shopify easily. If you don’t own a domain, you can still use Shopify to create your ecommerce store. You can upgrade to a domain later. - Unlimited Products and Multiple Sales Channels
The three standard Shopify plans allow you to add unlimited products. You’ll be able to upload images, write product descriptions, and manage your inventory in the same place. If you’re moving to Shopify from an existing ecommerce store, you can even bulk import your products.
Shopify makes it easy to integrate your store with other sales channels, especially social media platforms. You even have the option to integrate with Amazon and eBay. - Integrated Shipping and Payment Options
Whether you want to ship items yourself or use a third-party fulfillment service, Shopify enables your business to ship to as many places as possible. You can set up various shipping choices with different companies and include free shipping options for your customers.
Shopify makes it easy to accept payments both online and in-person. You can accept cash payments using their mobile app and credit card payments with their card reader.
How to Successfully Use a Shopify Website to Grow Your Business
Shopify provides much more than just a solution for displaying your products and collecting payments. They provide a suite of marketing tools that can help your business grow. Those ecommerce marketing tools allow you to share your products and accept payments from more than one place.
If you want to see the most success with Shopify, you need to employ these three tips:
- Connect your social media channels:
You can use Shopify to sell products on your business’ Facebook page and send potential buyers to a specific product from Instagram.
You can also use programs like ManyChat to create complete ecommerce sales funnels within Facebook Messenger. Shopify then can be integrated as your ecommerce system as part of these often complex, yet highly effective sales funnels.
- Get an Google AdWords account:
For your Google Ads Account, Shopify offers a AdWords credit for new stores, which can help you maximize the value of your initial marketing strategy.
- Download the mobile app:
Whether you want to upload products on-the-go or check reports while you’re on vacation, you can manage your business from anywhere.
Once you connect your social media channels and have a solid understanding of how the platform works, you can branch out and create paid social media ads directly from Shopify.
Getting Your Online Store Look and Feel Just Right
If you're looking for an ecommerce platform that offers a huge variety of beautiful, highly customizable themes, Shopify is the perfect solution. They provide quite a few free starter themes that can be easily tailored to your brand, as well as a vast selection of premium themes available for purchase from the Shopify Theme Store. At our company, which is a Shopify Partner, we specialize in the Shoptimized theme, which is optimized for speed and conversion rates.
You Can Sell Services on Shopify
Shopify is not just for product-based businesses. Service businesses can also benefit from this powerful commerce platform. For instance, if you run a SAP Consulting Service, you can sell your SAP Consulting services by the hour through Shopify.
Shopify Service Booking Apps
There are a variety of Shopify apps that allow clients to book blocks of time on your calendar and pay in advance of service delivery. You can even set it up so that payment is held until the client signs your timesheet to signify acceptance of the work. With Shopify, you can streamline your service business and make it easier for clients to book your services while boosting your sales conversion rates and growing your business.
Sell Digital Products on Your Shopify Store Platform
If you're looking for a platform to sell digital products like videos, music, ebooks, or even design patterns for web pages, Shopify is an excellent choice. With its robust commerce solutions and user-friendly interface, you can easily create an ecommerce store and sell your products from anywhere. Whether you're a product-based or service-based business, Shopify is an excellent choice for anyone looking to sell digital products.
Shipping Options
Shipping plays a critical role in ecommerce transactions, and it's important to offer a variety of options to your customers. Shopify makes it easy to integrate your store with various shipping carriers and services, such as USPS, FedEx, UPS, and DHL. You can set up different shipping rates based on weight, destination, and delivery time, and even offer free shipping on orders over a certain amount. Additionally, you can use Shopify's integrated shipping labels to streamline your shipping process and save time. By providing multiple shipping options, you can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, which can ultimately lead to more sales and growth for your business.
Deep Amazon Shipping Integration
Amazon Prime is a subscription program offered by Amazon that provides members with various benefits such as free two-day shipping, access to streaming services, and exclusive discounts. The fact that it includes free shipping is critical to its success as it eliminates the need for customers to pay for shipping on every order, making shopping on Amazon more convenient and cost-effective. The deep Shopify integration to Amazon shipping provides a critical competitive advantage to every Shopify store owner as it allows them to seamlessly fulfill orders using Amazon's reliable and efficient shipping network. This integration also enables store owners to offer their customers faster and more affordable shipping options, improving their overall shopping experience and increasing the likelihood of repeat business. Overall, Amazon Prime and the Shopify integration to Amazon shipping are powerful tools for ecommerce businesses looking to provide their customers with an exceptional shopping experience.
Merchant Fulfillment by Amazon
Shopify store owners who demonstrate a consistent ability to meet strict delivery criteria can be invited to become Merchant Fulfillment Partners. This means that Amazon Prime members can buy from them, yet the Shopify store owner can ship from their own warehouse, saving massive amounts on inventory that would have to be provided to Amazon.
Dropping Shipping with Shopify Online Stores
Drop shipping is a popular method of ecommerce fulfillment where the retailer does not hold any inventory. Instead, the retailer relies on a third-party supplier to fulfill orders on their behalf. This eliminates the need to hold expensive inventory and reduces the risk of stock becoming unsold. Shopify has various drop shipping applications that integrate with their platform, making it easy for retailers to connect with suppliers and automate the order fulfillment process. With these integrations, retailers can easily add products to their store and start selling without having to worry about storing or shipping products themselves. This is perfect for small businesses looking to grow without having to invest in inventory or additional staff.
Is Shopify Right for Your Business?
Choosing the right commerce solution for your business is a big decision. The right ecommerce store can make it easier for your customers to find what they’re looking for and encourage them to follow-through on their interest. Shopify offers a practical set of tools for businesses at any stage, and it’s relatively inexpensive for most businesses.
Five Reasons to Choose Shopify as Your Ecommerce Platform
- One of the top reasons to choose Shopify as your ecommerce platform is the Hubspot+Shopify integration, which makes it easy to manage your sales and marketing efforts in one place.
With this integration, you can track your customers' interactions with your store, create targeted email campaigns, and analyze your sales data to make informed business decisions.
You can also use Hubspot's extensive content marketing capabilities attract people into your sales funnel. Once there, due to the deep analytical capabilities of Hubspot, you can generate customized discount coupons. - Shopify's powerful ecommerce platform is used by millions of businesses worldwide, offering a range of pricing and payment plans to fit any budget.
It is a completely cloud-based platform and for all intents purposes infinitely scalable for almost any sales volume. - Whether you're just starting out or looking to expand your business, Shopify's user-friendly website editor and integrated shipping and payment options make it easy to create a professional-looking online store in no time.
- The Shopify App Store has thousands of applications that allow you to extend the performance of your Shopify store in every conceivable way.
There are apps for shopping cart abandonment recovery, customer loyalty apps, subscription management apps, product and services bundling apps, product customizer apps and interactive 3D product tour apps, to name just a tiny fraction of the apps we've worked with with our various Shopify ecommerce customers. - Plus, with a suite of marketing tools and the ability to sell on multiple channels, Shopify is an excellent choice for businesses of all sizes looking to grow their online presence.
Their Point of Sale (Shopify POS) app can quickly be deployed to multiple brick and mortar store locations, providing merchants with a seamless end-to-end experience.
Inventory Management and ERP Integration
Aside from all the reasons you want to consider Shopify when you are deciding upon your ecommerce platform, there is one final consideration that is often overlooked - Integration with your ERP platform and the critical role of inventory management.
Shopify can be directly integrated with ERP systems like SAP, and as well, there are highly sophisticated data warehouse type applications that provide, what will prove to be essential as you grow, critical inventory information.
Google Merchant Integration and Inventory Management
One of the major reasons inventory management is so critical is that Google Shopping Ads, which rely on your data feed from Shopify to the Google Merchant Center, penalize merchants who do not provide up-to-date inventory status.
Optimizing Google Shopping Ads Data Flows
The second part of this is that when you have your Shopify Store + ERP integration + Google Merchant Center + Google Shopping Ads Chain set up, you're going to want to run offers, such as Buy One, Get One (BOGO), Buy One get 50% off the Second One, and most likely many other offer types. This is only possible if the business has accurate inventory status' information and can provide it to Google.
Variant Product Configurations and Amazon
Not only does the Google Shopping Ads Sales Channel rely on accurate inventory management, so does the Amazon channel. One of the more complex challenges here is dealing with product variants, i.e., shoe sizes and shoe colors. Amazon requires very complex information to accept your Shopify product listings which contain product variations. They also will send a shopper to someone else when they don't perceive your inventory as being accurate.
Inventory and Shopify Financing
Accurate inventory management is a critical component of Shopify merchant financing. Merchant inventory financing refers to a loan or line of credit that is secured by a company's inventory. This type of financing can be used to purchase additional inventory, expand the business, or cover other expenses. In order to qualify for this financing, businesses need to have accurate inventory management practices in place. Accurate inventory management is key to unlocking the benefits of Shopify merchant financing and growing a successful ecommerce business.
Reorder Point Planning and Inventory Accuracy
Accurate inventory management is a crucial aspect of any successful ecommerce business. To ensure that you never run out of stock, it's important to have a reliable system in place for reorder point planning. Reorder point planning involves setting a minimum level of inventory for each product and then automatically reordering when that level is reached. By using accurate sales data and inventory management tools, Shopify store owners can easily implement reorder point planning to ensure that they always have the right amount of stock on hand. This not only improves customer satisfaction by ensuring that products are always available, but it also helps to reduce costs by minimizing the amount of excess inventory that needs to be stored. Overall, implementing reorder point planning within the context of accurate inventory management and sales information is a key strategy for ecommerce businesses looking to improve their bottom line.
Shopify Ecommerce Store Setup
If you want to set up a fully functional ecommerce store quickly with a platform that enables you to sell almost anywhere in the world, Shopify is an excellent solution. If you're ready to start selling on Shopify, just click the button to get started.
