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How to Build a Successful Shopify Store: Dos and Don’ts for Your Business

October 17, 2024 Leave a Comment

If you google the Shopify success rate, you will find that it’s no more than 5-10%, which means that over 90% of Shopify stores fail. However, it’s not the reason to get upset; instead, it’s an opportunity to better prepare yourself for building a thriving store. How to be successful on Shopify? This article gives you actionable steps to build your dream store that brings customers and generates revenue.

How to start on Shopify

Start with an idea of your business and choose products you wish to sell, bearing in mind potential demand and profit margin. You also need to consider the competition level in your market to evaluate whether starting a new brand is feasible in the current market situation. Another point to take into consideration is your target audience and channels for product promotion that can reach this audience.

You can start on Shopify without risks by choosing ideas that don’t require initial investment. For example, you can sell handmade or dropshipping products. If you have no hobbies or specific interests relevant to your potential market, try selling trending products already in demand.

Here are other ideas you can consider:

  • Print-on-demand products
  • Classes and workshops
  • Digital products
  • Event tickets
  • Donations
  • Rentals
  • Consultations

Once you’ve found an idea that resonates with you and seems worth pursuing, start your business planning process by defining your short and long-term goals and the tools you’re willing to use to build a successful Shopify store.

You should also plan the following steps:

  1. Set up your store, including security, payment, and shipping options.
  2. Organize the store by adding products and customizing its look and functionality.
  3. Test your Shopify store for issues, especially at checkout.
  4. Add other sales channels like Facebook and Instagram.
  5. Promote your products through proven SEO practices, email marketing, and more.

If you clearly understand which tools and practices to use at each of these steps, you have more chances for success. However, the best way to succeed is with the help of proven specialists in ecommerce. For example, hire dedicated Shopify developers with a portfolio of successful projects to set up and customize your store correctly—the same works for the rest of the steps.

 

Reasons why Shopify stores fail

Consider common problems that hinder many Shopify stores from achieving their desired goals to minimize future issues.

Lack of elaborate goals and strategy

If you haven’t set clear goals for each of your pages, they will likely not bring you value. Every page and message should serve your overall business goal. All your user touch points have to lead to some user action depending on their customer journey stage. Without a clear, well-crafted strategy supported by data-driven analytics, you’re navigating blindly and likely to make no progress.

Poorly selected niche

It would be best if you kept the balance by choosing a niche that’s not too crowded and, at the same time, has the potential for a positive profit margin. Selecting a vast niche from the very start is a mistake. This approach scatters your attention and doesn’t let you compete with more prominent companies. Picking a narrow niche or a specific segment in a larger niche is a more effective approach that allows you to gradually develop your business and scale as you grow.

Poor user experience

Visitors tend to abandon websites with poor performance when the loading speed is more than 2-3 seconds. So, do your best to optimize your Shopify store performance by resizing images, leveraging lazy loading, optimizing your apps and code base, and applying accessibility practices. Also, avoid cluttered navigation, intrusive popups, vague messaging, and call-to-actions.

Unsatisfactory customer support and services

The FAQ section is only sometimes sufficient to satisfy customer needs when they choose a product. Customers who face difficulties at this step and don’t receive adequate support would leave stores with such services. The same applies to the overall shopping experience. After one or several poor experiences, customers would walk away even from a brand they once loved.

Lack of social proof

Adding reviews, customer testimonials, and trust badges is a must for every store. Otherwise, your company appears untrustworthy, and new visitors will likely ignore your website. Your visitors need to feel safe and trusted in your store and products, and reviews are the source of such trust. Moreover, it would help if you had a larger number of reviews – having only a few of them may be insufficient for customers to make a purchase decision.

How to have a successful Shopify store

Once you have created a well-structured and feasible strategy and hired proven specialists for each work area, you should pay attention to managing the whole development and selling process properly.

Leverage the best coding practices

Shopify platform provides a lot of no-code tools for setting up your store. However, at some moment, you get to the point where you need some advanced customization and features tailored to your business goals. You may start extending your store functionality by installing Shopify apps, but you may find that they cause technical breakdowns. To avoid this, it’s preferable to follow the best coding practices from the very beginning and keep your code base clear and unified. This, in turn, will lead to better performance and enhanced user experience. If your business grows fast, switch to Shopify Plus for advanced features and smooth scaling.

Stand out with a unique brand identity

By expressing your brand authenticity through unique designs, you help your customers differentiate you from similar companies. Showcase your products in your manner by adding some magic to each of your images and content pieces. Obviously, you should supplement gorgeous graphic designs with perfect user interfaces and smooth customer experiences that include simple navigation, a mobile-first approach, and other web design strategies.

Analyze and adapt to user preferences

Proven UI/UX research is a foundation for building a store with a robust structure and functionality. It allows you to adapt based on real user feedback and optimize your store to match user preferences. Store optimization is a long-lasting procedure for store owners committed to maintaining high performance and quality.

Keep up with the latest marketing trends

Include the latest technologies, like AI personalization, in your marketing strategy and motivate your team to think out of the box. Today’s business wins with innovation and adaptability, leveraging cutting-edge technologies and creative strategies to stay ahead of the competition. Also, remember about the omnichannel approach involving multiple sales channels like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Ensure a robust online presence in the places where your target audience is.

Leverage upsell and cross-sell options

Make the most of your store by implementing upsell and cross-sell options, such as subscription upgrades and complementary product recommendations. This will increase your average order value and, as a result, boost your overall sales and revenue.

Signs your Shopify store is getting successful

Shopify has a robust analytics system with reports on your sales activity. Plus, you can track your store’s success through Google Analytics and similar tools. There are more than twenty ecommerce metrics you should keep track of. Below, we mention the most important of them.

  • Sales conversion rate (CVR): Conversion growth is the most obvious indicator of your store’s success. The best way to improve your conversion rate is to monitor your whole sales funnel and identify stages where you lose customers. By optimizing these steps, you’ll grow conversions at each touch point, eventually boosting your sales conversion rate.
  • Average order value (AOV): This metric shows how much a single customer spends in your store per order. If you see that your AOV grows, it could mean your upsell and cross-sell strategies work well. Otherwise, you should better organize your upsell process by recommending more relevant products.
  • Store sessions: The more sessions you have in your store, the more chances you have to turn these sessions into sales. However, it only works for target traffic since if you attract users who are not interested in your product, you’ll just waste your acquisition budget. You can track sessions by traffic source, device type, location, and more to analyze audience segments and user behavior and adapt your store to customer preferences. Cooperation with a Shopify SEO agency may change the situation if you face challenges in attracting new visitors to your store.
  • Refund and return rate: A high refund and return rate indicates your product’s bad quality, which doesn’t lead to your store’s success. However, by monitoring this rate and comparing it with industry standards, you can find and fix these problems. Once your return rate becomes lower compared to industry benchmarks, you’re getting closer to success.
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV): CLV is the total revenue your business generates from a single customer throughout their lifetime. This metric is not available in Shopify analytics since it requires knowledge of your industry specifics. Still, it helps estimate the right customer acquisition cost for your business and identify the most valuable product you sell in your store.

 

Conclusions

Building a successful business on Shopify requires meticulous planning, a qualified team, hard work, and a bit of good fortune. Let’s summarize the main points you should remember when creating your store.

  • Pick an idea and choose products to sell, considering market competition, potential profit margin, and demand.
  • Create your business strategy by defining your short and long-term goals.
  • Hire a Shopify development team to set up your store, following the best coding practices.
  • Organize and customize your store structure and appearance with your brand identity in mind.
  • Test your store for common issues, avoiding poor user experience, unsatisfactory customer support, and more.
  • Analyze and adapt to user preferences by conducting user research and optimizing your store.
  • Promote your store through multiple channels, keeping up with the latest marketing trends.
  • Implement upsell and cross-sell options to increase your average order value and overall revenue.
  • Keep track of your core ecommerce metrics and adjust your strategies accordingly to achieve the best results.

By following these recommendations, your store will be listed among the top Shopify stores that have actually achieved success.

Rajesh Kumar
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