6 Ways To Improve Your Shopify Store Today

What day is it? Who knows anymore? And now that the panic has subsided and the worrying is leveling out, we all can breathe a sigh of what can I do for my business that my future self would be proud of.

Remember when we used to say, "I'd love to do that but I simply don't have the time." While that could have been true for most, I would argue that finding the time and making the time are very different things. We've all been guilty of how we prioritize certain aspects of our business over others. Regardless, days are filled with endless time that we can decide how we're going to spend those 960+ minutes each day. We are all at home, presumably. Our weekends are not filled with kid's birthday parties and wine tastings. Outside of the occasional Zoom or House Party happy hour that you don't have to drive to, our days have become a lot longer. Wallah, the time has been found for you to focus on optimizing your online Shopify store.

Data science trends are showing us that shoppers are getting restless. Weekends spent at Marshall's and outdoor shopping malls have turned into online shopping sprees. Buyers are purchasing all kinds of products from home and improvement to loungewear, games, and random impulse buys, alike. I bet you considered buying the DJI Mavic Pro Mini too, right? NO, just me?! Okay then.

With that said, here are 6 things you can do to improve your Shopify store now while you have those extra minutes in your day.

Optimize Product Pages

We peruse product pages and not all pages are created equal. Some pages are SEO optimized with size charts, 3D models and videos, explainer videos, and reviews. It's never been a better time to level up your product showcase on Shopify! User generated content is your friend when you can't hire a studio set up to do a massive product shoot in the middle of a pandemic. Videos of a 360-view of the product really can help the buyer connect more with the scale of the products. Shopify has been inching towards helping you with AR capabilities for the past few years and they recently announced an easier/more approachable way to accomplish this with this guide. And at the very least, installing a review app and requesting image reviews of users with your products would be a low hanging piece of fruit you can lean into right away.

Update FAQs 

Customer service is paramount during "normal times" and is even more important when buyers are purchasing online. The more information you can explain to customers about what they can expect from their purchases from you, the better. Explaining how they can return items, for how long and what measures you will take to make it as easy as possible for them, can make or break that conversion.

Some stores lump all of these questions into an area called Concierge, some call it Customer Service, whatever you call it, go through the last 20-60 customer service inquiries and answer those questions in the footer of your Shopify store.

Set Up B Tests on Email Flows

Your welcome flows are all set up, along with your abandoned carts series. Either it's time to set up a B version of those emails to test against your winning formula or it's time to optimize your winners. Perhaps it's time to try out new formats, offers, and timing of when those emails go out. The biggest thing to consider is not to test too many elements all at once. Focus on testing imagery, a new headline, or some copy in a different format. Once you find a winner, continue to push the envelope of testing to always be optimizing to the highest winner.

Install Heat Maps

There are so many new things you can add to your site to optimize it for better conversions and catch buyers at every single stage of the buyer's journey. The best place to start is the data. Google Analytics can tell you a lot about your traffic but so can onsite heat maps. It is time-consuming to dig into data so set aside an hour a day or every other day to analyze your Shopify store's traffic with all of the time you're saving having to commute to the office. 

Write More Content

Content will remain the best way to tell your brand's story over and over again. Whether it's personally about you or UGC of your products, or even lead magnets to get new people into your purchase funnel, content can almost always be used and rarely be enough in eCommerce. Perhaps it's time to change out your Instagram Stories content strategy. Or maybe it's time to start creating content on TikTok or Snapchat. Whatever it is, always make sure you are measuring the results of those efforts and driving the strategy towards the content that is performing the best.

Say Thanks to Past Purchasers

Thanking past purchasers around holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and other designated times is the most common approach to build brand loyalty. Depending on what you sell will ultimately dictate what that looks like for you. Thanking past purchasers by offering them to gift something with incentives to their loved ones might be a thoughtful way to get back in front of them and remind them you care about them and their family during this time.

These are just a few of the many things you can do today to to optimize your Shopify store to increase sales. As always, feel free to contact us to learn more about how we can help you achieve these initiatives.