A look at advanced features for Shopify

So you’ve chosen Shopify as your e-commerce platform and you’ve proceeded to set up your store. You’ve added products, picked a design and selected your payment, shipping and tax options.

The orders start to come through gradually, but you think, what next? Here’s a few advanced features, including sections within your Shopify store and some handy apps, that can help take your store to the next level.

Future Publishing

You have a fantastic new product that you know will go down great with your customer base. To ensure that people are talking about this you announce the launch through your blog, social media pages and drip feed your current customer base with a string of emails to create some hype. All you have to do in Shopify is click the blue calendar when adding a product and set a date in the future for its launch. Simple, yet very effective.

Free Adwords Credit

You might not be aware of it but you are entitled to $100 in Adwords credit after you’ve paid your first monthly subscription with Shopify. 90% of all searches through Google are for products and services, so this is a great avenue to get your product out there.

You may hear people saying these days that “nobody clicks the ads”. However, a recent study by Wordstream suggested 2 out of 3 people click sponsored ads. Increasingly popular for retailers are Google Shopping ads (previously product listing ads). These are product images ads, which can be instantly recognisable for customers who are intent on buying. All sponsored ads also account for 85% of above the fold material.

All you need to do is set up a Google shopping merchant account. Then head to Shopify to claim your free adwords credit.

Customized Email Templates

All the emails you send to your customers, which have performed actions such as placing an order or signing up, can be customized through Settings > Notifications.

A welcome email encouraging customers to take action on your social media sites, or pointing them towards your blog, is a great way to inspire customer retention.

Abandoned Checkout Recovery

If you’re on a professional or unlimited plan, you have the ability to send an email to a potential customer 6 to 24 hours after they have abandoned their cart.

How important is this you ask? Well a study from IBM showed that 2 in 3 people abandoned their cart in 2014. The jump of $29 to $79 a month from the basic to professional plan may seem steep, but the advantage of contacting 60-70% of people who have been through your checkout and shown an interest, would make it a no brainer.

Discounts codes

According to a recent study by the Direct Marketing Association, 60% of people sign up to emails to receive discount codes. What’s great with Shopify is that the option to offer coupons is available on any pricing plan from Basic upwards. You should also consider downloading an app such as Email Pirate to collect visitors email address on your home page in exchange for a discount code.

Facebook & Pinterest Buy Buttons

Do you currently use remarketing on your site? If you’re currently unaware of its powers, it gives you the opportunity to reach out your sites visitors, via ad placements, as they browse the internet

You may see these ads as you scroll through your Facebook feeds. Although it’s in it’s beta stage, Shopify is adding ‘buy’ buttons to these ads so potential customers can purchase your goods without having to leave Facebook. To stay up to date with it’s development sign up to their updates.

Pinterest has over 728 million users, so you can understand comments such as “This may just be the best collaboration yet” on Shopify’s blog post, when they announced that you could now buy goods directly through Pinterest.

This is especially good news if you have a product that is marketable to women, as over 85% of Pinterest users are female. All you need to do is add the Pinterest sales channel in your store and it comes at no extra cost.

Reporting

Beyond the basic reporting on products, orders and payments, an unlimited or plus plan enables you to add multiple properties. What does this mean? This essentially means you can cross reference reports. A report on the value spent by each of your customers, with relation to what traffic source they came through, is an effective way of ensuring you delegate your marketing spend wisely.

The ‘measures’ drop down on the right hand side of your reports shows your total amounts. For example you could check the total amount of discounts used, to monitor the success of a discount code you’ve implemented. Alternatively a report of the total amount of shipping paid by your customers could be referenced against the invoices you receive from your courier, to calculate profit/loss.

All these reports are available in a table or chart format, to give you a snapshot of performance.

Apps

You may have seen various forums, blog posts or articles regarding the best Shopify apps around. However, here’s just 5 apps you need to download to ensure you’re reaching more potential customers and when on board, they are receiving the best customer experience in 2015. Take a look below..

AddThis – More and more website visitors are coming through social networks as opposed to search engines. A study by BrainSINS suggests that 74% of shoppers rely on Social Media to get more information or review your products before they buy. Adding a sharing tool to your blog post allows your visitors to promote your company on their social channels.

Beetailer – This app allows you to integrate your website with Facebook. With a Pinterest-esque layout, people can view the price and image of your product and will be directed to your site to purchase it with just one click.

Loyalty Lion – Teredata recently published that 38% of marketers believed that their biggest challenge in 2015 is improving customer acquisition and retention. Ensure this isn’t a problem for you by rewarding customer loyalty, through purchases, visits and referrals.

Yotpo – How often are your purchases based on what other people have said? With Yotpo you are able to add product reviews to your pages. After somebody has purchased and received an item an email is sent to them to review it. Quite important when 88% of shoppers are influenced by an online review when making a buying decision.

Veeqo – Multi-channel selling is the norm in 2015, with most companies operating a Shopify site as well as selling on sites such as eBay and Amazon. Managing your stock between these channels can be a tricky process. What you need is inventory management software from Veeqo, which centralises all your channels to ensure you’re not selling items that aren’t there. Very important to ensure your customer feedback stays positive.

About the author: Richard Protheroe is a content marketer at Veeqo, who supply inventory management software for merchants who sell on marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon, Shopify, Woocommerce & Magento.