12 Easy Ways to Drive Shopify Sales

Last Updated on September 1, 2023 by David

Guest Post by AdNabu

Over the last decade or so, eCommerce has grown massively to become one of the richest sectors in the world. Amazon, which primarily operates in the eCommerce space is now worth $1 trillion, If you’re working in an eCommerce company, you will need to have a story in Shopify.

Shopify is a platform that allows you to maintain an eCommerce store on your website. There are many dynamic options that work for both sales and marketing and it is one of the most preferred platforms for retail sales systems and stores.

Here are some of the user-friendly ways to drive Shopify sales effectively

List of ways to drive Shopify sales

1. Use Referral marketing

Working in an eCommerce store requires you to try out referral marketing and the numbers themselves back this up. Up to 81% of consumers’ email marketing is a tactic worth trying out for your eCommerce store. The numbers back it up — 81% of consumers would consider something a friend or family member recommends it to them.

The referral marketing system requires a simple mechanism so any customers can view recommendations, reviews, and more. You can also recommend it to someone else.

Referred customers have a higher value than any other type. Generally, any referred customers have a 25% higher value than other customers. Ensure the process is simple and let the store grow organically. Having a good reward system will help you retain customers over the long term.

2. Upsell and cross-sell to buyers

Upselling is another powerful tactic you can incorporate into your eCommerce store. It helps you get more from a single customer at one time. This is important because the higher margins you get from a single transaction, the better profits you can make at the end of the year.

4% more sales can be achieved with upselling tactics and it can also add to your overall revenue stream. You need to simplify the process so that the upselling product is similar to the one the customer is currently purchasing.

For Amazon, sales saw an increase of 35% in the first year after they tested the upselling tactic. Make sure you also cross-sell other products because sometimes customers won’t be aware of certain other products in your store.

3. Monitor and improve your site speed

Site speed is one of the holy grails when it comes to your eCommerce store on Shopify. No matter what product you sell, the website needs to be working at optimal speed if you are to get new customers and retain old ones. There is nothing more important than your site speed and up to 50% of customers will leave if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load.

Make sure you prioritize the functionality of your site over the aesthetic aspect of it because it will come back to bite you if you don’t. You can end up losing a customer due to site speed, with 80% more likely to never shop in your store again.

That’s undesirable and can truly cause issues over the long term.

The best way to go about it is to check your site speed once in a while and ensure it works at optimal speed. You can also choose tools online that allow you to simplify the process and understand how your site is performing online as well.

4. Use social proof

More than 92% of customers would trust recommendations if they came from friends or family and you as an eCommerce store need to capitalize on it as it can bring you a lot of good publicity and with it, sales too. 70% of consumers even said they would trust a recommendation if it came from an absolute stranger, so go ahead and capitalize on that!

Social proof is easily one of the best ways you can go forth and get customers interested in your product or service. You need to nurture a trusted brand and social proof allows you to get that additional boost, that tips customers into going and buying.

eCommerce behemoths Amazon benefit from social proof moves on their platforms, with each product page having a review section so customers know exactly how good or bad a product is.

Express Watches are another example of using reviews to their benefit. They were able to increase conversions by 58% by adding a tiny review widget on their pages, thus convincing first-time buyers of their authenticity.

5. Send abandoned cart emails

Working in the eCommerce sector means you need to sort out all of your last-mile deliveries. However, another issue that occurs is that of abandoned carts. It can get frustrating when you have to transact with multiple clients at the same time.

Customers generally add items to their carts and then end up abandoning them for reasons without actually purchasing, and there might be reasons behind the same. Up to 30% of the carts that are abandoned can be recovered, with emails.

Most email service providers will allow you to trigger these emails into the customer’s inbox within a few hours or even days. These emails can be customized as well, with discount coupons to encourage them to complete the purchase or reminding them that these sales won’t last for too long.

The email service provider provides a bunch of options when it comes to triggering these emails. Keep trying out different styles until you find a format that works for you.

6. Send promotional emails

Nurturing email lists is another crucial step in the eCommerce world and you need to do it diligently in order to get more conversions. Once you build a strong email list, it is important to start selling. The best way to create promotional emails is to keep experimenting to get the best results.

You can test the waters easily and also ensure repeat customers who transact with you on big-ticket sales. Most repeat customers generally spend around 67% on average than new customers, and with promotional emails, you can have customers coming back and also build a strong loyalty base. Once you allow the customers to feel special, you can easily get them to convert sales, and give them a total feeling of “exclusivity”

7. Simplify the checkout process

The checkout process is super frustrating for customers and it needs to be one of the easiest processes. It can be simplified with ease and you have to ensure that customers can quickly checkout for the fastest results. The best way is to go forth and create a checklist.

The below guide is a good standpoint to speed up the customer checkout process –

Enabling faster guest checkouts.
Eliminating unnecessary text, buttons, and navigation.
Offering multiple payment options.
Mobile-friendly processes.

Once you tweak the process and figure out what works best for you, you will see an upward spike in the number of customers completing their purchases on the site, thus increasing your sales by a large factorial.

8. Introduce a rewards program

Thanking your loyal customers is important because they are the ones that bring you the most revenue. You need to showcase how much the business is valued and build a program to reward them.

Up to 80% of the profits will come from 20% of the current customer base you have. The current customer base can grow effectively and a well-planned out program can help you do that.

9. Use retargeting ads

Retargeting is a strong tactic that can work wonders if done right. It can help you target customers who leave the site and nudge them to return and purchase. You need to place a retargeting action loop so they return whenever possible and complete.

Mazda was able to place intelligent ads that helped retarget shoppers who were most likely to go purchase from a specific dealer within the area. This move helped them increase their sales by 53%! It’s important to set up a proper retargeting setup because it can increase rates by 400% if done the right way.

10. Use Google Shopping Ads

“Surfaces Across Google” is one of the offerings by Google Shopping Ads and is an effective way to increase sales and allow customers to purchase from your store. It can effectively increase sales and also allow for easier searching.

You can sign up at the store and sign up for the Merchant Center and click on the Growth option within the left navigation menu.

The setup is easy and once you commence, the Surfaces across Google will be easily added to the list of pending tasks within the Overview screen too.

You will also need to:

Add your products using google shopping feeds to the Merchant Center.
Add the necessary tax information.
Set up shipping.
Verify the website.
Confirm the website and the URL belong to you.

Once you complete the task, you can set up ads on the Google platform that can be set up online. You can sign up and select it from the list of programs available.

After you create the Google Ads account or link the Google Ads account to the Standard and Administrative access provided, you can go and pick your preferred settings.

You can set up the campaign name and also choose the country where you want to sell. This defines all the products from the Merchant Center and the products in the campaign.

There is also a maximum cost-per-click bid that needs to be set and this is the limit on how much you are willing to pay for an ad click from potential customers. You can edit this amount anytime after you complete creating the Google Ads account.

You can also set up a daily budget which limits how much you are wishing to pay for any specific ad campaign for a single day. You can edit these details in the Google Ads account and create the campaign with ease.

11. Use Live chat

Live cChat is one of the other high-impact manners in which you can engage all of your site visitors, both outside of the email marketing setup. With the chat, you can gain access to live chat tools that target browsers for certain pages available.

These tools can also be used to target browsers once they have been set for a certain length of time on the site and allows you to have direct conversations with customers and you can address and answer concerns as required.

Modern live chat tools must have the following capabilities in order for you to harness enough value:

Automated messaging
Chatbots
The ability to target specific messaging to cohorts/segments of customers and message them automatically

Chatbots work for your business 24/7 and is considered one of the best ways to offer scalable customer service. Some common ways live chat and chatbots are used include:

Announcing new products, events, sales
Engaging VIP customers and other repeat shoppers with timely promotions
Educating customers about the usage and benefits of your products/services
Cross-selling and up-selling at scale in order to increase average order values
Decreasing website and shopping cart abandonment
Offering a concierge-like shopping experience with an assistant
And much more

If you’re looking for a live chat solution built for eCommerce, be sure to check out Re:amaze!

12. Use free shipping

Many customers like having free shipping as an option when they purchase from the store online. More than 52% of customers have ended up adding more to the cart just to qualify for the same, and 47% even admitted they would abandon carts if the free shipping option isn’t available.

To conclude

These are just some of the best ways how you can grow your eCommerce business on Shopify effectively. Once you implement it, you have to keep experimenting and testing until you find a formula that works effectively!

Additional resources

About Re:amaze

Re:amaze is a modern helpdesk and customer messaging platform designed to help eCommerce businesses boost customer happiness and revenue. Re:amaze allows all customer-oriented teams to work together in a shared inbox through email, social, SMS, voice, and live chat. Re:amaze also comes packaged with automated messaging and chatbots so eCommerce brands can succeed at the front lines of conversational commerce.

Guest Post by AdNabu

AdNabu helps improve sales in Google Ads for eCommerce companies. If you are running the search, google shopping, or display campaigns in Google Ads, This software will be able to increase your sales.