10 Super Useful Insights From a Shopify Expert — 100% Free (2/2)
As promised, here it goes the second part of my advice list to you. Hope the last post helped you and gave you some perspective on how to run your online business.
Without further delay, check the next 5 tips in our ordered index. You can click straight on the most interesting points to you. Don’t forget to leave your questions as a comment in the bottom.
- Multi-language / currency stores may be a headache, but is that a problem?
- Custom design is totally worth it. Not sure if always though…
- Automate and work smart or go manual and work hard on the wrong things
- When we should use an app and stop crying for a few pennies
- Think. Stop thinking and do it. Think again when you have data
- How blogging can help me do a better work
- Why Shopify Plus is a relevant solution for growing businesses
- How the Read-Search-Ask method can save you time and money
- Shopify gives 80% of the structure you and most merchants need
- Everyone wants everybody to be successful
VI. How blogging can help me do a better work
There’s a lot written on this topic. Look for it on Medium alone and you’ll see this topic applied to any kind of job and people. Nonetheless, it may be useful to check how blogging can also be useful for you as a Shopify Merchant.
MailChimp team has an amazing publication that might inspire you. They were able to collect tons of experience and knowledge only by observing people. People like you, who dedicate to run a business online. I’m sure that publication will help you to kick off and start blogging today.
You’re indeed doing right in that case. Blogging is one of the best ways to understand the challenges you face on a daily basis. By doing it, you’ll solve problems faster and you can also build awareness of your brand and store. Showing your challenges is not a weakness. It shows your grit on making it work despite the hard times. Blog about your experience running your online store. It will help and inspire others who want to start or are struggling with similar issues. Share your milestones too and the joy you have from closing deals with new suppliers. Found a great new delivery company for your products? Write about it. Make your customers see how much you’re looking forward to the Christmas crazy sales.
Write about the full experience and you’ll experience it much more deeply. You’ll figure out that some problems are not so big as they seemed to be before. You’ll find solutions and ideas to boost your business and keep loyal to your customers (the trick is: that way they’ll be loyal to you too).
For reference take a look at these great articles:
- https://www.shopify.com/blog/13329281-why-every-ecommerce-business-needs-a-blog-and-9-ideas-to-get-you-started
- https://www.shopify.com/blog/ecommerce-blog-post-templates
- https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-start-a-blog
VII. Why Shopify Plus is a relevant solution for growing businesses
Possibly you’ve already heard about this Shopify holy grail kind of solution. There’s a lot of info out there regarding their amazing features. Just check their official page and you’ll fall in love (if you want all the info well condensed, check this article instead). However, there’s not much info about their pricing. Let me address the pink elephant in the room:
“Shopify Plus will now be charged based on a platform fee of 0.25% of a merchant’s monthly store sales, with a floor of $2,000/per month and a cap of $40,000/per month.”
Simple and clear.
Why speaking of money and not their amazing features so I understand if this is relevant to me? It’s clear. 2 of the most important things you can ask anybody are: how much can you spend on it and when do you need it. Time and Money. Cool features are way less important when you can’t afford 2K per month 💸
So if you’re already on the Advanced Shopify plan and you’re almost at that level of costs, it might be a good time to think about upgrading. Of course, I don’t mean that moving to Shopify Plus is purely a financial decision. It has been showed many times that the merchants who move to Shopify Plus see an amazing increase in sales, conversions, and PROFIT. The fact alone that you get a dedicated account manager is amazing. You’ll have people working for you to find more and better ways to increase your revenue. Take into account that when you get to this level, they are your partners — if you succeed big, they’ll succeed big with you.
If I didn’t convince you about their amazing value in this short text, take a look at some of the Shopify Plus’ success stories. In case you need more advice about Shopify Plus, I’d be glad to discuss your specific situation. You can reach me or my colleagues very easily. Don’t worry, I don’t think Shopify Plus is for everybody. If you don’t fit the profile I’ll be honest, let you know and save you the effort.
VIII. How the Read-Search-Ask method can save you time and money
If you ever tried or started to learn how to code, for sure you hear about this method. Will not get into long explanations about it, check this amazing article and you’ll be sure that this is the way to go. The article speaks about the learning process for people learning how to code, but this method applies to almost anything in life.
When you find a problem with your store and don’t know how to solve it, simply Read-Search-Ask:
- Read the problem. Make a deep analysis of what’s going on and try to understand its causes
- Search online. There may be few books about your e-commerce issues, but I’m 99% sure that you are not the first to go through any specific issue. From Shopify Forums to Facebook Groups and many other sources, you’ll definitely find somebody with a solution to your issue.
- Ask an Expert. If after analyzing the issue and doing the research, you don’t find a great solution, you have a final chance. Ask Shopify Support. They’re available 24/7 and are very helpful and friendly.
Only after using all these 3 options, you should contact a professional or hire somebody to fix it. People often contact us for things they can solve by themselves. If they googled what they emailed us or if they just asked support, it would be simpler. Sometimes support can even act and solve small problems on the store for free. Why waste money and time when there’s no need? Of course, in my company, we always tell our clients to do the simple things by themselves. If they have time, we tell them exactly how to achieve it to save them as much money as possible. Unfortunately, I believe many people won’t be afraid to charge you 100$ for 5 min of their expert work.
IX. Shopify gives 80% of the structure you and most merchants need.
If you’re familiar with Shopify Forums, you’ve probably seen how’s easy to be unhappy with some Shopify limitations. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can check these hot topics:
As you can see from those threads, the average Shopify Merchant may get very sensitive when Shopify doesn’t provide exactly what they need/want/require and the common reaction is “Why Shopify doesn’t provide this e-commerce related feature if they are an e-commerce solution?”
The answer is simple too: that’s not their goal. Shopify targets to provide to the majority of people 80% of their needs to do business online. If Shopify would focus on the other 20% they would spend a huge amount of resources to please a small group of people. At the same time, when they would solve a specific problem to some store owner, they’d create a problem to another one. To keep all the functionalities optional, the complexity of the system would grow exponentially. It seems obvious and clear, they can’t and don’t want to be a perfect solution for every single merchant. That would kill their platform. They want to provide the basic tools so you can easily start selling online.
What about the other 20% specific needs someone might have? That’s why Shopify Experts exist for. Shopify depends on the experts and those experts depend on Shopify. This interdependent relationship works amazingly and the results are clear when you open Shopify’s App Store. How many people doing their best to help Shopify better serve their clients — it’s impressive.
The beauty of this lesson is that it helps us to put everything in perspective. It’s good to understand that if something is not created yet, probably it can be done and Shopify gives you the tools or the contacts to help you achieve it.
X. Everyone wants everybody to be successful
To finish on a lighter note and following up on the cooperation highlighted on the point above: everybody wants to help you. Really. Believe it :) Many cooperating people belong to this fast-growing community. This is one of the nicest things about being part of this ecosystem. Everybody is looking for solutions to make their and everybody else’s lives easier. Nobody wishes you bad luck. Everybody cooperates, interchange ideas and experiences to propel each other to succeed. Shopify Forums are a great example of it and as you get more and more involved in the Shopify Community you’ll better realise it. A great way to start joining this community is to take part in some events and meet like-minded people with similar goals to yours:
Thanks for reading this. I’m confident you got some insights about Shopify. In case you haven’t see the first part of this advice list here is the link (just to make your life easier):
If you have any question about Shopify or if you need any kind of advice for your online business, feel free to ask. There are maaaany ways of reaching me or my colleagues. Here are the most popular ones:
- Book a 15 min call
- Email us at treebeard@ents.co (yep… very cool 😎)
- Comment this article
- Check our website(s)
If you really want to get my attention, clap a lot 👏 😇
