An Ultimate Guide on How to Increase Sales on Shopify?

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Once you obtain the initial sales with Shopify, it is crucial to level up and increase the store’s overall performance. In this tutorial on how to increase sales on Shopify, we’ll take a closer look at the strategies to apply: how to attract new visitors, how to make planes yield more out of each consumer, and how to retain the client by establishing a brand image.

If you still haven’t figured out how to make your first sale on Shopify, you may want to read other tips from our previous article. Alright, let’s look at recommendations that will make it easier for you to sell things and develop your business.

1. Our best tips on how to increase sales on Shopify

As mentioned earlier, we’ll focus on 3 main approaches to increasing sales on Shopify:

• Searching for traffic and sales from other sales channels
• Maximizing profits from existing customers
• Building brands to improve trustworthiness

Let’s start by exploring the first approach in more detail.

1.1 Searching for Traffic and Sales from Other Sales Channels

Although your online store is the primary source of revenue, looking at other channels and diversifying the clients you are targeting is always indispensable. Moreover, sales through other platforms targeted at different customers create additional revenues and opportunities for growth. Below are some of the most effective channels you should take into consideration:

Traditional Sales Channels: Amazon and Etsy

Why it works:

Amazon and Etsy are huge platforms with millions of active customers. Currently, Amazon has over 300 million active customers, while Etsy has over 96+ million active customers. These platforms have traffic and trust in them, which significantly boosts their sales or profits.

However, there is competition, and the fees may be somewhat costly.  Amazon charges a fee of 8-15% per sale, while Etsy charges a $0.20 listing fee and a 6.5% transaction fee.

Best ways to make the most of it:

• Optimize your listings: Clear and accurate pictures and specific descriptions of goods are crucial. These platforms organize listings by aesthetics and make precise descriptions of the product readily available.
• Use Amazon’s FBA service: As one of the services within selling on Amazon, FBA provides the seller with basic control of delivery, returns, and customer service while at the same time making your goods rank higher on Amazon due to FBA items’ high visibility.
• Take Advantage of Etsy Ads: Advertising is one paid technique through which Etsy assists in marketing products.

Online Marketplaces: Google Shopping, Facebook Marketplace, TikTok Shop, and Pinterest

Why it works:

These online marketplaces have vast and various numbers of users. Google Shopping gets in touch with over 1.2 billion users monthly; 2 billion people use Facebook Marketplace, while the figure for Pinterest is over 500 million shoppers looking for inspiration and products. 

TikTok Shop is relatively young but boasts over 1 billion active users monthly. Every platform targets customers needing this so that you can reach different segments in the market separately.

Best ways to make the most of it:

• Keep product listings accurate and optimized: Make it a habit to update product descriptions, price lists, and images of your products. For instance, an oversight in a Google Shopping ad causes it to have a lower quality experience for potential customers, affecting sales.
• Creating engaging content: This is important for platforms like TikTok and Pinterest, both known for their visual appeal. On TikTok, brand creators should focus on short, creative videos that showcase product use or the brand’s daily life. Pinterest, on the other hand, is all about aesthetics. Using beautiful images and infographics can attract pinners and effectively represent your brand.
• Leverage paid ads: Facebook and Google advertise presences with enhanced targeting features to get the intended traffic. These platforms enable the strict categorizing of your targeted advertising, thus increasing your likelihood of conversion.

For better stock management and revenue reports across all your sales channels, you can consider using an integration tool, like LitCommerce, to level up your multichannel selling strategy.

Wholesale and Retail Partnerships

Why it works:

Wholesale and retail can expand your product distribution and increase your sales volume. Wholesale offers bulk orders, which can quickly boost revenue. Retail partnerships give your products physical shelf space, tapping into customers who prefer in-store shopping.

Best ways to make the most of it:

• Find the right partners: To avoid compromising your brand’s values, find wholesalers or retailers that share your brand’s values. A strategic fit in a long-term partnership is advantageous for both parties.
• Offer competitive pricing and terms: Retail customers always anticipate lower prices in a business, especially if they buy in bulk. Remember to set reasonable, unique prices so people will not switch to your competitors’ services.
• Monitor stock levels: In wholesale and retail businesses, inventory is often the most critical aspect of the business. By remaining vigilant of your stock, you avoid the vice of overstocking or understocking your products, thus creating lots of stalls. This vigilance is the magic that you need to make your business successful.

Mobile Apps

Why it works:

There will be nearly 4.5 billion mobile phone users globally this year (2024), and this figure is expected to increase rapidly in the next 15 years. Getting an application for mobile phones also allows customers to have an individual shopping experience. Mobility is another key trend since it helps customers conveniently shop for products online.

Best ways to make the most of it:

• Offer app-exclusive promotions: Another way to get customers to open your app is to provide offers that are unique to the app and can be availed only by installing the app. 
• Enhance the user experience: It is important for the application to be user-friendly, have a small loading time, and be easy to navigate. A negative attitude towards an application can result in a loss since people give up using the one they initially opened.
• Push notifications: Sending push notifications to customers tends to tell them about abandoned carts, new products, or a promotion, which helps to boost their participation rates.

Affiliate Marketing

Why it works:

Affiliate marketing, a lucrative channel with a market value of over $17 billion as of 2023, is projected to soar to $27.78 billion by 2027 and $40 billion by 2030. This growth is primarily attributed to its benefits to customers and shareholders, particularly in fantasy sports.

Therefore, the first advantage of affiliate marketing is its low entry costs. This makes its use among affiliates a reliable means of pulling in new customers, making it one of the most useful advertising strategies.

Best ways to make the most of it:

• Select the right affiliates: Ensure that you partner with people with an audience similar to your target customers and, honestly, people who represent your brand. It will also be more effective if the endorsers’ followers trust them.
• Offer competitive commissions: To ensure quality affiliates are obtained, set reasonable commissions that can be offered and bonuses for affiliates who perform well.
• Track performance: The tracking software is useful for keeping track of sales, clicks, and conversions made by each affiliate so that you can change tactics where necessary.

Cooperating with Influencers

Why it works:

With influencer marketing, you can target a wider audience since it is based on the influencer’s audience. Businesses also harness the power of a significant sales generator globally; 61% of consumers trust influencer recommendations. That is why the correct influencer can truthfully present your product line to thousands of potential clients.

Best ways to make the most of it:

• Choose micro-influencers: However, working with a prominent influencer such as a celebrity is very costly, while partnering with micro-influencers, who have followers between 1.000 and 100.000, gets more engagement and is cheaper.
• Create clear & authentic collaborations: When engaging influencers to market your products, fostering a sense of authenticity is crucial. This approach allows the influencers to present your products in a way that resonates with their followers, creating a deeper sense of connection and engagement.
• Track the results: Use unique discount codes or affiliate links to measure the success of your influencer campaigns. This helps you identify which partnerships are worth continuing.

Read more: Troubleshooting Add to Cart But No Sales on Shopify

1.2 Maximize Profit from Old Customers

This approach of maximizing profits from existing customers is a better way to increase sales. Often, brands consider it cheaper and more effective to target old customers and sell them higher-value products and services.

The old customers are already aware of the brand and products being marketed by your store and will likely purchase the same over and over again. Here are some key methods to boost profits from your existing customer base:

Upsell & Cross-Sell

Why it works:

Upselling and cross-selling are persuasion techniques because they make customers spend more on their purchases or buy expensive products. Research shows that upselling may cause incremental revenues of 10 to 30% per customer. 

Upselling presents the new versions of products that a customer is already searching for, and cross-selling suggests additional products that might be useful to the customer. They all help to boost the average order value (AOV) and overall customer lifetime value (CLV).

Best ways to make the most of it:

• Display upsells at the right time: Without much interference, display the upsell offers at the point of purchase or when the customer is adding an item to the cart.
• Bundle products: For instance, make it easier for the customers to buy more products by giving them attractive offers on each product they want.
• Highlight product benefits: Communicate the value of higher-end products or complementary items.

Reward High-Spending Customers

Why it works:

If you give customers a bonus after they have spent more, you will notice that they spend more than less. Statistics revealed that 84% of consumers are more likely to engage in business with stores with loyalty rewards. 

Using Shopify apps like BOGOS can motivate these high-spending customers to increase their cart size or make repeat purchases.

Overview of the BOGOS App

The BOGOS app is designed to help Shopify merchants create powerful, customizable offers to maximize profits from existing customers. It supports upselling, cross-selling, and rewarding loyal customers through a variety of promotional offers.

• Key Features:
  • BOGO offers: Buy One Get One Free deals, Buy X Get Y promotions, Free Gifts With Purchase, etc. 
  • Volume discounts and product bundles: Encourage customers to buy in bulk or as part of a package deal.
  • Customizable rules: Set conditions such as specific URLs, locations, or customer tags to trigger offers.
  • Real-time analytics: Gain insights into offer performance to optimize future promotions.
  • Intuitive user interface: Easily create and manage multiple promotions with flexible customization options.
• Price Range: Starts at $29.99/month with a free trial available.
• Reviews & Ratings: With over 2,000 reviews, BOGOS maintains a high rating of 4.9/5, demonstrating customer satisfaction.
• Sub-Conditions Features: Set special conditions for gifts, such as:
  • Specific link access: Customers receive gifts if they use a unique URL.
  • Order history-based gifts: Gifts based on previous purchase behavior.
  • Customer tags or location: Limit gifts to customers with specific tags or from certain regions.
  • Subscription products: Apply offers only for customers purchasing subscription-based products.
  • Mobile app channel: Create offers that are specific to mobile app purchases.

This is the best automatic discount app in the Shopify App Store and will definitely help you make more sales. Check it out now!

Create a Loyalty Program

Why it works:

A loyalty program is a powerful tool for enticing customers to keep coming back. The allure of attractive points, discounts, or special privileges can be irresistible. 

In fact, 91% of consumers have confessed that they are more loyal to brands that offer rewards programs, highlighting the potential of such initiatives to keep their customers engaged. People with membership cards spend between 12% and 18% more than those without. 

Best ways to make the most of it: 

• Give out incentives: Offer segmented incentives, such as discounts based on the amount spent or the number of times the customer visits. 
• Promote the program: This entails using e-mail and social media platforms to periodically notify customers of the benefits of membership and active participation in the program. 
• Provide exclusive offers: Privilege loyalty members to early sales or discounts not offered in the market.

Use a Referral Program

Why it works:

Referral programs take advantage of your existing customers to get new customers to your business. Using incentives for both the referrer and the referred can go a long way in helping customers to be attracted to the industry and also make them remain loyal to it. The research reveals that to the extent that up to 16% of company revenues can be created through referral programs. 

Best ways to make the most of it:

• Streamline the process: Ensure customers can easily share their referral link on social media platforms or via email. 
• Offer valuable incentives: Reward what your targeted customers care about, such as store credit, a better or exclusive offer, or a unique present.
• Track and measure: Use Shopify apps to monitor referral traffic and conversion rates to refine your program for maximum effectiveness.

1.3 Brand Building to Improve Trustworthiness

The perception of the brand image significantly influences the customers’ repurchase intention and loyalty, thus increasing your store’s overall conversion rate. It is crucial for customers to have trust in the brand they are purchasing, and a store can only build up that trust by having a well-established brand image. 

Here’s how you can build and reinforce your brand to improve trustworthiness and ultimately increase sales on Shopify:

Highlight Your Brand’s Unique Selling Point (USP)

Why it works:

An excellent and well-defined Unique Selling Proposition (USP) gives your brand a competitive edge. It is helpful to the customer because they can tell why you are the best in the market compared to other brands. 

Therefore, the messages become more distinct in a crowded consumer marketplace and brands with a USP watch, as they have a higher recall rate and consumer allegiance. Such a USP also positions your brand as credible since you inform the customers precisely what sets you apart. 

Best ways to make the most of it: 

• State your positioning statement: Define what you communicate to the customers about your product or service offering regarding quality, innovation, sustainability, and price.
• Communicate consistently: Remind your target audience about your USP through web content, product descriptions, social media, and labeling. 
• Leverage storytelling: Tell stories about the development of the brand, its mission, or the issue you are working on. This will help customers develop a positive emotional attitude towards the product. 

For instance, if your Shopify store sells environmentally conscious products, ensure all communication and marketing resonate with the tagline “going green.”

Get in Touch with Your Customers on Social Media

Why it works:

Social media helps establish an interactive interface with consumers, thus ensuring regular contact with the brand. Conversations with users about what they have on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms humanize the brand and provide a window into understanding customers. 

Currently, there are more than 5 billion social media users globally, creating a foundation for trust and communication with potential customers. 

Best ways to make the most of it: 

• Reply to the comments and messages immediately: This is a sign that you respect and consider your client’s input.

• Share user-generated content: Encourage customers to post photos or reviews of your products and share them on your platforms. This builds social proof and trust.
• Run interactive campaigns: Host Q&A sessions, live product demonstrations, or contests to engage your followers.
• Be consistent with your tone and values: Your social media content should align with your brand’s voice and USP, helping to reinforce your message.

A study by Sprout Social found that 76% of people are likely to trust a brand more if it engages positively with its audience on social media.

Partnership with Trusted Brands

Why it works:

Find experienced and well-known partners to enhance the recognition of your Shopify store and attract more customers to your brand. Whenever your customers notice that you are working with a brand they already associate with reliability, they also tend to regard your business as credible and reputable. 

It is particularly effective for stores with low brand awareness or newly established brands aiming to develop a good reputation on the market. 

Best ways to make the most of it: 

• Co-branding: This involves partnering with another brand to produce or market a product or service related to or similar to your brand. For instance, if you run a business that sells skincare products, you should partner with a company that sells recyclable packaging materials. 
• Cross-promotions: Establish affiliations with companies that customers respect and buy products from. Have them do the same for you by tweeting or featuring your products in newsletters or blogs. 
• Influencer partnerships: Ensure you work with influencers with a good reputation in your line of business. This will also ensure that their followers develop trust and credibility in your brand since the influencers refer them to it. 
• Joint giveaways: Host a giveaway with a respected brand to gain viewers and interest in the channel. If you align your Shopify store with well-established brands, you will have access to their customers, and the association will make your store even more credible. 

By aligning your Shopify store with established brands, you’ll tap into their loyal customer base and gain additional credibility through association.

Leverage Testimonials and Reviews

Why it works:

Customer word-of-mouth statements about your business can go far in creating more trust with consumers. Studies show that 91% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase, and 84% trust them as much as a personal recommendation. Sharing the happy faces of real customers gives new consumers the confidence that engaging with your brand is safe and effectively answers the questions that a new consumer might have. 

Best ways to make the most of it: 

• Use reviews strategically: Place reviews where they are likely to have the most impact – in featured reviews, main product pages, and cart abandonment messages.

• Highlight specific results: Use detailed testimonials highlighting how your product has solved a problem or delivered value. These make the feedback feel more authentic.
• Incorporate video testimonials: Video format is more personal than text; therefore, replacing testimonials with videos makes them more accurate and believable.
• Incentivize reviews: Offer small discounts or loyalty points to encourage customers to leave feedback. More reviews build a stronger reputation and increase trust in your brand.

For example, if you have a Shopify store that sells health supplements, testimonials from real customers about how your product helped improve their health would add credibility and make new customers more likely to purchase.

Read more: High Traffic No Sales on Shopify? Common Mistakes and How to Fix It

2. Addition tips on how to get more sales on Shopify

After discussing the primary perspectives, below are more ideas regarding additional strategies to increase sales on the Shopify platform. Such techniques help optimize the customer experience and increase conversion and traffic circulation to your store.

Create an Email Marketing Plan That Converts

Why it works:

Online communication by e-mail is still considered one of the most effective means of promoting a store and its services and, thus, converting an audience into a buyer. Forbes Advisor reports that for every dollar invested, email brings $36, which proves that it is one of the most effective channels in terms of ROI.

How to make the most of it: 

• Segment your list: This step involves categorizing the email subscribers according to their level of engagement, needs, or past shopping experience. This will enable you to send more appropriate messages that suit the customer. 
• Use personalized subject lines: Headlines with personal references are opened 26% more often than headlines with generalized content. Make sure that your messages are personal. You can do this by referring to them by their names or with something you noticed they recently did on your site.
• Automate campaigns: They include the following automation services: welcome and follow-up emails, abandoned cart reminders, and post-purchase services. 
• Offer exclusive discounts: There is nothing wrong with giving your email subscribers incentives, such as early bird access to your sales or certain types of discounts during a certain period.

Get Creative with Your Promotions

Why it works:

Another incentive is promotions; however, discounts can be presented in various ways and sometimes ineffective. It pays to be creative and find a niche that helps set the brand apart and make customers happy. 

How to make the most of it: 

• Time-sensitive promotions: Ensure promotions correspond with every single season or event associated with your product or the target group. For instance, organize a back-to-school promotion for a brand that sells stationery or backpacks. 
• Bundle deals: Customers can buy more products through a promotion such as “buy one, get one for free.” This increases the average order value and helps deal with excess stock.
• Gamified promotions: Spin-the-wheel discounts are additional examples of how to make your offers even more engaging and playful. Apps like Wheelify can help integrate these fun elements into your Shopify store.

Ensure a Smooth Checkout Experience

Why it works:

Again, cart abandonment can be attributed to complex, somewhat long checkout processes that annoy customers. Worldwide, studies have shown that nearly 17% of all online shoppers’ shopping carts get abandoned before the actual purchase occurs, primarily because of difficult and time-consuming checkout procedures.

How to make the most of it:

• Simplify checkout: Minimise the number of processes from the patron’s starting point of view in the buying process. This can be done on one page, minimizing the number of steps needed and thus making it faster.
• Enable guest checkout: Some customers may not be willing to sign up for an account. Having the guest checkout option will help avoid cart abandonment.
• Multiple payment options: Customers can comfortably proceed with the payment using credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and other means.
• Auto-fill fields: The return customer should be looked at using auto-fill features that help speed up the process of buying again.

Optimize Website Speed and Design

Why it works:

A well-planned website will also provide the consumer with a better experience, which should help optimize website conversion rates. Google has said that most mobile users will abandon a website that takes 3 seconds or more to load.

How to make the most of it: 

• Optimize the images: To improve the website’s speed, the images should be optimized and their size reduced, the right format should be used, and the website should be hosted on a fast web host with as few plugins as possible. One way to achieve this is by employing Google tools like PageSpeed, where one can show areas for improvement.
• Ensure mobile responsiveness: As many as 50% of internet purchasers use hand-held devices to shop, so ensure your site is properly responsive. 
• Clear navigation: A navigation menu must enable visitors to locate what they seek quickly, reducing their frustration when purchasing products. 
• Prioritize key content above the fold: The header section should contain key product details such as product titles, CTAs, and promotions so that the customers don’t have to scroll to see them.

Invest in Paid Advertising

Why it works:

This is one of the best methods of creating traffic because it is fast and efficient if the organic methods are insufficient. Google, Facebook, and Instagram are some of the platforms it can use since they allow you to filter your target audience, thus getting better quality leads for the Shopify store. 

How to make the most of it: 

• Retargeting advertisement: Facebook and Google offer this tool; continue to display your advertisement to visitors who visited your store but were not convinced to purchase. Retargeting ads are beneficial because they improve the probability of conversion by 70%. 
• A/B test your ads: Understand which headlines, images, and CTAs generate the best results and apply them to your incoming emails. Always adjust your ads based on the statistics you gather often. 
• Target the right audience: Another way is to use Facebook lookalike audiences or Instagram interest targeting to get in contact with people similar to the customers you have already worked with. 
• Set a clear budget: Begin with the initial subset of media and determine the channels that yield the biggest ROI. As you gather data, allocate more of your budget to the platforms that perform the best.

Read more: How to Get Sales on Shopify Without Ads? 13 Best Tips

Offer Free Shipping

Why it works:

High shipping charges are one cause of customer cart abandonment. According to Statista, additional costs, such as shipping fees, keep 48% of customers from purchasing. 

How to make the most of it:

• Free shipping offer: Ensure you give your customers free shipping on orders above a specific value. For instance, free shipping for orders above $50 creates light pressure, making the customer order more than he desires to qualify for free shipping. 
• Build shipping costs into product pricing: That is, if you can afford to add the cost of shipping to your product prices, and thus, when you want to offer your customers ‘free’ shipping, you do so without incurring a loss. 
• Use limited-time free shipping offers: Occasionally, use limited-time offers such as free shipping to encourage consumers to purchase more products. 
• Communicate clearly: Publicize your free shipping offers in clear and conspicuous places. The customer should be able to see them as soon as he or she opens your website’s homepage and product page.

3. Conclusion

This post explains how to increase sales on Shopify. It also shows Shopify store owners how to add new traffic sources, improve customer retention rates, and more. If you desire growth, please follow these tips as the following steps and, if necessary, modify them according to your store’s existing conditions.

4. FAQs