If you run a Shopify store, you know your most difficult task is perfecting your marketing and sales funnel to get customers who are ready to buy to your store’s product pages. 

The data backs this up. The average ecommerce conversion rate hovers anywhere from 1-4 percent. So even for the most successful online brands, only a small fraction of people who visit their website actually make a purchase. 

And if you hide your out of stock products on Shopify? You’re lowering that conversion rate even further, because the product you just hid might be the one someone wanted to buy. Especially since your best sellers will tend to go out stock first, and most often.

So what can you do to stop losing those potential sales, without creating a bad experience for customers? Set up Back In Stock alerts for Shopify instead.

Here are 3 ways the best ecommerce brands are using back in stock notifications to increase sales, make better inventory decisions, and delight their customers.

1. Minimize missed sales opportunities by using Back In Stock alerts instead of hiding out of stock Shopify inventory.

Instead of simply choosing whether to display or hide your out of stock products on Shopify, Back In Stock alerts lets you replace the “Buy” button with a customizable message to “Notify me when the product is available.”

You can change the wording and the style of the button so it blends seamlessly into your site. Then when you restock your inventory, Back In Stock will send your customer an email or text message letting them know they can complete their purchase. 

So even though you’re not doing any work beyond your normal inventory tracking, you’ve now got an app moving the needle on your sales. 

The NASH Collection, a lifestyle brand that embodies love for Nashville, uses Back In Stock alerts across their site and says, “I can’t tell you how excited I am to have installed this app. It’s tripled my online sales… easy!” 

For any ecommerce store owner, tripling sales is a big win. So if you have any inventory that tends to sell out, setting up these alerts is no-brainer.

2. Make better inventory decisions by analyzing product waitlists.

Another reason you’re missing out if you’re hiding out of stock products is that you’re not collecting any data on what people wanted to buy.

Digging into Back In Stock analytics opens up a whole new data category for your analytics that can help you can lower inventory risks and overhead. 

If a product has a massive waitlist, you know you can order big. If another product has a short waitlist, you can continue with smaller orders. If a product has no waitlist and isn’t moving? It’s probably time to think about discounting or discontinuing it.

Big fashion brands, like Skims, use Back in Stock alerts to create wishlists for out of stock items. Wishlists create a great experience for customers, but they’re also a secret weapon for Shopify store owners.

K Beauty ecommerce store, Go Bloom & Glow, says waitlists are a crucial part of their inventory management strategy. “I know what products to stock up next… It also helps in determining which products to discontinue selling by providing data on which product has the shortest waitlist or none at all.” 

So in addition to reducing missed sales, you’re getting valuable insight into the overall demand for your various products. 

3. Turn customer disappointment into delight.

Customers aren’t interested in monitoring your site to see when the thing they wanted to buy is restocked. If they can’t buy something from you, they move on fast. But they’ll also probably remember that experience, and you can damage customer loyalty if you tend to sell out a lot. 

By using Back In Stock alerts, you let customers know about all the products you offer, and if they want to purchase something, you’re making it easy for them, even if it’s out of stock. And the brands with the most loyal customers do everything they can to make things easy for them — because shopping should never be work.

The post Stop Hiding Out of Stock Products on Shopify. Here’s What the Best Ecommerce Brands Do Instead. appeared first on Back in Stock alerts for Shopify.

Today We Announce Shopify Back in Stock SMS Notifications

Now, if one of your customers wants to know when your product is back in stock, they can choose to be notified via email or by SMS.

If you’re anything like us, you might routinely miss an email, but a text message is almost impossible to ignore. So, SMS notifications will allow you to notify your customer in a more direct way.

Any questions? Read the following FAQ. Any more questions? Please reach out to our support team, and we’ll be happy to help.

FAQ About Shopify Back in Stock SMS Notifications

How do I enable SMS notifications for my customers?

Easy! Log into your SMS Notifications page (Account > SMS Notifications) and follow the instructions to enable the feature.

How much does it cost?

SMS notifications will cost $0.015 per message in addition to your monthly plan and count toward your allotted monthly notification limit. Usage charges will appear on the same Shopify invoice as your monthly payment.

Can I send Shopify Back in Stock SMS notifications to customers in any country?

Yes, absolutely!

Can I test out Shopify Back in Stock SMS notifications and then turn it off if I want to?

Sure, try it out and see how it goes! You can always turn it off if it’s not working for you. If the SMS feature is enabled and then disabled, however, any pending notifications that haven’t yet been sent will not send when your product is back in stock.

How do I see how many SMS notifications I’ve sent (to gauge popularity or cost)?

Your account’s Notification Report will show all notifications created with a phone number and exactly when they were sent.

Can I turn SMS notifications on for existing notifications?

No. Existing notifications were created with the customer’s email address and a phone number is required to send it by SMS.

The post Shopify BackInStock SMS Notifications Are Here! appeared first on Back in Stock alerts for Shopify.

BackInStock

Quit losing sales because your products are out of stock. BackInStock is one of the best Shopify apps because it offers the most comprehensive set of features for any Shopify stock notification app with customizable email templates, and popular email platform integrations.  

Stores make more sales with Back in Stock, period.

Pricing: Free plan available
Free Trial: 14 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Sumo

Sumo turns your shop into an email lead generating machine so you can stay in touch with customers. It also helps you increase conversions, and increase your average order value with strategically placed incentives. You can even reduce your cart abandonment by presenting an offer to help customers complete their purchase. It’s no wonder that more than 37,000 Shopify store owners are using it. Oh, and bonus — it’s free.

Pricing: Free
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Storemapper

If you sell your products via brick-and-mortar retailers as well as online, the Storemapper Shopify store locator is a must have. Whether you have 10, 100, or even 10,000 store locations to manage, you can have a store locator up and running on your Shopify site in a matter of minutes. Upload store locations individually, with a CSV bulk upload, or a Google Drive sheet transfer. Customize the look and feel of your map to match your site, and get detailed analytics to see how and where customers are searching for your products.

Pricing: Plans start at $19/month
Free Trial: 7 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

ReferralCandy

Your most loyal customers are also your store’s best brand ambassadors. ReferralCandy lets you reward them for referrals to grow your affiliate program, and automatically pays out those rewards so you can use your time for something else. You can customize the look and feel to match your store, and get detailed analytics to see who your superstar referrers are. 

Pricing: Plans start at $49/month + Commission
Free Trial: 30 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Privy ‑ Exit Pop Ups & Email

Want to improve your conversion, and set up email marketing, but don’t know code? Privy’s free suite is a great place to start, and includes welcome series, coupon promotions, abandoned cart follow up, and exit-driven popups and banners to help you capture interest without interrupting a transaction.

Pricing: Plans start at $10/month
Free Trial: 15 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Lucky Orange

If you’re getting a lot of traffic to your store, but not a lot of sales, Lucky Orange is your new BFF. User recording and heatmaps help you see what your potential customers are doing on your site, and determine why they left without making a purchase. You’ll uncover issues with your checkout process, and improve your sales funnel in no time. You can also get stats by keyword, location, referrer, tweets, etc. to see which channels, SEO tactics, and back links are working for you, and which aren’t.

Pricing: Plans start at $10/month
Free Trial: 7 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Shippo

We probably don’t need to say more than “discounted shipping rates,” but the Shippo Shopify app has lots of other awesome features, too. Print branded labels, automatically send tracking info to your customers, include return labels in your packages, and more with this powerful app.

Pricing: Free to install, $0.05 per label
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Klaviyo

This Shopify app is a segmentation powerhouse. Gather data from your shop and use it to create super targeted and personalized marketing messages for email, Instagram, and Facebook. No spreadsheets required.

Pricing: Free up to 500 emails (See full pricing)
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Spin‑a‑Sale

Who can resist a game of chance, especially when there’s nothing to lose? Spin-a-Sale can help you improve customer engagement, loyalty, and sales conversion by adding fun and simple games to your store. Offer the chance to win a prize on your email signup form, and watch your list grow.

Pricing: From $9.99/month
Free Trial: 10 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Infinite Options

Easily let customers personalize products on your Shopify store with easy forms for engraving, monogramming, and custom printing options. If a lot of your customers are purchasing your products as a gift, there’s also an easy option to add a “giftwrap” checkbox, which can help increase customer satisfaction, and your average sale.

Pricing: Plans start at $4.99/month
Free Trial: 30 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Tidio Live Chat

A streamlined customer support system you can install in 30 seconds, Tidio includes options for chat, bots, and marketing automation. Anticipate customer questions, and respond to them automatically to keep them in your sales funnel.

Pricing: Free plan available, Premium plans start at $15/mo
Free Trial: 7-days with an option to extend
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Crush.pics

Images are a crucial factor to optimizing your Shopify store’s SEO, and so is your site’s speed. Crush.pics helps reduce the file size of your store’s images without impacting their quality so your site will load lightning fast. Set up your compression and naming settings, and it will automatically run in the background.

Pricing: Free up to 25MB (See full pricing)
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Yotpo

Let customers enter reviews, share their own photos of your products, and rate products, and sign up for referral programs. Yotpo is a simple way to build customer loyalty and trust and in a crowded marketplace.

Pricing: Free
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Trust Hero ‑ Trust Badges

Improve sales and cart abandonment rates by displaying trust and security badges to your customers.

Pricing: Free
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Wishlist Plus

Shoppers don’t always make a purchase on their first visit to your shop. Wishlist Plus lets them save their favorite products to a wishlist, so they can pick up where they left off next time they visit your site.

Pricing: Free
Free Trial: 30 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Loox ‑ Photo Reviews

Loox helps Shopify merchants automatically collect and showcase product reviews with photos and use them to increase sales and retention. With Loox you can leverage the impact of social proof to build strong trust, boost conversion, and drive repeat purchases.

Pricing: Plans start at $9.99/month
Free Trial: 14 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Omnisend Email Marketing & SMS

Exactly what it sounds like, the Omnisend Shopify app lets you automate email and text marketing funnels with personalized messaging. Already using Mailchimp? No problem, migration is easy.

Pricing: Free to install (Paid plans start at $16/month)
Free Trial: 14 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Plug in SEO

Check for SEO problems and understand how to fix them. Staying on top of your SEO will help you show up higher and more often in search engines like Google.

Pricing: Free to install (Paid plans start at $20/month)
Free Trial: 7 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Ultimate Sales Boost

Harness the power of FOMO to decrease time to purchase and cart abandonment with scarcity and countdown messaging placed strategically in your checkout process.

Most other apps add urgency to product pages. We do product pages, but also collection pages and cart pages. We believe consistent sales-boosting messages should be communicated throughout the entire checkout flow.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $9.99/month)
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Justuno Pop Ups & Exit Offers

Upselling, cross-selling, exit offers, popups, lead capture forms, and push notifications, oh my! Add email signup, free shipping, and special offers strategically throughout your site and product pages with the Justuno Shopify app.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $29/month)
Free Trial: 14 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Conversific ‑ Store Analytics

Conversific helps you extract Google Analytics data into useful e-commerce metrics in a well-organized and easy-to-use dashboard. Plus, with helpful industry benchmarks, you can actually make sense of your data by seeing where you lead and where you lag compared to peers.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $29/month)
Free Trial: unlimited with free plan
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Free Shipping Bar by Hextom

Recent data shows that free shipping is a major driver in e-commerce sales. This might seem like a downside at first, but if you use free shipping strategically to increase your average order by offering it at a certain transaction level, it can actually be a big sales boost for your store. The Free Shipping bar lets you create progressive messaging and track performance so you know which messages perform and where to display them. You can even customize the bars for the holidays.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $9.99/month)
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Sales Pop ‑ Sales Notification

Big online retailers like Amazon know that showing what other customers bought is a great way to increase sales. Being transparent about which products customers ultimately buy is also a great way to improve customer trust.

Pricing: Free
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: Shopify App Store Page

SEO Site Audit, Benchmark Hero

A complete, and detailed site audit that will help you understand how to generate more traffic and improve your conversion rate. This free service benchmarks you against 7 and 8 figure stores so you can make a plan to fix issues and set growth goals.

Pricing: Free
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Smile: Rewards & Loyalty

There are a lot of loyalty programs out there, but Smile is unique in offering you options in how you build a loyalty program. Choose from points, referral programs, or creating “VIP” customer benefits depending on your sales patterns and customer behavior, or test out all three to see which works best for your Shopify store.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $49/month)
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

AfterShip ‑ Track & Notify

Create a custom, branded tracking page and automated shipping notifications so customers can track their shipments directly from your site. Add marketing banners to showcase new products, or offer a discount on their next purchase to increase repeat sales. You’ll also have behind the scenes access to track shipments with 597+ carriers worldwide so you can see if your shipments are delivered on time.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $9/month)
Free Trial: 14 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Form Builder with File Upload by HulkApps

Build branded, responsive, mobile-friendly forms for your Shopify store without writing a single line of code. From simple to detailed, it’ll help you create anything from contact forms to wholesale order forms in a flash.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $10/month)
Free Trial: 6 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Kit

Kit is like an extra set of hands to help with marketing your store. Send a message over Ping, SMS, or Facebook Messenger and Kit can help you create and promote a discount code, start a Facebook or Instagram campaign, set up retargeting ads, or follow up with a thank you to customers who’ve made a purchase.

Pricing: Free to install
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Bulk Image Edit ‑ Image SEO

We’ve already shared a couple of our favorite free image compression and SEO optimization apps. But if you’re investing in custom product photography, you should definitely consider Bulk Image Edit because it lets you watermark all of the images on your site in one go so your competitors can’t use them. It will also optimize your image size, alt-text and file name to help you improve your site speed and SEO.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $10/month)
Free Trial: 14 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Spocket: EU & US Dropshipping

Stop spending hours searching for the best performing products for dropshipping. Spocket gives you access to fast shipping bestsellers in the US, Europe, Canada, Asia, and more with discounted wholesale pricing. A few clicks, and they’re in your Shopify store. Spocket now also includes a print on demand collection.

Pricing: Plans start at $9/month
Free Trial: 7 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Printful: Print‑on‑Demand

Transform your designs into printed or embroidered products without having to manage inventory, production, or shipping. The Printful Shopify app lets you focus on designing and marketing to maximize your sales, and it’s a low-cost way for makers to test out products and start an online store without having to shell out for expensive bulk orders.

Pricing: The app is free; you’ll pay a set price for each product that you can build into your product pricing
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Discounted Upsells ‑ Upsell

Smart upselling is easy with this Shopify app. Increase your average order with discounted upselling and cross-selling offers that tie into your inventory management without the frustration of duplicate variants.

Pricing: Plans start at $19.99/month
Free Trial: 7 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Auto Currency Switcher

Online sales know no borders. Expand your customer base outside of your country with automatic currency detection and display to improve sales conversions.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $9.95/month)
Free Trial: n/a
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Return Magic

Create a seamless and satisfying return experience for your customers. You approve returns, but from there everything else is automatic. You can issue a refund via the original payment method (including Amazon and Shopify payments), process exchanges, or issue a refund via a gift card for store credit depending on your store’s return policy. Good return management is a great way to improve your customer LTV (lifetime value) metrics.

Pricing: Plans start at $10/month
Free Trial: 30 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

Recurring Payments & Orders

Adding subscription options to your product line up is the perfect way to create recurring and reliable revenue. the PayWhirl Shopify app makes it easy to create, manage and sell subscriptions without any custom development to store payment methods or create account logins.

Pricing: Free plan available (Paid plans start at $49/month)
Free Trial: 14 days
Get It: App Website | Shopify App Store Page

No matter what you want to do with your Shopify store, there’s an app out there to help you. And whatever your e-commerce goals are, one of the most effortless ways to increase sales is to set up back in stock notifications. We’ve heard from customers who’ve been able to triple their Shopify sales just by installing the BackInStock app. Sign up for a free trial today and see for yourself!

The post 35 of the Best Shopify Apps to Increase Sales appeared first on Back in Stock alerts for Shopify.

Shopify SEO Checklist Pre-Work: 3 Must-Have Shopify SEO tools

You’ll want to have a few things set up before you can get started optimizing your Shopify store. 

1. Setting up Google Analytics on your Shopify store is a crucial step that will provide you with a ton of insight into how your site is performing and where you can make improvements.
   
2. Google Search Console is a tool you can turn on (here’s a quick how-to video) within Google Analytics to check your indexing status and optimize the visibility of your store. It’s very important that you verify your site with Google, otherwise Search Console won’t gather any data for you.
   
3. You’ll want to use some kind of keyword research tool to help you figure out which search terms have the highest potential volume (and therefore value) for your store and products. We recommend Google Keyword Planner, ahrefs, and Moz, but there are a ton of options out there. 

Once you’ve got these three things ready to go, you’re ready to jump into the Shopify SEO Checklist.

1. Submit Your Sitemap to Google Search Console

Your sitemap is  just a list of your website’s individual pages in a format that search engines can easily read. Shopify automatically generates a sitemap for you, and you can find it by entering  “mystore.com/sitemap.xml” in your web browser. 

Follow these steps to submit your sitemap:

• Sign in to Google Search Console
• If you manage multiple stores, or sites, select the store you want to submit a sitemap for at the top left. 

• Then click on “Sitemaps” from the left-hand menu
• In the “Add a Sitemap” section, enter the url for your Shopify store’s Sitemap that you grabbed earlier (“mystore.com/sitemap.xml”), then click “SUBMIT.”

• Google will use it your sitemap to index your Shopify store and its pages. This can take some time, so make sure to check back later in the day, or the following day to make sure you see “Success” under the status column for your Sitemap. 

• If you see “Errors” as a status, click on it for details and fix any issues so your site indexes properly. Here are some common errors, and how to fix them.
• Now that you have Search Console set up, you can configure it in your Analytics account so you can see everything in one place instead of going back and forth. 
• In your Google Analytics account go to Acquisition > Search Console in the left-hand menu. It will guide you through hooking it up, but you can also hop over to Google’s support page to get step-by-step help. 

2. Do Your Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of your Shopify SEO, so find a favorite keyword research tool (like one of the ones we mentioned in the Pre-Work section, above) and make it your new BFF. 

Understand How Customers Search for Products Like Yours

The goal of doing keyword research is to understand how your potential customers are searching for your products. 

For example, if you sell handmade phone cases, and you’re naming your products “Leather smartphone case,” but most people search for “Leather iPhone case” or “Leather case for Samsung Galaxy phone,” you’re missing out on potential traffic to your site (and sales). 

Look at Search Volume on Keywords Related to Your Products

Once you understand how people search for the types of products you sell, you’ll want to dive deeper into how many people search for a particular keyword, or the search volume. 

The higher the volume, the more value a keyword has, and the more competitive it will be. You can use Neil Patel’s free ubersuggest tool to see how difficult it is to rank for your keywords.

Narrow Down Your List of Targeted Keywords

Look for keywords with high potential search volume, and a low to medium difficulty to rank. You’re probably not going to be able to rank number one for “phone case,” so you’ll need to get more specific.

Longer, more specific keyword phrases are often called “long tail” keywords. They’ll have smaller search volumes, but will be more targeted to your store, which means a more highly-qualified sales lead coming straight to you site. So a keyword like “handmade leather iPhone case” has a much lower volume, but the person searching this phrase is probably in a buying mindset, and is much more likely to make a purchase from your store. 

3. Optimize Your Pages

Once you have a list of keywords (we’d recommend starting with 5-10) that are possible superstars for your store, you’ll want to optimize specific product pages for those keywords to improve your ranking. 

Pick a main, unique keyword for each product page

First, pick the best possible primary keyword/phrase for a specific product page. You want this keyword to show up everywhere – your page title, your url, your meta description, your H1, and in your body copy. 

It might seem counterintuitive, but more isn’t better when it comes to keywords per page. You want to avoid trying to just fill a page up with a million different keywords, because Google wants to serve people up a page that’s super targeted to a particular search term. 

How and Where to Use Your Page’s Primary Target Keyword

• In your H1 tag, which will generally be the page title field in Shopify. Note: you should use only one H1 tag per page. 
• In your page’s meta title, towards the beginning. Google displays the first 50-60 characters for most page titles, so be sure to keep your page title concise. 
• In your meta description, towards the beginning. Page descriptions are truncated to 160 characters, try to keep yours around 150-155 characters. 
• In your url. See tips for formatting your url’s below. 

Notes on Optimizing Your Page URLs

A well-crafted URL gives both people and search engines an easy-to-understand indication of what the destination page will be about.

Shopify automatically generates a url for your product pages based on your page title, but you can edit it by going to your Shopify admin > Online Store > Pages. Click the title of the page you want to edit, then in the Search engine listing preview, click “Edit website SEO.”

• Your main keyword should be in the url. So using our phone case example, you might set a product page url to “mystore.com/handmade-leather-iphone-case-tan”
• Always use lowercase letters, and use hyphens to separate words (not underscores, or spaces)
• Eliminate filler words like “and” and “for”

If you want to update the url on an existing product, make sure to redirect any old links and traffic from the old url to your new one. (This also comes in handy if you ever delete a product. Using a redirect you can send people to similar, current inventory). 

4. Optimize Your Images for SEO

Another important item on your Shopify SEO Checklist is image optimization. So much of how we understand SEO is all about text and keywords, but your images have a role to play, too. 

Images matter for SEO because Google’s algorithm pays attention to behavior metrics that reflect user experience, like the amount of time visitors spend on a web page. And visitors tend to spend more time on pages with high-quality images. 

Images can also be optimized to more directly help with SEO as well. Where the average visitor to your page will only see the image itself, search engine crawlers see text behind the image (like the filename, and alt tag) that you can fill in to help them understand what your image is about.

So before you add an image to your website, take some time to customize the filename, using your primary target keyword, and the same best practices you used on url’s above. (And of course, make sure that you have the right to use the image!)

You should also always include a brief description for your images that uses your target keyword as the image’s alt text. You can add alt text by selecting an image, clicking “Edit,” entering your description in the “alt text” field, and then clicking “Save.”

5. Get Backlinks to Boost Your Ranking

A backlink is just a fancy name for an external link to your website, and they’re an essential part of Shopify SEO success. When other people link to your site, Google notices, and considers your page more relevant than other, similar pages with no backlinks. Get a lot of backlinks, and you’ll start moving up the search rankings. 

Getting backlinks is never guaranteed though, since it depends on other people, and it can take some time to get them. Here are a few tips to increase backlinks to your Shopify store.

• Guest Blogging: One of the most popular ways to get backlinks from other sites is through guest blogging. Bloggers generally love having guest writers because it gives their site fresh content for very little effort, so it’s worthwhile to try to look for guest posting opportunities where you can include a keyword-rich link or two back to your site. 
• Get Links From Your Makers & Manufacturers: If you’re store sells other people’s products, ask your makers and manufacturers to list and link to your shop on a “Where to Find Our Products” page. It helps them to make their products easy to buy too, so this is usually an easy win. 
• Get Your Products Reviewed by Influencers & Bloggers: Another easy way to get backlinks is by sending your products to influential bloggers within your niche to do a product review. This can certainly earn you a few links and high quality traffic, though it takes a bit of time and effort.

Create a Content Marketing Strategy that Supports Your SEO

You can’t come up with an infinite number of products to sell to help you rank for every keyword on your list. This is where content marketing comes in. Having a blog on your site where you create posts that target your keywords can help bring in more traffic, and keep your email and social media marketing fresh and engaging. 

You want to make sure your efforts pay off though — just getting more traffic isn’t the point. You want sales. So make sure every post you create has a clear call-to-action, whether it’s signing up for your email list, unlocking a special discount code, or buying a specific product. 

Your content marketing should be all about putting a new spin on your products so you can pitch them over and over again without just sending people to the same old product landing page. It should also be about providing value to your audience to create customer loyalty, so be sure to think about their interests before you start.

Here are few content marketing ideas, using the example of a clothing or accessory store: 

• Maximize holiday opportunities. Create gift guides leading up to popular gift-giving holidays like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Graduation. For Halloween, show how your products can be used to make an amazing costume. 
• Post about looks for the season that incorporate your products, or about the newest color trends with links to items you carry in those colors. 
• Show people how to copy a popular celebrity’s look using items from your store.

The possibilities are really endless. Shopify also has some excellent resources with content marketing ideas that are worth checking out.

7. Use Social Media to Expand Your Audience and Sales

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest give potential customers another opportunity to find you and your products. Plus, links back to your pages from social media sites can also help improve your search ranking. Plus, now you can also sell products from your Shopify store directly on Instagram, and Facebook. 

But it can be super easy to spend a ton of time managing social media channels without much pay off, and Facebook in particular is making it more difficult for businesses to show up in people’s feeds. 

So before you start posting, it’s a good idea to cruise some competitor pages to see what channels they have, what kinds of posts are doing well for them, and which ones seem to be low interest. That way you’ve already let someone else do the heavy lifting for you. 

Once you set up your social channels and start posting content, monitor your analytics carefully to see which platforms and types of content are really driving traffic that converts into sales, and focus your time and energy on those. 

8. Additional Shopify SEO Considerations

If you’ve gone through all the other steps in the checklist, and want to squeeze out a little extra SEO juice, here a few more things that can help your search rank. 

1. Optimize your store for mobile. Fortunately, pretty much every theme on the Shopify Theme Store is mobile friendly, but this is an absolute must these days, so it’s worth noting. 
2. Make sure your store’s loading speed is fast enough. Google’s PageSpeed Insights in a great tool to analyze the performance of your store, and here are a few tips to help boost your speed.
3. Stay up to date with Google’s recommendations. Google has a long history of algorithm updates, search index changes, and refreshes. They never make the recipe of their secret sauce public, but you can stay up to date with best practices on the Google’s Search Console Help Section.

Search Engine Optimization takes time and effort but it’s like compound interest for your store: it keeps paying you back.  BackInStock Customer Alerts are another way you can easily maximize sales by notifying customers immediately when a product is back in stock. Sign up for a free trial today. It takes less than 5 minutes to set up. 

Love This Shopify SEO Checklist?

Check out our interactive version so you can check off each item as you go, set email reminders for tasks, and more.

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Use an App to Export Shopify Orders Automatically

Since Shopify is such a popular platform, there’s an app for just about everything you could want to do to enhance your store. Here are three popular, well-rated apps that can help you with on-the-fly and scheduled exports. You can choose the best one for you based on your needs and pricing. 

1. EXPORT OrderPro
7-day, free trial • $14/month

The EXPORT OrderPro app allows you to create custom report templates with an easy drag-and-drop system and 80+ possible data fields. You can export to CSV, Excel, or HTML. You can also send reports by email or FTP to employees, coworkers, or suppliers. Use the scheduling function to set things up once and then have them run automatically to streamline your reporting process. 

One 5-star reviewer says, “This app has saved us so much time and made it super easy to prepare our delivery reports. It has been a game changer.”

2. Exportify
15-day, free trial • $19/month

Exportify can export your Shopify orders automatically to Excel, CSV, or any text-delimited format. This app has the added benefits of auto-sizing data cells so you don’t have to spend time on formatting. Their system also integrates with Store Pickup + Delivery,  BOLD Product Options,  Infinite Options,  Product Customizer,  DHL, and UPS. 

One 5-star reviewer says, “Simply the best solution, full stop. The Exportify team have worked with us, in a professional, timely and comprehensive manner to deliver -exactly- our requirements to connect our store to our fulfillments partner.” 

3. Data Export – Reports
15-day, free trial • $5-20/month depending on which plan you select

Data Export – Reports is hands down the cheapest app solution for exporting Shopify orders if your reporting needs are pretty light. Five bucks a month will get you one report template with an automated email of Excel or CSV data. You can upgrade to get additional reports, help with setup, and access to additional data formats like Google Sheets. 

If data isn’t your thing, their customer support is well liked by their customers, with one saying, “Customer support is great, John was a fantastic help in creating a specific report I needed via online chat functionality. 5 stars!”

Use an Integration Service to Export Shopify Orders Automatically

If you’re handling a high-volume Shopify store with a lot of different products, processes, and systems, an integration service, like Zapier, Integromat, or Automate.io might be worth investing in.

Not only can you automatically export Shopify orders, you can also do things like:

• Generate barcodes and save them to Dropbox
• Send a Slack message for every paid order so your team knows they should prepare it for shipping
• Add new customers to your MailChimp list so you can market effortlessly

Not sure which service to choose? Zapier offers existing integrations between Shopify and 250 apps, and the ability to make your own integration with 1,500 apps, which makes it extremely customizable. However, some people find it challenging to create their own automation processes, or “zaps,” and some report that it can be buggy. But with its small $20/month entry-level price tag, it’s an affordable option for all that it offers.

Automate.io feels a bit slicker, and simpler, but you’ll need to shell out at least $49/month to access Shopify integrations. If you need multiple processes automated, and can save yourself a few hours every month using it, the higher price tag could be worth the extra cash. 

Integromat has fewer supported apps and a more complex pricing structure based on the number of “operations” you need and how much data you require. But, you can set up more complicated processes with logic trees, so if you have a dedicated developer or more complex processes it could be a good choice for you. 

If you’re finding yourself exporting your orders daily or more often, exporting your Shopify orders automatically with one of these apps or services is something that can save you time and money.

Another way you can use automation to improve your Shopify store’s bottom line?

Sign up for a free trial of BackInStock and automatically notify your customers about product availability. It’s an extremely cost-effective and simple way to boost sales. 

The post How do I Export Shopify Orders Automatically? appeared first on Back in Stock alerts for Shopify.

Shopify Store Launch Checklist

Part 1: Do Your Homework

✔ Know your target customers and have a marketing plan

There are over 500,000 active stores on Shopify. If yours is too general or has too many competitors, you may find it hard to make sales. Making sure you have a target market and a plan to reach them is one of the single most important steps you can take. Here are 60 inspiring Shopify stores to give you some ideas of successful businesses, plus tips on crafting your marketing plan. 

✔ Choose your products carefully

While there’s no limit to how many products you can add to Shopify, and the ideal amount for each store will vary, it’s smart (especially for first-time store owners) to start out with a smaller line up. Keeping things simpler in the beginning means you can do some marketing tests, see what appeals to your customers, and if you manage inventory it’ll keep your costs to launch lower. 

✔ Get great photography of your products

First impressions are everything — especially when it comes to online shopping, so high quality images are a must, and totally worth the investment. If photography isn’t in your wheelhouse, hire a local freelancer who can style and shoot your images. You’ll also want to make sure your images are optimized. Nonsensical files names and big files with slow loading times can both hurt sales. Check out these simple tips for optimizing images for Shopify.

Part 2: Setting Up Your Shopify Store

✔ Pick a Shopify store theme

One of the great things about Shopify is how many themes there are to choose from. One of the most challenging things is deciding which one is right for your business. Read up on things to consider before you pick one, plus our 10 favorite themes. 

✔ Add your products

Put those beautiful photos to work for you, and don’t forget to add keyword-rich product titles, descriptions, and page urls to make it easier for people to find them.  

✔ Set up a custom domain

When you create your online store, the default domain is “www.your-store-name.myshopify.com.” To enhance your brand, optimize for SEO, and look more professional you’ll want to have a custom web address. Check out these 10 tips on picking a url from the experts at GoDaddy.

✔ Organize your store with product categories, pages, and navigation

Make it easy for customers to see the types of products you offer, get full details on individual products, and get back to your main shop page.

✔ Take care of shipping and financial settings

Make sure you’ve select your shipping settings, added payment methods, set your selling currency, and entered your tax information. 

✔ Enter your store policies

Will you accept returns? For what reasons and within what length of time? Will you offer store credit or full refunds for them? How will you handle it if a product is damaged during shipping? Spell everything out before you launch. Hopefully you’ll never have a customer dispute, but you’ll want to have a clear and consistent way to deal with any issues that come up. 

✔ Review everything with fresh eyes one more time before launching

Once you’ve done all of your set up, take a break. When you’ve had a chance to reset, go back through your store and check the spelling of your product names and descriptions, click all your links, and double check your settings one more time.

✔ Make it live, and be your own first customer

With all of your careful prep you should be ready to publish your store and start promoting it! Try making a small purchase under a different email address than the one you use for your store. This will help you see how everything works, not just from your side as the seller, but also as the customer so you can make sure your first real customers have a great experience.

Need more step-by-step information on the technical set up? Shopify has a great “essentials” checklist with detailed how-to’s for all of the items above.

Part 3: Optimizing Your Shopify Store

✔ Customize your store’s email templates

Shopify lets you brand and customize several email notifications that will go to your customers including e-receipts, order confirmations, and shipping notifications. You should also consider setting up a “welcome” series that goes out to new customers with things like coupon codes or other products they might like, and abandoned cart notifications. An app like Seguno can help you do this. 

✔ Set up a reporting schedule and track your key stats

Once you’ve started driving some traffic to your Shopify store, you’ll want to run reporting at least monthly to understand: 

• Where customers are coming from so you can optimize your marketing strategy
• Returning customers vs. new to help you figure out if your marketing for existing customers is working
• Which products and pages are getting views, and the conversion rate for each product to help you understand which product categories need more promotion, which you should expand, and which you should drop

Shopify’s app store has a number of reporting apps like Better Reports to help you sort through your stats easily. 

✔ Don’t miss out on sales because you were out of stock

Especially in the beginning, stocking can be a major challenge for store owners. If you’re holding inventory, you’ll most likely wind up with too few of some items and too many of others. Even if you’re drop shipping, your supplier may run into stock issues on popular items. An easy way to manage inventory shortages without losing sales is to spend 5 minutes to set up BackInStock and notify customers when an item they wanted is available. You can even try it free.

✔ Make a list of goals and keep putting in the time

Scaling a Shopify store takes experimenting, focus, and time. Once you’ve hit the basics on this list, you can start looking at things the best Shopify tools, going deeper into your store’s SEO, or creating seasonal or holiday-specific marketing plans. 

But remember, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and create an impossible to-do list for yourself. Keep looking at your reporting data, pick a few priority items to focus on each quarter, implement them and see how they impact your numbers, and repeat.

Love This Shopify Store Launch Checklist?

Check out our interactive version so you can check off each item as you go, set email reminders for tasks, and more.

The post The Ultimate Shopify Store Launch Checklist for First-Time Store Owners appeared first on Back in Stock alerts for Shopify.

Research shows that 38% of consumers will stop engaging and move onto the next site if your website layout is unattractive. Choosing the best Shopify theme for your online store can increase your conversions and help take your eCommerce business to the next level.

The Shopify app store also provides tons of apps which help further boost sales. One such app is our Back In Stock: Customer Alerts. We have native integrations for tons of the top Shopify themes.

In this post, we will provide you with tips on choosing the best Shopify themes for your online shop and will present you with 10 of our top selections.

Let’s jump right in:

Choosing the best Shopify theme for your business

Before you select head over to the Shopify Theme Store there are a few things you should consider.

• Get familiar with Shopify. If you are new to the Shopify, take some time to get familiar with the platform. Shopify offers free ready- loaded themes by default. Getting acquainted with these themes would give you a clearer picture of the functions and styling options you could implement on your site. We list a few Free Shopify Themes in our top ten list below.
• Brand Image. Your brand is important. You should have a clear idea of how you would like your brand to be portrayed. Choose a color scheme, font size and style, and design that best fits your brand. Be sure that your logo is visible throughout the site. Proper branding along with a great design helps build credibility, which is crucial in eCommerce.
• Choosing a credible source. A quick search will reveal tons of place where you can purchase Shopify themes. We recommend that you only purchase from reputable theme companies such as ThemeForest, Out of the Sand Box or Shopify’s official Theme Store, where every theme is vetted by Shopify. There are also plenty of talented designers you can hire to create a custom Shopify theme off the premium and free Shopify themes we suggest below.

Making The Final Choice

When selecting the right Shopify theme for your business, there are 4 factors you should consider:

1. Pricing
2. Functionality
3. Design
4. Reputation

Pricing

Top Shopify themes range from free to $350. As shared earlier, choosing the right theme with a great design and functionality can help boost your conversions, thus we recommend you invest in a custom Shopify theme. However, if you are on a limited budget there are some free Shopify themes we share in our top 10 themes below.

Functionality

Choose a theme with the right set of features for your business. Premium or custom Shopify themes typically have additional features that free themes doesn’t offer. However, there are some functions that are standard with all Shopify themes such as Search Engine Optimization, Mobile-friendly design, and Shopify Responsive Checkout. Apps such as Back in Stock: Consumer Alerts can extend the functionality of your themes.

Design

When choosing a theme aesthetics plays a key role. Be sure to pick a theme that is easy to navigate that fits your brand image. Remember that an unattractive, poorly navigating site can negatively impact your site’s conversion.

Reputation

As with all online purchases, reviews matters. Be sure to read the reviews of the Shopify theme you plan to select. You should also check out their documentation and support provided. If you are purchasing your theme from a third party, you would want to ensure that support is provided when needed. Support is a big deal, and a big part of why you should move forward or cull out a theme when you are considering 2 or 3 options.

Top 10 best Shopify themes

Here is a list of popular themes that we recommend based on current customer use and based on support related tickets (or lack of), we see on these Shopify themes.

Turbo Theme
Price: $350
Source: Out of The Sand Box
Link: https://outofthesandbox.com/collections/turbo-theme

Brooklyn
Price: Free
Source: Shopify Theme Store
Link: https://themes.shopify.com/themes/brooklyn/styles/classic

Debut
Price: Free
Source: Shopify Theme Store
Link: https://themes.shopify.com/themes/debut/styles/default

Prestige
Price: $180
Source: Shopify Theme Store
Link: https://themes.shopify.com/themes/prestige/styles/couture

District
Price: $160
Source: Shopify Theme Store
Link: https://themes.shopify.com/themes/district/styles/district

Venture
Price: Free
Source: Shopify Theme Store
Link: https://themes.shopify.com/themes/venture/styles/outdoors

Parallax
Price: $180
Source: Shopify Theme Store
Link: https://themes.shopify.com/themes/parallax/styles/aspen

Pipeline
Price: $140
Source: Shopify Theme Store
Link: https://themes.shopify.com/themes/pipeline/styles/bright

Responsive
Price: $180
Source: Shopify Theme Store
Link: https://themes.shopify.com/themes/responsive/styles/new-york

Icon
Price: $140
Source: Shopify Theme Store
Link: https://themes.shopify.com/themes/icon/styles/dolce

The post Choosing the best Shopify themes appeared first on Back in Stock alerts for Shopify.

Communication mastery is a huge predictor of success. Many of our in-stock notification users have shared they have teams that are not centralized. Simply put, when you are not talking face to face, (even if you are), there are more teams replacing human interaction and and phone calls with emails, SMS messages, and IM’s. Here are a few tools that we think provide excellent value (because for a basic account they are free). Free AND valuable to your business is a nice combination.

Slack is a tool used for localized and/or remote teams. You can IM, make internet calls, screen share and personalize this tool to your needs. For example… Maybe you have a team of 12. Your team is in several locations and some have roles that possibly overlap (order processing, inventory management, customer support, etc.). However, you have other team members that focus on sales, marketing and vendor relations. Some company memo’s & communications are relevant for everyone, some only for specific team members, etc. Slack allows you to create channels that will empower teams to communicate at light speed, where you can opt-in and out based on which channels you want to see. With Slack’s robust integration options, you can pipe incoming emails directly into the relevant Slack channels. You can still see them in your email inbox, BUT now you can see them in a group channel. You can tag a team member on the fly and assign them the ticket, and work more efficiently, and visibly for all to see. It is truly a game changer. We’ve been using this as a Shopify tool for support, development and much more at BackInStock.

Google Apps has many free tools that you can access. You have to pay if they will be accessed via your domain, but FREE has a nice ring to it as well, so yourbusinessname@gmail.com might be no biggie for teams on a budget. Between Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets and Hangouts you have access to a pile of the best Shopify tools available. Drive is cloud storage. Your team can store files, photo’s and other resources where all can access, regardless of time of day, location, etc. You can also limit access, or grant access to all. This functionality, for free, is a huge value and reduces risk for lost data should you have a system (local computer), crash. We’ve all been there and lost data, it’s not fun. Google Docs and Sheets are just the Google version of Microsoft Word and Excel, and once again… They are free. So, you get a word processor option and a spreadsheet tool, at no cost, that can integrate with hundreds of useful tools and make you better at communicating, leave you less susceptible to data loss, and allow your teams to collaborate, in the cloud, with tools that all can access based on permission. Hangouts is also a chat/IM/videoconferencing solution provided by Google. Again, a freebie that works well for many teams.

Workflow Tools

Now you have some options that will enhance your communication skills. Lets talk about workflow Shopify tools. One of the biggest challenges we hear from our client base centers around manual work. Work that can often be streamlined, or even eliminated through productivity and tooling enhancements.

There are a lot of tools in this space that we could focus on, but for we want to highlight Mailparser and Docparser. Both products are parsing apps that allow you to take recurring data *(such as emails and .pdf’s), and pipe that data to your favorite endpoint. Mailparser works great parsing orders, contact forms, shipping notes and much more. Here are a couple workflow case studies for Mailparser that illustrate how eCommerce businesses utilize this product. Docparser will allow you to extract data from pdf’s and send it to nearly anywhere you can imagine. No more copy and pasting of Invoices or Purchase Orders. Simply setup a parsing routine and send that data directly to Quickbooks. Again, these are not Shopify tools in the traditional sense, but they are still some of the best Shopify tools for store owners.

Zapier is another amazing workflow tool that you can use, and has a mountain of integration options, more than 1500, that you can use to make integrations work for you. Zapier also has a default set of tools that are already canned and ready to go for Shopify users. Want to send an order directly to your CRM? Want a shipping note to trigger an SMS to the customer? Want to add emails to your Mailchimp account? There is a lot you can do with this Shopify tool; the sky is the limit. This tools allows you to do a million things, literally.

Review Tools

Now that we have your company communicating better and automating things, lets focus on your brand a bit. How do consumers view your brand or products? Unless they’ve been referred by another customer, you can bet that you are one of several options in a vast sea of products. BUT, shoppers are do their homework. What exactly do we mean by that? Simply put, customers read product reviews, and company reviews. Shoppers pay attention to what your previous clients share, but also how you respond to feedback, especially bad reviews. There are a lot of tools that can provide users the opportunity to take command of their online reviews, but we’ve found this online review management platform to be extremely easy to use and cost effective. If you choose to manually review your profiles and have a weekly cadence to check-in on them, that too will work. But again, putting more hours in your pocket to focus on other areas of the business can save you time for other things.
OK, you’ve got communication humming, your as automated as you want to get, and you are firmly in grip of your online reviews, what’s next?

Card Processing Tools

In the space of online rewards cards, international credit cards, debit cards and more, the percentages you get charged and the fees can tally up to a huge portion of your profits over time. Simply put, accepting a MasterCard rewards card that charges the seller (you) 3-5% of the transaction can really add up. Sure, that’s “only” $4 on a hundred-dollar sale. But please, do the math. If your volume is $50,000 a year, or $2 million a year in sales, that is a ton of money (on the 50K in sales that is $2k out of your pocket). There is a lot you could do with that money. At the end of the day, getting the sale is the most important thing, but once you feel comfortable with your product offering, it is a great exercise to audit your credit card processing company. Shopify offers some very competitive card processing offerings. But what if you have a brick and mortar location? What are you using in your Point of Sale? Are you getting a good rate? Do you know what a good and competitive rate is for a retail Point of Sale? Also, are you set to accept mobile payments? There is a huge advantage to have a portable card processor, especially in the days where customers do not like to hand their cards behind the counter or out of site. You can even get a payment gateway that will accept mobile payments on your phone. At the end of the day, education on this front can be the difference in a few hundred, or a few thousand dollars back in your bank account at the end of the year. Being critical of your rates pays, literally.

Well. That about wraps it up. We hope that you have found some Shopify tools to help you run your Shopify store in a manner that will provide you more free time to work on other tasks, (or relax). Hopefully save you money along the way!

The post The Best Shopify Tools appeared first on Back in Stock alerts for Shopify.

5 ways for an online retailer to win with holiday planning

1. Review last Season… What happened last year? Carve out some time to review your numbers from the previous year. Were your phones covered during peak volume hours? How fast did customer support respond to user questions? Did you run out of any products? Were they highly sought products? A simple review of what happened last year (good and bad), can go a long way to informing your decisions this year. Pull in your core team and spend some time talking this through. Use data to confirm your suspicions (sales data, support tickets, etc. etc.). Then start planning.

2. Planning. Based on what you learned in Step 1, it is time to start your holiday planning. That means you need to decide your marketing strategy, and your inventory planning. There are other things for sure, but these two are huge. Investing all of your money in products you can’t promote or sell properly is the difference between a banner year, and a huge flop. We wrote a post on managing your inventory and using technology that might be helpful.

• Plan out your inventory. Talk to your wholesalers, if you are the manufacturer, make sure to have serious conversations around lead times, and fulfillment expectations with production. Being clear, concise and ensuring the left brain is talking to the right brain is really important in accomplishing your fulfillment goals. What are you planning to spend your money on if you are warehousing product? Every dollar you spend manufacturing, or purchasing a product that sits on the shelf, or showroom, really is critical. You can spend more money if it is all tied up in inventory that isn’t selling. Again, your look back to previous seasons, and forecasting what has been selling year-to-date are what you should use to inform your production or purchasing decisions. Also, ramp up your Back In Stock Notifications for your store, it will pay for itself in a flash.
• Marketing is important too. So, you’ve decided what you want to have available for sale. Let’s make a plan to sell it then! Page placement, product descriptions, photo representations, email campaigns. Make sure that you are dialed in. This is not the time of year to “wing it” and operate on the fly. You need to be strategic and map out week by week what you email promotions will look like, what products you will list on your homepage, or feature. What products you will tether together in upsell promo’s. Are you planning to pay for advertising on Facebook? Making sure you have a plan is imperative to getting good results. Success is a result of good planning and and excellent execution, while using data to inform your decisions.
• Staffing… Are you running the show solo? Or, do you have a team that will be helping out. Now is the time to ensure that everyone is running the same race. Be clear with expectations around PTO, who will be doing what, and measuring where you are .vs. your sales goals. This is a team effort often and you are only as strong as your weakest link. Planning this in advance can pay off big time.

3. Website Review. You are planning to sell items on your website. Well, then your website needs to be working properly.

• Is your homepage ready to go? Do you have different versions and images for all the big days (Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Green Monday, etc. etc). You don’t want to create these at the last moment. Plan this out today.
• Are the descriptions, dimensions, and images still representative of the current product? Manufactures often change, and if you ship the last years product assuming that it is exactly the same, you are making a fatal error. SKU’s might stay the same, but products often change.
• Speed is King. Over 70% of mobile shoppers have experienced a site too slow to satisfy them
  1 extra second of load time can impact your conversions up to 7%. This is big money during your peak season.
• There are some easy fixes pointed out using Google Page Speed Insights. These include compressing images, and potentially changing themes. Not all themes are created equally and can have a dramatic impact on site performance.

4. Shipping and Fulfillment “Audit”. Do you ship your own products? Does someone else? Have you got a solid relationship with your drop ship or wholesale account? Have you created shipping accounts to label your own packages, if you are shipping the products yourself? Answering these questions ahead of time is a big deal, and can make your process really improve.

Throw into the equation that you need to have the physical vessel to ship your products in. This means you have to have packaging or boxes, wrapping paper at times, tape, ink for your printer, bubble wrap, the list goes on and on. Looking back to last year can be a big help in predicting what you need. Don’t buy it all in advance, but know when you need to buy more. Going into cyber Monday with a roll of tape and 1 sharpie isn’t going to get the job done. Prepare and reap the benefits of that preparedness.

Try and recall the last previous year, and hopefully the data you have on shipment returns. Was this what you expected? Did you receive items back because of poor descriptions and/or pictures? If so, review point 3 above regarding your products. How often were your products late? What other feedback did you receive on the returns. Use this information to create a playbook that you can consult to ensure it doesn’t happen again, and if it does, you will have a reference to inform you decision. Planning based off previous experiences is just a smart move. Make it count.

5. Execution. This is the difference between a good and a great season. It isn’t enough to think everything through and discuss it with your team. When it comes time to decide and implement, you have the opportunity to set put yourself in a great position. Execute, Execute. Ideas without execution are not worth a whole lot. There are a ton of million dollar ideas that lack execution, and there are a lot of average ideas that had excellent execution and made millions. Planning and execution will set you up nicely. Don’t try and boil the Ocean. Focus on the 5 keys in this post, and you will set yourself up for a successful holiday season.

The holiday planning is not just for the Christmas season either. You can use this blueprint for any Holiday Season. Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc. Plan, execute, and repeat.

The post Holiday Planning for Online stores appeared first on Back in Stock alerts for Shopify.

Within this blog post we are going to discuss why as a Retailer it’s important to have two things running succinctly for a successful eCommerce business, alongside the obvious – Marketing:

1. The correct website applications
2. Retail planning – inventory management

These points complement each other nicely, and are essential to optimizing and maximizing your sales pipeline. Read on to understand how you can unlock more revenue through effective planning based off technology and Shopify Apps.

Having the correct applications provides your store with data, insights, content collection from the customers, and ways to re-market and re-target customers. This allows you to make more money and profit. Purchase Order, Shipping Note and Invoice Parsing to get real a real time view into cash flow is also a huge workflow optimisation many overlook. There are a lot of Apps that can enable you to be on top of your inventory and cash flow. They are the most invaluable sources you can have in terms of understanding your customer and the demand. Inventory management and optimisation takes work, but it doesn’t have to be difficult.

Using customer data to increase conversions

What I have realised as a Retail Planner from talking with the team at BackInStock is that, this data and insight is often underutilized. Sometimes the business decision maker doesn’t even read reporting emails that are sent. These emails contain statistics and conversion metrics from the previous week, and therefore a lot of this data isn’t optimized. At times, there are store owners with thousands of emails notifications queued, but not delivered, when they actually have product in stock and customers waiting for the products. This is simply because the store owner is not reading emails and engaging with the platform to optimise store sales.

Pricing packages for a Back In Stock App, including these insights range from 100 email notifications a month to 50,000 stock notifications monthly. Larger plans are also available upon request. Either way, there is a plan to fit your store’s needs as you can get 50,000+ email notifications per month from customers that are looking to purchase.

This gives you the chance to really assess the demand of a product. For example, you might have assumed a particular dress at $100 retail, (bought for $50 wholesale), could only sell 100 units max. However demand suggests that 1,000 customers want an email notifying them when it is back in stock. Being cautious you only ordered 100, so you can only sell 100, (100 units X $50 = $5,000). More importantly you know you’re satisfying 10% of people interested. Lets monetize that; your potential demand for this item is 1,000 units (1000 units X $50 = $50,000) lost gross profit of $45,000.

This links back to the reporting emails that are sent with statistics, and conversion metrics from the previous week. You can also get this information when logged into your Back in Stock admin panel. If you’re not using the reports to increase your ordering accuracy, or to understand demand you won’t appreciate the true volume desired to satisfy your customers. Meaning… potentially thousands of dollars in conversions you are missing. Inventory management is a big deal.

Conversion rates from the in stock notifications vary of course. You might learn from conversion data that from 1,000 email notifications, only 700 want to purchase (700 units X $50 = $35,000) but this is an additional $30K on anticipated. By using the dashboard data to assess demand you will get closer to the ideal order quantity, and this will also empower better planning for future purchases. There is a massive opportunity to convert more Shopify store traffic into sales. Store owners can use this to help understand if you are backing the right type of product and who your customer is. You are helping your customers, and helping yourself purchase better as you understand the consumer. You are also helping the marketing team figure out who your muse is and the customer journey via the conversion tracking.

Better Retail Planning as part of your core strategy

Retail planning can provide a deeper understanding of the data, and give you clarity on the insights via analysis, it helps you analyse the content to understand and create your muse. This gives your business direction to re-market and re-target to make more money from those customers that fit a specific demographic or type, and ultimately build a stronger team and strategy as you gain focus for buying. This helps you ask an important question WHY? Having the WHY creates reason, and provides focus for analysis. This is also where you can start to evolve your marketing strategy in order to really maximise what the data is telling you via Planning. Once you have a Retail Plan, you can track actual sales vs. plan, you can see how accurate you are with planning, and use the applications in order to understand who your customer is – then repeat.

By using applications and retail planning in parallel, you can better understand the story and their value to your business. This is where planning helps buying, via deep analysis of the numbers and the demand. Demand planning is a multi-step operational supply chain management (SCM) process used to create reliable forecasts. Effective demand planning can guide users to improve the accuracy of revenue forecasts, align inventory levels with peaks and troughs in demand, and enhance profitability for a given channel or product.

This post is contributed by Zoey Hopkins, Independent Retail Consultant at Zoey Help!

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