Shopify Blog - Company

What the Marketplace Fairness Act Means for Ecommerce Merchants

2013-05-22T08:28:43-04:00

You might have already heard about the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA), also known as the “Internet Sales Tax.” It’s a bill that recently passed the United States Senate and will soon be before the U.S. House of Representatives. If passed through the House, the MFA would require ecommerce retailers selling over $1 million per year to collect sales tax from customers in about 45 different U.S. states and pay taxes to each customer’s state and local government. Here’s what you need to know:

12 Social Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Online Sales

2013-05-21T09:16:06-04:00

The biggest challenge that online store owners face is increasing traffic to their ecommerce store. Knowing where to start and how to stand out from the thousands of other shops that are competing for the same traffic is a daunting challenge.

The explosion of growth in the ecommerce world has only made it tougher for ecommerce sites to attract the critical mass of visitors needed to stay in business.

In this post there I'm going to give you 12 different strategies to help you grow your online community and increase traffic to help you boost sales. Pick the strategies and tactics you find most interesting and suitable for your business and start seeing your business grow.

The DIY Guide to Twitter Ads for Small Business

2013-05-16T10:13:18-04:00

Twitter has over 200 million active users creating over 400 million Tweets per day. That’s a lot of people and a lot of tweets.

For business owners, Twitter has become an important tool for distributing content, providing support to existing customers and proactively reaching out to potential customers.

To make its platform more attractive to businesses and brands, In 2012 Twitter began slowly rolling out its paid ads platform, however it was only made available to certain partners on an invite-only basis. This past April that all changed when Twitter announced that they would be making Twitter Ads available to all users in the U.S.

That means no matter how big or small your business is, and no matter how many followers you have, you can now start leveraging Twitter's paid service to amplify your Twitter presence, gain new followers, create more awareness about your business and drive more traffic to your website.

Three of the Worst Marketing Techniques – and What to Do Instead

2013-05-14T09:55:05-04:00

Search engines and customers are smarter and savvier than ever before at sniffing out low-quality and spammy marketing techniques. Yet many companies still use antiquated marketing methods that are ineffective at best and downright dangerous at worst.

Below are three of the worst marketing techniques for today's online environment – and what you should be doing instead.

5 Deadly Sales-Killers Could be Hacking and Slashing Away at Your Profits

2013-05-09T10:17:06-04:00

Right now your ecommerce store could have 5 deadly sales-killers you didn't even know existed. Fortunately, there's a lot of literature in the UX and eye-tracking space, and today you're going to get these insightful studies served up in laymen's terms, allowing you to incorporate their findings into your site's design and interface.

You'll see how seemingly minor aspects of your website can be huge determinants of how well your business performs. Let's get into the research by diving in to problem #1 with your online store:

How to Get a Deal on ABC's Shark Tank

2013-05-07T09:59:54-04:00

ABC's Shark Tank is currently one of the most popular shows on television.

Its premise is simple. Hopeful entrepreneurs go on the program and present their business idea to a panel of self-made millionaire investors (Sharks) in the hopes of getting an investment in exchange for a stake in their company.

Typically that interest comes in the form of an equity stake or royalty scenario, or sometimes both.

The demand to get on the show has never been higher due to the dramatic impact it can have on sales - a phenomenon that's become known as 'The Shark Tank Effect'.

It's not unusual for products featured on the show to experience up to a 700% increase in sales.

For example BuggyBeds went from being in 60 stores to being in 600 hundred stores with sales going from $150,000 to over $1,200,000 in the two months following their appearance on the show.

In other words, simply getting in front of over seven million weekly viewers can be all your business needs to reach its tipping point.

Announcing Shopify's 3rd Build-A-Business Competition Winners

2013-04-24T10:10:57-04:00

Today we’re thrilled to announce the five winners of our Build-A-Business competition.

During the 8 months of the competition period, over 10,000 entrepreneurs created new online businesses that sold more than $55 million in products. The five new businesses that sold the most over any two months of the competition each win a $50,000 US investment.

We’re also sending each of the winners on a VIP trip to New York City to meet with the industry experts who served as mentors to the participants throughout the competition (Timothy Ferriss, Daymond John, Tina Roth Eisenberg and Eric Ries).

In addition to the grand prize investment and NYC trip, each winner gets a special one-hour media strategy training session with editors at Fast Company Magazine, and $20,000 toward digital advertising for their business.

Here’s a visual overview of the competition, including our five amazing winners. You can click on the image to view in full-screen.

4 Examples of Excellent Customer Service on Facebook

2013-04-18T08:25:53-04:00

Online shoppers love going on Facebook to contact merchants about orders, or even complain about a bad experience.

But having a complaint appear on a Facebook page for all of the world to see can be pretty scary for ecommere store owners. The good news is there's a huge upside - responding and resolving the issue properly and quickly can create loyal fans who trust that the business will take care of any problems that arise.

Here are 4 examples of excellent customer service on Facebook. Adopt these smart strategies to your own social media customer service plan and you'll turn complainers into brand champions.

How to Double Your Traffic Without Any Marketing

2013-04-17T08:58:14-04:00

Marketing is undoubtedly one of the most crucial success factors for new online businesses and should be a primary emphasis early on. But if you only focus on traditional traffic generation strategies like link building you're missing out on lots of potential customers.

The following strategies can easily help you increase your website's traffic - even double it - without having to do an ounce of marketing. Here's how:

20 Practical Tips to Help Small Businesses Punch Above Their Weight

2013-04-16T10:38:22-04:00

Life can be pretty intimidating for small ecommerce stores. There's a lot of tough competition out there. Sites like Amazon generate crazy money every day and have better brand recognition than you could ever dream of – how exactly can you compete with that?

Well the beauty of the Internet is that you can compete. You just need to know how to stand out from the crowd.

The first step is to understand your weaknesses. We’ll use Amazon as our example, but this applies to any giant retailer who happens to be dominating a market you would like a share of. So what does Amazon have that you don’t?

5 Tips for Connecting with Your Customers and Making More Sales

2013-04-10T11:23:18-04:00

When it comes to online sales and customer conversion, connecting with your potential customers and describing your products persuasively is one of the most important parts of selling online.

That’s because after your product photo, your product description is the information people turn to when trying to make a buying decision. And with Amazon a click away, the story you tell about your products (and your business) is your best chance at convincing people to buy from you.

In fact it's a mission critical piece of the online sales puzzle.

Here are five techniques to make sure your product descriptions (and business story) get people clicking the 'add to cart' button.

How Buffer Turbocharged Their Social Engagement

2013-04-06T14:42:43-04:00

By Leo Widrich, Co-Founder, Buffer

The last year has been absolutely crazy year for us here at Buffer. We’ve turned a lot of things upside down and learnt a huge amount about scaling and building out our business.

When it comes to our social media presence, we’ve made a lot of drastic changes too, a lot of which have had a surprisingly huge impact on our business. Here are the top 5 things we’ve changed that helped us reach and interact with more awesome people:

What's New With Shopify for iPhone

2013-04-04T09:00:15-04:00

At Shopify, we’re always working to take our products to the next level. Today we’re excited to present Shopify for iPhone version 3.4 – with more added features and functionality than ever. We’ve updated the dashboard design, added new product management features, and made it easier to run multiple stores on your phone.

As always, the app let’s you:

Get push notifications to your phone every time a new order comes in.
Send shipping notifications to customers right from the post office.
Fulfill an order from your car, a coffee shop, or the airport.
Call or email a customer in one easy step.

But now we’ve made Shopify for iPhone even better. Keep reading for all the details.

The Secret Behind Oreo's Social Media Marketing

2013-04-02T08:08:49-04:00

Marketers at Oreo have been generating a lot of buzz about their cookies these days, and they're using social media to do it. The techniques they're using are extremely innovative, and they're not that difficult to replicate.

Although this popular brand of cookie is known for its black-and-white striped appearance and its customers tendency to twist it apart or dunk it in milk, the brand is a social media powerhouse:

32M+ on Facebook
82K+ on Twitter
87K+ on Instagram
14M+ on YouTube

Over the past few months, Oreo has hit more than a couple social media home runs. Their Tweet during the Super Bowl, the 100-day “Daily Twist” campaign, the "Cookie Vs. Cream" video campaign, and their spur-the-moment banter with Kit Kat demonstrated true mastery of the most popular social media platforms. Let’s consider the promotions then consider the lessons to be learned.

The Ultimate Guide to Dropshipping

2013-03-27T10:57:16-04:00

Dropshipping is a popular method of selling online, but it's often associated with scams, ripoffs and get rich quick schemes. Last week we released a free beginners guide to dropshipping as a part of our new Ecommerce University. It's the most indepth ebook to dropshipping you'll find anywhere, and it tells you exactly how to create and run a successful dropshipping business.

This week, we took some of the best parts from the guide and put together an infographic. Check out all of our findings in the infographic below. Please click on the image to view it in full-screen.

Inside Shopify Hack Days

2013-03-26T14:31:14-04:00

We’ve been doing something rather interesting for the past few years that I think you should know about.

It’s called Hack Days. Every three months, we take a break from our regular work and for two full days everyone in the company has free reign to work on whatever project they want – as long as it adds value to Shopify. There’s no limit to the creativity or scope of the projects, there’s only one rule to Hack Days: employees must ‘ship’ their projects no later than 4pm at the end of the second day. At this point, everyone meets in our staff lounge to pitch their finished projects.

The 10% Strategy: Growing Your Business by Making Small Incremental Changes

2013-03-20T09:24:23-04:00

This article is written by author Jacqueline Biggs.

The 10% strategy is all about growing your ecommerce business by making small incremental changes. As you know, marketing is part big ideas and part process. As an entrepreneur you have the ideas, so I'm going to help you with the process part. In this article I'm going to show you how a small increase in key business metrics has the potential to create a huge impact in net profits.

10 Tips from Tim Ferriss, Daymond John, Eric Ries & Swissmiss

2013-03-18T15:40:45-04:00

Throughout our Build-A-Business Competition our four mentors provided expert advice through a popular video series. Here's a bit about each mentor:

Daymond John created FUBU, a fashion company with over $6 billion in sales. He's also a regular investor on ABC's Shark Tank.
Tim Ferriss is the author of The 4-Hour Workweek. He's also an active angel investor and an advisor to Shopify.
Tina Roth Eisenberg is an internationally recognized designer. She created Swissmiss, Tattly, TeuxDeux, Creative Mornings and Studio Mates.
Eric Ries wrote The Lean Startup and is an advisor for over 30 startups and small businesses.

We cherry picked some of their most useful tips and share them with you here. Also feel free to scroll to the bottom and watch the video.

What You Need to Know About Ecommerce Trademarks

2013-03-13T11:34:02-04:00

Do you need a trademark for your ecommerce business? Protecting your online reputation is an important part of building your business and earning your customers' trust. In the U.S. it's easy to start using a trademark (for products) or servicemark (for services). In fact, you can do it in just three steps or less.

The trademarking process starts with (1) determining whether or not your brand or logo is eligible, (2) deciding what level of protection makes sense for your business, and (3) possibly registering the trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). First, lets go over the basics of trademarking in the United States.

10 Must Know Image Optimization Tips

2013-03-05T10:11:56-05:00

If you run an online store, image optimization is an art that you want to master. From attracting shoppers perusing Google images to reducing site load time - image optimization can be an important part of buidling a successful ecommerce business.

Have you ever stayed up at night wondering:

Why is it that when I do a Google image search, my product photos never show up?
Do I need to add "Alt Tags" to my images?
What's the difference between a JPEG, GIF and PNG - should I use one over another?

In this post I'm going to answer those questions and more. Prepare yourself for a deep dive into 10 "must-know" image optimization tips.

10 New Shopify Apps to Help You Sell More

2013-02-27T11:36:32-05:00

We have 10 amazing new apps that cover a huge range of functionality to announce. Many of these apps are free (or at least include a free trial), so don't hesitate to give them a try – they'll really help your shop take off.

If you don't know already, the Shopify App Store is a collection of plugins (apps) that extend the functionality of your ecommerce store. We've got more than 200 apps for online store owners to choose from and we're adding new ones every week.

Here are 10 brand new apps to check out, along with a special featured app at the bottom:

32 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Ecommerce

2013-02-21T10:16:57-05:00

Performance should inform business decisions and KPIs should drive actions.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are like milestones on the road to online retail success. Monitoring them will help ecommerce entrepreneurs identify progress toward sales, marketing, and customer service goals.

A performance indicator is simply a quantifiable measurement or data point used to gauge performance relative to some goal. As an example, it may be a goal for some online retailers to increase site traffic 50 % in the next year. Relative to this goal, a performance indicator might be the number of unique visitors the site receives daily or which traffic sources send visitors (pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, brand or display advertising, or a YouTube video).

What's New in Shopify 2 Beta

2013-02-13T14:20:37-05:00

We’re always working to make Shopify faster, more powerful, and easier to use.

Several months ago we announced the beta of Shopify 2. It's a complete rewrite and redesign of our platform, and it will allow us to release new features at a much faster pace. This year we will be adding a considerable amount of functionality to help you run your store.

Here are just a few of our improvements:

How to Find The Perfect Product to Sell

2013-02-06T09:22:47-05:00

How do some small businesses like Diamond Candles (230,000+ Facebook Fans), Luxy Hair (708,000+ YouTube Subscribers) and DodoCase (Winner of Shopify’s Build-a-Business Contest) break through in their hyper-competitive niches and become market leaders in less than a few years?

One of the most important factors in creating a successful ecommerce business is knowing what to sell online. Finding the perfect product(s) to sell is often the most important step in creating a profitable and growing company.

For the past 2 years, I have been trying to answer the question - what is the perfect ecommerce product? To better understand what the perfect ecommerce product is, I had to determine common characteristics successful products and niches share.

By analyzing hundreds of successful and unsuccessful products and niches alike, I developed a comprehensive list of key metrics and criteria to evaluate new ideas against.

What follows is my definitive criteria to evaluating your ecommerce product and niche.

Planning Ahead For Important Online Shopping Dates - 2013 Calendar

2013-01-30T09:02:01-05:00

It's important for ecommerce merchants to plan well in advance for key shopping dates. Consumers begin searching for the perfect gift for occasions like Valentine's Day, Mothers Day, and Halloween up to a month ahead of time.

The best way to see when consumers begin searching for specific products is by using Google Trends. This free tool will tell you how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume. Here's an interactive example using the term "Valentines Day Gifts" looking at last year:

Reading List: 30 Books That Will Help Increase Sales

2013-01-29T08:21:35-05:00

These books are perfect for entrepreneurs. They cover a broad spectrum of topics and will provide you with an encyclopaedic amount of knowledge that will help you sell more.

This is my personal reading list for 2013 and I plan on reading each one by the end of the year. These books cover subjects like marketing, SEO, social media, branding, analytics, content strategy, design, web usability, behavioral economics, and even psychology.

You'll notice that I've included a link to buy each book. All of the money earned from Amazon's affiliate program will go to Acumen Fund, a non-profit venture that supports entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Shopify Year In Review: 2012

2013-01-16T11:33:58-05:00

To celebrate 2012 we put together an infographic to highlight memorable moments, groundbreaking milestones, statistics and events from within the Shopify ecosystem.

It was a phenomenal year for Shopify and our wonderful store owners. Thanks to everyone for being awesome, and here's to making 2013 even better!

4 Magic Words That Increase Sales

2013-01-09T10:44:27-05:00

There are four secret weapons in the marketing copywriter's arsenal that can have immense power.

Four words have been defined by recent studies in behavioral economics, psychology and neuroeconomics to appeal to consumers primal instinct. These words powerfully engage consumers at a subconscious level and increase retailers chances of making a sale.

Inject these 4 words into your marketing copy and ecommerce product descriptions to increase conversions:

Domain Names Now From Just $9

2013-01-07T10:35:40-05:00

Most domain names for your Shopify store now cost just $9. If you’re using the free yourstore.myshopify.com address for your online store, now is the time to register your store a professional domain name. The benefits of owning your own domain are plenty, and using Shopify to register a domain is fast and easy.

The Ultimate Guide on Business Incorporation in Canada

2013-01-04T10:55:40-05:00

This article will help you understand how to incorporate a business in Canada. I will tell you the benefits and disadvantages associated with incorporation, give you the step-by-step process of how to incorporate, and go over your other business structure options, like sole proprietorship, partnership and cooperative.