![\"Example](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/remarketing-image1.png?format=webp&v=1657038049\")
Shoppers are flooded with choices.
\nIt’s easy for them to forget why they came to a store in the first place, and for them to quickly get distracted in favor of the newest, shiniest thing. It happens to the best of us. Because of this, brands are tasked with winning back shoppers who have shown interest in their products in the past—and remarketing is a successful way to do this.
\nTable of contents
\nRemarketing is a marketing strategy that sends targeted ads to shoppers who have already visited a website or product page without taking action. For example, if a shopper adds an item to their cart but doesn’t check out, remarketing uses that information to serve them ads on social media, Google, and other sites to encourage them to buy the product.
\nIt’s called remarketing because you’re essentially “re”-marketing to people who have already discovered your brand and interacted with it in some way, whether that’s by browsing a product category, adding an item to their cart, or visiting a landing page without signing up for your newsletter. It’s a second chance to convert and a particularly useful method for re-engaging past customers and reminding them why they chose you in the first place.
\nRemarketing tracks user data to understand where users have been on your site and what actions they have taken (or, more importantly, haven’t taken). It’s most commonly used to serve ads to consumers based on their previous browsing history, which can make campaigns incredibly targeted and personalized.
\nIn simpler terms, remarketing works like this:
\nThree out of five online users notice (and consider clicking) ads showing products they’ve previously viewed, making remarketing campaigns a powerful tool for online retailers.
\nYou might see the terms remarketing and retargeting used interchangeably. While they are fairly similar in their end goal, there are a couple of key differences.
\nRetargeting is mostly focused on paid ads. It uses shopper data to automatically serve relevant ads on Google and social media.
\nRemarketing, on the other hand, collects customer information and uses that to create lists and send targeted emails. Landing directly in shopper inboxes creates a deeper, more personal connection and allows for more specific upselling and messaging.
\nLinenbundle and Lazy Oaf both use remarketing ads in Gmail to re-engage shoppers who have previously visited their sites.
\nRemarketing lists are lists of shoppers who have taken (or not taken) a specific action on your site. You can create a list of people who have visited a product category page, the checkout page, or even your homepage over a certain period of time.
\nWhen a customer visits each page on your site, they leave a cookie in their wake, which remarketing tools can use to collect their information and map out their customer journey. When customers land on your homepage, a product category page, or the checkout, their cookie is added to the remarketing list associated with the specific action they’ve taken.
\nYou can create as many remarketing lists as you like and get as detailed as you wish, creating lists for highly targeted actions like visiting a specific offers page or product page. You’re then able to send ads and email campaigns to each of these email lists, personalizing the messaging to match their browsing behavior.
\nRemarketing pixel tags are small pieces of code on a webpage that allow your site to place and track customer cookies (a.k.a. the crumbs left by past visitors—hence their sweet-treat name). This is possible because every visitor has an individual ID that enables their activity to be tracked.
\nThe ad server or remarketing tool you use can access these unique ID codes and add them to the most relevant remarketing lists. If someone signs up for your newsletter and makes it through to the “thank you” page, they’ll be added to one list, and if they add an item to their cart but don’t purchase it, they’ll automatically be added to another list.
\nRemarketing is a versatile marketing strategy. The way you use it will depend on what you hope to achieve, the type of customers you want to reach, and how you want to reach them. There are several ways remarketing can help you do this with four different ad types.
\nStandard remarketing is the most common form of remarketing. It tracks and targets customers who have visited your website using pixel tags and their cookie data. For example, you can remarket to everyone who has visited your homepage in the past month via a banner or text ad on Google, an email, or a social media ad.
\n![\"Example](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/remarketing-image12.png?format=webp&v=1657038124\")
Fanatics showcases a selection of products to shoppers who have previously visited the brand’s website.
\nDynamic remarketing is particularly useful. It drills down to the exact products a visitor has viewed on your website or added to their cart and serves them dynamic ads showing that particular product. To run this type of marketing campaign via Google, social media, or email, you need to submit a product feed to the platform you want to serve the ads on.
\n![\"Example](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/remarketing-image13.jpg?v=1657038164\")
Lexi’s uses dynamic remarketing ads to serve a relevant product catalog to past website visitors—with a discount for an added incentive.
\nDisplay remarketing is a simple way to reach shoppers who have visited your site. It tracks customers who have shown an interest in your brand and products and serves them visual ads of your brand when they visit another website. Display ads can be shown on websites that are part of the Google display network.
\n![\"Example](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/remarketing-image3.png?format=webp&v=1657038215\")
Harry’s uses display remarketing to encourage previous website visitors to sign up for a trial.
\nSearch remarketing is a quick way to grab the attention of past website visitors in search engines. It automatically customizes your search ads based on the past browsing behavior of website visitors. For example, if someone has visited a specific product page without purchasing, search remarketing will serve them PPC results that mention the product page.
\nYou can run multiple types of retargeting campaigns at the same time. Consider what you want to achieve and the goals of each campaign before you get started, and then use the steps below to walk through the process.
\n1. In Google Ads, navigate to your Shared Library and click “Audience manager.”
\n![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/audience_manager.png?format=webp&v=1685109749\")
2. If you haven’t already added the pixel tag to your website, you’ll be notified to do so by navigating to “Your data sources” in the menu on the left and then selecting Set up tag under the Google Analytics tag section. Here, you can choose your remarketing settings. You’ll then need to add it to the relevant pages of your site. Customize your settings and save.
\n![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/google_ads_tag_data_source.png?format=webp&v=1685109789\")
3. Next, click on Segments in the menu on the left side. Then click the blue plus sign. This will open a menu where you can choose what kind of list you’d like to create. Options include website visitors, mobile app users, YouTube users, customer emails, or a custom combination.
\n![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/create_remarketing_list.png?format=webp&v=1685109826\")
![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/app_users.png?format=webp&v=1685109848\")
4. If you’re setting up a remarketing campaign to target website visitors, name your list and fill out the information in the form provided.
\n![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/segment_name.png?format=webp&v=1685109895\")
You can target visitors of web pages—for example, shoppers who have visited a product page but didn’t add the product to their shopping cart or users who visited your newsletter signup page but didn’t fill out the form.
\nYou can also target users who have visited pages with a specific tag. Use this to target shoppers who have been part of previous remarketing campaigns and are part of several remarketing lists or who have different remarketing tags.
\nYou can also drill down into when they visited your website—use this to target shoppers who browsed your site during notable events like Valentine’s Day or Christmas.
\n5. Once you’ve chosen the type of list you want to create, add the URL for the page that the remarketing campaign will apply to (i.e., your checkout page, a particular product page, or a landing page).
\n![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/your_data_segments.png?format=webp&v=1685109979\")
If thinking about setting up a Google remarketing campaign feels overwhelming, here’s how you can do it in four simple steps.
\nStart your Google remarketing campaign the same way you would any other campaign—click “+ Campaign” in your Google Ads account.
\n![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/new_campaign.png?format=webp&v=1685110023\")
You’ll be prompted to choose the goal for your campaign—you can create your campaign without selecting one if you choose.
\n![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/image10_fd6c5597-ac32-453c-8ed8-669a64a74c5f.png?format=webp&v=1685110123\")
Next, select the campaign type. The easiest option here is to choose Display, but you can also select Search, Shopping ads, or other types depending on your campaign.
\n![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/campaign_type.png?format=webp&v=1685110059\")
You’ll also name your campaign and select the URL to send people to from your ad.
\n![\"What](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/image11_5aa384fa-bc38-4690-aa75-69674f8db88c.png?format=webp&v=1685110184\")
You’ll be directed to a page where you’ll create your ad group and ad. Click remarketing lists and then select the list you want to target. You can also use this opportunity to serve Gmail ads to shoppers who have given your business their email address.
\n![\"Choose](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/remarketing-image2.png?format=webp&v=1657038837\")
Once you’ve selected your remarketing list, you can continue to create the visuals and copy for your ad campaign, as well as budget and timeframe. Do this as you would for any other type of ad campaign and hit Publish when you’re ready for it to go live.
\nIf you want to run a search remarketing campaign, follow these steps:
\nChances are you’re already using Google Analytics to track visitors and sessions on your store. But it’s a crucial tool in monitoring and measuring the success of your remarketing campaigns.
\nHere are some key ways you can use Google Analytics to track your campaigns:
\nStay on top of your campaigns by regularly checking their success, tweaking elements that aren’t performing so well, and testing each campaign until it’s getting the results you want.
\nRemarketing is a great way to re-engage distracted website users. They’re hot leads because they’ve already shown interest in your brand, but maybe they just need you to jog their memory. Instead of losing potential customers into the ether as soon as they leave your site, you can bring them back with a well-thought-out remarketing strategy and ad campaigns that are highly targeted and relevant to their interests and previous browsing behavior.
\n\nCookies are files that contain pieces of data about a website visitor that can be used to identify information like location and browsing behavior. Web servers can track cookies to understand the customer journey.
\nhttps://www.shopify.com/blog/6019860-how-to-use-google-remarketing-for-ecommerce
\nLong wait times, grating hold music, and huge phone bills are a thing of the past. These days, consumers expect brands to provide support on their favorite social platforms.
\nMore than that, 40% of shoppers expect brands to reply within an hour on social media, and 79% expect a response within 24 hours. People who use social media want customer service at their fingertips and they want it instantly. And the benefits of providing good customer service are worth it. Expect increased brand loyalty, happier customers, and more revenue.
\nIn this post, you’ll learn what social media customer service involves and how you can create a social customer service strategy that works for you.
\nTable of Contents
\nSocial media customer service is the process of providing support and live chat customer service on social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. It allows brands to respond to customer service requests, customer issues, feedback, and complaints in minutes, without the need for lengthy calls.
\nToday, all major social platforms have built-in features that help brands find customer messages and provide guidance. Doing this not only provides in-the-moment support, but can lead to increased loyalty, better brand awareness, and more revenue.
\nPair shoppers’ sky-high expectations with the sheer amount of market competition and it’s clear good ecommerce customer service isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have.
\nProviding support via popular social media channels helps you remove friction from the buying process by responding with real-time answers. This might mean providing extra product information and answering hesitations in the pre-purchase phase, following up on orders and deliveries post-purchase, or responding to customer feedback on products or service.
\n\nThe level of customer service you provide can have a dramatic impact on your business. A great experience can turn one-time buyers into lifelong customers, while a bad experience can lead to a loss of sales, bad press, and unhappy shoppers.
\nHere are some benefits of social media customer service:
\nNow that you know how important social media customer service is for your business, here’s how you can implement it on your social media channels and how to improve customer service overall.
\nStart by finding the social platforms your audience uses the most. If shoppers are most active on Instagram but you’re only checking posts on Twitter, you’re going to miss a ton of customer service requests. In fact, 40% of consumers expect brands to problem-solve on their favorite channels. For most brands, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the top players, but you might also find that customers reach out on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Pinterest too.
\nTIP: Find out where your customers are already hanging out by searching social media for likes, tags, and mentions of your brand. You can also use a dedicated social listening tool to track every mention of your brand and see where you get the most customer service questions.
\nSixty-four percent of Twitter users say they would rather message a dedicated support handle than get on the phone. While small brands can get away with one handle on each platform, bigger merchants might find they benefit from a dedicated support account. This also makes it easier for you to find relevant customer questions amongst all the noise and brand mentions.
\nTIP: Assign a dedicated handle to your customer service team who is better equipped to deal with customer service questions than your marketing team. If a customer reaches out to your main handle, encourage your marketing team to redirect them to the dedicated support account.
\nYou can’t be everywhere at once. Let customers know when they’re likely to receive a response from you by sharing your customer support operating hours and average reply time in the bio of your dedicated support account.
\nTIP: Make use of support-focused social media features, like Facebook’s Instant Replies tool and Twitter’s Quick Replies feature, that let you send a canned response ASAP. Include your reply times and operating hours in your canned message.
\nMaintain a cohesive voice across all your social media channels by designing a brand voice. This helps your customer service team stay on-brand and ensure you’re creating a consistent social media presence.
\nTIP: Put together a brand voice document that outlines what your customer service team can and can’t say, words they can use, and specific occasions where they’re allowed to use humor or a more informal tone.
\nResponding to customer support enquiries on social media isn’t the same as sharing your average social post. Often, shoppers will be angry, upset, or frustrated, which requires a certain amount of tact in your responses. The last thing you want to do is annoy a customer further by taking their complaint lightly.
\nTIP: Take the customer’s lead. If they have a serious problem, avoid minimizing their frustration and limit your use of emojis. Similarly, if a shopper has a trivial question or includes a joke in their initial communication, reflect that in your responses. This will also help your team improve their customer service skills.
\nOne key difference between social customer service and traditional customer service is that social media is very public. Everyone can see your responses, which is why it’s critical to decide when to take your conversation to the DM (direct message). Not everything can be resolved in a single message and certainly not within the character limit that some social platforms are limited to.
\nTIP: Take conversations that require a lot of back-and-forths or that include sensitive personal information to the customer’s DMs or find another way to communicate, like phone or email.
\nYou’ll probably find you get a lot of similar questions. When this happens, it’s a sign you may need to provide additional information on your site or throughout the buying journey.
\nTIP: Create a resource center or an FAQ page where you can answer the most common questions. Alternatively, build a library of templated answers that your customer service team can send to customers quickly.
\nThirty-three percent of customers use social media channels to air their complaints to brands. While it might feel like negative feedback is damaging your brand image, it can actually do the opposite if you handle it in the right way. Instead of ignoring complaints or getting defensive, use feedback as an opportunity to create a connection with shoppers and show you’re willing to help.
\nTIP: Respond to every complaint—even those that haven’t been sent to you directly. You can also loop back to unhappy customers later down the line to find out how they’re getting on and if their issue has been resolved.
\nIf you have a limited budget or if your social accounts are low on engagement, you’ll probably be able to manage replies directly in each social account, at least at first. If you grow your brand’s social following, however, support requests will grow with it, and a tool built for handling support will become essential for staying on top of things.
\nFortunately, the popularity of social media means there are many tools out there that vary widely in features and price. To help you get a lay of the land, here are a few social media monitoring tools worth checking out.
\nHootsuite integrates with more than 25 social networks, and the dashboard is highly customizable. It also allows you to view incoming messages and reply within the dashboard.
\nSprout Social is built to help you manage your social profiles through data collection. It creates a single stream of incoming messages from your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger accounts that you can see in one place.
\nFacebook’s in-built Away Messaging feature lets you send an automated response to customers when your customer service reps are offline.
\nMention lets you monitor conversations around your brand and listen to your audience. It brings all mentions into one centralized dashboard for easy viewing.
\nHere’s how brands are using social media for customer service.
\nPet food brand Chewy is a pioneer of excellent customer service. As well as responding to every negative and positive social media comment, it also takes the time to create personalized pet portraits for customers who have reached out.
\n\n
When it comes to negative feedback, the brand is quick to respond and provides a number of ways for customers to reach out for more information.
\n\n
Bedsheet brand Brooklinen is hot on its Twitter customer support. The customer service reps respond almost instantly and quickly decide whether a query requires a more in-depth response via DM.
\nImage caption: Brooklinen responds to an unhappy customer on Twitter.
\nImage alt text: Screenshot of a Twitter conversation between bed sheet brand Brooklinen and an unhappy customer.
\nBut Brooklinen doesn’t just respond to complaints and questions. The brand also takes the time to reply to positive mentions in a conversational tone.
\n\n
Sock retailer Bombas uses Facebook to respond to unhappy customers. It diligently replies to every bit of feedback—-both good and bad—and often directs shoppers to reach out via DM for a private conversation.
\nBombas responds to an unhappy customer on Facebook.
\nBombas also takes the opportunity to turn positive brand mentions into something more. It often posts about stock levels and upcoming product launches.
\nBombas mentions stock levels of a high-demand collection.
\nCustomer service is changing. Shoppers today expect brands to be on their favorite platforms and respond in hours if not minutes. Take your customer support to the next level by monitoring brand mentions, answering common questions, and reaching out to customers as soon as they have a problem.
\nWith a little planning, you’ll be able to deftly handle the occasional heckler and put on a great show.
\n\n\n
A social media customer support representative is someone in charge of communicating with customers on social media. Their job is to answer questions, provide guidance, and tackle any complaints.
\nhttps://www.shopify.com/blog/social-media-customer-service
\nIf you’ve thought about starting an ecommerce store, you’ve heard of dropshipping. It’s a streamlined approach to order fulfillment where you don’t own or ship any inventory.
\nGone are the days where retailers have to lease warehouse space, juggle supply chains, and manage inventory. Whether you’re an ambitious newcomer or ecommerce veteran, understanding and using dropshipping could be the key to taking your online store to the next level.
\nAhead, you’ll learn everything there is to know about dropshipping, from how it works to benefits, and how to start your own dropshipping business today.
\nTable of Contents
\nDropshipping is an order fulfillment method where a business doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. Instead, the seller purchases inventory as needed from a third party—usually a wholesaler or manufacturer—to fulfill orders.
\nThe biggest difference between dropshipping and the standard retail model is that the selling merchant doesn’t stock or own inventory—they act as the middleman.
\n\nA dropshipper is a person or business that uses the dropshipping model of buying inventory and fulfillment logistics from a third party, instead of warehousing and shipping the products themselves.
\nBecause dropshipping relies on a third-party supplier to handle inventory warehousing and order fulfillment, a dropshipping operation may be managed by dozens of employees or a single business owner.
\nThe dropshipping process is essentially a relationship between a customer-facing store and a supplier.
\nThere are two common approaches to adopting a dropshipping business model. The first is to seek out one or more wholesale suppliers located in North America (or anywhere else in the world) on your own using a supplier database. Examples of popular online supplier databases include AliExpress, SaleHoo, and Worldwide Brands.
\nIf you’re not interested in finding suppliers for all of the products you plan to sell, you can use an app that connects you and your store to thousands of suppliers. For this, use DSers, a Shopify app that helps independent business owners find products to sell.
\nWith DSers, you can browse AliExpress and import the products that pique your interest directly to DSers—which is connected to your Shopify store—with the click of a button. Once a customer buys a product, you’ll be able to fulfill their order in the DSers app.
\nFortunately, DSers automates most of the dropshipping process. As the store owner, all you have to do is check that the details are correct and click the order button. The product is then shipped directly from the AliExpress supplier to the customer—wherever in the world they may be.
\n![\"how](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/how-dropshipping-works_8fa59e00-ad6b-4dce-8b34-4680ce0483da.png?format=webp&v=1684938502\")
Dropshipping is often seen as a no-hassle, get-rich-quick scheme. But it’s not. Just like any other ecommerce website, it takes dedication to get your startup running and successful. Done well, dropshipping companies can become reliable and convenient partners to growing ecommerce businesses to expedite order and fulfillment processing.
\nHere are a few other reasons why dropshipping is such a popular ecommerce business model for both large and small businesses.
\nProbably the biggest advantage to dropshipping is that it’s possible to launch an ecommerce store without having to invest thousands of dollars in inventory. Traditionally, a brick-and-mortar or ecommerce retailer has to tie up huge amounts of capital purchasing inventory.
\nWith the dropshipping model, you don’t have to purchase a product unless you’ve already made the sale and have been paid by the customer. Without significant upfront inventory investments, it’s possible to start dropshipping and become successful with very little money.
\nAdditionally, because you’re not committed to selling through any inventory purchased upfront, like in other business models, there’s less risk involved in starting a dropshipping store.
\nRunning an ecommerce business is much easier when you don’t have to deal with physical products. With dropshipping, you don’t have to worry about:
\nBecause you don’t have to deal with purchasing inventory or managing fulfillment centers, your overhead expenses are quite low. In fact, many successful dropshipping stores are run as home-based businesses, requiring little more than a laptop and a few recurring expenses to operate.
\nAs you grow, these costs will likely increase, but will still be low compared to those of traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.
\nWith dropshipping, a successful business can be run from just about anywhere with an internet connection. As long as you can communicate with suppliers and provide timely service and support that meets customer expectations, you can run and manage your business.
\nSince you don’t have to pre-purchase the items you sell, you can offer an array of trending products to your potential customers. Plus, you can rotate or change your dropshipping products list without having to worry about unsold inventory. If suppliers stock an item, you can list it for sale on your online store at no additional cost.
\nDropshipping is a useful fulfillment model for both launching a new store and for business owners looking to test the appetite customers have for additional product categories, e.g., accessories or wholly new product lines. The main benefit of dropshipping is, again, the ability to list and potentially sell products before committing to buying a large amount of inventory.
\nWith a traditional retail business, if you receive three times the number of orders, you’ll usually need to do three times as much work. By leveraging dropshipping suppliers, most of the work to process additional orders will be done by the suppliers, allowing you to expand with fewer growing pains and less incremental work.
\nSales growth will always bring additional work—especially related to customer support—but businesses that utilize dropshipping scale particularly well relative to traditional ecommerce businesses. You can dropship on many platforms too, like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy.
\nAll the benefits we mentioned make dropshipping a very attractive model for anyone getting started with an online store, or for those looking to expand their existing product offerings.
\nBut like all approaches, dropshipping has its downsides, too. Generally speaking, convenience and flexibility come at a higher price.
\nHere are a few shortcomings to think about when considering a dropshipping business.
\nLow margins are the biggest disadvantage to operating in a highly competitive dropshipping vertical. Because it’s so easy to get started, and because the overhead costs are so minimal, many competing businesses will set up a dropshipping store and sell items at rock-bottom prices in an attempt to grow revenue. Since they’ve invested so little in getting the business started, they can afford to operate on minuscule margins.
\nTypically, these sellers will have low-quality websites and poor (if any) customer service, which can help you differentiate your dropshipping business. But that won’t stop customers from comparing their prices to yours. This increase in competition will quickly hurt the potential profit margin in a niche. If you’re concerned about your margins you can quickly calculate it with Shopify’s profit margin calculator.
\nFortunately, you can do a lot to mitigate this problem by choosing the right products and selecting a niche/vertical that’s well suited for dropshipping.
\nIf you stock all your own products, it’s relatively simple to keep track of which items are in and out of stock. But when you’re sourcing from multiple warehouses, which are also fulfilling orders for other merchants, inventory can change on a daily basis.
\nFortunately, these days, there are a handful of apps that let you sync with suppliers. So dropshippers can “pass along” customer orders to a dropshipping supplier with a click or two and should be able to see in real time how much inventory the supplier has.
\nDSers also lets merchants take automated actions when a supplier’s stock hits zero. For example, when a product is no longer available, you can automatically unpublish the product, or keep it published but automatically set the quantity to zero.
\nIf you work with multiple suppliers—as most dropshippers do—the products on your online store will be sourced through a number of different dropshippers. This means you have no control over the supply chain.
\nLet’s say a customer places an order for three items, all of which are available only from separate suppliers. You’ll incur three separate shipping costs for sending each item to the customer, but it’s probably not wise to pass this charge along to the customer. And even when it does make sense to include these charges, automating these drop shipment calculations can be difficult.
\nHave you ever been blamed for something that wasn’t your fault but had to accept responsibility for anyway?
\nEven the best dropshipping suppliers make mistakes fulfilling orders—mistakes for which you have to take responsibility and apologize. In addition, mediocre and low-quality suppliers will harm the customer experience via missing items, botched drop shipments, and packing or product quality issues, which can damage your business’s reputation<.
\nUnlike custom-made products or print on demand, dropshipping doesn’t give you a lot of control over the product itself. Usually, the product dropshipped is designed and branded by the supplier.
\nSome dropshipping suppliers can accommodate your business’s product changes. Even then, however, the supplier has the most control over the product itself. Any changes or additions to the product usually require a minimum order quantity to make it viable and affordable for the manufacturer.
\nWhether you’re interested in finding a side hustle, starting a new full-time enterprise, or changing the business model behind your existing online store, dropshipping may be the answer you’re looking for.
\nGetting started with an ecommerce platform like Shopify is easy:
\nYes, dropshipping comes with a number of built-in complexities you’ll need to address as an entrepreneur. But with careful planning and consideration, you can anticipate and resolve those issues to create a thriving, profitable dropshipping business
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\n\nGet fast and personalized world-class support from our experienced customer team, as well as access to regularly updated detailed documentation.
\nEasily customize your theme with our 25+ drag-and-drop sections. Our minimalist approach to design leaves you plenty of room to add your signature style, with little to no code.
\nTry our theme for free with your own products, brand colors, and customizations before committing to buying. Only pay if you publish the theme to your store.
\nCreate your very own design using one of our free pre-designed preset styles as your springboard. Pick a preset, then start customizing the one you like best to fit your brand perfectly.
\nOur designs only use the most proven patterns for conversion and longevity.
\nYour payment entitles you to use the theme on a single store and keep it as long as you like.
\nJust like your customers. Fast, compact, and thumb-friendly design. Our themes deliver the best mobile experience.
\nOur lightning-fast themes meet Shopify’s high performance standards. Created with modern browsers and mobile devices in mind, they use less code to ensure fast loading pages and a faster shopping experience—all without compromising on style or features.
\n\nBlogs
\nCustomizable contact form
\nFAQ page
\nProduct badges
\nProduct reviews
\nPromo banners
\nPromo popups
\nPromo tiles
\nQuick view
\nRecommended products
\nYou might also like
\nStock counter
\nStore locator
\nImage row
\nTicker
\nGift card
\nAnimation
\nColor swatches
\nHigh-resolution images
\nImage galleries
\nImage rollover
\nImage zoom
\nShoop the look
\nProduct options
\nProduct tabs
\nProduct videos
\nShipping/delivery information
\nSize guide
\nSlideshow
\nBreadcrumbs
\nCollection page navigation
\nEnhanced search
\nMega menu
\nDrop down menu
\nProduct filtering and sorting
\nRecommended products
\nMega menu media
\nSticky header
\nCart notes
\nIn-store pickups
\nQuick buy
\nCart notification
\nSlide-out cart
\nCart page
\nWith exposed events and a standalone file for custom scripts, you can start adding functionality to the theme without editing any unfamiliar javascript files.
\nThe Custom Liquid Section lets you add a custom drag-and-drop section using Liquid code directly in the theme editor on any page.
\nGain comes with the original classic build file if you need to make edits to the theme Javascript.
\nTheme app extensions allow merchants to easily add dynamic elements to their themes without having to interact with Liquid templates or code.
\nA user journey is a path taken by someone (a customer) moving toward a goal, such as purchasing your product or getting product support. Along the way, the customer discovers your brand, enters your website, decides to buy (or not), completes the transaction, and comes back for support.
\nUser journey maps help you see that path, so that you can gain a better understanding of your customers’ experience and behaviors. A user journey map cultivates empathy, too, so you can discern which pieces—the website, product support, or customer service—are (and aren’t) working as well as expected.
\nHere’s what else you’ll need to know about mapping user journeys.
\nTable of Contents
\nUser journey mapping visualizes a user’s story as a diagram that charts how the user discovers your brand, clicks through to the initial point of contact, engages with the site, then makes a purchase. You might also map the post-purchase journey of engagement with product support or customer service. It can be a basic text document or spreadsheet, but you’ll want to develop it into a visual timeline that shows journey phases, actions, and touchpoints.
\nTouchpoints on the map can include ads, online stores, newsletters, product pages, apps, shopping carts, FAQs, and more. When customers search your site for product information, post customer reviews, chat with sales associates, or add items to their shopping carts and navigate the checkout process, they are engaging via touchpoints. The map should also describe the user’s thought process and emotional reactions at each high-level stage in the journey.
\nIdeally, the journey flows seamlessly toward the intended goal of a sale. However, when friction or frustration sets in, touchpoints become pain points, which can lead to customer drop off or abandonment of the journey.
\nThe user journey is like a story with a plot, setting, and forward momentum toward a final resolution or goal. The customer is the hero of the story. Key elements common in user journeys are:
\n![\"example](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/image2_1a672213-8547-49ab-b2b4-45d632ce4bd0.png?format=webp&v=1683244048\")
Journey mapping can be used to help you better understand your customers’ behaviors—now or in the future. You could also create unique maps for a specialized buyer persona, or see the journey from the business-side perspective (how effectively services are engaging with the customer at each touchpoint). Here are five examples of user journey maps:
\nThe most popular type, a current state journey map is a real-time visualization of a user’s engagement, showing the customer experience as it’s happening on your current website. Current state maps typically identify critical points where the customer experience needs improvement.
\nA future journey map serves as a predictive tool and shows the ideal experience you aspire for your customers to have. You can use this type of journey map to test site changes before they are implemented. If you want to know: Will the customer react positively to these significant changes? Future state maps help you make an educated guess.
\nIf you’ve segmented your customers, you can create individual buyer personas for the different segments and customer journey maps for each. For example, a particular group might struggle at the checkout stage while others sail through easily. Knowing which customer segments need additional guidance can lead to more closed sales.
\nA service blueprint takes a current state map and adds the sales and customer service teams, technologies, policies, and procedures needed to serve the customer at each stage (and touchpoint). The service blueprint gets everyone in the business on the same page, and seeing where their responsibilities impact the customer experience.
\nThe onboarding user journey map emphasizes the steps a customer takes after they make the purchase and start using the product or service. It also describes the customer experience when revisiting the website to learn how to use the product, get product support, and discover new products.
\nWhich type of customer persona will be studied? Define your buyer persona by determining which customer segment you want to target and gathering data from customer feedback, reviews, surveys, and anecdotal evidence of customer experiences. If you’re interested in more than one segment, consider making a map for each.
\nThink through the problem this persona wants to solve. What is the need that is going to lead them to your brand and products, and what are their expectations of your products? Tap into available user research such as customer interviews or product reviews, and envision the motivation that will drive the plotline. What kind of buying experience does this persona expect? How do they define satisfaction? The answers provide a measure of success or failure at each touchpoint.
\nJourneys flow along a timeline as a series of actions taken while the persona moves through each stage. List each action for the high-level stages, then identify touchpoints for each channel that is associated with the action.
\n![\"customer](\"https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0070/7032/files/image1_cde5185b-7aa7-415d-935f-2669f68c4fc8.png?format=webp&v=1683244037\")
A pain point is a source of negative emotions and, consequently, lost business. Any touchpoint where the user encounters friction or lack of direction, or where an interaction proves confusing, can be a pain point. Examples include frustrating product search results, inadequate product descriptions, long loading times during the checkout process, and difficulty accessing customer service. You can highlight customer pain points on your journey map using bold colors, standout typography, or emojis.
\nAt each high-level stage of the journey, you describe how the user is reacting emotionally based on the persona’s profile and their needs and/or expectations. You can map this using thought bubbles, emojis, and graphs of the emotional trendline. Positive feelings would be “up,” negative vibes “down.”
\nThere are numerous benefits of journey maps, including:
\nUser journeys take a hypothetical yet realistic customer scenario and follow the ups and downs as a customer interacts with your website. By seeing points where friction occurs, you gain a better sense of where site navigation and functionality can be improved.
\nYou could imagine the persona moving through the user journey, then test each touchpoint. Or, you can use customer interviews as a source to identify pain points. Then, highlight them in an updated user journey map and analyze why they are causing problems.
\nIn a sense, the terms user and customer are interchangeable. A customer is a user, and the most common user of your website is a customer. Alternatively, customer journey mapping encompasses every conceivable interaction a customer could have with your business, while the user journey can be viewed more narrowly as the customer’s digital experience—how they engage with your website or app, for example.
\nCustomers are diverse and are likely to change as your business grows. There is no one-size-fits-all user journey. To maintain an effective user journey map, you can periodically review assumptions—maybe monthly or on a quarterly basis—about the user personas you have mapped.
\nDrop-off points occur where a user stops interacting with your website due to mounting friction and pain points, such as difficulty searching for products and obstacles during checkout. A map that charts the emotional trajectory of the user journey can help you identify where drop-offs are likely to occur.
\nhttps://www.shopify.com/blog/mapping-user-journeys
\nMany ecommerce businesses start out with little to spend on marketing. That’s why they’re increasingly turning to an influencer marketing strategy. Brand partnerships for influencers is an affordable, effective, and precise way for ecommerce businesses to grow their brand.
\nMany business owners assume these types of brand partnerships require companies to shell out big bucks for a celebrity endorsement. Although that is one possibility, it isn’t the whole story in the modern influencer marketplace. Influencer marketing includes a range of tactics that can help companies of all sizes raise brand awareness, build credibility, and increase sales.
\nTable of Contents
\nInfluencer marketing is the process of collaborating with an individual who has the potential to influence audience opinions—typically due to a large personal following, an established brand, or perceived authority. Partnering with influencers can help businesses boost sales and elevate their brand profiles. Here’s an overview of some of the main benefits for ecommerce brands.
\nDrive sales collaborating with creators and influencers
\nWhether you’re finding partners, sending out gifts, or tracking affiliate offers, Collabs is built to help you drive more sales.
\nBrand partnerships can be as limited as one social media mention or as extensive as paying a celebrity to act as the face and voice of your company for years. Here are five typical ways that brands collaborate with influencers.
\nSponsored social media posts are dedicated posts about your products or services. Typically, you pay a social media influencer to create content about your company and post it to their social media channels.
\nBlog posts are another popular type of sponsored content: You pay an influencer to create and publish a blog post featuring your products or services. You might purchase an entire post about your company or pay to be featured in a product or service roundup, such as a professional baker’s list of the 10 best kitchen gadgets or a travel influencer’s guide to red-eye-friendly apparel.
\nGuest blogging is one common type of guest appearance: A business contacts an influencer to ask if their blog or website accepts guest content and pitch a few ideas for posts. If the influencer accepts, the company drafts a blog post and includes a backlink to its own site. This can put you in front of an influencer’s audience and let you retain control of your branded content.
\nYou also can consider offering subject matter expertise as a guest on an influencer’s podcast, webinar, or panel.
\nBrand ambassadorships establish a long-term relationship between an influencer and a brand. Brand ambassadors will promote your company as outlined in your contract—for example, they might attend events hosted by your company or on behalf of your company, include your products in a particular number of social media posts per month, or mention you in a certain number of articles.
\nMany businesses send free products to influencers or offer complimentary services, event tickets, or comped travel in hopes of earning a favorable review or mention on the influencer’s outlets of choice. For example, you might send a free batch of naturally sweetened gluten-free cookies to a wellness blogger or your handmade stick-on body jewels to an Instagram influencer in the beauty and fitness space.
\nThis strategy doesn’t guarantee that an influencer will cover your product (or cover it favorably), so many businesses strategically target influencers who seem likely to respond positively to the gift.
\n\nSuccessful influencer collaborations fit your budget and goals, align brand values and target audiences with an influencer’s personal brand and reach, and result in measurable outcomes. Here are five tips for engaging in effective brand partnerships for influencers and ecommerce companies.
\nStart by identifying your goals for the influencer collaboration. Do you hope to raise brand awareness with a certain audience, increase sales, or improve your reputation? This will affect who you pick as a partner and the terms of the partnership.
\nIdentify key performance indicators (KPIs) and decide how you’ll define success. For example, you might track engagements with influencer marketing content, new traffic to your site, and attributable conversions. You might monitor indirect metrics, such as overall sales, social media mentions, and brand awareness metrics. Set goals and plan to track metrics and calculate ROI on your campaign.
\nInfluencers are everywhere. To choose the right partnership for your business, start by identifying influencers popular with your target audience. You can manually scroll through follower information on social media platforms or use an influencer marketing platform such as Shopify Collabs to automate the process. Influencer platforms can provide information about audience demographics, and, in some cases, recommend similar influencers, rate audience quality, or generate a list of influencers for a specific keyword.
\nOnce you’ve generated a list, spend some time researching the influencer’s personal brand, making sure that their brand values and voice are a good fit for your company.
\nFollower count is a key metric in the influencer marketplace. Frequently, the more followers an influencer has, the more they will charge for their services. In many cases, however, follower count is less important than follower engagement and trust.
\nMicro-influencers may have anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 followers. These influencers are likely to be less expensive than larger influencers and receive fewer queries, which can make them a value for paid partnerships. In some cases, smaller influencers also have more engaged audiences.
\nOnce you’ve identified a partner, it’s time to hash out deliverables (such as social media posts, reviews, mentions of your company on social channels, event appearances, etc.), compensation, and process. Some influencers will have established brand collaboration service menus or media kits and can provide quotes for specific partnership activities. If your partner doesn’t, you can negotiate a mutually agreeable solution that spells out expectations and compensation.
\nOnce you’ve reached an agreement, specify deliverables, payment, content creation process, campaign management responsibilities, and timelines in a written contract. Be sure to also ask about your partner’s disclosure policies and make sure that disclosure language doesn’t invalidate the credibility of the content. For example, “I’m paid to review products, but opinions are my own” will establish more trust than “This review is sponsored content.”
\nMany ecommerce brands embrace influencer marketing strategies. Check out these three success stories of Shopify clients.
\nDinnerware brand Fable used influencer gifting to raise brand awareness in its local market.
\n“The first thing we realized in Vancouver is that no one had ever heard of us or our products,” Fable founder Joe Parenteau says. “It was going to be really hard for people to trust our brand online. We ended up trying to find as many different influencers or influential people on Instagram or on Facebook that we could gift our product to.”
\nInitially, this approach was born of limited resources. “We really were in a position where it was like, ‘We can’t pay you for anything,’” Parenteau says. “‘If you like it, we’d appreciate it if you share it. But there’s no obligation.’”
\nParenteau’s team contacted hundreds of content creators and shipped all gifts at once, resulting in as many as 60 content creators in the Vancouver area posting about the products within the span of a few days, generating a lot of interest. “That really kickstarted us,” Parenteau said. “We still use that strategy.”
\nEmily Chong and Nathan Chan, founders of the water bottle company Healthish, aren’t new to influencer marketing—Chong used to be an influencer herself.
\nLike Fable, Healthish started with influencer gifting. “We have such a low-cost item to produce, where we can afford to send to hundreds of influencers per month,” Chong said. As the business matured, Healthish expanded its strategies to include sponsored posts.
\nChong and Chan also discussed the importance of identifying influencer fit. “At the beginning, you can pick people in the different niches and see what actually works for you and then decide to go down that path,” Chong said.
\n“We sent out to fitness influencers,” Chan added. “We sent out to vloggers, we sent out to people that were in all sorts of different niches and markets. And then we could see when somebody posted what that result would be and we refined it. So it’s a little bit of trial and error.”
\nLiza and Lana Mushamel, co-founders of nail product company Twinkled T, use the undervalued strategy of partnering with micro-influencers to boost sales.
\n“People believe that you need to go big or go home and reach out to influencers with a million-plus subscribers or a million-plus followers on Instagram,” Lana says. Twinkled T initially partnered with 10 social media influencers with 30,000 to one million followers, and the Mushamel sisters were surprised to get better results from influencers with smaller followings.
\n“If I’m following an account that only has a thousand followers, it’s because I care about what they have to say or what they’re trying to sell me,” Liza says. “I personally am more likely to purchase from someone with a smaller account, cause I feel like they’re being more genuine in what they’re showing and what they’re selling.”
\nThe cost of influencer collaborations varies depending on project type and scope and on the size of the influencer’s following. Some influencers will post information on their social media channels in return for a free product; major celebrities, meanwhile, can demand millions of dollars for a single ad appearance.
\nIdentify key performance indicators upfront to measure the success of a brand partnership. Consider the following metrics:
\nAsk your influencer partner about their approach to content creation, including whether they’ll grant you an editorial review and if you can provide information or other help to support the process. In some cases, influencers will set parameters about sponsored content or let you provide guidelines.
\nCommon influencer marketing partnership mistakes include:
\nThe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires influencers to disclose advertising relationships in sponsored content.
\nhttps://www.shopify.com/blog/brand-partnerships-for-influencers
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