Category: Ecommerce

Shop Pay is an accelerated checkout that streamlines the payment journey for customers. A smooth checkout experience is essential for ecommerce businesses, and Shop Pay makes it easy for customers to buy online from any Shopify store.

In this piece, we look at exactly what Shop Pay is, how it works, its benefits and features, and what customers and vendors need to know.

What is Shop Pay?

Shop Pay (previously Shopify Pay) is an express checkout launched by the ecommerce platform Shopify, that lets shoppers save their personal and payment details, such as email address, payment method, shipping and billing information.

Image Shopify

This allows customers to save time each time they check out from any Shopify store that uses Shopify Payments.

When a speedy checkout process is so important for customers, adding Shop Pay is all but essential for ecommerce businesses that use the Shopify platform.

How does Shop Pay work?

Shop Pay (what used to be Shopify Pay) is a type of accelerated checkout, designed to make the payment process simpler and more streamlined for shoppers on an ecommerce website. Consequently, the actual process of using Shop Pay is quick and easy.

First-time users of this service will need to select the Shop Pay button as a checkout option , when they make their first payment on a Shopify store. This will prompt them to enter their personal details, including email address, phone number, shipping, and billing information. 

They will also be prompted to save their information for faster checkout next time.

When they next make a purchase with any store that uses Shop Pay, customers will simply need to enter their email address. They will then receive an SMS message with a six-digit verification code to enter on the checkout page to authorise their payment — it’s as simple as that.

How to use Shop Pay

For vendors, using Shop Pay as a payment choice for their customers couldn’t be easier. All they need to do is select Settings in the navigation menu of your merchant account, then select Payments, and then Manage.

In the Accelerated Checkouts menu, vendors need to select Shop Pay, and then click Save.

For customers who wish to use Shop Pay, the process is even simpler. All they need to do is click Shop Pay in the payments navigation menu when checking out from a Shopify shop, then select Save my information for a faster checkout.

Customers then need to enter their personal information for payments and complete their order. They will then see a confirmation notification on the order status page, letting them know their details have been saved to their Shop Pay account.

Next time they checkout from a Shopify shop, all your customer needs to do is enter their email address and click Authorize purchase. They will then receive an SMS message with a six-digit code to enter on the page. After this, their payment information will be automatically provided.

What are the benefits of Shop Pay?

Shop Pay offers a number of great benefits, both for merchant accounts and customers.

It’s easy to use

One of the biggest benefits of using Shop Pay is that it makes the payment process for orders simple, quick, and easy for the customer.

Every ecommerce merchant knows that a long or complicated checkout is one of the biggest reasons why customers abandon their carts before paying. Shop Pay reduces friction during the checkout process significantly, removing the need to enter lots of personal payment information when completing orders. 

As a result, it helps create a positive customer experience, encouraging repeat purchases with a store into the bargain.

It’s also easy to set up for vendors too.

Store owners simply need to navigate to the Settings section on their Shopify dashboard and select Payment Providers. Here, vendors can select from a number of different providers. Click on Shopify Payments, and then select Manage. In the Accelerated Checkout section, toggle the Shop Pay option on, and save your changes.

It provides solid security for vendors and customers

Security is a significant concern for an ecommerce website, both for merchants and customers. When shopping online and making a payment, you want to know that your credit card information and shipping information on a website is safe and secure.

As well as being quick and easy to use, the Shop Pay payment solution also offers payment security to customers and vendors.

The SMS verification text message process adds an extra layer of security to the online payment journey. With more and more people turning online to make purchases, particularly post-COVID, this is essential.

Store owners want to offer their customers the best and most secure environment to pay, providing them with peace of mind and contributing to a positive checkout experience.

Best of all, Shopify store owners don’t need to worry about setting up all the technical elements of the Shop Pay checkout feature. It is all handled by Shopify, so merchants (and customers) can rest easy knowing that their credit card information is safe and secure.

It offsets carbon emissions

Another interesting feature of Shop Pay is that it offsets any emissions generated during delivery by protecting trees.

Shopify is known for its environmental commitments. It has a number of eco-friendly initiatives, including carbon-neutral operations and renewable energy for its headquarters.

Image Shopify

Shopify also invests in LEED-certified office spaces for its workers, and uses the Google Cloud to power its ecommerce platform instead of data centers, which are known for generating greenhouse gas emissions.

Shopify’s carbon offsetting initiative through Shop Pay is another one of its environmental commitments.

Trees are essential for reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and turning it into oxygen. But rather than planting trees (which can take years to develop), Shopify ensures existing trees in the Peruvian rainforest are protected. This is one of the biggest rainforests in the world, and is an important carbon sink, capturing a significant amount of human-generated carbon dioxide. To date, Shopify has protected over 123 million trees.

For environmentally-minded ecommerce merchants and customers, Shop Pay’s carbon offsetting programme is a huge benefit.

Shop Pay (Shopify Pay) vs Shopify Payments

It is important to make a distinction between Shop Pay and Shopify Payments.

Shopify Payments and Shop Pay are both types of payment options available to Shopify account owners.

Shop Pay is a branded checkout option that significantly reduces the time involved during the payments and checkout journey. Once a customer has saved their shipping and billing information to their Shopify account, whenever they use Shop Pay as a payment method for future orders, it’ll just take a few clicks to make their purchase.

Image Shopify

Shopify Payments, on the other hand, lets your customers check out in the usual way, by providing their email address, shipping address, desired payment option, billing information, and so on. It is unbranded, meaning customers won’t see the Shopify logo on the button, and is similar to other standard checkout processes.

Can customers use gift cards or discount codes with Shop Pay?

One a customer has used Shop Pay once, it will automatically use their saved payment information for future purchases when selected.

However, this does not mean that customers can’t use gift cards or discount codes from your online shop if they have them when they use Shop Pay.

Thankfully, your customers can still easily use any gift cards or discount codes they have been provided with. During checkout, customers simply need to select Add a discount code or gift card, and then enter the unique code they have been given.

Shop Pay is one of many Shopify payments on offer to ecommerce businesses, but it is certainly one of the best. 

There are various reasons why ecommerce businesses should consider adding Shop Pay to their payment options. 

First and foremost, it speeds up the checkout journey dramatically. A slow, complicated checkout can put customers off a website and can even result in cart abandonment, but an accelerated checkout option like Shop Pay makes the entire journey quick, easy, and convenient for the customer.

Secondly, Shop Pay offers solid security throughout the payment journey, giving businesses and their customers peace of mind when shopping on an ecommerce website.

Finally, Shopify offsets all carbon emissions generated during delivery. Whether you’re eco-minded or not, this is a key selling point, both for businesses and customers.

Easy to use, convenient, and good for the planet, Shop Pay is essential for any ecommerce vendor.

Printful vs Printify, titan vs titan: these two popular services compete in the print-on-demand marketplace, and now we’re putting them head-to-head in our comparison. 

We’re going to do more than just cover the basics of what they bring to the table, though. We’ll also be looking at the print-on-demand option in general, explaining why it’s so appealing to so many.

If you’re curious about getting into ecommerce and eager to choose an accessible route that gives you the creative freedom to stand out, you’re in the right place. Let’s get started by succinctly explaining what print-on-demand actually means (beyond the obvious!), then move on to the titular battle. Here we go:

What does print-on-demand mean?

The typical ecommerce process goes like this: merchants stock up on products from suppliers, list them in their stores, take orders, and ship them out when needed. This is how physical retail has always worked, and it’s a good approach for those who have warehouse space.

The popular alternative to this approach is dropshipping. Dropshipping merchants don’t stock any products: instead, they list items that are stocked by third-party suppliers like AliExpress (adding margins for profit), then pass the orders they receive to those suppliers for processing and fulfilment. That’s it: it’s a simple process.

The chief similarity between these pathways is that the products themselves don’t change. The sellers can present them differently online, or even tweak the packaging if they keep their own stock, but the products that go to the buyers are fundamentally the same.

For those who want their products to stand out, there’s the option of selling custom products through partnering with a production facility (or creating a new one), but that’s a challenging path that requires a lot of research and design expense.

So where does the print-on-demand model fit into this? 

The name is a big clue, but let’s clarify what it means. The fundamental products of print-on-demand operations — T-shirts, shoes, baseball caps, etc. — are entirely generic (and often processed and shipped through suppliers), yet there’s a custom element produced through the printing process.

You could, for instance, create a store and list a simple T-shirt with a custom logo on the front.

Upon receiving an order, you would pass it to a print-on-demand supplier that would take a plain T-shirt, customise it with the required logo, then ship it out. The result? You get to sell unique products without doing any product development or even managing your own stock. Hit a good level of print quality and you’ll look great. If you’re a great artist and/or have a great business idea, even better.

Because the items are only produced when ordered, you can (and should) provide as many options as you can think of. Multiple colour variants, alternative designs, rethought layouts… Throw together a large number of options, and you can create a well-rounded store (while collecting invaluable data about what your customers choose and what their preferences are).

How do print-on-demand companies work?

When we talk about print-on-demand companies, then, we’re talking about the services to which print-on-demand orders get passed. They offer ranges of generic products along with printing and shipping options, process the orders they receive, and profit by charging more than it costs them to buy the original products and create their prints.

Printful and Printify work in this way, though they also differ in various ways that we’ll detail shortly.

In general, print-on-demand companies can make themselves unique through concentrating on specific areas. One might aim to produce the most high-quality products and price its items accordingly, while another might focus on being cheap and efficient with its order fulfilment.

As a merchant aiming to sell print-on-demand products, it’s important that you choose the service that best fits your unique needs, preferences, and intentions. While you won’t typically need to make a long-term commitment to a given service, pivoting from one to another might cause confusion with previous customers and lead to various other practical issues.

You also need to factor in the platform you’re using for your online store. Using a native integration with a print-on-demand business will make it much easier to use (each of these services is available through the Shopify App Store, for instance). The alternative of adding custom code can cause difficulties, particularly if you don’t have much technical expertise.

What does Printful offer?

Founded in North Carolina in 2013, Printful has since become a dominant force in the print-on-demand industry, and for good reason.

Image: Printful

It’s a hyper-convenient service that can handle production throughout the USA, Europe, and Mexico (and ship globally). Once you’ve created your free Printful account and connected your store (there’s an integration for every popular ecommerce platform), you can get started with fleshing out your print-on-demand inventory.

This is all handled through the intuitive Printful mockup generator. If you want to produce your custom file elsewhere and upload it directly, you can, but this requires you to know how to set the right dimensions and choose the right DPI. It’s much easier to create your designs within the mockup generator, uploading images if needed or just using the available resources (including rich text options, numerous clipart categories, and even an integration with Getty Images).

Image: Printful

As noted, the Printful service is free, and this goes for every account. You pay the amount quoted for a particular product (plus the shipping you add), and make your money through raising the price in your store. Printful will even ship the items in packaging with your branding (for an added fee, admittedly), so you won’t need to do much — and if you don’t sell anything in a given month, you won’t be required to pay anything.

What does Printify offer?

Founded in 2015 in Riga, Latvia, Printify offers a similar service to that of Printful, only with a focus on partnering with various print providers around the world.

Image: Printify

You sign up for a free account, choose your products, define your custom designs using a simple mockup generator, push them to your ecommerce store, then leave the orders to be dealt with on your behalf. As you’d expect, the service can fulfil orders throughout the world with global shipping (if you want to sell in New Zealand, that won’t be a problem). And if you want to order samples to try things out, you can do this directly through your on-site shopping cart (to add product designs to your store, you’ll need to use the relevant integration).

Image: Printify

The Printify mockup generator differs from the Printful equivalent in some notable ways that we’ll get into next, but you can get decent results with either one. The same can be said for the pricing, too, so let’s move on to the meat of this article: looking at the distinctions between these two services and attempting to gauge which is better.

How do Printful and Printify differ?

Two popular services, each with essentially the same business model. Why should you choose one print-on-demand company over the other? Here are the biggest differences between them:

• Printful concentrates on its own production facilities, while Printify partners with various regional facilities around the world. The biggest consequence of this is that Printful is known for greater quality control and more accurate estimation of production and shipping times. Printify’s partner-centric approach does allow it to offer distinct options for some products (with some production companies providing more colours, faster delivery, or better shipping rates), but Printful is simply a much bigger company, and this makes it markedly more reliable for large orders.
• Printify can provide better previews and handle more complex embroidering patterns, but won’t always allow custom text or resizing. A notable strength of Printify is that it will actually accept and faithfully adapt photograph-quality images for embroidered designs. Printful will allow any images but will reduce them to simple designs with minimal colouring. Another strength of Printify is its superior preview feature: Printful has a mockup view, but it only appears sometimes (while Printify’s preview option is a reliable staple).

In other regards, though, Printful holds the edge. It offers the option to create a custom pattern from a provided image, for instance, which is something that Printify doesn’t feature. It also allows the addition of custom text far more frequently (it’s only supported on some product types in Printify), and allows all image additions to be resized (for some reason, an image added for embroidery in Printify can be stuck at whatever size is automatically selected).

• Printful is free at all tiers (you only pay for the products and add-ons), while Printify has paid tiers with extra options and monthly fees. This seems like a clear win for the Printful pricing plan since you never need to worry about paying when you’re not making any sales. Yes, you need to pay for custom packaging elements (or packing slips, otherwise known as pack-ins), but that’s also true with Printify when they’re available: since they’re handled by the third-party production companies, you can’t rely on custom packaging for every product type.

It’s true that Printify’s tier system can allow you to get greater profit margins on your sales through discounts, but if you sell enough items through Printful then you’ll get bulk discounted rates too. Either way, you’ll cut your costs if you ramp things up — though maybe Printify can be preferable if you have a really solid idea of how much you’ll sell.

• Printful has far more integrations available, while Printify may require the custom use of its API. If you want to send your custom products to Shopify or eBay, either system will accommodate you — but if you want to send them to something like Amazon, only Printful will have the native integration for it. Your only option there is to set up a custom integration using the Printify API, or find a middle-ground system for it.

Printify vs Printful: which should you choose?

Printify and Printful are two leading print-on-demand companies, and each provides a good service that’s accessible to any ecommerce business, so there’s no clear loser here. The product quality before customisation won’t differ too much: one cotton T-shirt is akin to any other of a similar price.

And since each has distinct strengths and weaknesses, your circumstances will determine which is best for you: if Printify offers the lowest prices for the product type you’re relying on (and the partner you’ve selected has a reputation for quality), for instance, then it may be your best option.

Overall, though, the nod has to go to Printful. Having its own production facilities with the quality-control process of a big business allows it to achieve a greater level of quality, leading to custom products that look better and last longer. Its larger size also allows it to provide 24/7 customer support through live chat, leading to a superior average user experience.

Additionally, its various options for custom packaging make it much more desirable for those sellers who want to take advantage of the dropshipping model while retaining extensive creative control.

Can you use Printful and Printify?

The answer, of course, is yes. Each of these services has a free tier that you can use indefinitely, and each will remain linked to the products it pushes to your store. If one seems better for a given product type (better shipping costs, perhaps) but the other is preferable for all others, you can use the former just for that product. Be wary, though, as this can easily cause confusion.

What happens when a customer contacts you to note that their purchase hasn’t arrived? You need to first determine which company it went through, complicating your support process. And then there’s the matter of using the mockup generators. Do you want to spend the time comparing the rates for each new product you add before you proceed?

This will prove an arduous task that will likely waste enough of your valuable time to defeat the purpose of attempting it in the first place. 

Unless you have a truly compelling reason to use multiple print-on-demand services at once, you should pick just one print provider and stick with it — and Printful seems like the way to go.

With around 286 million active users, PayPal is perhaps the best-known payment gateway in the world. This is enough to make it the 21st largest bank in the United States, if it were a traditional brick-and-mortar financial organisation. 

But it’s not the only payment processing solution available to business owners. There are some other great options you can choose from and it may even be they’re a better fit for your company. 

We’ve highlighted seven great payment gateways for ecommerce stores (we haven’t included Venmo because it’s owned by PayPal), explaining what type of business they’re ideally suited to, their customer reviews, cost and some other key details you need to know about them. 

Read on to find out more below. 

What are the best alternatives to PayPal that I can use? 

Taking PayPal out of the pictures, these are the seven best gateways you can use for your ecommerce checkout process:

1. Amazon Pay
2. Apple Pay 
3. Google Pay
4. Payoneer
5. Quickbooks Payments
6. Shopify Payments
7. Skrill

They’re ordered alphabetically (just because Amazon Pay is number one it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s our favourite). 

Below, we’ve given you the key information on each gateway, so you can make your own mind up about which one you want to add to your ecommerce platform. 

**We’ve taken the customer reviews rating from Trustpilot**

Amazon Pay 

Credit: Amazon Pay

If there’s one brand operating in the payment gateway domain that’s better known than PayPal, then it’s Amazon. Amazon Pay has packages for SMEs, big companies and nonprofits, making it ideal for a wide range of businesses. 

• Best for: Business owners who want a trusted payment gateway
• Customer reviews: 1.9/5
• Cost: Variable — 
  • • Less than 50,000 orders: processing fee (2.7%); authorisation fee (£0.30)
    • Over 50,000 orders: you can apply for a discount by contacting Amazon 
• Apps: iOS and Android 

Adding Amazon payments to your business is quick and simple. Check out the site to find out more about how to add it to your ecommerce store. 

Apple Pay 

Credit: Apple Pay

Apple Pay claims to be “faster than accepting traditional credit and debit cards and other payment methods”. This is great for ecommerce businesses because their customers can make payments and check out with a single touch.

• Best for: Companies that want a fast and secure payment method 
• Customer reviews: 3.6/5
• Cost: Apple charges no additional fees 
• Apps: iOS

If your company accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover and/or China UnionPay then adding Apple Pay should be pretty straightforward. Review Apple Pay’s merchant checklist to find out what you need to do. 

Google Pay 

Credit: Google Pay

Alt-text: Google Pay is one of the best PayPal alternatives

Formerly known as Google Wallet, Google Pay allows your online business to accept payments from customers who have added their credit or debit card to their Google Account. This makes for a quick checkout process for shoppers and companies alike. 

• Best for: Store owners looking for a simple and trusted gateway 
• Customer reviews: 2.1/5
• Cost: free for your business and its customers 
• Apps: Android and iOS 

One of the other great things about picking Google Pay is that it supports SCA, the two-factor authentication process that was introduced for most online payments from 31 December 2020. Find out how to add Google Pay to your store by visiting the website. 

Payoneer

Credit: Payoneer

Payoneer is a payment solution that allows your business to receive credits from and pay freelancers who complete any work for your company via Upwork, Fiverr and similar platforms. 

• Best for: Ecommerce businesses that outsource work to freelancers 
• Customer reviews: 4.4/5
• Cost: Variable — 
  • • Card payments:  3% fee
    • Via eCheck (USD): 1% fee
• Apps: Android and iOS

As a cross-border payments platform, Payoneer can be a good option for global ecommerce businesses but it’s more of an all-round business payments platform than a pure ecommerce checkout. Read the resources on Payoneer’s site to learn more about this payment gateway.  

Quickbooks Payments 

Credit: Quickbooks Payments

Quickbooks Payments integrates with some of the biggest ecommerce platforms, including BigCommerce and Shopify. It allows you to accept card payments from your customers and does so securely through 128-bit SSL encryption.

• Best for: Companies who want integrated payments with key ecommerce platforms
• Customer reviews: 1.5/5
• Cost: Variable — 

• • • Simple Start: £12 per month 
    • Essentials: £20 per month 
    • Plus: £30 per month 
    • There are also transaction fees
• Apps: Android and iOS

Unlike some of the leading PayPal alternatives, you have to pay both a monthly cost for using Quickbooks Payments and individual transaction fees when your customers make payments. You can discover more about these charges at the Quickbooks Payments site. 

Shopify Payments

Credit: Shopify

Shopify is one of the biggest ecommerce platforms, with more than 500,000 businesses across the globe using it. Shopify Payments is its payment gateway and the big benefit of using it is that your company doesn’t need to sign up to another third-party provider. 

• Best for: ecommerce stores built on Shopify 
• Customer reviews: 1.4/5 (rating for Shopify as a brand) 
• Cost: there’s no transaction fee for most payments — businesses based in Austria, Belgium or Sweden are charged a fee for orders processed through a third-party payment provider
• Apps: Android and iOS

Shopify Payments is free to use for Shopify customers. However, while you don’t pay transaction fees, this does mean you need to pay a monthly subscription charge to use the Shopify platform. You can find out how much that is by hedging to the Shopify website. 

Skrill 

 

Credit: Skrill

Skrill is a digital wallet that ecommerce businesses have been using since the beginning of the 21st century. It offers a quick checkout, digital wallet, rapid transfer and shopping carts. 

• Best for: ecommerce owners who want a reliable digital wallet
• Customer reviews: 4.2/5
• Cost:  
  • • Local payment methods: 1%
    • Global payment methods: 1% 
• Apps:  Android and IOS

Skrill gets one of the best customer satisfaction ratings of any payment gateway. You can see what your fellow ecommerce business owners think of it by reading the reviews at Trustpilot now.

Is it a good idea for my business to use a PayPal alternative?

PayPal is used by people and businesses across the world, with millions of personal and merchant accounts benefiting from its service. 

There are many payment gateways like PayPal, so your company can choose to use an alternative. The question, though, is why you’d choose to use these providers when these are the benefits you get from PayPal: 

• Secure payment gateway
• No recurring bills (no pre-set monthly or annual fee)
• Broad ecommerce integration  

One of the reasons you might choose to use an alternative to PayPal is that it charges processing fees, levying a charge per transaction to business owners. These fees include:

• Commercial transactions: 2.9% + a fixed fee
• QR Code Transactions:
  • £10.00 and below: 2% + a fixed fee
  • £10.01 and above: 1.5% + a fixed fee

So, while there’s no recurring billing, you can expect to pay a regular fee to PayPal if you choose to use it as your payment gateway. 

Why can’t customers just pay directly from their bank account?

PayPal — and PayPal alternatives — aren’t the only way your customers can buy products from your ecommerce business. 

Instead of setting up an account with PayPal or PayPal competitors, shoppers can simply pay directly from their bank account in the following ways: 

• Debit cards 
• Credit card payments 
• Bank transfers 
• Mobile payments 

The problem is that if you limit your customers to just these payment methods then it can turn some of them off. This is particularly true of people global customers making international payments, as their bank might charge them a fee for doing so. They may also not feel comfortable or protected using these methods, which is something to keep in mind.

So, while you should allow your customers to buy your goods with pay as you go via their mobile, credit cards, debit cards and bank transfer from their bank accounts, we recommend that you give them some other payment options too.  

We’ve given you a list of seven great alternatives to PayPal. We’ve told you how much they cost, what type of businesses they’re good for and why they’re a top card processing provider. 

What we’ve not said, though, is that you could use some of these alongside PayPal — Amazon Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay are prime examples of this. 

You may choose to use PayPal and you may choose not to. What’s most important is that you make your decision based on the payment methods your customers use. Why? 

Because if your customers can’t buy your products in the way they want to then they’ll simply purchase them from your competitors. 

A rise in online orders can be a blessing and a curse for companies. 

If your ecommerce logistics are in a position to cope with this increase in business then it’s the former. But if you don’t have everything set up then it’s the latter. 

If you’re not in a position to cope with this influx of business then you might need to review your warehouse management system, your product creation process or a range of other factors. 

We’ve highlighted four tactics that you can use to deal with a rise in online orders, giving you the tools to cope in the best and worst-case scenarios. 

1: Expand your existing supply chain management operations 

Credit: Needpix

Our first tactic looks at what you can do if you’ve got enough stock but your supply chain can’t cope with the rise in orders. It’s probably the best position to be in because it has the simplest solution — either use a third-party distributor or handle the deliveries in-house. 

Using a distributor should be pretty straightforward. 

The top ecommerce platforms allow you to link your store to your pick of organisations whose fulfilment centres can handle your orders. Indeed, it may be that you have an existing provider who can support this. 

One thing to keep in mind is shipping costs; if your uplift in orders comes from end destinations in far-flung regions of the world then you might need to pay higher delivery costs. If this is the case then you’ll need to make sure your customers from these areas are fully aware of the price of getting goods delivered from your business.

Credit: Pikist

Handling deliveries in-house is another straightforward option. 

It’s pretty simple — you just get your employees to deliver products directly to your customers using company vehicles (an investment, but one worth making if you’re really scaling up). You can use software such as telematics to track the journeys made to make deliveries. This creates an insurance policy to ensure your drivers don’t drive erratically and risk damaging the goods during transition. 

This is important because your company will have to cover the costs (literal and reputational) if your customers receive products they aren’t happy with. 

So, if your orders have gone up and your supply chain can’t cope then use a third-party distributor or handle the deliveries in-house. 

2: Increase the sales offering for your online business  

Credit: Wallpaper Flare

Our second method tackles a scenario where your supply chain is able to deliver your goods but your stockpile/supply of products isn’t sufficient to meet demand. We won’t lie, this can be a tricky situation to resolve. 

The reason it’s a tough problem to fix is that you might not be able to simply request more products from your suppliers or boost your internal resources. We’re talking here about if you sell bespoke goods. 

The issue with this is that if you’re the only person who can create the products then you can’t simply duplicate yourself. However, there are a couple of things you can do: 

• Bolster your internal resources by hiring staff who can do your less-skilled tasks 
• Introduce caps on order sizes to limit the number of products sold at any one time

Of course, if your ecommerce business doesn’t sell tailor-made items, then things are much simpler. You can meet the increased product interest by getting more staff or placing more orders with your suppliers. 

Take the approach we’ve outlined based on the nature of the ecommerce goods you sell. Doing so will keep your supply of goods high enough to meet the increased demand. 

3: Direct your customers to complementary items your company sells

Credit: PX Here

Our third strategy looks at a worst-case scenario for your ecommerce company: you’re out of stock of your best-sellers and there’s no way around it. You can’t easily increase the number of products you have and the cost of bolstering your supply chain is too great. 

It’s a horrible position to be in but there’s a way of dealing with it in real-time, while you resolve the issues with your inventory management and the ecommerce logistics associated with distribution. You direct your customers to existing, complementary products on your website. 

You’ll need new content to be able to redirect your customers, something you can do via a 302 redirect page. 

We’ll explain the why and how of this but be warned, it needs to be dealt with carefully to ensure your company retains a high level of customer service. 

Credit: Wallpaper Flare

A 302 page effectively takes down your product page. Your customers can still arrive at it but it won’t display your products. 

Instead, it’ll explain that the page is temporarily unavailable. This is where you add content explaining that these products are currently out of stock but you have other great — and available — items they will love. 

If you create a 302 redirect then the content on it must sensitively address your customer’s expectations. You need to apologise for the inconvenience and give them an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the situation. 

Because of this, we recommend that you add the details of your customer services team to your 302 redirects. This way you have a chance to proactively address any concerns your customers have with your business and assure them that you’re in control of the situation. 

4: Create a reserve list while you review your ecommerce logistics 

Credit: Pexels

Our fourth approach to dealing with a rise in online orders is the worst-case scenario.

It’s where you simply can’t offer your customers any alternative but to wait while your business readjusts to the increased demands for your services. 

This is a customer service nightmare because you’re not really offering your customers anything aside from your word that you’ll one day be able to give them what they want. However, you can make this work if you create a reserve list for your customers to book in an order. 

Credit: Pexels

Giving your customers the opportunity to reserve an order, so they can buy it when it’s back in stock means you don’t lose their business. The payoff is that you extend the buying process, so you need to work hard to keep them happy. 

Something that’s non-negotiable in this situation is that you need to notify your customers as soon as the item they’ve reserved is back in stock. You might also want to give them individual tracking numbers so they can check in on the progress. 

One thing that’s up to you is whether you offer a discount. We highly recommend that you do offer this because this then gives your customers compensation for the inconvenience you’ve put them through. 

So, if you’re really stuck and need time to speak to logistics providers and come to terms with the increase in your online orders then create a reserve list. Just make sure you look after the customers that take this up. 

Expanding your existing supply chain, increasing your sales offering, directing your customers to complementary items and creating a reserve list are all great ways to deal with an increase in online orders. 

So, use the approach that’s appropriate to your company and you’ll soon be in a position to take advantage of the new business that’s coming your way. 

Are you experiencing a major dip in your WooCommerce store sales? Or are you looking for ways you can improve your business? Whatever category you belong to, you can have it all answered by going through this article. 

This post elaborates on the most effective ways you can boost sales for your WooCommerce store. It will help you understand the reasons behind the lowering sales of your store and suggest better ways to improve it. Give it a quick read and save your store from losing more sales. 

Offer coupons, deals, and discounts

Offering coupons and discounts in your store never fails to capture the attention of your customers. If the coupons are compelling enough, shoppers are likely going to use them for themselves and even share offers among their family and friends. 

Coupons can be used to attract new customers and for maintaining existing ones as well. To attract new customers you can come up with a ‘buy one, get one free’ deal, free shipping, first-order discounts, etc.

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To ensure customer retention you can make use of coupon strategies such as customer 

purchase history-based discounts (nth order discounts), store credits, gift cards, etc. 

WooCommerce has coupon functionality built into its core — and for advanced coupons, you can choose from several coupon extensions including smart coupons and discount rules. 

Cart abandonments being a major threat to sales, you can create and offer coupons that bring the abandoned cart owners back to your website. If people don’t make it back to complete their purchase you can entice them to do so by sending attractive coupons via email. This extra push will bring back customers who left their cart due to trivial reasons. 

Coupons are great sales boosters, but while creating coupon strategies, you should also consider if this aligns with your revenue margin and business goals. If you continue to offer mind-blowing deals with little regard for your financial state, it can cap your efforts for store growth — and even leave you in the negative. 

Speed up your website

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Site speed or loading time is a crucial element for any website, but when it comes to an online store it becomes a deal-breaker. People won’t spend another second in your store if it’s loading slowly. Their immediate action would be to exit your website and go to one of your competitors.

So how do you avoid it from happening to your store?

Well, for starters, initiate frequent monitoring of your site speed. There are many tools available to help you with it. For example, Pingdom, Google Pagespeed Insights, and GTMetrix are some of the popular ones available for this purpose. 

With these tools, you can even monitor other areas of your website such as sign up, search, and checkout, etc. But once you know your page speed is low, how do you go about fixing it? How can you stop it from happening again? It is indeed a relevant question that you need to answer if you don’t want to lose any more of your sales and revenue. 

Your website speed is hugely affected by the choice of your theme and your hosting provider. Themes aren’t just responsible for the look and feel of your website — they also influence your page speed. So when you are switching a theme or starting a new store, go for a theme that’s not only visually appealing but fast as well. 

When it comes to hosting providers for Woocommerce, speed is a major selling point for them. All providers boast of their excellent hosting speed, while only a few of them keep their promise. Whether you are planning on migrating to another host or looking for a new one for your website, do your research. Ask current and past users, as well as looking at reviews on genuine review websites before deciding on one.

Some other things you can do on your website to improve its speed are website caching, image optimisation, and code optimisation. 

Bring visitors’ focus to store/product reviews

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Getting your shoppers to trust your store and its products is very important to boost sales. If they don’t find any reasons to trust your store, it will leave them confused as to whether or not to purchase from your store. 

The proven way to instil trust in your customers is by displaying trust signals like customer reviews and testimonials on your website. When they see a real person sharing their experience with the product or the store it will make them feel safe to spend their money on the product.

Make sure you only display verified reviews on your website and allow for video testimonials and other user-generated content. Many WooCommerce plugins help you to easily enable this for your store. 

Don’t overlook user experience

User experience doesn’t need much introduction. We have all gone through good and bad experiences while interacting with physical and digital products of all kinds. Whether a product stays in the market or not is hugely influenced by how easy it is to use. The harder it gets to use the faster users look for alternatives.

When it comes to a WooCommerce store, the theme holds the responsibility for ensuring a better user experience at your store. If your chosen theme is not a great fit for user experience, you can always customise them to meet your user requirements. It can be hard to find a theme tailored to the needs of your target users, so the best way can often be to customise them. 

There are certain areas on your website that are crucial to user experience — such as its navigation, search feature and call-to-action buttons. A confusing navigation system will make it hard for users to find their way around your website. If they are unable to find the product they want, there is no point in them staying on your website anymore, and they will simply leave. 

To ensure a better user experience you also need to have a clear call-to-action on your site. The ‘Add to Cart’ and ‘Buy Now’ buttons should be properly placed and visible to your users. They shouldn’t get drowned out by other decorative elements on your website. 

Products should be easily searchable and product descriptions should be crisp and to the point, that help your potential customers to make their purchase decision easier and quicker. You can also conduct usability tests at frequent intervals to learn more about your users’ needs and make necessary changes in your store to meet them. 

Never compromise on security

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Security is one of the few elements that should never be compromised if you are aiming for the faster growth of your WooCommerce store. Even a minor security breach on your website could have a huge impact on your store’s credibility, and your customers will hesitate to make purchases from your store for fear of exposing their card information. 

If you want your customers to trust your store and spend their money without concern, you need to ensure that your store has a highly secure infrastructure. But that alone won’t do —  you need to let them know about the top security measures that you have taken to keep their data safe on your website, especially at points where they may feel vulnerable, such as checkout, login, and registration.

When it comes to your website security SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate is a must. The lock icon displayed beside your website’s URL implies that your website is secure with SSL. It’s a very common and fundamental security practice that every website should follow to ensure its security.

Another important thing you need to do to prevent your website from any kind of security attack is updates. Timely updates can keep your website safe by providing immunity from all new kinds of malware, viruses, and similar forms of security threats. If you use third-party services or plugins in your store you need to take extra note of their updates and keep them updated. 

Even if you do everything you could to keep your website secure, you can never be 100% sure. There will always be some parts of your website that you may have overlooked or a new kind of threat that you didn’t prepare it for. If the worst happens, it’s better to keep a backup of your site data to minimise the loss. 

There are a plethora of plugins that offer automatic backup facilities along with other important security features such as website firewall, malware scanner, IP blocking, etc. Sucuri and Wordfence, are some of the popular ones, but there are many available. 

Ensure easy checkout flow

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The checkout page is the most crucial point for any WooCommerce store. If your customers don’t go past that point, all the efforts that you took to bring them up to the point will be wasted. Your store’s increasing cart abandonment rate is a sign that your checkout page needs an immediate checkup followed by its optimisation.

How do you optimise your website’s checkout page for better conversions and fewer abandonments? It would be better to start by providing a faster checkout process. Customers wish to spend more time on choosing the products, reading their specifications and comparison, that they have little time left for checkout. Adding the WordPress Shopping Cart plugin to your store helps you achieve this. 

If you force your potential customers to fill out larger forms, you will be disappointing them to the point that they will either cancel the purchase or postpone it to a later date by leaving the item in the cart. This points to the importance of providing shorter checkout forms and allowing guest checkout at your store. 

Another important checkout element you need to consider is the number of payment methods that you have allowed in your store. If the customer is unable to find a payment method suitable for them they won’t proceed with the purchase either. Make sure that you allow all popular payment methods used by your target customers on your website. 

Since most customers feel vulnerable entering their card information, owing to security concerns, displaying trust badges is a great idea. You can also highlight your return policy like easy returns, and a money-back guarantee., as a trust booster. This will give them a sense of security and help them continue with the process peacefully. 

Improve WooCommerce SEO

Search engine visibility is a key factor in bringing traffic and thus boosting sales of your WooCommerce store. To rank higher in search results you need to optimise your website’s content for it. 

When it comes to a WooCommerce store, product pages are the most relevant pages to be ranked. You can give special attention to its meta-descriptions and craft product descriptions in a way that pleases both your customers and the search engine bots. 

Monitor and analyse marketing performance

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At this point, you analyse whether all your efforts are bearing fruit: what did well? What failed? And what needs to be improved? Going through this analysis is important to keep your store on the growth curve. Always remember: ‘What gets measured gets managed’. 

Along with the variation in the sales graph, you should also monitor other statistics such as conversions, traffic, bounce rate, and cart abandonment to make sure you are going in the right direction. Keeping track of all the data helps find out issues with your store, and provides valuable insights into troubleshooting. 

You can use a variety of tools to analyse the data. Google Analytics is the most popular among them. You can integrate your WooCommerce store with Google analytics using the MonsterInsights plugin. 

Patience is key in these situations, sometimes it might take some time to see the results. Even if it didn’t work out as you expected, don’t lose hope. It might be some small issues that you may have overlooked causing it all, find them out and fix them. 

Facebook is a great way to promote your business, but it can also be a valuable sales channel — it’s quick and simple to set up, and you can make your products visible to thousands of people. 

If you’re thinking of setting up a Facebook Shop then read this guide to find out where to get started, including:

• The benefits of selling on Facebook
• How to create a Facebook Shop
• Selling on Facebook via Shopify and BigCommerce

Read on to find out more about setting up a Facebook store.

What is a Facebook Shop?

Facebook Shops allows retailers to set up an online store that’s accessible from Facebook and Instagram.

It’s a development of the Facebook Page Shop feature, giving retailers more freedom to create a more customised ‘storefront’. Among other things, this includes a cover image and brand colours so that it looks more like your own website or store than merely a Facebook page.

Your Facebook Shop can be found through your business’s Facebook page or Instagram profile. It can also be linked to in your stories or discovered through paid ads. Shoppers can then view all the products you’ve listed in your Facebook Shop, save products for later, or place an order.

If you’re in the US and you’ve enabled checkout then shoppers can complete the transaction without leaving the app. This functionality hasn’t been fully rolled out yet, so outside of the US, shoppers will be directed to your website to make purchases.

When someone visits your Facebook Shop, they’ll be able to message your business through WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram to ask any questions or ask for delivery updates.

Facebook Page Shop vs Facebook Shops: what’s the difference?

The latest shopping feature for Facebook is fairly similar to the old one:

• Facebook Page Shop: The old shopping feature that allowed you to display products for sale on your business’s Facebook page. Customers would have to check out on your own website.
• Facebook Shops: The updated shopping feature that started rolling out in 2020. It allows you to add a storefront to your Facebook Page shop, and eventually, visitors should be able to checkout without leaving Facebook or Instagram.

As you can see, this new updated shopping feature will allow easy in-platform shopping for customers, which should result in an increase in sales.

What are the benefits of setting up a Facebook store?

If Facebook or Instagram are one of the platforms your target customers are using, then you’re probably already using those platforms for your marketing to create awareness and connect with your audience. 

So when someone has discovered your business, it makes sense to make it as easy as possible for them to make a purchase by directing them to your products in your Facebook Shop.

With a Facebook Shop page, it’s possible to:

• Add an unlimited number of products for sale
• Organise your inventory into different collections and categories
• Communicate with visitors and customers through Messenger, WhatsApp, or Instagram message
• Review data on the number of sales and visitors to track your progress
• Add your products to Facebook Marketplace where a wider audience can see them. 

In the section below, we’ll go into more detail about how to create a Facebook Shop.

How to set up a Facebook Shop

What you need to create a Facebook store:

• A Facebook account
• A Facebook business page: You’ll need admin, Manage Page, and Manage catalogue permissions
• Physical products to sell 
• To agree to Facebook’s Merchant Terms
• US only: A link to a valid bank account and a tax identification number

Step 1: Getting started

You can set up a Facebook Shop in Commerce Manager by going to the Create your shop page.

From here, you can start setting up your store directly on Facebook or choose to import and sync products from other platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce.

Image: Facebook

Step 2: Choose your checkout method

On the next page, you can choose how your customers will checkout and pay for purchases from your Facebook Shop:

• Checkout on a different website: you can redirect visitors to your own website to complete the transactions
• Checkout with Facebook or Instagram: shoppers browse products on your Facebook or Instagram page and can complete their purchases without leaving the app
• Checkout with messaging: When shoppers want to buy something they’ll have to send you a message through Messenger or Whatsapp. They won’t be able to checkout on the app or your site.

Image: Facebook

Step 3: Pick your business page

The next page asks you to pick the business and sales channel that you want to sell from. It will display all the business accounts that you manage and you can pick if you want to set up a store for your Facebook or Instagram account, or both.

Step 4: Add products to your Facebook page

You can then select an existing catalogue of products if you’ve already got one set up on Facebook, or you can create a new one. You can only pick one catalogue of products to use with your Facebook Shop, and you can’t switch to a different one at a later point, so it’s important to be careful and confident that you are choosing the right one.

A Facebook catalogue is a collection of all the different product listings and details that you want to promote or sell through Facebook and Instagram. It’s where you can add product information and images that customers will be able to browse.

You should add as much information and detail to your product descriptions as possible, and add multiple high-quality product images — just like you would for your ecommerce website. 

Step 5: Review your store

At this point, you can get a preview of your Facebook Shop and make any changes you might want. 

You then agree to the Seller Performance and Accountability Policies and you can create your store.

Step 6: Customise and publish

Now you’ve created the Facebook Shop page — but it still won’t be visible to the public.

Before you publish your free Facebook store, you can finish customising your storefront and product range, creating smaller collections of products from your catalogue. You can also customise the look of your store with cover image and colours, and choose a featured collection.

Once you’re happy with your store you can publish it. Facebook can take up to 24 hours to review the shop, and then it will be live and visible for customers to start browsing.

Selling on Facebook with Shopify

If you’re already running your ecommerce site using Shopify then you can set up your Facebook Shop in a matter of minutes.

You just need to set up Shopify’s Facebook sales channel from your Shopify account:

• Set up a Facebook Business Manager that’s connected to your business’s Facebook Page and an ad account that the Business Manager has admin permissions for
• Go to your Shopify admin and click on ‘Add sales channels’
• Click ‘Add next to Facebook’ and then click ‘Update sales channel’ and follow instructions.

Once you’re set up, Shopify can take your products and add them to your Facebook Shop page. 

Your products are linked to your Shopify so that any changes you make to listings in Shopify are automatically synchronised with your Facebook Shop. Shopify can also provide tools to sell your products via Facebook Messenger.

Selling on Facebook with BigCommerce

BigCommerce can also connect your products from your ecommerce site to Facebook, and the set-up is very similar to using Shopify. 

You just need to install a Facebook shop add-on to your BigCommerce account and your products can be added to Facebook.

BigCommerce also provides an add-on for controlling Facebook Ads, which can make managing your Facebook channel a lot easier.

What can’t I sell on Facebook Shop pages?

Facebook prohibits the sales of a number of things including alcohol, prescription drugs,  and animals. You also can’t sell digital products or services — you have to be selling a physical product.

Is a Facebook store free?

Currently, Facebook doesn’t charge for setting up a Facebook Shop. As your sales are directed through to your ecommerce website you’ll just have to pay any of the fees associated with your usual sales process. 

However, if you want to promote your shop page or your products using Facebook Ads then you will have to pay. 

Setting up a Facebook store is incredibly straightforward and offers the potential to reach a huge audience of potential customers. 

Consumers will be able to browse your products on Facebook and then come to your website ready to purchase (and once the upgrade has been rolled out, they’ll be able to shop in-platform too). And if you’re already using an ecommerce platform that integrates with Facebook Shops it makes managing the additional sales channel even easier — so there’s really nothing to lose and a lot to gain.