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DIY Efficient Ecommerce Order Fulfillment

Not every ecommerce store is big enough to require the services of a fulfillment center like ShipWire, or…

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Not every ecommerce store is big enough to require the services of a fulfillment center like ShipWire, or Amazon Fulfillment. Many Shopify merchants handle the packaging and shipping of orders themselves. DIY order fulfillment means you have substantially more control over the process, and you should constantly work to optimize your workflow. 

Here are six tips you can implement to help make your fulfillment as efficient as possible.

1. Set Up a Routine

Get into the habit of fulfilling orders on a regular schedule. If you fulfill orders everyday, make sure to do it at the same time each day. This helps take away the drudgery that many people feel when fulfilling orders. When you do it the same time each day it becomes a task like brushing your teeth, after a while it just's second nature. This becomes particularly useful when you need to get other things done during the day. Block off a set time when you handle fulfillment and make sure to get it done during this time. Like any other task, having a set timeframe to finish your packaging will make you work more quickly in order to finish on time. 

Another advantage of fulfilling orders based on a set routine is that you will feel generally more confident that your orders were shipped correctly. When you are rushing to ship out a bunch of orders you've been putting off for a week or two, it's easy to overlook something. When you fulfill and ship your orders on a regular cycle, you can feel confident that everything has gone smoothly and no one was forgotten.

Fulfilling orders is a skill just like any other. People rarely become great at something by putting bursts of effort in every couple of weeks. We learn to be better by consistently performing the task at hand. Keep to the routine and it will certainly pay off. In no time, you will be fulfilling orders like a pro.

2. Don't Let Special Requests Bottleneck Your Flow

If you are packaging a large number of orders, you'll surely get into a good flow. This is when your efficiency is at it's peak and you should do whatever you can to avoid disturbing it. Don't let special requests or weird orders bottleneck your fulfillment flow. If you have to leave your fulfillment zone, spend an excessive amount of time, or any other activity that will put a kink in your packaging rhythm, skip the order and return to it once all of the regular ones are finished. When you have to switch mind sets to complete little tasks required by outliers you greatly decrease your efficiency. 

3. Define Your Workspace

It's hard to be as productive as a fulfillment center since you don't have a warehouse dedicated to the task at hand. You can help level the playing field by creating a designated space for you fulfillment tasks. It's terribly difficult to package orders if you have to move things from one side of you couch to the other. This doesn't mean you need to own a dedicated office just for fulfillment. What you need to do, though, is clear off enough space to comfortably do your packaging before you start. Eliminating the obstacles that force you to fall out of your packing rhythm will instantly increase your efficiency.

4. Study Your Fulfillment Process

Every step in the fulfillment process is an opportunity to make it even more efficient. This is the secret to insanely efficient organizations. They actively spend time identifying weak points and make noticeable improvements whenever possible. The more you are conscious of the steps required to complete your oder fulfillment, the greater the chance of improving it are. Make it your goal to refine something each week and you will see the improvements in your order fulfillment in no time. 

5. Grab a Friend

If at all possible, you should find someone to help you with your fulfillment duties. Nothing makes a not-so-appealing task seem even less glamourous than being the only one who has to complete it. Having more than one person fulfill orders also reduces the likelihood of taking excessive breaks and loosing focus. When there are multiple people working on packing orders, no one wants to be the person slowing down the process. 

6. Try Using a Shopify App

If you're a Shopify merchant, there are plenty of apps available to make DIY order fulfillment easy. For example, PixelPrinter is a free lightweight option that generates and prints invoices and packing slips and other documentation needed for shipping.

Inbound Marketing for Ecommerce

While some forms of marketing march up and place their room key on the bar, inbound marketing takes…

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While some forms of marketing march up and place their room key on the bar, inbound marketing takes the subtle approach. It takes you out for a nice dinner, strikes up a thought provoking conversation, and kisses you goodnight on the cheek. The result? A long-term, valuable relationship that will eventually lead to... sales.

In this article I'm going to define inbound and outbound marketing. I'll give you the reasons that outbound marketing is on the decline, and I'll also give you 6 reasons you should consider using inbound marketing techniques for your ecommerce store.

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Simply put, inbound marketing is marketing that's focused on getting found by customers. It's the antithesis of the annoying telemarketer that calls you at precisely the worst possible moment. Inbound marketing doesn't aggressively steal your attention, it earns it by providing you with interesting and useful information. Inbound marketing waits for you to discover it, then it offers something valuable in exchange for a few moments of your time. Here are some examples of inbound marketing: 

  • Blogs
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • YouTube Videos
  • Webinars / Podcasts
  • White Papers
  • Infographics

What is Outbound Marketing?

Most people consider outbound marketing to be the more traditional and less technologically savvy way to acquire customers. It's where companies focus their marketing endeavors on actively finding customers. At times, it can be difficult to target properly, and oftentimes it's expensive. Here are some examples of outbound marketing:

  • Print Ads
  • Television / Radio Commercials
  • Telemarketing
  • E-mail Blasts
  • Trade Shows

The Problem With Outbound Marketing

Over the past few years there has been a steady decline in effectiveness of outbound marketing, especially when it comes to online companies. There has been a fundamental shift in consumer tolerance for "interruptive" advertising, and some consumers are starting to revolt. For example, according to a study by HubSpot, 84% of 25-34 year olds have left a favorite website because of intrusive or irrelevant advertising. Here are some more reasons outbound marketing is becoming decreasingly relevant:


Inbound Marketing for Ecommerce

Inbound marketing is an effective way to attract potential customers to your online store and massage them until they turn into customers. For an ecommerce store to effectively use inbound marketing it starts with good content that's optimized for search and tempting for people to share.

By investing resources into inbound marketing, ecommerce merchants will see the following 6 benefits:

1. Become a Thought Leader

By creating and publishing thought provoking content on a regular basis, you'll quickly get your name out there as a thought leader. Shopify store Wingset has a blog that compliments their online store perfectly. They sell organic health products, and their blog is an emporium of articles dedicated to helpful information about nutrition and wellness. Thousands of people go their ecommerce store for content: DIY projects, recipes, warnings, and even some myth busters. They have become an authority in the wellness industry and people go to them for information, help, and advice. Sales always follow. 

2. Save Some Money

Have you seen the prices of print ads? Or even a display booth at a major trade show? For the most part, outbound marketing is expensive! How much does good content backed by a strong social presence cost? Start small and it won't cost much at all. Give yourself a reasonable goal like publishing one valuable blog post per week. Spend a few hours writing something that people in your industry will find interesting, then spend a few hours promoting it through your social networks. Although inbound marketing takes more effort than simply buying a newspaper ad, its costs run an impressive 61% less per lead than traditional marketing.

3. Target Self-Qualified Customers    

Do you think buying a giant roadside billboard for a month would be an effective way to promote your online store? I'll give you a hint and save you some money - it's not. The net ia too big and the vast majority of people looking at the advertisement aren't qualified. Same goes for cold-calling, buying email lists, and other forms of outbound marketing... they're all poorly targeted. With inbound marketing, you only approach people who self-qualify themselves. They show an interest in your content, so it's quite likely that they will be interested in the product you're selling.  

4. Increase Organic Search

It's no secret that Google loves fresh content. When you publish search optimized content on a regular basis that gets a bit of social media attention, your ranking will increase. Good search engine rankings are essential for a successful ecommerce store. You want to get your store on page one for as many of your terms as possible, because studies show that the second page of a Google search only receives 0.85% of the traffic. Furthermore, 61% of consumers use search engines to read about products before making a purchase. 

5. Boost Social Presence

It's been proven that prospective customers who are linked to your social media platforms show increased loyalty. Studies show that 41% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through Facebook, 42% through Twitter, and 57% through their company blog.  When you're promoting good content through your social networks, you'll naturally gain a larger social following. When it comes to your social presence, make sure all your guns are firing: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, and all the others. 

6. Recover Abandoned Shopping Carts

Prospects sometimes abandon their shopping cart before a sale is closed. It can be for any number of reasons: high shipping prices, a long checkout process, or they simply get distracted by something else. With traditional marketing, you focus your efforts on acquiring people who have never been to your ecommerce store, or people who have already made a purchase - but that's leaving out a whole demographic of those who have almost made a purchase. With inbound marketing you can cultivate their interest over time by having an active blog, engaging social media sites, or by providing them with free resources via email marketing. You can also use a cart abandonment tool to identify those who have jumped ship and re-engage them. Shopify merchants can choose from Abandon App, Elasso, or Jilt to recover lost sales.

6 Ingredients for a Good Ecommerce Blog

There are a few key ingredients to improve your blog and make it something worth sharing. Although it…

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There are a few key ingredients to improve your blog and make it something worth sharing. Although it may be increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd, it's still very important to have an awesome blog that compliments your online store. 

Here are 6 ingredients that make up a good ecommerce blog with Shopify stores as examples:

1. Offer Good & Relevant Content

Good and relevant content keeps people coming back. Provide highly engaging and relevant content. Shopify store Wingsets has a blog that compliments their online store perfectly! They sell organic health products, and their blog is an emporium of articles dedicted to helpful information about nutrition and wellness. They have fun DIY projects, recipes, warnings, and even some myth busters. 

2. Make it Pretty (or Handsome)

Don't kid yourself - your blog needs to be visually appealing. Shopify store Taylor Stitch has a gorgeous blog called Sailor Twitch: The Adventures & Discoveries of Taylor Stitch. The content is great and the design is spot on. They even designed a special logo just for their blog. Very handome.

3. Show Your Product in Action

This is your chance to show your product off. You can do this using images or video, and feel free to encourage your customers to send you pictures of them using/wearing your product. Shopify store The Wallee has a popular blog where they upload pictures submitted by their customers. Below you'll see they've published a picture from a local espresso bar that's using The Wallee iPad mount in their restaurant office.
 

4. Keep it Short and Snappy

Keeping your content short and snappy is a good way to ensure people read your posts. In this day and age where  millions of bloggers are competing for everyone’s attention, you can rarely get away with huge paragraphs that just ramble on. Shopify store Good As Gold is great at posting lots of quick and fun posts. Notice the post below is quick, it's got awesome visuals and even a special deal with a link to their store. 

5. Go Behind the Scenes

Here's a great opportunity to give people a glimpse behind the scenes of your shop, and if you're comfortable with it, your life. Shopify store HAVEN has two separate blogs, one for their shop, and one for their staff. This encourages customers to build personal relationships with the staff (and company), which makes repeat visits (and purchases) far more likely.


6. Social Media

It's incredible to consider that just five years ago virtually no one had even heard of Twitter or Facebook. The influence of social media extends to almost every aspect of our lives now, so it's vital that you let people share your articles. Include share buttons  to Twitter, Facebook, and LinedIn at the minimum.  Check out the social media buttons we use here on the Shopify blog. I don't really need to put a screen shot, but hey... why not?

How to Design an Online Store Logo

At Shopify, we find that online stores that have gone the extra mile on branding and awesome online…

At Shopify, we find that online stores that have gone the extra mile on branding and awesome online store logos bring in a significant amount more in revenue compared to those that haven’t. 

The fundamentals to creating and running a successful online business are taken care of by Shopify, offering up a fast and reliable service worldwide, with quality themes to make the shopping experience really enjoyable. What Shopify can’t do, is give your shop a personality, deliver a message, or make your brand really stick out from the competition. That's where branding and a great online store logo come into play.

The importance of online store logo design

There’s no better way to give your site an immediate personality than with an awesome logo. For the average shopper a brand is just a product identifier — it isn’t just another iPad case, it’s a DODOcase. The logo is a pivotal piece to this branding, and shouldn’t be overlooked. Fret over the details with it, make sure it appeals to your target market and conveys your primary message. Logos are best kept simple; great typography or a pictogram is often more than enough.

How to Create an Online Store Logo

Of course, everyone isn’t a designer, and even some designers have difficulty with branding. So how are online businesses going to get a timeless, quality logo? Here are 3 resources to help you design a logo for your ecommerce store:

1. Hire a Designer

The best quality will always come from a one-on-one contract with an experienced designer. We’re not talking about your uncle’s twice removed step-father who has a ‘good eye for this kind of thing,’ we’re talking about a real designer with an actual branding portfolio. You can find plenty of great designers in Shopify Experts.

2. Crowd-Sourcing

Although somewhat frowned upon by many designers, crowd-design sites like 99Designs, and LogoTournament are a resource that can't be ignored. The concept is simple, all you have to do is describe your target audience, style preference, slogan or mission statement, and provide a budget. Several designers will create their vision of the logo, and you pick the winner. Many designers get their start working in the crowd-design scene to get lots of relevant work experience at a relatively fast pace (LogoTournament helped my logo skills immensely when I first started), so this is a solid choice for those with a smaller budget.

3. DIY Online Store Logo

Plenty of Shopify folks are natural DIY’ers, and if you follow some simple guidelines and put the time in to learn something new, there is no question that you can make a decent logo for free. Most logos are made in vector, so you’ll need some software to work in this format. In perfect DIY form, you’ll want to pick up InkScape, which is an open-source project and quite feature-rich for a program that is entirely free. The key to creating a great logo is choosing a great typeface, so head over to sites like Lost Type Co-Op or The League of Moveable Type for some amazing, hand-selected fonts that are pay-what-you-like. The rest relies on your creative juices, so get them flowing.

Here are a few examples of effective logos from Shopify stores:

LuhseTea

Luhse Tea's online store logo design

LuhseTea’s logo is only the very beginning of the amazing things they are doing to create a strong brand, but this simple circle logo starts them off on the right foot. An art deco font, a grainy texture to give some tactility, and a simple tea cup silhouette. It screams artsy, classy, and most importantly conveys that they sell tea. It pairs perfectly with their “Tea Bag Prohibition” slogan, resembling a glowing moon in the night sky.

Twelve Saturdays

Twelve Saturday's online store logo design

Twelve Saturdays’ logo is as exemplary as they come. This clothing brand is attempting to fuse college football with great fashion for women — and this logo nails it. It’s a playful choice of type with sporty influences like a swooshed ‘y’ similar to those found on baseball jerseys, and a football shape for the twelve.

CXXVI

CXXVI's online store logo design

The CXXVI site creates a tactile feel like no other. This hand-drawn logo by Brooklyn artist Jon Contino, known for his 1930’s chalkboard style typography, gives the brand that perfect hand-made feel. The anvil isn’t as literal as the previous two examples, but it works well with the tailored goods ideology.

The Ultimate Pinterest Guide for Your Online Store

You've probably heard of Pinterest by now. It's a new social networking site that literally everybody is talking about.…


You've probably heard of Pinterest by now. It's a new social networking site that literally everybody is talking about. Pinterest's growth is staggering - the site already has over 1 million members, and it receives almost 12 million unique visitors a month. The whirlwind of excitement that surrounds Pinterest provides online store owners a great opportunity to leverage it's popularity (and overall awesomeness) to bring attention to their online store.

Whether you're already setup on Pinterest or you're a complete newbie, this is a guide that will teach you the basics, and also help the more experienced pinners get the most from this popular social media platform. 

The Basics

What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a pinboard style social photo sharing website that allows people to share and discover beautiful images, videos, products, and discussions. For an ecommerce store owner, it can help your best products get discovered by other users. 

How to Get a Pinterest Invite
Pinterest is still "by invite only" so you'll have to request an invite to start using the site. This sounds more annoying than it is - most people receive an invitation within a day or so.

How to Get Pinterest Mobile
You can download Pinterest Mobile from the Apple App Store or you can get it from Pinterest's website. The mobile App will allow you to browse pins, repin, like, and comment all from your phone or tablet device.

The Buttons

How to Get a Pinterest "Pin It" Button for your Browser
The "Pin It" button is a button that you install on your web browser's bookmarks bar. Once installed in your browser, the "Pin It" button lets you grab an image from any website and add it to one of your pinboards. Pinterest automatically grabs the source link so the creator of the image gets credit. This is the easiest way to start pinning items and images. To get started, you can add the Pinterest “Pin It” Button from the Pinterest Goodies page to your browser's bookmarks bar. 

How to Get a Pinterest "Follow Button" on your Website
The Pinterest "Follow Button" is similar to the Twitter "Follow" and Facebook "Like" button - it allows other Pinterest users to follow your account. To get the button, just go to the Pinterest Goodies page and select the button you want to embed. Currently that have 4 to choose from. Simply click on your favorite button and it will generate the HTML code that you can cut and paste onto your site. Below is a Pinterest "Follow Button" that links to Shopify's Pinterest account:

Follow Me on Pinterest

The Product Specific "Pin It" Button
This is the most important button for online stores! These pins will allow customers to pin a specific shirt, hat, gadget, or anything that you're selling to their pinboard. To get these buttons on your online store, you have two options:

  1. Shopify store owners can simply add a free app called ShopConnection, and it'll get you setup with Pinterest, Tumblr, and Fancy buttons for your products. If you just want Pinterest that's no problem. This app is absolutely free and is the easiest way to get your store setup with Pinterest buttons. 

  2. If you want the DIY version, here's a step-by-step article on how to get a Pinterest button on your Shopify product pages. 

Pinterest Gift Tab

Pinterest has a special drop-down menu that allows users to browse a random collection of "gifts" between certain price points. There are currently six different price ranges: $1-20, $20-50, $50-100, $100-200, $200-500, +$500. 

When a Pinterest user clicks on one of the prices it takes them to a screen with various products selling in that price range. To have your products show up on these curated gift pages, you need to make sure you have a price in the description of your post. Pinterest will automatically apply a ribbon that displays the price onto your image. That product will now show up in Pinterest's gift search. Every ecommerce store owner should make full use of this functionality! 

Six Strategies to Leverage Pinterest

1. Don't Just Pin Your Own Products
Pin products and images you find interesting and any cool stuff your customers might like. This will boost your reputation as a tastemaker and not merely someone who spams their followers with their own products. Shopify store HOLSTEE has a great Pinterest account - they currently have 8 different boards, and many of them don't link to anything they sell. Check out their "Appreciate Every Last Bite" pinboard - none of these pins link to a product in their store:


2. Don't Pin Every Item You Sell
You may think you're missing out on a great opportunity to list every product you sell, but you're not. It's better to tease your followers and other Pinterest users by giving them a glimpse of your best few items, and encourage them to visit your store to check out the others.

3. When you Do Link to Products - Do it Tastefully
It's okay to link to products you're selling, but you have to do it right. HOLSTEE's famous "Holstee Manifesto" is in their "Words of Wisdom" pinboard along with other non-commercial interesting material. Check it out below, you'll see their Manifesto at the bottom left:


4. Think Visually with Product Photography
Pinterest is all about gorgeous design so it has a huge emphasis on aesthetics. It's really important that you have beautiful product photography that displays the items you're selling beautifully. If your product photography sucks - nobody is going to click on it. 

5. Create a Re-Pin Board
A re-pin is when you pin someone else's pin on one of your boards. This is an awesome way to make Pinterest friends and engage others. You'll boost your Pinterest follow count and you'll also have a pinboard of great curated content. Shopify store Hopps Limited sells fashionable athletic apparel and accessories. They have a re-pin board on Pinterest that has nothing to do with their own products - but it brings attention to a whole bunch of awesome stuff their customers will undoubtedly enjoy:


6. How to Get Pinterest Followers
Chances are you already have a pretty good following on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ (Maybe). Stream some of your followers to your new Pinterest account by frequently posting Pinterest content to those streams. Remember to keep the focus of your posts on things that are visual appealing. 

Check out Shopify on Pinterest. 

20 Practical Tips to Help Small Businesses Punch Above Their Weight

Life can be pretty intimidating for small ecommerce stores. There's a lot of tough competition out there. Sites…

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

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

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

Authority

Basically, this is off-page SEO: links, brand mentions, social mentions... you name it, Amazon has it covered. They have been mentioned by massive sites that don’t even know you exist and they have millions upon millions of links, some are good some are bad. Basically, you’re not going to out rank Amazon just by brute force.

Reach

The other thing about sites like Amazon is that they sell everything. So some people will just go to Amazon.com without even searching for alternatives. As a result, Amazon can sell items without ever having to market them.

Price

If you don’t have a huge amount of buying power, it is going to be hard to compete on price. You probably wouldn’t want to anyway. Massive sites like these can cut their costs and keep margins slim, so if you want to compete solely on price, you probably won’t make a lot of money.

Short-Head Traffic

As a result of all that authority and brand awareness, Amazon has the juice to be able to rank for big, high-volume terms. Their category pages will often rank without them having to do a lot of SEO. For this reason, niche ecommerce sites often focus on long-tail traffic, where there is less traffic, but less competition.

Ok, so what can you do to compete with all of that? Plenty and it's not that difficult. 

Content Marketing

Content marketing is batted around a lot at the moment, and it is certainly a powerful tool. And it doesn’t just apply to bloggers you know. Ecommerce sites can harness content marketing in some really powerful ways. But let’s start with the basics:

1. Blog Well & Blog Often

Basically, every ecommerce site, if nothing else, should have a blog. Blogging isn’t necessarily a way to generate traffic directly (although it certainly can do that) but it is a great way to build authority and credibility.

You shouldn’t just blog with the intention of churning out endless streams of low quality SEO content, you should blog with your readers in mind. This is the first step to adding value and setting yourself apart from Amazon – show your customers that you own your niche and you will gain their trust.

2. Link Out

There is a big myth in the world of SEO (perhaps more of an assumption) that linking to other sites is bad for SEO. The truth is that linking out to relevant sites isn’t going to cause you to lose rankings and it may actually help to improve them.

Don’t be afraid to link to other helpful sites. Remember the tip above – you are blogging for your readers. If it is helpful to do so, give them a link to a good resource. This alone will set you apart from most ecommerce sites and will show your customers that you care about helping them.

3. Make an Infographic

Your blog doesn’t have to be all words – images and visual items are helpful too - they make reading easier and more fun. So while you're blogging include some infographics and break up your content with visuals.

The best strategy depends on what you are selling but as an example you could include images or diagrams of your products being used. Show how they work and what they do. Don’t fill your blog with cheesy PR photos, fill it with inspiring and interesting imagery that your readers will enjoy viewing.

4. Interview Someone

Another great idea is publishing interviews. You probably already know some people in your industry but make the effort to network more and reach out to thought leaders. You don’t necessarily want to start at the top but try reaching out to people you like and ask whether they would mind answering some questions.

Most medium to high level bloggers/personalities will be flattered by the offer and getting your first interview may not be as hard as you expect. The interviewee may even link to your site once you post the interview!

Category Pages

Most ecommerce sites basically have category pages and product pages, both of which follow a fairly tired format, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

5. Create Awesome Category Pages

Why not make your category pages more interactive and fill them with content rather than just thumbnails and ‘more info’ buttons?

Example 1: Say we run a small store selling tools. One category might contain wrenches. Here is Amazon’s category page for such items, pretty dull right?

But instead, we could build a bespoke category page and make it fun for a user to browse. Maybe we could make the page look like a workshop setting, different tools would be in their relevant locations and by browsing around you might highlight a certain tool set & get a hover over message saying something like “Impact Wrenches: Ideal for car maintenance and machinery repair.” Shopify store DODOcase does an amazing job at this - everything looks and works great.

With a bit of imagination you could make your category pages more enjoyable to use and perhaps more helpful for anyone who is not really sure what tools they need.

6. Offer Free Help

To take our category page a bit further, we could also add some additional help. Not everything on your page has to be focused on selling you know. Why not also link to some relevant blog posts about how to select the right wrench for the job, how to maintain your wrenches or how to undo ceased bolts with minimal damage?

Adding information in place of upsell will build trust, add some vital content to your pages and add value for the customer. You can just use snippets from the posts themselves, but ideally you should use a customised, relevant explanation of each post so that you are also adding unique content to the page.

Products Pages

There is a lot you can do with a product page to make it a little more interesting. This is one of your biggest advantages as a smaller retailer, you can put in the time that Amazon can’t.

For this example let’s pick on this really expensive torque wrench: 

This is a valuable item so it’s certainly going to be worth some extra effort to sell it. How could we do a better job than Amazon?

7. Use High Quality & Unique Descriptions

The first thing I noticed about Amazon’s product page is that the description at the top of the page consists of three bullet points. But there is so much more that you could say about this tool – what it does, what it’s useful for, why it's a better option than a $20 wrench?

This post by Neil Patel explains how long content tends to rank better than shorter content. The biggest mistake you can make is using generic manufacturer descriptions rather than taking the time to craft thorough and informative descriptions. If the product warrants it, don’t be afraid to write 1,000 words or more about a product.

8. Use Rich Snippets

Another key aspect of product pages is including all of the relevant product data. This is particularly helpful if you want to target long-tail phrases, since people will often search for specific products, and when they do they are very likely to be ready to buy.

Including rich snippets (checkout schema.org for an introduction) allows you to include this data in a structured way that search engines can understand. In particular you can include things like price, model number, main photo, brand, description etc...

The best thing about structured data is that when used correctly your data may be shown in search results (even images can be shown). Needless to say, this can have a big impact on click through rates which boosts your traffic and leads to better rankings.

9. Allow User Generated Content

User generated content is something Amazon does very well. Many of their products have hundreds of reviews – this particular wrench has some great reviews and they're all pretty long. So it’s going to be hard to compete with them just by using user content, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t add some UGC to your content mix.

As a smaller retailer one of your biggest assets is your customer base, so why not try sending out an email to new customers asking them to make a review? If you offer an incentive (such as a discount on their next order) you should get a pretty good response rate and lots of new reviews. This strategy can improve your repeat custom rate too, so it’s win-win! Yotpo is a popular Shopify app that allows merchants to easily offer product reviews on their ecommerce store. 

10. Make Product Videos

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, you already know that product videos are a big deal. People like videos, they are easier than reading and you can use them to really show how a product looks and feels.

With our wrench example above, you could include a video showing how it adjusts, what settings it has, how to use it and maybe show it actually being used to tighten a bolt. With a bit of imagination, most products can be shown-off in a well shot video.

11. Connect Products To Blog Posts

Remember that your blog isn’t there to sell, it is there to add value. But there is a great way to do both at once. You could write a blog post showing how to complete a DIY task of some sort, maybe include a video too.

In that video you would use the tools that you sell and when mentioning each tool you could link back to the relevant product page. If you tag up your blog posts accordingly, you could also include a section on your product pages labelled “job tutorials using this tool.” This is a great way to add even more content to your product pages and really draw in the reader.

Link Building

For any new ecommerce website you need links. Links get you traffic and help with your SEO. Fortunately if you implement some of the strategies outlined above you will be creating content that actually deserves to rank.

There is no reason why an ecommerce shop can’t attract links naturally, but they won’t do so unless you work hard at creating link-worthy content. That said, there are also things you can do to get the ball rolling by building links manually.

12. Link To Products

In the wild, product pages don’t get linked to a whole lot, because let’s face it, why would anyone link to a product page? People like to link to resources and interesting things, and Google knows this.

Fortunately, your product pages are going to be awesome, which will make life a lot easier when trying to build links. But don’t overdo it, build links to your blog posts too, this will give your site more authority, and also make your life easier and give you a more believable link profile.

13. Get Product Reviews

The model is simple, send your products to a thought leader in your industry, they get a free thing in return for a review. If your products are actually up to the job, this can be a great way to build your brand and get traffic.

Just to warn you though – Google does see this practice as link buying. Unless you want to risk penalties, ask reviewers to no-follow your links. Don’t worry, the real value is in the traffic you generate anyway.

14. Write Guest Posts

Guest posting is a very popular way to build links and if you do it right it can be very effective. This is a big topic and one that I have covered in the past on the ThinkTraffic blog, so click here to find out how to manage your guest posting.

The main take-away though is that you should target sites that you think you will get traffic from. More to the point, you want to post on sites which are read by your potential customers. So consider location and niche and get your message infront of the right people.

15. Never Forget Social Media

Social media is one of your biggest assets. Everything so far in this post has been focused on building content that deserves to get links and deserves to rank. Basically, you want to grab the attention of your users and get them engaged.

Social media is all about building a community and if you put in the time you will soon have a group of customers who will champion your brand, will give you repeat custom and will tell their friends about you.

Your Products

There are other ways to compete with Amazon and the big guys. If you use the ideas above, you'll certainly have an ecommerce store that deserves to rank and will attract attention. But things like product selection matter too.

16. Be More Niche

Amazon clearly aren’t niche at all so a good way to compete is to be niche. This is partly achieved through product selection and partly by publishing lots of authoritative content. Keep in mind, with everything you do, that you are the website for buying tools (or whatever you sell) and put yourself across as the experts.

17. Add Unique Products

Why not offer something that Amazon could never compete with? Ok, so you may sell the same products as them, but why not write an ebook (or better still, an actual book). Your book could be about how to use tools more effectively, maintenance tips, how to set-up a workshop etc...

Offer your book for free with each purchase, the cost to you will be negligible, but it will add a huge amount of value for certain customers.

18. Be Up To Date

Another way to enhance that ‘expert’ image is to make sure that your shop is always cutting edge. In our example that might mean having the latest tools available and also reporting the latest news in the world of tools.

Basically, you can react faster than sites like Amazon, you can make decisions in a few minutes without having to have a committee meeting. Use that to your advantage!

19. Value Service Over Price

One complaint people often have with these sorts of ideas is that Amazon will always win because they are cheaper. This is a big myth!

Ok, some customers will always buy on price alone, and if you operate in a particularly price sensitive niche then this could be an issue. But people don’t buy on price alone and it is important to differentiate yourself as such.

Conversion Rate Optimization

20. Test Your Assumptions

The one thing that every ecommerce business owner should be doing relentlessly is testing their assumptions. You never know what will work and what won’t and there is no scientific formula to figure it out.

You should start by split testing different layouts for product pages and tracking key performance indicators to see which layouts work best.

You can also test different positions for things like product descriptions and images. Also, test call to action buttons for position and wording. If you’re not familiar with conversion rate optimization, here is a quick outline of what it entails.

A site the size of Amazon has to undergo major work if they want to change their layout, but you can test and constantly tweak your site to produce better conversion rates.

By: Mark Johnson, owner of ThinkTraffic.co.uk and expert in SEO and optimization.

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