Shopify in “The New Normal”

Among the few silver linings to the economic disruption of 2020 was the massive increase in online shopping.

Many ecommerce sectors boomed as even the most committed brick and mortar shoppers turned to online stores to fulfill their everyday needs. In fact, according to McKinsey, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, 10 years of ecommerce growth happened in just 90 days.

Here’s how this shook out in actual dollars: Consumers spent $861.12 billion online with U.S. businesses in 2020, up an incredible 44% year over year, according to Digital Commerce 360 estimates.

While that type of exponential growth has slowed through 2021 and into 2022, digital penetration is still higher today than before the pandemic: Online shopping continues to account for up to 23% of all retail spending.

What does that mean for ecommerce businesses?

Shopify consumer surveys have identified three consumer trends as a result of this shift online:

• More competitive online landscape.

• Demand for more personalization

• Rise in social commerce

Companies need to clearly articulate their brands, go beyond personalization to create community, and develop omnichannel strategies that include social media.

Many companies are already responding to these trends by launching (or accelerating their expansion) into ecommerce. The multiple options available for opening an online store have made this transition easy, with ecommerce platforms like Shopify hosting a large share of the new storefronts.

Shopify’s own numbers tell the tale:

Ecommerce brands with Shopify stores have begun to lean heavily on social media sites as well:

• Instagram is used by 50.6% of Shopify stores.

• Facebook is used by 41.9% of Shopify stores.

• Twitter is used by 11.4% of Shopify stores.

The Case for Shopify

Shopify by the numbers:

Shopify makes it easy for any category of online business to get started and grow. It can be used to sell virtually anything, including thesee trending products in 2022:

What is it about Shopify that has drawn over 2 million American businesses from industries as diverse as sports, health, food and beverage, and automotive?

In a word, it’s versatility.

Here are some reasons why Shopify is so popular with businesses:

• Ease of use and functionality. Shopify delivers all the features that a business owner might need without having to be a coding whiz.

• Shopify offers all the tools needed for launching a site within minutes. And the Shopify App Store offers countless third-party services and apps to extend functionality as needed.

• Point-of-sale (POS) technology, including hardware, serves direct-to-consumer brands that are seeking to open physical retail stores.

• Shopify comes with high-quality tools like abandoned cart recovery, online invoice generator, and more.

• Shopify is scalable, has built-in potential for dropshipping fulfillment, and offers financing.

For a deep dive into all the benefits Shopify offers merchants as an ecommerce platform, see our full review.

Is Shopify Right for Your Business?

If you’re not certain whether Shopify is right for your ecommerce business, here are a few reasons why you may want to consider it:

• With Shopify, you don’t have to be a search engine guru: Features like built-in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) make your site easily found on all major search engines.

• You don’t need to be a website designer; the plethora of built-in templates and themes let you choose or customize a site design that is exactly what you want.

• If you plan to sell internationally, Shopify allows you to make your store multilingual in up to 50 languages and is ahead of the game in handling personal information in compliance with the EU’s GDPR regulations. On the hot topic of security, all stores powered by Shopify are PCI compliant by default, so payment info and business data stay safe.

• For businesses considering Shopify as a platform, a 14-day free trial lets you kick the tires before making a commitment. The lower-tier plans are very affordable, making them a good choice for small businesses that are just starting out and want to minimize costs.

Learn more about the ecommerce market in some of Shopify’s leading countries.

• 1. United States
• 2. Australia
• 3. Canada
• 4. United Kingdom

 

 

Migrating to Shopify: 11 Easy Steps

So, you’ve decided to migrate your online store to Shopify from another platform.
Whatever your reason, migrating to Shopify is actually quite simple and can be done in 11 easy steps.

Step 1: Configure Your Basic Administrative Settings

Before you start adding products and setting up your payments, there are a few administrative tasks you should do:

Step 2: Import Your Store's Content and Data to Shopify

It can take a while to migrate your data, so start working on a plan as soon as possible.

Evaluate your existing data and decide what needs to migrate. List the types of data that you track in your old platform. In the list, include how much data you have for each amount.

Examples of the types of data that you might want to migrate include: products; customers; historical orders (orders that have been fulfilled); gift cards, certificates, and store credits; discount codes; blogs; pages (shipping policy, contact, and other webpages); and product reviews.

Learn about how to prevent gift card fraud

After you've decided on the data that you want to migrate, you need to decide how you will migrate this data and in what order. Here are a few options you can use to migrate your data:

• Copy and paste content from your old site

• Use existing migration apps from the Shopify App store

• Create (or hire a partner to create) an app that uses the Admin API

• Transfer data manually using CSV files (this option can migrate customers and products only, and does not include customer passwords)

The options you choose depend upon the developer resources you have and the amount of data you need to move. If you need to migrate a lot of content, then you likely need to use an app. But don't overlook copying and pasting as an option, especially when you need to migrate small amounts of content, such as shipping pages and policies.

The following table lists the different types of data and the migration options that are available:

The order in which you import your product, customer and historical order data is important. If you wish to import these types of data, then you need to import them in the following order:

• Products

• Customers

• Historical orders

If you follow this order, you will have access in Shopify to your customers' complete transaction history. The migrated orders will also be linked to their associated products and customers

Find a store migration app

Migration apps reduce the amount of work you have to do to import your product information and store contents from your current online store to Shopify. You can find several free and paid migration and importing apps in the Shopify App Store.

If you want to migrate an online store to Shopify, then you can use one of the third-party migration apps available in the Shopify App Store.

Import your store's data manually using CSV files

If you choose to import your products and customers manually to Shopify, you can use CSV files to import data to your Shopify store.

Learn about the CSV file templates you need to use to import your data:

• Products

• Customers

SHOPIFY PLUS:
Merchants can use the Transporter app and commandline tool to import their content into Shopify.

Step 3: Organize Your Products After Migration

If you used a migration app to import your products to Shopify, it's important to check that all of your product information was imported correctly.

 

Note: If you are selling digital products or services, make sure you are familiar with the differences between digital and physical goods.

 

How to verify your products after migration:

• Check your product details, which include product descriptions, images, variants, and meta descriptions.

• Create a collection to organize your products into categories and make them easier for your customers to find. You can add drop-down menus and create links to collections on your storefront.

• Get familiar with product inventory and transfers to keep track of the products that you have available in your store. You can find inventory apps in the Shopify App Store to help you with this task.

Step 5: Set Up Your Domain

When setting up your Shopify store you can either buy a new domain or you can transfer the domain associated with your existing store to your new Shopify account.

Get a new domain

The easiest way to get a new domain is to buy it from Shopify:

Transfer an existing domain

If you have an existing domain, follow these steps to point your domain to your Shopify store.

Step 6: Set Up Your Shipping

It's very important to set up shipping rates and shipping methods correctly before you launch — you don’t want to have to refund customers for overcharging them. Nor do you want to email customers asking them to pay more because you didn’t charge enough to cover the shipping of their order.

For more information about order shipping and fulfillment, click here.

If you are selling digital products or services, you need to disable the shipping option because your customers won't be receiving any physical goods.

To set up your shipping:

Step 7: Configure Your Taxes

Charging sales tax is an important part of running your business. Depending on your location, there are different rules and regulations about sales tax that apply to your products. To make sure your store meets those rules, take some time to understand Shopify’s tax setup process.

 

If your store ships to Europe, there are regulations that apply when selling digital products.

 

 

Charge taxes based on your shipping destinations

When you set up your shipping, you can apply shipping taxes to your products based on the customer's state, provincial, or regional tax regulations. These are calculated automatically by Shopify.

If you need to adjust taxes manually, based on a region with unique tax restrictions or based on a specific collection of products, then you can do so with a tax override.

Keep track of your taxes

When you configure the tax settings for your products, you should also think about how you are going to keep track of your taxes throughout the year.

If you’re not sure about what system you are going to use to keep track of your taxes, you might want to look at some accounting apps in the Shopify App Store.”

Step 8: Set Up a Payment Provider

Step 9: Place Some Test Orders

Now that you've configured your payment settings, you should try out a few transactions to make sure that everything is working.

Running a test order will help you understand the process your customers go through when they buy your products. You can access all the orders that customers place from the Orders page in your Shopify admin. Tip: Enlist a couple of friends who are not involved with your business to place test orders – they will likely spot customer experience issues that you may have missed.

You can run test orders for a few different types of transactions:

• Completing a successful and a failed transaction

• Refunding and canceling an order

• Fulfilling or partially fulfilling an order

• Archiving a successful order

As you create, refund, and fulfill orders, you will see the emails your customers receive for each action. You can edit the templates for these emails from the Notifications page in your Shopify admin.

Step 10: Invite Customers to Create Accounts on Your New Site

After you have migrated your customer data and you have launched your store, you can invite your customers to create online store accounts.

If you have a lot of customers, you can use an existing app from the Shopify App store to send your invites. If you have the Shopify Plus plan, use the Shopify Bulk Account Inviter app.

Step 11: Set up URL Redirects

Platform-Specific Migration Guides

Platform-specific guides provide step-by-step instructions for migrating your client's store from other popular ecommerce platforms to Shopify.

If you’re using the Shopify Import Store app to migrate your product, order, and customer data, you’ll need to export this information from your current platform first:

WooCommerce

To export data from WooCommerce, from the admin page, click Tools > Export > All content > Download Export File

Squarespace

To export products from Squarespace, from the home menu, click Commerce > Inventory > … > Export as CSV

To export orders from Squarespace, from the home menu, click Commerce > Orders> Export as CSV

Etsy

To export product data from Etsy, from the dashboard, click Settings > Options > Download Data > Currently for Sale Listings > Download CSV.

To export customer and order data from Etsy, from the dashboard, click Settings > Options > Download Data > Orders > [Month/Year] > Download CSV

To export order items data from Etsy, from the dashboard, click Shop Manager > Settings > Options > Download Data > Order Items > [Month/Year] > Download CSV

BigCommerce

To export products from BigCommerce, from the dashboard, click Products > Export > Export Template and File Format Options > Default > Continue > Export my Product to a CSV file

To export product details and variant data from BigCommerce, under Export Template and File Format Options, click Bulk Edit > Continue > Export my Product to a CSV file

To export order data from BigCommerce, from the dashboard, click Orders > Export > Export Template and File Format Options > Default > Continue > Export my Orders to a CSV file

To export customer data from BigCommerce, from the dashboard, click Customers > Export > Export Template and File Format Options > Default > Continue > Export my Customers to a CSV file

Big Cartel

To export order and customer data from Big Cartel, from the dashboard click Orders > Shipped/Unshipped > More Actions > Download CSV

 

Migrating for a Client

As a Shopify Partner, the best way to start migrating a client’s store is by creating a development store in your Partner Dashboard. Then you can choose the migration guide that applies to your client’s current store and follow it to import their data into the development store. When you’re done, you can transfer ownership of the development store to your client.

To learn more about how this process works, see creating development stores and handing off development stores to clients.

Shopify: A Great Customer Experience

No matter where you are in the development of your ecommerce store, Shopify offers powerful yet easy to use capabilities that, in accordance with the company’s mission, “help people achieve independence by making it easier to start, run, and grow a business.”

In addition to making it easier to run an ecommerce business, Shopify offers features that improve the customer experience, making new and long-term customers more likely to browse, buy, and recommend your ecommerce store to their friends and networks.

Want to learn more about what ecommerce customers want and how you can make sure your online store delights them? Don't miss our 2021 Global Ecommerce Consumer Behaviour Analysis.