You've got hundreds of metrics to judge your store by--average order value, monthly revenue, growth, churn, customer lifetime value, daily visits and more. But which one is the most important of these? Only one metric truly indicates whether your store is growing, shrinking or stuck on a plateau. It's the one metric that, when increased, will have direct, long-term and substantial impact on your store's longevity and profitability. That North Star metric: Customer Lifetime Value … [Read more...]
What to Do When You Have High CTR But Low Conversions
You build an ecommerce store, you optimize it for sales, you run paid ads on sites like Google and Facebook, and you get decent traffic and clicks… but your sales are still low. So what’s wrong? Having a fair amount of traffic and even a high click-through rate (CTR) but still having low conversions or moderate-to-low sales is an issue that many eCommerce store owners experience. It can be frustrating when you’re doing everything right and following the “rules” of running an online … [Read more...]
How to Run a Successful PPC Campaign With a Small Budget
The majority of consumers (86%) will use a search engine to find products online. That’s why having paid marketing, known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads, on search engines can be a boon for sales. But the downside of running PPC ads is that they can get expensive, and the more traffic you receive from your ads, the more money you will ultimately spend. Does this mean you can’t run a successful PPC campaign with a small budget? Not necessarily. With the right keyword research and … [Read more...]
An eCommerce Storeowner’s Guide to Prototyping New Products
It’s not easy turning an idea into a tangible, profitable product. Not every eCommerce store owner creates their own products. Some resell from other vendors or dropship items that are produced by other manufacturers. But for some, there’s no separating the store from the unique product. So what happens when it’s time to create a new product to sell? You have to prototype. Prototyping new products can be an intimidating process, even if you’ve successfully done it before. And if … [Read more...]
3 Things You Need to Improve Your Customer Retention Rates
Customer loyalty is necessary for growth, but it’s not always easy to earn. Even a 5% increase in customer retention rates can increase profitability by 75%. Yet studies show that the majority of consumers believe that brands must first demonstrate they truly care about their customers before those rates can rise significantly. When brands are willing to go the extra mile for customers, those customers respond. But what does it mean to “go the extra mile,” exactly? Here are a few … [Read more...]
How to Fix a Leaky Sales Funnel in your Store
Every sales funnel leaks. Ecommerce funnels are no exception. After all, that’s why we call it a funnel. Fewer prospects move to each successive stage. Your customers only represent a small fraction of your store’s visitors. If your sales funnel didn’t leak at all, you would convert 100% of your traffic into buyers. Obviously that’s not reasonable, so you have to expect some leakage. But some funnels leak more than others, and most funnels can be improved. Like most ecommerce stores, … [Read more...]
30+ Essential Shopify Apps to Increase Sales in 2018
What are the best Shopify apps to increase sales? Shopify has plenty of apps to help you gain customers and improve sales and conversions. But which ones are the best Shopify apps to increase sales? Choosing the right one can be daunting. Sorting through thousands of apps to find what you’re looking for isn’t exactly a fun afternoon for many Shopify store owners. That’s why we’ve put together a list of some of the best apps that will help you market your product, manage your inventory, … [Read more...]
5 eCommerce Conferences You Can Turn into Vacations
Conferences Don't Have to Be All Business... Imagine combining your networking time, learning new tips and tricks for your store all while visiting an amazing place you can extend into a vacation. That's what you can do with these different conferences all slated for 2018 across the world-- we present 5 coming up (plus 9 bonus ones you can download for free!). 1) Digiday Retail Summit AUSTIN February 21-23, 2018 Best For: E-commerce retailers, sales managers, digital marketers, and … [Read more...]
The Ultimate Checklist to Launching a New eCommerce Site
Launching Your Store: Our Must-Do eCommerce Store Checklist Congratulations! You’ve put in countless hours evaluating and testing your products and you’re finally ready to launch an eCommerce store. Now what? The next steps in the process of launching a store may seem daunting if this is your first time building an online business. But rest assured that it is possible to get started on the right foot. While this is by no means a comprehensive list of all the details that go into … [Read more...]
Why You Can’t Rely on Influencer Marketing Alone
Forbes recently declared influencer marketing as the future of sales, and one survey found that 84% of marketers plan on executing at least one influencer marketing campaign during the next 12 months. Just how much impact do influencers really have on eCommerce store sales? There are still plenty of caveats to using influencers as “brand ambassadors,” however. Just because an influencer has selling power for their audience doesn’t mean it will translate to yours, for example. You also … [Read more...]