Paul Waddy is an experienced ecommerce advisor with over 15 years of experience. Paul is the founder of Paul Waddy Advisory and www.learnecommerce.com.au, and the co-founder of Ecom Nation. Paul’s expertise is in helping online retailers scale profitably.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Where to Go from Here 4

Part 1: Getting Started With Shopify 5

Chapter 1: Introducing the Ecommerce Essentials 7

Explaining Ecommerce 8

Introducing Shopify 9

Planning for Ecommerce Success 10

Getting Creative: Setting Up Your Shopify Store 11

Making Friends with Your Customers 12

Taking Care of Business: Managing Stock Levels and Delivering Orders 12

Growing Your Business through Marketing 13

Going Live! 14

Chapter 2: Finding Your Way Around Shopify 15

Choosing a Shopify Plan 15

Basic Shopify 16

Shopify 16

Advanced Shopify 17

Shopify Plus 17

Shopify’s Support Services 19

Deciding on Your Domain Name 21

Where Am I? Signing Up with Shopify 22

Navigating the Shopify Admin Panel 25

Home 26

Orders 27

Products 27

Customers 27

Analytics 27

Marketing 30

Discounts 30

Apps 30

Sales channels 30

Settings 32

Using Shopify to Sell In-store and Digital Products 32

Shopify POS 32

Using Shopify to sell digital products 33

Chapter 3:  Sourcing Products and Identifying Sales Channels 35

Sourcing the Right Products to Sell 36

Locating products to sell 36

Supply and demand: Tools to check for trending products 37

Checking trending products in Shopify 40

Introducing Online Sales Channels 41

D2C: Direct to consumer sales 41

B2C: Business to Consumer sales 42

B2B: Business to Business sales 43

All about Dropshipping 44

Comparing the different kinds of dropshipping 45

Considering the pros and cons of dropshipping 47

Dropshipping on Shopify 47

Selling on Online Marketplaces 48

Part 2: Preparing Your Store For Launch 53

Chapter 4: Designing Your Shopify Store 55

Coding, Web Developers and Shopify 56

Finding Your Way: Website Architecture 57

Team with the Theme: Exploring Shopify Themes 59

Choosing a theme 60

Eureka! You’ve found your theme 60

Publishing your theme 61

Customizing your theme 62

Designing Your Shop Window: The Homepage 62

What’s on the menu? 63

Styling your homepage 64

Adjusting your theme’s settings 74

Adding Menus and Pages 76

Creating a page 77

Creating a menu item 79

Chapter 5: Filling Your Virtual Shelves: Creating

Products and Collections 81

Nuts and Bolts: Adding Products to Develop Your Collections 82

Creating a collection 82

Using product tags to refine your collections 86

Adding collections to your menu 89

Adding a new product to your store 90

Merchandising Your Collections 106

Activating Products in Your Store 107

Chapter 6: Setting Up Shipping and Receiving Payments 109

One Size Does Not Fit All: Exploring Shipping Options 110

Free shipping versus paid shipping 110

Express shipping versus standard shipping 115

Shopify and shipping 117

Getting Started with Shipping in Shopify 120

Adjusting your default package type 121

Shipping rates and profiles 124

Tax Time: Setting Up Tax Rates 129

Setting up tax collecting in your store 130

Including tax in your product price 133

The Fun Part: Getting Paid 133

Setting up Shopify Payments 134

Accepting other payment methods 136

Viewing your Shopify Payouts 137

Setting up multiple currencies in Shopify Payments 138

Setting up a third-party payment provider 139

Fraud prevention 139

Investigating suspicious orders 139

Processing chargebacks 141

Part 3: Curating The Customer Experience: The Customer Is Always Right 143

Chapter 7:  What’s the Difference? Customer Service and Customer Experience 145

Customer Service 101: Communicating with Customers 146

Creating clear policies and product information 146

Customer service channels to consider 149

Using Customer Service Metrics 154

Maximizing Customer Experience 155

Providing an excellent customer experience 157

Measuring customer experience 158

Checking Customer Satisfaction 160

Chapter 8: Reviews, Customer Loyalty and User-Generated Content 161

Why Reviews Matter 162

Onsite product reviews 163

Offsite customer reviews 164

Selecting a review platform to use with Shopify 166

Free offsite review platforms to use 168

Why Loyalty Matters 169

Understanding the lifetime value of a customer 169

Loyalty, referral programs and Shopify 172

Utilizing User-Generated Content 174

Customer Reports: Loyal and At-risk Customers 177

Using customer reports in Shopify 177

Customizing your customer reports 184

Chapter 9: Understanding the User Experience 189

Understanding the Basics of a Good User Experience 190

Getting to know how users behave 190

Considering the theory 191

Improving Your User Experience 193

Conducting user research 194

Monitoring and maintaining your page speed 198

Fixing broken links 199

Running your own device analysis 199

Optimizing your website’s internal search 200

Implementing AB Testing 200

When can I start running AB tests? 201

I’ve got the traffic, so how can I AB test in Shopify? 202

Chapter 10: Getting Personal: Personalizing Your Website 203

Creating a Personalized Shopping Experience 204

Tailoring Your Store to Suit Your Customers 206

Personalized banners 208

Product recommendations 209

People also bought 210

Product quizzes and guided selling 210

Recently viewed items 211

Bestsellers 211

Personalize by location 212

Location-based sizing 213

The Gift of Giving: Creating and Fulfilling Gift Cards 213

Issuing a gift card 214

Making gift cards available for purchase 215

Giving Little Unexpected Extras 218

Handwritten notes 218

Gift with purchase 219

Personalized video 219

Show off your personal side 219

Part 4: Taking Stock Of The Situation: Inventory, Logistics And Orders 221

Chapter 11: Stocked Up: Buying, Receiving and Managing Inventory 223

Defining Inventory Management 224

Starting from Scratch: Your First Purchase Order 227

Creating a purchase order 228

Receiving a purchase order 229

Storing Your Inventory 234

Shelving equipment 236

Locations 236

Layout and design 237

Putting Your Stock to Work: Listing Inventory Across Sales Channels 238

Changing a product’s availability status 239

Making products available to your sales channels 239

Catch Me If You Can! Tracking Stock Movement 242

Using Inventory Reports 243

Month-end Inventory Snapshot 244

Average Inventory Sold Per Day 244

Percent of Inventory Sold 245

ABC Analysis by Product 245

Chapter 12: So, You’ve Received an Order — Now What? 247

Receiving and Confirming Orders 248

The Three Stages of an Online Order 249

Order placed: Capture payment 249

Order paid for: Fulfill the order 251

Order has been paid for and fulfilled: Archive the order 251

Creating Draft Orders for Customers 253

Managing Orders 255

Viewing an order 255

Viewing an order’s Timeline 256

Editing an order 257

Contacting a customer about their order 258

Checking an order’s status 258

Refunding a customer 259

Creating returns 260

Checking an Order for Fraud 262

Fraud analysis indicators 262

How to handle potential fraud in your store 264

Chapter 13: From Here to There: Fulfilling Your Orders 267

Fulfill Your Own Orders 268

Fulfilling your orders manually 268

Fulfilling your orders automatically 275

Using a Fulfillment Service 276

Activating a custom fulfillment service 277

Deleting a custom fulfillment service 278

Using a fulfillment service with an app 279

Printing Shipping Labels and Customs Forms 280

Creating and printing shipping labels 281

Printing a customs declaration form 284

Printing packing slips 286

Using Local Pickup 287

Setting up local pickup 287

Managing local pickup locations 288

Customizing pickup notifications 289

Part 5: Attracting Attention: Sales And Marketing 291

Chapter 14: Pricing, Discounts and Promotions: Creating Eye-Catching Offers 293

Pricing Your Products 294

Preparing to Run Sales and Promotions 296

Setting Sale Prices for Products: The ‘Compare At’ Price 298

Delivering Discounts 301

Creating discount codes 302

Create a free shipping discount 311

Discounting Shortcuts 312

Promote a discount using a shareable link 312

Filter discounts 313

Edit a discount 314

Disable a discount 314

Re-enable a discount 315

Chapter 15: Getting Discovered: Finding New Customers 317

Introducing Digital Marketing 318

Building a Marketing Plan 318

Step 1: Define your unique value proposition 319

Step 2: Know your customer 320

Step 3: Choose a marketing strategy 320

Step 4: Consider how to measure the success of your marketing 321

Step 5: Create a marketing channel plan 323

Step 6: Review performance 323

Implementing Marketing Campaigns and Automations 324

Automating your marketing with Shopify 325

Creating your first automation: Abandoned Checkout Emails 325

Exploring other automations 328

Chapter 16: Advertising and Promoting Your Online Store 333

Getting Started with Facebook Marketing 334

Audience building ads in Shopify 337

Creating your first audience building ad 338

Creating dynamic retargeting ads 342

Trying Search Engine Marketing with Google Ads 343

The Google sales channel in Shopify 344

Create a Google Smart Shopping campaign 348

Track the performance of your Google Smart Shopping campaign 349

Making the Most of Search Engine Optimization 350

Using SEO keywords in your Shopify store 351

Keeping your online store SEO-friendly 356

Experimenting with Email Marketing 357

Email marketing using Shopify 358

Installing the Shopify Email app 359

Creating an email marketing campaign using Shopify Email 360

Chapter 17: Getting Social: Using Social Media to Grow Your Business 363

All About Socials: The Rise and Rise of Social Media in Ecommerce 364

Meeting the Social Media Marketing Channels 365

Facebook 366

Instagram 368

TikTok 373

Pinterest 374

Snapchat 375

Linking Your Social Media Profiles 375

Tapping In to Influencer Marketing 376

Part 6: The Part Of Tens 379

Chapter 18: Ten Helpful Apps for Your Shopify Store 381

Gorgias: Customer Service 382

Okendo: Product Reviews 382

Klaviyo: Email Marketing 383

Glew: Data and Business Intelligence 384

Oberlo: Dropshipping 384

PushOwl: Web Push Notifications 385

Back in Stock: Customer Alerts 386

Foursixty: Shoppable Instagram and User-Generated Content 386

ReferralCandy: Referrals 387

Plug in SEO: Search Engine Optimization 388

Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Improve the Customer and User Experience 389

Check Your Page Load Speed 390

Optimize Your Site for Mobile 391

Fix Broken Links 391

Include a Search Function 392

Use AB Testing as Your Business Grows 393

Give Little Unexpected Extras 393

Offer a Personalized Experience 394

Create Surveys to Help You Understand Your Customers 395

Get to Know How Your Customers Behave 396

Use Logistics as a Point of Difference 396

Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Prepare to Go Live 399

Pop Quiz: Are You Sure You’re Ready? 399

The Price Must Be Right! 401

Manage Your Expectations 402

You Can’t Be All Things to All People 403

There’s an App for That! 404

Believe the Hype (Phase) 404

Not Too Heavy, Not Too Light: Getting Ordering Just Right 405

Shopify Reports to Watch 405

Last-Minute Checks Before You Go Live 406

Ready, Set, Go: Time to Go Live! 408

Index 409

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