Rapid Growth Blueprint: Advanced Tactics for Scaling Your Shopify Store

Scaling your Shopify store might seem like a challenge. However, with the right techniques and practices, you can do so. While it may be a challenging transition period, scaling your Shopify store means you and your business are ready to grow. 

Shopify is considered one of the most popular e-commerce platforms for businesses of all sizes, holding a worldwide market share of 11%! The user-friendly interface and amount of customizable options make it a great choice for those looking to start an online business and grow it over time. 

Let's not wait any further because in this article, we will dive deeper into learning more about scaling your Shopify store. 

Use POS inventory software

Using POS inventory software allows online retailers to exceed their customer experience. E-commerce POS integrations are important for connecting and creating a communication bridge between two business channels: your POS systems and your online Shopify store. 

Two-way communication allows you to communicate real-time data directly between two systems and process online and offline transactions and orders. You may be wondering why POS inventory software is important to have. 

Well, let's dive deeper to see why you need one: 

• It lets you see your inventory in real-time: Real-time inventory checks can stop you from overselling. This way, you track which products need to be promoted and which are trending for more orders. 
• Eliminating manual data entry: Manual data entry is highly time-consuming when running an online business and is more prone to error. Automation helps reduce margin errors and saves you a reasonable amount of time for completing other tasks. 
• Better leverage between customer data and insights: Integrating POS systems and your online store means that you are centralizing data in one place. This helps you personalize experiences for customers and learn their shopping habits. 
• Improved customer experience: Business requirements are addressed in real-time and improve customer satisfaction. This is done by integrating omnichannel marketing and loyalty programs, different payment methods with POS software, and improving online ordering. 
  

Integrating POS systems and your Shopify store is only the beginning of scalability. 

Use Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a popular tool responsible for organizing third-party tags on your website and controlling them once triggered. These tags are different tracking codes that allow you to gain insights into how a website performs. Some popular tags include Google Analytics and Google Ads. 

The tool is great in helping you update and optimize your content based on the real-life interactions you've had. While using the tool, you also need to worry about cookie consent, meaning that visitors can choose to either accept the website to collect their data or not. 

Google Tag Manager cookies aren't set on their own. The way it works is that the tool will set first-party cookies, allowing users to observe which tags are being activated on each page. These cookies will only come into power for users who activate the preview and debug mode. 

Regular visitors aren't impacted, and once users exit preview mode, the cookies are automatically deleted. 

Cookie consent is important in regards to complying with global data privacy regulators like The General Data Privacy Regulator (GDPR), which is fairly strict on what you do with cookies on your website. 

Many might think that the GDPR only applies to countries that are part of the European Union (EU), but you need to comply with it the second you start getting users from the EU. 

Optimize your website performance 

Your Shopify website should be fast enough to allow customers to interact with products as soon as possible. You may have heard it before, but a website's performance will depend on three important factors: 

• Loading time: Anything that takes more than three seconds to load is a lot. Studies show that whatever takes more than three seconds to load will increase bounce rates. Higher bounce rates will negatively affect your revenue rates, and to keep track of your loading speed, consider using real user monitoring (RUM) data technology. Shopify has its online store speed reports that you can check up on where you can identify the factors that affect the site's speed. 
• Images: Resizing and compressing images are some great tips you can follow for your Shopify store to optimize images. You can retain high-quality images by drawing and keeping visitors' attention and significantly improving the website's speed. Again, Shopify has an image editor that you can use to resize and compress images without losing their quality. 
• Plugins and themes: You must carefully choose your plugins and themes to ensure they perform well. Poorly coded and outdated themes or plugins will significantly lower performance on your website. It's important to update them regularly and make sure they are bug-free and secure. 
  

The Shopify performance report will tell you everything you need to know. Therefore, make sure to pay close attention to it and address all the problems you need to address. 

Optimize product pages

For your Shopify store to succeed, you must focus closely on your product page's design, content, and functionality. A successful e-commerce business is all about improving sales, SEO ranking, and making sure that the customer is satisfied. 

To optimize your product pages on Shopify, you need to follow these practices: 

• SEO ranking improvements: This is done by using the correct keywords, optimizing product titles and descriptions, using headings and subheadings wisely, optimizing your images and videos, and using a combination of both internal and external links. 
• Improving the user experience: Choose a fast-loading theme, optimize all of your images and videos, and make sure to minimize file sizes and HTTP requests. This will reduce bounce rates and increase website traffic. 
• Write persuasive product descriptions: 87% of customers claim that product descriptions are important when it comes to purchasing an item online that you can't see or feel. If product descriptions are poor, it's unlikely that the customer will make a purchase again! 
  

Product pages are the core element of a successful online store, and writing the proper product descriptions and optimizing your images and videos are major parts of making it successful. 

Prevent card cracking and API abuse 

Online businesses will use APIs to complete payments, which is one of the most important parts of running an e-commerce business. APIs are highly useful, but bad bots and fraudsters always target them. 

Payment APIs are the most targeted, and card cracking is one of the most common attacks launched by bad bots. Overall, they allow online businesses to easily integrate payment processing functionalities on their website and other platforms they are using. APIs allow mobile and web apps to quickly send payments by being the intermediary between the payment processor and the business. 

Insecure APIs can expose lots of sensitive information that can significantly damage your brand's reputation and result in massive revenue losses. A common attack method we mentioned before was card cracking, a subset of credit card fraud.

Credit card fraud is not fun to deal with and has been reported more than 1.1 million times in 2022. The worst part is that it's on the rise each year, experiencing a 5-10% rise annually. 

However, there are always ways to fight this and prevent card cracking. Here are some practices we recommend you follow to combat credit card fraud: 

1. Incorporate strong authentication mechanisms: This includes both multi-factor authentication (MFA) and two-factor authentication (2FA) that are used by online platforms for confirming a user's identity by either asking them a question, asking for their fingerprint, face ID, iris scan, or sending SMS codes to their email or phone number for ID confirmation. 
2. SSL/TLS encryptions: Both Transport Layer Security and Secure Sockets Layer data encryptions work as one to secure your online connection and protect your sensitive data from being attacked by cybercriminals. 
3. Address Verification Services (AVS): AVS tools are responsible for verifying and correcting residential and corporate addresses, firmly for identifying data to detect fraudulent activities. Issuing banks will usually provide you with AVS, but paying close attention is important as it may sometimes generate a partial or false decline. 
4. AI fraud detection: Fraud detection solutions included in the software itself can protect your online store for your payment API, ensuring that research experts are there to help you. 
   

API abuse has become a common form of attack on online e-commerce businesses, so it's important to address it as soon as possible to make sure you safeguard your business reputation and transactions. 

Use cross-selling techniques 

Cross-selling is selling customers a product that relates to your past purchase or current one. It allows you to easily identify customer behaviors and choose what you need to show them next. An important trait when trying to promote your Shopify store. 

For example, someone buying a mobile device usually needs a mobile case or charger. Some phone manufacturers now aren't including chargers in the box, and without them, you can't use your mobile device. Therefore, you would need to buy a charger in this case. 

Moreover, there are many benefits that you get from cross-selling: 

• Adding more products to each of your sales will increase your average order value (AOV). This increases revenue and helps cover expenses. 
• By doing this, you are increasing your customer's lifetime value (CLV) by offering them more solutions to fulfill their purchase needs. This helps increase customer loyalty, retention, and repurchases. 
• Cross-selling is best done when you are providing good recommendations that meet your customer's interests and needs. This reduces complaints and returns to increase positive reviews and ratings. 
  

Remember that effective cross-selling is only done when you understand the customer's pain point and try to address it by offering an "upgraded" version of the purchase they want to make. 

Invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 

Search engine rankings are more important than ever and have an important effect on how much traffic you receive on your Shopify store. How you organize your website content is highly important for your SEO success. 

Whenever online customers can easily find what they're looking for, they'll spend more time on your website and view more pages, which helps increase your SEO ranking. What's the key to making your site much easier to navigate through? 

The number one rule is to simplify your site's structure. Try using the following structure: 

• Homepage >> Category pages >> Product pages 
  

You can include sub-category pages, too, if you need to. However, make sure to put it after category pages. Additionally, don't forget about your contact and the page. These are two important pages that let visitors know you are trustworthy. 

Above all, don't forget about your search box. The search box isn't directly related to SEO, but it does help customers navigate through your website in a much easier way. Easy navigation is an important part of eCommerce optimization and will relate to your revenue. 

When customers can't find what they want quickly enough, they'll most likely just leave the website, and this isn't good news for you. 

Conduct keyword research 

No SEO optimization strategy for your Shopify store is complete without doing the right keyword research, which is the backbone of a successful SEO strategy. 

The real question is how to find the proper keywords for receiving the traffic you seek. 

You don't need to use many keyword research tools to do so, but it's important to list at least five topics that your customers are more focused on and related to the products you are selling on your online store. 

For instance, you can take yourself as an example. Find which product you are interested in and what kind of keywords you use when you are searching through an online store. You can find inspiration from the following places: 

• Your buyer persona
• Searching through subreddits and forums that relate to your product 
• Checking up on social media hashtags that relate to your product 
• Checking the title, meta description, and image alt-text that is used on competitors websites
  

Overall, if that doesn't help, it's time to use a keyword research tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs. Use whichever method works best for you. 

Encourage high-quality content marketing 

While there are many important elements to pay attention to when it comes to optimizing your Shopify store, content marketing isn't something to forget about. 

Content is the main reason someone wants to come to your site, and as an eCommerce business owner, you may think that product descriptions are going to be enough. 

However, it's much more than that, and if you take the time to create high-quality original content on your website, it can improve the user experience overall. Try making a list of your customers' questions and write a blog about it. The answer shouldn't lie in the product information. 

Content marketing is an excellent method of letting customers get to know about your brand and achieving more keywords and backlinks to your site. 

Optimize your inventory management 

Efficient inventory management is critical when it comes to entirely optimizing your Shopify store. It saves you time and your business from disasters you can't even imagine. The more your business expands, the more critical it is for you to pay close attention to your inventory. 

Let's explore a few factors that are important for your inventory management system: 

• Automated alerts: To prevent disappointing your customers, you must set up alerts that will notify you whenever stock is low. This way, you are preventing inventory shortages and making sure you address the problem immediately. 
• Sales data analysis: It's important to closely examine your sales data and identify patterns and trends. This allows you to find out which product is highly in demand and gives you hints of what to expect in your future inventory management approaches. 
• Dropshipping and outsourcing: If you think in-house inventory management is challenging, you can always consider dropshipping and partnering with third-party providers. If you think the experts can better handle your inventory, it's time to partner up with them. 
  

The next step is to fulfill your orders effectively. Here are a few steps you can follow for doing so: 

• Optimize your workflows: Keep your order processing and fulfillment workflows logical and smooth. Get rid of everything that slows down the procedure. 
• Order tracking: Provide your customers with real-time tracking information so they know where their package is and when they can expect it. 
• Barcode automation and scanning: You can use these tools to reduce errors and speed up the fulfillment process. 
• Shipping integrations: You can consider connecting your Shopify store with shipping carriers to enable easy label printing and getting real-time shipping rates. This speeds up the shipping time and reduces manual data entries. 
  

When it comes to the e-commerce world, everyone wants to get a hold of their product as fast as possible, so you must get rid of everything that is bothering your order fulfillment and slowing down your inventory management systems. 

Don't forget about email marketing 

Always remember the power of good email marketing. Most marketers will report an average open email rate of 46-50%. If you can achieve a rate higher than this, it'll be a win-win situation for you. 

However, how can you set up your emails to come to this point? Here are some tips we recommend you follow: 

• Build up your email list: Collect emails from interested customers and visitors. 
• Personalize your emails: 71% of customers want personalized experiences. From the data you gather based on your customers' purchasing behaviors, you can personalize emails. 
• Automation: Create automated emails for abandoned carts or for updates if your visitors agree to receive them. Give customers the option to opt out of emails they don't want to receive. You don't want to spam your customers! 
• Track your emails: It's always good to monitor your progress and tweak your strategy to see what is working and what isn't. 
  

Email marketing is best when it's personalized in the e-commerce industry. Moreover, don't forget to stay updated with your abandoned carts. Customers might be closer to the purchase than you think. 

Make your customer support available 24/7 

Scaling your Shopify store means being available to your customers at all times. We know humans can't work 24/7, but you can use chatbots to answer customers' questions. 

While the interactions aren't the same as you would get with a human being, you can still program them to answer the most common questions asked. 

In order to provide excellent customer support, you can do so in the following ways:

• Offer multi-support channels: Offer many ways customers can reach out to you through live chat, email, and phone numbers. This makes sure that customers can get help in the way that is most convenient for them. 
• Quick responses: Chatbots can do the work for you whenever you aren't around. Even if there are questions the chatbot won't be able to answer, they can quickly inform the customer that their problem will be addressed soon. However, the better you program a chatbot to answer more questions, the more customers will be satisfied. 
• Create a FAQ page: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) can significantly help customers find the answers to their questions without having to interact with you. 
  

Any type of information can be helpful, but there's nothing more helpful than asking customers for feedback. See what you can improve on, and consider that for future endeavors. 

Scaling your Shopify store is easier than you think 

Scaling your Shopify store is much more than becoming a larger business. It's about taking the right approaches that will make customers happy and make them purchase over and over again. 

You've now learned how to optimize your website performance, manage your inventory, and quickly address your customer's issues, and now is the time to put everything into the picture. 

If you are just getting started with Your Shopify store, you can always use our services to find trusted Shopify developers to help you build your website. Sign up now! 

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