Welcome to the 10 Days to a Better Shopify Store Series! To see the rest of the series, click here.
Maybe you’ve been wanting to start a store, but don’t know where to start or what platform to choose.
Maybe you’re scared to start a store because you don’t know how you’ll possibly be able to drive traffic to it.
Maybe you already have a store and can’t understand why you’re not making anything but chump change in it.
Maybe you’ve spent some time on your store and seen only crickets in traffic.
Maybe you’ve tried other platforms like Etsy, ebay, Amazon, Creative Market, the list goes on and on and have seen a little bit of money, but know there’s more out there for you.
Whatever your situation is, you’re in the right place! The power of a Shopify store is beyond what you can even imagine!
The Power of a Shopify Store
Most of you know that I’ve been selling on ebay for over 20 years now. Back before they were even CALLED ebay. 🙂 I was just a teen back then, but really realized the power of selling things online. It was a whole new world for me. An exciting world.
But there are several things I’ve always LOATHED about selling online.
- I HATE to ship products.
- I hate keeping track of inventory.
- I hate keeping everything perfectly organized to sell.
- I hate not being able to find something right as it sells.
- I hate following someone else’s rules.
- I hate when they CHANGE said rules and I have to go back through all my ads and completely redo all of them to comply.
- I hate feeling like I have no ownership over the store. Like I’m powerless.
- I hate not having the capability of making certain sales the way I want them to be, instead of working with the basic tools they give me.
- I hate being at the MERCY of a customer who does something shady and leaves bad feedback and everyone thinks it’s ME who has done something bad. Or competitors who leave negative feedback to ruin you (yep, it’s happened!)
So, while there’s a lot of good things about selling on a platform like eBay or Etsy, there are also a lot of bad things you MUST accept in order to sell on someone else’s “turf.”
I sold on Amazon, I’ve sold on Creative Market, I’ve sold on ebay, I’ve sold on a membership site, I’ve sold on a stock photo site, and I’ve sold on Shopify.
For me, out of all the options I’ve tried, Shopify is, HANDS DOWN, the best way to go.
It happened one night, in the middle of the night on June 1, 2017. I was creating a product and I had the option to put the product somewhere. I was with a membership site at the time called Podia and loved them, but this product I was creating (a Blogging Binder) didn’t FIT the Podia platform very well.
I remember debating in my head.
- Do I start a store?
- If so, which one?
- I’ve never ran my OWN store before.
- I’m NOT technical. How do I solve the problems when they come up?
- What do I do?
I was mulling all this over in my head when I said to myself, “I’m just going to go for it. I’ll open a store. If it sucks, it sucks, but I can at least try.”
Those words still make me cry every time.
I simply put a “SHOP” link in my navigation bar on my website.
That was it. Nothing else at all.
I started noticing super quickly, that I was getting 100 visitors a day to my shop just from my blog. I had one product. My store was completely empty and there were all these people coming to look. I was astonished by the amount of people so quickly checking it out.
My first 8 days, I didn’t make any money.
Day 9, 101 visits, no money.
Day 10, 85 visits, $81 in sales.
Day 11, 97 visits, $5 in sales.
Day 12, 146 visits, $30 in sales.
Day 13, 578 visits and $1,454 in sales (without any promoting to any social media or paying for ads). In fact, I didn’t start promoting on social media until November 12, 2017. I pinned one ad on Pinterest. Since then, 5 months later, I still haven’t pinned but maybe 15-20 ads this whole time, and I’ve never paid for ads.
Day 13 is when I knew I hit on something major.
THAT’S when I started really knowing that this could work.
$1,454 in ONE DAY!
I….WAS….SHOCKED. Literally and utterly shocked.
From then, I went on to start making significant money in my store.
My first month having the store (June 2017), I made $52,060 and got 7,233 in traffics.
Most of my free work time went to the opening and learning of the new store (I always just work 1-2 projects at a time so I’m not scattered).
Conversion rates that first month were between 8%-23% on the promotional emails I sent. One email, believe it or not, got 1,524 clicks and 1,399 of those clicks, purchased, which comes out to be a 91.79% conversion rate.
Seriously 91% conversion rate, that’s like unheard of! Average conversion rates are between 1%-3%! Obviously, I priced the product too low and have upped a few prices in the store already by a little bit. After I upped the prices, they are still selling like normal, so I feel I’m still really fair in prices.
The products that have made me the most money to date are:
- Blogging Binder
- Happily Ever Blogger Course
- Honest Bloggers Bundle
- Household Binder
- Financial Freedom Bundle
My second month having the store (July 2017), I made $69,707 and had 8,153 in traffics.
From June 1, 2017-Oct 31, 2017, a good, solid 5 months of stats, my store has had $537,996 in revenue and a total of 53,013 in traffics. My repeat customer rate for those months is 26.08%.
My top LANDING page, believe it or not, is my calendar set, which I’ll definitely get more into later on.
My store, within 4 months, is now a million dollar a year business. It makes me more money than my actual blog! So, if you have been contemplating opening a store, do it.
If you are new in your store or it’s not making what you want, carve out the time for this and really implement and apply everything I’m saying. It works! I have walked through my exact system with several friends and clients now and it has worked for ALL of them! They have seen TONS of growth from their original starting point!
I want to share my journey with you, because I think it’s so powerful. I want to take you deep into what I’m doing, so that you too, can mimic it and have your own, extremely profitable store.
So get ready, because we are truly going to FLY!
Hi Sarah,
I am enjoying starting this Shopify journey with you. I do have a question, should someone who is thinking about opening up a shopify store first get their own website or start a blog? I read that you linked your shopify store to your website. I sell on eBay right now but I don’t have my own website. I have been thinking about it but haven’t made the decision yet.
Thanks,
SallyAnn
SallyAnn, I think it definitely helps having a blog, however, it really depends on what you sell, mostly, whether you’re niched on ebay or not and whether or not, ebay is your #1 income stream.
Is there any place that will let you pay monthly to have a website? I don’t have enough money to pay for a year upfront.
I am only selling on eBay right now but have learned that I should be selling from more than one place to protect against something happening to the only source of income I have. Hope that makes sense.
I do share on my Facebook page and Pinterest and Twitter.
The other company that I’d recommend that allows for monthly payments would be more money for one month than a year of Bluehost, so I would recommend Bluehost.
Hi Sarah!
I am so excited about this series. I currently have a woocommerce shop but I haven’t started sharing it yet. Should I switch to Shopify instead of woocommerce?
Thanks!
Yes! I have dealt with both platforms and Woocommerce sucks. I don’t personally feel like you can reach great success on Woocommerce because of the massive limitations, but I’ll definitely be getting into that more in the series. 🙂 You can get 2 weeks free with Shopify here. P.s. Love your blog!! 🙂
Thank you so much Sarah! I look forward to reading the rest of your series! 🙂
Lindsay, I am so glad you are enjoying the series. Thanks for the kind words! <3
Hi Sarah,
If there is a blog attached to the Shopify Store, do I need another one? I don’t have a blog yet but have been thinking about starting one. I’ve been looking around to see how to make the binders so that I could make some to go with my theme but I can’t find any. How did you get started making the binders- any articles or websites you could point me to?
Thanks!
Misty
Misty, thank you for your question. It is a really good one, and I know there are many others wondering this same thing. I will add your question to the list of questions I’ll be answering within the series so I can go into more detail and answer it more completely. Keep watching the series, and good luck with your Shopify store!
Thank you Sarah for this course. I have a Shopify store which I chose on your recommendation but have sold $0. I think it’s because of the article for sale – a medical binder for seniors – just no interest in it. I know I need to come up with other things to sell and I’m hoping going through this course I will get some more ideas both in marketing and items that sell. Looks like we’re off to a great start. Again thank you for the course and especially for making it free. On SS I truly appreciate that.
I hope this course will kick start your creative juices, too! Sometimes learning something new and putting it into practice are all you need to do to come up with great new ideas. I hope you will learn a lot with these blog posts, and it will help your Shopify store explode! Good Luck!! <3
SOOOOO excited you started this series!
We have committed to launching a store this month with both physical products and digital products. We promise to use your affiliate link =).
It’s so incredible to hear your story and learn from you.
In high school, I started my first e-commerce business when I was 15. I ran that all the way through college and it was a great side hustle….until Amazon shut me down. I had a supplier run out of stock and not notify me for 2 days. I had to refund over 25 customers right around Christmas time. DONE with Amazon.
I think digital products are the way to go but since we don’t have any created yet we will start with the suppliers I have used in the past.
I cannot explain the feeling I have inside getting ready to make this leap for our business! Thank you for being the motivator!
What tools/software do you use to create your digital products?
Congratulations on planning to open a store. I know you’ll do a fantastic job and I can’t wait to see you succeed! Regarding the tools and software I use for my products, that is a question that I will add to my list to answer throughout the series. It will be in one of the modules, so keep watching each post as I will answer all these questions as I go!
Wow this great information looking forward more information. Can you have a shop and not have a blog and still be successful?
Yes, you will just have to pay for advertising, until you can get an email list.
I am so happy a friend recommended this. I am in the process of creating a Shopify website, is this different from a Shopify store?
I sell skin care on Amazon for now, but I obviously don’t want to have all eggs in the same basket. I cannot wrap my head around how to do this, what to do to convert the store/website in a selling machine. 🙂 thank you for your help.
Glad you found it Clara. 🙂 Yes, you can have a Shopify website/blog on your Shopify store, however, I highly recommend having them separate. There are many reasons for this and I’ll get into them a little later in the series. 🙂
Thank you Sarah. Can you tell me how the course is structured?, should we check back to see when you uploaded the next chapter or day?, or is it any days of the week? and will you have any live event?
Thank you so much
Clara, I am going to share the various parts of the course as I get them completed. You can check back each day or so to see what new post has been uploaded. As I get each part complete, I will upload it to the blog. I hope you enjoy each post, and I hope you will be able to get some good information as you start your store. Good luck!
How did you get traffic to your store in the beginning if you weren’t advertising, im curious! Does Shopify do it for you?
There’s a certain part where Shopify “does it for you” in the way of SEO/Google traffic automatically as you add products to the store, but for the most part you’ll want to market it yourself. This is something I will cover in massive depth in my upcoming Shopify course. Definitely look for it soon.
I’m super excited about starting my own shopify store. I’m wanting to check out what is already out there in my niche. How would I go about searching for stores in shopify within certain categories? Thx.
You know, I’m not really sure. I would think just check for a “shop” link in the nav bar of your favorite sites/peers. 🙂 Anytime I see a shop link, I ALWAYS check it out. 🙂
Hi Sarah,
I am so happy that I found you today.
I have been contemplating opening a shopify store for so long and just didn’t know how to do it.
Thank you so much Sarah.
Ada
Absolutely. 🙂 Glad I can help!