10 reasons you should have a SHOPIFY website.

What platform should I use for my website?   This is a question I see asked ALL the time.
 Now my answer is always Shopify if you are an eCommerce and product-based business.  

Listen in today to find out the 10 reasons why I believe SHOPIFY is the website platform for you if you are a product-based business or eCommerce store.

And why I also don't believe it is too expensive!!

The  Reel about credit cards leading to abandon cart is linked here.

I mentioned the all-in-one list for how to improve your Shopify stores SEO. 
Shopify SEO guide

As well as a Pros and Cons of other options and other platforms for your business.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and woud love to hear why you or won't be going with shopify!!!

To find out more about working togther you can head to:
https://www.thelotco.com.au/. or follow me on Instagram at @thelotco

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to the LA cope. Is this podcast a show all about helping you as a retailer brand or creative, understand the actual business side of running your business? I have a straightforward, practical advice about the nitty gritty of making money from your creative passion. We will be covering bite-size business and marketing lessons as well as interviews with experts and trailblazers in the fashion highways and design industries. My name is Melissa Robbins. I'm a business coach, color loving non-coffee drinking Melburnian and let's get into it. Hello and welcome to today's episode. Thank you so much for being here. This is a question

Speaker 2: 0:43

I get asked a lot and I see also pop up quite regularly in Facebook groups and forums and things like that. What, what, what platform should I host my website on? What, how do I create my own online store? My e-commerce or my product based business and my answer to that is always Shopify. And so today what I'm going to talk about is why Shopify should be your first choice. If you are running an e-commerce or product based business, if you're not running a product based or e-commerce business, and there's definitely lots of other alternatives for you like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, and others, that may be all you need, or maybe better for you and a cheaper option. My website's hosted on show it, which is, you know, has great templates and that works really well for photography or service-based businesses. But what we're talking about here today is for e-commerce and product based businesses. So this is all about that type of store. Now I just deliver disclaimer, also that if you have a highly customizable, you know, item or product, then, and it maybe needs personalization and needs a little extra drop downs and options, whether you're a hamper building business and things like that too, then maybe Shopify is not going to give you what you need. Maybe, um, you know, you are better off with a customized WordPress website, if you are high tech as well, when you're, you know, you've got that skill of building and understanding code and knowing how to build your own website, then obviously, maybe Shopify is not for you either. So I'm not talking about those people here. What I'm talking about is if you were starting out as an e-commerce store, or you've got a bricks and mortar store, and you want to put everything online and you want it to be, you know, providing you a good income, you want to scale it and you want to grow it. Then I believe Shopify is this platform for you. If it's not something that you wanted to, you know, if you just needed something for, if I've seen a few people on the Facebook groups and stuff say, you know, I just need something because I sell at markets and I just want to have something to showcase my, my brand and my look, but I don't necessarily have a lot of traffic and I'm not going to spend money on investing in that. And it's not going to be my sole source of income. Then maybe you do, you can just have something like a week's as well, something cheaper just to have that presence online. So again, the reasons I'm talking about Shopify is if you want to prefer, if want your store to be a, something that you can scale, it brings you a good income. And you're looking for, you know, having you're going to invest in your marketing and your promotion towards that. Then that's Shopify should be the perfect choice. Also, just as a little FII, I'm not an affiliate or a Shopify partner or anything like that. So I don't benefit from telling you all of this as well. So let's get into it. Why Shopify? Well, it handles everything you need for a product based business. So it's prime payment payments, updating inventory, taking the orders, the shopping cart, everything like that. It's professional, it's responsive. It's a great way to attract new customers. It's got everything all in one package. Now I'm going to give you 10 reasons though. Why I believe Shopify is the store for you and what are the key elements that make it different to other stores, other platforms as well have reason. Number one for using Shopify, it getting started is easy. The barrier to entry is really low. You don't have to have high tech skills. It offers great free themes that come, you know, that you can just get your website up and going with they're workable. They're not perfect, but they're not obviously different everyone else, but they're definitely easy to get going. And that's what we're talking about here, that the barrier to entry is low. You can start from as little as$29 us a month, which I think is super cheap. And I, and I think you've got a view that cost as well as an investment, because, you know, if you're in any other retail store or bricks and mortar store or running a market or anything like that, you have to pay something. So I believe that$29 us a month is a really great price for what it gives you. And software obviously is something that can give you that return on investment. So looking at it as that expense, um, is, you know, in business, you're going to have expenses. This is a small one for what it can give you. All right. So number two, it is an all in one hosted systems. So it's got everything you need in there. It's a payment system. It's got the domain hosting. Although I just want a little caveat there. I would suggest you have hosted domain on your own, um, system like GoDaddy or crazy domains, so that if you ever did want to move that you can move it easily and, um, redirect it if need be, if anything else changes as well. So just, just a dilute statement there, but it's all secure. It's constantly updated and it's safe compared to other websites, you know, where you might see, uh, I had, for example, on my WordPress website, um, when I have the blog connected to my show at website, which is a little bit confusing, but anyway, um, as soon as I put a particular plugin in WordPress, my whole system crashed and I just could not figure out what to do. And it was just so hard to actually get onto anyone. And I actually couldn't figure it out. So anyway, compared to other systems, Shopify just does not have that issue. It really happens. Um, and you know, they update their servers all the time, what you pay them for. So there was a reason that some of the biggest companies in the world and some of those turning in multi-multi millions of dollars go with Shopify because they know that they can trust it. So it's got that trustworthy factor and it's an all in one system in there. Number three, um, there's a lot of people who can help with Shopify too. So, um, you can either get a Shopify expert from through Shopify, or obviously there's lots of private companies who do their own Shopify courses and how to use, and they can upload things for you. And there's a lot of people who understand the system. So it's a lot easier to get people to help you with it because people get it. And it's something that, you know, more and more people know about more and more people are understanding how to get the best conversions, how to get, you know, more traffic to your website. So all those things, Pete, there's more experts out there if you can help you with Shopify and also, but you need to troubleshoot a lot less than other platforms too. That's a big benefit. Then number four is you can upload and edit products easily. So it's not difficult to get going. It's a really simple startup. You can also, if you, once you've got all your products in the system, you can easily change themes and update the lock. It just as a matter of buying a new theme or uploading a new theme. Um, and you can also test that out behind the scenes before you go live with it as well. So there's lots of things you can do easily. DIY it's a really great drag and drop functionality. You don't need coding. Um, it's a really responsive system. So it moves between mobile and desktop perfectly, which I could definitely cannot say the same for a lot of other systems. Again, my website, um, being show up because it's a, service-based one. Sometimes I have to jiggle around the mobile view and it doesn't quite work as well as what I, um, would like it to. So being on Shopify for product based businesses is, um, you know, uh, far and above the best option, number five SEO. So as he always built in and suggestions are made constantly about where to include keywords, you know, where to put your descriptions, how to make the most of your SEO. Now I know there's lots of people out there and I'm sure, you know, if you Google it and search for it, there's lots of people that say that Shopify, isn't great for SEO. And I think if you are an expert and you're, you know, fully on top of SEO and that's your bread and butter, it probably isn't as good as some other websites. However, for most people who would, you know, DIY in their SEO and trying to make improvements along the way, it's got a great system that allows you and shows you where to put, you know, the right words in the right places. And I'll link an article in the show notes too, that runs through every spot on a Shopify store where you can include your SEO and update your SEO to improve it as well. Number six, it integrates so well with every other app and system. Um, you know, after pay the payment system is works well with Shopify email systems like Clavio flow desk, all the ones who, you know, it doesn't work with MailChimp anymore, but I think that's okay because I personally don't love MailChimp at all. Um, so it definitely works with the ones that more people are using and more people are trusting as well. So, um, time-saver ones like Zapier works really well with that. And anyone who's, you know, heard me talk in any of my masterclasses and things like that to all my clients, they know that I love any system or software that can save you time and, you know, link up things that, uh, can be automated. So you don't have to actually do them manually. And it's just saves so much time in your business mail and delivery systems like Sendell and Australia post my posts and things like that. It works well with all of those. If you have a three PL warehouse, if you have someone else doing all your shipping and distribution, they will, um, they can either get plugins or they can access the backend of your system and they can get the orders dispatched and see them there and, you know, get them out for you. You don't have to actually manually do it yourself. If you have a bricks and mortar store, or if you have multiple locations, you know, maybe solar market and stuff like that too, you can use that to integrate with systems like vend, or it also has a Shopify point of sale option too. So those sort of things are such good time savers for, you know, tracking inventory, making sure that it always up to date, you only have to do it once. You don't have to take it off. Um, you know, in two places or anything. When I had my retail store, which is, you know, going back over six years ago, now that I sold it, we had to manually remove the items that we sold on, um, during the day in the store, um, at the end of the day online to make sure that they didn't sell, you know, in the two places, which was such a time suck. And it was also a waste of energy. And, you know, when we'd sold out of things on in-store and then they sold online reflected really badly because customer service and then they're like, oh, I bought it already and you haven't got it. And so on. So, you know, the money that you saved by having those things integrated is going to be a time say for you too. And also you've got more data that you can review too, cause you can see what's selling on online or also if you have that bricks and mortar, you can see what's working in the two different places as well. Number seven, um, the apps available to add on are endless, uh, yes, they cost more money. Um, but you don't have to have them, um, you know, as your starting point, but there's lots of apps that you can do use to, to help you do more things in, within your website. So whether it's one that allows you to bundle things or have multi-buyers on there or redirect people or suggest particular products, there's lots and lots of apps, you know, whether it's wholesale as well, you might have a wholesale app, um, that you use to, to, to, for your retail stores to buy from you as well, your stockers. So there's so many different ones that Shopify works with and it worked with seamlessly so that it, you know, connects quite quickly. And just on that note, I know there's lots of stores that I work with as well have say for things like buy from the Bush. So those sort of external websites can tap into Shopify easily and, you know, pull your inventory across and pull all your data and stuff across so that they can sell on those sort of, um, external websites too. So all those connections Shopify does seamlessly and it just works well with them. And it allows you the option of using those apps and other, um, systems and softwares and stuff too. It also, obviously just on that same sort of area works super seamlessly with Instagram and Facebook shopping. So, um, you know, obviously that addition to being able to sell on social can make a big difference to that barrier to people clicking through and buying because they can do it quickly and easily. Number eight, talking about, you know, cuts and checking out and getting there quickly, um, the way that the cart axes you can, you have an exercise card on Shopify or draw, it might be cold or, you know, cart draw. Um, the customers recognize it. So I know for myself, when I go on, I know a Shopify website now easily because it has that option available. And it just makes me trust the website more. And I understand that that's where the cart goes or that's where my products go, because it's a system that I see again and again and again. So customers understand that they trusted a bit more, um, they get, you know, they get that understanding of where and what, um, the next step is because they know that if they add to cart, then that, you know, side cart might pop up and they can go straight to checkout. So the ability to check out smoothly is going to make a big difference to your abandon cart. Um, you know, drop-offs that you may have. So the fact that also saved your payment systems in the computer and in Shopify pay. Um, my gosh, it makes such a difference to how quickly I will buy things. I don't know if anyone's seen that real where, um, I saw, you know, a girl was sitting on the bed and then someone asked for her shop credit card details, and then you fall off the bed like, oh my gosh, I cannot handle that. I have to actually get up and get my credit card details to link in here to be able to buy. So it's one of those things that as much as it may seem particularly lazy, it's the world we live in now that you want to have it all easy and systemize and just save your details. You don't want to have to remember you, you know, um, your whole credit card, it's enough remembering your passwords and you see VVS that you'd need to, um, know every single detail of your card again as well. So that is totally me. And I don't know how many other people out there that is. Um, but I would definitely abandoned checkout every time if it asks me for my credit card details and I do not have them, I'm not sitting next to my, my, you know, purse or anything like that. So Shopify pay and the way that it saves your dynamic, Keno, what you normally pay with. So if it tells you that you might tell you normally pay with PayPal, so it'll give you that option. I pay with shop pays, and then it comes up as that as a easy, quick checkout option. And half the time I'm like, oh, that happened really quickly. I didn't actually realize that I'd finished buying that then. So, um, that can be a bonus in some ways as well. Number nine, the analytics and data that it provides is so useful. And by using that information, you can make such, you can make great changes and track improvements and see how you're going by improving each of the metrics that Shopify gives you in the general dashboard. It can make a huge difference to your sales. So when you're flying blind in business and retail, it's not a good idea. You should always know your numbers, know where your business is at, um, understand, you know, tracking metrics and track your data. And what I love about the Shopify one is it just gives you that all in the basic, you know, general dashboard that is with every standard of Shopify price points. So when I asked, you know, when I first started with clients and I asked them, I might ask them what their best sellers are or what their average conversion rate is on their website or what the average order is. And if they don't know, it totally freaks me out because I'm like, well, how can you, how can you make decisions on your business if you don't understand these things? So by not knowing where you're at, it can make a big difference to where you're going, because if you don't know, you know, like for example, if your average order value was$55 and your free shipping was 50, maybe it needs to change to, you know, 75 and see if your average order might go up by people adding that one extra little item, because it just chips over to that free shipping threshold. So things like that, having an understanding of that, and then you can make tweaks and changes based on your numbers. You have to understand these things, to be able to run your business more efficiently and also smarter. So you can, may helps you buy better, helps you plan better. You might look at your best sellers and go, you know, in this month it was this, this month. It was that, you know, what do I need to change and do, based on what my data's telling me, do I need to add more of that category? Could I maybe add another price point in that category category because that's, what's working really well for my sales, or is there a particular reason that you had boosts of sales that month? Was it that you got, um, PR or influencer, or what happened if you look at your data and you can sort of see trends and changes and things going on, then it helps you understand your business better and it helps you make decisions better about what's, um, what, what you should do in the future as you go up in plans. So, you know, from the$29 basic plan up to 79, I think then it goes to 2 99, the reporting gets better and better. And that what you get in the first stage is enough, but what you should make sure that you do is understand where that threshold changes. So, you know, is it what happens is when you go up to the$79 plan, it also gives you reduced transaction fees and reduced fees per, um, you know, every transaction be different for international or Australian and stuff like that. I think the threshold is around about if you're doing about$20,000 per month, that is when those lower rates, you might be better off jumping up to that$79 one, because you have to pay less in transaction fees. And so you're going to save that amount, but you get better reporting and information from that next plan as well. So make sure you understand that thresholds and what the difference are, what the differences are, so that, you know, when to jump up as well, um, always make sure that you add your cost pricing when you're loading your products up also so that you can see what your gross margins are as you move forward too. So this is something that not everyone does at the start, and you don't necessarily have the reporting at the start, but if you add the information in early, then as you move up in your reporting, and we'll also give you that really good information about what products are giving you the best margin, what products, um, you know, uh, loss leaders, maybe for you, but at least if you understand where you're at, then you can make, again, better decisions on moving forward and growing your business. Alright, number 10, it is scalable. So you can easily start with one product or 10 products or, you know, or add multiple, multiple, multiple products. So you can scale easily with Shopify because it's built to, you know, be for those brands who have one, one particular product, or have thousands of skews and different things on their website. So whether you're doing a hundred dollars a week or a, you know, a hundred thousand, it's still the best system for either of those different sort of types of websites. So you can add multiple products, you can add bundles, whatever you're doing, it will still allow you, um, the host in that it gives you is still allows you to scale. Um, you know, as opposed to some other websites where it might just get too much information or too much data, or you get crushes because of, you know, you plug ins and stuff like that. So if you're starting out and I have a product based business that you plan to grow, and I hope that, you know, that is what your, what your, what you wanting to do. And if you want it to bring in you a decent income that it's, you know, and that's going to be different for everyone, not everyone's going to have the same level of what decent English means to them. I'm doing little, you know, finger quotes here. Um, then these are the reasons that I suggest Shopify. It definitely has some negatives. You do not want to, um, you know, you don't own that website, which some people really struggle with, but I think most of the time, you're probably not going to want to move anyway. So I don't see why the big deal, if you're planning to stay there for the long-term and it requires you less effort, as I talked about, you know, the coding and the plugins and all that sort of stuff, updating, there are limitations with the themes. Obviously you can only do certain things when you buy a certain theme, but, you know, you can easily change them and you can make a few tweaks and changes to themes. We then the codes I had, one of my clients wanted to have two products per view on their, on their mobile view. And it was only coming up with one initially. And we just added a little bit of code into the backend, which I just Googled to find out. So it wasn't exactly, you know, rocket science to sort of figure it out. And it just happened that that particular theme someone had got it, had a solution for. So we added that code into the website and, you know, bang, she could see two products per view, um, on each row of her, of her particular mobile view that she wanted. So you can make tweaks and changes within some things. It's definitely not the cheapest option, but you know, what good things in business or in life are free. You've got to pay for certain things. If you can want to sit in quality or certain level of, um, of website or offer, it is hard to edit if you want early customers, customizable options. So, you know, maybe it's not for you if that's the case. So I just go through the list again. So it's easy to get started. It gives you great technical support and help. There's lots of people who can help you with, um, getting your website up and going, or any issues. If you have them, it's got all in one system, it's everything included in terms of, you know, your payment systems and your domain and all that stuff included. It's easier to upload and edit things. SEO is, you know, systemized and easy to sort of plug in once you know, where to put the information it integrates with other software systems seamlessly. And it has so many different apps available that you can plug that you can add in so that you can make changes to your website as well. The checkout is trustworthy and simple. It's people understand it. They know it. They know where to move in the next steps of the checkout process. The data and analytics are extremely valuable. In my opinion, I think that what it gives you in a simple dashboard is, is great data. It is super scalable. So as I said, whether you are turning over, you know, a thousand dollars a week or a hundred thousand dollars a week, it's still going to be the best option for you. So I hope this has helped you figure out whether, you know, this is the right one for you. As I said, I see so many people in Facebook groups and things like that saying, you know, should I use Shopify? Why should I use Shopify? Who else has used it? And so on. Um, I think if you're planning that your, your business is going to be one that you're going to grow one that you're gonna invest in one that you're going to market to, then I think Shopify is your best option for an e-commerce store for a full list of other comparisons and stuff like that. I'm going to put a little link in the show notes because I've got a particular post that I've seen that I just think is gives you great pros and cons for all the different options as well. So if you wanted to check that out, you can. And if you wanted to learn more about your website and how to improve it, and you know, then I think you should check out, you can check out my short course, which I've got, which is just get your bins business online, ready, which I've just recently updated again. And then I also work one-on-one with clients in many areas of the business, but, you know, but website reviews is, is one of the areas and we can work on how to make sure that we grow your overall business in lots of ways. But looking at your website is one of those choices as well. So thank you so much for being here today. I hope this has, and I hope that you make the, you give, you're making a more informed decision. If you're going to go ahead and go with Shopify. As I said, if you wanted more assistance, let me know and help you out.

Speaker 1: 23:59

Thank you so much for listening to the LACOE business podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe to receive future episodes as they are released. And I'd be so, so grateful for a review on apple podcast. If you would like a copy of the show notes or any of the links mentioned today, please jump onto my website@thelockcode.com. Do they, you forward slash podcast have an amazing week. And I look forward to chatting to you again soon.