The two most important choices you'll make for your Shopify online store

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There are a lot of things you need to consider when starting a business. Are you going to sell online or will you have a physical location? Would you rather sell locally or worldwide? Will you focus on one product or a full range of products? Is selling products best than offering services? What industry should you adventure into? 

These are great and important questions, but when talking about your Shopify online store, which are the two most important ones to consider?

Answer: The products you're going to sell and what your store looks like.

Those are two of the most important decisions you'll have to make for your store. Why? Simply because what you’re selling and the experience you are delivering are key to your success. 

Let’s explore a bit about both of these key elements.

Choosing products for your shop

There is an entire world of products to choose from, so let's take a look at a few key factors so that you can decide what products would be most effective for your business. 

Products that you have tried before

It’s way easier to understand how a product works, what it does, what to expect of it, and when it is malfunctioning if you have already tried it yourself. Many products fail because while they are perfectly good products and may be very popular, interesting, or fashionable, they are not suitable for everyone. 

When you understand, and even better, love a product, you can get inside your customer’s minds, because while they are not you, they might be thinking very similar, and you’ll be able to answer the most common questions, give recommendations or simply identify when a product is not suited for them. 

That will guarantee your client’s satisfaction and will entice them to purchase again from you in the future.

Consumables

Things like bread, candies, and food, in general, are great products since they are highly consumable. Once a client finds out that they love what you’re offering, they will continue to purchase from you again and again. 

If you love to cook and make pastries, this might be a great opportunity for you. But food is not the only consumables you’ll have available to sell, so depending on your industry, you might want to investigate a little and get your hands on some of those. 

Examples of consumables for other industries are electronic cleaners, furniture cleaners, clothing cleaners, and mostly all types of cleaners, inks, stationery products, hair products, beard products, makeup, lotions, creams, etc.

The point is if you’re smart about the consumable you choose, it’s a high-quality product, and your clients love it, it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll have a top seller. 

Volume vs price

When you understand your business well, you know you always have the option of selling volume or selling high-priced products. Each of those strategies has its own advantages and disadvantages. 

If you have low prices you might be able to sell big volumes of products, while with high-priced products you’ll have better earnings faster. You can mix and match and choose those two types of products in your store, just make sure to test and adjust as your business grows.

Avoid having too many products

Sometimes, less is more. Depending on your industry, a good strategy might be to keep your offering limited. It’s scientifically demonstrated that, when offered an extensive range of options, the brain doesn’t know what to choose. 

It’s similar to watching Netflix: too many options, no options. You simply don’t know what to watch. 

Again, if you understand your industry, you might discover that a limited selection works better for you. After all, when I purchase ice cream, 90% of the time I choose strawberry. What about you? 

Be smart and adjust

As your business grows, you’ll discover things change constantly. An industry gets more competitive, the market changes, fashion introduces new trends, etc. All those factors determine how your client’s consumer psychology changes, and you’ll have to adapt too. 

Take a look at what’s new and fashionable, but be sure you’re not adding or removing products on a wimp. 

Ready to add your first product?

If you have decided on the best products for you, it’s time to add them to your online store. It’s very easy. You’ll just have to follow these steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, click Products to go to the Products page.
2. From the Products page, click Add product.
3. Enter a title and additional details for your product. Product details change the way your products display to customers. They also make it easier for you to organize your products, and they help customers to find what you are selling. In addition to product titles, some product details you might want to enter include product descriptions, images, prices, shipping details, weight, and more.
4. Click Save product.

Choosing a theme for your shop

Themes are very important for your shop since they set the tone, mood, and experience that your customers will go through while interacting with your business. 

What you need to understand about themes is that a theme controls the organization, features, and style of your online store, therefore, different themes have different styles and layouts and offer a different experience for your customers. 

That’s why, depending on your industry, you might want to consider different themes. If you’re in the beauty and health industry, you might want your online store to feel relaxed and luxurious, while if you're selling electronics, then you might want your online store to look energetic and sleek.

When choosing a theme, you must consider two very important elements:

• Layout: check all styles of the theme to get an idea of its flexibility and what you could potentially achieve visually.
• Features: try to pick a theme that has the features you like or need or will need in the future. Examples of features are shipping calculator on cart, currency converter, mega menu, swatches, etc.

Take in mind that, by choosing the correct theme for your business you’ll avoid extra costs in future developments. Plus, let’s face it. You want your store to look amazing, right?

If you’re unsure of where to start, we can recommend these two themes collections:

• Out of the Sandbox
• Pixel Union

Both of these developers create highly rated, very configurable, beautifully looking, and professionally developed themes that will help you avoid any malfunctioning from poor coding.

If you choose any of the Out of the Sandbox themes, though, you will be able to update to new versions of the theme for free with their Updater app, and you also have the option to carry over any personalized coding you had in your previous version of the theme (paid option in their app), potentially saving you hours of work and money.

 

So now your know. If there are two elements you really want to be mindful of are your products and your store’s theme. Are you ready to start with those yet?

Need any help uploading products and customizing your Shopify theme?

We’ll be very happy to help you give the final touches to your store or start from scratch. Hiring a Shopify Expert can help you streamline your store's development. Having the experience of working with hundreds of stores online, we have developed a systemized process to set up any new Shopify store by following e-commerce best practices that will work for your business and actually give you a competitive advantage.

If you are new to Shopify and you are running a serious business, you need an Expert partner like us to help you take it from zero to launch with the best chance of success.

By the way, did you know that you’ll only have 14 days if you activate your trial and after that, you’ll have to start paying your Plan subscription, even if you haven’t finished your store’s setup? 

How cool would it be if you can take your time setting up your store and not have to worry about starting to pay your Plan before you have everything figured out? 

As Shopify Experts, we can not only help you accelerate the setup process, but if you decide to start your online store with us, you won’t have to pay your monthly plan during the development time, even if it lasts 1 year! If that’s something you’re interested in, let’s know more about you and your business. Contact us today by clicking here.