If you want to succeed in e-commerce, you need a Shopify store. I’ve helped many clients achieve success with Shopify, and my most recent client was able to generate over 1.1M€ in sales last year!

How did I do it? By developing a custom Shopify website that was tailored to my customer’s business and making it look beautiful and easy to use.

Shopify has been increasingly becoming a popular e-commerce platform over the past few years. With its simple yet effective user interface, setting up and managing a Shopify store is easier than ever. And while starting an online shop from scratch can be daunting, if you have a good product and are willing to put in the work, it can be a very effective way to grow your business.

One of the main reasons Shopify has become so popular is because of its ability to integrate with a wide range of third-party apps. This means that if you need to do something that Shopify doesn’t offer by default, there’s likely an app for that. And as Shopify continues to grow, the number of apps available only continues to increase.

This was certainly the case for my client, a luxury furniture brand. When they came to me wanting to open an e-commerce store, we quickly realised that Shopify offered all the functionality they needed. But because of the many different business habits and flows that had been developed over the years, we had to integrate a number of third party apps.

Here are 5 tips to get you going on your new e-commerce project :

The firm with whom I’m working didn’t start from nothing; they’ve been developing their brand for the past 20 years. They sure had enough of a customer base to work with, given that they have over 50,000 Instagram followers and a flagship shop in a trendy area.

This one is pretty self-explanatory, your shop better look great if you want people to buy stuff from there. Spend the time and money to make it look good, it will be worth it in the end. In my situation, we modified an off-the-shelf Shopify theme with a minimalist style that perfectly matched the company’s distinctive aesthetic.

An image is worth a thousand words, and it’s even more true for luxury brands when it comes to e-commerce. This entails dealing with good photographers, taking a slew of photos, and picking the finest to display your goods.

One of the main reasons that my client’s Shopify store has been so successful is because of the quality of the product photography. Investing in professional photography pays off in spades, and is one of the best things you can do to make your Shopify store stand out.

Having a Shopify store is great, getting your products delivered in a timely and effective manner is better. Make sure you have a solid plan in place for order fulfilment and shipping. Because my customer delivered to 18 different countries with a wide range of unique shipping restrictions, we had a significant job on our hands. This was challenging to set up, but the system is now operating smoothly and serves for every shape and size of shipment.

You must also think about your terms of sale and refund policies. Be very clear about what the customer can expect from you, and make sure that you can deliver on those promises. We had to deal with a few unhappy customers along the way, but by having a robust refund policy in place we were able to turn those customers into raving fans.

In today’s day and age, it’s absolutely essential that your Shopify store works on all types of screens and devices. Shopify caters for “responsive design” but it is also important to have the support and experience of a seasoned Shopify developer (i.e. me!) to get you on the right track.

Additionally, Shopify’s team are always on hand to offer support and advice when needed. Overall, I found that Shopify provided an excellent platform on which to build and grow an online retail business.

At the end of the day, I’m pretty impressed and proud that my customer hit the ground running with their new Shopify store. They managed to create a new source of revenue in less than a year. 

Where to next?

Shopify is a fantastic e-commerce platform and it’s no wonder that it is becoming increasingly popular with online retailers. It’s not only because of its responsive design, but also because of the excellent back-end support and features that it offers. In my experience, Shopify really does provide everything you need to get your online shop up and running quickly and easily. This was certainly the case for my customer, who managed to generate an impressive 1.1M€ in sales within their first year of trading! If you’re looking for a platform that can help you achieve similar success, I would definitely recommend giving me and Shopify a try.

Thanks for reading!