How Shopify Can Reshape Your Business (5+ Noteworthy Ideas)

How Shopify Can Reshape Your Business

Shopify is the industry leader for cloud-based, multichannel platforms for small and medium businesses. With 600,000 businesses powered by Shopify and over 1 million active users, this platform engine giant is on track to reach $970 – $990 million in revenue during 2018.

Shopify welcomes businesses that are doing millions of dollars a day in sales as well as the new kids on the block who haven’t sold a single item. They create an even playing field that helps elevate businesses to the next level – sometimes overnight.

Interestingly, Tobi Lütke, founder and CEO of Shopify backs this by saying, “That eight of our ten top sellers over the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend were merchants that had upgraded from lower-priced plans reminds us that today’s startups become tomorrow’s superstars, at a velocity that appears to be increasing all the time. As the engine powering the growth of these merchants, Shopify has an opportunity that stretches years into the future.”

The Shocking Growth of Shopify

With eCommerce consistently gaining momentum, Shopify continues to be an industry innovator that creates powerful, beautiful platforms that give merchants the perfect place to sell their products and services.

Over the last several years, Shopify has experienced unbelievable growth. CFO, Russ Jones, shared in the 2016 review, “That we grew revenue by 90% and GMV by 99% for the full year 2016 speaks to the enormous opportunity in retail right now and our strategic position within it.”

Shopify carried that momentum into the following year with GMV (Gross Merchant Volume) during for the fourth quarter of 2017 hitting $9.1 billion. This was a 65% increase from 2016’s fourth quarter!  

There’s No Sign of Slowing Down

Shopify revenues have continued to increase year over year. Here are the total revenues from 2015-2017 and projections for 2018.

• In 2015 Shopify total revenue was $205.2 million
• In 2016, Shopify total revenue grew 90% to $389.3 million.
• In 2017, Shopify total revenue grew 73% to $673.3 million
• Forecasts say that Shopify will see revenue between $970-$990 million in 2018

Merchants Feel Safe

Shopify is a company that is financially secure, so merchants feel comfortable migrating their business (big or small) over to the platform. At the end of 2015, Shopify had $190.2 in cash. At the close of 2016, they had $392.4 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities and went on to far exceed that, ending 2017 with a whopping $938.0 million.

Big ROI During Holidays

During 2017, Shopify merchants broke records and saw their biggest holiday season ever. From Black Friday through Cyber Monday, Shopify recorded $1 Billion of GMV with a peak of $1 million orders processed per minute.

After the 2017 review, Jones stated, “That our merchants sold more in the fourth quarter than in all of 2015, achieving one billion dollars of this in just four days, speaks to how far we have come in the past few years. Our leadership role in commerce, together with the scale we have achieved, position us well to invest in our next phase of growth: one marked by expansion of our capabilities upmarket and down, in retail, in our ecosystem, and internationally.”

Shopify continues to:

• Improve existing channels like their point of sale solution. They launched their Chip and Swipe card reader to address specific merchant needs.
• Expand the number of categories merchants can sell on Amazon.
• Keep the merchants at the forefront. Shopify Capital quadrupled the amount of cash advanced to merchants in 2017.

With their world class customer service, it is nearly guaranteed that all of your needs will be addressed and solutions will be provided quickly. This allows merchants to focus on marketing and selling their goods, not dealing with the headaches of back-office issues.

Best in Class Site Functionality

Business owners can fully customize their storefronts so that it reflects their brand’s individuality. Each site is equipped with a fully functioning blog and the ability to manage unlimited products and services. There is limitless bandwidth and customer data storage capabilities which makes Shopify the no-brainer choice for business owners around the world.

One way to optimize functionality is to ensure your page loads quickly. SEMRush says finding a theme that is fast and responsive is essential. One of our primary goals here at Parkfield Commerce is to elevate your brand’s presence to provide a pixel-perfect customer experience.  

We know that running a business can get hectic, especially around the holidays, so if you’re not sure if your site is updated, we would be happy to assist. When sites take too long to load, you lose customers and potential revenue. Supporting your site with the right backend tools will give you limitless income earning potential.

What Else Does Shopify Offer?

Merchants have the option of adding new sales channels in mere seconds and can sell on a variety of new channels. In 2017, Shopify added new channels like Instagram, Lyst, and Buzzfeed to help expand their merchants reach. eBay joined Shopify mega partners, Facebook, Pinterest and Amazon in allowing their merchants to sell from a variety of venues from one single backend.

Shopify also elevated their wholesale market by including a wholesale channel for their Shopify Plus merchants.

Seamless Checkout and Shipping Process

With secure payments, easy checkout and excellent shipping options, merchants can confidently know that their products are being safely delivered to customers.

5 Reasons Merchants Choose Shopify:

• Orders are fulfilled in one easy step
• Shopify Payments allows customers to pay via credit card
• Secure and user-friendly checkout experience  
• Easy to navigate back office to track sales and growth trends
• Shopify shipping helps merchants save time and money with their exclusive discounted rates.

Shipping options include using USPS and Canada Postas and recently added new shipping partners, DHL and UPS. Each of these partners ships directly from the Shopify platform. With $82 billion sold on Shopify, they understand the importance of efficient processes to guide your client through a seamless experience.

Capitalizing on More Revenue

With Shopify, your store is located on a platform that is run by a stable company. You have a solid website, excellent shipping, and world-class customer service to help you succeed, so how do you increase your ROI?

Web expert, Neil Patel suggests that “email marketing is 40x more effective than marketing on Facebook and Twitter when it comes to generating sales.”

Shopify noted during 2017 that the majority of purchasing came from mobile devices in the fourth quarter. They saw 73% of traffic and 61% of orders come from mobile devices. That’s an increase from 2016’s fourth quarter which saw 69% of traffic and 55% of orders come from mobile devices.

Patel advocates for the Shopify email button that allows customers to click straight through to checkout in the email. Shopify creates a user-friendly customer experience that helps you market to your mobile audience effectively.

Shopify also provides excellent marketing services to help you capture the traffic that visits your site. It’s not enough to just have a store now; you have to implement a strategy to convince people you are a brand that they can trust.

So tell us, are you a Shopify merchant?

If not, let’s talk. We can help take your online store to the next level through innovative migration solutions that are seamless and easy to implement.

You won’t regret using Shopify. Join the growing 1 million+ active users today.