I’ve mentioned a zillion times that I think Shopify is an awesome platform for selling both physical and digital goods. It’s easy to use, you can get fast results (I made my very first sale on my Shopify store in under 3.5 hours after buying a domain!), there’s built-in SEO, they integrate with a zillion social media platforms, and on and on.
And in keeping with the “easy” theme, today’s post is all about how you can use Shopify to get extra sales with very little effort.
If you don’t use Shopify, no worries. Most of these tools work for multiple platforms and/or you can find comparable tools with some Googling.
Each of the tools I am mentioning are things that I’ve personally tested, spent 20 minutes or less on, and got multiple sales with. This post isn’t based on theory – it’s based on what actually works. So let’s go – here’s how you can make some easy money:
1. Add your products to the Wanelo marketplace
Wanelo is a free app that uploads all of your products into the Wanelo marketplace. When a customer buys one of your items after finding it on Wanelo they pay you for the item’s cost minus a 10% commission.
You don’t have to do *anything* extra.
Here are some of the free sales I’ve gotten on one of my stores by using this app:
You can use Wanelo with or without Shopify. I know Etsy has some integrations and imagine other places do as well.
And if you have Shopify, you can download the app right here.
2. Hire an awesome marketing manager without paying a full time salary
Kit is a paid app you can use to do all kinds of marketing online. You can use it to:
- Advertise your products to your social media pages
- Retarget your products to customers who came to your page but didn’t buy
- Send “thank you” emails
- Create Facebook and Instagram ads
- Send “what’s new” emails to your customers with your new products – *very* easy to way to get extra sales
And the best part? You run it via text message! It is SO easy. Here’s what it looks like in action:
Super, super simple and effective.
You can download Kit right here. It works with Shopify, BigCartel, Etsy, Tictail, and Bigcommerce.
3. Capitalize on one of the most engaging emails you’ll ever send
One of the best times to get a customer’s attention is when you’re sending them an order receipt. People often open them to make sure that everything looks OK. For example, check out the last 700 receipts I sent in one of my stores:
These receipts had a 62.5% open rate – meaning 62-63 out of every 100 people who got an email from me opened it. That’s awesome!
Sending people emails while they’re on a buyer’s high is also a perfect time to offer them other products or offers they might be interested in. That’s where Receiptful comes in. You can use this app (it’s free with optional paid upgrades) to do all kinds of things. The free version lets you:
- Send unlimited receipts
- Offer discounts for future orders
- Invite people to refer friends
- Send personalized product recommendations
- Ask for feedback
- Send content or social media recommendations
- At minimum: send beautiful receipts
I haven’t played with the paid version a lot yet but it looks like it might be very valuable.
The nice thing about Receiptful is that you set it up once – it takes 10 minutes or less – and then you never need to use it again unless you want to keep tweaking. People will forever get receipts from you that are customized the way you like them.
You can download Receiptful right here. There’s also a plugin for WooCommerce.
4. Gain back customers who began to purchase but didn’t finish
Have you ever started to make an order but then didn’t finish? Maybe you got interrupted by the phone, engrossed in a cat video, or just second guessed your purchase?
It turns out you’re not the only one. ;)
Abandonment Protector is an app you can use to send emails to people who started to check out but didn’t finish. It’s a great way to recoup lost sales and to get customer feedback on why people haven’t purchased.
The app takes less than 10 minutes to set up and gives you an excellent return on the $8/month cost. Here’s some stats for one of my stores:
Recovering 70 orders – $1505.26 back – on an $8 spend is a pretty great ROI. And if I tweaked the emails (I haven’t since I downloaded the app months ago) I bet it would be even better.
The other nice thing is that people will sometimes write back and tell you why they haven’t ordered, and there’s often something you can fix – maybe shipping was calculated incorrectly and they’re paying too much, or they want the plural version of a mug (i.e. “I love my cats” instead of “I love my cat”), or they wanted a human response to make sure the store was legitimate.
I’ve often responded to people with custom coupon codes to sweeten the pot and inspire them to purchase. It works, especially when you make a coupon code that’s called whatever their name is – i.e. “put in coupon code CARLA to save 10%.”
You can download Abandonment Protector right here.
5. Offer non-invasive upsells and cross-sells.
If a customer is interested in one item they’ll often be interested in “like” items. If they’re buying a mug for example, they may be interested in the matching tank top or sticker.
Boost Sales is an app that helps you offer the matching items to them in a very easy way.
You can either have blanket upsells and cross-sells – as in, any time anyone buys ANY item they’re offered a specific upsell – or you can make it so that specific offers have specific promotions.
It is obviously faster to make blanket offers, but taking less than 2 minutes to create a custom offer can yield great results. Here are some examples of custom offers you might offer (I use UseGearBubble.com to get these items):
I recently downloaded Boost Sales. I’d been using another app until many people told me it negatively impacted their conversion rates, so I stopped. The app hasn’t been flawless and I don’t always see my upsells (nor do other people), but it’s still netted some extra sales with pretty minimal involvement on my end:
Again – not a ton, but it’s free money.
You can download Boost Sales right here.
Bonus: Find influencers and celebrities who buy your products
I recently came across an app that will scan your buyers’ list to find influencers who purchased your products.
Besides making for cool bragging rights, you can also write to those influencers and offer them free products in exchange for a social media shout out.
I haven’t used this strategy myself yet, but it seems pretty cool and I could definitely see it working.
The app is paid to use, and you can find your first influencer for free.
You can download Groupie right here.
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Hopefully this helps! I’m not affiliated with any of these app companies and don’t make any money from recommending them. I simply think they’re awesome, revenue generating, and yield great results for minimal time spent.
If you already use Shopify, another tool I love is this drag and drop theme builder. Ignore the dreadfully hype-y sales letter because the tool is actually awesome. And if you’re reading this before February 22nd: grab the tool before the price nearly doubles in price.
And if you haven’t yet checked out Shopify, sign up for a free trial right here.
