oh okay we're live hey everyone
dev here hello hello hey david hey diane
i'm seeing a few names here that i uh
recognize hey elena hey anna
um so so nice to have you here i'm here
with my friend shelly we're going to
talk everything
shopify so let me bring her in
here she is oh i didn't get to do my pop
out
hi we had uh we had plan of having a big
moment
yeah i was gonna do it but that's all
right
um yeah it's so nice to have you i'm
really excited about this i know i've
had a lot of
uh people emailing me back when i
announced this workshop telling me
yes great timing because i am working on
my shop
um and so it's yeah i'm very excited
because i feel your experience is going
to be very valuable and maybe
let's start there and introduce yourself
so that people who
don't know who you are get to know that
hey hi
i'm shelly i have a business called the
launch party
it's an e-commerce design studio and i
focus on
shopify i'm going to share a little bit
more about my story just briefly in
my presentation too so if you want to
get to know me more stay tuned
for those of you who are watching live
we'll have a q a at the end as well so
if during the presentation
uh you have a question or something that
you'd like us to answer at the end
leave it in the comments shelley's going
to be doing all the talking but i'll be
in the comments with you guys and making
sure that i grab those questions
so that we can address them at the end
um
and hi everyone we've got uh someone
from hawaii
california carol big island i love big
island
yes arizona indonesia okay this is
definitely a worldwide broadcast
very cool yeah that's really nice
okay so i'll let you share your
um screen and i'll mute myself
and be in the comments instead okay
oh it's already there okay great all
right sorry
how makers can sell more with shopify so
that is my presentation for you guys
tonight and i love
questions so just keep the comments
coming in
as we go through okay so we are going to
cover
what is shopify exactly so if you're
totally unfamiliar with shopify
we will start there and then we're going
to talk about shopify design 101
so we'll talk about three must-haves for
your home page and why
and then finally we'll talk about how to
use shopify like a pro
so i'm going to highlight some of the
features you may not know about and talk
about how to make the most out of
shopify
so real quick here's that intro i
promised you short story time
i'm shelley from launch party i'm an
e-commerce designer
i'm a shopify partner i've built way
over well over 100 plus sites at this
point
um i have over 10 years of experience in
web
and i'm powered by homemade matcha
lattes had two today
so far it's keeping me going and i'm
also a mother of six-year-old twins
so going back in 2008 i got my first job
post college at a magazine i was the
graphic designer for conceive
magazine and one of my first projects
was to
build their website which i actually did
not know how to do because i was the
graphic designer which is actually a
different thing
but i started learning how to do
websites by starting on conceive
magazine's website
then at the same time i realized i
really wanted to have my own business
had no idea how to do it
but i thought this website thing could
be something that could catch on
and i started offering it to other
people essentially and this is my first
client
shown here zuzu boutique a local
boutique in orlando
a few years later i was laid off from my
job and i started my business
which is now called after a few
iterations launch party
hi everybody welcome since then i've
worked with a wide variety of different
businesses
uh jewelry designers food brands artists
metalsmiths interior design firms
pattern makers
business consultants beauty brands
nutritionists
and boutique owners so i'd love to hear
if you're here live
what is your business
all right now let's get right to it so
what is
shopify shopify
is an all-in-one e-commerce solution
so that means that you can use it to
build your online store
to sell your products in person with
shopify point of sale or pos
you can also use it to sell on social
media across any of your social media
channels
hi and sell physical or digital products
so
memberships services classes downloads
really you can sell pretty much anything
with shopify
and really big brands use shopify and i
like pointing that out because
shopify truly has no ceiling so you can
see
here's just a small selection of some of
the really large brands that are powered
by shopify
we have lisa mattress right here kylie
jenner's kylie cosmetics brand
and kristen bell and jack shepard's
hello bellow baby brand and even the new
york times store
so no matter your income threshold or
how much you want to make on shopify
shopify really can get you there is
getting kylie there so
you there's no ceiling
okay so i see we've got some valences
curtain sewing
graphic artist awesome edibles handmade
beaded
maximum jewelry design cool awesome
so to give you a few bullet points of
why i love shopify and why i recommend
it for people that are selling
any kind of product is it has a good
starting price
so their basic plan is 29 a month most
of my clients
are on that basic plan like that basic
plan is good
has a lot of excellent features included
and all of the plans have powerful
ecommerce features that are just part of
their plans not something that you have
to add on and pay more for
it's also really easy to use their
inventory management is just super
streamlined and simple
and it doesn't require a lot of tech
know-how
i love that they are rolling out new
features all the time
one of their newest features is shopify
fulfillment
so you can even have your products
fulfilled or shipped
via shopify which is really cool or
you're not having to store your own
inventory in this case
and i like that it's great for stores of
all sizes it's truly very flexible
so you can have a really successful
shopify store with literally one product
or you could have
thousands of products it can grow with
you
so kylie jenner is on it you can grow to
kylie jenner level
if you're using shopify like it's not
going to stop you you're not going to
switch
to the next better e-commerce platform
when you get to a certain point
you can stay with shopify throughout
your business journey
i also love that they have 24 7 customer
support and resource center
they have phone chat and email and i
chat with them
often and they're always there they're
great
and i love shopify payments so if you
use shopify payments for your
transactions
you do not pay transaction fee now that
doesn't mean you don't pay a credit card
processing fee you do always still have
to pay that
but you don't have to pay an additional
fee on top of that it's zero percent
and then um i also love their app store
and integrations
which i will be talking a little bit
about towards the end of this
presentation
okay let's get to shopify design 101
so three must-haves for your home page
and i'm seeing a few more comments of
what people are selling so we've got
floral art
soap and bath products and then farah
said i've never sold online because i'm
not comfortable with the computer how
easy is
websites how easy is shopify so that's
part of the reason i like shopify i feel
like if you can manage your email
and things like that then you should be
able to manage shopify like it is pretty
pretty easy to use and then we have
martha that does not
needle felted critters that's cute
misty says she loves shopify it's a lot
to dig into the first time but it's
really user friendly still
cool angie does embroidery and vinyl
susan does jewelry making and wedding
photography cool
and stuff does jewelry awesome okay so
let's talk about
the almighty home page so
your homepage is so so important
it must communicate your brand what you
sell
and why to buy from you because if
visitors don't like what they see
or they don't think you sell the
products they want they'll leave and
they may never come back
i know that sounds really dramatic but
how many times have you been to a
website went uh
and then closed it out and immediately
forgot the name of the website and
literally never came back so using your
home page
your homepage is a chance to really
capture people's attention
and the main thing that you want people
to do is stay on your site
typically people won't be buying
directly off of the home page
so we just want to get people to that
next step on the home page
so let's talk about some ways to do that
so must have number one is a strong
and simple headline so tell people
right away what you sell make your
headline big
clear and also try not to get overly
clever with your headline
i'm totally aware that this must-have
might sound like a no-brainer
but i see so many sites that for one
don't have headlines
often i see people use their logo as a
headline or simply they don't have one
at all
or you have a confusing headline that
doesn't actually state something that
might be really important to what you
do i see that often so just sticking
with something
really clear and simple that gets your
point across
as succinctly as possible is is the way
to go with your headline so here's an
example from my client lip tilt on the
right
so they sell lip balm luxury lip balm
and the headline is bomb that does the
hard work so your lips can take it easy
so you know right away
that this site sells lip balm read on if
you want to know more about lip balm or
if you're interested in buying lip balm
so here's some other examples and these
are just really simple
but really strong headline examples so
on the left is
a kids book about and their headline is
simply
kids books that matter and then claire
paint on the right
the headline paint to home that makes
you happy so you can keep your headline
super simple
and just like these example examples you
want them to also be
really easy to read have high contrast
between your text
and your photos so that ideally you're
able to really scan
it and quickly see it
okay let's move on to must have number
two
so that's where i want you to share your
cat your collections
or shopify calls it i'm sorry i want you
to share your categories
which shopify calls collections so make
it clear
as day what your main shopping
categories are
so you can do this by using your main
navigation
that menu up across the top of your site
definitely use that to share
your collections or your categories and
it can also
feature that content in a section on
your homepage
like we see on the right with my client
gypset
so she has shop by category and you can
see
there's a new category a jewelry
category
lifestyle and apparel and it's helpful
in this case that you see some of the
pictures so you kind of know what you're
getting into
and it's just a great way to share what
you sell and again we're wanting people
to
continue off the homepage we don't want
people to just read the homepage and
kind of
end there we want there to be points of
entry into the site
so that's where this section can be
really helpful
okay so here's another example of
showing a shop by type or showing your
collections
this is from the handbag designer bagoo
and
they have this little slider that shares
the different or shows the different
types of
bags that you can buy from them and
that's just awesome because maybe you're
looking on their site you don't know
they sell pouches or you didn't know
they have reusable bags or whatever the
next ones are
it's just a great way for me to see that
without having to
dive in further it gives me i can go
right away okay i'm interested in
reusable bags click there and get into
the site
and start shopping the product
now let's talk about must-have number
three
so setting clear expectations
so whatever your policies are make them
stand out right away
so the reason i'm saying whatever they
are is a lot of my clients
feel that they should offer free
shipping and i know that's something
that also happens on etsy too
and that's a whole thing essentially but
i don't want you to feel like especially
as a small business that you must offer
free shipping
but you can have a free shipping
threshold so in this case
of rock house over here she has a free
shipping threshold and you can
get that free shipping threshold lower
to 25
if you subscribe and if and then if you
subscribe and you're on her list then
you get the code for free shipping
so you can think of it as part of your
strategy but i don't want you to hide
whatever it is just make it as clear as
possible
because that will help prevent abandoned
carps so where someone
goes ahead and starts purchasing they
realize oh there is actually
shipping that i have to pay and then
they abandon the cart but if you set the
expectation clearly and right off the
bat
many places so definitely across the top
also i featured right here you can see
on the bottom
this is a little bit of the footer you
can see that there's the wholesale
or sorry the shipping return policy and
those are really important links to have
in your footer too
so essentially your visitor needs to
know these things
in order to purchase they need to know
what will shipping cost
that's pretty important for most people
they need to also know
does this company have good customer
service or is this legit
and they need to know what is the return
and exchange policy
so what you can do is place your
shipping info
in multiple locations so i just
highlighted across the top and the hello
bar
is a definite spot you want to place it
and you want to also have it in your
footer
and then for to answer the question does
this company have good customer service
you can make it really easy to contact
you in your support
so maybe that's having just a contact
link in your notification
in your navigation maybe it's having
like a little messenger app type thing
or maybe it's just being really
available on instagram and dming with
your
potential customers and then is this
site legit
that's where you can use reviews to
really help
and i'm going to highlight a review app
that i like in a few
slides but reviews are truly powerful
for helping people
decide to buy and then you need to
answer what is the return in exchange
policy
so you don't want to make this
information hard for people to find
and that's kind of the point that i'm
really trying to convey is that people
don't want to have to look for it and
you do need to place it in multiple
places
so you might feel like it's really
overkill i put it in the hello bar
people don't need to go down there and
see here and it's on the product page
but people expect to find a lot of these
things
in certain places like the hello bar and
in the footer and sticking with that
and making sure you put it in multiple
places just makes it so much easier
for people to find and feel reassured
and feel comfortable
actually making the purchase
so here's an example from my client dora
may so before
when you landed on her site while you
still see her beautiful photos
you had no idea like how much shipping
would cost or what that process would be
so by simply adding a little hello bar
at the top that has the shipping
information
so in her case she has free shipping
over 150 dollars
plus a free gift with sign up that right
away sets that expectation
and it's going to help someone not
abandon their cart if they've put in an
80
earring and they're not expecting to
have to pay more for shipping
just makes that super clear right off
the bat
and then here's another example i love
looking at websites that really have to
overcome a lot
so this is the joy bird website so they
sell furniture online like they sell
couches and chairs and things like that
so it's something that you don't
necessarily
or that a lot of us aren't as
comfortable purchasing online
so they have to do a lot of expectation
setting right off the bat
to make it where someone's going to feel
comfortable buying so i like
looking at what sites like these are
doing also mattress sites are a great
one to look at for that too
but you can see how there are they are
setting the expectations
and they're assuring you by showcasing
that they have
free and simple returns so they're
explaining that very clearly
they explain their shipping unlimited
flat rate delivery
and then they assure you that this is
legit you're going to be taken care of
with world-class customer service so
they even call their customer service a
concierge team
that treats everyone like royalty so
again that doesn't mean you have to do
this exact thing
but it's really helpful to see what
other companies are doing
and how you can use or borrow some of
those strategies
to assure your customers and to make
things really clear for them
okay so let's talk about how to maximize
shopify so using shopify like a pro
so i want to highlight the shopify point
of sale
so shopify's point of sale system which
is free with all of your plans
allows you to keep one managed inventory
an accounting system all within shopify
so it's all synced together so if you're
selling
in-store obviously much not many of us
are selling in person right now but some
still are
you can have that all managed on your
shopify account
as well as if you're doing delivery or
even curbside pickup that can all be
together with your inventory
it's not something that you're gonna
have to update over here and then oh can
you take that off the website because i
just sold it
like that's all gonna be together using
the shopify pls
and shopify makes it really easy to sell
not just on your online store so your
online store is considered
one sales channel of your shopify
account obviously it's a really
important sales channel
but you can add a lot of other sales
channels
to your store and some that i've
highlighted here
are facebook instagram etsy pinterest
amazon crate joy which is like a
subscription service
and google shopping and there's
seriously many more
um so this is an example of if you're
wondering how people have
on instagram where their grid
essentially is shoppable and you can
click
or tap to see a product and then you go
directly to their site
that's using the instagram sales channel
on shopify
and then since shopify is such a big
platform it has a lot of integrations
and you can maximize those too so you
can of course integrate with google
analytics if you're wanting deeper
analytics a lot of people ask me as a
side note if the
basic plan for shopify has good enough
analytics and i do think they do
especially if you pair it with google
analytics then you really have all the
information that you need
it also integrates seamlessly with
zapier
if you use that so that connects it to
any other type of
integration that you might want to
connect to and then one of my favorites
lately here let me just move my mouse
because that's kind of no way one of my
favorites lately
is shop now pay later so that's where
you have interest-free payment plans so
some examples of those are sezzle
klarna and after pay and you can see it
i'm actually going to use my mouse right
here to point it out because it's kind
of small
so this is a pretty expensive product
and i don't want you to think that you
can't use
that you only need one of these payment
plans
with expensive products they're they
actually can be really effective with
less expensive products too
but so you can see you can either buy
this for 1700
or four interest free payments of
i'm having trouble rating it but it's
like for something 400 something
with sezzle so those are awesome
for potentially really increasing your
average order value and just helping
your products become more accessible to
more people
and they're not being charged interest
on it so that's fantastic
okay let's get into the shopify app
world this is another one that i get
asked a lot
as a shopify partner so firstly
what is a shopify app an app
is an extra function that you can add to
your store
so to get started on shopify to sell
your first product
you don't necessarily need any app now
most people if you sell a physical
product will need to add an app like an
order printer and that's free from
shopify or if you sell a digital product
then you'll need to add
a app like send owl which is not free or
the free
shopify app called shopify digital
downloads
so in that sense you do need to add an
app to fulfill
potentially but you don't need to add an
app in order to like take credit cards
or things like that
so apps are usually an additional
monthly cost
but there are lots of free apps and
there's lots of free versions of popular
apps
and on the right here i have a
screenshot of the shopify
app store so that's something you can
take a look at and there's so
so many apps i definitely haven't seen
all of them
there's just tons
but i want to highlight a few of my
favorite apps so
the first is judge.me and i really like
this app for
better reviews than shopify so shopify
has its own free app
for reviews but i prefer judge.me's and
i use the free version for my clients
and this is a screenshot of it on the
right and i like it because
it automatically requests a review from
your customer so it makes it just
really hands off and then i also really
like orderly emails now that is a
one-time app fee of 49
i believe and it just makes it easier
to make branded shopify order emails
which i think is an important part of
the
customer experience of someone that is
purchasing a product on shopify to get a
nice branded email
after they've ordered and when their
order's coming
and then i also like cloverly so that's
a new one that i haven't seen before
and i'm testing this one out and it's
great because
it allows your customers to offset their
carbon emissions and it's a free app
and they can pay like a little bit extra
on their purchase to to pay to offset
those admissions
and then i mentioned these earlier so if
you're selling a digital product then
you want to check out
send owl or shopify digital downloads
those are both great
apps for digital products and then i
also really like
recharge for subscriptions so if you're
considering selling something on a
quarterly or a monthly or weekly basis
then check out recharge it makes it
really easy to do that
okay so we're definitely going to have
questions but if you wanted to
download my free guide that goes with
this presentation
you can download it at
launchparty.liveslashfree
and then i see that some questions were
coming in and i definitely want to get
to all of those too so i'm going to go
ahead and switch over to look at
to like thanks shelby that was so nice
yeah good okay so whatever i meant
for me to like just have someone else
present while i'm in the comments and i
was like
that was easy i could do this every day
i loved it
um so much of what you said i was like
yes so important
um i really liked and i wanted to just
take a second to mention this because i
think it's so important i think
especially when you were talking about
the homepage and what to put on it
you said a few things that i noted down
which was you know
trying to be really clear without being
necessarily too smart because i think
sometimes
to infuse personality in the copy or to
make the brand
more i don't know fun or you know
something like that sometimes we
actually lose track of you know
keeping it really simple and super clear
and the job of your website
is to make it easy for people to find
what they are wanting to purchase
and so like having those things on the
homepage as you mentioned those
collections
to really guide the next click for those
those visitors
is really important because i see i do a
lot of shop reviews inside my membership
community and often what i find is that
it's hard for people to find the
products because it's like one big shop
button at the top and so
yeah on that then they have you know all
sorts of categories mixed together
and so people don't really know where to
look whereas
really keeping in mind like trying to
think as a visitor and thinking okay
what would they want to do next and how
can i simplify this for them
and having this option there of like new
products
uh you know earrings bracelets and just
really simplifying that is super
super important and i think yeah don't
over complicate it we
we overcomplicate things a little bit
too often yeah
i think a lot of it comes down to that
like we we do just make it
harder than it needs to be and simpler
just works so much better um and i
understand because sometimes i also
do the same thing especially on my
website or if i'm trying to come up with
a name for something like well how could
i use a pun there and then
and then i have to just go right back to
okay this needs to be clear
needs to be simple um but yeah it's
simple wins yeah absolutely
um so i'm just going i've added the link
in the comments below
uh guys for the freebie and it's also
going to be added below the video when
the replay
um is done and it'll be on my blog as
well but lunch party dot live
free and i'm just gonna put our faces on
screen now oh look at this fancy
and we can address a few questions that
were
um asked during the question the during
the call
okay um so we had pharah asking
how easy is it to use because never sold
online because
not comfortable with computers so i
think there's a lot of fear on that
when you build your own website and you
decide to start selling on your own
platform of you know the learning curve
um so what do you think of that and
shopify
yeah i mean again i think it's how hard
you want to make it but if you're gonna
do a simple shopify site you know i've
had
students in my shopify course that
aren't on facebook and i made a video to
teach them how to get on facebook and
they're building a shopify site so i
feel like that might
that might help to know that like you
don't necess you don't have to be super
tech savvy
but as long as like you're someone
that's able to send emails and is
comfortable with stuff like that
then i think you can certainly
build a shopify site and i think it's
actually a lot easier than most other
platforms for
dealing with your inventory and for
dealing with payments
and things like that like those types of
things can get super tricky on different
platforms
but shopify makes that part just super
simple
yeah i agree i think i i recommend i'm
pretty platform agnostic in the way of i
like to understand the skills of the
person that i'm working with and the
goals that they have to recommend
different platform but
shopify the biggest advantage i find is
that if you're not
super tech savvy or computer you know
like
it's not your favorite thing to do which
says many creatives and artists and
makers are like this is not why i want
to do this business you know i just want
to keep my products i don't want to be
bogged down in the details of my website
the good thing with shopify is that it
was made for that reason to simplify
because it's not just
building the site which they do make
easy i feel like if you're watching this
video and you're commenting live you can
you can build a website like you have
this right right yeah totally
yeah but they also simplify maintenance
and security
and all of this hosting and all if you
don't understand what i even
said good shopify will do it for you
pretty much exactly
yeah your ssl certificate you don't have
to worry about it like
absolutely because there are things when
you build your website for say on
wordpress which is
kind of like the other option that most
people consider um that you need to have
in order to you know when you process
payments for this to be safe
and secure for when people enter their
credit card it's all like you know it's
not going to be shared or anything
shopify does all that stuff for you all
the security certificate they maintain
the platform and update it for you so
that you know
there's backups being done for you that
everything all that sort of like techy
nerdy stuff
they they take so that you don't have to
do it which is why they charge a fee
which i think is really reasonable for
that if you want to like not have the
headache
you know and and that learning curve so
definitely a great platform for that
yes totally agree about all that i'm a
wordpress
former designer i have my site on
wordpress i do love wordpress
but there are things about it that are
much harder to manage
and like to stay on top of and update
your plugins and you know
if you ever get hacked and stuff like
that like that you just don't have to
deal with
with on shopify which is which is nice
especially for non-techie people
yeah and i always say as well to people
who are a bit scared of
the 29 a month when you're just getting
started i know some people like well i'm
not making money yet so
i'm not super comfortable having to
commit to that to to
to have my business up and running in my
view in my opinion this like your
business is your most important asset
if you're going to be selling products
online like it is literally the one
thing
that you should be spending money on if
anything because
that's your business that's how your
customers are going to find you that's
how you're going to make sales and so i
think it's important to prioritize that
rather than going with
uh that will do kind of half done
websites that was free but then
two years down the track you have to
revamp the whole thing anyway and it's
just a big project and it ends up
costing you more
so i think starting where you want to
end is the way to go with website and
just saving yourself a lot of
time down the track definitely angry
yeah and i've said this from experience
i used to do web design as well as a
freelancer and i was working in
different platforms and these are things
that i've seen happen over and over and
over again i'm like let's avoid that
yes um okay adam asked what
is your opinion about the print on the
men's side so printful printify
all of that does that integrate how does
that yeah i like i like those i think
those are so cool to experiment with
um because obviously the benefit is
you're not having to
buy inventory you just get to sell or
you get to make the purchase when
someone has made the purchase
so those are great and they do integrate
there are apps i believe for both of
those
um and there are other options too with
print on demand and drop shipping apps
for shopify so check out the app store
and just see what the different options
are because there's
there's a lot but i've heard of both of
those and i think they're both good
yeah um we have a few more questions
coming up now um
oh so craft never sees on youtube said
how do you narrow your headline if you
have a variety of different types of
items like crochet beaded jewelry
neat and sewn items that's a really good
question and we have another one that's
similar
oh kind of do you feel you need to have
separate shops for different types of
things so i think there's something to
address here when you sell
different things how do you organize
your site around that
yes okay i mean i think it's totally
cool that you have a variety of stuff i
think
i would think of if there's a certain
thing that unites that maybe it's your
aesthetic
or maybe material or a focus on
something
i would i would united that that with
your headline and then
you don't have to insert all of the
different things you sell in your
category
i'm sorry in your headline it can be a
little bit in your sub head potentially
but it'll also be remember in your top
navigation you'll be showing those
you'll show them with pictures and
you'll show them if you have a section
like
these are my different categories or
collections so i would not try to
i wouldn't try to say everything in your
headline essentially
yeah and i think the the most important
when this is the case is what you said
finding
what is some what unites all of these
different products
there should be something if there isn't
then we'll move into the question of
should you have separate shops because
you should have some sort of
you know your brand should be cohesive
in that sense and your product should
work together
but your headline doesn't have to say
crochet bit of jewelry
neat items you know it can just be
something like bold and colorful designs
to add sparkle to i don't know where i'm
going with this headline but you know
what i mean you can just define the type
of
design if
comes down to what it unites or what
unites them
yeah exactly um so then do you feel you
have to have separate shops for
different type of things
so yeah i mean again that's going to
come down to like what you said if you
have something that unites and makes
sense
if your target customer is someone
that's going to buy
you know of these variety of items but
just because it's a different type or
different category
you can definitely have it on the same
site but if like you're selling
headphones on one site and
crochet on i mean if you're if you're
selling
headphones and crocheted items like no
but if there's some common thread then
yes
yeah i think it really comes down to is
is the visitor or the person that you
want to attract to your website your
ideal customer as we like to call them
would they be interested in these things
on both these items so in this case
jewelry and out on paper are they
completely different audiences
because if they are then you're better
off splitting that into two different
brands or two different shops
because they would it would get
confusing in that sense people would be
like well i don't understand why i'm
seeing all these different things
it has to have something that unites it
um
i'm currently working on my shop and on
the shopify on the
shopping fold now shopify trial is there
a recommended ello banner bar so you
know the little thing you had at the top
for
um shipping and all of that is there an
app for this that you would recommend
usually it's in most themes and
something like including the free
shopify themes
so first i would check that out because
i always would rather have my theme have
a feature
than have to add it with an app but so
if you're not seeing it try googling
your theme name and like just googling
hello bar or notification bar
it's often called notification bar on
shopify um if your theme happens to not
have one
then i would look at an app and i
actually can't think of one off the top
of my head but i would go to the app
store and just search
hello bar and hopefully find a free one
for that because i wouldn't want to pay
for it
yeah i agree it adds up those are the
things add up so you don't want to see
yes adding those little subscriptions to
you know
um to your website account um would you
recommend shopify for the first
e-commerce site a makers should use if
they are just
starting out and this is from sue yes i
definitely would i mean
like we kind of covered like if you
start with a free website you really are
hindering yourself in a lot of ways
and you're making things harder so
you're making it harder for the customer
to buy
first of all and then you're also making
it harder for you to manage
um that's where shopify takes care of
all of that now if you're comparing to
like wordpress and woocommerce and
because wordpress is free and
woocommerce is free
however you have to pay for your hosting
and you have to pay for your security so
that can
honestly be a lot more than 29 a month
depending on what you choose
but i feel like shopify is just the way
i would recommend to go right out of the
gate you don't have to commit to a year
it's really just
one at a time i mean one month at a time
so i would certainly start out with that
so that you're not having to later
transfer to the better e-commerce
platform
yeah that transfer is painful
nobody wants to do that no
um what do you think this is for martha
on youtube as well any thoughts on the
shopify
lite for starting out yeah so shopify
lite is definitely different it's
usually it's for people that have a
wordpress site
that want to use shopify and like put
the shopify button
and use the shopify checkout on their
wordpress site
that can be okay like if you're like i'm
flat out on wordpress i do not want to
move over
like i maybe try that out especially if
you have a low of
like not very many products um and again
it kind of comes down to
and this is a conversation i have a lot
with clients who aren't sure what
platform to be on it comes down to the
main purpose of your site
so if you're thinking like i'm just
going to throw a couple products like
i'm not sure if this is going to be a
big part of my business
then i think stay on wordpress or
whatever platform you're on maybe try
adding shopify light that could be great
but if you're thinking the main purpose
of my website is truly
selling my products yes i have a blog or
maybe i have a few other things but
really i want to sell products
then that's where you want to be on
shopify so i kind of try to do that
math there um of what's what's the
bigger priority
and if it's selling then it's always
shopified and if it's not it could be
something else
yeah that's a really good answer um i
love that because i feel
you if you are thinking about studying
with shopify
light and at the same time building a
site to put that on it's just
it's just not worth it just go with the
with the actual 29 dollar plan
and get it all in shopify the way you
really want it
yes yeah i would do that if that's where
you're at too
um misty says the info pages are huge
like hi misty so nice to see you here um
a huge lifesaver and if the info pages
don't help you their customer service is
on point so this was to reply to how
easy
is it and yeah i agree with that really
the documentation
it's great yeah right yeah it's very
robust
yeah um what kind of resolution quality
of picture of products are needed for
shopify how do you post pictures of your
products
okay so for resolution you can do 72 dpi
but i focus on
1000 by 1000 like if you have a square
so you don't want it to be smaller than
that
um higher dpi is preferred but you know
if you that would be the lowest
um and then how do you post pictures
so when you add a new product you put in
you just upload your pictures
and you can have your featured picture
that's going to be the main one that's
going to show
and then you can have multiple other
pictures that are in your gallery you
can also put
videos which a lot of people don't
utilize but you could even do an iphone
video you know like
most of us have iphones or androids that
are going to be able to take photos
the quality that i just said so even if
you don't have a dslr
like you could start off with an iphone
or android
to do this to make a video or to make
photos but yeah you'll just manage your
product photos within
your product within shopify yeah
it's it's really easy it's just like a
gallery where you upload your images
online and then
you get to pick what image you want to
use where on your website from there
it's really
um really intuitive in that regard um so
that's a really good question from uh
ncp so we have so do you have to have a
website to use shopify can it be used as
a standalone so i think we need to
clarify that a little bit because there
is also
uh susan that asks is it like etsy in
the sense that they are in control
or it's more like a website that's yours
so i think it'd be nice to
explain the difference between those and
where shopify stands there because it is
not like etsy
right right okay great questions so
the difference between etsy and shopify
etsy is a marketplace
so similar to amazon like they have or
ebay they have tons of products
tons of different sellers and you can
easily get onto it which i love that
about etsy and it's really easy to start
your etsy shop but the downside is of
course there's lots of other people on
there too
etsy just wants them to someone to buy
from etsy they're not necessarily
prioritizing your store
now shopify is not a marketplace
it's your own website that you totally
own you're just using the shopify
platform to manage your inventory and to
manage checkout and all the stuff that
we talked about
now the downside of that is because it's
not a marketplace it does not have
traffic that's just inherently coming
there
you know nobody might will know about
your website unless you tell a lot of
people about it
in some way you know so those are the
pros and cons where that's why i really
do like both platforms because
the benefit of etsy is it's got all this
traffic coming that you can utilize
and then hopefully you might start to
funnel people over to
if you're using both to your shopify
site where you can have more control
because you're not subject to a
marketplace's
roles so there are a few things with
with shopify that you're not allowed to
sell by the way but
that's like guns and things like that
but otherwise you're pretty much allowed
to sell
most things and you don't have any of
the other mark you don't have the
market's place
rules since it's not a marketplace okay
and then the other question
was do you have to have a website so
i'm thinking about i guess technically
no like you could use shopify
and have your shopify account and you
will automatically have an online store
like that's your first sales channel
that automatically by default
comes onto shopify you could just enable
a shopify point of sale and only be
selling that way
um but really like shopify is kind of
built around the online store so
that would that wouldn't necessarily
make the most sense if you don't want to
have a website to use shopify
does that does that makes does that
answer that question i think so
um let us know in the comments if it
doesn't but i think what's important to
understand is shopify is your website
essentially i mean as you said you can
use it in different ways but it doesn't
really make a lot of sense because it
was really built to be aware
of your website so if the question was
really do you need to have your own
website
to then add shopify to it no
right shopify is your website it is it
is a pla it's essentially
a platform that helps you build your
pages and that has the e-commerce cart
and checkout and all of those features
that you need to sell all integrated so
that you can build your own website so
this would be what you use to build the
website rather than if you already have
one
then you would kind of move to shopify
with a new site
yes um
i see someone asked can you blog on
shopify yeah wordpress
yep you totally can so shopify has blog
posts
and blogging capabilities i would say
it's not quite as robust
as wordpress you know like it's
it's similar though like it has the what
you see is what you get like the wysiwyg
editor
that's all super easy um but you might
have to add on like an
app for related posts or things like
that but then again that's where the
shopify app store
can do pretty much anything um but yeah
you can totally blog and i love
for people to blog with shopify because
blogging is really underutilized in
e-commerce
and it can be such a great like we just
talked about you have to have traffic
for your store
which is just not gonna come on its own
so blogging can be a wonderful like
uh traffic strategy and a lot of people
don't do it and i wish more people did
because it really
but i get it because it's hard to do but
it's a great
a great way to get people to your site
yeah and you can
start with i think what shopify has for
blog is enough
and as you said if you really wanted
some fancy blog features then there's
always that beautiful uh app store right
exactly
yeah uh e-shopify compliment to say
etsy yes you could have two you could
have you could sell on the marketplace
and sell on your own website so
when you think about shopify really
think about it as your own website so
it's like do i want my own website and
also be on etsy
if the answer is yes then absolutely you
can do both and you can have
those two elements those two kind of
sales channel as part of your business
yes yeah and i think that's like such a
smart way to go
and kind of use the best of both worlds
for each of them um
then we had uh what should you use a
text and image
spots for on a home page which i feel
you've sort of
covered already in the presentation so
yeah i mean
for your image you just want to have
something that really it's either like a
lifestyle type of image
that shows your product like with people
using it or maybe kind of
aspirational depending on of course your
brand like this all comes down to your
brand and your positioning
and then just a really simple headline
that explains
what you do but it doesn't again it
doesn't have to encompass everything
though but just kind of
says enough to get people to understand
to keep reading
um i just discovered a cool feature
where i can actually show the question
here oh that's really cool i'm like
oh god that's nice
yes um so that's yellow
asking are there any specific templates
that you recommend are the paid
templates superior to the free ones
yes okay so i love talking about shopify
so they actually called
their templates they call them themes um
but it's the same thing
so shopify has about 10 i believe a
free shopify themes so you're going to
check out themes they're in the theme
store
so it's themes.shopify.com and their
three free themes
are really good and i also like that
with free themes
you can just contact shopify for
questions about your theme
and there's lots of like forums and
people have asked lots of things about
how to change certain things on their
theme with the free ones
now with paid themes they are superior
yes i would say that but that doesn't
mean that the free ones are bad like the
free ones are great you can
make an awesome site with a free theme
but
what would push me over to a premium
theme or a paid theme for someone is
just if they're wanting some extra
features
and you might start looking at the app
store like someone asked about the hello
bar which
i do think generally is on every single
theme but maybe it's maybe it's not on
some of them
but if you're starting to look for
things like that and you're starting to
think well maybe i can add an app for
that maybe i can do like a mega menu you
know one of those menus that opens up
like this
add this app i want to pop up and i want
to be able to like
have columns in my footer you know just
if you want more customization options
and you want more features and you want
more
just more things that you can do
flexibility
then that's what you're gonna go to a
premium theme
for and those are not built by shopify
but they all have their own support like
departments essentially so you would be
talking to them about it but as far as
the ones that i recommend i like debut
the free one from shopify i also like
minimal
and brooklyn those are my top three free
ones
and then for paid themes i really like
impulse
um that's something i've been checking
out lately but i don't remember who
makes that one
but and two of the top theme makers
are pixel union and out of the sandbox
so i would check those out but the theme
store is really great because you can
demo
everything you can even install paid
themes like the premium themes to your
store
without buying them and just try them
out and test them out and just see how
they work which i always recommend doing
before you actually pay for a theme
or even just before you commit to a
theme with a free one because you're
going to be putting in the work
and that work does not translate to a
next to another theme that's all going
to be
separate so hopefully that covers yeah
that's really cool
that's really cool that they'll let you
do that with the paid teams as well i
didn't realize you could do that which
is really really cool because then you
can be sure that yeah this is working
for me i'm happy to purchase this rather
than
you know getting it and then going oh
that's not working the way i thought
yeah
that's really really cool um okay then
we have
veronica but i know someone a little bit
down later
also asked about the traffic thing so
i'll just address that quickly because i
feel like it's kind of out of the
design building of you know the actual
website building part of
canada's workshop and more of a general
marketing question but
essentially that's what shelley was
saying before yes when you go into a
marketplace like etsy you do get that
traffic that it is working really hard
at getting to their site
and if you optimize your listing with
seo insertions which is search engine
optimization
you will get traffic from etsy and
that's kind of like one of the main
benefit of selling on your marketplace
when you build your own shopify so it's
essentially your own website
and as you were saying shelley if you
don't spread the word no one's gonna
know it exists
no unfortunately not yeah unfortunately
i wish it's
it's uh what's this saying build it
build it and then we'll do it don't come
yeah
yeah all day talk about it a lot and
then they will come
yeah um but yes so veronica i do
actually have
uh on the blog and on the youtube
channel of a
live workshop similar to this one where
we talk about where i talked about how
to get traffic to your
handmade shop i believe it is called
like that so you can simply google that
if you want or find it on the youtube
channel
uh where i dive into all the different
things you can do to get traffic to your
store so i would recommend that but
essentially
you will have to do your own social
media marketing uh
you can do seo with uh shopify as well
which is
to make sure that people on search
engine like google and bing and yahoo
and who knows what else exists
mostly google uh to find you um and
i talk about strategies like blogging as
well which blogging in it
won't you know people won't find you
just because you started blogging but it
will help you in your marketing because
then you have all these different blog
posts and topics to sort of
share on social media and and use for
seo and google and so that
attracts a lot more people so um i would
recommend that
workshop and i'll link to it i can't
find the link right now because
if i open another window my computer is
going to be overwhelmed um
but i will link to it in the comment
below if you want to check that out um
after this one um okay my god we have a
lot of questions so
unfortunately i'm keeping you a little
bit that's okay i seriously love talking
about shopify it's my favorite thing to
talk about so this is great
um so martha is asking can you say a
little more about using shopify with
facebook or other platforms
yeah so they make that really easy to do
it's simply adding the sales channel
um which is like click click and then
you
connect yeah exactly like that and then
you just connect it to your facebook so
you like will authorize that
and then you're able to have a little
facebook shop
and you're able to tag products and it
will go right to your shopify
so it really is very simple to use and
connect with
other platforms beyond facebook
uh instagram as well i assume they do
the work of like integration being
really easy because they work
shopify works with facebook they work
with instagram to make sure that you
don't have to do all of that setup and
you just kind of tick a box and go yeah
i want to sell it
yes it really is like just a clicking
situation it really is simple
yeah um adam is asking i have an etsy
store should i start a shopify and keep
my etsy for the sake of more opportunity
that's absolutely something you can do
yeah
um you can have etsy and pretty much
trying to
rank on seo on etsy and use etsy for
you know that big benefit of the traffic
that they give you and then
do your own traffic work at driving
people to your site so that you're
really using two different channel there
but if you start having your own website
i always say the work that you do in
your marketing
bring that traffic to your own website
and not to itc anymore because
you know it makes a lot more sense this
way when you have your own website
uh oh that was the next question
actually so should i send traffic to my
shopify from etsy
um i'm not sure about
that actually how you would actually do
that if people are honestly on your etsy
listing let them go there you know
like if they honestly they trust the
platform then let them vote from that
listing
surely did you understand that no but
so i would definitely recommend putting
like your shop i mean
your shopify link in there like in your
store
information you can't really do and
shopif
etsy's fine with you doing that you
can't really do much more than that you
can't say
like and i sell cheaper on shopify like
go over there
um so you can't incentivize to people to
leave but you can
inform and tell them that that's the
option too and
so maybe they're on your etsy and they
see that link they're like okay i'm
curious if maybe there's more stuff on
shopify
um and so then you bring them to your
shopify store and then maybe there's a
pop-up that says hey
get like this free gift if you purchase
or get free shipping if you purchase and
um so you you can incentivize in that
way but you're not telling them on etsy
that this is the incentive for getting
over there you're just informing them
about your shopify store
so i think there's a lot that you could
do with that um to try to
capture people and then when you send
your product let's say they bought from
etsy you send your product and you have
a little note card
that has your website on it and then
maybe you have a reason to go to it
because you have some kind of special
thing that they can get access to or
maybe you have a cool blog post that
has a video about how to use your
product or you know whatever it might be
but you can still be trying to get that
traffic over to shopify
yeah absolutely any effort that you put
into your marketing your packaging
anything that you're talking to your
customer bring them back to your website
essentially and if they come from etsy
in the first place because that's where
they found you great let them do that
and both from you there
but then you want to bring them back to
your site and an email list like you
mentioned having those
opportunities on your site to like make
them sign up for your email list
then when you send your newsletter
that's going back to your website so you
really want to
build that website assets because that's
what you control the most
um could i tie it to my instagram and
facebook page so i think we've sort of
answered that
yep and you can yes yeah absolutely
and i think this is a follow-up
okay my thing is i have a pretty good
base on facebook or instagram and i have
i think she means shopify not spotify
can i do that without having a website
i mean so you're saying couldn't you
just continue selling on facebook and
instagram and not have a shopify store
at all is that what you mean
or do you mean have shopify and just
connect
but don't make your online store i feel
like i might be over complicating it
because i'm thinking about all the
different ways you could do it
yeah i think what she's asking is if i
have a good base on facebook and
instagram can i
sell on there without having a website
i think that's what i'm understanding
maybe um
i think we need more info i think we're
both trying to understand the question
yeah just let us know but if you're i
mean i always would prefer you have your
own platform you know you have
like it's awesome that you have a great
facebook and instagram that's going to
make it even easier for you to sell on
shopify
where you will have ownership of those
customers like you'll have their
information
instead of like etsy having it where i'm
not really sure how you sell through
facebook or instagram but
it's just going to be that's the where
you would want to be
leading people to ideally yeah and i
think you know it's a really good sign
that you have a good base on facebook
and instagram and a good
uh indication that hey my products
working so i think
this is what happens often you kind of
try out a shop or try out selling your
products by kind of
using your social media following and
when that starts working that's when you
start thinking
about okay there's i want to do
something here let's turn this into
an actual website that i own and i have
control over because if anything changes
on instagram or facebook and we all know
this
this happens all the time algorithm
changes suddenly you don't get as
much reach as you have you want to have
that
that platform that's yours where that's
never going to happen and that's really
your own website so if you feel like
things are working
just with facebook and instagram that's
great but i would really recommend you
then consider having your own website
and shopify is a really good idea for
that yes
um kathy says what type of url is used
and do you need your own domain
good question yeah so when you create
your shopify account you will be given a
domain that ends with like myshopify.com
and you will always have that domain now
when you're ready to launch your site
like let's say you built it and during
your free trial period and then you're
ready to launch
then you will want to connect it to your
own custom domain you don't necessarily
have to
however i would not not recommend
marketing your business with like a
my shopify domain so you'll just
you can buy a domain right through
shopify they of course try to make that
super easy for you i think it's 11 a
year
um or 15 it's something like that um
that you can buy it right through there
if you already have a domain which lots
of people do like let's say you bought
it from squarespace or from namecheap or
from wherever godaddy you can connect it
that way
but shopify also makes that easy to have
documentation with how to connect your
domain but that's something that you'd
be connecting
so that that way when you go to
kathymiller.com or whatever your store
is going to be
that will bring you to your shopify site
yeah um then we have so we have a few
questions here that are really more kind
of like on the marketing
aspect so alissa kevin on youtube are
asking pretty much how to
transition from etsy to shopify in terms
of like exposure and traffic how to get
discovered how to use social media with
shopify
so i feel just to respect shelly's time
because
i've pushed it already absolutely
i know but i'm just like i know it's
also not necessarily the exact topic of
what we're talking about today which is
how to build your website and use
shopify itself
and this is more like a marketing
question yeah what i'll make sure
is i'll go back in the comments when the
the live is over and i have
lots of resources to send you guys for
that how to
pretty much build a marketing plan so
that you can build and
have traffic visiting your website but
shopify isn't any different to any other
platforms you could be using it's just
that you have you now have your little
home base on the internet
and you need to be telling the world it
exists using um social media so you'd be
linking everything you promote your if
you have a blog it's a blog if you have
any kind of funny caption if you have a
product
photo you want to share anything we'll
link back to your shopify
home base where people can purchase your
products um
how do you what are your thoughts about
using mailchimp to help promote your
shopify store and i guess does it
integrate and all of that as well
yeah mailchimp's great it does integrate
i like
i do recommend mailchimp often because
it's a free
free for your first 2000 subscribers so
it's a great way to start trying out
email marketing
and you may have heard that mailchimp
and shopify broke up
uh last year i think however that does
not mean that they don't integrate they
don't have a
mailchimp branded app anymore but they
have another free app called shopsync
and it does the same thing so it
connects it so
they work super well together and i
definitely recommend
mailchimp the other one i recommend is
clay clavio
um i think it's called flavio i get it
messed up with clavio i think it's
clavio
oh okay i thought that was the same i
cannot pronounce this one so i thought
yeah
i know it's nice but it's it's
okay so if you if you attempt to type in
kalivia you'll find that but that's not
i think they have free but their
free plan is a lot lower limit threshold
than mailchimp
but it has a lot of great features it's
specifically for e-commerce so if you're
like oh i'm just like so gung-ho i'm
ready to do this
maybe you want to start off with clavio
if you're like okay i'm dipping my toes
in
start out with nail chip yeah another
one i love to recommend is mailerlite
um that has some really great basic plan
as well super easy to use and they do
exactly like mailchimp and cleveo so
it's email marketing essentially
and they integrate nicely and yeah i'm
pretty impressed because every time
they've done updates on their platform
i've been pretty impressed with what
they've been doing so it's a really cool
one as well to check out
but in terms of how to use it to promote
your shopify store
essentially it's more a matter of making
sure that people who visit your website
so your shopify store
once you have them there you know there
is this saying online that's like
someone needs to be exposed seven times
i don't know who invented this thing but
it's really really stuck in it
that you have to bring people back to
your site for them to really build trust
and like you
and yeah trust your brand enough to vote
from you
so of course it will happen that
sometimes someone jump on your website
and they're like love this going to
purchase
but often you know life is gets in the
way maybe someone's knocked on the door
they had to like get off at the bus stop
whatever so they like put their phone in
the pocket and they forget to check out
and
they're not gonna remember to go back on
your website unless they sign up on your
email list because then you have
an opportunity to bring them back to
your store by sending newsletter to them
and so that's what
mailchimp mailerlite all these tools
that we just mentioned are really useful
at is making sure that people who visit
your shop they're interested in your
product but they're maybe not
100 ready to buy yet you can give them
this little like you can entice them to
jump onto your newsletter for you know
special offers maybe you have a coupon
code a lean magnet or something like
that and then you bring them back to
your store by sending your newsletter
regularly which is
really really important so definitely
recommend you use that
email marketing is super super super
important
um just making sure we haven't missed
any does shopify
light work with facebook i don't
actually know
that's a good question i'm not sure
because i don't know if you can do sales
channels and what and all that with
shopify lite
so that's that's something i'd have to
have to look
yeah i'm not sure either i did think
that it it was integrating with
like as a facebook shop that you could
but i don't know how
because now facebook has a check out on
their own as well so i'm not sure either
manuela i'm so sorry this is not helpful
i know i'm sorry i don't know
um stephanie asked
i struggle with getting people from my
homepage actual products do you
recommend showing the categories
right on the homepage already yes
yeah definitely because that's just
people use
those to decide like am i going to stay
on this site do i want to look further
same with your navigation
i would i would look at your navigation
too and see if it's not all buried under
that shop
button that a lot of people tend to do
and just break out your navigation into
your different categories
and then on your homepage you can
feature different different categories
too and you can try maybe putting some
reviews on your home page or maybe
experimenting with your photos your
headline and that's where you're going
to have to test out a lot of different
things and see what you can
do but but focusing on showing your
what you're selling is definitely a good
place to start because that is
the end-all be-all of your site yeah and
i think the examples that you gave in
the
in the slides previously were really
good where you can see really clearly oh
yeah i want this type of product so say
i want a mug i want a plate i want to
you know
and people know already what where they
want to click so you're simplifying that
for them and so i think it's really
important to have those categories on
the homepage
you know essentially something i like to
do is ask you know think about
i'm on the home page and then i want
people to go into a listing on my
website how many clicks do they have to
to do to get there like how many times
do they have to click either on a menu
or on an image to go somewhere and try
to reduce that as much as possible like
try to make that journey on your website
as quick as possible so that
if they want to go to the mugs that's
one click away and boom your collection
of mugs are there i don't know if you
make mug stephanie i don't think you do
but that's the example i'm rolling with
um i would also add stephanie i just
thought of this but
maybe try putting a best sellers or like
favorites category at the top um that
can be a great entry point for people
too because
oh i don't click out all the time but
and i know it's popular
that you want to see like oh what are
the greatest hits at the store
essentially and that could be a way that
might push people to click in yeah
that's really good and then you get
directly onto that specific product as
well
um so you ask how do you keep track of
sales if you link multiple platforms to
shopify do you receive email
notification from shopify
making you aware of that yeah yeah
that's the nice thing about linking them
all through shopify
is that it's all in one place so you
will get that same order notification
whether it was on the point of sale
whether it was through your facebook
channel or whether it's for your online
store it'll all come there
so that is that's like one of the main
benefits is that it's all together so
you don't have to
go back and forth and update your
inventory and whatnot it's automatically
happening
um irene is asking how do i protect my
shop my customers from hackers
good question yeah so that's something i
let shopify do
yeah um so they do a really good job at
it so yeah
now you will they also have fraud
prevention
with like your orders so if you get an
order that looks weird like shopify will
tell you like
fraud analysis level high or you know
something like that
so you'll get a warning about that if
you're worried about that if you're
worried about someone else coming in and
attacking your site
that's something that shopify does like
they handle all of the security
and that's not something i've had an
issue with now i can't say the same for
wordpress i've definitely had issues
with that with that because that's just
you're
kind of the wild west with managing your
own hosting and all of that
yeah i think this is back to that big
benefit of shopify just really taking
all that techy annoying thing
out of your hands and going we're going
to host your site we're going to make
sure it's secure we're going to make
sure it's safe and you won't have to
deal with any like
upgrade to prevent hackers to come in
like they do all of that
and if anything was to happen they have
backups of your side they would sort it
out before you probably even know
like they're working on this around the
clock so that's like a really important
benefit of
working with a platform like shopify
because that they do that for you
yeah totally yancy says so this is the
the question that we were not sure what
it was
good and that that's what she was asking
and
if for our information we've answered
the question
okay awesome we tried yeah i think we
were trying to like overcomplicate it
too
it happens i mean that's that's part of
why like my things are simple about home
pages
it happens we just all naturally over
complicate things at least i certainly
do
um stacy asks can you tie inventory
between
etsy and shopify you can now
there is the etsy sales channel i think
that sales channel is not free
but i don't recall off the top of my
head what it is
so i have clients that use both and a
lot of them don't
have any inventory syncing um
because of their sales volume but if you
have a higher sales volume and you know
you need that syncing there are some
options so
there's the etsy sales channel and then
there are some apps and i'm trying to
remember the name of them
i know one of them's like trunker does
that sound right it's like trunk
something yeah they're pretty much
uh an extra service they're not
necessarily from shopify or from etsy
they're just an
app that actually manages inventory
across multiple platforms like you could
everyday and i thought all of that stuff
in and it just kind of syncs it all um
they have a costo
and i think what you said is important
which is
it that's a question you need to ask
yourself and maybe stacey that's your
case
when you start really having enough
orders that it's becoming stressful to
keep everything in sync because you're
like well we have two items left of this
and i just sold one so i've got a
better hurry up and update this platform
when you start having like a lot of
stress around that it's important to
look for that solution but i think
initially
um i know a lot of makers initially are
able to kind of you know
update that manually without it being
too time consuming there are options
though yet to link them
when you get to that stressful point
yeah you can also think of your
inventory in a strategic way with that
so maybe yours your items on etsy are
things that you have like
a large supply of and maybe only your
hand or your one-of-a-kind items are on
your shopify so
you know or vice versa you know whatever
so that you're not crossing it over
that could be another way around that so
that you don't have to go into an
app or if that's something that you're
considering
um this one's going to be easy for you
to answer actually sure
you can find superfly over world press i
definitely do for
selling products yes and again i love
wordpress
that's what my site's on but if i was
going to start selling products i would
start i would open my shopify store the
next day for that you know so it
they all have their purposes and
shopify's purpose is e-commerce and
selling products and it's just really
good at it
yeah i think sherry as well it's really
a matter of how
you know you feel comfortable with
having your own domain
and austin and just diving in a
wordpress will
will have a higher kind of like a
steeper sorry uh learning curve in terms
of setting up your store
um and so if you're not prepared for
that and you kind of want to skip that
part 100 shopify is a lot easier to get
started which i feel a lot of people is
that's what they want
you know you don't want to lose too much
time learning a platform i do recommend
wordpress sometimes uh
to some of my members or customers
because it i know will work for them
but generally speaking i do think
shopify was built for e-commerce
was built to be simple to use and to
like be as you know
tech free as possible for you which i
think is really important
um tonya is asking is it okay to use a
shop template purchase outside of
shopify
yeah totally so some of those theme
makers that i mentioned like pixel union
and out of the sandbox they have like
super premium themes that are only
available on their site
and they're not on the shopify theme
store now it's kind of hard to get in
the shopify theme store and
theme makers can only have a certain
amount so there's like things like that
that limit it
but then you will find plenty of other
themes that you can
try out and upload right into your
shopify store
now previewing those themes before you
buy them is more difficult i don't
really know that you can
um so that's a negative but if you find
like the perfect theme and it's not on
shopify that's totally fine you can
you can upload it to your account
maybe a good idea here if you do that to
check if they have support
the person that's selling that theme and
you should offer like
a refund if you were to try to think the
theme and go you know that's not really
working for me can you actually get a
you know do you can
can you try it in some way yeah like
with with out of the sandbox in pixel
union i know that they do have those
but then there's like theme forest and
those i haven't gotten too
into but themeforest has like lower
priced
premium themes but i haven't tried them
out and i don't know what the refund
policy is i think it varies because i
think there's a it's a marketplace so i
think there's quite a lot of different
people
so i would just make sure that you try
to vet it like
like you said just try to research it
before you commit
to it yeah um
shopify versus squarespace
yeah so i mean squarespace is a great
platform as well
but i it's just not nearly as robust as
shopify like that's part of why and i
showed at the beginning of my
presentation like
kylie cosmetics and those huge brands
that are on shopify they're on shopify
for a reason because they have so many
more ecommerce platforms those
those brands wouldn't be on squarespace
um because they just aren't it's not set
up as well
for selling and it can work
like again that's where you're gonna
think of your priorities like maybe
selling is a smaller portion so you're
going to stick with squarespace
but like i've said like if you just want
to sell
products that's the main purpose of your
business i would go with shopify it's
just
better and it's the same price but you
get more
um kathleen is asking about shopify
email and what you think of using that
so i have not tried it out yet so
shopify has
a way that they're kind of trying to
make like email marketing within shopify
which i think is really cool it's not
anywhere close to as robust as mailchimp
or clavio yet i think they just recently
made it where you could like
schedule emails so that's kind of where
it's at however i like that it's meeting
people
where they are so if you're a newbie
with e-commerce and maybe you don't want
to like start with mailchimp i think it
could be a way to start
now i don't even know if it has
automations and things like that with it
yet
which i love automations and i know that
just saying
automations might sound like
intimidating but they actually are so
much easier
yeah they're so much easier because it
just takes all of that work
away from you where it's just happening
basically and it doesn't have to be
anything intense
but if they don't have automations which
i don't believe they do
i would that's why i would prefer
someone start with
mailchimp or clavio yeah i would
recommend the same thing i think it's
it's got i've got good hope that in the
future this is going to be a very
interesting feature but i think they are
it's very early stages and i don't think
it's robust enough to sort of do
what you want to do with email marketing
and because you can still do
things for really cheap or free with
coveo mailchimp
or maybe not but mailchimp mailerlite
for sure i would really recommend that
instead because you know they have all
the features that you need including
automation
which is like why email marketing is so
powerful
honestly you really want that so i would
use that
and wait off a little bit for shopify to
develop that which i trust their will
because they have a great team behind
them and
i think they will yeah they want to get
in on that
email marketing it totally makes sense
yeah
um okay so almost getting to the end of
the
question lisa i hope i haven't forgotten
any um how would you say shopify
compares to wix as far as creating
your website pages i think there's just
no comparison with that like shopify is
just so much better
it's just it just is so much better
it's gonna look so much more
professional you know that's kind of
where
people really have to trust your site
they're putting in their credit card
information
and that's pretty hard for somebody to
do like it's a high barrier to entry i'd
say
and you know how hard it is just to get
people to sign up for your email list
and that's just
not nearly as sensitive as credit card
so that's part of why i like
get it make a professional looking site
and
you can really do that much more easily
on shopify have all the inventory
management that wix just really isn't
set up for so i would for sure
go with shopify yeah i think what's
really important here is
remember that you might be selling
handmade products but these are physical
products so you're essentially an
e-commerce retail store
the fact that it's handmade when you
pick the platform is kind of irrelevant
you want to make sure that the platform
you go on has been made for e-commerce
and wix is kind of trying to catch up
but they're
not even close to being as built for
e-commerce as shopify is
so right now you might not feel like oh
i need a bunch of different apps and
things but
you will slowly as your business grow
you'll be like oh it would be nice if i
could automate an email that sends re
like you know that get reviews to my
shop when someone orders you know
shopify will have an option for that
there will be an app there will be a
feature that lets you do that with weeks
and that's when i find a lot of people i
work with start being a bit stuck
because they're like
oh i build this on weeks a couple years
ago and now i need this but they don't
really do it and and it starts to be a
big
transition to eventually shopify so
for that reason i also recommend shopify
against wix with that say if
wix works for you right now and this is
what you have don't go and change
everything this weekend just because
you've heard us say that if it works for
you
you know don't change it right
right yeah i mean totally and just
thinking if you're
right now comparing between the two go
with shopify but otherwise
yeah i get it yeah we're not saying like
stop everything
all right go ahead and set your laptop
on fire
i'm going to do this now what are your
thoughts on the shopify apps that create
urgency more inventory people who just
purchased
all that stuff so i can like some of
those
i think people can be a little
desensitized to that in some cases you
never want it to look fake
um now i'm not saying those apps are
fake and
they shouldn't be but sometimes it can
feel like a marketing thing that
sometimes doesn't jive with with people
however
etsy has uses it um you know they'll say
lots of people are looking at this item
or things like that and things like that
can be effective as long as it's
real i guess i would say um and then
so i think low inventory is a great one
especially if you are a maker
then you do have low inventory most
likely you know so you should be telling
people that like it's not
an amazon that you can buy an unlimited
quantity so
i do like apps for that i also love apps
for
like free shipping threshold like those
can be really powerful because
people don't like paying shipping but
they're comfortable adding like 30 more
dollars to their cart you know so
i would definitely test things like that
out and depending on your store
yeah i think very well said as long as
it's honest
um then it can work but also be careful
as
to for example showing people who just
purchased if you are not at a point yet
tweet so usually this is like a little
pop-up like a little bubble thing on the
bottom of the website that says
mary from victoria just purchased a
handmade
soap bar or something just making this
up and if
you're not getting a lot of orders and
it said you know mary purchased
a month ago then it start doing the
opposite which is true and you're not
actually having a lot of orders so you
want to use that
that kind of stuff people who just
purchased when you start getting
consistent orders and it's starting to
be really essentially social proof that
hey people trust my brand and buy my
products law inventory i agree it's
it's important um and yeah as long as
it's honest and you're not
kind to trying to pretend it's you know
um low when it
essentially you have like a shelf full
then yeah it definitely will work and
it's something that you need to try as
well you know like try it on does it
increase your sale then
keep doing it and if it doesn't then
stop doing it
um stephanie says thank you
so i'm glad you answered that question
sandy says how does it compare to amazon
handmade
not the same thing because amazon
handmade is like
etsy or ebay or any of those marketplace
it's not yours
you're renting a space on their
marketplace where they'll let you sell
your products
but it's not your own website where
shopify is your standalone website
you're in control it's your domain name
so it would be you know sandywest.com
i'm not sure that's the name of your
shop but you know so it's it
doesn't really compare not meaning that
amazon handmade is not good but meaning
that if they don't really
start comparing a car in a bicycle i
suppose
they do different things
um
how about square charge does that cross
over so i think that's about
squares a little pos
i'm not sure it probably does i would
guess but i don't actually know for sure
so i don't want to say yes
but typically if you have a shopify
account you would
switch over and use the shopify pos
um since that comes free with your
shopify account
so you i would i would recommend that
generally
yeah um she did say in a comment a bit
laura for inventory purposes so yeah
i would check on that i'm not actually
sure if that would sink properly because
they do have their own inventory
going on yeah um michelle i'm late are
you posting a recording of this session
we are yes um so i think we've covered
all the questions actually now
um thank you so much guys this was a lot
of really good questions
that you've been asking us and
we'll we will have the replay pretty
much as soon as we
go offline the replay will be available
at the exact same link so if you want to
start from the beginning because you
started later if you want to watch it
tomorrow or in two weeks it's completely
fine it will be there
and i'm just gonna get two last
questions and then we'll
call it for tonight would you suggest
mailchimp or melee light for better
integration
with shopify they both integrate
perfectly well i mean there you wouldn't
compare it but this
with that because so they're both going
to integrate
yeah um my preference is melee lights
just out of um
not considering even shopify simply
better and easier to use
um and i used to recommend mailchimp
pretty heavily but
i don't know but a lot of reasons i'm
not going to dive into i love melee
light a lot more now so i would
recommend
that in terms of if i had to pick
between the two but
but both would work if your mail
champion is working for you again don't
set your laptop on fire like it's fine
completely fine um and then
michelle your question do you recommend
a particular shipify template uh shelley
actually
already answered that question a little
bit previously um
so you can um go back 10 minutes in the
replay when we go up and you would get
answer i think she
recommended a few free and a few paid
templates as well
um and that's it
okay wonderful well shelly thank you so
much i know i was like we'll do a 15
minutes uh
q a at the end of the call and it was
more like 15 minutes so thank you so
much for your time i really appreciate
it
yeah thank you for having me on here
with you i'll put this back
as well um here how do i do this
no i don't know how i'm doing this nope
nope yay oh there it is
just because i want to make sure people
know where to find
out more about you and it's all on that
um on that beautiful slide and you can
go and get the freebie as well
step-by-step guide at lunchparty.live
free shelley thank you so much for being
here with us tonight and thank you so
much everyone uh for joining us live
yes thank you so much i loved all these
questions this was so awesome thanks for
having me
have a good night bye everyone
bye