How to choose the best Shopify sales channel?

These are online trading platforms where you can increase your sales. They are the following:

• Facebook;
• Amazon
• Buy Button
• Pinterest
• Google Shopping
• Messenger
• Instagram

These channels can help you track the goods, the orders, and the customers in the same window. A complete guide on how to integrate them into your store can be found on the Shopify’s Help website: https://help.shopify.com/en/affiliates/sales-channels-and-guides.

Effective Shopify sales channels

We must take into account that before integrating the Shopify plus sales channels into your store, you need to study your target audience. In the Shopify shop you can download dozens of channels, but do you really need all of them? It is very unlikely. You need to determine the channels where most of your customers prefer to make purchases. Otherwise, you will waste both your money and energy for nothing. However, make a list of questions that a customer could probably ask at the sight of your product. Later, we shall go through this.

The Shopify sales channels for integration into the store

What are the best sales channels on Shopify? To determine the best Shopify sales channels for your business needs, you should know the specifics of their functioning. We have put the possible Shopify sales channels into a single list, for your convenience.

1. Amazon, Aliexpress, Rakuten, eBay marketplaces

Many customers start searching for a product on virtual marketplaces. The number of users who make purchases there is growing every year. According to  statista.com research, the most popular trading platform is Amazon.com.

The percentage of sales on eBay, Aliexpress, Etsy and other sites is less than on Amazon, however, they are also effective. In October 2017, the Shopify platform was integrated with the eBay online trading platform. Thanks to this integration, you can:

• sell your products directly from your Shopify account;
• import your orders from eBay to Shopify to simultaneously process them in the same window;
• process messages from eBay customers right in the Shopify interface.

Social networks are a promising sales channel for converting visitors to buyers.  The users spend on social networks more than 40% of their time. You need to analyze what social networks your audience prefers. We also recommend creating a store in the social network which you choose for your business. You should add a "buy" button so that the customers could purchase without leaving their account

Facebook

Use Facebook for this purpose. With the help of Shopify’s Facebook app, you can migrate the products from Shopify to Facebook store. This way you will increase the number of your customers. Buying goods here is even much more convenient now than making several referrals to the site. With the help of this app, your customers can share their products and collections with their friends in the newsline and tag the products on photos. Via Facebook store, the customer can place the goods into the "Saved for later" ones, otherwise, they will be unavailable, as the customers might lose the goods he/she had viewed earlier.

Facebook cares about you being its customer. The system works in such a way as to help increase your sales. Otherwise, you would not use it. That is why social network developers are constantly working on creating tools that will improve and simplify the sales process. We mean both paid and freeways of brand promotion in Facebook. So we strongly recommend that you do not exclude this channel from your marketing strategy.

Instagram

If you can simplify the process of buying goods, do it with the help of Instagram. The number of users in this social network is growing every year. In 90% of cases, the sellers find their target audience there and successfully trade. Don’t be afraid of the default. You will surely succeed unless you sell sand in bulk by dropshipping. Although if you are creative enough, you might find your customers even for such a product.

In May 2018, Shopify developers announced the possibility of selling to users in the UK, Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Brazil via the Instagram account.

Shoppable photo tags

Also, since April 2018, you can tag your product in posts. When a user clicks on a photo or item mark, he/she immediately sees the name and price of the product. When he/she clicks again on the tag, the customer will go to the section with information about the product and a link to the company's website. The cost of a product is a factor that customers want to know first. They will faster make a decision to buy when the price is evident. This factor will help you filter out "not your" target audience.

Imagine the situation: you are advertising your product in Instagram, a lot  of users like it and send hundreds of orders per day. However, they refuse to buy when they see the price. The reason is that the users cannot afford your goods. In the end, you have spent both your time and money in vain. Add a price tag to your product and the risk of losing time and effort will lower. People who are not satisfied with your price will just pass by.

One more advantage of tagging

Many owners of online stores make a mistake and do not indicate the price of their products so that the users get annoyed. If a customer really liked the product, then in order to find out the price, one needs to make a number of additional steps. But not everyone would do it, and you must get it. Read the instructions on how to put the tags in the Instagram posts, so that your customers make a purchase faster: https://help.instagram.com/1108695469241257

Facebook, Telegram, WeChat, Shopify Ping messengers

Adapting trading platforms for mobile applications is a "must-have" of digital sales. Use the messengers to communicate with your customers directly. The specifics of the application functioning and structure are the same. They are configured to quickly deliver the messages to the users. According to the research published by statista.com in 2017, the number of users who use messengers for messaging is 1.82 billion. By 2021 this number will have increased up to 2.48 billion people.

Your client literally "carries" it with him in his pocket. As soon as he connects to the Internet, believe it or not, but his attention will be entirely yours. You should work hard and determine the strategy of communication with your client so that it would be interesting and useful for him to communicate with you. However, do not be too intrusive, it pushes the users away. Balance the process. We have come to the stage when you need a list of questions that your client might ask when he sees a product or service.

Imagine that you are a seller in an offline store. What questions might your client ask? And what would you answer? Make up a few scenarios and add the frequently asked questions and answers into a chat-bot that will communicate with your customers while you are at a business meeting or just sleeping. You can do it with the help of Ako Chatbot app. Download it to the Shopify App Store. This is convenient since you do not need to be constantly online to communicate with the users. Place the "Write Us" button in your Shopify store so that the buyer could contact you in the messenger. When a customer is interested in the certain product, he/she wants to learn more about it. He/she would prefer asking you a question of interest, and getting an instant (or after a specified time) response is more convenient than waiting for a call from the manager.

Since July 2018, you can use the Shopify Ping messenger. This is a single platform where you can exchange messages with your clients on Facebook Messenger and ChatKit simultaneously. Shopify Ping is currently integrated only with these messengers. You can learn more about the Shopify Ping’s features here: https://www.shopify.com/ping

Conclusions

We have shown you effective Shopify multi sales channels, which you can use in your multichannel strategy. Integration of the best sales channels for Shopify into the online store will help you cover more people and tell them about your brand. And also, it's a great way to save time with the help of automated processes. While Facebook chat-bot is "pushing" the customer to purchase by asking him/her the leading questions, you can process the applications on your site. At the same time, the Instagram tags on your products will filter out your target audience and will attract the admirers of your product. The more sales channels there are, the more potential customers you get. However, do not forget that even three channels will not increase your sales if you do not regularly work with them.

If you have already chosen the sales channels, but you need any help to integrate them into Shopify, contact Makebecool experts. We would be pleased to help you on how to add sales channels on Shopify. Fill in the form and our Shopify Consultant will help you determine the ways of increasing professional growth.