Why your Shopify Store NEEDS to Change in 2023

Let’s face it the past few years have been weird for eCommerce. There have been huge surges in online shopping with the pandemic, then massive supply chain issues, inflation and a looming recession.

Now everything is open again and people are craving personal connection and in-store shopping. So what’s next and how is eCommerce going to change with this ever changing economy?

Three ways eCommerce will be different in 2023 & how to adapt to stay profitable

First off let me introduce you to the price shopper.

With prices rising due to inflation, consumers are cutting back on spending and also not staying loyal to their go-to brands. They are looking for deals or ways to save money like free shipping and free returns. However, those things can just dip into your already shrinking profit margin.

Keeping a customer’s loyalty is going to be more important now than ever before. I love doing loyalty programs on my Shopify stores and rewarding customers for coming back and ordering from you again and again, but offering lots of discounts may not be the right fit for you.

Tip #1: Focus on timing your discounts wisely

That means getting rid of that 10% off pop-up on your site for your first order. Instead, offer the 10% discount on their 2nd order and include that in your follow-up email sequence.

To get their first order then, just focus on value and how you can showcase on your site:

• your product will solve their problems
• help them achieve their dreams
• how your products are just better than your competitor’s

With a looming recession in the US you are going to want to look at your overhead costs and see where you can invest wisely in specific marketing strategies and maybe cut out the rest to keep your profit margin healthy.

Tip #2: Create new income streams

Anytime you can diversify your income and not have it all in one basket that’s a good thing because it makes you more flexible and gives you a little extra security.

Now of course for eCommerce you could create new product lines but honestly that’s still going to be physical products that are dependent on changing cost of goods. So for eCommerce businesses I recommend you start creating content that ties into your products. 

Let’s say you are an online boutique selling women’s apparel and accessories. You can create a blog on your Shopify store and create 1 blog post per week on fashion topics that relate to your products like:

• “10 Must Have Spring Wardrobe Accessories”
• “5 Ways to Style a Winter Scarf”
• “Creating a Capsule Collection for Each Season”

These are topics that are interesting to your ideal customer and may be something they are already searching for online. Then inside the blog post you can link to products you sell on your site to try and increase your sales. Any products you feature that you don’t sell on your site you can link to with an affiliate link so you still get a small commission when they purchase using your link.

Blog posts like this can be great to share on social media and as your traffic to these posts grows, so will your product sales and affiliate revenue.

These blog posts can also be turned into video content which can be monetized through platforms like YouTube, which then creates another income stream for you. 

Tip #3: Build a connection with your ideal customer through content

We are all on our phones a lot consuming content on social media. So just like how I talked about building loyalty in tip #1, you can do that in other ways other than order discounts.

You can build brand loyalty because you can build a connection. This is a superpower that small businesses have over the big guys. Because we can share the behind-the scenes videos and the process of creating a new product.

In doing this you can make the customer feel part of the process and feel a connection to your brand. So you not only get them to purchase from you but they also become a part of your community and a raving fan. 

Video can be so powerful for this and I see so many small eCommerce brands really crushing it with video on YouTube and TikTok.

I personally love YouTube because you can monetize your channel and have that be an additional income stream for you like we talked about earlier. Plus the videos live forever and can be found in the search engines.

So going back to the blogging example from before, you could turn those blog post ideas into YouTube videos and embed them in the blog post and of course link to your products and affiliate links in the video description as well.

Plus you can create videos like a day in the life of a small business owner, package orders with me, or highlighting your process for creating a new product.

I’ve seen so many Etsy sellers specifically using YouTube as a way to build their following and it always increases their sales because you feel more human and real. And it’s more exciting to buy from small business and see their growth vs buying from the big chains.

If I was going to pick one word to describe eCommerce strategy for 2023 it would be: Connection

Additional Video Resources:

How to prep your Shopify store for the upcoming recession: https://youtu.be/ReI9T_CoK7U

Learn from my mistakes when starting my own Shopify store: https://youtu.be/chLqrj7rzu4