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October 9, 2018 - 10 Comments
There are plenty of things you can do to bump up your earning potential, but quite a few of them involve adding new products or bringing in more inventory. What we’re going to look at today will allow you to earn more with simple “packaging” changes to the products you already have.
Let’s dive into how you can set up and promote product bundles this holiday season, and a few ways that you can ensure they help you make more money.
January 27, 2018 - 2 Comments
Some stores sell products that are straightforward — a shopper views it, likes it, and adds it to their cart. But for many of you WooCommerce store owners, your customers will be asked to make choices before that “add to cart” button can be clicked.
Whether these choices are simple color selections or multiple options for size and shape depends on what you sell. The one thing that won’t change is your use of product variations to make viewing and selecting the right options an simple task.
Setting up your variations is the easy part. Making those variations easy to view, browse, and buy — that’s where you might need a helping hand.
Let’s take a look at some of the best practices out there for displaying variable products on your online store, all of which will ultimately help you meet your #1 goal of selling more products.
January 21, 2018 - 6 Comments
Whether or not an online store is successful depends on dozens, if not hundreds of individual factors. Success requires that magic mixture of quality products, smart timing, effective calls to action, prominence in search engines, and so on and so forth.
One of the many factors — or, more accurately, one spot that collects many of these factors — is the product page. These pages can literally make or break an online store. If they’re great, they can boost your sales; if they’re subpar, well… you can guess the rest.
Detailed, convincing, and entertaining product pages are necessary if you want your online store to thrive. But making these pages requires much more than a few photos and a line or two of text.
Today, we’ll explain what all these necessary factors are, with some choice examples from WooCommerce shops. We’ll also offer you a checklist to help you get them all in place on your own site, time and time again.
Ready to learn? Let’s jump right in.
November 23, 2016 - 20 Comments
Once a shopper has decided on a product and added it to their cart, their first thought is going to be “great, now I’m ready to check out!”
At this same stage, your first thought might be “wait, don’t go yet! You haven’t even seen all my stuff yet!”
Motivating customers to purchase additional products is a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be. WooCommerce’s many solutions for suggesting, upselling, and bundling products together make it easy to show shoppers what else they should consider — and help you make more from every sale.
Let’s explore three of the best ways that you can add on to your customers’ purchases, from cross-sells to groups to bundles.
November 11, 2016 - 12 Comments
You want, we’re sure, every customer who purchases a product from your store to have an enjoyable shopping experience. You want to avoid broken links, slow pages, and abandoned carts.
The stakes get even higher for the shoppers who aren’t just browsing, but are creating the products they plan to purchase. Custom-created or personalized products can increase sales dramatically, but with their presence comes a need for product pages that go above and beyond the standard image gallery and add to cart button.
Whether you’re already selling products with optional personalization or are considering adding some custom creations for your store, we thought a little inspiration might prove useful. And, thanks to the WooCommerce Showcase, inspiration is never hard to find.
Here’s a look at three stores with some amazing customization options on their product pages, plus tips and extensions that will help you pull this off on your own store.
August 9, 2016 - 21 Comments
Using item numbers or stock keeping units — better known as SKUs — might seem unnecessary for your store. Stop us if any of this sounds familiar:
“My store’s really small, so I don’t need SKUs — I know everything by sight.”
“I don’t sell to anyone other than my customers, so why would I need item numbers?”
“My products don’t have any variations, so SKUs aren’t required.”
These are valid objections… sort of. But they’re also excuses that could hinder your relationship with partners, cause logistical issues for for your store, or — worst of all — keep you from reaching your full sales potential.
No matter the size of your store, what you sell, or who it is you sell it to, you should absolutely be using SKUs. After all, WooCommerce makes it so quick to add them that you don’t really have an excuse… but we understand that you might need a little more convincing. 😉
Here are five reasons why SKUs are useful for eCommerce.
August 3, 2016 - 14 Comments
When you hear the phrase “landing page,” you probably think of a dedicated page on a website. Or you might even think of your store’s homepage.
Most marketing blogs suggest that you use dedicated landing pages to show new visitors marketing messages, or offer a specific audience a deal or pitch crafted just for them. And sure, for some sites, this is an effective strategy — but it’s different in the world of eCommerce.
When you run an online store, landing pages aren’t limited to just a few select spots. The reality is that almost every page on your store can be a landing page, under the right circumstances.
With this in mind, your goal shouldn’t be to set up special pitches or deals limited to certain visitors. You should optimize all of your pages in the same way so that no matter where a shopper arrives, they’ll get the right message.
Let’s take a look at what your landing pages actually are, and how you can make them work harder for you.
June 10, 2016 - 4 Comments
When we talk about “packaging a product,” your mind likely drifts to thoughts of corrugated cardboard boxes, bubble wrap, and tape — that is, physical packaging. But have you given any thought to how you package your products online?
For some store owners, they display and sell their products simply. Their goods are sold independently of one another, and it’s up to the shopper to pick out the pieces they want to coordinate with, or even the parts that might be needed to make that core item work.
But this can create some problems. What if a shopper forgets the brackets they need to hang a shelf? Additionally, this simple setup doesn’t leave any room for marketing — say, suggesting like items that should be sold together, or even creating goodwill by throwing in freebies or gifts.
It’s worth giving some thought to this topic — whether you should only offer independently sold single goods, or items that are offered as part of a bundle, chain, or other package. Proper packaging, as you’ll learn, can not only increase your sales, but also decrease customer frustration and make your store easier to use.
Let’s have a look at five ways you can package your products online and take your pages from simple to systematic.
April 27, 2016 - 15 Comments
Each component of your store’s website does its part in convincing potential customers to make a purchase. From the content on your homepage to the design of your checkout process, each individual element has a purpose… and can be improved.
Among these components, perhaps none are more important than your product pages. On these pages, shoppers find photos, specifications, and other details that give them a compelling reason to make a purchase.
But sometimes photos and copy alone can’t make the sale. For many stores, product pages need additional features to convince potential customers to take action. For some stores there’s a need to add downloadable guides, while for other stores it’s a matter of offering customization.
Today, we’re going to explore ten features that your product pages might need to boost sales — and the corresponding WooCommerce extensions that make them possible.
Ready to make some improvements? Read on.
March 18, 2016 - 18 Comments
Much of the eCommerce advice you’re going to find online will talk about improving your product pages, your shopping cart, or some crucial element within. And why not? These are important aspects of an online store that determine whether a purchase is made or lost.
But we often see some of the other pages and moving parts of stores overlooked, even though they also play a huge role in the sales process. And one of those oft-neglected items is the category page, which some stores use to classify multiple similar items into one landing or destination page accessible from the homepage or navigational menu.
Though they may seem like little more than a temporary destination between the homepage and “meat” of your store — the product pages — well-utilized category pages can play an important role in your long-term success. With a few tweaks, they can improve your search engine rankings, make your store look better, and boost your sales. What’s not to love?
Here are a few ways you can take your category pages to the next level with just a little creativity and elbow grease.
February 24, 2016 - 8 Comments
As any store owner knows, photos are a crucial part of every product page. On their own, product photos can convince a shopper to take the next step in the buying process — offer beautifully shot, highly detailed photos of your products, and you’re that much closer to getting a click of that “add to cart” button.
Supplying your shoppers with all these photos can come at a price, however. With each large photo or media file you add to your product page, the load time increases. And your shoppers, no matter how interested they are, aren’t willing to wait around for more than a few seconds.
The challenge for store owners is this: finding a way to supply shoppers with the high-resolution photos they desire while keeping product pages loading quickly. It might sound like an insurmountable challenge, but there are actually quite a few ways to balance fast and fantastic, from image compression to WordPress plugins.
Your customers can indeed have their cake and eat it too. Let’s have a look at how you can speed up the load times of your product photos while preserving their quality.
February 11, 2016 - 9 Comments
No one likes to say goodbye. But sometimes, we have no choice.
When it’s time to remove a product from your store, it probably feels a little strange. Adding that item takes so much work, but you can delete it in a single click.
Just because you can delete products quickly doesn’t mean you should, though. In fact, there’s a six step process you should follow every time you remove a product from your store. Doing so can help you avoid potential issues like broken links, confused customers, and breaks in communication with external vendors, just to name a few.
We’ve compiled this quick, easy-to-follow guide you can use each time you’re ready to pull a product from your store. Read on to get the six steps you should rely on for every item you’ve chosen to discontinue.
December 3, 2015 - 1 Comment
A question for you: what happens when a customer searches for something in your store that doesn’t exist?
The default message returned by WooCommerce (and in fact, most other eCommerce platforms) is “no products found.” And the page that follows is empty, a barren wasteland that offers little direction for what to do next.
It’s as if your customers asked you, in person, for the location of something — only to be greeted with a blank stare and a shrug. It’s a bit unhelpful.
As you’ve likely already guessed, it doesn’t have to be this way. A shopper’s journey shouldn’t end when their search returns no results. With a little optimization, you can ensure that it’s only just beginning.
Let’s take a look at a few ways that you (perhaps with the help of a trusted developer) can make the most of your “nothing found” page, transforming this barren wasteland into a lush paradise full of potential.
October 1, 2015 - Leave a comment
Running an online store would be far easier if you could read the minds of your customers, wouldn’t it? It would at least take much of the guesswork out of your decision-making.
Well, there’s one function already built into your site that lets you come close to reading minds. It can provide valuable insight on what your customers want, what you’re delivering… or where you might be falling short.
As you might have already guessed, this magical-sounding feature is the site search.
Your site search isn’t just a convenient gateway for your customers to get what they want — it’s also a way for you to understand what they’re looking for, what they expect from you, and how you can improve your online store to better serve their needs. By regularly evaluating these searches, you’ll be able to not only have a better understanding of your customers, but also — potentially — make needed improvements to your store that will help grow your business.
Let’s go over how your site search can play a bigger role in your growth, starting with a closer look at its value for you, the store owner.
July 22, 2015 - 4 Comments
How much time will you invest in choosing names for your products?
Whether you’ve invented life-changing technology or are just planning to introduce a new item in your line of fashion accessories, naming a product can be tough. Get the name right, and you’ve got a good chance at going down in history (or at least making some money). Get it wrong, and you’ll be hard-pressed to attract any customers.
Today, we’re sharing some tips that will help you choose an effective, clear, and memorable name for your newest product. Read on to learn why product names are so important to your business before diving right into our ideas!
April 21, 2015 - 1 Comment
Although we often hear that eCommerce stores are putting brick-and-mortar shops out of business, the main reason that many people still go to physical stores is that they have a chance to touch the products and see what everything looks like.
It’s harder to do this online. Imagine ordering a pair of shoes online and receiving the pair one week later, only to find that the color isn’t the same as it was in the photos and that the material looks different than what was shown on the website. If the customer walks into a regular store, they can completely avoid this problem.
It’s not possible to duplicate the hands-on sales process that you find at a brick-and-mortar shop, but with amazing product photography, you can improve your conversion rate and make people happy in the process.
Let’s take a look at how adding great photography to your eCommerce website can affect your conversions and strengthen your relationships with your customers.
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