How to Get Sales on Shopify and Grow Your Ecommerce Business

Here’s why getting targeted traffic is key for your store

Many newbie store owners rush to drive traffic – ANY type of traffic – to their store in order to make sales quickly.

Yes, getting traffic should be your first objective to get sales on Shopify.

You won’t know whether your products are priced right or if your brand resonates with your target audience unless people start visiting your website.

However, this can result in a massive waste of your resources if you try to send the wrong people to your store!

The wrong people won’t buy – not because your store sucks, but because your products and your brand aren’t meant for them.

When using paid traffic, you can create highly targeted methods to attract the right crowd to your site. But before you’ve had real buyers, you won’t be 100% certain of exactly who those right people are.

This is why you should start by leveraging your free sources of traffic first.

Step 1: Leverage free sources of traffic

By tapping into free sources of traffic, you’ll start generating analytics on your Shopify store. You’ll see what type of people visit, who opts in, who leaves without performing any action, and ultimately, who ends up spending money with you.

Once you have that data, you’ll be able to target lookalike audiences using paid traffic methods.

Reach out to your inner circle to get first sales on Shopify

Have you told your friends, families, colleagues, and other people in your network that you have a Shopify store?

Although your network has no obligation to buy from you, there is no harm in spreading the news and asking for support of all kinds.

Share the news on every social media platform you’re currently on: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and more. Don’t forget to add your website link to your profiles, too.

If the people closest to you aren’t a good fit for your products, you can ask them to share your store on social media instead. You’ll start accessing other networks where some of your target customers could be hiding.

But you’ll never know unless you ask.

Here’s another reason why you should ask your friends and family to share your store via word of mouth: 83% of Americans say that recommendations from friends and family make them more likely to purchase something.

So, if your network shares your store with other people close to them, you’re more likely to get more Shopify sales than if you target cold traffic.

However, not everyone will know how to talk about your Shopify store in a way that’s engaging. They may also be unsure of what to say.

Here’s a quick tip to reduce the friction for people to share your posts – provide some copy for them.

Instead of having to come up with their own captions, which may or may not be great at driving traffic, give them an existing template so that they don’t have to think about what to write.

Consider adding an early-bird discount and don’t forget to mention this in your copy:

To start building your email list from Day 1, you can also offer a discount in exchange for joining your newsletter. This way, you’ll make the most out of the traffic you receive on your website.

For example, to those who visit your store but don’t buy, you can display an email pop-up form like this (we talk more about email list-building strategies in Step 2):

If people in your network do buy from you, make sure you stress the importance of leaving a review directly on your Shopify store. Your network may trust you, but other people won’t – at least, not at first.

Positive reviews will add credibility when strangers start viewing your products. Studies show that over 99.9% of consumers across the globe read reviews when they shop online.

And 49% of shoppers believe online reviews just as much as they believe personal recommendations!

Yet, no one wants to be the first person to buy from an online store, so starting off with zero reviews on all your products can be difficult once you reach outside of your own network.

Grow your presence on relevant Reddit communities

Reddit is a huge platform that is often overlooked by business owners. You can find forums – or, as they are called, subreddits – for basically anything you can think of.

Start joining communities with specific interests that make sense for your brand. For example, if you sell organic skincare, r/SkinCareAddiction and r/NaturalBeauty are great communities to join.

You’ll be able to ask questions, understand how your audience thinks, figure out common problems your audience deals with, and much more. Most subreddits don’t allow outright selling, so make sure you check the rules before joining a community.

Although you can’t pitch your products directly, you can start offering advice and growing your authority in those communities. You can mention that you have a store without sharing a link to it. People who enjoy your advice will be more likely to check out your store by themselves!

You can also join your local subreddit if they exist. Many cities have their own subreddits, and if it doesn’t, you may find a subreddit for your region, state, province, etc.

Additionally, consider joining communities where you can have discussions with other business owners. For instance, there are bigger groups like r/Entrepreneur, or more niched-down groups, like r/Shopify.

Create a Facebook and Instagram store

Facebook and Instagram are powerful platforms to help you get sales on Shopify, specifically because you can integrate your products directly into your profile and posts.

The best part? You can grow your audience on these platforms without spending a dime! Instagram is particularly effective for ecommerce marketing due to its visual nature. You’ll also have more luck getting organic traffic from Instagram compared to Facebook.

The average reach rate on Instagram is 9.34% compared to 4.32% on Facebook.

First things first, make sure you have an attractive profile and Instagram bio that targets the right people. Your bio should contain a link to your store, but as a Shopify entrepreneur, you’ll also be able to link to specific products directly from your posts.

Don’t just create posts with static images. Play around with different methods of showcasing your products in ways that will resonate with your audience. For example, if you’re selling activewear, an image of someone wearing your products while performing visually appealing sporting activities will be much more engaging than a flat lay of clothes or a model doing nothing in particular.

Popflex is particularly good at showcasing its activewear in multiple interesting ways. Whether it’s a single person in the middle of the action…

… or images of real customers sharing their progress while wearing the brand…

… no one post feels repetitive!

You can use a variety of tactics to get sales on Instagram and grow your brand, including:

• Using relevant hashtags on your posts, including your shoppable posts
• Interacting with every comment on your posts
• Engaging with the followers of brands that are similar to yours
• Running contests to create more incentives for new followers
• Posting Stories every day to create a new way to engage with your followers

You can also add Reels to your Instagram strategy. Instagram users share Reels in their DMs 1 billion times a day!

If you are just starting out and have little money but plenty of time, you can take care of your Instagram page yourself. However, consider hiring a social media manager who specializes in ecommerce marketing as soon as you can, so you regain your time back to continue optimizing your Shopify store for sales.

Create a TikTok profile for your Shopify store

You can skyrocket your Shopify sales using TikTok, even if you don’t spend a penny on ads. Its users leverage the app for their shopping behaviors all the time.

For instance, 71.2% of users will shop when they stumble across something on their feed. And 58.2% of them will use TikTok for shopping inspiration.

The best part? TikTok integrates directly with Shopify!

Thanks to this integration, people who watch your TikTok videos can purchase directly from your videos or your profile without leaving the app.

Keep in mind that TikTok isn’t like Instagram — users are more likely to see content from users they don’t follow. This means every video you post has the potential to get discovered by new people.

Users also seem to prefer more authentic videos compared to the polished aesthetic you’ll find on Instagram.

Consider TikTok videos less like a way to directly pitch your products and more like a way to share:

• Helpful tips that relate to your products
• Real people using your products (user-generated content)
• Stories about you, people from your team, or the behind-the-scenes of your brand
• Entertaining content that increases awareness of your brand

Keep in mind that you don’t have to show up on every single social media platform at once. You can start with the one that makes the most sense for you and expand from there.

Get more Shopify sales via Amazon and other marketplaces

Existing marketplaces like eBay and Amazon have one huge benefit – they already generate their own traffic. They also might be more convenient for some customers because of their previous experience, memberships like Amazon Prime, or the trust factor.

That’s why Shopify has the option to help you list your products on other marketplaces, in addition to Shopify itself.

Leather Honey products are a great example of a brand using this strategy. You can buy them from the original store as well as from the most popular marketplaces including eBay and Amazon.

The disadvantage? You’ll be competing against others who sell similar items on the chosen marketplace. But that just means it’s important to include relevant keywords and optimize your listings for other marketplaces – just like you do for your Shopify store.

Start marketing on Pinterest

No, Pinterest isn’t just for DIY and blogging. The income level of pinners is relatively high, as 45% of people in the US with a household income of $100k are on Pinterest.

75% of those pinners say they’re always in the mood to consume when using Pinterest.

And when Pinners are starting a new project, 85% of them go to Pinterest to find inspiration. As such, they can stumble across your products.

So, how do you start?

First, you should optimize your profile just as you would with Instagram. However, you should note that Pinterest is more akin to a search engine than a social media platform.

This means that using keywords will be a crucial method for growing your traffic.

The more niched you make your Pinterest boards, the more you will attract the right type of audience. You can share product pins, which will take users directly to your store, but you should also share relevant info like blog posts, videos, and infographics.

Make sure you join relevant group boards, too. Group boards will help you share the authority of other influencers or industry experts who share your board, thus opening the door to untapped potential traffic.

Finally, consider adding Idea Pins to your Pinterest strategy. While Idea Pins don’t allow you to link back to your products, they’re a powerful way to engage with users on the platform and get people to click through to your profile.

Get referrals from your existing customers

Getting your first 4 to 5 sales on Shopify is the most difficult stepping stone. But once you get there, you’ll be able to multiply those sales – as long as you provide a positive customer experience.

Give incentives to those first customers in exchange for referrals. This doesn’t need to be a robust, automated system. For example, you can reach out to your first buyers yourself, either via email or social media, and offer them an enticing gift if they refer paying customers your way.

For this step, you can afford to be generous. Don’t be scared to offer large coupons or free items. Remember that this will not apply to everyone – only your very first customers. Treat them like the important founders they are, and they will help you multiply your ROI.

Step 2: Create and monetize your email list

Now that you have free traffic coming in from your previous efforts, you need to maximize the value of each visitor. You can do that by creating an email list and optimizing your Shopify store not just to make sales, but to turn visitors into subscribers, too.

Having email subscribers interested in your product means you’ll be able to reach them and using the right tactics, get repetitive sales on your Shopify store.

Start with choosing email marketing software

Before you start collecting emails from your store visitors, you should have an idea of what your communication with them will look like and how your list will help you get more Shopify sales.

That means you need to come up with a minimum vital email marketing strategy.

Once you have it outlined, you will need to sign up for an email marketing platform.

There are countless options available on the market, such as Klaviyo, Drip, Infusionsoft, ActiveCampaign, and more. These platforms allow you to:

• Email a group of subscribers, or all subscribers at once
• Create predefined email sequences (for example, a welcome sequence or an abandoned cart sequence)
• Track who opens your emails, clicks on links, and more

Not only that, but they also keep you within legality when emailing your subscribers. Most of these platforms display your business address and an Unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email so that every subscriber has an easy way of opting out.

⚠️ A quick word of warning: it is against the terms of use for these platforms to add people to your list without their consent. Subscribers need to give their name and email address of their own free will.

Incentivize your visitors to subscribe

Want to grow your list from non-existent to thriving? You’ll need to turn your Shopify store into a conversion machine.

As an ecommerce shop owner, you have simple ways to entice your visitors into trading their email address in exchange for something of value.

Anything from a percentage off their first order, a free add-on product, free shipping, and multiplied loyalty points can be a good incentive.

For instance, Juno & Co, a beauty company, uses a sticky bar at the bottom to collect emails in exchange for a 20% discount on the first purchase.

You can place an email subscription bar like this one in your store within a few minutes using Getsitecontrol. It’s an incredibly simple tool that will help you:

• Create popups and bars to display your offer and encourage to join the list
• Tag and segment your subscribers automatically
• Build email marketing automations
• and more!

For a more proactive approach, instead of bars, you can use popups and slide-ins. For example, another beauty brand, Peach & Lily uses a slide-in that appears from the right-hand side a few seconds after you land on their website:

You can add a similar slide-in to your Shopify store by clicking on the template below and following the instructions. Then, you’ll be able to adjust the copy and the creative to ensure the widget matches the style of your website.

Consider collection phone numbers as well

Did you know that SMS campaigns have a 98% open rate and a 10.66% CTR?

That’s why 86% of businesses have implemented SMS marketing into their sales strategy.

If that’s something you want to start doing, you can collect phone numbers via your popup forms to leverage them for SMS marketing, too.

Maya Brenner, a jewelry brand, does exactly that:

Once people opt-in to receive text messages from your brand, you can use this platform to send:

• Flash sale announcements
• Shipping updates
• Prompts for customer feedback surveys
• Personalized promos, such as birthday discounts
• Any other special events or promos you want to host

For example, Reitmans sent me an exclusive SMS offer for an extra 10% off my order:

What’s great about SMS marketing is how simple it can be. Text messages can be short and sweet. When you use it in combination with email marketing, you can increase the likelihood that your customers will see all the important announcements from your brand.

Set up email marketing automations

Did you know that 88% of consumers check their email inboxes at least once per day? This is only one of the reasons email marketing can be so effective for Shopify store owners.

The topic of using email marketing to increase ecommerce sales could be its own article. But here are a few pointers to help you out.

To get started, create a welcome email sequence and start segmenting your subscribers.

There are several sequences, also known as automations, that will help you get more sales on Shopify. They can be triggered when your subscribers act in a certain way:

• A welcome sequence when people first subscribe
• A recommendation sequence when they click through certain emails
• Cart abandonment sequences when subscribers leave items in their cart
• Re-engagement sequences when subscribers stop opening your emails

If you’re a complete newbie, email marketing automations aren’t as intimidating as they may sound. They consist of pre-designed emails and tags that are assigned to the subscribers who meet your conditions.

For example, this is what a welcome automation may look like:

(hint: you can set this up directly in Getsitecontrol)

Another crucial step is to start segmenting your subscribers based on their preferences.

Segmentation is important because it ensures you showcase relevant products based on the subscriber’s interests. And relevancy ensures you get more sales on your Shopify store.

Here’s an example: Marrow Fine, asks new subscribers to specify what type of rings they are interested in, so the brand can send relevant recommendations and promos:

Here is another example of segmentation. Seraphine, a maternity clothing brand, asks new shoppers to disclose their due date so that they can send relevant emails at the right time. This means pregnant mothers will likely receive maternity clothing offers, whereas mothers who already gave birth may receive nursing clothing recommendations instead.

The more targeted your email marketing efforts are, the more sales you can expect to make on your Shopify store.

Step 3: Get more Shopify sales with paid traffic

If you have followed all the previous steps so far, you should have made at least a handful of sales.

This means you will have rich data on what real buyers look like – instead of relying on educated assumptions. It’s time to use that data to scale your efforts and get even more sales.

Launch Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok ads

With paid ads on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, you can scale the amount of traffic you’re getting to your site, and thus make more sales – as long as you are directing the right traffic to the right pages.

On Facebook, you can target a variety of different people, based on:

• Demographics
• Interests
• Pages they like
• How they interact with your brand
• Location
• And more!

You can also install a Facebook Pixel on your website to start collecting data about your website visitors. If you’re unfamiliar with Facebook Pixel, it is simply a snippet of code that tells Facebook who is visiting your site. It’s easy to install, and you won’t need any coding for that. Once you have Pixel set up, you can show ads to people who visited your site.

Additionally, you can create a Lookalike audience.

Lookalikes are people who don’t yet know or like your brand but have similar behavior and interests to people who do.

You can create lookalikes for:

• Website visitors
• Email subscribers
• People who interact with your Facebook or Instagram page
• People who watch a given percentage of your videos

If you’ve ever shopped for something specific like garden hoses, and then kept seeing other ads for new brands of garden hoses, those are lookalike ads at work.

There are many ways you can attract the attention of your audience with ads. For instance, you can offer a discount, like Hello Bello:

You can also point out the main benefits of your product and all the perks that come with shopping on your store. The Oodie brand knows I live in Canada and I hate the cold, plus they offer free shipping:

I highly suggest you don’t drive traffic to a regular product page if you are advertising a single product. If you’re trying to advertise a particular product that has been getting good reviews, take some time to make a more in-depth page that details all the benefits.

For example, when you click on the Hello Bello ad we looked at before, you land on this detailed landing page:

You can also use carousel ads to advertise several products at once. In this case, you can redirect your traffic to regular product pages.

Plus, you retarget warm traffic to get sales on Shopify. Warm traffic includes people who already visited your website or who are on your email list – to remind them that they left something in their cart, or that the product they looked at before is running out of stock soon.

You can create lookalike ads on TikTok like you can on Facebook. However, audience Interests are a bit more limited.

That doesn’t mean TikTok ads can’t be effective! You may just have to test and tweak what works for you.

Use Google ads

Google Ads tend to be more expensive per click. However, that comes with the added benefit of targeting only people who are looking for something in particular.

Google Ads are those search results you see at the top when you search for something on Google. They’re always marked as an ad.

For example, let’s say I’m shopping for a new bathing suit. Asos decided to target this keyword and pay to show up first:

Make sure you do your due diligence and research your keywords before launching a Google Ad campaign. You should only target people who actually want to buy, and not people who have other interests in mind. For example, if I search ‘How to make your own bathing suit’, you’ll notice no ads come up.

That kind of search term does not entail purchase intent. And if there is no purchase intent, triggering your ads would be a waste of money.

Partner with influencers for paid shoutouts

Regular ads aren’t the only way to make sales on Shopify anymore. Influencer marketing can be incredibly powerful in bringing you a surge of sales – as long as you choose the right type of influencer for your audience.

TikTok is especially powerful for influencer marketing. And you can go beyond asking someone to recommend your products! For example, Beachwaver partnered with Theresa Van Dam to launch an exclusive, limited-edition collection:

Of course, you don’t have to create a brand-new collection to work with an influencer. For example, Charlotte from The Nursery Nurse frequently integrates product promos directly into her skits:

Keep in mind that the bigger the audience, the more expensive it will be to work with an influencer. You can always start out small to test the waters first and see how certain audiences respond to your products.

Step 4: Optimize your store to make more sales

When you have tons of traffic coming through your store, you’re bound to make at least a few sales. However, you can always improve to maximize the value of each visitor.

Add a live chat on your Shopify store

Your visitors may have questions about one of your products or require assistance before they are ready to buy. If you don’t provide that support, they may decide it’s not worth the trouble and decide not to buy.

Avoid this by adding a live chat directly on your Shopify store. And don’t be intimidated by the idea of being online 24/7. You can always set up the chat button to stop displaying during non-working hours or you can provide an option to leave a message like Athletic Greens.

Of course, a live chat will require more effort from you and your team. But given that it also significantly increases the chances of getting sales on your Shopify store, going the extra mile is absolutely worth it.

Insert reviews with user-generated content

Remember when we discussed asking for reviews?

Make sure you make the most of those reviews by displaying them on your website. Reviews can show up on product pages directly, on your home page, and on a dedicated Testimonials page.

Ripe displays all of their customer reviews directly on the product pages. You can click on the star symbol and read all the reviews at your leisure.

To easily implement a reviews section on your Shopify store, you can use dedicated apps like Yotpo or its alternatives.

Start a loyalty program

Each paying customer could be generating even more paying customers. This will help you reduce your cost per purchase and allow you to reinvest more profits into improving your site, growing your team, or scaling your paid traffic.

Loyalty programs work extremely well for this. Not only can your customers gather points for their purchases, but you should consider rewarding them for referring their friends and family.

I mentioned referrals near the top of this post, but once the number of customers on your store grows, handling the communication manually will be a challenge. At this point, consider creating a more structured program that can scale along with your store. You’ll find plenty of dedicated apps for implementing a loyalty program on your Shopify store, including Smile, Growave, Rise, and more.

Optimize your site for mobile

If your Shopify store isn’t already optimized for mobile, you’re losing a huge opportunity to make more sales.

In 2024, in the US alone, mobile retail sales are expected to reach 558.29 billion dollars and make up 44.6% of total US retail ecommerce sales.

A clunky mobile experience is most likely making you lose out on countless potential customers.

Invest in a mobile version of your website, and if you’re already generating traffic, you should start making more sales on Shopify just from that effort.

Optimize your product pages

Your product pages can be stripped down and basic, with a few images and a product description… or, they can be loaded with bells and whistles. My suggestion? Test out various additions on your product pages and see what works best for you.

For instance, you can try adding product quantities, especially if you’re almost out of stock.

If you offer financing, you can try mentioning this on your product page to see if this will help you make more sales.

If you’re in the middle of a sale, you can also add a countdown timer to add scarcity.

Add cross-sells and order bumps

When a visitor adds one of your products to their cart, they’ve shown an interest in spending money with you. You have an opportunity to make more sales on Shopify by offering them related products. This sales technique is known as cross-selling.

Leather Honey shows a great example of cross-selling. When you add a product to cart, you see a non-intrusive recommendation of a complementing item that adds value to your purchase.

To implement this tactic, you can look for dedicated upsell & cross-sell apps in the Shopify app store. Or you can manually add pop-up order bumps to the shopping cart using Getsitecontrol.

This is what it may look like:

Why am I getting traffic but no sales on Shopify?

So you’ve integrated all of the above, yet have little to no sales to show for it? Several things could be causing this issue, so let’s go through some steps to diagnose what’s happening.

First, look into the analytics of your Shopify store. Where are people dropping off from your website?

Here are some potential issues to fix depending on where people are dropping off:

• Home page or product browsing: your Shopify store may be too complex or overwhelming to navigate, so consider simplifying your menu

• Product pages: Your product description may need improvement — or the page is too complex to navigate

• Checkout process: Either the checkout process is too complex, or shipping charges are more expensive than people were expecting

You can do the same diagnosis with your email marketing statistics. When it comes to sales from email, Shopify stores usually have four friction points:

• Are people receiving your emails in their inbox (and not in spam)?
• If your subscribers are receiving your emails, are they opening them? (Open rate averages for Ecommerce are 15.68%)
• If people are opening your emails, are they clicking through to your website? (Clickthrough rate averages for Ecommerce are 2.01%)
• If people are clicking through to your Shopify website, are they purchasing?

If the issue is with the last point, your Shopify statistics will be the best place to look. On the other hand, if the friction is with your emails, here’s what you can do:

• Low deliverability: Consider cleaning your list and removing inactive subscribers
• Low open rates: A/B test subject lines to see what your subscribers respond to best
• Low clickthrough rates: Create more engaging content for your emails (you can A/B test this as well to see what your subscribers prefer)

No matter where your visitors are dropping off, make sure that every element of your Shopify store is optimized for mobile. For instance, a menu that looks great on a desktop may be difficult to use on mobile devices.

Here’s an example of a mobile-optimized menu from Click and Grow:

Instead of showing text-only menu options, they’ve built their menu using large icons that are easy to click on.

Everything you need to start getting sales on Shopify

The world of ecommerce is vast, and this is only the starting point to help you make sales on Shopify. Your first sales will most likely be the most difficult to obtain, but once that first step is taken, you will be equipped with the momentum you need to build on your success.

Happy selling!