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How to create a successful online shop with GoodBarber Shopping App

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You’re in the process of creating your Shopping app  and already starting to thing  about the launch. Before going to that next step, it is always a good practice to go through a quick checklist to ensure you haven't missed anything and also made the most of your GoodBarber shopping app features and add-ons. 
 Here are a few tips for things to double-check to ensure the smooth (and almost stress-free) launch of a successful online shop. 

1. Your shop settings

First things first,  check your shop info: name, default email address, address etc... You do not want any mistakes there!
This is also where you set up your weight units and currency. Once this is done you can move to the rest of the shop settings:  your tax and shipping settings, payment providers. Have you set up all your shipping zones and your shipping methods?
As we discussed in previous articles free shipping and same-day delivery are now part of customers' expectations while shopping online. 
With the Local Delivery add-on, you can define a fast delivery option by zip code and build brand affinity with your local community. 
 

2. Add your domain name

Adding a custom domain to your PWA gives you brand recognition and makes it easier for shoppers to remember your URL.
You’ll want to conduct a domain name search first to see if your business name is available. If it is, you can purchase your custom domain name directly through a registrar (an organization that manages the reservation of Internet domain names.)
For example:
https://www.ovh.com
https://www.gandi.net   
https://www.godaddy.com
If your domain name isn’t available, you can be creative and find alternatives with top-level domains (TLD) ending with .shop for example. 

3. Take special care of your Home , Contact and About pages.

  • Your Homepage is the most important page on your site. It’s most likely the first place your potential clients land. The homepage is a place to establish the overall look and feel of your shopping app and ensure you have intuitive navigation to browse your shop.

The Home of your shopping app consists of different modules called widgets

There are different types of widgets

  • Product list

  • List of collection

  • Search

  • Promo banner

  • Newsletter

  • Link

  • Legal notices

  • Social media 

  • Separators

  • HTML

Please beware, most of the widgets are shortcuts to existing sections. They will only appear if you’ve already added the section to your shop. For example, if you don’t have a Search section in your shop, the search widget will not be available.
 

  • A Contact Us page offers reassurance to your clients. Don't forget to list a phone number, email, and the address of your physical shop if you have one. If potential clients can’t contact you, you could be missing out on sales opportunities.
 
  • Your About page is where shoppers go to learn more about your shop, your brand. Don't overlook this page, it can help you drive sales. Especially in e-commerce, it is important to tell stories that sell your audience on the lifestyle of your brand. People are interested in a brand's’ mission and purpose. Sharing your brand’s purpose and values and why the business was started can win you new clients who support similar causes.

4. Review your emails and push settings and texts

Email and especially push notifications are powerful tools for a shopping app.
In your GoodBarber back office, you can access the templates of several automated emails and push notifications. You can and want to customize them before launch.
Edit your email and push templates to create sequences that correspond to your brand, engage your users and ultimately drive sales.

 

 

5. Thoroughly review your checkout experience and payment gateway settings

Before you drive any traffic to your shop, you’ll want to ensure shoppers can easily complete a purchase. According to a study , the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate is almost 70% and one of the main reasons for cart abandonment is poor experience during checkout (50%). It would be wise to spend time on your checkout page and testing the checkout and payment process yourself.
With the integration of digital wallets like Apple Pay in your shopping app, payment is done in one click. 
You can also activate different payment gateways: Stripe , PayPal , Mercado Pago as well as an offline payment mode to allow your users to pay outside the app and therefore reach a wider audience. 

You can place a test order on your app with the test mode available for each payment method to make sure everything works. Don't forget to switch to live mode at launch ;)

 

 

6. Optimize your product pages

The way you present your products is crucial because if it’s not appealing clients will simply click away.
You want to spend time to create high converting product pages.  
The look and feel of your product pages are very important as it's your clients' first impression of your products.
When creating your products in your back office, you will be able to choose between: 
  • Fonts and font colors
  • Background colors and images
  •  Shape and color of action buttons
  • How thumbnails, images and slideshows will be displayed etc...
All our templates are designed to create the best showcase for your products. 
 
Your product description should address your target audience directly and include relevant keywords.
The short description should be clear and catchy. The majority of users will scan a product first and your description should catch their attention. 
With the “More info block”, you can create a comprehensive list of features and their benefits.

Include beautiful product images to attract the attention of potential clients. Quality photos will show the users all of the key features about your product. They will also allow the potential client to imagine having this product. Your images need to compensate for the fact that your clients are not able to physically touch and see the product
 
Your product description can work wonders for Search Engine Optimization or SEO.  You can play around with inviting terms, a refreshed vocabulary, and of course, keywords.
When potential clients search for your products online, you want your shop to be at the top results for that search, especially since the majority of searchers will go to the first organic result on Google.
  • With your GoodBarber Shopping App each product is indexable. Thanks to Google BERT update released on October 25th, the unique details on product pages could now drive more organic search traffic with high purchase intent.
  • Rich snippets: this feature allows you to preview how your meta description will appear on Google search.
  • With our AMP Add-on , ensure that your product pages are loaded almost instantly, and result in perfect user experience and increased customer retention. Google highlights pages using AMP technology in its search results. AMP pages appear either in the AMP carousel at the top of the first results page, or in traditional results, with the AMP label. You therefore greatly increase your visibility and your chances of traffic on your shop.
 

7. Activate GoodBarber sales optimization features

  • The Similar Product feature is a great tool to encourage your clients to view more products that might interest them and therefore increase your cart average. Good suggested products not only improve the customer experience but also promote product exploration. 
 You can activate this option for each product. It is possible to display up to 4 similar products. Automatic suggestions are based on the Collections and Tags applied to your products. You can also manually select which products you want to appear.
  • The Buy Again add-on:  Your clients can renew an order with one simple click. The "Buy again" button allows them to add to the cart all the products from an existing order with one click. 

8. Have a pre-launch marketing plan

Once you launch your shop, you’ll want to make sure people know about it. The best way to do that is with a marketing plan.
A little tip: Set up Google Analytics for Firebase in advance and keep a close eye on traffic as you implement your marketing plan.
  • You want to create excitement around your launch and your shop. One proven tactic is to incentivize the first purchase.  Sweeten the deal for first -time shoppers and you’ll increase the conversion rate from visitors to clients. You can choose to offer a small discount or a welcome gift. The key is to make it obvious what benefits the clients get if they decide to purchase now. 
  • Build a community and participate in social media. Nowadays social media is a must for a shop marketing strategy. The goal is not only to get the clients to come to you but also to go where your potential clients spend a lot of their time: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest etc… Choose the channels carefully, they must fit your brand image. Participate authentically. Simply sharing a link is not enough. You need to be interesting, click-worthy. Use the social media channel to create a story about your business, add value to it. A story that potential shoppers would want to share. 
    From your shopping app back office, you can use the promotion tools to display a link to download your app on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr)