Refurbishing with a Shopify Expert

After a year’s worth of success, and when you believe it is time for you to adopt the latest tools in your store, it might be time to think about hiring a Shopify Expert to take your store to the next level.

We have previously covered “why you should hire a Shopify Expert” and have a “Shopify Experts Resource Centre” for an easy way to identify your needs, and how to approach the Shopify Experts Community, and preparing yourself to “Align your project to a Shopify Expert”.

Website Designs change over time when it comes to the use of web applications, usage models, and digital marketing tools (digital advertising within social media platforms especially). Your marketing team with the input of your web developers can drop a to-do list to bring you current to today's

Shopify Store Refurbishing Needs

What are the needs you believe a Shopify Expert can assist you with? Much like a brick and mortar store, presentation, refinement of your funnel, being able to deliver new retention or loyalty programs to deliver a stronger brand great experience. Shopify delivers a vast set of features, here are 3 good examples where a Shopify Expert can help:

• Looking to transition to Shopify Plus. If your business is reaching the threshold for Shopify Plus, a Shopify Expert will help you transition into this program with ease, and help you get advice on the various new features that you might want to consider rolling out. (See “When to upgrade to Shopify Plus 2021” article)

• Endeavor with Shopify AR (https://www.shopify.com/ar) and give users an amazing web design experience by boosting confidence, engagement and make the products pop!

• Add Artificial Intelligence to your store – if it is Support Chat, product recommendations, or intelligent reports, a Shopify Expert can help you integrate the App or can write one using AI Libraries specifically for your needs.

• Drive your digital marketing strategy using Google Analytics, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and get your products and services noticed with a strong online marketing push.

When looking at your Shopify Store, and comparing it to the competition, creating a “gap analysis” where you see some great features that really stand out, drop them down and capture the link. The Shopify Expert can assist identify the feature, and help you define what it is you are looking at. Don’t be afraid to do your list of improvements to discuss with your Shopify Expert.

Executing a Refurbishment on a “Live Site”

The reason you just don’t keep applying and adding Shopify Apps randomly into a store is that an App may not play well with other apps in your store. Since after all, there are so many Apps and the App maker cannot factor in every possible one to test with. To seamlessly add capability in your store, planning and a “cause and effect” matrix comes in real handy where the Shopify Expert can provide you the “effect” side and what other apps might require testing or compensating with (through a Shopify Private App or Shopify Custom App) to ensure that all Apps work well together.

To not affect a live store, a sandbox with a Shopify theme which mirrors the responsive design you currently use can mirror the user experience of your live online store. The Shopify developer will install the shopify apps and check for their integrations. Annotations in what may be required in HTML or css changes to the theme or apps may emerge.

Once the planning and testing have taken place (usually in a dummy store) to ensure integration is sound – rolling out the changes carefully in the live store, re-testing, and ensuring that you have upgraded the capabilities with care and reliability is highly recommended.

Designers and Developers will also check your digital channels, social media marketing and popular search engine SEO integrations to ensure that all the digital marketing tools are operational.

Conclusion

Shopify Experts can assist in many different ways to provide store owners with intelligence on Shopify’s capability, Shopify Apps, and their ability to deliver to your commercial needs, as well as getting the competitive information you might require. It is important to refresh your store competitively as social media is extremely visual and powerful in its propagation through the audience you are trying to reach. If you need to talk to a Shopify Expert, feel free to reach out to us at wish@thegenielab.com - we are ready to engage.