How can I increase online sales for my boutique gift store?

[MagnoliaMonarch]

Hello everyone, I would love some guidance on how I can get SALES!!! I am an online boutique gift shop and my main focus is handmade jewelry, but also expanded into handbags and candles that I have in stock ready to ship.

-I have shops set up on Facebook and Instagram and I post consistently with posts, reels, stories, etc. I use the hashtags, tag my products, etc. and my following and activity is increasing. I also set up shopping on TikTok and have started to post there.

-I've cleaned up the product categories and layout on my site (would love some feedback here) so make it more user friendly and engaging.

-I've tried running google ads-display, search, shopping, etc. Drove lots of traffic but zero sales.

-I'm set up on Google merchant center

-SEO: I researched keywords and narrowed down on ones with low competition but high visibility, and am in the process of adding the keywords to my meta descriptions, images, page titles, URLs, etc. I'm currently only ranked for 49 keywords but am hoping this improves. My users are 65% direct, 20% organic search, and 15% organic social. It looks like overall traffic is starting to trend upward, but there's a lot of up and down. Any suggestions on what else I can do here???

-One last question is about my product offerings. I also added a line of graphic tees through dropping shipping (synclogic), but I feel like that was way more trouble than it was worth. I did bring one sale, but ended up losing that customer on account of the dropshipper being slow and unresponsive. Having those products contributed to a few of my google rankings, but not a lot. The main issue I had with this was the syncing was a nightmare. The parent/source product pages all had inconsistent photo orientations, product descriptions, etc, which made my site look unprofessional, so once I spent forever working on those pages, it was all overwritten once it synced again. (I have yet to find a way around this). So I just don't know if this collection is worth the trouble. I do have a few shirts in stock that I've left on my site.

-I've done one vendor market so far and did a lot of sales, so I feel confident that people like my products. I am just having a hard time getting new customers online.

www.magnoliamonarch.com

[ErayBarslan · Accepted solution]

Hello @MagnoliaMonarch ,

It's great that your 20% traffic is organic. I would like to make some suggestions so you can increase your traffic and turn your visitors into paying customers:

1) Header & Banner:
Header and banner are most crucial part of a the store design because that's the first thing a visitor sees. E-commerce websites bounce rate differs in average from 20% to 45%. Meaning, many users give the judge about an online store in the first few seconds and bounce off.

• Your header is missing your logo and home page link. You should include logo that's linking to your home page.
• Make sure to add a visually appealing banner with a text and CTA button. Example jewellery store banner:
  

2) Add Content:

• You should add content to your website. Listing only products won't get you far in terms of SEO and CRO. Also It'll help you build trust and keep customers engaged. You can write blogs about your niche and highlight them in your home page like:
  
• You can add trust badges:
  
• Highlight some products that you think your auidence would like:
  
• Or talk about your story, what makes Magnoliamonarch unique so that customers should buy from you. Make sure to add visuals with text content to not lose attention of visitors. And consider including your keywords to content & storytelling sections. Feel free to get some content idea from the jewellery store I've designed: link 
• I'd not advise you to add all kinds of products. Define your target audience and build your store around it. After that you can expand to be an all around store.

3) Review & Testimonial Sections:

These sections play crucial part in online stores. I would suggest you to activate either Shopify review app or pick from the app store. Until your products have solid reviews, you can include selected testimonials in your home page to build trust:

4) Make Discount Offers Visible:
You offer free shipping on orders above $25 however that should also be notified on the cart so that all the customers know about the deal and make sure they reach $25 to get free shipping. You can use a discount progress bar like:

5) Email marketing:

• I'd suggest you to collect customer emails and implement email marketing strategy. Return rate of email marketing is much higher than ads. It'll help a lot to collect emails and build a customer base.
• You can provide discount codes for first customers then include it on announcement bar and place the section above the footer like:
  

6) Loyalty & Reward Program: 

I would suggest you to implement a loyalty & reward program. Customers are more inclined to buy knowing that they'll be getting discount points on repeating purchases. Also you can build a solid customer base. Example:

I hope these help and good luck! Feel free to reach out if you need any further assistance.

Best regards,
Eray Barslan | Shopify Developer & Designer

[flareAI · Accepted solution]

Hello @MagnoliaMonarch,

I am Gina from flareAI app helping Shopify merchants get $6Million+ in sales from Google Search, on autopilot. I am here to support you.

Having taken a close look at your store, I believe that below suggestions could help drive sales.

1. Add the Home page link to the main menu so that for visitors will be easy to navigate from any pages back to Home page.
2. Enhance your product pages by including a comprehensive and informative product description that highlights the key features and benefits of your product. This will entice potential buyers to make a purchase.

3. Add product reviews as most of the customers read the review before purchasing the product. Even sometimes by reading reviews, customers may look to understand whether your product will suit their particular situation and make the decision to purchase the product.
4. You can add testimonials on the home page to make the store look more professional. Testimonials allow your satisfied customers to step forward and address the questions and objections that fill the minds of your prospective buyers for you.
5. Discounts and limited-time offers will help to increase sales.
6. Add more detailed filters in collection pages to help your visitors narrow in on the specific product they're looking for and find products they might be interested in based on certain features (e.g. size, color, category)

7. Add average ratings for each product
Including both user rating and number of ratings on the products will help users to make decision whether to buy your product or not.
8. Through consistent and high-quality blogging, you can improve your website's search engine rankings, drive more traffic to your site, and establish your brand as a trustworthy and knowledgeable source in your industry. By focusing on creating valuable content that addresses your readers' needs, you can build a loyal following and boost your online influence.
9. Add a section for email Newsletter in the footer to give updates pertaining to your business, products, and services.

Hope this helps

Gina

[MagnoliaMonarch]

 

Thank you, Malik. For the Favicon, I've added the image I wanted to use in the customize theme section but I noticed it's not being displayed on the web tab.

[MagnoliaMonarch]

Also, as far as the background image, I had one there before, but felt like the viewers were having to scroll past it to get to my products and didn't know if they would stay engaged long enough. Would it look better like this?

 

[MagnoliaMonarch]

 

[ErayBarslan · Accepted solution]

Hello @MagnoliaMonarch ,

It's great that your 20% traffic is organic. I would like to make some suggestions so you can increase your traffic and turn your visitors into paying customers:

1) Header & Banner:
Header and banner are most crucial part of a the store design because that's the first thing a visitor sees. E-commerce websites bounce rate differs in average from 20% to 45%. Meaning, many users give the judge about an online store in the first few seconds and bounce off.

• Your header is missing your logo and home page link. You should include logo that's linking to your home page.
• Make sure to add a visually appealing banner with a text and CTA button. Example jewellery store banner:
  

2) Add Content:

• You should add content to your website. Listing only products won't get you far in terms of SEO and CRO. Also It'll help you build trust and keep customers engaged. You can write blogs about your niche and highlight them in your home page like:
  
• You can add trust badges:
  
• Highlight some products that you think your auidence would like:
  
• Or talk about your story, what makes Magnoliamonarch unique so that customers should buy from you. Make sure to add visuals with text content to not lose attention of visitors. And consider including your keywords to content & storytelling sections. Feel free to get some content idea from the jewellery store I've designed: link 
• I'd not advise you to add all kinds of products. Define your target audience and build your store around it. After that you can expand to be an all around store.

3) Review & Testimonial Sections:

These sections play crucial part in online stores. I would suggest you to activate either Shopify review app or pick from the app store. Until your products have solid reviews, you can include selected testimonials in your home page to build trust:

4) Make Discount Offers Visible:
You offer free shipping on orders above $25 however that should also be notified on the cart so that all the customers know about the deal and make sure they reach $25 to get free shipping. You can use a discount progress bar like:

5) Email marketing:

• I'd suggest you to collect customer emails and implement email marketing strategy. Return rate of email marketing is much higher than ads. It'll help a lot to collect emails and build a customer base.
• You can provide discount codes for first customers then include it on announcement bar and place the section above the footer like:
  

6) Loyalty & Reward Program: 

I would suggest you to implement a loyalty & reward program. Customers are more inclined to buy knowing that they'll be getting discount points on repeating purchases. Also you can build a solid customer base. Example:

I hope these help and good luck! Feel free to reach out if you need any further assistance.

Best regards,
Eray Barslan | Shopify Developer & Designer

[MagnoliaMonarch]

This is all great info. Thank you so much. I'll start working on adding these features soon. First thing, I do have my logo in my header and it is linked to my home page. Can you please clarify what you mean?

[ErayBarslan · Accepted solution]

Your logo isn't visible on all browsers. It's hidden on Firefox. This is how it looks:

I have identified the issue and you can fix it by following:

• Navigate to "Online store > Themes > ... > Edit code > Assets > base.css"
• On line 2325 you'll find the code:

.header__heading-logo {
  height: auto;
  width: 100%;
}​

Remove the width: 100% like below and It'll be fixed:

.header__heading-logo {
  height: auto;
}

Cheers,

[flareAI · Accepted solution]

Hello @MagnoliaMonarch,

I am Gina from flareAI app helping Shopify merchants get $6Million+ in sales from Google Search, on autopilot. I am here to support you.

Having taken a close look at your store, I believe that below suggestions could help drive sales.

1. Add the Home page link to the main menu so that for visitors will be easy to navigate from any pages back to Home page.
2. Enhance your product pages by including a comprehensive and informative product description that highlights the key features and benefits of your product. This will entice potential buyers to make a purchase.

3. Add product reviews as most of the customers read the review before purchasing the product. Even sometimes by reading reviews, customers may look to understand whether your product will suit their particular situation and make the decision to purchase the product.
4. You can add testimonials on the home page to make the store look more professional. Testimonials allow your satisfied customers to step forward and address the questions and objections that fill the minds of your prospective buyers for you.
5. Discounts and limited-time offers will help to increase sales.
6. Add more detailed filters in collection pages to help your visitors narrow in on the specific product they're looking for and find products they might be interested in based on certain features (e.g. size, color, category)

7. Add average ratings for each product
Including both user rating and number of ratings on the products will help users to make decision whether to buy your product or not.
8. Through consistent and high-quality blogging, you can improve your website's search engine rankings, drive more traffic to your site, and establish your brand as a trustworthy and knowledgeable source in your industry. By focusing on creating valuable content that addresses your readers' needs, you can build a loyal following and boost your online influence.
9. Add a section for email Newsletter in the footer to give updates pertaining to your business, products, and services.

Hope this helps

Gina

[Cedcommerce]

Hey @MagnoliaMonarch

Your store's home page hero image (big banner image at the top of your website) is fantastic, but sadly, it is just one. Using a carousel, you can showcase your star products. Also, there is no sign of handcrafted jewellery in the image, and a first glance at it gives the impression that your store sells sunglasses or beach-related stuff.

Regarding SEO fluctuation, an ideal approach is to diversify your traffic channels in the form of social media, ads, and industry directories. Updating content regularly on the blog section of your site is the key to delivering the latest insights to the customers. The more exciting things you publish, the more your audience craves for it and will have no qualms about spending time on your website. 

As a result, you will see a significant reduction in bounce rate. The bounce rate is a crucial parameter that will tell Google about the worth of the content. Therefore, a decisive factor in terms of boosting search engine rankings.

Dig into your website's google analytics account to find out the most impactful metrics and fix them if required to enable impeccable user experience.

• E-commerce revenue ( Reports > Life Cycle > Monetization > Overview)
• Average Order Value - Suggesting popular and complementary products to buyers (especially to repeat buyers)

• Offer Free Shipping - It will always work and has the maximum influence on the customer's buying decision. 
• Shopping Cart Abandonment - If this metric shows a higher number, it's a red flag to speed up the checkout page.
• Advertising Cost vs Revenue - It's a custom metric that can be set up using Google Analytics 4. If advertising cost is more than revenue, adhere to the below tips

• Change the low-performing ad campaigns. 
• Tweak the keyword targeting and implement geo-targeting precisely.

Adding your primary keywords in your store URLs is an SEO-friendly gesture that makes your page relevant to your audience.

All the best,
Cedcommerce