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Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/ecommerce-selling-advice/black-friday-ecommerce-strategy

It’s been around since the 1950s and has become one of the busiest shopping days in the US. Of course, we’re talking about Black Friday. It’s the official start of the holiday shopping season and takes place the day after Thanksgiving. So it’s no wonder that for many online retailers, it’s one of the busiest days of the year. In fact, it’s predicted that more than 50% of US consumers will participate in this shopping event.

So, how can eCommerce sites make the most out of Black Friday?

Plan. In. Advance.

So, here we’ll provide our nine top tips for preparing your Black Friday eCommerce strategy. From engaging with customers to creating a social media presence to managing inventory, read on to learn how to ready your business for Black Friday.

Black Friday Ecommerce Strategy – Tip 1: Social Media Marketing

Over the past three years, eCommerce website traffic from social media tripled! But, more specifically to Black Friday – during the weekend before, some prospective customers used the following social media channels to research the deals they could expect from their favorite brands:

17% of shoppers used Facebook 9% Instagram4% on Pinterest 4% Twitter

As for demographics:

Of the 17% using Facebook, 28% are aged 25-34, and 27% are aged 17-24Of the 9% using Instagram, 17% are aged 25-34, and 21% are aged 17-24Of the 4% using Pinterest, 7% are aged 25-34, and 6% are aged 17-24Of the 4% using Twitter, 5% are aged 25-34, and 5% are aged 17-24

So, if you’re not marketing on at least one of these channels, now’s the time to change that! It’s also worth noting that multichannel shopping continues to rise year-by-year, with US multichannel retailers generating more than $492 billion this year alone! So, if you have the time, we highly recommend launching a multichannel Black Friday social media campaign. 

Pro Tip: A stream of non-stop, overly salesy promotions isn’t likely to attract customers – interestingly,  44% of social media users find ads irrelevant, and 74% think there are too many ads. Instead, high-quality, entertaining, and informative content will likely boast higher engagement rates. Of course, these posts can still relate to Black Friday, but try to have a little fun with it. 

For instance, you could try publishing:

A countdown timer showcasing how long’s left of the saleProduct demos and reviewsGuest takeoversCompetitions and giveawaysGift guides and inspiration

If you’re looking for inspiration, plenty can be found online. For example, Sephora created a gift guide to give shoppers a flavor of what’s on offer. Elsewhere, Dr. Marten placed a countdown bar at the top of their email marketing pushes to create a sense of urgency.

Pro Tip: Many social channels allow you to A/B test different imagery, headlines, and descriptions to help you refine your marketing campaigns to generate the highest possible online sales. If you’re unfamiliar with A/B testing, this is when you test a campaign but change one of the variables to see which works best for your target audience (as illustrated above). For example, on Instagram, you can A/B test video content vs. photo content with the same caption or story copy to see whether video or images works best. 

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Black Friday eCommerce Strategy – Tip 2: Engage Customers

With so much cash to be made on Black Friday, it’s no wonder retailers are implementing increasingly unique ways to engage customers. For instance, over the last few years, we’ve noticed tons of stores offering discounts well before the big day arrives, with the best deals reserved for Black Friday. For instance Sports Direct started with 40% off in the first hour of its sale, graduating to 50% in the next hour. Elsewhere, Home Depot discounts began on Halloween.

This is an excellent strategy for driving traffic to your website and provides ample opportunity to communicate how customers can make the most of your Black Friday promotions. That way, when the big day eventually comes, you should have a pool of shoppers ready and waiting to buy!  

Of course, this is just one of many customer engagement strategies you could adopt; below, we’ve jotted down a few other ideas:

Offer mystery savings via a digital scratch card to build anticipation and interactionOffer your long-time/high-spending/VIP/loyalty program customers early access to your saleOffer conditional free shipping when customers spend over a certain amount

Here are some examples of the above in action:

Forever 21 created a scratch card that customers could interact with to win 15%, 20%, or 25% off on their Black Friday Deal. RayBan offered its email subscribers (called The Ones) an early bird 20% off in its Black Friday deal to encourage sales and engagement and deter unsubscribes. Elsewhere, Anthropologie offered free shipping on Black Friday purchases over $50

The best thing to do here is to do some research and check out what your competitors did last year and try them out for yourself.

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Black Friday eCommerce Strategy – Tip 3: Sell Custom Merch

Creating and selling custom merch unique to the day is a great idea. For example, if you sell clothing, you could design a t-shirt that’s only available on Black Friday. This works wonders for creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity. 

Alternatively, you could give away custom merch as part of your marketing strategy. Maybe as a social media competition prize? Or as a limited edition gift? Perhaps you could incentivize customers to spend over a certain amount on Black Friday to automatically receive a piece of merch when they check out? 

The easiest way to offer custom products is to use a print-on-demand (POD) company like Printful. POD services make it a breeze to upload your design onto blank products to sell on your online store. Best of all, POD works similarly to dropshipping in that there’s no large outlay for merchandising, warehousing, buying inventory, etc. 

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Black Friday eCommerce Strategy – Tip 4: Publish Blog Posts

When it comes to planning Black Friday-related blog content, it can seem overwhelming. This is especially true if you have a vast product catalog and you’re discounting most of it. If this is your situation, you’ll need to plan ahead. This includes thinking about content relevant to Black Friday and ensuring that it meets your customers’ needs and pain points. 

The first step is to brainstorm a list of ideas, for example:

How To guides for the products you’re selling. For example, How to Make The Best of Your New Coffee Maker/Smart TV/Mobile phone, and so on.Look Books with inspiration on how to put different fashion accessories or outfits together that include links to discounted products.Use video content – for example, if you sell beauty products, embed videos on how to apply the makeup you’ll be selling on Black Friday.

While creating a list of blog topics, it’s wise to conduct keyword research. You want to focus on why users should buy without sounding overly sales orientated. Here are a few tips on how to do keyword research for Black Friday:

Use Google Trends and Keyword Planner and input a wide range of potential search terms into the search function to see which words work best and peak in October and November.Use popular keywords such as Black Friday, Black Friday 2022, Black Friday deals US, deals, discounts, offers, sales, as well as words relating to specific products (e.g., TV, games consoles, clothing, and so on).Don’t forget to insert keywords into your blog posts that will pop up in Google search rankings, including: best Black Friday deals, Black Friday offers, best Black Friday sales, and so on. 

On top of that, you’ll want to keep an eye on the competition to see what they’re writing about. This is crucial for staying ahead of the curve and ensuring you have a good idea of what’s trending. Alternatively, if your competitors haven’t released their Black Friday content yet, what did they publish last year?  

Once you have your list, it’s time to start writing. Try to prepare and publish as many articles in advance. Not only is this better for SEO, but by the time Black Friday rolls around, you’ll likely be swamped with a million other things to do! That said, if you have the resources, it’s wise to leave a few gaps in your content schedule to capitalize on new trends as they arise. 

One of the great things about long-form content is that you can recycle them into shorter content for your socials and email marketing, which leads us nicely to our next point… 

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Black Friday eCommerce Strategy – Tip 5: Schedule Email Marketing Campaigns

Although 60% of customers buy impulsively, the remaining 40% plan ahead. They want to know what their choices are before committing to a purchase. This is where you can utilize email content to your advantage. For example, ensure customers know what Black Friday discounts you’ll offer on the day itself and if you plan on providing discounts on the lead-up. 

You can further plan ahead by scheduling and automating email content to best reach your audience. This frees up time to focus on other aspects of your business during such a busy period. For example, you can schedule automated emails to welcome new customers. During the lead-up to Black Friday, these messages should include info about your Black Friday sale. To boost sales, you could also ping potential customers a coupon code and/or a free gift to entice shoppers to make a Black Friday purchase. Of course, these tactics can also be used in your cart abandonment emails!

Of course, you’ll need to build up an email list in advance to do the above. Here are a few tips for doing that: 

Launch social media ads that funnel visitors to a landing page advertising an incentive for users to sign up for your mailing list.Ensure you have an email signup form on your homepage and other key pages, such as checkout and product pages.Entice customers with a loyalty program that offers deals and discounts by asking them to provide you with their email addresses.Use popups but not ones that appear as soon as someone hits your page (it’s annoying!). Instead, have them at intervals throughout your customer journey.

If you’re not already using an email marketing platform, a tool like Sendinblue makes scheduling email campaigns much more manageable. There are free and paid solutions on the market, so do some digging to find the best tool for your business’s needs. It’s also a good idea to send email notifications tailored to the recipient. For example, some tools can automatically generate subject lines with the user’s name and interests to entice them to open your emails, so be sure to bear that in mind during your search!

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Black Friday eCommerce Strategy – Tip 6: SEO

If you’re hoping to make the most of organic traffic to your eCommerce store, you need to optimize your site for SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website so that Google and other search engines can easily find and rank your web pages. The better optimized your content, your chances of being indexed highly by search engines are greater.

This goes hand in hand with the keyword research we spoke about earlier. To optimize your site for maximum sales, you need to know what customers are searching for and which of your products will likely draw the most traffic. 

For instance, in 2021, jewelry sales increased by 14% and footwear by 3%. Conversely, home goods went down by -9% and health and beauty by -15%. Of course, these are just a few of the many product categories you could sell. You’ll need to conduct your own research to get a sense of which products will likely be your bestsellers so that you can optimize your website accordingly. 

To hit the ground running with this, we suggest that aside from your keyword research (see above), you do the following:

Look at your search volumes. In other words, how many people are searching for particular keywords? You’ll get some sense then of how much in demand it is. Search Engine Results Page (SERP) details give you information about which of your links perform the best. In other words, you get an insight into what your audience prefers and clicks on. 

There are plenty of helpful SEO tools out there, and some are free, including:

Ahrefs Webmaster ToolsAhrefs Backlink CheckerGoogle Ads Keyword PlannerAnswer the PublicGoogle AnalyticsGoogle Pagespeed Insights

When it comes to optimizing your site for Black Friday, there are a few best practices to bear in mind:

Include keywords in relevant titles and meta descriptionsMentioning deals throughout your website copyAim for a keyword density of 1-2% across your website. You can use Google Adwords to determine this percentage. Ensure your site is mobile-friendly. Both Google and Bing algorithms detect when a visitor uses a mobile device. If your website’s mobile-friendly, it generally outranks those that aren’t. Ensure the fastest possible load times Ahead of Black Friday, do a complete website audit. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to ensure your pages load fast and fix any issues you may have, including broken backlinks. 

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Black Friday eCommerce Strategy – Tip 7: Website Maintenance

On average, website traffic on Black Friday is 110% higher than on regular days; this surge in activity can dramatically affect site performance – for the worse. Needless to say, a poor-performing website will hinder the customer experience and could deter customers from buying. Almost 60% of customers will abandon their shopping cart if the website they use has a poor loading time (i.e., more than three seconds). 

Fortunately, you can improve site speed by optimizing the following:

Images: Reduce the file size of your photos using image compressors (ensure quality isn’t lost during the process).Scripts: Keep the number of scripts to a minimum.Plugins: Only install the plugins you actually need.

There are popular tools you can use to improve your website performance. Many of them use bots to crawl your website, find broken links, and see what’s slowing it down. Then with this info to hand, you can then fix the problem. 

Some excellent, free examples include:

Google’ PageSpeed InsightsHotjar 

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Black Friday eCommerce Strategy – Tip 8: Prepare Your Inventory

To stay on top of Black Friday demand, you can’t underestimate the importance of preparing your inventory. As many as 69% of abandoned carts occur because just one item in the shopper’s basket was out of stock. Black Friday is about excitement, spontaneity, and discovery – anything that gets in the way of this can kill the customer’s desire to buy. 

So, with that said, the most important thing is to ensure your inventory is fully stocked. 

Needless to say, many of your items will form part of a wider supply chain, which isn’t without its logistical challenges. 

For instance, on Black Friday in 2021, consumer electronics took the most significant hit, with more than 40% of items out of stock. The retail insights company Bluecore suggests this was due to the impact the pandemic had on electronic materials shortages. 

Although COVID isn’t as much of an issue, keep in mind we’re in a state of worldwide transition. Many countries are experiencing higher inflation rates, increased oil and gas prices, and skills shortages. Also, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine will likely impact supply and demand worldwide. Of course, preparing for these issues is easier said than done. But it’s worth discussing these concerns with suppliers in advance or looking at alternative stock options.

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Black Friday eCommerce Strategy – Tip 9: Prepare Your Team

Preparing your team for Black Friday is crucial for ensuring everyone gets through the day in one piece – especially for those that haven’t experienced Black Friday before.  

First, give your team a brief overview of how you expect the day will go. Perhaps schedule a team meeting a couple of weeks in advance to ensure everyone’s on the same page. This is a great opportunity for staff to raise any questions they may have and for you to provide a list of what they should be doing and what to focus on. It might be helpful to break down tasks into sections – i.e., customer service process, shipping, order fulfillment, etc., to make it more manageable.  

It’s also wise to prepare your team for what could go wrong. Lots of moving pieces ensure Black Friday’s success, so there’s a good chance something will go awry. Try to predict these issues and provide your team with examples of how to cope and respond. 

Pro Tip: Consider hiring extra temporary technical support and/or customer service members to ease the pressure on your team. 

Are You Ready to Pen Your Black Friday Marketing Strategy?

According to an in-depth study by Future Publishing, Black Friday shopping is expected to bring in $158 billion in consumer sales this year. 

In short, these holiday sales present an ideal opportunity to:

Grow your email mailing listIncrease customer engagementBoost brand awarenessCheck out what your competition is doingUse your customer’s interactions with your business as an opportunity to get to know them better Be inspired by other brands to get creative with your campaigns

In other words, if you want to succeed this 25th November, you must be prepared, and part of that preparation is to have a strong eCommerce strategy. Think of it as an investment in your business’s and your customers’ future. Then, once you have your strategy in place, all you need to do is dust it off and adapt it for future Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays! 

That’s all for our Black Friday eCommerce strategy tips! Let us know how you get on and whether our tips yielded fruit for your brand.

The post Tips for Creating a Killer Black Friday Ecommerce Strategy appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Original Source: https://ecommerce-platforms.com/articles/best-shopify-apps-for-fashion-stores

You’ve got goods to sell. Customers to contact. Products to move. But unless you have the store set up to handle every aspect of modern online selling, your fashion store isn’t going to make it.

There’s good news. Using Shopify opens up an entire marketplace of ecommerce apps that can give you everything you need to build a fashion store online. With these apps, you can use minimal development and expensive software engineering time and get started building an online fashion store that gets conversions, makes sales, and generates customer loyalty.

What can you do when you use Shopify apps? Consider everything that the platform has to offer:

Referral program integration, which helps you build word of mouthExtra services and infrastructure to make your dropshipping operation run smoothlyCross-sell and upsell platforms so you can recommend similar products to customers, making your site more likely to have higher Average Order Values (AOV)Drag-and-drop product pages, letting you scale the size of your fashion store with easePop-ups, to encourage people to sign up for a newsletter or loyalty programImproved social proof through customer reviews, giving your site and your brand more credibility with customers

In essence, you can use Shopify apps to build a completely modern store. And with these apps, you can work from templates, utilize customizable features, or optimize your site according to your specifications.

Sound all well and good so far? Good. Because we’re missing just one element:

What the heck are those apps, anyway?

The good news about Shopify is that it has a robust and active marketplace. In this marketplace, you’ll find hundreds upon hundreds of apps that can help you build an ecommerce business that runs like a well-oiled machine.

The bad news is the same. There are a lot of apps. So many, in fact, that reviewing them all gets to be a little bit overwhelming. What’s the best way to attack these apps so you can build an ecommerce fashion store that will sell more clothes to more people without straining your business?

What are The Best Shopify Apps for Fashion?

We thought you’d never ask. Below, we’ll go into some of the best Shopify apps for fashion stores, explain what they do, and then detail why you need to incorporate them if you’re going to build a more successful fashion ecommerce presence at your shop.

Yotpo Social Reviews

Yotpo Social Reviews should be one of your first stops in your epic search for the best Shopify apps for clothing stores. Why? Simple: it makes it more likely that a customer is going to recommend your site to someone else.

Important Features

All of the features line up exactly with what defines the best Shopify apps for clothing stores. Boost sales with social proof, collect plenty of reviews and product photos, and ultimately make your store look like a high-end fashion boutique that has a bevy of online interest—even if sales have been slow.

Pricing

This one comes with a free plan, though some additional charges might apply. In other words, you couldn’t ask for a better ROI than that—you can simply add Yotpo to your Shopify, make your product pages stand out with superior product reviews and social proof, and head off to the races. That’s important, especially for beginning clothing stores. If you’re at that stage, you’re likely seeking out more reviews and more customer photos to make your site look as legitimate as Amazon. And you don’t have a lot of money to spare to do it. Yotpo is exactly what you need to give your site the legitimate presence it needs.

Pros and Cons

The fun part about Yotpo is that it will encourage customers to take more action automatically—you simply incorporate it into your Shopify store and let it do the work. It’s not going to be complicated, messy software that gets in the way. But it will have a noticeable impact on the quality of your product pages—even your homepage.

Cons? To get the full suite of tools, you will have to pay more, so don’t think that everything with Yotpo comes for free.

Who’s it Best For?

Do you sell products? Have you been searching relentlessly for the best Shopify apps for fashion stores? If you can answer “yes” to both, it’s for you.

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Gorgias – Helpdesk & Live Chat

We’ve all been there. We buy some article of clothing online, something goes wrong, and now we had better contact customer support in a hury, or else we’ll rate the customer experience of the entire ecommerce store as being subpar. Don’t want that to happen with your customers? Then you’d better think about installing Gorgias Helpdesk & Live Chat on your Shopify page.

Important Features

Gorgias helps customers find fast answers to their questions, which is particularly important when they visit your page and aren’t sure what to make of your brand. Sure, maybe you’ve tried to add legitimacy with size charts, chatbots, and all the rest. But if the customer senses that your customer support isn’t fully integrated, they’re probably going to think your web presence is cheap—and so, by extension, are the clothes you have on offer. Gorgias offers a sort of “all-in-one” solution for handling customer support on your site like you’re a giant corporation rather than a new fashion ecommerce store.

Pricing

$10/month to add on, with a 7-day free trial you can attempt to poke around Gorgias if you like. This might seem like a lot if you’re just building your first Shopify page and barely even have Google Analytics set up—but you’ll find the pricing actually makes sense given just how much functionality and credibility this can add to your fashion store.

Pros and Cons

The price seems like a con at first, but it’s quite affordable for any store that’s earning money. If you have Shopify apps that make your store more likely to make sales, the price is actually quite low—and there’s a free trial in the first place. What are the pros? Gorgias is a speedy, comprehensive way to add customer support options to your site, which makes it more credible in the eyes of your shoppers.

Who’s it Best For?

If you don’t have any customers yet, you might put this one on the back burner. This means that small and growing fashion stores on up can make use of this Shopify app.

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Buzzbassador

It can be hard to sell clothes in an online fashion store without at least a little bit of buzz. The question is, how do you generate that buzz? Is there an app for something as simple and vague as…buzz?

The answer, fortunately, is yes.

Meet Buzzbassador, an all-in-one tool for launching affiliate marketing campaigns, building brand ambassador campaigns, and working with influencers. This is especially useful for your marketing strategy if you own a fashion store—after all, nothing quite sells clothes like seeing that other people are buying those same clothes.

Most Important Features

The big-time features here are its platforms. Buzzbassador lets you build and automate your affiliate marketers, work with influencers, and build up a roster of brand ambassadors who are out there in the jungles of the Internet, promoting your online store to the world.

Pricing

A little pricier, compared to the other items on our list, from $39/month, with an optional free trial. However, remember that Buzzbassador also works as a platform—to draw in those new customers, you’re going to have to pay the affiliate commission and influencer fees that generate the buzz in the first place. So it’s fair to say that this is a Shopify app that will require a heftier budget than some of the other options on this list.

Pros and Cons

The pros? The sky is the limit with a platform like Buzzbassador—if the affiliate and influencer campaigns work, you can keep ramping them up until your store generates a tremendous amount of sales. Another thing we like is that Buzzbassador adds very little to the load of your website—zero impact on your site speed.

The minus? It’s not a simple plugin that automatically generates that buzz. You’re going to have to work with it, find out what works for you, and build a roster of brand ambassadors. If you’re not quite ready for that yet, this one is best avoided until you are.

Who’s it Best For?

Anyone setting up a brand ambassador / influencer / affiliate marketing campaign.

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Klarna On‑Site Messaging

Notice a lot of cart abandonment on your site lately? That may be no accident. People might take one look at your prices, see there’s no option that makes sense for them, and then “nope” the heck out of there.

Enter Klarna On-Site Messaging, a sales conversion tool that lets you customize a unique shopping experience for your visitors. With Klarna, you can offer unique payment options that make your product look more affordable.

Most Important Features

Add Klarna to your Shopify store and you’ll likely increase customer retention. Why? It’s not because of some rewards program, or even a feature like a product wishlist. It’s because Klarna will pop in at the point of sale and offer a payment plan that makes your products more affordable.

Even better, Klarna lets you personalize the messaging around these offers, helping you create a consistent brand with the copy in your product pages.

Think of it this way: remember “layaway” purchases? Klarna kind of works like that—except instead of reserving the product, they can buy now and pay over a longer period. You get to make more sales, the customer gets to take on an affordable payment plan, and everyone’s happy.

Pricing

Free. Need we say more? Klarna makes its money by offering the service in question, which means that it’s happy to let Shopify stores like yours implement it in their page builder and move right along—no subscription fees required.

Pros and Cons

Did we mention that it’s free? And it makes potentially expensive products look more affordable to your customers? Of all the marketing tools on this list, this is probably the easiest addition you can make to boost your potential conversions. The fashion industry features products at every budget, of course, but if you have some expensive items that aren’t moving, Klarna payment plans can give your customers the flexibility they need to click “buy now.” It may just reduce your abandoned cart rates.

Who’s it Best For?

If most of your items are already low-cost and affordable—for example, say you offer low-cost dropshipping clothing—then you might not get as much mileage out of this one. But if you do have some mid-range or higher-end items that aren’t selling because of your price point, Klarna can be an instant shot in the arm.

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Etsy Marketplace Integration

We’re going to guess you’ve heard of Etsy. In fact, if the Etsy Marketplace Integration already appeals to you, it’s likely because you already have an Etsy store—you just want to expand how much you sell through it.

The trick? Shopify and Etsy are two distinct platforms. So how do you create a unified store to maximize the exposure your fashion products get? Etsy Marketplace Integration will unify your stores and give you a much more streamlined way of selling your products online.

Most Important Features

With Etsy Marketplace Integration, you can connect your Etsy store, avoid duplicate products, and create a cohesive, integrated shopping experience that won’t confuse your customers.

Pricing

There’s a free plan available, along with a 7-day trial. However, there may be some additional charges if you want to add some features.

Pros and Cons

If you have an Etsy store, an add-on like this can be a real lifesaver. It helps you avoid the duplicate products that make you look like your fashion store isn’t as professional as it should be. Perhaps more importantly, it expands your reach if you want to add a platform—either Shopify or Etsy—to your store’s presence online. The only downside? If you aren’t selling on Etsy, you may wonder what the appeal is.

Who’s It Best For?

Etsy’s integration only makes sense if you have to integrate Etsy. However, this can be a great starter app because it lets you get started on Etsy. Before you even think about complicated issues like conversion rates, you can simply start selling. You don’t have to wait until everything’s 100% perfect. Then, with plugins with Shopify, you can establish a growing store. Using an app like this highlights how easy it can be to start selling online.

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Return & Exchange Portal by ReturnGO

Not every sale is going to be smooth. Sometimes, people are going to want to return an item. Because this can be one of the most frustrating issues to deal with—print the label, handle the refund, etc., etc., —it only makes sense if you add an app that automates it as much as possible. The ReturnGO Return & Exchange Portal will help.

Most Important Features

The most important feature here? Automating your return management. No longer will you have to stop what you’re doing and deal with the customers visiting your landing pages for returns and adhering to every request. Instead, you can use a customer-facing portal to let the customers do much of the work. The customer gets their return, you get a smoothed-out returns process, and everyone’s happy. At least—somewhat happy. This is a return, after all.

Pricing

From $9.97 per month, depending on the kind of user experience you’re going for. Store owners know that there are lots of variants and variables when it comes to pricing something like this accurately, so make sure that you actually have some returns to deal with before you become one of the ReturnGO subscribers—it’s not free.

Pros and Cons

The first con? You will have to pay. And paying for a portal so customers can return your products just doesn’t sound as fun as paying for a VIP program for your business so you can scale up your average order value. It’s not a service like Mailchimp, it’s not full of sexy fonts and features like social sharing. But on the positive end: adding this to your arsenal will help your support team handle returns, one of the least pleasant aspects of running a shop—and for that, it’s worth paying for a premium plan.

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Socialphotos

A picture says a thousand words. That’s the logic behind Socialphotos, which lets you curate customer photos from Instagram and upload them directly to your shop. This makes your shop more appealing, adding an instant boost to the social proof that makes people want to trust your brand.

Most Important Features

As mentioned, you can curate Instagram photos to incorporate into your store. You can create customer lookbooks to add a social dimension to every product or product line. You can email customers and prompt them to begin social sharing. After all, photo reviews can be some of the best ways to ensure that customers trust your product. That’s why Socialphotos is a must-have add-on for any effective Shopify store.

Pricing

From $15/month with a 14-day free trial if you want to try it out for yourself. Although it can be hard to put a numerical value on an app like this, you’ll likely find that this is one of those investments that can instantly turn into higher average order values across the board, as people trust your shop more, enjoy seeing other customers with the products, and generally feel more inclined to purchase.

Pros and Cons

There aren’t too many cons here. Yes, it has a cost, and that can add to your list of monthly bills when you’re just starting out. But the benefits of connecting pictures with products are too many to mention here.

Who’s it Best For?

Thinking about features like “shop the look”? Or product catalogs? These are features you can bring into your store that will make it come alive—with more pictures there, it will seem as though your store is crowded and is all the rage. And that can do wonders for how many conversions. The connections to social media are especially great for people with fashion or clothing stores that are ready to take the leap into the big-time.

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Kiwi Size Chart & Recommender

A clothing store should feel “bespoke.” It should send out random push notifications and email messages to everyone with one-size-fits-all recommendations. When a visitor shows up, they need to feel that their size and preferences are taken into consideration. Enter Kiwi Size, a size charting app that makes your products come alive, as though the Shopify store was there at home with your customers.

Most Important Features

Kiwi Size makes it easy to build that always-integral size and fitting chart that customers always want to check out. Customers are shopping online, after all, and that can be a bit like shopping blind. However, if you want loyal customers, you have to give them more than a basic size chart. Kiwi Size also offers hundreds of size charts available, not to mention customization features to make the branding of each size chart fit with what you’re doing.

Pricing

There is a free plan available, though adding on features or taking on additions may mean some charges. This makes it a slam-dunk for anyone looking to bolster their bottom line—after all, you don’t have to pay for these size charts, but instead can start using them right away on your store to give it a more personalized feel.

Pros and Cons

Pros? The price—who can turn down the price of “free”? There are also hundreds of size charts you can work from, creating something that’s truly unique and in line with the brand you’re looking to establish. We also like the automatic table conversions that make it easy to advertise size charts across different places and expectations.

Who’s It Best For?

Do you have a clothing store? Then you’re going to want size charts. Consider this one of those bedrock, must-have add-ons for any clothing store that’s starting out.

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Camweara Jewelry Try‑on

There are few benefits for clothing stores so important as getting people to feel like they’re trying something on at home. It instantly invigorates their shopping experience with something personalized. Even before you tackle customer segmentation, for example, you can add to the sense of personalization by letting someone try on the jewelry your store has on offer. That’s what Camweara does.

Most Important Features

It’s all about that virtual try-on. Using real-time virtual try-on technology, it lets people view the jewelry you have as though it’s on them, and even better—there’s no code here. You simply add it into your features and you get rocking and rolling right away.

Pricing

There’s always a catch, isn’t there? The catch here is taht yes, Camweara will cost you more than many of the other add-ons on this list. At $90/month, it’s a hefty subscription—and a big ask if you’re just building a jewelry store for the first time. Fortunately, you can test how well it works with a free trial period. This will give you everything you need to try it out on a lower-traffic store to see if Camweara gives your jewelry sales the shot in the arm they need.

Pros and Cons

Pricing is expensive, but the features are easy to integrate, happen quickly, and they’re mostly hands-off from your end. That means you can simply integrate this Shopify app and let it take over. This is, after all, one of those features that customers are going to love using themselves—and they won’t feel hesitant to do it, either. They want to try your jewelry on and see how it looks with their clothes, or on their hands.

Who’s It Best For?

It should go without saying that this is best for any clothing store that offers jewelry. If you don’t offer jewelry, you might want to watch out a bit and make sure that what you do have on offer lines up with Camwear’s product features.

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Loox

Adding product reviews and photos to your Shopify store, Loox is a bit like having an Amazon-like experience as an add-on. We’ve already talked about the importance of generating social proof in your product pages, and Loox is a shortcut to providing exactly that: genuine photos along with the sense that your products are in-demand.

Most Important Features

Imagine you’ve set up a store on Shopfiy and launched your products, but your conversion rate is a little bit on the low side. What features can you add with Loox that will help you make more sales? Well, you can add photos yourself. But Loox’s features help you establish trust with your product reviews. Loox will collect the reviews that other people take. The add-on will also set up automatic emails asking people to upload their own pictures, which won’t only add the feature to your product pages, but will actively seek out volunteers.

Pricing

From $9.99 per month, with a 14-day free trial available.

Pros and Cons

The pros are the features that help you automate your product photos—it would be a lot if you had to pay for this feature and also encourage customers to use it. But fortunately, Loox handles that aspect of it for you and fits neatly into your shop as a plug-and-play add-on.

Who’s It Best For?

If there’s a clothing store that can’t use better product photos and reviews, we haven’t heard of it.

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Smile: Loyalty & Rewards

Want to add some “stickiness” to your clothing store? Encourage people to come back to it with loyalty and rewards programs courtesy of Smile.

Most Important Features

You’ll like the loyalty data provided, not to mention incentivizing more reviews by offering points on your loyalty programs, which is a self-feeding mechanism that encourages more social proof on your store.

Pricing

With a free plan available—but not the only option—the pricing here is favorable and you’ll find it easy to try out on your own clothing store.

Pros and Cons

The pros are mostly built into the features. It’s easy to get set up, encouraging customers to love your brand thanks to loyalty points and referral programs. You may have to use it exclusive to other loyalty programs, however, which can be very robust and with checking out as well.

Who’s It Best For?

If you get a lot of people checking into your clothing store but not checking out with a product, then the best Shopify apps for clothing store offerings like yours are those that encourage people to come back and continue buying.

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Pinterest

We can’t include a list of the best Shopify apps for fashion stores without mentioning Pinterest. This is one of the go-to social media apps for anyone with a degree of interest in buying clothes online.

Most Important Features

Connect your store to Pinterest, increase your organic reach, and you can quickly use your Shopify store to create product pins that will make it easier for users to go back and forth between your shop and Pinterest.

Pricing

Free to install, but depending on what features you want to use, you may have to pay for additional add-ons.

Pros and Cons

Although it will cost you more the more features you use, we consider this a must-have for any clothing store, simply because of how important it is to integrate with Pinterest and stay active on social media.

Who’s It Best For?

Anyone who has a clothing or fashion store will get plenty of use out of this—especially if you want to make waves on Pinterest and gather more interest for a store that might not yet have enough traffic.

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The Best Shopify Apps for Fashion Stores

Which are the best Shopify apps for fashion stores? Well, we can’t say that you haven’t been informed now. We’ve reviewed some of the best add-ons for making your store resonate better with your intended audience. These can add more product features to your product pages, integrate with social media, or enhance your ability to handle returns.

Add them all up, and you’ll see just how robust Shopify can be. It can offer you the platform not only to sell online, but to grow your store in amazing ways, generate more loyalty with your customers, and make a name for your brand.

The post Best Shopify Apps for Fashion Stores appeared first on Ecommerce Platforms.

Original Source: https://1stwebdesigner.com/how-to-setup-a-woocommerce-store-for-point-of-sale-purchases/

Taking point-of-sale orders is a thrilling prospect. Imagine this: customers come up to your popup store or vendor booth at a convention or fair, find the products they’re looking for, and make a purchase right then and there without having to wait in line or worry about stock availability.

This could be a game-changer for your business, and luckily, it’s not too difficult to set up a WooCommerce point-of-sale system. If you’re looking to start taking point-of-sale (POS) payments for your WooCommerce store, then this guide is for you.

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What is Point-of-Sale?

Point-of-sale (POS) refers to the location where a customer makes a purchase. This can be either in-person or online.

In-person POS purchases are made using electronic terminals, which are also known as point-of-sale machines. These machines are connected to a central computer system that processes and records the transaction. The customer’s bank account is then debited for the purchase amount and the funds are transferred to the seller’s account.

Online POS purchases are made using a payment gateway, which is a software that processes and records online transactions. The customer’s bank account is then debited for the purchase amount and the funds are transferred to the seller’s account.

There are many benefits of taking POS orders, such as:

Increased efficiency and accuracy of orders
Reduced wait times for customers
Ability to upsell and cross-sell products
Increased customer satisfaction

With those specifics out of the way, let’s move on to setting up your WooCommerce point-of-sale system.

How to Set Up a WooCommerce Point-of-Sale System

There are two main components to setting up a point-of-sale system with WooCommerce: the hardware and the software.

The hardware refers to the physical devices that will be used to take and process payments. This includes the point-of-sale machine, receipt printer, barcode scanner, and cash drawer.

The software refers to the software that will be used to manage your POS system. This includes the WooCommerce point-of-sale plugin and a payment gateway.

Point-of-Sale Hardware

There are many different types of POS hardware available on the market, so it’s important to choose the right devices for your needs.

The most important thing to consider is compatibility. All of your point-of-sale hardware must be compatible with the software you’re using. For example, if you’re using s specific WooCommerce POS plugin or extension, then you’ll need to use hardware, such as a USB receipt printer and barcode scanner, that works with these systems.

If you only intend to conduct POS transactions on occasion, an in-person transaction device like those available from payment processors may be all you need.

Point-of-Sale Software

Point of Sale for WooCommerce is a great option for managing your POS system. It’s compatible with all major payment gateway providers and offers many features, such as:

Inventory management
Customer management
Coupons and discounts
Sales reporting
Tax calculations
Compatibility with multiple registers
Store department support

This extension is available for $199 per year.

Other plugin or extension options include wePOS and Square for WooCommerce.

Payment Gateway

In order to accept payments, you’ll need to connect a payment gateway to your WooCommerce. A payment gateway is a software that processes and records online transactions.

There are many different payment gateway providers available, so it’s important to choose one that’s compatible with WooCommerce, of course. Some popular options include PayPal, Stripe, and Square.

Once you’ve chosen a payment gateway, you’ll need to create an account and obtain the appropriate credentials, such as an API key or code snippet. These credentials will be entered into the settings page for WooCommerce.

How to Use a WooCommerce Point-of-Sale System

Using a WooCommerce POS system is fairly simple. The first thing you’ll need to do is add your products to the system. This can be done by manually entering the product information or by scanning the product’s barcode.

Once your products have been added, you’ll need to create a customer. This can be done by entering the customer’s information.

Next, you can add products to their order. This can be done by scanning the product’s barcode or by searching for the product by name.

Once you’ve added all of the products to the order, you can proceed to checkout. At checkout, you’ll need to select a payment method and enter the appropriate information.

Depending on the system you’ve selected, the customer may be able to tap their payment card against your payment processing device. Or you may need to use a scanner or card slider. Once payment has been processed, you can print a receipt for the customer. You can also email or text the receipt to the customer if they prefer.

And all of this order information including inventory tracking will be reported within WooCommerce, which you can view later via the WordPress dashboard.

And that’s it! You’ve now successfully completed a transaction using your WooCommerce point-of-sale system.

Point-of-Sale Purchases Within WooCommerce Open New Opportunities for Businesses

Utilizing a WooCommerce point-of-sale system can be a great way to streamline transactions and better manage your business. If you’re looking for a way to take your WooCommerce store to the next level, consider adding POS capabilities.

Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/overview-javascript-promises/?utm_source=rss

Learn how JavaScript promises work, how to create and chain them, how promise error handling works, and how to use recent promise methods.

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