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October 6, 2020

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Local Delivery

With COVID-19, stores have had to find creative ways to get their products in the hands of customers. Even as cases drop, customers will still be scared to step into retail stores for a while.

To help stores that had to close during the pandemic, Shopify released a new Local Delivery feature last month. Customers can now buy your products online and get them delivered to their door.

Your store notifies them by email to let them know that you’re coming, so you can drop your item without contact. It’s a great way to adapt to social distancing procedures and give customers peace of mind.

All-New Shopify POS

With the pandemic came a growing need for omnichannel commerce. To help merchants make more sales in-store, Shopify updated their Shopify POS app.

The app is going to help you manage your store’s staff more efficiently. You’ll be able to define staff roles and permissions to determine which information specific team members can access.

Shopify POS comes with advanced reporting abilities that help you gain insights into your store, such as:

Average daily sales
Average order values
Your most loyal customers
And more

An added bonus is curbside pickup, which is similar to local delivery and makes selling your product face-to-face that much easier. Customers will be able to pick up your item in front of your store without physical contact.

New Financial Products

It’s a very unpredictable time right now for business, and many merchants are stressing over how they’ll manage their finances.

To help brands out, Shopify announced new financial products that are going to improve cash flow. Here are what they consist of:

Shopify Balance: Stores can get access to virtual cards and various rewards/perks they can use for daily activities.

Shopify Capital: In the past, Shopify has already granted around $1 billion in funding to brands. Their financing is now available to the UK and Canada as well.
Shop Pay Installments: It’s now possible to add a “buy now, pay later” payment option to your store. Customers will be able to buy items in installments, while you get paid upfront.

Check out our last blog post on Shopify’s new financial products for more in-depth information on how they could benefit your finances.

Shop App

It’s not enough to get customers to buy once from your store. For long-term success, your store also needs to drive repeat purchases and minimize drop-offs.

That’s where Shopify’s new Shop App comes in. Based on the customer’s past browsing and purchase behavior, you’ll be able to send personalized product recommendations that fit them.

A great feature that’s going to boost sales is Shop’s ultra-quick checkout. The Shop app will save the customer's details for instant-checkouts in the future.

As a result, you’ll see a drastic decrease in abandoned cart rates. You can read our article on Shop App to learn more.

Facebook Shops

More and more customers are using social media to make their buying decisions. It’s the reason why merchants need a strategy for social media to target them.

Facebook Shops is an app that makes it possible for businesses to set up storefronts on Facebook and Instagram. Customers will be able to discover your products from your Facebook page, social media stories, or social ads

.FB Shops will be available to merchants worldwide in the upcoming months. The new feature will help you adapt to changing customer behavior and boost your store’s reach.

Cloudflare Integration

Shopify has gotten a lot of flack from SEO marketers these past few years. Many of Shopify’s built-in features are counterintuitive to SEO and are hard to update.

Cloudflare’s new integration with Shopify is going to make it easier to optimize your store’s SEO. The new update will come with the ability to:

Update the Shopify Robots.text file
Change your website’s URL structure
Gain access to your store’s log files
And more

Shopify Email

To handle email marketing, most Shopify stores integrate tools like Klaviyo or Drip to get the job done. However, things are about to change these upcoming weeks.

Merchants will soon be able to manage their email marketing from the Shopify admin. With built-in templates, you’ll create beautiful emails that engage customers and drive sales — even with no coding knowledge.

It will also come with reporting features to get an idea of how your email marketing campaigns are performing. You’ll be able to test out new emails and adapt your strategy from there.

Conclusion

This is only the beginning. We’re moving into a new decade for eCommerce, and you can expect more good things to come from Shopify in the future.

Shopify’s consistent updates are among the reasons why it’s the best eCommerce platform to migrate to. If you need assistance when it comes to switching your business to Shopify, schedule a free consultation to learn about how we can help.

Richard Emanuel

Rich, the CEO of Parkfield, is a direct marketing pro with a decade of experience helping companies build, grow, and re-imagine their businesses. Rich focuses on using data and technology to create marketing solutions that capitalize on business opportunities and drive growth.

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