Is Shopify Worth It? How to Develop, Brand, and Market a Shopify Store

Shopify is a leading e-commerce platform that allows the development of a fully customizable online store. In fact, Shopify is the most used e-commerce software in 2020, followed by WooCommerce, Wix Stores, and Squarespace. Its convenient offerings of templates, a payment processor, a blog, and email marketing tools drive its increasing popularity.

However, if you’re just starting an online store, or transiting a brick and mortar, is Shopify worth it? Let’s take a look at what you’d need to develop, brand, and market a Shopify store.

Developing a Shopify Store

Shopify offers nine free templates, each with two to three versions, providing a decent number of customizable themes to choose from. Beyond that, there are over 60 paid themes available as well. However, if you want to create something truly unique, you’ll want to work with a digital marketing agency experienced in Shopify design and development.

A team of designers will work with your company to create an on-brand e-commerce store with an excellent user interface, functionality, and experience. Then, a developer will take those designs and customize a theme—or create a new one—just for your company. And if you ever run into website issues, you’ll be able to contact the developer directly instead of searching through Shopify support.

Branding a Shopify Store

Let’s back up just a step. Now that you know a custom Shopify store is possible, let’s look at what branding aspects you’ll need to create with a designer before working with a developer.

• Logo: While you may think having one logo is correct, creating several versions are actually the best practice. This is because your logo may be used on many different colors, patterns, or mediums (digital and print).
• Creative style guide: What colors, fonts, icons, textures, and patterns define your brand? Creating a guide to stick to for website development- and, well, everything else- will be crucial.
• Imagery: You’re selling a product, after all, so your imagery needs to be on point. Get users to want your products with high resolution and stylized images throughout your e-commerce store.

Marketing a Shopify Store

Once your e-commerce store is designed and developed, it’s time to get it some traffic. By choosing to work with an agency, like Kraus Marketing, you can easily transition into a digital campaign. Working with one company for the design, development, and digital campaign of your e-commerce store will ensure nothing is lost in communication. Plus, you’ll have an entire team to support your business. Here’s how the experts at Kraus will drive traffic to your e-commerce store and increase sales:

• Fundamental SEO: An experienced Shopify developer will implement fundamental SEO practices from day one. Metadata, alt text for images, keywords, interlinking, and more will help increase your online store’s search ranking.
• Long-form content: An excellent way to boost SEO is to create long-form content for your e-commerce store. Blogs will help attract users who are searching for key terms and provide helpful information to your audience.
• Social media: What’s an e-commerce store without a curated Instagram feed? Those same designers who created assets for your website will share high-resolution images and graphics for social media.
• Email: Everyone knows that email is the best platform to increase e-commerce sales. Create an interactive campaign with product announcements, sales, educational content, and more.
• Conversion optimization: We will continually A/B test your digital campaign and your website’s landing pages, increasing the quality of traffic and number of conversions for your online store—ultimately making you more sales.

Take the First Step to Building a Shopify Store

Are you still wondering if Shopify is worth it? Talk it out with the experts at Kraus Marketing. Our team is happy to discuss every step in the design, development, and digital marketing process. We’ll create a concise timeline to launch your online store and equip it with the necessary tools for success. Contact Kraus Marketing today.