Shopify & Ecommerce Ramblings

A blog about building and extending awesome Shopify stores

Is a custom designed Shopify store worth it?

Is a custom designed Shopify store worth it?

by Gabi Falanga 5 min read

Shopify has a vast array of theme options which offer varying levels of customizability. Despite this, many merchants choose to have a fully custom designed store. This might be because they want it to look or function in a very specific way. Or perhaps they want more control over how it performs. The customization options are endless. 

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Mobile matters for conversion optimization

Mobile matters for conversion optimization

by Gabi Falanga 3 min read

Your customers’ experience of your Shopify store while on a mobile device is crucial to conversion optimization. Why is mobile so important? Mobile commerce was predicted to beat traditional ecommerce and in-store shopping in 2021 and to have the biggest retail sales growth of 12.2%, according to Shopify. It is estimated that 187.5 million people will shop via their smartphone in 2024: that’s 64% of all mobile device owners.

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Announcement — ShopCreatify and Realm Digital Join Forces

Announcement — ShopCreatify and Realm Digital Join Forces

by Ross Allchorn 1 min read

Ecommerce merchants around the world can now get the best of both worlds with the hyper-focused specialist approach on Shopify of ShopCreatify and the deep technical abilities and scale of Realm Digital.

With the Realm group currently consisting of Realm Digital, a software development & consulting operation, Snapplify, an edutech company originally incubated within Realm Digital, ShopCreatify will be the third entity under the umbrella.

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How Buffer adds sparkle to social media marketing

How Buffer adds sparkle to social media marketing

by Gabi Falanga 6 min read

Amanda Marochko is the head of strategic partnerships at Buffer – which offers a set of social media marketing tools. She talked to ShopCreatify about how ecommerce merchants can integrate Buffer with their Shopify stores to easily plan, create and execute content marketing strategies. Marochko worked at Shopify for three years before moving to Buffer early in 2020. She was ShopCreatify’s partner manager and had met founder and CEO, Ross Allchorn, during her visits to South Africa.

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Powerful BFCM optimization on a budget

Powerful BFCM optimization on a budget

by Gabi Falanga 3 min read

ShopCreatify is offering Shopify merchants the chance to beef up their stores in time for (BFCM).There are a bunch of small enhancements we can do for you that will have massive gains. With a starting investment of around $6,000 we will scope your store to identify what will have the most impact in the available time and discuss how to implement it. Read on to get an idea of what we might land up working on with you.

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Our quick turnaround enhancements for BFCM

Our quick turnaround enhancements for BFCM

by Gabi Falanga 6 min read

We advise against tackling a project as big and complicated as a redesign so close to BFCM. However, there are several ‘smaller’ improvements we can make to your site  within a relatively short period of time to turn it into a big, mean, earning machine for BFCM. These tactics will lure new customers to your store for the big event, will make the most of existing customers, and will encourage shoppers to make the most of your fantastic deals.

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Shopify: Balancing automation with humanized digital connections

Shopify: Balancing automation with humanized digital connections

by Gabi Falanga 4 min read

We recently caught up with Shopify’s Hain Joubert who told us about exciting new Shopify features, gave sage advice for merchants, and discussed how the global pandemic has changed ecommerce, probably forever. Joubert was eager to reveal improvements and changes that are underway at Shopify. The platform’s fulfilment network is being revamped with better software and features that give merchants more control and flexibility in managing their orders. 

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What is a good conversion rate for my online sales?

What is a good conversion rate for my online sales?

by Jess Henson 3 min read

Every online business wants to go big. There's lots of competition. The conversion rate is a powerful way to beat it and build your business. But what is a good conversion rate and how do you improve on it? Remember that a conversion rate keeps rising with strategic, consistent, and incremental changes. Learn more about conversion rates, how to work them out and how to improve them on your online store.

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Prepare your store for Black Friday

Prepare your store for Black Friday

by Gabi Falanga 6 min read

Being well-prepared for BFCM means that your site will be ready for the subsequent Halloween and festive season gifting period when you’ll no doubt want to maintain high quality of customer service while coping with the influx of sales. Knowing that your platform is sound and optimized to convert the maximum sales, and that your marketing strategies have been working hard for you in the lead up to BFCM, will allow you to focus your energies where they’re needed on the big day.

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PODCAST: Why You Can’t Always Use Customer Journey Buying From Day One

PODCAST: Why You Can’t Always Use Customer Journey Buying From Day One

by Linda Lynch 1 min read

ShopCreatify founder, Ross Allchorn, returned to the Unprepared Podcast with Chase from Honest Ecommerce. This time they discussed the benefits of customer journey buying, how you can compare it with cross-selling, upselling, and bundling, attributions of sales and more. 

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“Should I use Shopify or Magento?”

“Should I use Shopify or Magento?”

by Daniel Connor 3 min read

Merchants looking to grow business online have a number of ecommerce platforms to choose from. Two of the most popular ecommerce platforms are Shopify and Magento. So, should you choose Shopify, or Magento?

Short Answer: There’s no best or worst platform. It’s about which ecommerce platform is best for YOUR business. And we’ve done the groundwork to help you decide…

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Use subscriptions to retain customers and improve revenue

Use subscriptions to retain customers and improve revenue

by Gabi Falanga 3 min read

There are many benefits to offering subscriptions in your ecommerce store. It provides financial and inventory predictability to your business and helps retain customers. Shoppers benefit from the convenience of repeat orders along with discounted products and services.

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Troubleshooting a low conversion rate

Troubleshooting a low conversion rate

by Gabi Falanga 4 min read

Your store might have a lot of traffic, but that’s no use if it isn’t converting into sales. There are many reasons this might be happening. We take a look at how to diagnose conversion rate issues and what some of the most common problems are. There are various tools you can use to figure out why your store isn’t converting and once you’ve established what the problems are, you can make changes yourself or employ conversion rate optimization specialists to assist you.

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Creating key pages for your Shopify store

Creating key pages for your Shopify store

by Gabi Falanga 4 min read

There are a few pages that are essential to have when you create an online store, such as the home, about, contact, frequently asked questions (FAQ), and policy pages. These give your customers information about your business, how to get in touch with you, and why they should trust you. These pages might not change much (like product pages do) but it’s important to use them to portray a professional image.

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Foldabox redesign creates front and back-end magic

Foldabox redesign creates front and back-end magic

by Gabi Falanga 6 min read

Redesigning a site takes a lot of work. Hines and Quintin Schnehage, the redesign project leader from ShopCreatify, both stressed how important it is to do it for the right reasons. A main goal of this redesign was to make the site more intuitive for customers. It aimed to answer their questions before they even asked them. 

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Keeping customers post-Covid

Keeping customers post-Covid

by Gabi Falanga 5 min read

Online shopping exploded during the coronavirus pandemic as customers started shopping online more. Some stores reported unheard of increases in business. The vaccine rollout in the US might see the return of some semblance of normality. So what will merchants do to retain new customers from the past year? We look at ways to sustain this growth and make sure that short-term customers become long-term ones.

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Improve user experience on your Shopify store

Improve user experience on your Shopify store

by Gabi Falanga 7 min read

User experience, or UX, is an important term for anyone who has a websiteIt considers the user’s journey while on a site and how to make this as easy and intuitive as possible. Luckily, the Shopify platform already includes specific design conventions which make it appealing to users. It is easy enough for merchants to make certain design changes themselves to improve user experience.

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Foldabox can’t contain itself

Foldabox can’t contain itself

by Gabi Falanga 9 min read

A luxury gift box ecommerce store Foldabox has almosttripled its business during the coronavirus pandemic. The store, with a UK and a USA site, has modest beginnings. Nicole Hines, the founder and managing director, launched the company in 2005.

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Dogfooding: Using what you sell

Dogfooding: Using what you sell

by Gabi Falanga 5 min read

There is always room for improvement on any site and ShopCreatify encourages anyone with a website to constantly review their sites. We recently relaunched our own site. Of course we’re on Shopify! We pushed ourselves to the limits of the platform’s content management capabilities and reaffirmed our faith in Shopify.

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Give your store love and boost sales

Give your store love and boost sales

by Gabi Falanga 5 min read

Identifying the pain points on your Shopify site is crucial. Use this time to reflect on areas that hurt business, and what you need to do to fix them. Be in a good position to keep those increased sales numbers!

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We're changing ConversionBoost... "and you'll be shocked when you find out why!"

We're changing ConversionBoost... "and you'll be shocked when you find out why!"

by Ross Allchorn 5 min read

If you didn't already know, ConversionBoost  is  was our productized service for ecommerce conversion rate optimization (CRO). We've decided that that isn't enough anymore though... specifically the productized bit.

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