Many retail merchants feel like using one of the large shopping apps like amazon, Walmart, eBay or Etsy is the only way to grow their business. The problem with these marketplace commerce sites is that they retain ownership of the customer relationship and can shut you down without notice or reason. When your shop is your livelihood this is a pretty scary thought.
When using a site like Shopify which is your website hosting platform for your site, you build and maintain the relationship with your customer and don’t have that fear of losing your site due to marketplace rules. You can still get that marketplace experience by enrolling with the Shop App by Shopify. Today’s episode is all about the Shop App and how you can be part of a marketplace for small business owners who use Shopify to sell their products and services.
Links Mentioned In This Episode
Products We Recommend
Episodes Mentioned in the Podcast
Episode 47 – Shopify Review
Episode 72- Tracking Sales For Retail Businesses
Episode 73- SEO For Ecommerce: Google Merchant Center
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Check out our educational blog at marketingmasterminds.co free marketing educational content with how-to’s and training coming soon.
What We Discussed:
- What are the Shop app and Shop Pay?
- How to set it up (quick written tutorial below)
- Awareness and visibility
Directions to set up Shop Pay and add yourself to the Shop App
1 – Go to Settings> Payments then manage and turn on Shop Pay
2 – Then go to Settings > Checkout and check the box to show a link to download the Shop App.
Shop App By Shopify Transcript
*Not ready to give this episode a listen or watch just yet? Below is a rough transcript of today’s episode.*
This one is for my Shopify store owners, or those considering Shopify as your eCommerce store. there’s a little hidden gem inside of Shopify. One of their best kept secrets in my opinion, that most Shopify site store owners don’t understand or take advantage of. It’s the Shop, Pay and Shop app. And today I’m gonna tell you why I think this.
Awesome. And how you can set it up for your shop. So as usual, a little bit of housekeeping stuff. Real quick before we get into, the episode. obviously, today I’m gonna talk about Shopify. So there are links for Shopify. I’m gonna talk about a couple articles.
there’s links for that and previous eCommerce and Shopify. Podcast episodes for you to listen to. So definitely go check out the show notes. because along with all those useful and helpful links, there’s an entire transcript of this episode so that if you’re looking for something specific I was talking about, you can scan that, or do a search on that and find it pretty We are a Shopify certified partner. . So if you are considering signing up for Shopify, please use our link. We do get a small commission back, and all those small commissions help us keep creating this content as well as the marketing mastermind content, and we do so appreciate it. . So what is the shop app by Shopify?
That’s actually what it’s called. If you Google it, that’s what you wanna Google. If you Google Shop app, you’re gonna get a gazillion different things and shop pay respectively. It’s Shopify’s marketplace platform. That’s it. Simple, but it’s so much more powerful than. So if you have a Shopify store for your e-commerce and your brick and mortar business, if you use shop pay, then you will automatically get listed in the shop app, where people can find your products and buy it.
so in this episode, right, I’m not only gonna give you my professional perspective, right? Part of what we do here at Inma is we build Shopify stores for businesses. But I’m also gonna give you the consumer perspective because I am an avid user of the shop app. very recently, I say six months is very recently is I’ve started to actually search more.
When I shop online in the shop app first before I go to Google or to Amazon or to Walmart for what I’m looking for. because all my favorite brands are there, right? I just realized that too when I was going through and I’m like, Oh, I didn’t realize this was a Shopify store, right? so I go there first cuz all my favorite brands are there.
and then for the other things I’m gonna talk about, in this episode, . So I think that’s gonna be a unique perspective for all you shop owners, cuz you not only get to hear, the back end side of it, but you also get to hear the consumer perspective. So let’s talk about why the shop app marketplace is,really important in my opinion.
And so I’m gonna tell you what,Shopify said about it in their latest update, shop. Meaning the shop app is a first of its kind shopping companion that helps level the playing field for independent businesses all for no additional cost for you or your customers. So basically what Shopify said is that, listen, we’re putting this out there and now we’re gonna start competing with those other marketplaces on your.
So what this also means, right when you hear no additional cost for your consumers is that this comes with your Shopify monthly fees. you don’t have to jump through hoops like you do with Amazon or Walmart or Etsy, setting up all this other stuff. having to do all of these different things just to get your products approved, to get your account approved.
which. , if you’ve recently set up an Amazon account, you know exactly what I’m talking about. That is a bear. for small business owners who are selling unique products that are not, stuff that you’re buying from Alibaba or Ali Express and then just repurposing and selling online, if it’s a unique SKU or upc, you are gonna have a dang hard time.
and what’s great about,The shop marketplace is you can buy things from different, store owners and it all comes together inside your shopping cart, and then the orders get split out in the back end. So you can buy, jeans from one place, coffee from another, and shoes from a third place, and it’s all gonna feel like a seamless checkout from you.
very similar to what Amazon does. And one of the things that I like is that because you’re paying for the platform to use Shopify, that it’s not a marketplace like Etsy or Amazon. It’s really akin to what I consider,when you open a WordPress site and maybe you’re using eCommerce, you’re paying to utilize their platform.
and so you have total control over,Everything. Like when someone buys from you, they are your customer. They are not Amazon’s customer. You get all their information and you can build a relationship with them. And Shopify also has support, like real support where you can actually, if there’s a bug or a problem with the system, they’re gonna fix it.
Other than that, they’re gonna leave you alone. . And so the shop app works very similar to other marketplaces. So when you order all those different places from different shops, you get to see your delivery status on the homepage of the shop app, to see when stuff is coming. You can actually favorite shops like you can on Etsy, that way you get to see more from those shops and then you get recommendations of other shops based on what you buy and what you favorite.
And so sometimes in a specific area, there’s a lot of shops that get grouped together. So I am a CrossFitter and I like all things CrossFit, like Noble and The, hustle made clothing line. And so when I buy stuff from Hustle Made or Mayhem or any of those guys, I get to see other CrossFit type of brands because somehow Shopify knows that they’re all associated and they all have Shopify shops. So I think that’s pretty cool.
And then when you favor a shop or you’ve purchased from a shop, Shopify will lift up, anything that’s on sale, they’ll make recommendations just like you see on Amazon. And then the other cool thing on shop is that you can actually search for local stores. So if you really wanna buy local, you can search within the shop app to find stores that are local to where you are.
if you don’t wanna buy something similar from someone else in another part of the country or another part of the world, you can certainly do that And then I’ve also seen. Where you can schedule a pickup, right? So if they’re local to you, you don’t have it to have it shipped to you, you can actually purchase it and then you can go and pick it up, which I think is pretty cool.
So now I’m gonna tell you, how easy it is to actually set this up if you haven’t done so already. I’m gonna give you two steps, but the actual setup is just really one step. So the one step is you go into your Shopify account, you go to settings, then you go to payments, and then inside of payments you go to manage payments.
That’s that first block at the top, as of right. And when you click on manage, kinda scroll past the credit cards, and then you’ll see,Toggle buttons there that says, Turn on shop pay. Once you turn those on, not only does it allow you to accept shop payments, it also puts your store on the shop app.
That’s it. You’re done. That’s all you gotta do. Now, the next step, which I think is also important for the Shopify store community, the marketplace is this next. So go to settings, go to checkouts, and inside checkouts a little bit down. Scroll down, you’ll see where there is a place to check a box to allow people to,download the shop app.
Meaning it puts a link on their checkout page from your store to tell them to download the shop app to track their, shipping. So it’s that first foray in and then they track their shipping there, and then they get to see other stuff from you, and then they get to shop and explore, right? That’s kind of how that works.
And so that helps all shop and store owners because if you’re encouraging people through the checkout page to download it, and so is everybody else, then that’s gonna grow. All the people that are using. . So now let’s talk about that, the little elephant in the room. awareness and visibility of the shop app because, like I said at the beginning, it’s, I feel like this is one of the best kept secrets, of Shopify, right?
when I first saw it and turned it on and was configuring it, I’m like, How many people are really using it? Is this really worth it? so then I did a little digging of course and found some data for y’all. And so shop, the shop app has 19 million monthly active users. Pretty big number, right? So let’s compare that to Amazon.
Amazon has 98 million, so quite a bit more monthly active users. So obviously Amazon is still king. Everybody knows who they are, but also from an awareness perspective, there’s a link in the show notes to this,shopping app ranking that. Keeps up to date. And so Amazon is ranked number one according to these folks in the link and shop is 13 on the list and it’s a long list.
And so I don’t think that’s too bad considering that,in those two through 12 spots, Are mostly those major marketplaces, that we’ve talked about. So Walmart is there, Etsy is there, Home Depot is there. Home Depot is doing a lot of online, shopping as well now, and, considered a shopping app.
So I, I think it’s definitely worth the time. And the one thing that I wish is that,Shopify needs to do a better job of promoting the shop app. I feel like people are stumbling on it and then of course they’re getting visibility to it. If they are buying from a Shopify store, I think Shopify needs to do some commercials.
They need to do some advertising to really, get this out there mainstream. and then I think those numbers would skyrocket. And I also think. They would come up in that ranking significantly as well. And I’m hopeful that this is gonna happen. I’m recording this in October of 2022, and in 2022, not sure when, cuz they didn’t put a month on it.
Shopify updated an article about the shop app. That’s where I got the quote from. As well as, if you read the article and I highly recommend it if you’re a, shop owner. they’re signaling that this is where they see the future going. And so they’ve put this together. And the other things that I’ve seen this year too, is that not only do you get preferred shipping rates through Shopify, but they have also launched their Shopify fulfillment center.
Where if you have a store, they’re now offering you fulfillment. Don’t know how this looks yet. We’ve got a site that is,starting this, so I feel like we’re Guinea pigging this a little bit. give me six to nine months and I may do an update about how fulfillment is going with Shopify for you guys.
but I’m excited that they’re offering it, right? So they’re more and more trying to take over that whole, end to end space like Amazon did originally. but just without all the constraints about consumer data and what can go where and how the site looks and how you can present things.
so I’m hoping that, Shopify is gonna do what I think they’re gonna do and they’re actually gonna launch this out and promote it more. Cuz wouldn’t that be great if, more consumers knew about the shop app started using it, which would then. More of us business owners to start a, Shopify store because while I think big commerce and WordPress with Woo Commerce is great, they all work good.
This feature’s not available to them. Getting access to that larger marketplace, right as part of this, it’s really, I think, a game changer. So don’t ditch or not sign up for Amazon or Etsy or Walmart, if that is part of your marketing mix on how to get your product awareness out there. All of those still integrate well with Shopify. It all works. It’s just, you gotta set up all those platforms separately. But include the shop app as one of your marketing channels and then hopefully, maybe someday it will kind of overtake these smaller ones and you won’t have to deal with all that separate distribution in the future, which I think would be pretty cool.
Okay, so let’s talk about what you’re gonna do next. do you have a Shopify store? If the answer is yes, go follow those directions and turn it on. I actually, put the written directions in the show notes as well. So if you’re driving or doing something else and couldn’t jot it down, don’t worry. It’s at the top of the show notes for you.
and I do recommend turning this on because according to Shopify, the shops that have this on have been seeing an increase in sales up to 18%. The app works really well. I actually prefer using the shop app over using the Amazon app. the shop app was built to be an app and not just a glorified version of a website.
And they’re all the same. Like even though you may have your own, look and feel and color palette and how you put things together on your Shopify store. Perfect. The Shop app tries to normalize everything to make it easier to shop from one store to the next by making the interface, the same. So if you don’t have a Shopify store and would like to start one now that you’re, hearing this information and wanna take advantage of the shop app and get in there early before it blows up, go to the.
show notes and click on the Shopify link to start,your Shopify store. If you think you need more than seven days to get your shop up and running, which a lot of people do send me a note in the contact form on the website. And what I can do is I can, help you set up that staging, that development store where you don’t have to pay, After seven days.
In other words, for the length of time that you stay in development, it’s going to be free. you can do that with partners and so I can actually help set you that up under my master account, giving you as much time as you need to, and then of course, either situation, new site, existing site, make sure you go follow those directions and turn on shop pay.
So here are my final thoughts for you on this topic. the reason I did this, podcast episode is that with everything I see as a professional eCommerce, site developer and having to deal with these marketplaces, I really don’t like the way they treat retailers, the business owners, the stores, the shop fronts.
I’ve set up enough Etsy sites, Amazon stores, Walmart. eBay to know that, they just don’t really care and they make you jump through a lot of hoops. They make it really, really hard for the legitimate business owner to actually, even get set up appropriately where they can actually sell for real.
And then you get stores like Etsy who are famous for, shutting down products, shutting down whole entire sites. Not giving you any real explanation as to why, aside from this really vague message, that means nothing and give you no way to fix it or change it, so you really have no idea what you’re doing wrong.
And it’s not brand new sites. They’re doing this to established sites that are making a lot of money, that are building a livelihood, get the rug pulled out right from under them, and there’s no recourse for. at all. And because the customers are not theirs, it’s not like they can just set up a site someplace else, send everybody an email and redirect them because, a lot of times you, don’t get that information.
so I think they’re very cutthroat and they’re not friendly at all to the small business community. And, that’s why I like where Shopify is going with the shop app. And so I think using this, this way as a consumer and as the owner of the store, you’re kind of starting to tell the big guys like, Hey, there’s another option out there and we’re gonna give it a try.
And we’re hoping that it takes off. because the only way that they’re gonna change is if they start seeing their revenue decrease, right? They’re not gonna listen to people,getting angry on Twitter or writing blog posts. What’s going to hit them. Their pockets, their liners. When less people are shopping on Amazon or putting products up or, using their fulfillment centers, that’s when they’re actually gonna take notice.
if you’re interested in creating a Shopify store and you’re not sure how to do it, don’t wanna try to figure it out yourself, definitely, you know, schedule some time to talk to me. I’d love to help you with that, and get you set up with all of that. . here at Incaa, we love to give back to the business community.
go to the website. inma.com, I N K yma.com, upper right hand corner, you can schedule a free 45 minute consultation with me, or we can talk about Shopify or whatever e-commerce platform you’re working on and I can answer your questions. You don’t necessarily have to work with us. If you’ve just got a few questions, wanna have a conversation, that is fine too.
If you just got a quick question or you have a suggestion for the show or you wanna, share your Shopify link with me, I’d love to look at your sites. and then also I can favorite them in my shop app. go down to the contact form, fill it out, and all of that comes right to. , of course we have the podcast that you’re listening to as well as we have the Marketing Masterminds blog and newsletter where if you sign up for the newsletter, you get our articles, our how to videos, all that good visual and readable content delivered right to your inbox.
So I hope you found today’s episode useful and helpful. if you did consider sharing it with your. product based eCommerce, business owners because I think we can all, benefit from this type of information. and when we share and help each other, educate each other on how we’re doing business, it lifts up the entire business community.
So thanks so much for listening, and I hope you have an amazing day.
