How To Use Pinterest In Selling Our Products.docx

HOW TO USE SHOPIFY INVENTORY MANAGEMENT TO HANDLE YOUR BUSINESS OPERATIONS Managing Your Inventory With Shopify Setting Up and Organizing Your Products -

Shopify lets you group products by category, type, season, sale and more - organize these groupings through collections. Start to automate the organization process when you use smart collections to sort products according to price, vendor and inventory level.

Assigning Barcodes to Your Products -

Whether you have existing barcodes to be assigned to specific products, or you need to create brand new barcodes for fresh inventory you plan to stock, Shopify lets you do both. Use barcodes to keep track of every product you sell, and get Shopify’s wireless barcode scanner to ring in customer orders instantly on the spot anywhere if you're selling in-person.

Tracking Inventory Levels -

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Shopify, you can seamlessly track stock level, set up automated reminders to place orders with your supplier, or to manufacture more product when the count hits a certain number, and update inventory numbers when you receive a new shipment. If you want to continue to sell an item even when it’s out of stock, you can indicate longer shipping times on the product page.

Gaining Insight into Your Inventory and Sales -

If our store is on the Professional Plan or higher, we are able to see a full report of sales by product with reports too.

Shopify app - Back in Stock. -

If a product sells out and the product page is still getting traffic, visitors can sign up to be instantly notified when the product is back in stock! Installation takes less than 30 seconds. Simply hit Get App and a button saying ‘email me when available’ will immediately appear on all relevant product pages.

Other top inventory management apps in the Shopify App Store.

HOW BLOGGER OUTREACH CAN HELP YOU GROW YOUR ECOMMERCE BUSINESS Guest Post on Other Blogs Free traffic—as opposed to paid traffic that comes from things like purchased—ads is often hard to come by for new websites. You can start blogging to drive traffic, but it takes time before you start to see results. While you grow your own audience, guest posting gives you a way to get in front of someone else’s. Not only does this drive traffic back to your website, but the links back to your website will help with search engine optimization. Use blogger outreach to find and connect with bloggers who have the type of audience you want to reach. Offer to write a guest post that their audience will love. Make sure the topic you write about is also related to your business or it won't drive any traffic. Do an Expert Roundup While blogging is a great way to drive traffic back to your store, it can be a lot of work. This is especially true if you don’t feel very knowledgeable on a topic you need to write about, or you're not generally comfortable writing. One way around this is to solicit contributions from other bloggers or experts. Seek out experts on a topic and ask them to contribute an idea, such as a tip, recipe, or story to your blog post. Then, publish a list of all the responses you got back. You’ll be providing your audience with great content from relevant experts, plus the contributors will want to share the article with their own readers, increasing your own reach. Solicit Product Reviews Getting your product reviewed can be a great way to spread awareness and drive sales. Instead of waiting around for someone to review your product, use a blogger outreach campaign to get the ball rolling. Contact bloggers with relevant, engaged audiences and offer to send them your product for free in exchange for an honest review. If you have a great product, they’ll love it and tell everyone. Find Affiliates to Promote Your Business If you want to take product reviews a step further and solicit even more people to promote your product, consider starting an affiliate program. Affiliate programs work by incentivizing other people to drive traffic to your business by offering a commission on every sale. Finding your first affiliates can be tough if you don’t have wide brand recognition. Use a blogger outreach campaign to find and recruit your first few affiliates and get the ball rolling. Look for bloggers who have an engaged audience and are already writing about your industry.

Get Included in Gift Guides Gift guides are a list of recommended products or gift ideas, typically centered around a holiday (like Christmas) or a person (like your dad). If you’re ever Googled for gift ideas you’ve likely come across several gift guides. Getting your product in the right gift guides can increase sales and traffic to your website. However, inclusion in these guides does not happen randomly and requires some effort. In many cases, business owners lobby to get their products included. Use blogger outreach to contact gift guide publishers and ask to have your product included. Ask Instagram Influencers to Promote Your Product Sometimes you don’t need to write a guest post or ask other people to review your product. When you find the right match for your brand, a simple mention on Instagram can go a long way. This is especially true for apparel products, where the right mention or stylish photo can drive tons of sales. Use an outreach campaign to connect with Instagram influencers—whether they have a blog or not—and arrange sponsored posts. Look for Instagrammers with audiences that would like your product and ask them to feature your product in a photo. Make sure you have your own Instagram account set up so they can tag you. Hack the Press Instead of hiring a PR company, take control of your own publicity. If you have a great story or an interesting product that people will want to write about, put it out there! Get in touch with bloggers and journalists who cover businesses like yours and tell them what you’re up to. While it’s true that most writers are inundated with requests, they are still always on the lookout for a good story. Make sure you target the right publications (ie. don't ask a tech writer to cover about your clothing line), and offer them a compelling story to improve your success rate. These are just a few types of blogger outreach. Don't be afraid to give other ideas a shot!

THE BASICS OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION FOR YOUR SHOPIFY STORE

“websites ranked number one received an average click-through rate (CTR) of 36.4 percent" Here are a few of many different things you can tweak on your store: Title tags You can edit the title tag of your online store in addition to setting the title tag for each product, collection, or page in Shopify. Simply scroll down to the Search engines section on these pages in Shopify to make any necessary adjustments. Meta descriptions Another great trick, is to modify the meta descriptions. Shopify will automatically pull text from your page, but you can customize the meta description manually to fit your marketing goals. The meta description can be set for your homepage as well as other pages, collections, and blog posts using the Shopify admin. Page headers (h1) It is important that you include your main keywords in the names of your store's products, collections, pages, or blog posts. For example, if you are selling a red t-shirt with your store brand on it, you'll want to set the product's name to something like "McFadden's T-Shirt - Red". This will make your web page more likely show up when people search for words like "McFadden's", "t-shirt", and "red t-shirt". Content is king The more content you write in your product description, collection text, or blog post, the better chance your page will be found on Google and other search engines. Try to write a few paragraphs of text with some of your main keywords included. Try an app There are plenty of different apps available in the Shopify App Store that can help make your life easier when it comes to all of the intricacies of search engine optimization. Be sure to play around with some of the apps to see which one suits your business needs. While I suggest playing around with all of these features yourself to get a better understanding of how search engine optimization works, there's no harm in getting expert help. If you are looking to hire someone to give you a hand, be sure to take a look at our Shopify Marketing Experts.

IMPROVING SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

Basic steps To optimize your online store for search engines, you can follow a few basic steps: 1. Find keywords that are relevant to your products and your brand. What search terms will customers use to find your store? 2. Add the keywords into your content, including page titles, descriptions, and image alt text. 3. Make sure that your URLs and filenames match the content. 4. Add your sitemap.xml to Google Search Console, so that your online store website can be easily crawled and indexed. Note Google indexes your site automatically within 48 to 72 hours after you add or update information. You can't force Google to re-index your site, but you can prompt them to do so by using Google Search Console. Google doesn't index all of the pages on a site. Learn more about what to expect when your site is indexed from the Google Search Console Help. 1. Create content that's relevant to your products and encourage other websites to link back to your online store. You can find more information about each of these steps in the other articles within this section.

Built-in SEO features in Shopify Shopify online stores have SEO built in and features to help you optimize your content. Some SEO is taken care of automatically: auto-generated canonical tags are added to pages to prevent duplicate content from appearing in search results, your website’s sitemap.xml and robots.txt files are automatically generated, and themes automatically generate title tags that include your store name. Also, themes are required to have social media linking and sharing options to make it easier for you to market your store. You can optimize your content using features built in to Shopify: 

You can edit the title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs for blog posts, webpages, products, and collections.

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You can edit the alt text for images.

THESE 8 INVENTORY MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES THE ESSENTIAL SHOPIFY STORE LAUNCH CHECKLIST 1. Add Any Available Sales Channels Want to reach customers beyond just your website? Start by adding any available sales channels to your store. All sales channels connect with the core of your Shopify business, so you can easily keep track of your orders, products, and customers across all platforms from within your Shopify admin. 2. Add a Custom Domain This is usually the first thing I do when I’m opening a store, but depending on how you work, it might be the last thing on your mind. Add a custom domain name to your store, or purchase one directly through your Shopify admin. 3. Double Check Your Payment Gateway Settings Before you start driving any traffic to your store, you had better be sure people can actually completely a checkout on your store! I recommend placing an order on your store with a live payment gateway just to make sure everything works. You can refund your order immediately afterwards. 4. Have Your Standard Pages Ready It’s important to have some static pages available for visitors to click through and read when you launch your Shopify store. At the very least have a contact, about, shipping, and frequently asked questions page at launch.

If you need help putting together a strong about page, be sure to read how to use your about page to increase your sales.

Bring your store to life with free stock photos! Burst is a free stock photo site powered by Shopify. Browse 1000s of product and lifestyle images to use across your store and marketing campaigns.

5. Review Your Email Notification Settings You might want to customize a customer’s experience by offering them some sort of discount for future orders. The best way to do that is through editing your email templates. 6. Do a Content Audit for Spelling and Grammar Mistakes Sometimes you’ll be so close to your work, you won’t notice any spelling and grammar mistakes in your website copy. It’s important to have a friend, family member, or business partner take a look at your copy to ensure there aren’t any obvious issues. You can also use an app like Grammarly to check for you! 7. Optimize All Images on Your Website There’s nothing worse than having images load slowly, especially if you’re running something like a flash sale for your store at your initial launch. It’s important to make sure all your images are optimized for web to ensure fast loading times. You can try using a tool like ImageOptim to help with this too. 8. Install an Analytics Tool Analytics are important to set up from day one. Analytics will give you valuable insight into your visitors and customers. In a physical store, you see your customer and you can easily chat with them. However, online, you’re essentially blind without analytics. For detailed, step-by-step instructions on each of the above steps, check out this guide on setting up Google Analytics for your store. 9. Have a Prelaunch Marketing Plan So besides making sure all the buttons are pressed properly, you’ll still need to make sure you have a marketing plan set up. Otherwise, you’ll be launching your store to the sound of crickets. 10. Adjust Your Tax and Shipping Settings You’ll want to check that your tax settings, and shipping rates are appropriate for the product(s) you’re selling. Double check your tax and shipping settingsbefore launching your store. 11. Make it Easy for Potential Customers to Contact You Make contact information clear on each page. Try including your business address, phone number, and even live chat on your website if you can. This has been shown to reduce buyers concerns.

12. Install Only Essential Apps It can be hard to not get excited about the Shopify App Store and all the incredible apps you can add to your store – but when getting ready for your initial launch, be sure to only install the absolute essentials. If it were me launching a store, I'd get set up with an email marketing app like Picreel and Mailchimp. 13. Set up Your Billing Information If you’re coming to the end of your 14 day free trial and are preparing for launch, be sure to set up your store's billing information to ensure there aren’t any hiccups when your store is finally live.

16 TOP-RATED CUSTOMER SERVICE APPS FOR SHOPIFY STORES Customer Service Apps 1. Zendesk Zendesk is a leader in customer service, used by some of the biggest companies in the world. Their integration with Shopify allows merchants to embed powerful Zendesk functionality—Help Center, Chat, or Tickets— directly into their stores. The app has the ability to scale with your growing business. Cost: From $19/month 2. Customer.guru Gauge customer happiness with Customer.guru, a polling tool that allows your customers to rate their satisfaction with your service. Embed your ratings on your site and use the data to help you improve the customer experience. Cost: Free up to 100 surveys/month (tiered pricing plans) Chat Apps 3. Facebook Chat by Beeketing Most of your customers are likely already communicating via Facebook regularly—allow them to use the social network to chat with you directly on your store. Because your customers are using their Facebook profiles, the experience is personal, and you can learn more about the people who shop with you. The conversation is then saved in a Facebook chat, allowing customers to easily revisit it. Cost: Free

See it in action: Out of the Hutch, powered by Shopify 4. Tidio Live Chat Let your customers know when you are online, and chat with them live using Tidio. Other features include: automated prompt messages (“Hi, how can I help you?”), translation into the customer’s language, and an offline contact form when you are not able to chat live. Cost: Free – $12/month See it in action: Pure Living Space, powered by Shopify Form and Survey Apps 5. Easy Contact Form This free tool allows you to create a simple and customized contact form to your Shopify store with no coding necessary. Opt to embed the form on your contact page or use a pop up linked from a tab on your website. Cost: Free (premium paid options available) See it in action: Cool Material and Canadian National Fabric (below), powered by Shopify 6. Survey What are your customers thinking? Do they like you? What products would they like to see in your store? How happy were they with your unboxing experience? You’ll never know unless you ask. Use POWr.io’s free Survey app to poll to collect feedback and help you improve your business. A premium paid option allows additional fields. Cost: Free 7. Return Magic Enable an easy returns flow, allowing your customers to submit return requests right on your website. Return Magic’s portal can be custom branded, the design integrating with your Shopify store theme seamlessly. Cost: Free 14-day trial, tiered pricing plans 8. Exchange It Integrate exchange processing into your regular workflow, and manage exchange orders directly from Shopify. This is an ideal app for apparel stores with a higher volume of exchange requests due to fit and size issues.

Cost: $9.99/month FAQ Apps 9. HelpCenter Build a professional FAQ page with HelpCenter. Publish articles, sections, and categories that are all easy to find with the included search bar. Customers can also submit new questions directly on the FAQ page. Cost: Free See it in action: Lucky Premium Meats, powered by Shopify 10. FAQ This easy FAQ page tool requires no coding, and fonts, colors, and backgrounds can be customized to match your theme. Opt to list questions accordion style (click to expand), to keep the page clean and help customers navigate to their question. Cost: Free (premium upgrades available) See it in action: Deliciously Matcha, powered by Shopify Loyalty Apps 11. Loyalty Points by Bold Easily create a loyalty program for your customers with Bold’s Loyalty Points app. Customers earn points when they shop with you, and use them towards future purchases with no coupon code required. Offer bonus points for featured products and fully customize the look of your loyalty program to match your branding. Cost: Free 30-day trial, tiered pricing plans from $9.99/month See it in action: Jack Wagon Coffee, powered by Shopify

12. Rewards and Referrals by Swell Swell’s Rewards and Referrals app is a flexible program that allows you to reward your customers for multiple actions, like referring a friend, following on social, or making purchases. The app integrates with Yotpo, making it easy to reward customers for writing a review. Cost: Free up to 100 orders/month (optional tiered pricing plans from $29/month to enterprise)

See it in action: Salty Girl, powered by Shopify Little Extras 13. Touchcard Stand out from the crowded inbox, and send your customers a thank you or a reward offer care of the good old fashioned postal system. Touchcard automates the printing and mailing of personalized postcards with unique coupon codes. Cost: From $0.99/month 14. Wishlist Plus Your window-shopping customers can save their favorite products, and return for future purchase. Wishlist+ does not require a login, and lists can be saved across devices and shared with family and friends. Wishlist+ integrates with other apps allowing you to use customer activity data to send targeted marketing campaigns. Cost: Free – $79.99/month 15. Karibu Store Locator If you operate one or many physical stores in tandem with your ecommerce store, help your customers find you IRL with Karibou. The app can also be used to help your customers locate your products sold at brick and mortar resellers in their area. Features include search filters, driving directions, and customizable text. Cost: From $0.99/month 16. Appointment Booking Service based businesses can offer customers an easier way to book appointments directly from your site. Automatic emails are sent to you and your customer to confirm bookings, making the entire process handsoff. You can also sync and manage bookings with Google Calendar. Cost: From $0.99/month See it in action: Beautiful Balance Skin Center, powered by Shopify

WATCH 4 FAMOUS ENTREPRENEURS GIVE CRUCIAL ADVICE TO NEW BUSINESS OWNERS Daymond John: The Decision Is Yours Working hard on somebody else’s dream? Hear what Daymond John has to say about it. Posted by Shopify on Tuesday, August 30, 2016 Marie Forleo: Doing What It Takes Marie Forleo on doing what it takes: "I used all of my side jobs to fund my business..." Posted by Shopify on Monday, August 22, 2016 Tim Ferriss "Push things to the extreme to the point where things break, that's where you see most clearly." Posted by Shopify on Thursday, August 25, 2016 Troy Carter "When you're closest to your goal, that's when you're really going to be challenged." Posted by Shopify on Tuesday, August 23, 2016

HOW TO USE PINTEREST IN SELLING OUR PRODUCTS + SERVICES Tip #1: Tailor your content for the audience 92% of all pins are made by women and the Big Three categories on Pinterest -- Food & Drink, DIY & Crafts, and Home Décor We are classified under the Home Décor Tip #2: Follow the pinning pattern Little pinning happens at night, steady pinning throughout the day, and a spike in the evening. 32% of all pinning happens during the core part of the work day, from 10am - 4pm. 18% of pinning happens in the evening, 9pm - midnight