Common Shopify Issues encountered by online store owners

Whether you are starting a business or you are migrating to Shopify, you will find this eCommerce platform to be suitable for all businesses that want to trade online. Online businesses prefer Shopify due to its well-organized architecture and support community like Shopify Experts. The Shopify App store is plentiful when it comes to your specific requirements to add features to your store. The conversion rate of the architecture is highly rated, in both SEO and Google Analytics scoring. Even though it is a wonderful platform, some store owners still struggle in a couple of areas, in which we will also discuss potential solutions.

Difficulty in uploading your products

You could be taking online courses on how to go about this, however, on any platform, you will see this as a daunting task if you have thousands of products. Usually, the use of a CSV file structure allows you to import products with associated imagery. The imagery is pointed to URL links to reach out to a photo library and import them into the system. The problem is errors in the CSV file as the import might fail mid-way. Breaking up the CSV files into categories, or smaller groups of products avoids the time investment and interruption of an error. There are store migration tools that will connect both your existing platform and your Shopify store to upload your products. When it is all finished and dusted, make sure you check and see that the products are structured correctly, and in the right categories.

Inventory Management and marketplaces

Most online stores are now connected to various marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy, however, your inventory management techniques may not be keeping up with the demand from all the locations. Overselling due to customer demand creates complications in the customer experience in time-to-delivery or having to be refunded. Effective inventory management that's real-time such as the employment of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP - inventory management system) system or integrations which update your inventory in real-time within your Shopify store is crucial to avoid any issues.

Shopify Apps - 3rd party analytics

There are some store owners that believe in Shopify 3rd party analytics apps to help understand the reports, trends, and charts that these Shopify Apps provide. The best source of data to be actionable is Shopify Analytics, Google Analytics as well as Google Search Console. If you are looking at SEO, the likes of SEMRush might be a useful tool, and if all these are too much, talking to a Shopify Expert to help you interpret the data will go a long way. Adding more 3rd Party Apps only re-uses the same data and presents it in additional formats. Therefore it will help you better to get some time with an expert to have a stronger understanding of the data and manage multiple systems to understand the online store dynamics.

Shopify Analytics

When starting an online business, the data is sparse and will not really show a pattern, which makes the Shopify Analytics barely useful as the data is not statistically stable enough for you o detect seasonality, promotional trends, and reactions to Email marketing. However, as business picks up through effort, affiliate marketing, social networking, and the use of creative online business ideas - you will see that the online store is picking up an increased volume of sales. Your data starts to stabilize, and you will start being able to see Shopify Analytics be more useful in financial planning, tracking inventory total numbers, fulfilling orders, and checking on your stock levels.

Google Analytics

This particular tool can be instrumental when it comes to understanding your traffic - where it is coming in from - Advertising, vs. Organic and Backlinks. Seeing trends from a previous year to the current year to understand seasonality and if your traffic is growing year over year. You can answer many questions on performance on visitor data, bounce rate, conversion rates, and where the source of your traffic is coming from.

SEO and Analytics

Store owners should always look to build their SEO as in the long run there is traffic residual vs. advertising will end as soon as your campaign finishes. It starts with the On-site SEO where an SEO Audit will reveal some of the errors to be concerned about and be actionable about. If your SEO efforts are Keyword focused, knowing what your audience would search for is instrumental in having those keywords on your website. This comes in the form of product titles, page titles, meta descriptions of your home page, product pages, blogs, and landing pages all surrounding your chosen keywords. As your online store tunes into the search keywords used by your audience, your authority will grow, and the ranking of your site's links will bubble up to the top.

Conclusion

Shopify provides countless tools, learning how to use them effectively may not come easily. We covered 5 areas where an online store owner might struggle but there are others. The bigger the store, the higher the chance of having an error in SEO, or having difficulty in managing your inventory. The mission is to sell those finished goods maybe as a primary goal but to achieve the desired volume, managing the store brings challenges in both time and interpretation of the data. If you need some assistance in managing your store, feel free to reach out to us at wish@thegenielab.com