Monday 12th December 2016
5 Advantages to Shopify for Your Food eCommerce Store
Running a food and drink eCommerce business should be an exciting and rewarding experience, sharing your amazing creations with people all around the world while constantly innovating new products and flavours.
So your food and drink eCommerce business needs an eCommerce platform that can cope with your growing and changing business. It needs to be able to handle orders and stock quickly, be flexible to accommodate your growing offering and let you show your products in all of their glory.
Shopify ticks all of these boxes.
It’s an easy to use and customisable platform that will let you focus on selling your delicious products. Here are 5 advantages to using Shopify for your food eCommerce business:
A Simple Interface
You’ll be using the admin interface of your store every day, so having an interface that is simple and easy to use is essential.
Shopify’s user interface is simple yet powerful, giving you access to all of the sales and customer data you could want. You won’t need any technical knowledge to easily navigate the Shopify interface, so admin can get out of the way and you can focus on running your business.
You’ll want to manage and dispatch orders quickly due to the perishable nature of your products, so a simple interface is essential. Shopify also lets you quickly add and edit products, so as your product range changes, you can keep your store updated.
Shopify handles all of the heavy lifting when it comes to the technical side of your store, so the admin panel isn’t bogged down with server settings and code that could be unintentionally tampered with.
Flexibility with Apps
One of Shopify’s greatest strengths is its app ecosystem. Shopify provides access to hundreds of fantastic apps that can enhance the functionality of your store and many of them are great for food.
Apps such as Recharge can add subscription functionality to your store, letting you sell food subscriptions and subscription boxes like the example below from Thyme. This gives you greater flexibility over how you sell your products.
There are also apps that can add other useful features such as custom carrier shipping and delivery options. Great for food and drink websites that are selling products that are difficult to ship.
Using just a few of Shopify’s apps can really transform the functionality of your site, and just shows how flexible Shopify as a platform can be.
Sell Anywhere with Shopify POS
Selling online is great, but sometimes you just want to get out there and share your creations with the world. Shopify offers a great solution to that with Shopify POS.
With Shopify POS, you can use a tablet and Bluetooth card reader to take your product catalogue anywhere and sell in person. That means you can sell at markets, festivals, fairs, exhibitions and shows without a problem.
Shopify POS makes it much easier to get your brand out there. You can promote and sell your products wherever you go, or manage stock between your online and physical stores.
Shopify POS also doesn’t charge charge merchant account fees, only a small percentage of each sale. As a result, you have the flexibility to sell in person as often or as little as you need.
Food and drink is a naturally engaging and exciting market - so you’ll want to use social media as much as possible, especially visual platforms like Instagram and Facebook, to generate interest around your brand and grow a strong identity. Shopify makes this easy through some fantastic social integration features.
It’s very easy to promote your offers on social media like the example above from Thyme. Shopify lets you quickly create discount codes which can then be shared with your following.
Shopify merchants can sell directly on Facebook with a dedicated store tab. They can also tag photos with any products they feature, taking interested followers right to the product page.
Not only that, but Shopify makes it very easy to set up and monitor interaction between your store and social accounts. You can easily add Facebook tracking codes and link activity through to sales.
You can also find plenty of apps that let you create deeper integrations between your store and social accounts. For example, apps like Checkout Share let you build up social proof by offering discounts and free gifts for social sharing.
Finally, as selling food and drink is such a visual experience, you’ll want a store that looks amazing and is capable of showing your products in their best light.
Shopify has a great selection of themes that will help you create a beautiful eCommerce store. There are plenty of professionally designed themes suited to a whole range of different uses. These can be installed, and with some basic customisation, you’re ready to go.
A Shopify Expert can also customise these themes to give you a personalised and unique store for a lower cost than a custom design.
The themes in Shopify’s store tend to strike a good balance between a look that will leave your customers’ mouths watering, and the functionality and usability that will drive conversions. It can be difficult to find that right balance, but Shopify’s beautiful themes make it easy.
Shopify is a flexible and adaptable eCommerce platform that can work brilliantly for your food and drink eCommerce store. Apps give you the chance to add extra functionality, while picking the perfect theme and taking your food products on the go.
Shopify provides everything a growing food business could want.
Still unsure if Shopify would be the right choice for your business? Get in touch and we’d be happy to meet with you and discuss what you may need.