5 Ways to Jump-Start a Dying Business (and 5 Businesses That Did It) 

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• by Corey Ferreira 
• Oct 28, 2015

According to Gallup, half of new businesses in the U.S. fail within the first five years. But it’s important to remember that they don’t fail overnight. In fact, if you look closely, there are a few key signs that can help you identify a failing business months before it happens. Some of these signs include a halt in growth, poor cash-flow management, and a glaring lack of innovation or differentiation.
The first thing most business owners do to try and save their business is cut expenses, but that only slows down the inevitable. What we need to do is breathe new life into a dying business by jump-starting it.
This blog post will help you give your dying business the jolt of energy it needs to get back on the path to success. I’m going to outline a few ways to help turn around a failing business and help you implement them before it’s too late.

Pivot and Change Direction

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Pivoting sounds simpler than it actually is, and could mean many different things to different businesses. For some, it might mean changing your business model, for others, it might mean moving to a completely different vertical or changing your target customer. Maybe you thought your product would sell well with acoustic guitar players, but in fact, it might sell better with piano players.
You might need to sell an entirely different product. This sometimes happens because business owners didn’t properly validate their business ideas or products before launching.
You need to do a close analysis of what’s working and what’s not, and consider making drastic changes.
In the case of Wrigley’s Gum, pivoting was the result of customer demand. Now famously known for selling gum, they sure didn’t start out that way.

via Wrigley’s Gum

Wrigley’s initially started out selling soap. According to their official website, William Wrigley Jr. offered merchants free cans of baking powder for each bar of soap they bought. When merchants were more interested in the baking soda than the soap, he eventually began selling baking soda and instead offered free sticks of gum with each purchase.
Finally, Mr. Wrigley decided selling chewing gum was his most lucrative business after seeing the interest merchants had in chewing gum and in 1892, he began producing gum out of a Chicago factory. The rest is history.

Rebrand

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A rebrand isn’t generally the first thing business owners think about when sales start to plummet. But sometimes, when products and business aren’t positioned properly, a rebrand is necessary to solve that problem.
A rebrand that will successfully jump-start your business isn’t going to be as simple as changing your logo. Your entire brand’s approach to how it positions itself in the market will need an overhaul to see a major impact.
An example of this is Old Spice’s rebrand. Before 2003, the men’s deodorant market was pretty docile and the marketing was nothing like it is today. When Axe began to successfully position themselves as the scent that women couldn’t resist, Old Spice, a failing brand at the time, had to reinvent their image.
By 2008, Old Spice, a brand generally seen at that time as deodorant for older men, took it upon themselves to change the packaging of their products. In this case, they changed the packaging and branding of Old Spice Red Zone Glacial Falls and turned it into Old Spice Swagger.

via Adweek

According to Adweek, this change along with their new marketing quadrupled their sales. Same formula, same product, just new packaging and marketing.

Niche Down and Focus

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When a business owner tries to do too many different things, it can cause the business to stretch itself too thin.
In other cases, a lack of focus could mean the target niche is too broad. When your target customer is “everyone”, it’s really nobody. This is why getting really specific with your target customer is important. Do you really know who your customer is?
If you do, does your business lack focus? Is it trying to do too many things, or be the best at too many things?
In 1996, after operating at a financial loss for years, Steve Jobs returned to a failing Apple. What Steve Jobs saw was that Apple was losing focus and was involved in too many projects. By 1997, Steve reduced Apple’s product line from 350 to just 10, killing off many projects including the promising Newton project, a project that drained $100 million from Apple according to Cult of Mac.

via International Business Times

By 1998, Apple was focused on innovating in the personal computer space and the iMac was born, helping the company turn a profit of $309 million that year according to Funding Universe.
If you need more help obtaining focus, read our blog post talking about focusing down in your business and how to do it.

Create a New Marketing Plan

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Are you making the most of social media? Is your website optimized and appearing in searches where customers are trying to find you? Perhaps you overestimated the market size or your market research was poorly executed.
A new marketing plan can reinvigorate your business by giving you a blank slate. What you were doing before clearly wasn’t working, so a fresh marketing plan that tries new things just might get your business out of a rut.
After the housing crash of 2008, River Pools and Spas had to reinvent their marketing strategy. According to Hubspot, River Pools and Spas was spending $150,000 on radio ads and direct mail and with the economy being the way it was, that just wasn’t going to work anymore. People who could barely afford their homes now weren’t looking to buy a pool.
The business owner, Marcus Sheridan, turned his business’ marketing strategy around and began to focus on inbound marketing with blogging. Not only did his focus on paid or organic traffic reduce his marketing budget by 70%, he was also able to generate 400% more leads through his business’ blog.

via River Pools and Spas

If you need help constructing a new marketing plan from scratch, read our blog post on writing marketing plans.

Take More Risks

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Many business owners believe that during a time of crisis, their best option is to play it safe. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Taking bold risks is often the best course of action to save a dying business.
When you think about it, you have a lot less to lose when your business is nearing its end. You’re much better off trying new and crazy things than being conservative.
Private White, a failing factory that manufactured clothing in the U.K., took a major risk in 2011 when young entrepreneur James Eden took over. Eden made a bold move to have the factory pivot from purely manufacturing to selling its own branded products online.

via Private White VC

This was risky for a failing business since they would now have to carry inventory and focus on marketing, in addition to manufacturing their products. Since making the change and selling their own branded products, Private White VC has grown 50% year on year according to Forbes.

Worst Case Scenario, Sell The Business

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When you can’t turn something around, it might be best to cut your losses and move on. As the saying goes, “when one door closes, another one opens.” A failing business can create opportunities if you can look at the silver linings. One opportunity could be selling the business and giving way to a new business idea. Just because a business fails (or is failing), that doesn’t mean your life as an entrepreneur needs to ends as well. Start a new business. Take the experience with you, and learn from it.

Take Action

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When you know your business is on its last legs, you need to be proactive. Don’t sit back and wait for things to happen before you take action. Take actions that are not only preventative (before things get any worse) but that also fix glaring problems.
There’s no better feeling for an entrepreneur than when he or she is able to turn something around for the better. Every entrepreneur is faced with challenges and a failing business is just one of many. Even if your business fails, despite all of your efforts, take it as a learning experience. Many entrepreneurs before you have had many failures before their most successful venture. You only need to be right once.
If you have any questions or comments, leave them in the comments below. I engage with and respond to everyone.

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About The Author

Corey Ferreira is a passionate entrepreneur, coconut water lover and content creator at Shopify.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Third-Party Warehousing and Fulfillment .Try with Shopify

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Third-Party Warehousing and Fulfillment 

Try with Shopify 

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• by Casandra Campbell 
• Oct 26, 2015

Whether you’re thinking about starting an ecommerce business, or you’ve been selling products for a while, you’ve probably thought about warehousing, shipping, and fulfillment.
Sure, making sales is the exciting part. But what happens after the order is placed? Somehow your product needs to end up in your customers’ hands.
There are three ways this could happen.

1. You sell a product from a dropshipper who will fulfill orders for you.
2. You fulfill your own orders, either independently or with a team.
3. You work with a logistics company who will handle your warehousing and fulfillment.

There are clear benefits to packing and shipping your own orders: it’s flexible and cheap. For these reasons, businesses that are just starting out, and or businesses that have unique packaging needs, often choose to handle their own logistics.
And regardless of age or industry, any business that is struggling with cash flow will be better off handling things in-house. Sometimes you have more time to spend than money.
But if your business is growing quickly and you have the cash on hand to outsource, you may be interested in exploring third-party warehousing and fulfillment.
There are many logistics companies that will store your product, and take care of packing and shipping your orders.
Working with logistics companies can be intimidating if you’ve never done it before. We chatted with Paul Van Remortel from Ottawa Logistics to find out everything you’ve been too afraid to ask. Here’s what we learned.

The Benefits of Using Third-Party Logistics

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The obvious benefit to using a logistics company is that you don’t have to do it yourself. But the benefit really goes deeper than that. Outsourcing warehousing and fulfillment can have a meaningful impact on your business's growth.

1. Avoid Long-Term Leases

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Many logistic companies offer flexible pricing. This means that as you grow—
or go through slow periods—they will be able to adapt to your needs and adjust cost accordingly. Renting your own warehouse space usually requires more of a commitment.

“First, companies don’t have to lock into long-term fixed warehouse leases. Instead, our customers only pay month-to-month for the amount of space they occupy, which saves them money, especially when inventory levels fall during non-peak seasons.”

2. No Staff Required

When you fulfill and ship your own orders, you’ll likely need to hire staff as you scale. Managing staff takes time. If your business is still in flux, you may be wary of promising someone a job. Instead, you can outsource the work to a logistics company and let them be responsible for finding and hiring good people.

“Second, companies don’t have to manage warehouse staff and personnel. We manage all of the labor needed for receiving, inventory management, and order processing and shipping.”

3. Be More Effective

Chances are, you didn’t start a business because you’re really good at packing boxes. There are other skills you bring to the table that are harder to outsource. When you let someone else take care of logistical details, you can focus on the things that will have a greater impact on your bottom line.

“Third, by using a professional logistics provider, companies have more time to devote to other important business functions. For ecommerce merchants, this valuable time can be spent on product sourcing, sales, or online marketing activities instead of back-end logistics.”

4. Save Money

Although doing it yourself is mostly free, in the long run, hiring a logistics company can save you money as you grow. If they’re operating at a larger scale than you, you can benefit from their efficiencies and leverage their buying power on packaging and shipping costs. 

“Fourth, outsourcing will likely save companies money, either through lower warehousing costs, decreased employee costs and taxes, or lower shipping costs received because logistics companies leverage their combined shipping volume to obtain lower overall rates.”

When Is the Right Time to Switch?

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Most companies start out fulfilling their own orders, and some eventually add a third-party solution as they scale. The problem is, it’s difficult to know when to make the switch. Especially if you’re bootstrapping your business.
It turns out, businesses of many sizes can benefit from warehousing and fulfillment services. There are a variety of companies to choose from, some of which specialize in smaller or larger-scale operations.
However, there are clear signs that it’s time to start outsourcing.

1. Cyclical or Uneven Sales

If the number of orders your process fluctuates throughout the year, it probably doesn’t make sense for you to commit to running and staffing your own warehouse. A logistics company will be able to adapt to your needs.

2. You’re Too Busy

If you’re so busy dealing with order fulfillment that you don’t have time to focus on growth, it might be time to start outsourcing it. As a business owner, you need to be able to devote time to sales and marketing if you want to be around for the long-term.

3. Lack of Infrastructure

If you’re growing quickly, you may outgrow your current infrastructure before you can adapt. This can add a lot of stress and hamper growth. When you outsource to a business that specializes in logistics, they’ll be better equipped to adapt to the changes quickly.

“In particular, ecommerce companies may find themselves at the tipping point if they experience cyclical sales (uneven sales levels throughout the year), if marketing and sales are being hampered by a lack of time to appropriately grow the business, or if they can’t internally support their growth with the current infrastructure.”

Third-party warehousing and fulfillment isn’t right for everyone, but if you find yourself in one these situations, it might be time to start calling around and chatting with logistics companies.

Who Should Not Work With a Logistics Company

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The fact is, no single solution is perfect for every business. There are times when using a logistics company doesn’t make sense, no matter what size your business is.

1. Businesses With Limited Cash Flow

Whether you’re a startup or not, if you don’t have the funds available, you may need to do it yourself. Sometimes your biggest resource is time and you have to work with what you have.

“Typically, there are only a few cases that might not make sense to use a third party fulfillment service. First, if a company is a true start-up without significant cash flow to pay for a third party service, using an outsourced provider will likely not be the best decision. In these cases, oftentimes the business owner must literally bootstrap the growth of the business, leveraging his or her time instead of paying employees or contractors.”

2. Highly Specialized Businesses

You may be surprised at the amount of customization many logistics companies offer—I certainly was. Still, not everyone will be able to find a company that can do what they want. If your business has highly specialized needs, it might make more sense to handle your fulfillment internally.

“Second, there are companies that have uniquely specialized needs. An example might be a company that manufactures customized orders using specialized equipment. But for most other companies, third party fulfillment services can be a huge time saver that also offers cost savings.”

If you fall into one of the above categories, think carefully and do your research before considering third-party logistics.

What Does the Fulfillment Process Look Like?

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Once your business is set up with your logistics company, your fulfillment process starts to look pretty simple. In fact, all you really need to do is make sure they have enough inventory. In many cases, your orders can be sent directly to your logistics company and they’ll take care of packing and shipping the order.

If you run a Shopify store, there are several apps available to streamline your integration a third-party logistics. As you can imagine, this frees up a lot of time to work on other parts of your business.

“For most ecommerce business owners, we change the order fulfillment process by giving them back some of their most precious commodity—time! When order fulfillment is managed in-house, most business owners spend a significant amount of time managing staff, providing customer support, and generally managing the entire process. When order fulfillment is outsourced with a competent provider, such as Ottawa Logistics, business owners simply don’t have to spend unnecessary time worrying about shipping orders.”

What About Refunds?

Many logistics companies can also solve order fulfillment problems on your behalf. This includes processing and issuing refunds.

“Many fulfillment companies can process returns as well—and Ottawa Logistics does offer this service. Returned product can be shipped to our facility, where we inspect it for damage. If the product is damaged, we simply inform the customer and will handle it according to their specifications. If the product is in good/sellable condition, we will return it to inventory to be used on future orders.”

Can You Still Use Custom Packaging?

A great unboxing experience can be a solid point of differentiation. Customers feel more satisfied with their purchase, and are more likely to buy again or recommend you to their friends.
Unfortunately, finding a great  logistics company that will work with you on this can be challenging.

“Many logistics companies, especially the larger companies, force clients to use their rigid standards when it comes to packaging and other custom needs.”

But many companies do offer this service. Even better, since warehousing and fulfillment companies have so much experience in this area, they may be able to make recommendations and help you you save money on packaging.

“However, at Ottawa Logistics, we allow companies to utilize their own custom branded packaging on all orders shipped from our warehouse. We routinely help customers by recommending creative custom packaging as well as sourcing packaging at a fraction of the cost.” 

If custom packaging is important to you, make sure you ask potential companies about their options, and willingness to use custom packaging.

How to Choose a Logistics Company

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If you want to hire a logistics company, the first thing you’ll probably do is head to Google. If you’re lucky, maybe you have a friend or colleague who can make a few recommendations. Now, how do you choose the right one?

1. Similar Industry Specialization

More than anything, it comes down to finding the right fit. Just like every ecommerce store functions a little bit differently, so does every fulfillment company. Many of them specialize in certain industries or types of business.

“One of the most important things that business owners should consider when choosing a logistics company is specialization. There are a wealth of fulfillment companies out there—and each company has a unique focus.”

2. Similar Existing Clients

Try to find a logistics company that already works with businesses similar to yours. This is particularly true for ecommerce merchants who have their own sets of needs.

“For ecommerce merchants, choosing a company that has experience fulfilling ecommerce orders is vitally important. First, experience shipping these types of orders means that they will be able to do it accurately and timely. Second, as a strategic partner, they will better be able to assist you with any business challenges and might be able to offer advice that helps propel the business forward because they understand the nuances of ecommerce in general.”

Your best bet? Hop on the phone or send an email. Chat with someone one-on-one about your business. Don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions, including asking for references. Most importantly, be upfront and clear about your needs so there are no surprises down the road.

Most Common Pitfall

According to Paul, the most common pitfall is choosing a company based solely on price. Although price is important, finding a company that is a good fit is just as important. Unhappy customers could end up costing more in the long-run.

“The biggest pitfall we see companies make is that many tend to judge a fulfillment company largely based upon price. Without a doubt, it is important to get a competitive price proposal from a logistics company. However, many companies choose a provider based solely upon price, only to find out that quality is absent from the equation. This can be very painful, when shipments are delivered without the proper items or are not delivered on time.”

Number One Piece of Advice

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Not surprisingly Paul’s number one piece of advice is to do your due diligence when searching for a logistics company. Take the time to check them out, talk with them, make sure they’re competent, and be certain it’s a good fit for both of you. You really don’t want to have to switch companies three months later.

“Our advice for first time users of logistics services is to complete a detailed due diligence on each provider considered. A company can never be too careful to check out the claims of the logistics company and speak with customer and trade references in order to make sure that it is a legitimate operation. It’s very similar to trying to choose the best employee—taking extra time up front to make sure the best decision is made will pay dividends in the long run and avoid any potential pitfalls by having to switch providers or bring the entire process back in-house.”

This is especially true if you’re not sure about whether you’re ready to make the switch to third-party warehousing and fulfillment. As a potential customer, you can and should ask a lot of questions before choosing a company to work with. If it doesn’t feel like a good fit, don’t be afraid to say no.
Do you have any questions for Paul? Leave a comment! Paul will be popping into the comment section throughout the next couple days to answer your questions about third-party warehousing and fulfillment.

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About The Author

Casandra Campbell is an entrepreneur, craft beer nerd, and content creator at Shopify.

How to Sell Digital Products with Shopify 

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• by Tucker Schreiber 
• Oct 22, 2015

Have you ever wanted to sell digital products online? Perhaps you spent some time writing an ebook on dropshipping and want to sell and distribute it yourself but don't know how.
That's why we wrote this post. Today, we'll take a look at how you can sell digital products with Shopify.
Let's get into it.

Is Selling Digital Products Right for You?

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The great thing about digital products, is that anyone can sell them. If you have some sort of knack for creativity, you can sell digital copies of your creative work.
Or, say you're an expert in your industry – you can create a video tutorial series that explains a certain topic you're familiar with. The list goes on.
Heck, even if you don't want to create a digital product yourself, there are plenty of private label rights products available that you can resell.

For your reading pleasure: take a look at how one couple earns more than $600,000 per year selling digital products with Shopify and SendOwl.

The Benefits of a Digital Product Business Model

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The digital product economy is bigger than ever. According to a study by PWC Global Media and Entertainment, digital goods will be a $100 billion market by the end of 2015.
In the music industry alone, digital downloads of albums and singles accounted for $6.9 billion in 2014, which is on par with physical copies of music. That same year, ebook sales reached $5.69 billion according to statista.
If that doesn't excite you, then this might. Here are just a few benefits to selling digital products.

• Low overhead cost (no warehousing or physical storage required)
• Unlimited stock (if you want to, you can sell as many digital products as you'd like)
• International markets (no shipping cost)
• Higher profit margins (due to low cost of production) 
• Automated systems to deliver digital goods

In an increasingly digitized world, digital products are becoming so popular you'd be crazy not to sell some sort of digital product.

Getting Started with Digital Products and Shopify

With Shopify’s Digital Downloads app, you can start by uploading digital files as products in your store. A download link is given to the customer immediately after checkout, and a link is emailed to them when the order is fulfilled.
Depending on the type of product you're selling and your personal preference, you can automate the entire process so the files get sent to the customer instantly, or, fulfill and send the files yourself.
One of the great things about automating the fulfilment process of your digital products, is that you can earn money while you sleep!
You can also mix and match a product to have physical and digital products, for example:

• A physical copy of an album would not include a digital attachment
• A digital copy of an album would be configured to have a digital attachment, but no physical product
• A digital and physical copy of an album would be configured to have both a digital attachment and a physical product

If you're hosting your files with Shopify, you’ll want to make sure the file is 5GB or less – compressing your files into .zip archives is a good starting point to stay within that limit if you're dealing with big files.
Alternatively, some third-party apps have the ability to connect with file hosting services (like Dropbox) to give you more breathing room for file size.

Consider this: read more about the Shopify Digital Downloads app on our official documentation page.

Third-Party Apps that Bridge the Digital Download Gap

In addition to Shopify's Digital Downloads app, a few third-party developers have built some incredible apps to help with digital product delivery.
With just a few clicks, you can install an app of your choosing from the Shopify App Store. From there, each app will take you through a specific onboarding process that will get you up and running, ready to sell in no time.
It's important to note that when looking at these, they all have different features and functionalities. Some are paid while others are free, so be sure to do your research to find which one best suits your needs!

SendOwl

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SendOwl is a third party app that lets you sell all kinds of digital goods with Shopify. One of the biggest assets that SendOwl offers is that they host the digital products for you.
Simply upload the file to their servers, choose the product to associate it with, and they take care of the rest.
Whenever a product is sold using SendOwl, it automatically generates and sends a time sensitive download link to the customer. It’s all automated, and no daily management is required.

Sky Pilot

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Sky Pilot lets you sell music, movies, pictures and more with your Shopify store.
You can create custom pages on your store where customers can easily download, view, or stream files associated with all their orders.
Customers can even log in to accounts and access any of their past digital purchases. Best of all, it’s all all instant and automated.

Fetch

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Fetch was one of the (if not the) first ever Shopify app – pretty cool! Their digital download delivery service is flawless, and is used by many different Shopify store owners.
All files are hosted with Fetch, and downloads are delivered to customers automatically.

Downtown

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Downtown is one of the simplest, most powerful, and secure digital delivery applications for Shopify.
One of my favourite features of Downtown, is that you can include provisional serial numbers in your digital download orders, as well as limit the number of download attempts per file.

Start today: here's a walkthrough that explains 3 types of digital products you can create within 48 hours.

Conclusion

Now that we've taken a look at how to sell digital products with Shopify, it's your turn to get started with selling!
Let us know in the comments below if you're going to be selling digital products on your Shopify store.

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About The Author

Tucker Schreiber is an entrepreneur and content crafter at Shopify. He writes to inspire and educate readers on all things commerce.
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How to Use Gift Guides to Boost Your Holiday Sales 

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• by Corey Ferreira 
• Oct 20, 2015

As Black Friday approaches, store owners will begin scrambling to get the word out about their sales. Display ads, email marketing, and retargeting are some of the most common methods, but there’s one overlooked strategy that has the potential to drive a lot of customers to your store - gift guides.
Many shoppers do a lot of research before big sale events and holidays. In fact, shoppers are researching Christmas gifts and gift ideas earlier than ever. According to the National Research Federation, 40% of customers begin researching their holiday shopping as early as October.
This is where gift guides come in. Many shoppers looking for great gift ideas will look to gift guides and buying guides for inspiration. In fact, there are likely websites in your niche that specialize in sharing gift guides including products very similar to yours. Most gift guides are roundups of gift ideas for a loved one or friend with a particular interest. Sometimes, they’re compiled for a particular holiday such as Christmas, Mother’s Day, birthdays, and so on.
A survey by NFR found that consumers will spend an average of over $450 on gifts for their family this Christmas. Getting your products in gift guides can help more shoppers discover you, especially if you have a very unique or niche product that makes a great gift.
In this blog post, I’m going to show you how to get your store in gift guides, create your own gift guides, and drive more sales during the holidays.

What Gift Guides Look Like

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To give you an idea of what a gift guide looks like, here’s one that caters to guitar players.

via Guitar Adventures

As you can see, this particular guide is actually a post on a blog for guitar players. This is one of the top search results for “gift ideas for guitar players,” a phrase that shoppers looking for gift ideas for the guitar player in their life might be searching.
This blog post lists 20 unique gift ideas, with a link back to each store selling the mentioned product.
What we, as store owners, plan to do is find websites that create gift guides in our niche, and reach out to them to feature our products in new (and even existing) gift guides.

How to Find Gift Guides

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As you begin researching blogs and websites with gift guides in your niche, you’ll want to organize each into a spreadsheet. This will make the outreach process easier down the road.
Next, find the blogs and websites with gift guides in your niche. For example, if my store sells guitar straps, I would look for, and reach out to, blogs and websites with gift guides for guitar players.
Head over to Google and put yourself in the head of someone researching gift ideas. What do you search? Here are some search terms and search ideas, just replace guitar with your store’s niche:

• guitar player gift guide
• guitar gift guide 2015
• guitar buying guide
• guitar buying guide 2015
• guitar player gift ideas
• guitar player christmas gift ideas
• guitar fathers day gift ideas
• guitar fathers day gift guide
• gift ideas for guitar lovers

You can swap the year and holiday for whatever’s most appropriate. For example, if you’re reading this in the future, use 2016 or 2017. If your products are well suited for Mother’s Day, swap out Father’s Day for Mother’s Day.
If you want to specifically find blogs with gift guides, add “inurl:blog.” to your query. Here are a few examples:

• guitar gift guide inurl:blog/
• guitar gift guide 2015 inurl:blog/
• gift ideas for guitar lovers inurl:blog/

I suggest trying each of the keyword variations above, and adding the relevant and more approachable websites to the spreadsheet you created earlier.
I recommend finding and adding at least 20 websites to your spreadsheet before beginning the outreach process. Since you’ll likely get a lot of results, you’ll want to curate them for quality. Here’s some criteria to help you out:
First, ensure they’re approachable. If it’s a competing store’s gift guide, then they’re probably not a website you want to reach out to. If it’s a major publication, it might take a little more finesse and relationship building with an editor of the publication to make a successful pitch.
Secondly, ensure each website has an active readership. Check if the website is still active and that they have a reasonably sized audience. To do this, look at the date of their most recent post and see how many followers they have on social media. Check for other social proof like the average number of comments on their blog posts.

via Guitar Chalk

Their audience doesn’t need to be massive. Remember that smaller websites and blogs will be more approachable, too. Even if a website only has 100 dedicated fans, that’s 100 passionate people learning about your product. Plus, your product will live on that guide forever. People will continually find that gift guide in the future once it ranks on Google.

How to Do Outreach

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First, you’ll need to find the contact information for the person who runs each website. For most blogs, you can find this in the footer or top navigation, usually as “contact” or “contact me.” If you’re struggling to find a website’s contact information, try reaching out to them on social media or use an email guessing tool such as Email Hunter.

via Guitar Adventures

Do not send a mass email. This is an unprofessional, impersonal way to build business relationships, and mass emails are more likely to land in most recipients’ spam folders. Instead, send each person an individual, personalized email. Yes, it takes some extra work, but it will be worth it.
Some things I might mention to personalize the email is something I enjoyed from their gift guide, something I like about their site, or how I found their site. I try to find a way I can relate to the person within the first few lines of my email before getting into my request. This will make your emails sound more authentic, instead of something mass-produced or automated. If you give people the impression that you’ve sent the same email to a hundred other people, they won’t take your request seriously.
If you can afford to, offer to send them a sample of your product. People are more inclined to talk about or recommend a product after trying it for themselves.
Here’s a sample script to help get you started:

Subject:
I love your [post name] post

 

Message:

Hey [name],

 

I read [post name] and loved it. Will you be updating it for [year] or writing a new one?

 

My name is Corey and I sell [product]. I’m putting together a sale for [holiday/sale event] and would love to be considered for your next list. I think [product] would make a great gift for [type of person using gift].

 

If you want to check it out yourself, I’d be happy to send you a sample. Here’s where you can learn more about it:

 

[my website url or product url]

 

Let me know what you think and if you’re interested!

 

Looking forward to your response,

 

- Corey

Don’t be afraid to follow up a week later if you don’t hear back. I’ve found I get a lot of responses when I follow up.
You should also set realistic expectations. If you email 20 different websites, expect around one interested response. Not everyone has plans to create or update their gift guides and not everyone will be interested in your product or think it’s a good fit for their audience.
Don’t take it personally, you only need to have your product in one gift guide to see a significant increase in sales.

Or Create Your Own Gift Guide

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Alternatively, you can create your own gift guide on your website and promote your own products within them. Most people use Google to research gift ideas and there could potentially be a lot of organic search traffic that comes your way by putting up a simple gift guide on your website.
Take a look at the searches for “gifts for guitar players” according to Google’s Keyword Planner.

There’s definitely an opportunity for me, in this example, to create a gift guide page on my store and get some nice organic search traffic from it. Other brands and store’s have done this as well for their own products. Just take a look at ThinkGeek’s gift guide page:

via ThinkGeek

What should you include on your gift guide page?
I would include a short blurb at the top of the page, around 100 words, introducing and talking about your gift guide and who it’s for. You should also title and name your page appropriately. In my case, since I want to try and rank for “gifts for guitar players” on Google, I might consider naming my page “Gift Ideas for Guitar Players.” Here’s how it would look when I create a new page in Shopify’s admin.
Next, I would create collections (or groups) of the items I want to include in my gift guide. I could simply create one collection and call it “gift guide” or I could create a collection to further categorize the gifts such as “gifts for him” or “gifts under $20.” If you want to learn more about how to create collections using Shopify, read up about them in the Shopify manual. I would then include a link to each collection on my gift guide page.
Alternatively, you could make your gift guide a blog post instead of a separate page, similar to the blog posts I mentioned earlier. For example, “best 2015 christmas gifts for guitar players” might be a blog post I publish in my store. I might even consider creating a series of different blog posts covering gift ideas for different occasions and different kinds of guitar players.

Over To You

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Hopefully this post has inspired you to think more about how you can put your products and store on other websites that share your audience. If you want to learn more about getting press for your store, read our post about getting free coverage.
If you have any questions about gift guides or want to share any ideas, leave your comment below. I engage with and respond to everyone.

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About The Author

Corey Ferreira is a passionate entrepreneur, coconut water lover and content creator at Shopify.

Why Shopify and What offer me?

Why Shopify and What offer me?
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• Shopify is the world’s leading commerce SAAS provider, and the platform of choice for over 100,000 active global retailers.
• Sell online, offline and on-the-go using Shopify’s powerful technology.
• Use your own domain name
• Sell gift cards
• Integrated blogging platform to create blog posts
• Process credit card payments directly through Shopify, or other gateways
• Process in-store purchases with Shopify POS
• Process purchases with your iPhone using Shopify Mobile
• Receive on-boarding support from a Shopify Guru
• Access ecommerce analytics
• Use built-in SEO, coupon codes and A/B testing
• Rely on fast servers and cutting edge infrastructure
• Fully PCI Level 1 Compliant checkout
• Unlimited SKUs
• Shopify is always adding free new features to help you sell 
• 
  

Starrt your 14 day free trial
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Announcing Build a Business VI: The Ultimate Entrepreneur Experience 

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• by Courtney Symons
• Sep 23, 2015

2400 shares Facebook Twitter Linkedin

There are moments when life offers you an opportunity. Those moments are rare, and you’re often unprepared for them. But they are the times that offer the chance to grow, fail, change, and thrive. This is one of those moments.
Today we’re launching our sixth Build a Business Competition — the largest entrepreneurship competition in the world, and your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kickstart your dream business.

This year, we’ve partnered with the New York Stock Exchange to give five entrepreneurs the experience of a lifetime. You’ll start by ringing the NYSE Opening Bell, and then spend the next five days at Oheka Castle (The Great Gatsby mansion), along with some of the world’s most celebrated entrepreneurs.

Join the Build a Business Competition

The Experience of a Lifetime

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Here’s what five lucky entrepreneurs like you could win:

• Fly to New York City to meet the rest of the winners
• Ring the NYSE Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange
• Be interviewed live by CNBC (a network with a reach of 93.6 million households)
• Fly via helicopter to Oheka Castle. (Look familiar? It was the inspiration for The Great Gatsby estate in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel, as well as the shooting location of Taylor Swift’s Blank Space music video.)
• A five-day entrepreneur experience at Oheka Castle featuring one-on-one business advice from our all-star lineup including:

How it works.

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To participate, open a Shopify store, come up with a product or service – and start selling.
At the end of the competition, the five stores that sell the most over any two-month period will win this entrepreneurial experience of a lifetime.
The competition officially opens on Oct. 1 2015, and you can enter right on up until March 31 2016. Any Shopify store that was opened after June 1 2015 may join the competition. You’ll be able to keep ramping up sales until May 31 2016 when the competition officially closes.
The competition is open to residents of the USA (select states), United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Spain and Denmark. Although strict gaming laws prevent us from making prizes available in every country, everyone can participate in the competition.

Get started

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

The only thing stopping you from winning this competition is you — maybe your fear of failure, or feeling like you don’t have a product to sell. But we’ll provide all the tools you need to pick a product, launch a successful company, and win this competition.
Have you ever thought about starting your own business or selling something online? Now is the time. What do you have to lose?

Join the Build a Business Competition
https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom

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For more information on this year’s Build A Business Competition, view the competition sign-up page, frequently asked questions and competition rules. 

A big thank you to our partners NYSE, PayPal, MailChimp and Xero for their contributions to this competition.

Start your 14day free trial with Shopify.Start selling online.
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Features by Shopify to you and your success selling

Features by Shopify to you and your success selling
https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom

• Shopify is the world’s leading commerce SAAS provider, and the platform of choice for over 100,000 active global retailers.
• Sell online, offline and on-the-go using Shopify’s powerful technology.
• Use your own domain name
• Sell gift cards
• Integrated blogging platform to create blog posts
• Process credit card payments directly through Shopify, or other gateways
• Process in-store purchases with Shopify POS
• Process purchases with your iPhone using Shopify Mobile
• Receive on-boarding support from a Shopify Guru
• Access ecommerce analytics
• Use built-in SEO, coupon codes and A/B testing
• Rely on fast servers and cutting edge infrastructure
• Fully PCI Level 1 Compliant checkout
• Unlimited SKUs
• Shopify is always adding free new features to help you sell
• 14 day free trial.

About Shopify

About Shopify.

Srart selling with Shopify

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom

Shopify is a leading cloud-based, multichannel commerce platform designed for small and medium-sized businesses. Merchants can use the software to design, set up and manage their stores across multiple sales channels, including web, mobile, social media such as Pinterest and Facebook, brick-and-mortar locations, and pop-up shops. The platform also provides a merchant with a powerful back-office and a single view of their business. The Shopify platform was engineered for reliability and scale, using enterprise-level technology made available to businesses of all sizes. Shopify currently powers over 175,000 businesses in approximately 150 countries, including: Tesla Motors, Budweiser, Wikipedia, LA Lakers, the New York Stock Exchange, GoldieBlox, and many more.

Key Facts

Shopify platform released

2006

merchants in

~150 Countries

# employees

780+

# apps in our app store

1000+

# merchants

175,000+

# themes in our theme store

100+

total sales on shopify

$10 Billion

# experts in our network

680+

Start your 14 day free trial ,build your store...

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7 Handy Shopify Features You Might Not Know About 

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• by Tucker Schreiber 
• Oct 9, 2015

By now, you’re probably getting quite familiar with the ins-and-outs of your Shopify store. You’re getting plenty of value when logged into Shopify, and are able to see important information about your business with just a few clicks.
But what about those little features that could increase your productivity, make your life easier, increase store security, and more? Do you know about them?
That’s why we wrote this post. Today, we’ll take a look at seven awesome features you may not know about for your Shopify store.

1. Get Organized with Customer Groups

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Have you ever wanted to segment customers based on things like their purchase activity, location, their account status, and more? With customer groups, you can do that.
Customer groups for Shopify are important as a store owner for a few reasons.
For example, you can segment groups based on a customer’s total spend on your store, and perhaps run a promotion based on that. For instance, if a customer has spent over $100, you could send them a special coupon code – or even a thank you letter in the mail.
Secondly, with customer groups you can export groups and send an email marketing campaign to them specifically. If you wanted to email a segment of customers that live in a specific country notifying them of updated shipping rates, you have the ability to do that too.
For a full walkthrough, be sure to take a look at our official documentation on customer groups.

Consider this: Looking for some email marketing inspiration this holiday season? Be sure to take a look at these email campaigns you can steal.

2. Launch a Collection with Future Publishing

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Sometimes you’ll want to publish a product, collection, blog post, or page at a very specific time in the future. Perhaps you know you’ll be launching a fall collection during a live event and won’t have access to your computer at that time. 
That’s where future publishing comes into play.
Future publishing allows you to hide parts of your online store until a specific date and time. Your online store will publish the content at the dates and times that you specify.
Want to launch a collection at 11:59pm on a Sunday but can't stay up that late because you have work the next day? No problem. Future publishing takes care of that.
For a full walkthrough, be sure to take a look at our official documentation for future publishing.

Consider this: Take a look at the many different flash sale apps available in the Shopify app store if you're thinking about running a flash sale on a new collection.

3. Use Keyboard Shortcuts to Fly Around Shopify 

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We're all pretty familiar with standard keyboard shortcuts on our computers - but did you know you can use them in your Shopify admin too? Keyboard shortcuts in your Shopify admin let you move between pages, or add items such as products, pages, and discounts.
You'll be more productive so you can spend time working on growing your business, and less time clicking around.
Here are a few examples of the different keyboard shortcuts you can use:

For a full list, take a look at our official documentation on keyboard shortcuts.

Consider this: Want to use shortcuts to automate certain tasks? Take a look at how to automate your small business using IFTTT.

4. Dig Through Your Store with Admin Search

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If you're a store owner with tons of blog posts, products, pages, and more – this is for you.
With admin search, you can quickly find information within your Shopify store, from specific products, orders, and customers, to blog posts, storefront pages, and collections.

From your Shopify admin, click Search to open the search tool. You can also open the search tool by pressing the S key from anywhere in your Shopify admin.
For a full walkthrough, be sure to take a look at our official documentation on admin search.

5. Customize the Look and Feel of Gift Cards

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

If you’re on the Shopify Professional or Unlimited plan, you’ll be able to create gift cards for your store.
By default, Shopify generates a standard looking gift card product so that you don’t have to do any graphic design work yourself. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t customize them.
To change the appearance of the gift cards that customers receive, you need to:

1. Upload the image that you want to use.
2. Edit your gift card template file so that it uses your new image.

In addition to changing the gift card image, you can make more complex changes to the gift card template, although these require a greater level of expertise.
Gift cards are a great way to sell more on your store - and with the holiday season quickly approaching, now's the time to get them set up to match the look and feel of your brand.
You can read more about customizing a gift card on the official documentation page for gift cards.

6. Enable Two-Step Authentication for Your Store

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Keeping your store secure is very important – and that’s why two-step authentication is a great feature to enable for your store.
It's a lot easier than you think for someone to steal your password, especially if you use the same password on more than one website. With two-step authentication, Shopify will keep the bad guys out, even if they do get your password.
Once enabled, when logging in to Shopify, you’ll need to provide two things:

• the account password
• a single-use authorization (auth) code generated by a mobile app OR an SMS text message.

With this enabled on your Shopify store, even if a bad guy hacks through your password layer, he'll still need your phone or authorization code to get into your store.
For a full walkthrough on how to enable two-step authentication for your store, be sure to take a look at our official documentation.

7. Use the Secret Boss Key at Your Day Job

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

If you’re like some, you’re probably running your online store as a side project. Perhaps even, you spend time at your current job sneaking around working on your Shopify store.
And that’s why this secret boss key is important. Just log into Shopify and type boss. And just like that, your store will be disguised as an Excel spreadsheet.
Yeah, we've got you covered!

Conclusion

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

Now that we've taken a look at a few handy Shopify features, it's important to test them out. So go ahead, login to your store and start having fun with them!

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About The Author

Tucker Schreiber is an entrepreneur and content crafter at Shopify. He writes to inspire and educate readers on all things commerce

SellOnTwitter with Shopify 

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

• by Satish Kanwar
• Sep 30, 2015

Over the last year, we’ve made it possible for you to sell directly on two of the biggest social media platforms on the planet—Facebook and Pinterest. Today, we’re adding Twitter to that list, making Shopify the first and only ecommerce platform to allow merchants to sell across all three major social networks.
Twitter and Shopify have partnered to make “Buy now” buttons available to Shopify merchants, making it easier for them to get their products into their followers' hands. The social media giant started testing their buy buttons late last year with major retailers and celebrities like the Home Depot, Burberry, Pharrell Williams, and Demi Lovato. Today they’re opening it up to small and medium-sized businesses through Shopify.

How do Twitter buy buttons work?

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The new buy buttons make it easy for the 300+ million potential shoppers on Twitter to discover and buy products without leaving the social network. From their computer or mobile phones, shoppers can click the “Buy now” button within a Tweet to view product information like size, color, and style. Then they can enter their shipping and payment information. Once they confirm that information, their order details appear in Shopify, just like the orders from your online store.
Here’s how easy it is for a shopper to buy on Twitter:
Why should I sell using Twitter’s buy buttons? Chances are you already use Twitter to engage shoppers, with the ultimate goal of sending them to your online store so you can make a sale. With Twitter buy buttons, you’ll be able to make that sale as you interact with your customer in real-time. For example, if you recommend a product, they can buy it on the spot with just a few clicks.
Additionally, Twitter gives you direct access to influencers and celebrity trendsetters who can help you get your product noticed. Now when an influencer tweets your product, it will drive product discovery and give shoppers a frictionless way to make their purchase.

How can I start selling on Twitter?

https://www.shopify.com/?ref=qrsgrom 

If you have an online store with Shopify, you can start selling your products on Twitter, at no additional cost, by adding the new Twitter sales channel. Once connected to Twitter, any product that’s ever been Tweeted from your online store will automatically include a buy button, and shoppers can immediately start buying from your tweets. All Twitter orders, as well as product and customer details will automatically be synchronized with Shopify, just like all your other sales channels.
If you aren’t yet a Shopify merchant and would like to sell on Twitter, you’ll need to sign up for an online store with Shopify and then add the Twitter sales channel.
We’ll be rolling out Twitter buy buttons to merchants over the coming weeks, but you can add the Twitter sales channel to your Shopify account now. For the time being only merchants and shoppers from the United States can use Twitter buy buttons. We are working with the team at Twitter to expand this to more countries.
Add the Twitter channel

Or create your online store
Interested in learning more about social commerce? Join us at 2PM EDT today for a live Periscope Q&A with Shopify’s Director of Product, Satish Kanwar. We’ll be discussing best practices for selling your products on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Follow @Shopify on Twitter for updates, and tune in to join the conversation.
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