Shopify Success Rate: Why Do Most Shopify Stores Fail?

Starting a business from scratch can be challenging and risky for sure. Many people are afraid of it because they don’t want to risk losing what they have. Watching your life savings circle down the drain isn’t pretty. But it doesn’t have to be always like this. With the Internet, anyone can start an ecommerce business. You can start it with little money compared to a “traditional” business. And there are many ways to sell products and services online. Your side hustle can become a full-time business. One such lucrative venture is Shopify. It has become the most popular e-commerce platform amongst entrepreneurs. It can give you a great start. It is easy to use and has many features. What’s more, you can open your online store without needing any tech skills. While it sounds easy as 1-2-3, most of the online stores fail. New sellers fail to attract customers and increase revenue because of a lack of knowledge and a highly competitive ecommerce world. Before starting an e-shop it will be useful to know what is the success rate of Shopify stores.

What does it mean? It means one out of every ten e-commerce businesses survives. But that doesn’t mean starting an online business is doomed to failure. If you don’t know how to run a business, you will most likely fail. So, it’s no surprise why we have such a low Shopify success rate.

In this article, we will show you why new Shopify stores fail and how can you avoid making mistakes. Using the tips we’ll share in this article, you can run a successful store on Shopify.

Why Do Shopify Stores Fail?

Picking the Wrong Niche

Choosing the wrong niche is one of the major reasons why 90 % of Shopify stores fail. The niche you choose affects your business from the very beginning. People choose what they are passionate about. You may be passionate about sports, electronics, gardening, food, clothes, shoes, etc but that’s not enough. In an oversaturated market, selling your favorite product and services to your potential customers can be very challenging. While marking is crucial, product selection and what type of business you want to start is a key factors to success. To identify your niche market, give it more thought. Why would someone inform you about a hot product he or she wants to sell? Why would someone want to make that market more competitive? You should look for it on your own. You need to choose the one that’s best for you. It’s no secret that competing against multiple other ecommerce businesses for the same customers in a saturated market is tough. An over-saturated niche market makes it hard for your company to stand out when competing for customer’s loyalty and attention. It will undoubtedly result in a crazy battle right off the bat.

Poor Visual Marketing and Design

Creating a website, choosing the right niche, and listing the products and services you want to sell is just not enough in today’s overly competitive world. Your store’s success depends on your website's design. And it is one of the major reasons why many Shopify stores fail. You cannot win your customer's loyalty with a website that looks bad. Your online store design is one of the most important things to consider as it represents your brand. It has a huge impact on how people perceive your business. If your website is over-decorated and its design doesn’t match the tone and identity of your company, your future customers are more likely to navigate away from your website.

If the design of your website is not visually appealing, 38 % of visitors will leave your website.

These stats prove the importance of website design. We, humans, are visual creatures by nature. Beautiful visuals attract our attention. So, it’s no surprise that your potential customers pay so much attention to the design of your e-commerce shop.

Another reason why Shopify stores fail is that most of them are not mobile-friendly. People use their mobile devices to make purchases. If your ecommerce store is not designed for those screens, then you’re in trouble.

The bad mobile design will cause your potential customers to leave, too. Yet many Shopify stores have unattractive websites.

Poor spelling, mismatched product descriptions, poor quality product images, large-sized images, and broken links can push your buyers away and hurt your e-commerce business. High-resolution images can unnecessarily increase the size of your webpage’s size. To make things worse, they can slow you’re your site. Mistakes on your website can hurt your search engine optimization. And they make you look unprofessional. Broken links heavily affect users’ experience and search engine rankings.

If your website looks sketchy, outdated, and hard to navigate, people won’t trust your site or brand. That’s why it is so important to pay attention to your website’s design. Even though it’s not an easy job and requires a lot of time and work, it’s one of the best investments you can make in building your brand.

Solution:

Suggested reading: Visual Marketing

‍Weak SEO and Social Media Marketing  

Search engine optimization is another reason why the success rate of the Shopify store is only 10 %. New Shopify sellers don’t know how to do it. Even with a good website design, and good niche products, you can still fail. A poor SEO ranking can hide your e-commerce site from search results. No one ever goes to page 6 or 7. That’s why it is so important to land on the first page of Google. If the words on your website aren’t optimized for Google, your customers won’t find your store. Blogging can help you get noticed on SERPs. The best Shopify stores have blogs.

SEO and social media are powerful marketing tools that can help you increase your brand awareness and reach your “soon-to-be” customers. They go hand in hand.

Simply being on social media isn’t enough. If you aren’t using it to communicate with your clients, drive traffic to your website and promote your products you are wasting time. Many Shopify stores don’t use social media to its full potential. What’s more, customers may become suspicious if there’s no social proof on your website. People are social beings and when they see that other people are talking about you on social media, they are more likely to trust your brand and make a purchase.

Solution:

To rank highly on Google, you can do a number of things:

• learn more about SEO;
• create high-quality content;
• find-tail keywords with low keyword difficulty and high volume;
• build backlinks to your website;
• improve your website’s loading speed;
• make sure your e-commerce store is mobile-friendly.

If you want to improve your business knowledge and increase traffic, blogs are very helpful. You might not be able to find a blog that has all the information you need about ecommerce but they can help you make more informed decisions.

Use Ahrefs to find the best keywords for your website. The words you choose will help your eshop to get noticed. When you carefully choose keywords related to the subject of your article you will start to rank higher on Google. With some good keywords in hand, you can place them all over your website. You can use them in your product titles and descriptions.

Impressive, huh? Having social media accounts may prove beneficial to you. But you don’t need to be on every social media platform. It’s time-consuming. You need to know who is your customer and which platforms they use. Instagram and YouTube are the most profitable and popular social media platforms to grow your brand. Be consistent and choose the right keywords. Motivate people to write reviews on your website. Display ratings and testimonials on your website because people trust each other more than brands.

Bad Customer Service

Many new Shopify stores fail due to poor customer service. And since people trust each other they are more likely to discuss bad customer service with one another. Imagine your friend buying a t-shirt with a fantastic design that unexpectedly shrinks in the first wash, despite following the washing instructions. When he contacts the sales manager that sold him the shirt, he says he won’t exchange it. Your friend comes to you and tells you about the experience. Would you shop there? The answer seems to be obvious. Many entrepreneurs make the fatal mistake of neglecting their customers. The lack of customer service is why many Shopify stores fail. Customer complaints are part of any business and you should know how to deal with them. If you want to win your customer’s trust and loyalty you need to provide excellent customer service.

Suggested reading: 5 Key Pillars of Customer Service

Solution:

Switch to 24/7 customer service. Make sure to respond as soon as possible to any concerns they may have when they approach you. Be patient and kind. Don’t ignore a customer who hasn’t received his order. If he or she receives a damaged product, make sure that the return policy is available to them. Demonstrate your expertise to your customers. Make sure that you have answers to all basic product/service questions. Provide a personalized customer experience through messaging, offers, and recommendations. Create personalized offers based on previous inquiries, searches, and purchases. By doing these things you can improve your customer service and make yourself stand out from your competitors.

Conclusion

Starting a successful Shopify business isn’t easy but anyone can do it if they know how to do it right. There are several reasons why Shopify stores might fail. Some might be due to a lack of marketing campaigns, poor customer service, bad SEO, lack of knowledge, or mediocre website, design. Once you understand why so many e-commerce stores fail, you will run a successful online store. These recommendations will help you increase the Shopify success rate.