Custom Automations are here! Now, you can easily design and enable your own custom email and SMS automations, giving you full flexibility with your automated marketing campaigns. By pairing this new feature with Marsello’s other tools, such as RFM Segmentation and your loyalty program, you’ll be able to create the perfect email flow or SMS Campaign that stands out and sees results.

With Custom Automations, the options are endless. Automate campaigns that send to specific customer segments or trigger when a customer makes a purchase. Automated flows are perfect for requesting reviews, creating a referral email series, offering a post-purchase follow-up service or a timely cross-sell, just to name a few ideas.

Let’s check out an example of a retailer who’s seen success using Custom Automations. 

Home Goods Hardware encourages window shoppers to complete a purchase

Window Shoppers can be notoriously tricky to convert to loyal customers. This hasn’t dissuaded Home Goods Hardware, though. The beautifully branded homewares store, based out of Australia, was one of the first to create a Custom Automation and we love their ingenuity.

The campaign features just one simple email that welcomes customers within the Window Shoppers (those who’ve created an account with the store but not completed a purchase) segment and encourages them to make a purchase with a 15% off discount code. With a 49% open rate and 7.5x ROI, Home Goods Hardware are reaping the rewards of automated marketing and we love that they’re doing so by targeting smaller customer groups. There are only 512 customers within their segment and with a 4.2% conversion rate, they’re really making the most of a potentially forgotten customer group.

Read more about Home Goods Hardware’s success with Custom Automations.

To create a similar style of Welcome Newsletter to Home Goods Hardware, try customizing and enabling the “Welcome Newsletter Sign-ups” template found at the bottom of your Automations admin. This easy-to-use template is set up to target customers who’ve only just signed up (1 hour after they’ve created an account), and encourages them to make a purchase by offering a 10% discount. Customers then exit the flow when they have made an order or the flow ends. 

Let’s take a look at how you could use Custom Automations.

Integrating customized automations into your marketing

First thing’s first, the Custom Automations feature isn’t restricted to email campaigns! With the incredible open rates of SMS marketing (as much as 5x that of email marketing), they’re a powerful tool to add to your marketing campaigns. 

This isn’t to say that email marketing is anything to be sniffed at! With a drag-and-drop email builder, customizing your emails to showcase your brand and products is as easy as selecting what content you’d like to include. 

As we mentioned, Custom Automations are perfect for asking customers to leave reviews, incentivizing referrals, following up with customers after they’ve shopped, welcoming customers who’ve shopped recently, and more. Let’s break down some of these ideas

• Requesting Reviews – The ins-and-outs of requesting reviews and customer referrals are quite similar when it comes to defining an audience; you’ll want to target customers who are loyal and have shopped recently. Add a delay to your automation that targets customers 5-7 days after their purchase, giving them time to receive the product (if bought online) and use it. Make sure to be clear where you would like them to leave a review too! If you use social media most often, add your Social Icons with the email drag-and-drop builder. 

• Incentivizing Referrals – Much the same as requesting reviews, target loyal customers! Try setting up your automation to target customers who have shopped recently (last 5-7 days), and shopped more than three times. Remind them that this is an easy way to earn loyalty points and that their friend will also receive a gift too (ensure you’ve enabled your referral program within your Loyalty Program settings).

• Post-purchase Follow-ups – If you’ve got a product that needs to be replaced regularly (subscription-based beauty products would be one example), you could create an automation flow that reminds customers to refill their order after three or so months. 

• Welcoming Customers – Welcome new customers who’ve not yet made a purchase. Similar to Home Goods Hardware’s campaign, you could target customers who have signed up within the last day but not yet made a purchase, Each message within your flow could incrementally offer your customers a slightly higher discount, encouraging them to make a purchase. Alternatively, you could simply customize and enable the Welcome Newsletter Sign-ups automation which is found within the Automations tab of your Marsello admin.

Let’s delve into the actual set-up of automated flows to help you understand these ideas a little better.

Setting up your Custom Automations

You’ll find Custom Automations under the ‘Automation’ section of ‘Marketing’ within your Marsello admin. Once you’ve elected to create a Custom Automation, you’ll have a range of options that that help you set up your automation flow.

1. Name your automation. While your customers won’t see this, it will help you to find the automation within your admin and adjust or track its results.

2. Choose your trigger. Depending on what trigger you select, this will dictate how your customers enter the automation’s funnel. This essentially means that your customers must complete a specific action to receive your automation. Your trigger options include:

   • When an order is completed – When a customer makes a purchase, they will enter the funnel for your automation.

   • When a customer enters a segment – When a customer has been added to the segment because they have met the segment conditions. This is where your Custom Segments come in useful and allow you a lot of flexibility with marketing to specific customer groups.

   • When a customer signs up – When a customer has signed up via the POS, eCommerce, or an email collection features. 

3. Choose your audience. Select which Customer Segment(s) you want to target with your automated campaign. Not only can you opt to use the pre-existing RFM segments found in Marsello, but you can also create your own segments. For example, if you wanted to create a campaign to say, “thank you for your first purchase” that’s specific to just your online customers, you could create a segment that specifically excludes customers who shop in-store. The beauty of custom segments is that you can really drill down into specific sets of customers and create targeted marketing that not only sees results but really engages those customers and helps to foster their loyalty to your brand.

4. Choose your ‘exit conditions’. These are the conditions which specify when a customer will leave the flow. There are two options, which include: 

   • ‘When a customer makes an order or completes the automation flow’ – This is the default setting and ensures that the customer will leave the flow when they complete a purchase, or (if they do not complete a purchase) they will receive the entire automation flow. This condition is best used when the goal of your campaign is to incentivize customers to make another purchase.

   • ‘When a customer completes the automation flow’ – Automations with this exit condition will deliver all messages within the flow to the customers, regardless of if they make a purchase or not. This condition is best used when the goal of your campaign is to build a relationship with your customers, encourage loyalty or provide education.

The options don’t end there when it comes to customizing your Custom Automation. Let’s take a look at the finer details of setting up your automation flow.

How to customize your automated flow

As we mentioned, with Custom Automations, you aren’t just restricted to email marketing. Why not follow up an email with an SMS to really make use of those powerful open rates? Perhaps a time delay could help improve your open rates by positioning your messaging at a better time for all customers? 

For clear instructions on how to add-to and customize your automation flow, we’ve created an in-depth help article.

Points Campaigns are the perfect tool to have up your sleeve to help drive sales on those quieter days or celebrate a special event (like a holiday).

With Points Campaigns, you will not only have the ability to run campaigns that offer extra-points-per-purchase (set over specific timeframes) – you’ll also easily be able to market these promotions to loyalty program members and track the success of your campaign with real-time reporting. Your customers will be compelled to not only shop at your store, but they will also be tempted to spend more, especially with extra bonuses like the ability to add minimum spend requirements. 

Let’s take a closer look.

How points campaigns work alongside promotional campaigns in Marsello

The Points Campaigns feature will give you the ability to run Points Multiplier or ‘Fixed-points Amount’ campaigns during set timeframes. This new campaign type is found under the Campaigns dashboard in your Marsello admin.

And the options are endless! 

Double points promotions are a common go-to (as you’ll see in the following email examples), however they’re not the only option! Points Campaigns are a powerful tool for encouraging a positive change in shopping behavior. We’ve put together just a few examples:

1. 1. Why not encourage customers back to your brick-and-mortar store with in-store only points promotions (when you can re-open your store if you were forced to close as a result of COVID-19, or if you’re finding traffic slow). With the new Points Campaigns feature, advanced options will allow you to decide which of your sites a customer must shop at to earn bonus points.

   2. Do you find your store has a midweek quiet patch? Offer bonus points that delight your customers and incentivize them to shop on those quiet days e.g. offer shoppers an extra 50 points exclusively on Tuesdays. This is called a ‘Fixed Points Amount’ campaign.

   3. Do you celebrate your store’s birthday? Why not promote the event with a points promotion and campaign that encourages your customers to celebrate with you and receive bonus points for a limited time. Encourage your customers to spend more by setting a minimum spend amount per order.

   4. Are you just about to launch a loyalty program? Add even more excitement and incentive for your customers to join by offering bonus points for your loyalty program’s first month! Simply specify the start and end dates of your campaign.

One powerful way to promote your points campaign is through Email and SMS. It’s important to note that these should be scheduled to coincide with the timing of your Points Campaign.

Read more: 7 Steps To Building A Profitable Loyalty & Rewards Program

Merchants using points campaigns to drive customer engagement

Let’s take a look at how some merchants are using points promotion campaigns to attract customers and encourage purchases. 

Urban Outfitters Offers Double Points

Urban Outfitters recently made the effort to delight and excite their loyalty program members! The multi-national, powerhouse brand offered double points for all online purchases of homewares for a limited time, helping them to capture customers at a time when many can’t access brick-and-mortar stores (no thanks to Covid-19) and online sales have seen a remarkable increase. 

Urban Outfitters cleverly teamed their promotion with an email campaign that features stand-out design decisions like GIFs and high-quality images. By not specifying exactly when the offer ends, UO also cleverly creates a sense of urgency that the deal won’t last long and that customers should shop soon. Notice that they keep the images simple with minimal text and the focus being on the essential details and then product examples that encourage the customer to shop. Campaigns like this really stand out and help to see high conversion rates and quick returns on investment.

It’s all about timing too! And we don’t just mean when the emails are sent and received. Urban Outfitters are cleverly offering this deal on homewares at a time when customers are spending a lot of time at home and likely to be intrigued by a refresh of their home decor.

One Love Organics Shares All The Details

One Love Organics like to keep things simple when it comes to design. Their branding and visuals are always fresh and inviting with stylish design choices and color palettes that pop when paired together. ONO’s recent points promotion campaign was no different.

2. A unique brand

Your brand is your calling card – it’s what makes your store memorable long after the sale is complete. Developing your unique brand can help you stand out in the crowded marketplace and lead to big rewards. Some things to think about when you build your brand:

• • • Your brand’s voice: think of this as your brand’s personality. It should be consistent across all of your marketing materials and so distinct from your close competitors that, even without seeing the brand name, consumers recognize it as yours. Your brand voice might be edgy, playful, refined, or practical – just make sure it fits your target market and that it’s consistent.

    • Your brand’s value proposition: show consumers what they’ll get from your store, and your store alone. This should communicate your brand’s value and why you’re a better choice over the competition. Figure out what problem your store solves for customers and how you meet their needs in a way that others don’t.

    • Your brand’s story: a story gets customers emotionally invested in your brand. It may include the reasons you started your business or the progress you made over the years to become the company you are today. A captivating narrative helps customers feel like they know your brand well, which makes them more likely to choose you over a less familiar company.

Singapore-based lingerie retailer, Our Bralette Club, offers an excellent example of a brand story that speaks directly to its target market and simultaneously offers outstanding customer service.

3. One-of-a-kind products with compelling product pages

Offering unique products that aren’t available elsewhere gives customers a reason to shop from your eCommerce store instead of exploring another company. And how you present those products matters, too. Compelling product details and visuals help consumers come to a buying decision, giving them the confidence to finalize their purchase.

Having one-of-a-kind products doesn’t necessarily mean inventing something completely new. In some cases, it might simply mean changing the look of a product to cater to your particular customer base. If everyone else is offering an accessory in standard black and white colors, consider adding a hot pink or patterned version to your product selection.

Your product pages need a few essentials to meet customer expectations. Transparent pricing and details, such as size, color options, and materials, help consumers make an informed selection. To make your product pages more engaging, add descriptive copy that entices the customer and pictures that show the product in a variety of contexts.

Include fun and personalization in your product pages. Witty copy or creative photos help sell products that aren’t particularly exciting on their own. Showing customization options with a range of features prove that you can meet your buyers’ individual needs. (Remember to use humor only if it’s appropriate for your audience, message, and brand.)

Avoid bogging down your product pages with too much information. It should be easy for your site visitors to find the information they need. Creating a clear, consistent template across all of your product pages helps customers compare multiple items to make their selection.

This product page from NaturallyCurly offers an example of clear product information (including ingredients, a description of what customers can expect, and details on how to use the product), a high-quality product image photo that accurately sets customer's expectations, and they even go the extra mile with the addition of customer reviews (take note of the rave review this customer has about NaturallyCurly’s customer service, helping customers to feel confident in the brand):

It’s worth mentioning that clear product descriptions, high-quality images, proper tagging and categorization of products, and add-ons like customer reviews also help with SEO and will improve the likelihood of acquiring new customers organically.

4. Competitive price point

Pricing can make or break a sale, but this doesn’t mean that you need to undercut everyone else to capture market share. If your prices are higher than the competition, showcase the reasons why. 

This product page from évolis Australia dives into the specific details about this hair product to let customers know what it is that makes it stand out and why they should buy it instead of potentially similar products on the market. By drawing customers' attention to ingredients in the product and reinforcing that it was designed by industry professionals, shoppers will feel more confident that they're purchasing a product that will serve their needs as expected.

5. Easy-to-navigate site

Ease of navigation affects how long visitors stay on your page, and the longer a visitor lingers, the more likely they are to buy. Put navigation buttons in an easy-to-find place on every page so customers can quickly access your home page or their checkout cart.

Watersports supplies store, Splash, has an easily navigable and visually enticing online store. Drop-down navigation menus at the top of each Splash page make it easy for customers to quickly access specific categories based on what specialized equipment they may be shopping for, and a link to the customer’s cart offers quick checkout capability.

The Featured categories section is another way Splash reinforces its visual aesthetics and easy-to-use navigation. It works as a quick way to get shoppers where they need to go, in a much more visual-forward way than does the main navigation bar.

Page load speed is another aspect of site design you need to consider. When your site takes too long to load, consumers are likely to go elsewhere to find what they need. Set up separate versions for computer users and mobile users to optimize loading and presentation.

6. Streamlined checkout process

With an overall cart abandonment rate of 55% to 80% for online merchants, developing a streamlined checkout process is one way to keep customers around until the sale is complete. Here are some ways to ensure that checkout goes as smoothly as possible:

1. 1. 1. Create a clear, simple way for customers to add items to their cart. A button with the words “Add To Cart” should be displayed prominently on each product page.

      2. Include a button on each page that takes customers immediately to the payment page. A “Buy Now” or “Pay Now” button helps to encourage impulse purchases.

      3. Let customers quickly peruse what they already have in their carts. A drop-down visual enables them to check the contents in their cart without leaving the product page, making it easier for them to add new items. Also, show a summary of all items in the cart whenever a new item is added.

      4. Eliminate barriers to buying. Give customers a way to buy as a guest instead of having to register with your site to make a purchase, and offer multiple payment options to ensure buyers aren’t deterred by not having the right type of payment method.

For a good example of a simplified checkout, look at the Heirloom Traditions Paint page below. The drop-down cart menu lets customers see everything in the cart without leaving the shopping page.

7. Run a referral program

A good referral program can differentiate your eCommerce business by creating a relationship with customers that turns them into brand ambassadors. About 83% of people say they trust recommendations from friends or family members, making word of mouth a valuable way to introduce your unique brand to new customers.

To create a referral program that stands out from eCommerce competitors, meet your customers where they are. That might mean rewarding customers for referrals on social media or embedding the referral program details on your main page to make sure site visitors know about it. You can integrate your referral program into an overall reward program, as wellness and beauty brand, Switch2Pure, does in the example below:

Another way to create an attention-getting referral program is to offer a bonus that’s more than just a small discount. Consumers are used to seeing referral programs that provide 10% to 25% off for each referral, but a program that gives them a free item or exclusive access to specific products will make them eager to refer someone to your store.

8. Implement a cohesive content strategy

Making your content strategy cohesive and consistent helps establish your identity in a crowded eCommerce marketplace. Treat content creation as a thoughtful process, and consider how each piece you create fits into your overall brand.

Understanding your brand and precisely identifying your target market helps you maintain this kind of consistency. Figure out exactly what your customers want and need, and show them how your products provide it. Kate Quinn’s Little One of the Week blog features real children wearing the store’s products. This user-generated content is actively targeted to customers and encourages them to share their own content with the brand as well.

9. Personalize, personalize, personalize

Personalization gives customers the impression that your brand speaks directly to their needs. Some ways to achieve a sense of personalization in your eCommerce store include:

Personalized product recommendations

Show items that the customer has previously viewed or complementary products to goods they’ve already purchased. The example below shows how Heirloom Traditions Paint incorporates this concept into their email marketing. By showcasing related products in an automated email flow that thanks first-time customers, the Kentucky-based paint supplier is actively targeting recently acquired customers with data from shoppers just like them, while also offering an astounding discount of 30% off:

With a variety of options to choose from, Marsello’s Email Campaign Templates Library gives you numerous designs for creating stylish newsletters, announcements (such as sales and promotions), updates on stock, and more using the One-off Email Campaigns feature! Each template is designed so you easily create beautifully on-brand emails that see results, without hours of effort and edits.

Let’s dig a little deeper and learn about each template type.

Basic Templates

With full customization available, the basic email templates allow you to edit the design of each email so that it best suits your store’s brand, helping your customers to instantly recognize who they’re receiving mail from. You’ll have the flexibility to create emails that truly embody your store without having to start those email designs from scratch.

Themed Templates

Created by professional designers with years of experience in email marketing, these templates are ready for you to simply add in your store’s branding and relevant content, review, then send! With everything from color palettes to fonts, themed templates are designed to do the hard yards for you.

Custom Templates

This is where things get really exciting! You can now create your own custom templates, allowing you to save the designs of emails you know your customers love so that you can use those designs again in the future. Either save a previous campaign as a template or start from scratch and create your own email marketing masterpiece. 

Final Words

Email templates allow you to easily replicate the same style throughout your communications and create a recognizable experience for your customers. In turn, your customers look forward to your emails and the likelihood of them engaging with your communication efforts increases. Increase your email marketing ROI and start exploring and designing emails that excite new shoppers and loyal customers alike.

Excited to start using email templates? Learn how to navigate Marsello’s Email Template Library and get ready to start using them for yourself.

12.6% of Madame Fancy Pants' contact tracing customers have accepted marketing!

One merchant that has seen a 12.6% increase in customers who accept marketing from the Contact Tracing Forms is Madame Fancy Pants (MFP), a Wellington, New Zealand-based retailer who specializes in high-quality designer clothing. Since enabling the form, MFP has been able to not only track the customers who visit their physical store (allowing them to be compliant with current New Zealand retail practices) but also increase their marketing outreach and customer loyalty with a marketing opt-in at the bottom of their form. We can’t wait to see how they reach out to these customers in the future.

Final words

We’ve covered the importance of contact tracing, how to set up your forms, and even seen a store that is reaping the rewards. Now it’s up to you to create your own COVID-19 Contact Tracing form and create the opportunity to offer your customers a safe shopping experience to keep them coming back.

Floating Panel

This widget design slides in from the side of the viewer’s screen. With smaller image size options, rounded corners, and a ‘floating’ appearance, this eye-catching display will be sure to inform and entice customers. 

We love what Good Dog has done with their widget design, opting for a cute dog-bone print as their primary image and including their store name. With a simple set of percentage discounts as their rewards, Good Dog makes it easy for their customers to earn rewards, and to decide which rewards they’d like to redeem.

Slide Panel

Similar to the floating panel, this crisp design was created with sharp lines, defined corners, and sitting flush against the side of the page of an online store. You’ll notice that the image option for this widget is also small, creating a compact widget that suits fresh, clean branding. NatureMills, a Californian natural and organic food retailer, is a wonderful example of this widget style with clean, on-brand imagery and colors, generous rewards, and simple design choices. 

Loyalty tabs to encourage customer interaction

The loyalty tab is also customizable! This great little addition to your store is the initial view that customers have of your loyalty program. It encourages them to explore your loyalty options, shop with you time and time again, and know when they can next redeem a reward or earn points. The tab is like a sign saying, “Welcome, come on in’, to your potential and current loyalty customers.

Let’s take a quick look at the new design types.

Resting

The resting tab is a rectangular shape with rounded upper corners. You can add an icon and/or text to this tab style and design where it will sit on your online store, although its placement is restricted to the edges of the screen, this means that your customer will always be able to see the tab as it’s connected to the edge of your online store.

Circle

The circular tab is smaller than the other options, designed to be discreet yet eye-catching. It floats on your online store which means that you can place it almost anywhere on your online store and it will ‘float’ down the page as the customer scrolls. Although you can add an icon to this tab, you cannot add text.

Floating

The floating tab design is rectangular and features rounded corners; it’s also ‘floating’. With the ability to add both text and/or icons, this tab is a great way to attract customers to your rewards through a call-to-action such as ‘see our rewards’.

Marsello 

Marsello can help you develop a customer loyalty program that lets you reward customer behaviors that benefit your business. You can also streamline and uplevel your marketing initiatives with automated, customizable email, promotional campaigns, and highly effective SMS text messaging service.

Benefits for Your Business

In the retail business realm, having a steady stream of loyal customers who purchase from you again and again is like hitting the jackpot. Marsello can help you achieve that by powering an attractive loyalty program plus automating your marketing and customer communications. That way, you can focus on growing your business and serving shoppers better.

Spin-a-Sale

The popular Spin-a-Sale app demonstrates retail gamification at its best. When a visitor enters their email address, this interactive pop-up displays a spinning prize wheel that settles on a random, one-time discount. Visitors can use those discounts on your eCommerce site.  

Benefits for Your Business

Visitors are likely to stay engaged with your emails and prize wheels, helping to boost your email signup rate and build customer loyalty. And, discount-laden shoppers are more likely to jump on your eCommerce site and make a purchase. This app easily adds subscribers to your Shopify customer list and automated email integrations.

 Yotpo

This customer-themed eCommerce marketing platform enables you to easily collect favorable customer reviews and referrals, plus photos and videos. Yotpo’s powerful marketing tools can spur on-the-fence visitors to become enthusiastic customers.

Benefits for Your Business

Favorable customer reviews and referrals attract new customers who already have a positive impression of your business. Showcasing customer videos and photos on your website helps to strengthen your customer relationships and build customer loyalty.  

Financials

Tracking your online business’ financial indicators is especially crucial right now, so arm your business with solid financial apps. Here are some suggestions.

SimplyCost ‑ Profit Tracking 

Tracking your business’ expenses and profit is important, but you don’t want to spend excessive amounts of time getting the answers you need. SimplyCost – Profit Tracking automatically calculates your store’s profit after considering all recurring and one-time expenses associated with your sales.

Benefits for Your Business

SimplyCost – Profit Tracking helps you save time by effortlessly calculating your store’s profits. By generating fast custom reports, you can gauge your store’s performance and determine your most profitable products. This valuable data will help you to execute better business decisions.

Social Media

Wide-ranging “stay at home” orders are keeping potential customers within their homes for weeks on end. With viewers constantly browsing their social feeds, smart retailers are executing compelling social media initiatives that will ideally translate into completed sales.

Messenger Channel

While customers interact with your store’s Facebook Page, they can also buy products from your online Messenger store. If shoppers have questions, you can address them in Messenger. You’ll be able to fulfill Messenger-based orders through Shopify and track your Facebook sales through your Analytics pages.

Benefits for Your Business

When customers order products while chatting on Facebook Messenger, you receive that sales revenue. At the same time, you’re engaging with customers, which boosts your profile and encourages relationship building and long-term loyalty.

HelpCenter

You want to provide good customer service, but spending time on emails and live chats is time-consuming. Instead, the Help Center app posts frequently asked questions on a searchable Help Center Page. Customize the page to match your brand, and offer services in varied languages.

Benefits for Your Business

By serving your customers via the Help Center app, you’ll provide valuable details on your store and its offerings. You’ll spend much less time answering questions, enabling you to focus on helping your business grow.

SEO Image Optimizer – Auto SEO

Recognize the value of SEO-optimized images, but don’t have the time or expertise to handle these tasks yourself? With a one-click installation, the SEO Image Optimizer – Auto SEO app monitors and optimizes your store daily to comply with Google’s best image search practices.  

Benefits for Your Business

This hardworking app will automatically optimize your images to comply with Google’s best image search criteria. As a result, you’ll be favorably positioned in Google’s search rankings.

Plug in SEO

The one-stop, Plug in SEO app fixes existing SEO issues with your Shopify store. The app also optimizes your blog, adds valuable keyword tools, and performs updates as search engines change their algorithms.

Benefits for Your Business

Your improved SEO position will drive more organic traffic to your store. Better-optimized SEO also helps to improve your search engine rankings.

SEO Manager

This value-packed SEO package includes varied tools, and real-time feedback, designed to help your store rank better in search engines. SEO Manager also identifies and automatically repairs your website’s broken links.

Benefits for Your Business

SEO Manager helps you to improve your search engine rankings. In turn, your store enhances its online visibility and will likely see increased traffic to your eCommerce store.

Inventory Management & Order Fulfillment

With more people shopping online, efficient order processing has become extremely important. Ecommerce merchants need an order fulfillment system that handles all transaction aspects. Brick-and-mortar stores need a proven tool that helps them to manage their curbside pickups and delivery orders.

Shippo

Processing orders through several sales channels can be a laborious process. Shippo syncs your channels so you can manage your orders on a single platform. You can also generate discounted shipping levels, efficiently track your shipments, and update your customers.

Benefits for Your Business

Shippo’s time-saving order processing and tracking app saves time and reduces your frustration factor. This all-in-one solution reduces duplication of effort, giving you more time for higher-value tasks.

ShippingEasy

If you regularly ship via the United States Postal Service (or USPS), the ShippingEasy app can save you money on domestic and international shipping costs. You’ll receive a free Postal Service postage account, plus discounted rates on all services. ShippingEasy also supports delivery to APO/FPO/DPO locations. 

Plus, you can print labels in batches, avoiding laborious one-at-a-time printing tasks. As an added bonus, ShippingEasy boasts an award-winning support team.

Benefits for Your Business

ShippingEasy’s discounted USPS shipping rates will certainly save you money, and the savings will increase with your processed volume. Printing labels in batches will also save valuable time. 

Stocky

Managing your store’s inventory is a balancing act. You don’t want to run out of popular products, but you also don’t want to tie up too much money in inventory. Stocky enables you to manage your purchase orders from one location, and you’ll quickly learn when it’s time to replenish stock. Use Stocky’s data to evaluate inventory and make decisions accordingly.

Benefits for Your Business

By giving you an accurate inventory snapshot, Stocky helps you to avoid spending your hard-earned cash on excessive stock. When an item reaches the “Replenish Now” level, you’ll get an immediate alert. This timely data makes it much easier to gauge your ongoing inventory needs.

Store Pickup + Delivery

Retailers of all sizes can benefit from having store pickup and delivery options, so this app is a game-changer. Store Pickup + Delivery, you can implement local delivery and curbside pickup, while keeping your shipping calendar clean and up-to-date.

Benefits for Your Business

Utilizing the curbside pick-up method saves you money on picking, packaging, and shipping costs. Local product delivery is a desirable concierge service. Social-distancing customers will appreciate these options for receiving their products with minimal risk. By offering these choices, you’ll help to build customer loyalty and encourage repeat business.

Now Back In Stock

This handy app tells your customers when their desired out-of-stock items are now available for purchase. Send alerts via email or SMS text messaging, and customize the messages to reflect your store’s brand.

Benefits for Your Business

Because the customer already wants to purchase a “Now Back in Stock” item, you’ll likely generate a sale. By obtaining the customer’s email and mobile contact information, you can add the customer to upcoming marketing campaigns. You’ll also promote customer loyalty by offering this desirable service.

Your turn

Now we’d love to hear from you. Which Shopify apps are invaluable to your store during these times? Let us know in the comments. 

Outfy

Social Sharing Buttons

Build custom eCommerce website pages with Shogun’s versatile drag-and-drop page builder. Professionally designed home page, landing page, blog pages, and product pages templates are compatible with your existing theme. Compare completed pages for metrics’ results, and evaluate marketing campaigns with targeted analytics.

Benefits for Your Business

Your well-coordinated eCommerce website will enhance your business’ online credibility. Concurrently, you can compare the effectiveness of different pages and marketing campaigns. The comparisons’ results will help you make adjustments that can move your business forward.

Lucky Orange

LiveChat + Product Cards

Quick Facebook Chat

Live Chat for Slack

While you’re on the Slack communications platform, use the Live Chat for Slack app to chat with visitors. Customize the chat backdrop with your logo and other helpful visuals. Then, send visitors directly to your eCommerce store. While they’re browsing your site, convert them to email list subscribers and followers, and ideally to paying customers.

Benefits for Your Business

By putting Live Chat for Slack into your communications mix, you’ll save money on a third-party chat platform. You’ll also maintain better control of the customer conversion sequence, increasing your chances of turning visitors into paying customers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

You may need to temporarily tighten advertising purse strings. To get customers to your eCommerce sites and brick-and-mortar stores, you must take steps to drive organic traffic to your business.

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Note: While this tactic can be effective, your marketing efforts shouldn’t be exploitive. For example, if you’re an apparel retailer that’s suddenly selling hand sanitizer, you’ll only forge distrust with consumers – and potentially get your ads banned.  

Sites like Facebook are prohibiting exploitive tactics in ads by banning promotions for things like face masks.

If you’re planning to market relevant products, stick with items that are already in your catalog or ones that are truly in line with your brand. 

3. Tap into influencer and community marketing

Digital content consumption is likely to increase in the coming days and weeks as more people turn to the web. Consumers are spending more time on websites and social media – with most doing it to pass the time, keep up with the latest news, and seek inspiration and entertainment.

Consider tapping into that online attention by teaming up with influencers or even your existing customers. Send them product samples or create joint content pieces together. 

Encourage your community to tag you in their posts. Emphasize the fact that with many businesses being forced to close, customer engagement (even if it comes from no-cost actions like liking or sharing posts) goes a long way. 

Check out this post from home decor store Pretty Little Home, which thanks customers for the support that the community has shown the business. 

“Whether it’s a like, tag, share, or order on the website... It really means the world especially at a time like this,” read the post. 

4. Spread the goodwill

We’ve known for a while that good deeds and corporate social responsibility can drive customer engagement and loyalty. That’s why if your business can afford it, consider launching an initiative designed to help those in need during this crisis. 

It can be a charitable campaign, a special offer for the less fortunate, or even a job opportunity. One brand that’s doing this well is the fitness store Gymshark. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, many gyms have been forced to close their doors, resulting in trainers and fitness instructors losing their source of income. 

To help out, Gymshark announced that it’s offering an hourly rate to personal trainers struggling to find work. Trainers would be doing online workouts in partnership with the brand and earn money while they’re at it. 

The post was widely shared on Instagram and thousands of people liked and commented on the post. 

5. Constantly reassure your customers

Building trust is more important than ever. You won’t be able to drive sales if shoppers don’t feel safe and secure buying from you. That’s why you need to constantly reassure your customers about the health and safety precautions that you’re taking to keep everyone safe from COVID-19.

How often are you cleaning and sanitizing your store? What are you doing to protect your staff? What measures are you taking to protect your customers? Be specific and outline everything in your customer communications assets (e.g., email, social media, in-store signage). 

A good example of this practice in action comes from LA Cafe in Downtown Los Angeles. While the restaurant is closed to diners, LA Cafe still accepts online orders that can be picked up or delivered. 

To make people feel safe about ordering, LA Cafe published a detailed post outlining everything that it’s doing to address COVID-19 concerns. 

6. Run promotions

If sales are slow (and they likely are during this period), it may be a good idea to run a promotion to entice people to buy. 

Do note that you’ll be competing with plenty of other brands for shoppers’ attention, so you want your promotions to be as relevant as possible. The best way to do this is to send offers based on each customer’s shopping history and brand interactions. 

Consider the case of the designer footwear retailer Bulo Shoes, which couples Marsello's loyalty program with email marketing automation to send marketing messages that are always on-point. With Marsello’s help, Bulo Shoes’ automated emails are set up in segments based on customers’ previous behaviors. The store runs separate automated campaigns for first-time customers, abandoned cart recovery, lapsed customers, and to wish customers ‘Happy Birthday’. 

By sending automated emails that are triggered by customers’ actions, Bulo Shoes are able to reach out to customers in the most relevant and timely way, and thus maximize both revenue and customer engagement.

What if you can’t sell or fulfill orders?

The new measures and policies around COVID-19 have been particularly tough on SMBs that are deemed “non-essential”. In addition to store closures, some businesses have been forced to shut down their offices, facilities, and fulfillment centers to slow the spread of the virus. In such cases selling and fulfilling orders – even those made online – isn’t achievable at this time. 

If you’re in this predicament, try the following tactics:

Delay shipments and offer generous rewards

If you can still technically sell online but are unable to fulfill orders, you could run special promotions to get people to buy. That’s what Madame Fancy Pants, a Wellington-based retailer is doing. Due to the coronavirus, the team at Madame Fancy Pants are unable to ship out products in the time being. But they’re still taking orders online, with the commitment to fulfill those orders once isolation measures have been lifted. 

To encourage people to buy, Madame Fancy Pants sent out a one-off email campaign using Marsello. The email lets their customers know that Madame Fancy Pants will be rewarding shoppers with double loyalty points for their full-priced purchases.

Enable Wishlists

Another tactic for keeping your customers interested and excited while you’re unable to fill their orders is to allow them to create wishlists of the items you usually stock. Check out our recent blog on top apps for Shopify for ideas on which apps you could use to integrate this feature into your store. 

Wellington-based pet products retailer, Smack Bang, have done a wonderful job of communicating this recent update with their customers through their social media channels. Check out this Facebook post (note that they’ve even pinned it to ensure customers see the update) that lets their customers know that although they’ve had to shut up shop with the COVID-19 lockdown enforced in New Zealand, their customers can now create wishlists on the Smack Bang online store. 

Consider digital products 

If possible, sell digital products like ebooks, digital art, online consultations, or even courses. 

One retailer that’s currently promoting digital products is Vroman’s, Southern California’s oldest independent bookstore. Like many other retailers, Vroman’s had to temporarily shut down its operations because of the coronavirus. 

To continue driving sales, Vroman’s is encouraging shoppers to purchase its ebooks and audiobooks instead, and the bookshop provides instructions on how to do this on social media and on its website. 

Sell gift cards

If you’re not offering gift cards online yet, now is the time to sell and promote them. Digital gift cards give your customers the chance to support your business so you can secure much-needed income. In turn, your shoppers can enjoy your products and services once this crisis is over. 

Consider the example of Pink Marble Studio, which offers lashes, nails, and waxing services. The company recently started offering gift cards online that customers can redeem at a later time.

Retail tip: For more results, sell these gift certificates at a discount rate to further entice your customers to make a purchase. 

Keep up with social media and content marketing 

Just because you can’t sell online, doesn’t mean you can’t connect with your customers. Maintain an active presence online by regularly updating your social media accounts and sharing valuable, ‘non-salesy’ content with your audience. 

Doing so will help you grow your platform, traffic, and follower counts so that when business picks up again, you can hit the ground running. 

We love this example from Australian wholefood retailer, Bare Wholefoods:

Bare Wholefoods cleverly show that they’re still actively and safely delivering customers’ orders with a photo of outgoing orders ready for shipping. They add a message of genuine gratitude to their customers for their continued loyalty and support. Updates like this help customers to feel confident that they will get the products they’ve ordered, and also gives them the morale boost of knowing they’re helping support the local economy. 

Notify customers with stock updates

Chances are you’ll find that changes to shipping or production translate to slower restocking times – you may even find yourself out of stock or running low before you can restock, but there’s plenty you can do to keep your customers shopping with you.

We’ve mentioned using wishlist tools that enable customers to create lists of items they’d like to buy that aren’t currently available, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Why not let your customers know when their desired items are back in stock and actively prompt them to shop with you.

Online multi-brand retailer, The Iconic does a great job of this. When an item or size is out of stock, customers with a registered account are prompted to automatically at the item to their wishlist and sign-up for a ‘back in stock’ email, all through a beautifully designed pop-up. Notice the clever addition of product recommendations that may get customers to shop in that session anyway.

BigCommerce is cementing itself as a popular eCommerce solution offering merchants a range of competitive features, no transaction fees, and an incredibly user-friendly platform. 

Whether you're a brick and mortar shop looking to go online for the first time or have already run eCommerce sites in the past, you'll get the hang of BigCommerce in a snap. 

The platform also offers an expansive selection of apps that easily integrate to support merchants – no matter whether they need solutions for accounting, inventory, or sales. 

An expansive selection is great, of course, but of the hundreds of apps in various diverse categories, a little guidance can go a long way in selecting those that are going to best support your retail business.

To save you hours sifting through reviews and user information, we've gone and done it for you and found the best BigCommerce apps to meet your store's needs.

1. Lightspeed

Point of sale, inventory, and reporting tools are a must for every merchant, both online and offline, and Lightspeed brings users all of those tools – POS, inventory, and reporting, as well as customer engagement – to remove the hassle of managing a business. 

The Lightspeed app makes it easy to manage sales, customers, products, and inventory from one easy to use platform. BigCommerce merchants can integrate with Lightspeed, so their sales, inventory, and customer data are synced seamlessly across both platforms. 

Lightspeed and BigCommerce give you everything you need to power your retail business online and in-store.

With these two solutions, you can remove the complexity out of going omnichannel. You can on top of your sales, stock, and customers while Lightspeed POS and BigCommerce stay perfectly in sync. You can even sell on your favorite social media and marketplaces!

- Francesca Nicasio, Content Marketing Manager, Lightspeed Retail

Engaging and communicating with your customers is a MUST if you want to keep them coming back, and this one of the reasons why you want to have Marsello in your retail toolkit. 

Marsello is marketing automation and loyalty software that enables you to run personalized, data-driven campaigns at scale with added tools like customer segmentation and feedback collection. You can use Marsello to create email and SMS campaigns tailored to each user based on their purchase history, behavior, and previous interactions with your brand. 

On the loyalty side, Marsello lets you create a rewards program that works seamlessly across your eCommerce and brick and mortar shop, so your customers can earn and redeem perks no matter where or how they're shopping!

  3. Xero Accounting

Accounting is a task that very few business owners enjoy. However, thanks to the beautiful integration of Xero Accounting on the BigCommerce platform, accounting need not be a chore. 

Your store can be easily connected with your accounting software for a seamless flow of information, with your online and offline data and accounts perfectly in sync. Xero covers payments, payroll, inventory, invoicing, expenses, and performance reporting, which is all mobile compatible for quick insights. 

4. ShipStation

Importing, managing, and shipping orders is an arduous process that requires tech power to reign in and refine. ShipStation is just the tool to cover BigCommerce users.  

With ShipStation, eCommerce merchants can import orders from all selling channels into a single platform, manage them with custom automation, and ship through all the best carriers. The platform also makes returns easy, allows for next-level branding and marketing, and offers first-class user support. 

With ShipStation, you can say "goodbye" to copying and pasting. Seamlessly sync your orders from BigCommerce and all your selling channels into a single platform to automate nearly every step of your shipping process. Save time and money with the fastest, easiest way to get products to your customers and provide an exceptional post-purchase experience and a little peace of mind with your own branded tracking page. 

- Adam Foster, Content Marketing Director at ShipStation

  5. Shogun

Successful eCommerce stores need sites that visually stun and captivate audiences. Shogun enables BigCommerce users to create this through their powerful page builder and content management system. 

BigCommerce users can build landing pages, blog pages, product pages, and more with the intuitive Shogun drag and drop page builder. These pages are then easily optimized to perform through AB testing, and once in use, the system also provides analytics and marketing features to schedule campaigns, and measure performance.

Bigcommerce merchants have discovered that the simplicity of using our page builder not only gives them control over their storefront, but it's also helping them save on costs by greatly reducing development hours and time to market. It's empowering their marketing teams to maintain and implement site changes quickly without having to submit engineering tickets.

- Phill Moorman, Director of Marketing, Shogun

6. Lucky Orange

Understanding why your visitors don't convert is the most valuable tool to enable you to make changes to your business to ensure that they do. Lucky Orange helps you to do this. 

Lucky Orange eliminates guesswork and gives merchants clear insight into how to optimize their site for more sales. They do this by tagging and tracking visitor behavior in all areas of the site's usability with Sales Chat, Recordings, Form Analytics, Dynamic Heatmaps, Polls, and more.

“BigCommerce merchants use our software every day to find ways to turn more visitors into customers. The most important thing we want merchants to understand is that getting more people to “add to cart” isn’t guesswork. You don’t have to rely on assumptions to find the problems people are running into on your website when you can watch a session replay of exactly where a person clicked and scrolled on your site or look at form analytics to see where most people are getting stuck and abandoning your website.”

- Danny Wajcman, Chief Operating Officer, Lucky Orange

Order and inventory management, when done well, significantly increases business performance. While it's the universal goal of merchants to boost business performance, managing orders and inventory can require a helping hand. 

Integrated with BigCommerce, Pulse Commerce helps merchants with real-time visibility and control of their inventory, orders, and customers across all sales channels – i.e., in-store, eCommerce website, and marketplaces.  With a 360-degree view of each customer order and interaction history, modifications are easy, and issues resolved quickly. 

Dealing with customers abroad can prove challenging, but there are tools like Zonos Checkout to simplify the process for merchants and make international transactions and interactions much more streamlined. 

The Zonos BigCommerce integration makes cross border transactions simple with landed cost, localization, and compliance to enhance the buying experience for international customers. The Zonos app covers duties and taxes, currency conversion, payment solutions, and fraud coverage. 

Without backups, an unexpected crash or hack can bring down your entire eCommerce business. Without a backup, there is nothing to bring back, and a new build may be required. To ensure that never happens to your store, you can leverage Rewind Backups.  

Rewind Backups on BigCommerce completes daily, automated backups to keep essential data stored, secure, and retrievable should something unexpected occur. It also allows you to quickly undo unwanted changes in just a few clicks, eliminating the need for CSV exports and saving significantly on downtime. 

Rewind® protects the data that runs your eCommerce business. BigCommerce backs up its platform – not your store. This means product catalogs, pages, themes, and more can be lost should something go wrong. Human error, malicious attacks, or third-party apps can all compromise or accidentally delete your data. And recreating a store can take hours, even days. With Rewind, you can quickly undo unwanted changes and never worry about making an irreversible mistake again.

- Ryan Gibson, Content & Comms Manager at Rewind.io

In need of shipment tracking and delivery updates software? Look no further than the Aftership app for BigCommerce users, which supports all your carriers, including UPS, FedEx, USPS, DHL, and 400 more.

The free Aftership app allows BigCommerce users to track all of their shipments in one place while giving their customers a powerful delivery experience where they can check the delivery status, and submit requests in just a few clicks. Tracking pages can also be customized with the merchant's logo, store URL, and imagery to boost brand recognition.

11. Printful

Want to sell custom-designed apparel and other goods but don't want to hoard stock? Printful, through BigCommerce, is a print-on-demand dropshipping app that allows merchants to print branded products, without needing ever to have them in-house. 

Printful helps with free design templates, warehousing, order fulfillment, and discounted samples so that merchants can try products before they sell them, as well as 24/7 customer support. 

Positive product and brand reviews have the power to boost conversions and compel new customers to buy. It makes sense, then, to use them on your eCommerce site, wherever possible to influence your customer to act. 

Kudobuzz makes this process easy. Through the Kudobuzz app, BigCommerce users can collect reviews from social channels like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and more, to then show them on the eCommerce site via clean, customizable widgets. Reviews from other apps are easy to import into Kudobuzz for future use.

Customer content is a powerful tool to harness in the exercise of branding. Just as customers trust the reviews of their peers, they also trust the social pictures of their peers using products that they are considering. 

Pixlee helps BigCommerce users to connect with and leverage customer content to deliver personalized content in any marketing channel. The platform allows merchants to connect with their customers, collect customer-created content identified through tagging or hashtags, gain permission, and publish, all from one place. 

Skubana is a distributed order management platform that facilitates fulfillment, inventory, and business intelligence for brands operating across multiple channels. 

Through BigCommerce, Skubana synchronizes data from sales channels, warehouses, 3PLs, POS systems, and wherever else it can be found, so that merchants can focus on what matters: customer experience. With Skubana, merchants can sell direct-to-everywhere, automate operational responsibilities, and transform multi-channel complexity into singular clarity.

Instant customer service chat is powerful to resolve questions and help customers move through to make purchases. The LiveChat chat widget for BigCommerce makes it incredibly easy to set this up and go live. 

LiveChat allows brands to communicate with shoppers while they browse, answering all incoming sales and support questions, and even making product recommendations in the live chat widget. The app comes with a pre-installed chat dashboard and lets merchants monitor the results of the chat activities, right in the BigCommerce dashboard.

16. Affirm

Alternative payment solutions are becoming increasingly more common across the world, and of them, buy now, pay later (BNPL) is one of the most widely adopted by both customers and merchants. 

Affirm is one such app that integrates with BigCommerce and allows shoppers to pay their goods off over time, giving merchants the ability to secure more sales, while offering more agile solutions to their customers. The Affirm app shows customers what their payments could look like based on their shopping cart price. And on the backend, it provides merchants with insights into their customer's journey and preferences.

Final Words

While there's no magic bullet that can solve all your retail problems, the apps mentioned in the post can certainly help you take your business to the next level. Whether you have a brick-and-mortar store, an eCommerce site, or both, you can use the solutions mentioned above to streamline your operations, increase customer loyalty, and boost your bottom line