Shopify is by far the best e-commerce solution available to businesses who wish to sell products online. Sure, larger concerns may write their own customised e-commerce systems, but Shopify is so good that there is hardly anything that it cannot do. It has many options and most you will never even touch. Our clients that require an e-commerce solution are surprised about how quickly implementation can be accomplished.

How We Do It

In its most basic form, you create your products on your Shopify store and then simply link them with JavaScript generated by the store, that you paste on your own website. The JavaScript maintains a live link between your store and website. Any updates made in your store are instantly updated on your website.

Clicking on Add to Cart takes you to a checkout procedure that is easy to complete. From adding a product to the cart, right through to receiving funds in your account, everything is managed by Shopify, even for South African customers.

There are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Do not host your website with Shopify. While doing this actually adds a lot more functionality to the store, there are a number of drawbacks. First, your South African domain is now controlled by Shopify and it requires a DNS change. Second, you are locked in the Shopify template structure and a lot of the functionality is really overkill. You also cannot create your own custom website while the website is hosted with Shopify.

2. Some of the options on Shopify can be overpowering when they are displayed on your website. The vast majority of products do not have variants. It is one product with a specific specification at a specific price. The whole point of having an online store is to use the most important CTA – the call to action button that hooks the prospective buyer. They are there to purchase your product. Make it easy for them by not having a myriad of options and things that only distract them. Keep them on your website by making things easy.

3. Consider the costs involved:

   1. For a basic Shopify store, the first three months are invoiced at 1 USD. Thereafter it is 19 USD. Given what you get, this is a ridiculously low amount.
   2. You will need a payment gateway. In South Africa one of the best is PayFast. It integrates well with Shopify. The payment gateway sits between you as the shop owner and the client as the buyer. It manages everything, but keep in mind that PayFast will have charges. If you are planning to use an online shop on your website, register with PayFast so long and get it configured in advance.

A Live Example

We recently completed such a project for Timeless Beauty Group, on www.timelessbeautygroup.co.za. The client's brief was simple: they have a few haircare products that they have developed and want to sell these online. We assisted the client to register with Shopify and enter their own personal details. Then we created the products, each with an image, description, stock level, SKU, and price. Each product has JavaScript generated by Shopify that is copied to the exact point on the website where it is required.

We tested the first purchase using Shopify's bogus gateway. It worked perfectly and thus we knew the payment mechanics were in place. This allowed us to develop the website while waiting for the owner to register with PayFast and decide on how they will handle shipping orders. The initial development took place on one of our own servers. Even if it was another domain, the payment process worked perfectly.

The client was then invited over to our offices where we demonstrated the process. The client sat down at one desk, ordered a product from the website, and completed the order. At another desk we monitored the online shop. The buyer received confirmation from their bank that the transaction had been completed and at the same time they received an email that an order had been placed. The store showed the transaction as pending, awaiting delivery, and the stock level for the product was reduced by one. The client was most surprised how easy it was.

Fine Tuning

We assisted the client with many of the small things they needed. For example, you need to indicate that if it is a physical product, it has to be collected from a physical address or shipped. This means you need a mechanism to add delivery costs. Because they have a high turnover, we showed them how to set thresholds so that if a product has fallen to or below a certain number in the store, it is flagged and they add more stock.

What is required from the shop owner is to regularly check for incoming orders, for which they get an email notification anyway. Once payment has been verified as received, the item(s) is dispatched.

Once the website was completed, it was launched. Timeless Beauty Group has a great social media presence and this definitely helps to create awareness for the brand and drive sales.

What Can You Learn from This?

Creating your own online shopping presence is easy but there are some things you have to consider, mainly to do with the logical approach you need to take. Do not make this overly complicated. Keep the website interface simple and you will retain your customers. Visit the Timeless Beauty Group website on www.timelessbeautygroup.co.za to see how it works.

If you need us to create an online solution for you, whether you require both a website and a store, or just need to integrate a new store with an existing website, contact us.