New In Q1 On Shopify: What’s New & Useful To Grow Your Business

Using Shopify for your business?  Considering using it for a new venture?  This post outlines some of the best new stuff from Q1 2014 on Shopify that will help you grow your business.  Rather than hearing everything from Shopify directly, my goal is to filter to the best new stuff of the last few months.

Happy to take questions in the comments.  We’re also brewing something big, which you may (or may not!) be interested in trying out.

This post will not present you with an infinite list of options to consider.  I will choose the best few new resources that have been released recently, that are worth considering if you want to grow your business, and give suggestions for those wanting to dig deeper.

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Premium Features On Cheaper Plans (Discount Codes, Unlimited Products)

4-6 weeks ago Shopify changed their plan structure, shifting ‘premium’ features like Discount Codes and Unlimited Products, down to the more “basic” levels. This means more stuff, for less money on their plans.

If you were holding off on using ‘premium’ features like Discount codes or limiting your product set because you wanted to stay on the basic plan, have a look at the new inclusions here, and make sure you’re getting the most out of your plan: https://www.shopify.com/pricing

New Technologies

There have been two main technological advancements with Shopify recently.

1.  Point Of Sale (POS) system.  This means that, for example, if you’re running a physical shop as well as online store, you can attach a gadget to your iPad which scans credit cards and links payments and orders with your Shopify store. Neat.

Reference: https://www.shopify.com/pos

2.  Shopify Payments.  Shopify are taking on the credit card processors (Authorize.net, PayPal, Stripe, and friends) by offering their own payment processing system for a lower fee.  There’s very little set up involved also; you just input your bank details and voila, the money goes into your account.

Reference: https://www.shopify.com/payments

New Apps (Including Our first ever App)

Some nifty new apps that have come out recently are:

Product Bundles:  As the name suggests, allows you to bundle products together and still have your inventory sync up.  Good for upsells, cross-sells and bundling.

Reference: https://apps.shopify.com/product-bundles

Notify:  Displays notifications on the website when people making a purchase, which, in theory, encourages others to proceed with theirs.  Example: “John Smith from Sydney just purchased [X]“.  Very cool.  I’ve seen it used with massive success on stores like Kogan.

Reference: https://apps.shopify.com/notify

Coming Soon:  Our First Ever Shopify App – ShortCodes

Shortcodes save store owners time and web development costs.  Advanced features without coding.  You can create advanced stuff like buttons, tabs, open/close sections for FAQs, light boxes for videos or size guides, tooltips, and formatted boxes and lines for neatness.

One WordPress version has almost 500,000 downloads.  It’s extremely useful.  This is the first time it’ll be available on Shopify.  We’re about 80% of the way through building the App, and hope to release it in the next 2-3 weeks.

If you’re interested in knowing when it’s released, trying it out, or just following along with the process, you can join here > https://www.blackbeltcommerce.com/shortcodes-for-shopify-signup

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Thank you for checking out our Shopify Insider Blog @ Blackbelt Commerce. Please make sure to check out our portfolio. We also have some top blog recommendations for you to check out; 4 Lessons Learned From Building A Shopify App, best design practices for an e-commerce store, 4 social media for your e-commerce store,  and How To Back Up Your Shopify Store. Keep a lookout for new blog posts.

Questions? Comments? Anything I missed that you’ve discovered?  Happy to discuss below.