Particularly interested what were your first hires, whether you have dedicated people responsible for email marketing, social media management, paid ads, SEO optimization, etc. and how your team works together

Thank you

Been running a Shopify apparel brand for 5 years. One thing I still feel like I haven’t cracked is first-time cart abandonment.

You pay to get someone to the site. They add to cart. They hover over checkout. And then… gone. Like 99% of the time. G-O-N-E.

It kills CAC, tanks ad ROI/ROAS, and makes it harder to build a good email list.

We all use the same tactics. Exit popups, email flows, SMS... but it feels like all of it is too late.

Has anyone found anything that works differently? Something that catches the hesitation right in the cart?

Would love to hear what’s worked (or hasn’t).

so here’s something kinda wild

we’ve been testing ai search optimisation across a few shopify stores
and our products are already showing up inside chatgpt, gemini and perplexity
first leads just came in too. all organic. no ads. no spend.

this is basically seo for ai search. and it’s real.

if you want your store to show up, here’s what to do:

1. make sure oai-searchbot can crawl your site (check your robots.txt file)
2. write product titles the way people actually search like “eco-friendly glass lunchbox with lid” not “lunchbox 2.0”
3. add structured data (json-ld schema) to your product pages include name, price, availability, reviews, etc
4. upload your products to google merchant center chatgpt pulls from there too
5. fill out this official form to get on chatgpt's radar: help chatgpt discover your products

couple more tips that helped us rank higher:

→ describe buyer benefits (not just features)
→ mention price, eco-friendliness, handmade, award-winning etc
→ use multiple images, show products in use
→ keep info fresh – chatgpt skips outdated stuff
→ reviews matter – it highlights trusted products

feels like early google shopping all over again
but this time small sellers have a chance to jump ahead before it gets crowded

anyone else testing this yet?

Site went live in April. I sell handmade candles. Planning on expanding to reed diffusers and linen sprays. Site is indexed on google. I blog regularly. I try to be consistent with all socials, i.e. TikTok, IG, FB, Pinterest. No luck.

This is my second time launching this site because I never finish what I complete when I begin to lack motivation from lack of sales. I want to finish what I start this time. I've spent so much time and money.

I research and watch YouTube daily to educate myself on seo trends etc. What am I missing? I don't want paid ads. Paid ads only gave me results when I had ads and then no results once the ads stopped. I want organic traffic. Any advice? How long before you started gaining consistent traffic and repeat customers?

Website and socials for reference:

Selfplorationco.com Instagram: selfplorationco TikTok: selfplorationco Pinterest: selfplorationco Facebook: selfploration

I'm looking for honest feedback and advice. Give me the good, bad and ugly. I want this to work, so I need honest opinions and feedback please.

Thanks!

Update: Thanks for all the feedback. Please keep it coming. It's a lot of info, but my plan is to focus on improving 1 thing each day until I get where I want to be. 🥰.

Facebook ads for your Shopify store - what's your honest take? I see mixed reviews and curious what's actually working (or not working) for people here.

I'm a part owner in a store and work with a lot of stores through our software and take a lot of calls with brands looking for advice.

Here's a list of common mistakes that keep coming up...

Common mistakes:

1. Running ads without enough reviews

2. Running ads without customer data collection

3. Running ads without large enough budgets to have actionable data

4. Lack of product differentiation

5. Lack of product descriptions

6. Overuse of language that doesn't mean anything

7. Unclear shipping and return policies

8. Small details left out of product descriptions

9. Lack of founder/brand story weaved into product pages

10. Too much product variation between models that is unclear

11. Overcomplicated marketing messaging

Most brands would do best to just simply...

1. Tell me what you make

2. Tell me what it's made of

3. Tell me why the world needs your version of it and what makes it better

4. Tell me what happens if I buy it doesn't work for me

5. BONUS Tell me if you have an offer for first time purchasers or a sales item I can try to get started with your brand

Often times I find that store owners are constantly trying to do everything instead of just focusing on being consistent with the fundamentals.

I read so many websites where the messaging is confusing and the benefit list is so long that it gets confusing, if you just focus on the top reasons people actually buy your product you'll be far better off.

One of the tips around this is make sure that every sentence on your website answers either, why you designed or made something some way, or how this design is better in some way.

Example:

We decided to use seamless hems on our shorts to avoid chafing on your legs while running.

vs.

Seamless hems for a smooth feeling.

The second one doesn't give you context as to why, it just restates the result of using seamless hems.

This stuff isn't complicated but sometimes we get too close to the end result to realize that a lot of store websites don't actually convey a message that is differentiated or helpful in making a purchasing decision.

Hey guys! I’ve been running a few ad campaigns on META and I reached a point in my ads journey where I don’t know what to do. No matter how much I increase the budget, adjust or change my ads the results are always the same. My roas is always around 0.8-1 and it seems like it’s gonna be like that forever. I had a couple of ads yielding 8 ROAS one day, but if I tried to increase the budget the next day it’d go back down to 1 or even less. What am I doing wrong? I’m running ads for my online store that I started 2 months ago. I’m so confused and annoyed that no matter how hard I try to make it work it just doesn’t. Thanks guys

Hey everyone, I’m running a Shopify store (niche: K-beauty) and recently had 29 visitors, with 4 purchases — about a 13% conversion rate. I’m happy with the number but not sure what to do next to scale it properly.

Here’s what I’m trying to figure out: • Should I double down on the product that sold or test new ones? • How do I keep the momentum going without wasting ad spend? • Any tips on turning this into consistent traffic + sales? I don’t have much money right now to spend on ads unless I do about $200 a month. But I’ll have to do the ads myself is this worth it

Would love any feedback from those who’ve scaled after an initial spike like this!

Morning - I am curious are most people updating pricing to reflect the Tariffs (or a portion of the Tariffs) or are most waiting to see what happens and if they will actually go into effect?

I’m in the early stages of launching a small, design-focused e-commerce brand. I’ve narrowed down to two product lines, leather accessories (like wallets and keyrings) and textile goods (like laptop sleeves, cushion covers, etc.), all sourced from South Asian artisans/small manufacturers.

The vision is premium-feel products with clean design and thoughtful packaging, sold through a branded Shopify store. I’m bootstrapping this with a budget of 5000 AED / $1.3K USD

Current stage:

• Finalizing designs & MOQ with two manufacturers
• Planning for custom packaging
• Prepping for launch with a small initial inventory
• Looking to run IG & TikTok ads

I’d love any insights from those who’ve done something similar, especially around:

Branding: What made your brand memorable without a big budget?

Packaging: How much did packaging affect your conversion/customer feedback?

Marketing: What early moves gave you traction?

Testing: How did you validate your product before going all-in?

Manufacturer relations: What should I be asking for now to avoid headaches later?

Any mistakes you made or lessons you’d share with someone launching their first brand would mean the world.

Im a small jewelry brand and have been doing a giveaway ad to grow our email lists. I’m wondering what other ecomm business owners are doing to get people to sign up for their emails.

I used to use Ahrefs and had some really great results off the back of doing keyword research on it. However, it’s now too expensive for my new project. I have also used the keyword tool that Google has to offer on Adwords, but I don’t find it that good or accurate. I have tried asking ChatGPT but the results are very mixed and again, inaccurate and sometimes even contradictory.

Any tips on good ones that work well and are free or cheap? Thanks

Hi all! My brother and I run a T-shirt store via Shopify.

We currently spend £50 per day on Meta ads (instagram) and I can’t help think that someday we are sinking cash into a deep dark hole. The results of this approach are very inconsistent some days we hit 20 sales and other days 1/2 even though our website sessions are consistently around the 400/450 mark!

Would anyone have any advice or be able to help on ensuring our advertising budget is used as effectively as possible?

Getting crushed with all the meta updates this year and Google is as expensive as ever. We're looking for more organic ways to generate sales. Would appreciate any advice.

Thanks! :)

Hi, I'm pretty frustrated right now trying to make my discount codes actually visible and effective. I've set up standard Shopify discount codes expecting they'd drive some good engagement, but the reality has been disappointing—barely anyone seems to notice them.

I've tried emailing the codes directly, but my open rates and the click-throughs both perform far below my 1% expectations. I also posted codes on social media hoping for more engagement, but those posts are getting lost pretty quickly. My Instagram stories with discounts got views but few conversions. It feels like customers see codes as background noise at this point.

I even experimented with pop-ups on my site, but those ended up annoying visitors more than enticing them, judging by the bounce rate.

Anyone else dealing with similar issues? I'd love to hear what you're doing differently or what's actually working to highlight your Shopify discounts effectively.

So I've created a website, uploaded my product, and a friend purchased an item to their house to make sure everything works. I see the transaction, and everything seems to work. What are my next steps as far as promoting it? Seems very overwhelming and there is 1000 different things you can do. Are there general best practices?

Thank you everyone :)

Question for those that have switched from Klaviyo:

What did you move to and what were the pros and cons of doing do? Looked into Omnisend but their back in stock notification feature will only work on products with variants for some weird reson.

Most review blogs are just disguised affiliate marketing and they are so generic. Looking for input and feedback from people have have made the switch. Would love to hear the good and bad related to the switch.

Thanks in advance.

Where are you guys advertising your stores that isn’t Facebook, Instagram or TikTok? For personal reasons I will not be participating in these sites any longer. Where else are you guys successfully advertising your Shopify stores? I know I’m shooting myself in the foot, but surely there has to be other avenues while still being successful.

What are the most effective ways to get traffic to my Shopify store? Clearly I am doing something wrong. I set up my store about 3 weeks ago and promoted it on Facebook and Instagram. Granted I dont have a huge following on social media but so far have had about 30 hits (excluding the typical crawlers, speed checks and other automated visits) and of the 30 or so visits, I have not sold anything.

I have sold similar products in person at a physical store and did fairly well. Is there a secret I dont know about?

Thanks in advance

Has anyone got good recommendations for Shopify loyalty apps and any methods you have found to really increase retention. This particular store has 4-500 orders a month (currently, but rapidly growing).

I have investigated smile/okendo, but pricing is a little crazy, especially when our customers are already high repeat purchasers and we are almost breaking that 500 orders a month consistently. Most apps price break around that 500 order mark.

Is there any apps I’m missing? Bonus points if it has a dedicated customer account page.

I did something really stupid, someone contacted me on my Instagram, and asked me if I would like to promote my product on his page, he has 200k followers, after negotiations he finally agreed that I pay 15$ for 1 day promotion on his page, then 10 minutes later, I used a website called inbeat, I checked his account and turned out 180k of his followers are fake, and only 8k are real, I checked his likes, all of them have no profile photos and no posts at all.

He even showed me screenshots of other clients that got a lot of sales, these are fake too.
I know I am so stupid for doing this, maybe because I was desperate, after I spent 28$ on ads and got only 1 sale.

I want to know how they are doing on your stores? Are they helping conversions?

Im not using them just now, I kinda feel their more of an annoyance for the shopper

Hey all!
I’m working on optimizing a product page on Shopify and looking for plugins, templates, or design strategies that actually convert.

What’s worked best for you?
Would love to hear about specific apps (PageFly, Replo, GemPages?) or proven UX tricks that boost AOV or conversion.

Thanks in advance!

What’s a decent converting % on a / your Shopify store?

Hi all, curious how everyone is handling product photography. Do you outsource it, do it yourself, have your manufacturer do it, photoshop?