One of the most common questions that newbies have is why is my Shopify store not making sales? One thing you have to understand very early on is that just putting up a Shopify store does not entitle you to make money.
On a bigger and more philosophical level, you need to sell products (or services) that solve people’s problems or fulfills people’s needs.
There is also a third category of products and that is impulse products. These are usually gadgets or “nice things” that people don’t really need and it does not necessarily solve a problem.
Most people buy stuff online to make them feel good and impulse products fall under this category. These are purchases where they don’t think much about it. They see it, it fascinates them and they buy it.
Your products will fall into at least one of these categories. If you have a product(s) that solve a problem AND gets impulse buyers then you have a real winner.
Most products that sell incredibly well on Facebook Ads solve both a problem and are impulse purchases. They solve a problem in a new, fun, or quirky way and this instantly grabs people’s attention and gets s sale.
While the products you are selling accounts for much of your success, there are a number of other factors that will determine the success or failure of your Shopify store; whether your Shopify stores make sales or not.
Obvious things like store setup, payment ec
5 Reasons Why Your Shopify Store Is Not Making Sales
1. Not Getting Traffic
The main reason why Shopify stores are not making sales is simply that they either do not get traffic or they do not get targeted traffic.
In very simple terms, you need eyeballs on your products and not just any eyeballs. You need eyeballs that are interested in what you’ve got to sell.
This almost goes without saying but if you do not get any traffic to your store then how can you expect sales?
The challenge is that many newbies don’t quite understand this and they dive into Shopify thinking that “if I build it they will come”.
Unfortunately, that gravy train crashed in 1998, and getting traffic to your store or any website for that matter is the name of the game.
I always recommend that the very first thing you need to do before you even start your Shopify store is to create a solid traffic plan.
You need to know exactly where you will get your traffic from.
Facebook Ads and Google Ads are by far the biggest ad platforms and are proven traffic sources for selling eCommerce products.
You can buy high-quality traffic from both these platforms and make use of their highly sophisticated machine learning systems to help you make more sales.
When buying traffic you will need a decent budget. You won’t get far with a budget less than $1000 to test the waters and see if there’s potential.
Free traffic is also an option but this takes time. There’s also a fair amount to learn to make sure you can actually rank in the SERPS for keywords that will convert to sales.
2. Product and Audience Mismatch
Finding an audience first and finding an audience that you can access via paid traffic channels or free means is vital and is much easier than creating and store and then trying to figure out where you will get traffic from.
eCommerce is a simple game.
It is all about matching products to the right audience.
Always keep this in mind. You want to match products with audiences or people with specific interests that you can target.
An example will be to target a specific audience on Google Ads. You will need to use keywords to reach this audience because that is how Google Ads work.
Have you done keyword research? Is there search volume for keywords that target your product(s) directly?
Do you stand a chance against the current competition and click somewhat affordable at least?
SEO will require similar research but you will assess the competition differently. Facebook Ads will be different again because they have audiences you can target.
The principle remains the same.
- Decide how you are going to get traffic to your store
- Assess whether you can reach this audience (paid ads or SEO)
- Make sure you have the time (SEO), the money and the skill necessary to reach your audience.
- Is there competition? Are other stores selling similar products to that audience? (this is a good sign – it means there is a market)
- Can you pivot? If your assumptions fail – that is your assumed match between the product and the audience, can you pivot to other similar products without having to start all over again.
Getting traffic both an art and a science. There is a science to ranking your stores on Google SERPS via SEO. There is a science to buying traffic from Facebook, Google or even Pinterest.
The art is in how you show your products to these audiences. How you market it and how you match what you have to sell to what they want to buy.
3. Not Selling ‘the Right’ Products
There are two big mistakes most Shopify stores make – especially with dropshippers that are inexperienced.
They either sell products that everybody else is selling or they sell products that nobody wants to buy. Of these two mistakes, it’s probably better to make the first rather than the second.
With so many spy tools around there is this popular theory that you simply find what’s already sell it and then “replicate their success”.
This could work but it rarely does.
The reason why this strategy fails most of the time is the fact that by the time the spy tools pick it up it is probably already too late.
Unless you catch a trendy product on an upturn you might be too late.
So, what kind of products should you be selling? Here are a few questions to answer. You can use it as a checklist.
7 Characteristics of a Winning Product
- Does the product solve a problem?
- Does the product have wow factor or something unique (a USP) ?
- Is the product proven to sell? (others are already selling it)
- Is it or similar products selling with the audience you intend to target
- Can you market the product in a unique way?
- Can you find some competitive advantage? Better sales angle, better price or better marketing?
- Do you have sufficient margins? Its recommend you sell for 3x cost price.
You probably won’t tick all 7 boxes for any product but I like to make sure I can t least tick the first 5 boxes before I become really interested in a product. The last 2 you can always find ways to tick later down the track.
4. People Don’t Trust Your Store
One of the main reasons why someone won’t buy from your store even if they love your products is the fact that they just don’t trust your store.
Trust is very important but it is also a very delicate concept.
People buy from Amazon without thinking twice. They know that they will get what they order fats and if they don’t like it or if anything is wrong they will 100% get their money back.
When someone lands on your XYZ Petstore, they have never heard of you before and their first reaction is always that of distrust.
Its just human nature.
Your store has to communicate trust in every detail if you are to convince people otherwise. The devil is in the details and if someone’s bullshit meter is switched on they will pick up on any minor incongruencies on your store.
- You have a professionally designed logo
- You are using a professional theme
- You have well-written product titles and description (not just copied from Aliexpress)
- You provide detailed information about the product including sizes and specs
- You have clean looking product photos in high resolution
- Your store looks congruent
- You have trust elements in place on your store
- Your products are reasonably priced
The best way to check yourself – especially if you are a newbie is to find one or two of the top stores in your niche and make sure you don’t look too bad against them.
If you are not a designer, spend some money to get it done for you. You should at least buy a great looking theme and get a logo designed on Fiverr. That alone will take you a long way towards getting your store looking good.
If you can’t afford it, keep it very simple and use a clean Shopify theme like Debut and make full use of Shopify’s support to help you make edits.
5. Technical Issues
While Shopify is a very easy platform to set up and use for your online store, there is a learning curve. It is hard to get it completely wrong but it does happen.
If your store looks good, you are getting quality traffic and you are selling products targeted to your traffic then you should at least see some sales.
If you still see no sales at all then there could be technical issues with your Shopify store. The first and most common is that your payment gateway(s) are not set up correctly.
If you are using Shopify Payments then it is almost impossible to get this wrong but if you use Stripe, Paypal or any other third party payment gateway then you need to make sure there are no issues.
It is really important that you always place a test order on your own store – especially if you start sending paid traffic to your store. You do not want to spend a couple of hundred dollars on traffic only to find out you made a very stupid mistake.
If you complete a test order yourself then you get to experience your own store as a customer which will help you spot potential issues straight away.
Another really important step is to use a screen recorder app like Lucky Orange or Page View. This will record how customers interact in your store and you can watch it back as videos.
This will show you where customers drop off and more importantly, it will show you exactly what customers see. I once had my entire store not displaying any images and if I did not use a screen recorder I would never have picked it up.
Most Shopify store owners design their stores on a desktop but the majority of your customers will use a mobile device.
There are thousands of screen sizes, and dozens of browsers and manufacturers. They will all render your store differently.
Seeing how your store looks to potential customers is vital in understanding potential issues with your store.
Why Is My Shopify Store Not Making Sales – Conclusion
The main reason why most Shopify stores are not making sales is simply that they do not get any traffic. Getting quality TARGETED traffic is the key to even stand a chance at making your Shopify store a success.
The next biggest reason why Shopify stores do not make sales is that they sell the wrong products. There needs to be a match between the product and the audience (traffic). Showing the right product to the right audience is the key to making sales.
Trying to sell products that people don’t buy or trying to jump on the bandwagon and sell what everyone else is selling will also not see you make many sales.
Your store also needs to look utterly professional. Having a spammy looking store that looks incongruent and like it was designed by a 5 year old will also not get you far.
Lastly, you want to make sure there are no technical flaws with your Shopify store and that customers can actually check out and make purchases.
