One of the most important tasks is to organize your collections in an efficient way. Shopify has great features to let you sort and filter products. Here you can read how to organize products in categories and bundles.
It is no secret that your product structure on all your collections has a very big impact on your customers' experience. Do they quickly find the product they are looking for? Does the customer buy something different than first expected? Is the customer tempted to buy more at a good price?
If you have not spent time on an app where you can structure your collections you may have unfortunately missed out on a lot of sales on your webshop. This does not mean that it is easy to find the right combination of collections and provide a good experience for your customers. If it was so then every single Shopify store would be successful - and we all know that is not the case.
Shopify has a huge capacity when it comes to product organization. The platform uses collections and tags to allow you to organize and filter you products at the same time.
Collections are specifically used to group similar products into their own groups such as short-sleeve t-shirts, long-sleeve t-shirts, jeans, and cotton. You can name and rename collections as your warehouse and business evolves.
Tags in Shopify are used in collections to narrow them down using keywords. It allows users to search for a purple shirt in your short sleeve t-shirt collection.
It is about dividing the store into sections that are easy for visitors to see. A clear website makes happy customers. Happy customers make conversions. And that makes your business successful.
Once you have created your collections correctly and you are ready to sort you can use Shopify's built-in tool to sort by the following criteria:
The (simple) division may seem far-fetched but it can be a good investment to optimize these further.
With Shopify's built-in sorting tool you cannot sort by tags or display the newest products of the last 14 days at the top of a collection. Instead you need to get hold of an app like Bestseller reSort where you can tailor your different collections completely according to your needs. You get an introduction to the app in the video here.
Bestseller reSort is an advanced app that can help you adapt/sort all your collections both individually but also across all collections at once. In this way you can create better experiences for the customer and thereby increase your chances of more sales.
Once you have set up your sorting rules Bestseller reSort analyzes it once a day where you can set which time of day you prefer. In this way you can ensure that it does not damage the speed of your website thereby still maintaining the good user experience.
With the app you can sort according to the following rules:
You also have the option of setting how many days the system should look back from 1 day to 360 days. You can always adjust this setting according to seasons where you can take certain periods into account. In this way you may be able to take advantage of a short-term demand.
In addition to sorting your products by categories and collections you can also use what Shopify calls bundles.
You have the customers on your webshop, and they are interested in buying a product. Why not offer them to buy more similar products when they are already ready to buy? Here you can use bundles in a lot of different and exciting ways.
Product composition or bundles is a strategy in the retail trade where you put together different products that fit together and which you offer to your customers. Here you can give an extra discount or offer an extra product at the same price to entice customers yo buy more once they have started.
Composition of products as an upsell or a cross-sell
When you create bundles in Shopify it can be for two purposes - upsell or cross-sell - depending on whether you want to promote the expensive products or sell related products.
Upsell involves persuading the customer to upgrade the product. For example promoting a better more expensive version of a school bag that a customer is considering buying.
Cross-sell involves promoting related products that match other products in a similar group. For example, promoting a pencil case to go along with the school bag.
Sometimes the product combinations are offered at a discount or with an added value.
A store selects a few specific items to be purchased together to obtain the discount or the given bundle is offered as a general discount when purchasing several items. Buy-one-get-one (BOGO) is an excellent example of this.
The idea behind these bundles is to reduce the "feeling of paying" (often the negative feelings associated with spending money) for the customer.
By offering a discount off the total price or by adding a perceived value (like a "free" item) the customer feels like they got a good deal - even though they probably spent more than they planned.
Promote bundles instead of a product:
By combining two or more products for one customer you do not need to market individual items in your warehouse. Your marketing spend can go towards a bundle of items that can help spread the cost. For example cost of goods sold may include promotional materials, shipping, associated commissions, total cost per product and so on. By collecting your products you can save on many of these expenses.
Increase your basket size significantly:
A study by Harvard Business School shows how powerful a product package can be as a tool to increase sales.
Basically, the investigation revealed a tactic used by Nintendo in selling video games and consoles. The company combined the two products leading to 100,000 units sold and more than a million dollars in video game sales. When Nintendo only sold games together sales dropped by as much as 20 %.
Product bundling can also help increase your average order value. Encouraging customers to buy more items typically leads to a higher order amount which is an effective way to increase revenue.
Personalize your bundles for your customers
Studies have shown that customers appreciate personalized experiences whether it is pricing or marketing. In fact, research by Harvard professor Vineet Kumar found that customers are more likely to visit a store or spend more if the company tailors its business to the customer.
Therefore, opportunities to appeal to customers by collection just the right items are obvious. Of course, this requires further market research and testing of your customers to find just the right combination
Reduction of excess stock:
Product composition can also be an important tool for reducing your excess inventory. Combining slow-moving inventory products with popular products can help move stagnant items that would not sell individually.
Plus: When you bundle a more stagnant product with a popular one you create a new product mix that help freshen up your old or overcrowded inventory.
There are over 300 apps in Shopify that can help you set up your product bundles in your own way. It may be that you want it displayed in a specific way or add the possibility of additional purchases on several of your subpages.
The possibilities are unlimited for you so you can both increase earnings for yourself and make your customers even happier.
Discover the large selection of apps for Shopify here.