What are the best ways to improve your experience with Shopify?

When choosing a theme for your Shopify store I highly recommend to make sure it's from the Shopify store as these have to go through lots of checks to get in there. There are a few third party themes which are ok( the Flex theme by outofthesandbox for example ) but most will be buggy and have few updates done to them to keep them up to date with the latest Shopify features. These days with the Shopify themes it doesn't really matter which one you go for but you need to think about what elements you might need e.g a mega menu etc as all themes let you add sections to all pages now. You can test each theme by downloading them and adding your content to see if it does what you are after.

Make sure you have multiple PDP layouts and test them. All PDPs should have: 1. High quality images in gallery, with zooms if it matters 2. Sticky ATC with product main UVP and ATC button 3. Key benefits ATF. Reviews count or some kind of social proof. Other than that, go and test: 1. Long term copy 2. "How/why this works" segment 3. UGCs from social media that are not biased 4. Us vs Them section 5. Section that addresses customers' concerns (you get this with interviews and questionnaires) 6. Pros and Cons about the product. Feel free to talk about who product is for and, to whom it won't be good. 7. Always test upsells and cross-selling, for some products it works like charm (socks with sneakers), for some, it's a main friction point

Shopify checkout works fine and while a lot of people think it's not converting on their stores it's because of what has come before it as you haven't given the potential customer enough information to be able to make a purchase for example. Shopify Plus stores do have the ability to add a few features to the checkout but it should be done with care. Make sure you don't have accounts enabled as this will put people off. The only issue with the Shopify checkout is the discount box and it would be good if we could hide this if needed as this is a conversion killer.

Make sure you test one-page checkout against multistep. For impulsive purchases, one-page may work better, but multipage overall shows better results because you can be more detailed on where are the drop offs and address them. Example: 1. Info page - show UGCs. Make potential customers feel like they are not the only one who shared their personal info with you 2. Shipping page - address different prices and benefits. Make sure you meet expectations and avoid backlash. 3. Payment page - build trust. This is the most sensitive part - someone has to give you their hard earned money. What we saw working are: UGCs of happy customers, featured return policy terms, security assurance. Basically anything that would build trust! Good luck ??

Don't learn from your competitors but you can see what they are doing. This is because you will have different customers, products etc and who says what they are doing is correct. Now learning from your customers and visitors is the number one thing you can do to improve your store as only they know what's good or bad. Run surveys, chat to them and do things like user testing as what you think of your site will be totally different from what others will think. Take notice of your reviews too as these often hold important feedback and if you are getting negative feedback from reviews or customer complaints then this should be addressed.