Why should your business be using digital marketing?

Digital marketing has become extremely important for businesses in Pakistan. This is because the internet penetration in the country has been on the rise for the last decade. Companies make huge spends on creation of their online presence. The consumer of today has a limited attention span, set preferences and a vast array of options to choose from. This puts companies in a highly challenging competition which they need to keep up with. With more companies investing their time and resources in online marketing, relying on your old advertising tactics is not enough to win over customers. Every large and small scale business needs a digital presence to connect with their customers. Different benefits are attached with different modes of digital marketing. For instance having an online store helps businesses in exponentially increasing their sales. Social media marketing helps in making the people aware of a service or a product and reaching people with specific psychographics, geographic and demographics etc.

Challenges in Building an Online Presence

A good ecommerce website is the cornerstone of a business yet it requires putting in thought and work that could require a lot of effort. There are a plethora of choices that one needs to make while creating a website or an app – HTML, PHP or HTTP, WordPress or Drupal. Dreamhost or Bluehost, Template Theme or Custom Theme, Static or Dynamic, Responsive or Unresponsive and so on. Similarly striking the right chord within your social media target audience is not that easy to pull off. With platforms offering automation in generating ad copies or finding the suitable audiences for businesses and creating online stores for your businesses, the work is made easier for businesses.

How can Startup.pk help you?

Imagine if there was someone who could create a website for your business and market your products/services in a manner that offers guaranteed return on investment. Perhaps someone who could help you quickly launch your dream business and start selling to your customers, wherever they are and help you customize your store or even build it from the ground up. That someone is Startup.pk which will set up a Shopify store for you. Shopify is a subscription-based software that allows anyone to set up an online store and sell their products. Shopify store owners can also sell in physical locations using Shopify POS, our point-of-sale app and accompanying hardware. If you’re a Shopify merchant with both an online and physical presence, your inventory and stock get synced so you can manage your store(s) from one account, on any device.

How does Shopify work?

With Shopify, merchants can build and customize an online store and sell in multiple places, including web, mobile, social media, online marketplaces, brick-and-mortar locations, and pop-up shops. Shopify also has features to manage products, inventory, payments, and shipping.

Shopify is completely cloud-based and hosted, which means you can access it from any connected compatible device and it will handle software and server upgrades and maintenance for you. This gives you the flexibility to access and run your business from anywhere with an internet connection.

On any given day, a business owner needs to showcase products, engage with customers, get paid, ship a product, and manage their day-to-day finances and operations. Some businesses use different tools to manage each of those activities—and spend a lot of time and money stitching the disparate systems and data together.

Alternatively, a commerce platform groups those technologies together and becomes the base upon which other applications, processes, or technologies are developed. In other words, Shopify’s commerce platform offers all of the business tools you’ll need in one, familiar place. 

What do you get when you get Shopify through Startup.pk?

Storefront

• Hosted online store. You instantly have a hosted online store where you can create web pages, upload blog posts, and of course, sell products. Startup.pk will customize the look and feel of your store by changing the website template, or theme

Payment processor 

• Payment processing. Startup.pk will choose the best  gateway option for you in compliance with your needs. Shopify offers the integration of different payment gateways which includes PayPal, 2Checkout, Stripe, Skrill, BitPay, and many others. Shopify also provides its own payment processor with a minimum fee. Whatever you choose, you’re set up to accept all major payment methods and sell in 133 currencies. 

• Shopify Checkout. Whether you’re selling on your own store or through sales channels like Instagram, you’ll be able to use Shopify Checkout. With over 2.5 billion orders processed, Shopify Checkout is constantly optimized for speed, conversion, and customer experience–giving you the most powerful checkout in the world.

Shipping partner 

• Shipping. We will create the shipping setup that works for you, from fulfilling orders in bulk, to creating USPS SCAN Forms, to arranging pickups with UPS and DHL. No matter where you are located, you can offer live order tracking, quick shipping, and discounted, pre-negotiated carrier rates with Shopify Shipping that Startup.pk will set up for you. You can also offer curbside pickup and local delivery options through this service.

Back office 

• Mobile app. Download and use the free Shopify app to manage your business from your mobile device. You can do everything you’d do at your computer from your phone, so you can keep up with your business from wherever it takes you.

• Analytics and reports. See store activity in real-time, gain insight into your visitors, and analyze your business performance. You also get detailed insights and reports about your business, so you can optimize your store’s activities.

• The Shopify App Store. The Shopify App Store is a collection of free and premium apps that extend the functionality of your online store. It’s a great way to add more specialized features and functionalities to your store, whether that’s a full-featured marketing app stack or connecting with local shipping suppliers.

Marketing HQ 

• Marketing platform. Shopify’s marketing platform lets you reach more customers through the built-in blog and SEO tools, as well as create Facebook and Google Shopping campaigns. You can track your campaign performance across all channels in one dashboard, and you retain full control over your customer data.

Selling Items Worldwide and Using Different Payment Methods

Shopify allows sellers to sell their items worldwide using Shopify’s own auto currency converter. It detects the user’s country and converts the prices according to that country’s currency. There are also apps through which sellers can sell one product at different prices to different users located in different countries. 

What can you sell on Shopify?

You can sell a range of products and services on Shopify, including but not limited to: physical products, digital products (e.g., eBooks or email templates), memberships (e.g. subscription boxes, online yoga studio memberships), ticketed experiences, classes and lessons, and more. Take a few minutes to read our official terms of service to be certain that what you plan to sell is legal where you live.

Where can you sell with Shopify?

With Shopify, you can sell everywhere your customers are. That means your own website; in person, like your retail store or a trade show event; on marketplaces like Amazon and eBay; on social media channels like Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram; wholesale; and via Handshake.

What do you need to start selling on Shopify?

To begin selling online with Shopify, you’ll need to sign up for Startup.pk’s service. Startup.pk will then take care of the rest. It will add your products to your Shopify account and set up a payment processor for you. It will choose everything in accordance to your business goals. It will market your store so shoppers can visit your site and learn about your brand and products.

Why is Shopify better than WordPress or any custom solution?

• Cost: It’s considerably harder to say how much a WordPress site costs to build – that’s because there are quite a lot of variables involved. You pay on a monthly basis for hosting, buy a template, buy tools for e-commerce integration, and off course purchase plug-ins. Apart from that, depending on the technicality of your website, you will need a team of developers to assist you with the build. You will also need an in-house developer for the regular maintenance of the website which could cost somewhere between PKR 50,000 to 150,000.

Shopify charges you USD 29 per month for its services which includes hosting, a well groomed and easy to use platform which doesn’t require any assistance of developers for regular maintenance. You do have to pay for the build however the majority of its plug-ins are either free or charge a very small fee. If you compare the prices of both, Shopify will come out as the clear winner by the end of the day. 

• Design: A key concern of anyone building an online store is how professional will the website look. Compared to other available solutions Shopify offers a wide range of highly professional and polished templates/ themes. Most of these themes come in three or more variants. These themes are very responsive on different devices, meaning that they will adjust themselves automatically so that they display correctly on any device. 
• Interface: The layout of Shopify interface is designed very much with non-technical users in mind, it’s probably fair to say that the shopify interface is the easiest to use and is probably the most advanced. You get all your orders, products, marketing, analytics, and other essential tools right in one place. Shopify interface is very intuitive for anyone interested in managing an online store because the platform has been designed with this purpose in mind. 
• Ecommerce: Shopify is the only platform with a built-in ecommerce tool. Yes, you don’t need any third-party apps or tools to integrate your website and sell online. This gives Shopify a great advantage because it’s a dedicated platform for e-commerce and online selling. 

Get started with Startup.pk today

Startup.pk will help you benefit from Shopify in the best way that suits your business goals. Shopify is not just a piece of software or a singular product—it’s an all-in-one commerce platform. Setting up a Shopify store requires a business wit that Startup.pk has. It will help you create value for your business by bringing together developers, business experts, and shoppers in the shared pursuit of making commerce accessible for you.