Company

Today is a day of celebration.

As an independent business, you stepped up to make your mark on a weekend dominated by big box stores and massive chain retailers. And, collectively, you made over $1 billion USD in sales during Black Friday Cyber Monday.

Pause for just a moment (we know how busy you are) and appreciate your shared win: you are part of a large community of independent businesses working together to make commerce more diverse and resilient.

$1 billion is no small feat. And it’s all you.

Black Friday Cyber Monday 2017 was the biggest one to date with over $1billion USD in sales processed over the course of the 4-day event.

Now that it's behind us, it’s time to dissect the data, take a look at how Shopify merchants did during this massive sales event, and share what lessons we can carry forward to next year.

Here's an illustrated recap of what went down during BFCM 2017.

"That's cool. Where can I get it?"

There's a question that often leads to more customers. But what if you sell a product that your customers don't proudly display when they're out and about?

Like underwear.

In this episode of Shopify Masters, you’ll learn from an entrepreneur who sells underwear by targeting gift givers.

Johnnie Cass is the founder of Stonemen: maker of design-led men's & women's underwear.

“What’s the number one thing you wish more ecommerce entrepreneurs knew about your discipline?”

That’s the question I posed to 19 world-class conversion rate optimization (CRO) and growth experts.

From growth heavyweights like Sean Ellis and Noah Kagan to optimization legends like Joanna Wiebe and Peep Laja, the responses came flooding in.

Before you spend another dollar, another minute on traffic acquisition, hear what these experts have to say. By optimizing your site for conversions, you can increase your revenue without increasing your traffic.

Black Friday Cyber Monday is the busiest sales season of the year.

To help you have a great BFCM, we’re making sure that you can manage your business anytime, anywhere—even if you’re away from your desk.

Last year during BFCM, more Shopify merchants logged in on mobile than on desktop. That’s why this year we focused on making key features you need for your #BFCMWin available on your phone or tablet.

Here's a roundup of the latest mobile-ready features. First up, a must-have: discounts on mobile.

Your customers expect fast, affordable shipping with guaranteed delivery dates. Now with UPS as an option in Shopify Shipping, U.S.-based Shopify merchants can offer a best-in-class delivery experience, just like enterprise retailers.

With UPS and Shopify Shipping, you’ll get competitive rates of up to 52% off list rates, just in time for the holiday season. No matter how big or small your business is, you can now access UPS’ guaranteed delivery date shipping options at industry-leading rates.

With this integration, you can easily offer your customers more choice, at more affordable rates, with the world’s largest package delivery company. That means happier customers and more sales for you.

We continue to travel city by city, bringing events to Shopify store owners around the world. Why? We know that there’s tremendous value in IRL interactions.

Ali Kriegsman agrees. She's the Co-Founder and COO of Bulletin, a company with a mission to make retail space accessible and affordable for brands. In a city like NYC with sky-high multiple-year leases, Bulletin offers shelf space to small brands for a monthly membership fees.

Ali spoke at our NYC Workroom event, delivering her presentation Why Digital Brands Need Physical Retail Space. If you missed her talk, here’s what we learned.

Before you buy something in a brick and mortar store, you interact with it. You test drive cars, you touch blankets, you smell candles.

In ecommerce, that interactivity is missing, which puts a lot of pressure on product photos to fill the void.

Fortunately, your brain can process images in as little as 13 milliseconds. It can remember more than 2,000 images with 90% accuracy over the span of a week.

So, product photography can be used to persuade, influence, motivate, and direct attention. Product photos are lean, mean selling machines and they deserve your undivided attention.

Price can be an obstacle for many customers, especially if they don't trust in the quality of your brand just yet. So how do you win them over?

In this episode of Shopify Masters, you’ll learn from two entrepreneurs who believe you should earn your customers’ trust with lower cost products before they feel confident to buy your more expensive products.

Jacob Khokhlov and Thomasina Khokhlov are the founders of Lavish Shoestring: the largest online supplier of beautiful vintage & antique homewares.

"Full-Stack" is often used in programming to mean a developer who can work on every stage of the software development process from end-to-end.

So a "full-stack" approach for a product company is about keeping everything about product in-house.

In this episode of Shopify Masters, you’ll learn from two entrepreneurs who built a company with their design, manufacturing and marketing done under one roof.

Eric Prum and Josh Williams are the founders of W&P Design, bringing new ideas to life in the food and drink-iverse, like the Mason Shaker, Carry On Cocktail Kit, and more.

Email marketing. It’ll help you sell more! It converts like crazy! It has the best ROI of any marketing channel!

These are all true statements about email marketing, but you’d be forgiven for thinking email is always about selling, selling, selling.

It’s a powerhouse sales channel, no one’s denying that, but it can also play a big role in how you build customer relationships after you’ve closed that sale.

Your brand-new customers are primed to become fans, and you can use email to help get them there a little faster. Plus, with the number of new customers you're expecting this Black Friday Cyber Monday, the time to implement these emails is now—before the rush.