Ignore these 6 Common Myths About Running a Shopify Website

There is so much commentary (both good and misleading) in the online world about the best ways to run a Shopify website and storefront. How do you know what best practices to follow and which pieces of advice to completely ignore? This is my job today - to help bust some of those common myths about running a Shopify website so we can set the record straight and make running an e-commerce business a bit, well, easier!

Common Myths About Running an E-Commerce Website on Shopify

The world of e-commerce has grown rapidly over the past decade, and with new advances come myths and misconceptions. If you manage an e-commerce website, you should be aware of the most common myths and have the facts to back up your decisions.

Myth #1. If you build it, they will come. 

Not true, you have to spend time marketing it. Even if you don’t want to do any social media marketing, if you want traffic you’ll need to invest in SEO, spend time learning how to optimize your website. 

Myth #2: Once you finish it, you never have to change it. 

There is no such thing as a “done” website. There are always things you can keep updating, improving, especially as people start using your site and giving you feedback.

Myth #3: You need a custom site to make a lot of money. 

Um, no! The business owners in my DIY Shopify Course and DIY Group Program have disproved this myth time and time again. Your site doesn’t need to be custom - a custom-made site does NOT ensure your site is easily navigable, SEO-friendly, etc. You have to know what you’re creating and create it well - that’s it!

Myth #4: An e-commerce website isn’t worth the cost and effort.

While creating and running an e-commerce website is a significant investment of both time and money, it can be a great way to increase revenue and drive customer loyalty. With the right strategies in place, an e-commerce website can provide customers with easy access to your products, help you create tailored experiences for each buyer, and even make it easier for customers to find products that meet their needs.

Myth #5. You need a fancy, expensive design to succeed. 

While having a website with a modern and attractive design can certainly enhance the customer experience, it is far from essential. You don’t need to invest in flashier graphics or designer logos. In fact, you can succeed juuuuuust fine with a fully functional website that delivers on its promise—a great customer experience that helps them quickly find and purchase the items they need.

Myth #6: It’s hard to get traffic to an online store you build yourself. 

False! Once your store is up and running, you need to use proven marketing tactics to boost website visitors, such as optimizing for keywords in search engines, showing up with confidence and networking, using advertising services such as Google Ads if that’s your jam, and utilizing social media platforms. Additionally, there are tools available to help analyze visitor behavior on the site that can help you determine which content resonates best with potential customers.

You CAN redesign your own website! Join my group program so we can design or redesign your site TOGETHER!

- TRANSCRIPT - 

Erin Alexander: Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the product powerhouse podcast. I am thrilled to be recording a new solo episode for you. I haven't done any solo episodes recently. I've just had so many amazing interviews, scheduled and recorded that I needed to push them out. So I kind of pushed back on recording solo episodes. 

But now we are back to two a month. And I've also recently started doing unfiltered episodes, which are for the premium subscribers. So it's an exclusive set of episodes that come out every month for those who have subscribed to the podcast through Buzzsprout it's $3 a month to be a subscriber and you can cancel anytime. So if that's something you're interested in, definitely check out the show notes. 

Before we jump into the content for today. I want to tell you about the build your Shopify bootcamp and that is happening. February 16th through March 1st, registration is open now. Build your Shopify bootcamp is my 14 day workbook turned into a VIP style group program. I'm really excited to be working with a group of shop owners who are all going to be launching their stores at the same time, we're going to be working on the same things throughout bootcamp. 

It's a two week program. Everyday has a video with the prompts for the day. We're going to use the videos to go more in depth with anything that I covered in the workbook. Share additional resources that might be helpful. And every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, during the two weeks, we will have live Q and a calls in our Facebook community. It's a pop-up community. That'll be around for a limited time, although you will have access to the content forever. If that is something that you are interested in, definitely head over to product powerhouse.co/bootcamp. Of course, you can find that link in the show notes as well. I would love to see you in the bootcamp. We are getting started February 16th. 

It's going to be really fun and really like, it's like a power punch. I'm really excited to work with so many incredible business owners. Okay. 

Now onto the juicy stuff. Today's podcast episode is about six common myths, I hear about running a Shopify website. These are myths that the E commerce world or the world of online business are just not getting right. When they are either thinking about starting a store or after they've created a store, or when they're talking about having a side hustle. I see a lot of this happening on tech talk. We're going to clear the air today. So let's go ahead and jump into the episode. 

 I titled this ignore these six common myths about running a Shopify site, especially with the rise of people talking about their side hustles. I see this a lot on tech talk. The world e-commerce is rapidly growing and that's really exciting, but that comes with a lot of myths and misconceptions. So if you either already have any commerce website or you are planning one, here are some myths that you should be aware of. And, you know, the truth. 

So myth number one. 

If you build it, they will come. I cannot believe how many times I hear this. Oh, just put up a website. And then you'll get sales. Um, Excuse me. That is not true. You have to spend time marketing it. Even if you don't want to do active marketing, like social media or sending out emails or anything like that. If you want traffic to a website, you have to at least invest in sEO or learning how to optimize your website to bring in traffic. You can't just put up a website and people automatically flock to it. That is not how the internet works. 

 You do have to spend time marketing a business. I think that this is most common in the drop shipping world where people think, oh, I'll just put up a website and I'll drop ship, phone cases or something silly like that without really, even. Doing any foundational work into planning what's going to differentiate from your phone cases from all the other phone cases out there. There is a lot that actually goes into running a website. Don't believe anything you hear that says you don't have to market uh business. That is not true. 

Alright, myth. Number two. Once it's finished. You never have to touch it again. 

There is no such thing as a website being done. That's just like not a thing. You always have to keep updating your site. You're going to always be improving your photography, optimizing your descriptions, maybe writing new product descriptions, adding details, creating new products. 

 There is so much you can do to continually improve your website, especially as people start using your website and giving you feedback. You're going to find out that there's apps you want to try, you might need to change some placements of things you might need to make sure things are listed out in a different way. 

There is literally no such thing as being done completely with your website. Now you will get to a point where your website is in a good place and you don't need to be working on it constantly. That is something that people fall into a trap of where they are so Uber focused on like trying to improve and fix their website that they forget to actually market it. And a lot of times people will be saying, Aaron, I have a website, but I'm not getting any sales. 

And can you look at my website and tell me what's done with it? And what I tell them a lot of these times is you don't have a website problem. You have any traffic problem? That is a different situation. Then needing to improve your website. However, even once you get to that point. Or you are getting traffic and you are getting sales. There would still be changes to be made as your business grows and evolves. 

Myth number three. You need a custom website to make a lot of money. 

I don't know where this has originated, but there are a lot of people out there saying, but if you don't have a custom coded website solution that you cannot make a lot of money. And that's just not true. You can make a lot of money using Shopify. There are tons of businesses that are making a lot of money using the Shopify platform. The business owners that I have worked with. In the past, my current clients, my students in my Shopify DIY course they're making money. And some of them, even a lot of money. Using the Shopify platform, you do not have to have a custom built website to make a lot of money. 

Custom made site does not ensure that your store is easy to navigate. It doesn't mean that it's SEO friendly. It doesn't mean that the user experience is good. It doesn't mean that the checkout process is smooth. It doesn't matter if it's custom coded or not. What matters is the usability and the functionality. 

Now that I think about it. I think this myth comes from like the developer world of things, where development is like this kind of, second language that the general public doesn't understand. And so it kind of felt like superior than others. And maybe those are the ones who are spreading the myths that you have to have a custom site in order to make a lot of money. But I promise you, it is not true. 

 Number four, an e-commerce website, isn't worth the cost and effort. 

This goes back to myth number three. A custom coded website and e-commerce platform. It's probably not worth the cost and effort at this point in time. With the way technology is in 2023, like it's not worth it to have this custom code solution. 

But. But with the right strategies in place. You can really create a fun business. That helps you create an income for your family. That is something that you're really passionate about. You know, how I like to say, create a business that feeds your family and fuels your passion. That's what it's about. And if that comes from some type of product that you love to make. Or you designed or you had manufactured or even you purchased it at wholesale and you're reselling it because of x Y and Z values. As long as there is profit in it and you are passionate about it. It is worth the cost and effort. Our profit margins higher in other types of businesses. 

Yeah. Sometimes they are. But that doesn't mean it's going to be a better fit for you. Or your lifestyle? 

On the other side of things, tools like Shopify Squarespace, any kind of website platform these days. Is going to help bring the investment costs down greatly so instead of spending your available capital in things like building a website, you can spend it, getting inventory, purchasing materials. And I think that that has made it even more accessible for business owners and people who have hobbies who want to make money through that handmade business owners, artists. Those of you listening to this podcast, it has made it easier for us to build really powerful businesses. 

Myth number five. You need a fancy expensive design in order to succeed. 

I think that design can be really fun. My background started in design. I was in a print design. And. That's really where my role came from, but as I started diving into web design, more and more, I started realizing that fancy design doesn't necessarily mean it's effective design. So having. A website with fancy features, like things moving and scrolling and popping and wiggling can be fun. It doesn't necessarily enhance the customer experience and it is far from essential. You don't need to invest in like Fancier themed designs. 

You literally can make a lot of money using a Shopify theme from the theme store, a basic theme is enough to get you sales that's what's most important. And some of them do have really cool added features that do make it a little bit more fun. You can still go overboard with those. You can still add too much moving and grooving. 

Anything like that on your website. So be careful, but you do not need a custom coded Shopify theme to make the money or a custom fancy design. Now I have actually previously provided custom designs for clients. And really. My whole packages were based off let me take this theme, that's available in the Shopify. Same store and I'm going to change the way it looks so that it feels more unique to you. I actually found that that made using Shopify harder for my clients. 

With some of these new features available inside of Shopify, like the addition of Shopify 2.0, which allowed us to have sections on any page. Those custom coded sections that we previously created are no longer effective. They had to be recreated on your new theme or an updated version of the theme. 

With any custom coding if you want to upgrade your theme or change to a new theme. There's a lot of stuff you have to redo. In fact on my own website I had my past developer code a sales page for me. And it is not coded in a way that I can update it. So if I want to update to the new version of my theme, I'm going to have to Recode that page. And that's going to take me hours. 

I'm personally moving away from offering custom coded. Shopify sites because they are sometimes harder to update down the road and it means that the cusp, the client's dependent on me. Something in my business that I truly value is not having clients dependent on me. I don't want you to feel like you're stuck having to work with me. I want you to feel empowered in your own business and making those changes on your own. So I am finding that I am less and less thrilled about custom coded solutions. That doesn't mean there isn't a time and place for them. And in fact, if they are coded well they can be fine in your upgrading. You have to have the right developer. 

But I am just finding that it's unnecessary and I am more. Focused on helping clients get results than having fancy bells and whistles on their website. 

 Myth number six, it's hard to get traffic to an online store you build yourself. Okay, this is so false. Once your stores up and running you just need to use proven marketing tactics that work for selling products. That's it. Things like keyword research. 

You know, I've talked a lot about that on this podcast. Promoting your store that goes a long way in your marketing. Doing outreach for collaborations and pressed. That'll go a long way for getting traffic to your store. 

There are other things you can do such as advertising on Facebook or Google ads, if that's your jam. Utilizing all the social media platforms, their businesses going viral on Tik TOK every single day. 

And there are tools available to help you analyze visitor behavior on your website. Like Hotjar can tell you how people are navigating your site. You can watch people navigate your site. You can see what things are actually clicking on. 

Getting traffic to your store is science. There are things you can do to drive traffic and it has nothing to do with how your site was built. 

Okay. So. These six myths are all just to prove to you that it doesn't matter how fancy your website is, how expensive it costs. It's all about the effort you put in. 

To see those results. I hope that you feel more confident moving forward. I know a lot of you listening already have an e-commerce website. So maybe these myths, aren't something that you've heard, or maybe they're not something that's really been bothering you. I think they're just ones that I keep seeing. And I'm like, that is not true. 

I got a little fired up creating this episode for you. I just want you to know you can design your own website. You can do a fabulous job using a template that you paid a couple hundred dollars for, because it has a proven user experience. It has great product organization, the graphics are nice and clean and you're using proper preferably photos. All of those things, you can totally do it yourself. You don't need to hire some crazy expensive SEO borough or some crazy expensive developer who doesn't talk to you about your website. You can do it yourself. It's totally possible. 

If you want support and accountability while you're doing it yourself, definitely come hang out with us in the bootcamp. like I said, at the beginning, build your Shopify boot camp is a 14 day program that walks you through every step that you need to take to get your website launched or redesigned. 

In 14 days, it even includes daily prompts to help you build buzz for your redesign as you're going through the process. So that it's a little more fun. It helps motivate you while you're creating that buzz. Sharing behind the scenes with your audience, all those things. And bootcamp is only $197. We're starting February 16th. We'll be launching our stores on March 1st. 

Just in time for those spring new sales, you know, what's coming up Easter mother's day. Graduation father's day. All of those sales are coming and they are coming quick. Think about how great it will feel. Knowing your website is done. For now it doesn't, you don't need to work on it. You've got it in a good place.

I might need to tweak a listing or two, but it's in a good place, you feel really confident, posting your sales everywhere, sending out emails, sending out press pitches because you feel so confident about your website, that everything you're doing is going to pay off. That's what you'll get when you come join bootcamp. So go to product powerhouse.co/bootcamp. And I will see you in our Facebook community.