Learn How To Use The Shopify Customer Account Page To Boost Profits Of Your Small Ecommerce Business.

If you’re a small Shopify business, your marketing channels might be different from those of large businesses.

20% of small businesses fail by the end of the first year, 50% by the end of the fifth year, and 80% going further.

And that is why you need to think of strategies differently. Reading generic how-to articles meant for large eCommerce businesses will be of no use to you. Blindly doing what those articles write might put a big hole in your pocket and derail your business.

So, if you run a small Shopify business and want to learn how to use the customer account page to set up your business for success, this article is for you!

Strategies to use the customer account page for small businesses

The below strategies are built around using the customer account page and its features. You can even adapt and tweak the actionable points to suit your specific Shopify business to maximize results.

1. Know your audience to build your customer base

Small businesses have a limited number of customers compared to large businesses. And hence, customer retention is a must.

To ensure newly signed-up customers come back to your site, you’ll have to work on building strong relationships with them. That’s where the customer account page comes in.

One of the most important functions of the Shopify customer page is to collect insightful data about customers. For example, customers’ purchase history, product choice in wishlist, location/address, etc.

Information from the customer account page helps understand customers, which is a vital factor, one of the first steps, for customer engagement and to boost sales.

Here’s how to use the customer account page to build your customer base:

• When new shoppers register on the customer account page, you must ensure you engage them instantly—collect more information from them
• Send new customer sign ups a welcome/thank you message
• Ensure the customer experience and user experience of your customer account page impresses new customers—easy navigation, accessible features, etc.

2. Leverage the power of existing customers

One of the most important factors for the success of businesses is customer retention. Not only do you have to acquire new customers, more importantly, you have to ensure those who have already made purchases from you keep coming back to your site. There are many ways to leverage your existing customer base. Here are some:

Engage customers via store credits/ reward programs

Perhaps the recent Covid-19 pandemic was the best example of how loyalty, rewards, and store credits programs helped brands keep customers hooked to brands. One of the best ways to build trust and loyalty of customers, store credit and reward programs. Here’s how store credits help:

• Store credits help bring customers back to your store to make more purchases
• It provides engagement opportunities
• It helps brands stay connected with customers. For example, via regular updates and reminder messages

Integrate the reorder feature

Depending on the type of products and services you sell, customers may be reordering the same items from your Shopify store. But browsing the entire site, finding a product, and then going through the entire process of placing an order is tedious. You can simplify this process and make it quick for customers. How? By installing the reorder feature.

And here’s how to maximize the use and returns from the reorder feature:

• Automate communication about reorders—let customers know about the feature, send timely prompts to encourage reorders, etc.
• Offer incentives on recorders to motivate customers to use the feature
• Use the reorder option to provide a good post-purchase experience to customers—send them a message with the reorder option to make their lives convenient and easy
• Make reordering easy for customers. Make the process easy and short. Offer customer support to encourage customers to use the feature
• Make it easy for customers to locate the reorder button in the order history section of the customer account page

Use the wishlist feature

Another feature to add to your Shopify customer account is the wishlist. Customers might be adding their favorite products to the wishlist to buy them later. Or products that are out of stock. A wishlist feature can help you engage customers, boost sales, and provide a good shopping experience to customers. Here’s how you can use the wishlist feature:

• Make wishlist tab a part of the Shopify account page so that it’s easy for customers to locate it
• Send discount alerts in advance when wishlist products are going to go on sale
• Send reminder messages to customers from time to time about products in the wishlist. For example, ‘The items in your wishlist are selling out fast.’
• Create personalized campaigns around the wishlist items—target customers with relevant offers only to avoid spam

3. Double down on social media strategy

Just like for big eCommerce businesses, it’s essential for small businesses to be seen and spread brand awareness, no matter how niche the audience. And one of the best ways to do it is via social media.

86% of consumers follow brands on social media. You can intensify your Shopify store social media strategy to meet your customers where they are—on social media platforms. Here’s what you can do:

• First, incorporate social login on your Shopify store. Allow customers to sign up on your Shopify customer account page via their social media account to make it easy and faster for them
• Run social media exclusive campaigns such as contests, discounts, etc. This way, you can encourage more participation via social media and collect insightful customer information
• Collect data from social media accounts to understand customers’ habits, preferences, likes, dislikes, etc.
• Interact with customers on social media by replying, commenting, liking their comments, etc. on your posts, to build stronger relationships
• Send communication to customers on their social media messenger

4. Incorporate localization strategies

For global/international businesses, localization would mean currency, language, and international shipping prices. But for many small businesses it would encompass different strategies. Why? Because many of them operate locally or have a limited geographic reach.

Here are some localization strategies and how your Shopify customer account page can chip in:

• Collect data about customers’ location from their saved addresses on the Shopify customer page
• Send communication relevant to customers’ location. For example, restock alerts only to those customers where products are available for delivery
• Allow in-store pick up and curbside pick up in your local area. You can offer these features based on information gathered from customers’ accounts
• Organize in-person events for customers based on customers’ location
• If you operate internationally, incorporate currency, language and international shipping price features accordingly
• Provide customer support based on locations. For example, you could provide local language support to enhance customers’ experience

5. Use the customer account page data for personalization

87% of consumers are okay with brands monitoring their activities if it leads to more personalized experiences. Your Shopify customer account page can help you create a more personalized experience for customers. The result: differentiate yourself from competitors.

Here are some ways to offer personalized experience for small businesses:

• Create different segments of customers
• Narrow down segments for different marketing purposes, for example, location, gender, etc.
• Offer different incentives to different segments. For example, those who reorder items could get a free sample. Those who buy occasionally could get a discount so that they start buying more often from your site

6. Create an omnichannel experience

Another effective strategy to ensure a successful small business is to provide an omnichannel experience. Today, customers are present on different channels, for example, WhatsApp, phone, website, social media, in-store, etc.

Shopping with big brands such as Amazon, customers have become used to the convenience of omnichannel shopping—they might browse products on the website and add it to the cart but order from the desktop from the website and prefer to pick up the product in-store.

Hence, ensure all your channels are in sync and provide a consistent experience. Here’s how you can manage an omnichannel experience for small businesses:

• Create a mobile-optimized website
• Ensure your customer account page is mobile optimized
• Integrate different types of apps across channels
• Enable customers to access different features such as store credits, wishlist, reorder, etc. from all channels

7. Choose a customer account app that can help you scale

Scaling is one of the biggest challenges for small businesses. Many small businesses tend to push growth at a faster pace without planning how they will manage the different aspects involved in scaling, such as hiring, technology needs, increased orders, increased customer management, etc.

Let’s focus on how to use the customer account page to help your small business scale:

• Choose a customer account page app that is designed to scale as your business grows. It’s best to keep growth in mind from the start so that you do not have to go through the tedious process of migrating from one app to the other
• Ensure your customer account app is compatible and allows integration with other marketing apps. Better still, choose an app like Flits that offers add-on features
• Your Shopify customer page app should have advanced automation capabilities so that the repetitive and mundane tasks are taken care of
• To grow your business you have to understand your customers. Your customer account page should help collect information about your customers

Pro tip: Choose a Shopify customer account page app that has scalability capabilities.

Is a customer account page a must for small businesses?

The answer is yes! Whether an eCommerce business is small or big, it must provide customers a space where they can find all their information, save address details, card details, view other information such as wishlist, store credits, etc.

Customers have become used to having a personalized customer account page on eCommerce sites. You can use the above strategies to engage customers and make their shopping experience better on your Shopify store.

And for that, you’ll need Flits Customer Account Page App—the best customer account page app preferred by Shopify merchants across industries.

Install Flits customer account page app and explore add-on features.