Profit Analytics Blog
Read expert articles with insights about e-commerce profitability from analyzing thousands of e-commerce businesses' data.
Profit optimizationHow Modkat Achieved a Clear and Comprehensive View of Their True-Profit Modkat, a small business for cat lovers, started its journey with a clear mission - blend style with functionality. With their award-winning cat litter box designs, Rich and Brett had an all too familiar eCommerce growing pain. Like many businesses venturing into eCommerce, Modkat was dealing with multiple sales channels – Shopify and Amazon, across different regions, and achieving a holistic view of their financials was challenging and time-consuming.
We had an overall sense of our numbers, but never had a clear view of cumulative numbers from all sales channels... there was never one collective place to view all of our platforms together".
Brett Teper, co-founder
The need for an integrated solution became more apparent as they had to struggle each week with manually manipulating spreadsheets and dabbling with different platforms, which took about 5-10 hours at least. And above all, working with spreadsheets didn’t allow them to handle their financial complexities and couldn’t offer the comprehensive insights they craved.
“We tested a bunch of tools but the data was incomplete and their interfaces were so complicated and hard to look at. I'm a designer, I need to see data in an easily digestible way", Brett recalls.
Modkat wanted a straightforward, visually appealing platform that would unify their data and provide them with insights into their overall financial performance and the profitability of each store.
The Solution: Empowering Modkat's Multi-Channel Ecommerce Success with Simplified Eye-opening Financial Insights
With multiple Shopify and Amazon accounts across different regions, Modkat found its match in BeProfit. The platform's ability to aggregate data from different accounts within each sales channel was a significant breakthrough. Adding to this, BeProfit's capability of integrating marketing platforms, advertising numbers, and 3PL logistics data made the solution invaluable.
That was the first time I was ever able to see those numbers… It was really enlightening to see some of that information."
Brett Teper, Co-Founder
Compare Shops Feature by BeProfit
A Simple Onboarding Journey
BeProfit’s onboarding was "dummy proof", which suited Modkat’s desire for simplicity. The team was readily available, providing solutions and adding capabilities to their product based on Modkat's feedback.
Seamless Integration
BeProfit filled the void in Modkat’s data comprehension by integrating smoothly with its existing tech stack. As a tech-heavy eCommerce business, Modkat needed a solution that could handle multiple data sources and platforms without compromising accuracy or speed. BeProfit met this need by constantly developing more integrations and capabilities to serve the dynamic needs of businesses like Modkat.
The Results: Becoming Masters of Their Financial Data with 90% Less Time Spent on Analysis
Now Modkat is able to collect, view and compare data dynamically across all channels. BeProfit became their go-to platform for understanding their business and seeing their full financial picture, in real time.
Modkat gained the ability to see their business costs and understand where they stand in relation to industry benchmarks. It gave Modkat the confidence of being on the right track, knowing they’re making the right choices.
Profit Optimization in No Time
Modkat now saves precious time (5 to 10 hours a week) by using BeProfit’s ready-made reports to guide them with their business decisions, making every decision data-backed, and pushing for more profits.
"BeProfit is like a Shopify dashboard for your whole business. The analytics in Shopify has always blown me away and been super helpful to us. And I find BeProfit to be very similar if not way more advanced than Shopify's analytics. And being able to trust it like I trust the Shopify dashboard is just awesome for me."
BeProfit's Dashboard
Exceeded All Expectations
For Modkat, BeProfit not only met but exceeded their expectations. It instilled confidence in their numbers and provided invaluable historical data, showing the story of their business.
I'm most surprised by how much the numbers don't lie... I'm blown away by how accurate it is."
Brett Teper, Co-Founder
Profit optimizationHow Suntouched Double Their Profits and Cut Expenses in HalfSuntouched is a fast-growing eCom brand that specializes in hair lighteners. Founded two years ago by Charlotte St-Germain, Suntouched has expanded its online presence from Shopify to Amazon, reaching customers in the US, Europe, and Canada.
One of Charlotte's biggest challenges was managing cash flow. She used to ignore the numbers and focus on the products, but as the business scaled up, she realized she needed to track her return on investments, especially for paid advertising. She wanted to know how much she was spending and earning on each channel and campaign.
That's why she decided to look for a solution that could help her optimize her cash flow and gain more visibility into her financial performance. She wanted a tool that could simplify her accounting, automate her reporting and provide insights into improving her profitability.
If I had to sum up BeProfit, I would say this tool is a must-have for any founder trying to scale and make the right business decisions for their brand’s profitability." - Charlotte St-Germain, Founder & CEO of Suntouched
Making Short-Term Decisions Based on Inaccurate Data
Charlotte admits that juggling endless tasks as a solo eCom founder can be draining — and that finances are her least favorite responsibility. Early on, she got away with very basic startup analytics to stay afloat.
Soon enough, the company’s reliance on inaccurate financial data led to premature expansions, rushed decisions, and a dwindling financial runway. They wound up expanding the team too soon based on Shopify sales numbers, rather than true gross margins or net profit.
Her brand’s challenges with nailing profit margins eventually led Charlotte to BeProfit.
As a solo founder, you take care of everything, and finances are just not my favorite aspect of the job. It got to a point where, although the sales were coming in as our top line increased, we didn’t know where the money was truly going.”
From Data Confusion to Data Visibility
The Suntouched team tried a handful of analytics tools, such as Triple Whale, but found these were ultimately incompatible or overpriced when the brand needed to be cutting costs.
Fortunately, Charlotte was eventually connected to BeProfit by friends in the eCom founder space. “They just sounded so happy with the real-time insights,” she explains.
From there, BeProfit and Suntouched hopped on a call, tailoring the platform to meet the brand’s unique needs and omnichannel setup. After an easy sync with their commerce and ad profiles, Suntouched was ready for more data visibility and accuracy than ever before.
The team at BeProfit has been super responsive and optimized everything for my brand’s needs. I’ve received really amazing support in our experience together.”
Suntouched has leveraged BeProfit to dramatically boost profitability — in three steps:
Gaining an accurate & comprehensive view of current finances
Before BeProfit, Charlotte received monthly P&Ls, which were often confusing and inconsistent, from her accountants. Now, Suntouched has seen “a huge difference” in data accuracy.
As a result, the brand has been able to come to terms with the reality of its finances. Despite believing they were profitable, BeProfit shed light on the fact that Suntouched had been in the red for several months and unfortunately needed to reduce the size of their team.
“It was so hard,” Charlotte emphasizes, “but it showed me the resources we had to work with and helped us spend within our means.”
Slashing Expenses
After teaming up with BeProfit, Suntoched has gained a clear, accurate view of its finances.
Suntouched has more than halved its expenses for a roughly 60% reduction. They save anywhere from 5–10 hours per week of manual data analytics labor. Reduced expenses and data-informed budgeting have doubled their profits.
I expected BeProfit to give me a stronger understanding of my basic numbers. What actually happened is it completely transformed my business for the better.”
Identifying profit centers to allocate runway accordingly
Suntouched turns to its profit analysis dashboard to know its numbers and make the highest-ROI decisions on a daily basis. For instance, if returns are climbing for one social channel, Charlotte will ping her buyer to start scaling that creative.
Or, in another instance, Charlotte was surprised when BeProfit demonstrated that Amazon was the Suntouched team’s greatest profit driver. While the brand’s top line is higher on Shopify, factors like cheaper ad spend mean they receive ample organic traffic and sales on Amazon.
As a result, Suntouched used the data and put more funds toward maximizing that profit center (as opposed to focusing on Shopify for ultimately fewer returns).
Saving time & money
Thanks to BeProfit’s dashboard, which provides a centralized look at all of your real-time eCom data, Suntouched can easily view their Shopify, Amazon, and ad performance on one screen.
No more switching between endless tabs, sales channels, and ad managers to understand your net profit, revenue, gross margins, and much more. “It’s a huge time-saver,” says Charlotte. In addition to time and effort, Suntouched also saves on people's costs.
Previously, Charlotte had to hire staffers to manually manage financial data, and delays in communication led to delays in course-correcting their spending. Today, Suntouched can instantly view its data and make informed, profit-driving business decisions.
I definitely use BeProfit on a daily basis. When I open my laptop [or phone], I go to my dashboard right away. It’s made a huge difference in terms of just knowing where to put more funds and focus.”
Growing with Their Financial Partner
Looking forward, Charlotte has an impressive vision for the growth of Suntouched. And she anticipates scaling with BeProfit as her financial partner all the way. She calls the platform “a layer of security” for her company, always keeping operational costs lean while opening up Suntouched to maximum profit margins.
BusinessRansom Spares Optimizes Business Efficiency and Profitability with BeProfitRansom Spares is more than just a spare parts wholesaler and retailer for home and garden appliances. It’s a family company based in Somerset, UK, that believes in a ‘make & mend’ culture instead of a ‘throwaway society’. By selling the parts and showing customers how to fix their appliances themselves, Ransom Spares helps them save money, and not less importantly, the environment.
But running a business like this is not easy. With three different channels - their website, eBay, and Amazon - Ransom Spares had to deal with a huge amount of data from various sources.
Managing Director Charlie Gilbert wanted to “talk facts” and not rely on his ‘gut feel’. He needed a clear picture of his unit economics across multiple platforms, suppliers, and thousands of products.
Product Analytics to Improve Service, Cut Returns, and Reduce Losses
Ransom Spares had a lot of data to handle. Selling across different channels with different pricing and multiple suppliers, the company needed to know the gross profit of every item they sold. But figuring out the profitability of each product was a huge challenge.
Ransom Spares wanted a solution that could not only crunch the numbers and give them real-time reports but also help them increase gross profit. By knowing their most returned items for each channel, they aimed to cut losses and improve customer satisfaction by selling only durable items.
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“It was almost impossible for me to say ‘this is our most returned product for this particular channel’ - it would take a long time to get that data.” - Charlie Gilbert, Managing Director
The Cost of Ignoring the Data Problem
Ransom Spares didn’t want to fall into the trap of being busy without being profitable. The lack of needed data availability risked sending out products that were unprofitable or defective, resulting in wasted time, money, and damage to their reputation. They wanted to avoid becoming what Charlie called “busy idiots”:
“This would basically be somebody who’s running around the warehouse very busy shipping out goods, but at the end of the month they’re going to find they haven’t made any money.”
The Unbelievable Results
The Ransom Spares team was amazed by how BeProfit helped them understand and improve their profit.
In just two months, Ransom Spares managed to:
Increase their gross profit by 10%, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.Eliminate hours of managing their reports each day.Improve customer service by reducing return rates. Build trust and brand perception by selling more reliable products.
Let’s Uncover the Secret to How They Did It
Identify and address product return issues
With BeProfit’s Returns Analytics, they instantly saw their most returned products by return rate.
They removed a number of listings from all 3 channels. And put the prices up to keep being profitable.
“Some items we don’t sell at all anymore which is actually a good thing because we were losing money every time we sold one.”
Optimize supplier relationships and advertising strategies
Using BeProfit’s product analytics, Ransom Spares found its most cost-effective suppliers.
They optimized their procurement strategy by prioritizing the most profitable suppliers.And set optimal selling prices for each product.
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They measured the profitability of their advertising across different platforms and optimized their campaigns.
“As we advertise on Google, eBay, and Amazon, we have to figure out our advertising across each product, as well as the profitability of our advertising, and this is also a huge benefit with BeProfit.”
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A Partnership Based on Flexibility, Support, and Communication
Ransom Spares had a clear vision of what they wanted from a software solution: flexibility to handle data from any source, support to make them feel looked after, and communication to keep them updated and involved.
They had tried other solutions, but none of them could match their vision. Charlie felt like he was in a partnership rather than a transaction. He also liked that he could challenge BeProfit to do new and exciting things that would help his business and other customers as well.
“I actually came up with a few things or spoke about different scenarios we would need, and BeProfit literally rolled it out to everybody.”
The Bottom Line
Ransom Spares’ partnership with BeProfit has made a huge impact on its profitability, product portfolio, operations, and overall conduct. From being put off by their huge mass and non-organized financial data, Ransom Spares turned into profit metrics enthusiasts, basing a lot of their business decisions on the insights that BeProfit’s reports provide.
“BeProfit opened our eyes to what is possible with our business and how much more we can improve and become more efficient, and ultimately become more profitable, without even knowing that we could."
He also gave BeProfit the ultimate compliment: “I wouldn’t recommend you to any of my competitors, and that’s a very good thing.”
Profit calculationGross Profit vs. Gross Margin: How Do They Differ?Thinking of starting your own small business or looking at improving your current small business's profitability? Getting to know and understand the key difference between gross profit and gross margin will help you assess your profitability more accurately.
The simple fact is that gross profit and gross margin may be closely related, but they differ from themselves in terms of what they measure as much as they differ from net and operating profit margins. Read on to learn more or check out this guide which covers how to calculate net profit margin and much more.
What Is Gross Profit?
Your gross profit is the total amount of profit that your company makes on the sale of a product. In other words, it is the amount you have left over after you have covered your direct production costs. Let's look at a simple example:
Net sales revenue – COGS (cost of goods sold) = gross profit
You are a baker. You sell a wedding cake for $50 (net sales revenue). The cost of the ingredients equals $25 (COGS). Your gross profit is equal to $25.
Your net sales revenue is the total amount you generated from your sales over a period. Net sales includes the deductions you need to make as a result of goods that have been returned, as well as discounts you have received from your suppliers. It is often referred to as your "top line" because you'll find this amount on the top line of your income statement. Once your costs have been deducted from your revenue, you get your net income—also referred to as your "bottom line."
The COGS (cost of goods sold) refers to your direct costs for producing your products. Some examples of COGS include the materials used, such as the ingredients for your wedding cake and the labor costs for mixing ingredients and icing it.
» Discover how you can calculate gross profit percentage
What Is Gross Margin?
Your gross margin is calculated as a percentage of how much your sales revenue exceeds the total cost of making the sale. Let's look at another practical example:
Gross profit / net sales revenue x 100
Your wedding cake's gross profit is $25. In this simple example, your net sales revenue is $50. Therefore, your gross margin is $25 / $50 x 100 = 50%
» Check out our guide on how to calculate net profit margin or simply book a demo with BeProfit
Which Should You Use?
The short answer? You should use both of these financial metrics. Since gross profit and gross margin are not the same calculations and measurements, they will tell you two slightly different but equally important stories about your business.
Gross profit gives you a basic idea of how much your business makes, while gross margin digs a little deeper. Your gross margin will tell you how well your company is generating revenue compared to your production costs for both products and services. The higher your percentage margin, the more effective your company is at managing the generation of revenue for each dollar you spend. It also makes it easier for you to compare your business to competitors, whether local or international. You can then track and benchmark your gross margin against other companies over a longer period to pick up on trends within your specific industry.
The two terms may have similarities but understanding their differences is what could make a difference to your bottom line.
Business management40+ Best Shopify Apps to Increase Your Profits in 2022The world has shifted online, everyone can agree on that. During the last decade and especially over the past year, more and more store owners are transforming their business to adapt to the new reality of uncertainty and change. But making this kind of change successfully requires courage, initiative, and most importantly – knowledge of the eCommerce space.
That’s exactly where Shopify steps in, making the process of creating an online store, managing products, handling payments, and of course much more, as intuitive as it gets. With over 5,000 Shopify apps that integrate with its online stores and cover a wide range of business optimization needs (including apps to increase profits by selling online), Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms out there with its market share standing at more than 20%.
In this article we will cover some of the best apps the Shopify app store has to offer to help you optimize your business on your way to grow your store and increase your bottom line.
Best Upsell Apps for Shopify
Rush - Order Tracking & Lookup
Rush is a state-of-the-art, automated shipment tracking solution for Shopify sellers.
The app includes every feature you need to build a superior post-purchase experience. Boost customer satisfaction and increase your AOV and CLV as you go.
Provide your customers with granular updates on their orders status via Rush’s smart order delivery notifications, integrated with Klaviyo & Omnisend.
Build a fully customizable tracking page, add upsells & cross-sells and boost your bottom line.
Rush has an outstanding 5-star rating from more than 90 reviews on the Shopify app store. Pricing starts at $9 per month. Free plan and 7-day trial are available.
iCart Cart Drawer Cart Upsell
iCart is the most powerful conversion and optimization toolkit that helps e-commerce stores boost sales and generate higher revenues.
iCart helps you create gift offers for their customers such as free products, BOGO, product bundles, and many more. Online sellers can also sell their add-on services like gift wrapping using iCart upsell app.
Don't you think your shoppers see the same shopping cart design everywhere? With the iCart app, you can customize templates for the cart drawer as well as their full cart page. The apps offer different helpful widgets that work as sections in the cart template like cart items, checkout buttons, progress bar, custom HTML, birthday collectors, and many more.
The app is free to use up to 50 orders. It has an average 4.8 star rating from over 150 reviews.
Vanga AI - Automatic Upsells for Shopify
Vanga helps you increase your revenue from each order on Shopify using AI.
The app instantly automates your upsells so you don’t have to spend time on configuration or funnel building. Powered by an AI algorithm that upsells better than any human, Vanga automates your revenue growth based on data and customer behavior with no effort or setup required.
Vanga automatically enables upsells for 100% of the products in your store and instantly drives up the AOV from all the orders your customers complete. When you need precision, you can create specific upsells using manual controls for your own funnels
Personalized Recommendations by Perzonalization
Perzonalization app for Shopify lets you easily upsell your products to boost your store’s AOV. The app provides AI powered related products, upsells, cross-sells and many other algorithms to increase loyalty and sales. The app features product recommendations on nearly all page types of Shopify as well as abandoned cart emails (for potential customers who didn’t add any items to their cart) and browse reminder emails. Perzonalization analyzes your customers’ behaviors in real time using AI-powered technology to help you optimize your store and bottom line. The app offers a free trial with monthly fees starting at $9.99 with no upfront costs; it integrates with Magento, PrestaShop, OpenCart and WooCommerce.
PickyStory
Upselling and cross-selling are vitally important to the success of your Shopify store. PickyStory makes it easy to generate more revenue from every store visit by offering highly customizable, irresistible deals that can be displayed on any page in your store. Sell products together with bundles (auto or manual) on your product pages, create a gallery of shoppable looks, use kits for tiered pricing offers, let customers create their own product bundle, aggregate multiple products and sell as one, and more: PickyStory has a deal to suit your every need.
As well as offering upselling deals with proven results, PickyStory comes with several other valuable benefits. PickyStory auto-syncs your inventory at SKU level, making it easier than ever to keep track of your stock. PickyStory’s deals are all created with clicks (no coding skills required) and fully customizable to integrate seamlessly into your store.
ReConvert Upsell & Cross Sell
There’s nothing like getting notified about a new order, every online seller will tell you that. But on the consumers’ end, the process of completing an order is of great importance and should be carefully planned to increase retention rates.
The Reconvert app for Shopify helps users do just that, by optimizing their order confirmation page. By offering an easy-to-use drag and drop interface, the Reconvet app allows full customization of websites’ ‘thank you’ page. The app integrates with many of the most popular apps on Shopify and provides a variety of built-in widgets including discount pop-ups, product recommendations, videos, social sharing options, post-purchase surveys, SMS and email marketing campaigns, and more.
Reconvert offers several subscription plans including a free one, and has an astonishing average 5 star rating from over 2,000 reviews.
Gift Cards and Loyalty Program
Gift Card and Loyalty Program is a certified Shopify Plus app developed by Rise.ai. Its shopify loyalty program helps users drive new customers to their store and increase their profits by creating and sending customized, digital gift cards and gift vouchers. Users of the app are not restricted to Shopify only, as it has a multi-channel capability by which they can offer their gift cards across various ecommerce platforms.
Among many features, you can use automated rules to increase loyalty, offer returns and refunds and even send bulk cards to expand your marketing reach. The app integrates with Yotpo, Klavio, Recharge, Loox and more. It offers a 7-day free trial with pricing starting from $19.99 per month. It has an amazing average 4.9 star rating from over 700 reviews.
Skip to Checkout by Koala Apps
Skip to Checkout is one of the many powerful tools offered by the team over at Koala Apps. This app does pretty much what it sounds like – it helps users end up at the checkout screen more quickly! You probably know by now that the longer customer journeys to the checkout screen end up hurting your sales rates. So what does Skip to Checkout really do?
This top app reduces the time it takes for your visitors to convert to customers, reduces your abandoned shopping cart rates, increases sales, and allows you to customize checkout screens along with your store’s CTAs. Skip to Checkout requires no coding, doesn’t change your store’s theme, and comes with a free 3-day trial. Pricing starting at $4.99 per month.
Best Shopify Dropshipping Apps
Nihao Dropshipping
Nihao Dropshipping provides a one-stop solution for Shopify and WooCommerce merchants in the shape of a free dropshipping app.
Source products from a variety of new and winning niche items which are added every day, and post free product sourcing requests to find the best sources from China.
More features include free warehousing, custom packaging, print-on-demand, dedicated customer service, order tracking, and more. If you’re new to dropshipping, this is the right place to start your journey.
Nihao Dropshipping is free to install and has an overall rating of 4.9 from over 30 reviews on the Shopify App Store.
Printify – Print on Demand
The Printify app enables its users to create and sell their unique designs by handling everything from printing to shipping. It offers a rich catalogue of more than 250 products, a Mockup generator tool, a network of on-demand print providers, and more. Printify’s premium plan costs $29 a month, while offering a free plan which includes management of up to 5 online stores, unlimited number of product designs, 24/7 support, and more. It has an average 4.2 star rating from more than 1,500 reviews.
Dripshipper: US dropshipping
Dripshipper is the go-to app for all of Shopify’s coffee-enthusiast entrepreneurs. It provides its users with a set of tools to kick off their online coffee business, from producing high quality coffee to creating and handling orders. Their freshly toasted coffee is delivered directly to consumers within 3-5 business days, packaged with custom labeling. Pricing starts from $30 per month including a 14-day free trial. The app has an average 4.2 star rating from over 160 reviews.
Spocket: US & EU dropshipping
The Spocket app offers dropshippers a wide variety of low-cost, print-on-demand products, both in the US and Europe. It features super-fast deliveries and an effective inventory management system, as well as 30%-60% discounts on different retail items. A great advantage of Spocket is that it allows users to test products by ordering different samples to verify quality and speed of delivery. The app integrates with Pintful, Privy, Oberlo, Loox, and more, and has an average 4.6 star rating from over 2,600 reviews. It offers a free plan while premium plans start from $24 per month including a 14-day free trial.
Best Free Shopify Apps
Digital Assets – Digital Product Delivery
Downloadable Digital Assets is the leading digital download delivery app on the app store and was chosen as a Shopify staff pick in late 2020. You can sell any kind of digital product such as photos, videos, e-books, patterns, audio, software, podcasts and pretty much anything else.
Digital Assets runs on ultra fast servers that deliver digital products to your customers in no time. It’s super easy to set up – simply upload your files, attach them to your Shopify products and then customize your settings to suit your store.
The user interface stands out above the other digital download apps, with it’s very easy-to-use system. Digital Assets has some unique features such as displaying order downloads in customer accounts, on the checkout summary page and via email, attach personalized files to a customer’s order, fraud protection to halt high risk orders receiving downloads until further verification, send download emails from your company email and much more. Learn how to sell digital products on Shopify here.
Push Owl Web Push Notification
The Push Owl app enables users to bring their potential customers back to their cart by sending automatic web, email or SMS notifications. It features detailed retargeting together with custom reporting, flash sales, subscriber lists integration, optimization of notification sending time, and more. It integrates with Stamped.io, Judge.me, Loox, Fera.ai, Flits Store Credits, and In Stock Alerts. The app has an incredible average 5 star rating from more than 1,400 reviews.
Vimeo Create – Video Maker
The Vimeo Create app enables the automatic generation of high quality videos out of existing product images and texts. Among many things, it features an easy management of all your videos in one place including guided video templates that cover a wide range of ecommerce use cases such as product introduction, new arrivals, highlights of special offers, testimonials and more. The app integrates with Google drive, Google Photos, Facebook, and Youtube. It has an average 4.6 star rating from over 500 reviews.
Free Traffic & Ads
Free Traffic & Ads connects between different store owners and provides an easy-to-use ad exchange service. Each of the store owners receives an ‘Exchange Credit’ in return for displaying ads on their online store. These credits are collected and can later be used to fund ads on other stores. The app features easy management of campaigns and ad creatives, real-time analytics, customization of ads, and more. It has an average 4.5 star rating from over 3,600 reviews.
Free GDPR + EU Cookie
The Free GDPR + EU Cookie app lets Shopify stores display a cookie bar banner asking website visitors for their consent to collect their personal data, according to GDPR law. The app enables customization of the banner’s design and is compatible with all Shopify themes. It integrates with many 3rd party apps like Spocket, Oberlo, Printful, Loox, Recart, Pushowl, Privy, Klaviyo, Kit, and more. The app has an average 4.6 star rating from more than 1,000 reviews.
Abandoned Cart Recovery Hero
The Abandoned Cart Recovery Hero app helps you increase your conversion rates by enabling browser notifications which takes potential customers back to their abandoned carts. The app features customization of notification messages in just a few clicks, with no coding needed. It has an excellent average 4.7 star rating from over 1,600 reviews.
Best Profit Tracker App for Shopify
BeProfit
Considering that many Shopify store owners struggle to accurately calculate their profit margins, BeProfit is your go-to app if you're looking for a precise Shopify profit calculator. It will help you keep control of your store by tracking and analyzing your business metrics, lifetime profit and expenses. It provides an intuitive dashboard which includes a breakdown of your orders, expenses, products, inventory, shipping and much more, all in one place, all customizable.
An easy integration with various ad platforms (e.g. Google Ads, Facebook Ads, TikTok Ads, Snapchat Ads, Pinterest Ads) makes it easier than before to track your ad spend and get insights which can actually translate into more profits.
The app is rich in many additional features like building custom reports, importing and editing shipping profiles, and tracking fulfillment and transaction status of your orders. BeProfit has an excellent average 4.7 rating from almost 60 reviews.
Best Shopify Shipping Apps
In Store Pickup Local Delivery by LogBase
This app is ideal for bakeries, grocery stores, restaurants, florists, cake shops, and other stores that offer pickups, allowing customers to schedule local pickups and deliveries.
The app makes it possible for store owners to set different local delivery and pickup times and dates, limit orders per slot, and set cut-off and preparation times.
It's super easy to customize per your requirements thanks to multi-location, product preparation time, fulfillment, and availability. Additionally, you can set delivery rates based on zip code, order value, weight, and product type.
Currently, the app has more than 445 excellent reviews and a 5-star rating on the Shopify app store. The monthly subscription starts at $6.99 with a free trial period of 14 days.
Return & Exchange Portal by ReturnGo
Seamlessly create a positive return and exchange experience to boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. The Return & Exchange Portal app features a customized return management system that makes it easier than ever to let customers request a return or exchange.
Offer your customers store-credit support in any currency or language. Maximize your profit and Customer Lifetime Value by leveraging a variety of options for customers to pick their preferred alternative to refunds.
ReturnGo has an outstanding 5-star rating on the Shopify app store and more than 90 excellent reviews. Pricing starts at $9.97 per month with a 14-day free trial.
Shipping Rates Calculator Plus
The Shipping Rates Calculator Plus app lets you easily display your shipping costs to your website visitors when they view their shopping cart. As one of the most important things for online shoppers when viewing their cart is getting a breakdown of their total costs, including shipping costs, this can significantly increase the chances of making a sale.
The app uses your Shopify’s API together with data about users’ location to determine the exact shipping rate. It integrates with Multi-Currency, Canada Post, USPS, UPS and FedEx.
The app has an average 5 star rating from over 200 reviews. Pricing is $6.90 per month including a 30-day free trial.
Intuitive Shipping
The Intuitive Shipping app provides all the data you need to determine the exact shipping rate for each of your orders using the SmartBox algorithm. Features include an advanced Rate Blending which allows setting rates from over 40 built-in rules, and a pick-up or delivery options within a specified postal zone (also supports UK postcodes).
In addition, it offers adding special shipping descriptions under your shipping rates section at checkout, and can accurately calculate rates of major carriers including DHL, FedEx, USPS and more. Pricing starts from $29.90 per month including a 14-day free trial. It has an average 4.9 star rating from over 150 reviews.
Packline Pro Shipping Platform
The Packline Pro Shipping Platform app offers an optimization of the entire shipping process, beginning with importing orders, printing labels, as well as picking and packing orders. Among the app’s features you’ll find different automation tools such as bulk printing and setting of pricing rules, as well as constant customer support.
The app also offers an optimization of the checkout process to increase conversions and integrates with Hermes, UPS, DPD, DHL,TNT and GLS. Packline Pro Shipping Platform is free to install and has an average 4.8 star rating from almost 400 reviews.
Advanced Shipping Rules
The Advanced Shipping Rules app for Shopify will help you take charge of your complex shipping needs by managing all your rates and shipping rules by yourself. Using the app you can set advanced package dimensions, restrict air rates or products from specific zones, add insurance and signature options, customize titles and subtitles of shipping rates, and more.
The app integrates with Printful, Printify, Pixels, and Gooten. It offers phone support and an unlimited free trial while using its test mode, while premium costs $9 per month. The app has an average 4.8 star rating from over 300 reviews.
Shipway – Shipping Automation
The Shipway app for Shopify covers a wide range of shipping needs, from automatic allocation of tracking numbers to generation of shipping labels in bulk, and automation of self-service reports. The app provides users with the option to download invoices in an easy way and track the shipping status of all products in one place. It integrates with FedEx, Bluedart, Delhivery, Tally, Aramex, and has an average 5 star rating from more than 300 reviews.
Best SEO App for Shopify
SEO Audit + Image Optimizer
SEO Audit + Image Optimizer allows automating your store's site health and making it more visible on Google. It includes site health analysis, SEO audit, broken links checker and optimization of store metadata. Apart from this, there is an image optimizer that reduces images size and at the same time preserves visual quality.
The app has an average 4.6-star rating from over 680 reviews.
It offers a free plan which includes a general SEO scan, optimization of 50 images and 10 products plus page speed analysis, while the pro plan starts from $12 per month.
Shogun Landing Page Builder
The Shogun Landing Page Builder app features an easy-to-use drag-and-drop page designer including A/B testing tools, all to allow optimization of your online store’s pages, from promotion pages to blog posts, sales funnels and product pages. It includes more than 30 page templates optimized for mobile view and also allows you to develop custom elements using JavaScript, CSS and HTML.
More features include optimization of texts, buttons and images to match SEO best practices, as well as improvement of page speed. The app offers 24/7 support and integrates with Google Analytics, Adobe Typekit, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and Pinterest. Pricing starts at $39 per month including a 10-day free trial. It has an amazing average 4.9 stars ranking from more than 2,300 reviews.
Avada SEO Image Optimizer
Avada SEO Image Optimizer will help you improve your website’s speed and store rankings. Features include optimization of image ALT tags, Google structured data, meta tags, and more.
The app provides detailed SEO reports including an analysis of your product pages to detect problems and suggestions for improvements. The app integrates with Page Builder: Pagefly, Shogun, GemPages and LayoutHub. Avada SEO Image Optimizer is free and has a great average 4.9 star ranking from more than 800 reviews.
SEO Optimizer: All-In-One SEO
The SEO Optimizer app is rich in features to improve your store’s SEO rankings in Shopify. It includes tools to optimize images and meta tags, monitor broken links, manage Google Snippets, generate easy-to-understand SEO health reports, and more.
The app has an amazing average 4.5 star rating from over 2,600 reviews. The app’s pro plan costs $29.88 per month while a free plan is available and includes different features to optimize images according to SEO best practices.
SEO Booster – SEO Marketing
The SEO Booster – SEO Marketing app is an all-in-one SEO app to increase organic search performance. It features an automatic detection of issues related to your store’s performance on Google, re-organization of your store’s data according to Google’s best practices, re-adjustments of store’s components to be mobile optimized, and more.
The app has a great average 4.7 star rating from over 1,900 reviews. It offers a free plan which includes a general SEO scan, detailed SEO instructions and more, while the pro plan costs $29.99 per month and includes a 7-day free trial.
Best Marketing Apps for Shopify
Uplifted - The Platform for Video Ads Starring Your Customers
Uplifted is a hands-off, end-to-end platform for creating high-performing, on-brand video ads starring customers at scale. We're redefining the ad creation process, combining customer creativity with AI for game-changing performance marketing.
By combining AI with the real stories of your customers, they craft ads that deliver. Whether you're seeking increased brand awareness or improved conversions, Uplifted tailors your campaigns to meet your specific goals.
LangShop - AI Language Translate
AI Language Translate LangShop is a complete language translation & currency converter solution for Shopify stores. The app allows translating & editing content including checkout and dynamic one without limits on words and page views, combining AI machine & human translation.
The app has an excellent 4.7-star rating from more than 550 reviews.
Pricing starts at $10 per month with a 14-day free trial. A free plan is also available.
Adoric - Popup and Gamification
Adoric is an easy-to-use popup and gamification app with many different options for different goals. It allows sellers to increase their conversion rates by showing the popups to the right users at the right time, thanks to their trigger and targeting features.
Adoric offers fun elements that are easy to implement, such as falling gifts, spin the wheel, exit-intent popup, cart saver, and email popup.
Adoric allows users to try any of their plans for 14 days with an unconditional money-back guarantee. A free-forever plan is available as well as 3 paid plans, determined by the number of your page views.
Vidjet - Popup Videos
Vidjet is one of the best on-site video display tools on the Shopify App Store.
The app enables Shopify sellers to display video content on their online shop, without any coding experience required. You just install the Vidjet app, upload your video and have it published.
Choose from a variety of use cases (conversion, engagement, embed, or from scratch) and display your campaigns on multiple webpages, with in-depth segmentation options varying in accordance with your customers' journey. The best part? Videos are displayed as non-intrusive pop-ups, without affecting the website's speed or the customers' shopping experience.
Vidjet is free for all users with up to 1000 video plays per month and has an excellent 5-star ranking on the Shopify App Store.
UpPromote
UpPromote helps businesses of all sizes to optimize their profits and increase customer retention by growing their networks and advertising at no costs.
Among many features, it provides the option to build multiple commission offers to affiliates or influencers, to communicate with them using an in-app chat, and track their performance through numerous channels. The app integrates with PayPal, WordPress, Klaviyo, Bold Subscription and Mailchimp. It has a free plan available while premium plans start at $21.99 per month. The app has an average 4.9 star rating from more than 1,200 reviews.
Ali Reviews
Ali Reviews is the leading review app for Shopify businesses of all models, with a 4.9 average ranking on the Shopify app store. This app helps you take full advantage of customer reviews to build a strong reputation, and most importantly, increase conversion rates.
The Ali Reviews app provides superb features, including collection of reviews via email and SMS, rewarding reviewer’s efforts with discount codes, and reducing cart abandonment rates with review widgets. It also allows you to migrate data from Loox, Yotpo, Stamped, Judge.me, and Shopify Product Reviews with ease.
Ali Reviews is fully responsive on mobile and tablets, working perfectly with the latest Shopify Dawn theme and Online store 2.0. The app offers a 7-day free trial with no prior charge approval. Pricing starts at $9.9 per month.
Reputon Customer Reviews
The Reputon Customer Reviews app will help you dramatically improve your store ratings, trust score, SEO and reputation by working with your happy customers.
Customer Reviews App lets you receive valuable reviews by sending automated follow-up email requests once your customers receive their orders. Improve ratings and customer feedback on a large variety of review websites such as Google Reviews, Trustpilot, Amazon, and more.
Handle negative reviews. Minimize chances of bad reviews on Facebook, Sitejabber and Amazon. Pinpoint negative reviews and get social proof in no time. When your reviews and ratings grow fast on auto-pilot, you get a double profit – increasing your brand loyalty and getting better rankings on different search engines.
Reveal: Increase Your CLV
Omniconvert REVEAL is a Customer Value Optimization Platform that helps merchants understand and predict their customers’ behavior to improve Customer Lifetime Value. It makes complex data easy to understand and visualize, reveals insights and helps them treat customer segments according to different marketing channels.
Reveal increases lifetime value, loyalty and customer retention by using advanced buying behavior segmentation (the RFM model), tracking and rewarding customers based on their lifetime spend, using enhanced email marketing through its integration with Klaviyo, lowering ad spend by using the power of the best buyers, predicting when customers will buy next, maximizing profits and tracking only the metrics that matter.
Nudgify Social Proof & Trust
Nudgify by Convertize is a Shopify app built to boost sales and sign-ups using the power of notifications. Its built-in analytics lets you see exactly how each Nudge (notification) increases your sales. More features include an automatic creation of social proofs to encourage cross-sells, unlimited groups of Nudges and constant in-app chat support.
The app is available in 16 languages and has an average of 4.5 rating from more than 50 Shopify reviews. There is a free plan available, pricing starts at $9 per month.
Growave
Growave is an all-in-one marketing platform for small and medium-sized Shopify brands that helps them reach, engage, and convert their customers. The app offers various tools, such as Reviews, Wishlists, Q&A, Loyalty and Referral, Social login, Instagram galleries, and more. Growave is very easy to install and use despite its extensive functionality.
Growave offers affordable pricing to suit any brand’s growth stage. Such multifunctionality of the app makes it the ultimate platform for online store conversions and sales. It is as much as six times more cost-effective than any of the alternatives on the market. Another highlight of Growave is fast and responsive 24/7 customer support. Undoubtedly, it is the best app for growing Shopify businesses looking to build engagement and increase customer retention.
Loox
Loox is a product review app enabling Shopify stores to get customer reviews automatically. It helps Shopify merchants gain credibility and optimize their customer retention and conversion rates. The app features effective email campaigns to gather reviews and a customizable product review display which allows integrating high quality images.
Loox is available in 17 languages, has 24/7 customer support and is GDPR compliant. Loox integrates with Klaviyo, Recart, PushOwl, Google Shopping, Aftership and more. It has an astonishing 4.9 star rating from no less than 6,000 reviews! Pricing starts from $9.99 per month including a 14-day free trial.
Pop up, Email & Exit Pop Ups
The Pop up, Email & Exit Pop Ups app by Poptin lets you increase conversion rates by enabling a quick creation of embedded forms, many different types of pop ups, and more.
The app features a simple-to-use drag and drop editor, advanced targeting options, settings of various rules, A/B testing of pop-ups, and an integration with some of the most popular marketing automation platforms like MailChimp, Zapier, HubSpot, Klaviyo and more. It is GDPR compliant and has an average 4.9 star rating from over 100 reviews. The app offers a free plan while premium plans start from $19 per month.
Yotpo Product Reviews and Photos
Yotpo is an all-in-one eCommerce marketing platform enabling Shopify merchants to increase their sales by optimizing their content. Using the app you can collect reviews, showcase customer content, optimize SEO efforts, build your own community and get insights to allow improved business decisions.
Yotpo offers several premium plans, as well as a free plan which includes auto review request emails, social and moderation tools, and more. The app integrates with Facebook, Instagram, Google, and Klaviyo, and has an average 4.7 star rating from more than 2,500 reviews.
DataFeedWatch
DataFeedWatch is a leading feed marketing solution combining data transformation with help and advice that empowers Merchants, Agencies, and Enterprises to succeed on eCommerce channels. Businesses can use this tool to transform their product data and meet the requirements of over 2,000 shopping channels with high-quality integrations.
Intuitive and easy to use, DataFeedWatch gives merchants the tools needed to achieve greater visibility and ROAS from their eCommerce campaigns on Google, Facebook, Amazon, and various other shopping platforms. This can be seen through their various case studies. It’s a simple solution for anyone looking to cut back on the time spent maintaining their data feeds while surpassing their competition.
ModeMagic
ModeMagic connects your store’s data to your product images to help you avoid shopper drop-offs, boost your productivity, keep your store updated, and catch your customers’ eyes. Their out-of-the-box automation playbooks empower you to tap into buyer psychology and increase CTR from collections to product pages by 45% and add to cart by 30%.
Add a little bit of magic across your store funnel with customized stickers, badges, icons, product feature cards, and more. Create urgency and nudge your customers towards products they like with this awesome app. ModeMagic has an average 4.9 star rating from over 400 reviews and offers a free plan (their ‘Starter’ plan costs $9 per month).
Reviewbit WhatsApp Reviews
Reviewbit helps Shopify sellers to provide post-purchase customer engagements via social messaging platforms such as WhatsApp. Stores can collect feedback on each order by sending an automated review request through instant messaging systems.
The app allows businesses to provide immediate customer service in response to negative reviews, upsell their products to satisfied or loyal customers, and increase sales through upselling and cross-selling products by sending offers and promo coupons while gathering feedback through chat platforms.
Reviewbit helps merchants retain current customers while also converting new ones into loyal customers, and assures 30% more results in collecting reviews than through email.
Best Shopify Design Apps
Product Labels & Badges Pro
With an extensive library of 3000+ samples, Product Labels & Badges Pro lets you easily customize badges and labels for any event. This app makes it easy to visually design your labels and make them eye-catching for your customers. Moreover, this app ideally suits your every need by offering a variety of customizable label positions that can be displayed with nine pre-calculated positions of product images. The app features several variables for specific labels likeFor Sale, In Stock, and Sold Clearly. It helps store owners drive more sales by motivating customers to purchase products quickly. The users’ preference stands out with its easy-to-use management and instantly displaying numerous labels without disruption. Product Labels and Badges Pro has an excellent average of 4.9 with 454 reviews.
GemPages
GemPages is a top solution designed to help online merchants create professional and high-converting stores.
The drag-and-drop platform is brimming with templates and elements catered to every industry and purpose, spanning from landing pages to product listings, cart modifications, upsell banners, alerts, and more. Simply put, GemPages is an easy and powerful way to customize your online shop with no code.
The app offers three price plans, starting at $15 for the core features including integrations with 30+ apps, SEO optimization, and 2 page types.
Venn Apps
More than 73% of e-commerce revenue is generated from mobile. That's why it's highly important to invest in your mobile app! This is where Venn Apps come in.
With their mobile app builder, sellers can enjoy a 3x higher conversion rate and 20% higher average order value.
Building your mobile app with Venn Apps is super easy and intuitive! Use one of their beautiful templates and customize it to your needs and preferences, or let their in-house experts build it for you. Even if you already have an existing mobile app, the Venn Apps team will be happy to migrate it and do all the work while you sit back and relax.
Venn Apps integrates with all of your favorite Shopify apps, like customer reviews, loyalty rewards, advanced search, sorting & filtering, and Shoppable Instagram.
So go ahead and create your beautiful mobile app without coding!
Shopney - Mobile App Builder
Did you know? More than 80% of eCommerce traffic is generated on mobile devices nowadays, which makes it crucial than ever to make sure your store is mobile-friendly. Shopney for Shopify and Shopify Plus will help you boost your conversion rates by up to x4, by providing an excellent mobile experience, fast checkout and push notifications.
Shopney gives you an easy drag & drop editor to build your mobile app in minutes, without any code or design skills required; there are different layout options for different store types and you can even convert your visitors to clients in real-time with an in-app live chat feature. Also, Shopney provides incredible 7/24, multilingual customer support which guarantees a smooth onboarding and launch process.
Shopney has an outstanding average rating of 5 stars on the Shopify app store from more than 400 happy users.
Smartzer
Smartzer’s interactive video Shopify App beta allows brands to add a clickable overlay to video content to make it shoppable. Consumers can tap and swipe product hotspots to show information with an ‘Add to Cart’ button to encourage viewers to buy straight from the video.
Smartzer’s live stream shopping feature lets brands sell products in real-time. Viewers can click on products displayed in live stream shopping events to add to their cart or be directed to product pages. The shoppable video experiences can be shared on e-commerce sites, social media and email newsletters.
Kiwi Size Chart & Recommender
If you’re selling clothing items, this Shopify app is a must-have. It features a fully customizable Size Chart to help customers make better purchasing decisions as well as a Size Recommender to provide shoppers with instant fit recommendations depending on their age, weight and height. Kiwi Size Chart & Recommender supports all eCommerce platforms and perfectly integrates with Shopify, allowing you to easily add size buttons and charts directly to your product pages.
The app has an excellent 5-star rating from more than 500 reviews. Pricing starts at $6.99 per month with a 14-day free trial. A free plan is available.
PageFly – Landing Page Builder
PageFly is well known as the most loved page builder app on Shopify, trusted by 90k+ Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants. PageFly is currently ranked #1 in the Page Builder category with 4.9/5 rating from over 4,900 paying customers.
The app allows users to build high-converting pages easily with a simple drag-and-drop system, no coding skills required. PageFly also offers an extensive library of 70+ pre-made templates, pre-built sections and integration with the most powerful Shopify apps; which enables merchants to build beautiful and professional stores with the least effort. Moreover, PageFly provides 24/7 live chat support to all plans, every concern will be answered in just a few minutes.
Promo.com – Promo Video Maker
The Promo Video Maker app lets you optimize your marketing efforts by adding visual components in the shape of eye-catching videos. It automatically pulls existing images from your Shopify profile and creates engaging videos of your choice – whether it’s about specific features or the products you offer. As videos are an integral part of marketing in today’s world, Promo.com makes them accessible to all.
Boost sales and Design – Swipify
The Swipify app for Shopify lets store owners optimize their customers’ shopping experience by shifting to a ‘swipe’ mode, resulting in visitors increasing their time on site as well as increasing the number of products displayed on each page they visit. The app gathers different kinds of data to provide merchants with valuable insights on their products.
Swipify offers a free plan which includes a time-limited launch promotion with up to 1,500 monthly visits, while the pro plan costs $29 per month including a 14-day free trial. The app has an average 5 star rating from 6 reviews.
Mobile App Designer – Drobile
Who doesn’t shop on their mobile? Everyone does. The Drobile app offers an intuitive drag and drop app builder for Shopify stores. It features an easy way to build a mobile app from scratch which can be customized, managed and updated as you go, in real time. More features include adding push notifications, reward programs, payment gateways and more. The app integrates with WeGlot, GoSquared, Apple & Google Pay, iPhone and Android, and more.
Best Productivity Apps for Shopify
Connect POS
ConnectPOS is a leading point-of-sale (POS) app with a rating of 4.8/5 stars on Shopify. It’s an all-in-one solution for retail businesses to grow their store, with features ranging from inventory management, order management, various payment methods supported, etc. More than that, real-time synchronization helps retailers stay up-to-date about the latest change between online stores and the POS system.
In addition, ConnectPOS charges no fee when you use third-party payments (unlike many other Shopify POS apps). You only need to pay directly to third-party providers. ConnectPOS offers 3 pricing plans starting from $39/month per device, a custom plan and a 14-day free trial.
Online & POS Payroll and Tools
The Online & POS Payroll and Tools app is a staff management platform that enables you to review and manage all of your stuff’s administration needs in one place, including payrolls, schedules and tasks.
Using the app you can get notified about where exactly each of your employees have visited at your Shopify dashboard, measure productivity levels of employees, set up custom workflows to efficiently manage projects, and more. The app offers a free plan, while pricing starts from $7.99 per month. It has an average of 4.9-star ratings from over 30 reviews.
Excelify
The Excelify app will help you manage and organize your entire store’s data, all in one place. Among many features, it includes options to update prices of products, inventory, Alt texts of images, product variants and SEO fields. It allows migration of data from Magento, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and WordPress, and integrates with Amazon, Google Shopping, Google Sheets and Dropbox.
Excelify offers a free plan, while pricing starts from $20 per month. It has a great average 5 star rating from over 240 reviews.
Only the best Shopify apps for your store
The Shopify app store offers a rich variety of apps to help you boost your store’s performance and, with the right products to sell online, make it as profitable as it can be. The almost countless number of categories and apps available might make the process of choosing the right app confusing at first glance, but it doesn’t have to be.
When on the lookout for the best Shopify apps, try to focus on your goals. Make some research and ask yourself what are the key areas needed to be improved or developed in your store. Then, make a list of potential apps (try to keep it short), go over their features, reviews and rankings, and you’re good to go. Alternatively, use a comprehensive and searchable directory of Shopify apps to find the specific apps to help you accomplish your goals.
Profit optimization12 Essential Strategies to Maximize Profits on Black Friday Cyber Monday for E-commerce BusinessesAs the calendar flips to November, the anticipation of the holiday shopping season begins to build. Retailers and consumers alike are gearing up for two of the most significant shopping events of the year: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. These annual events have become a beacon of hope for businesses and shoppers, especially in the face of economic challenges.
Reflecting on the previous year's data, it's clear that these shopping holidays have a profound impact on the retail landscape. Despite the economic downturn in 2022, Black Friday and Cyber Monday continued to generate substantial profits, demonstrating their resilience and the unwavering consumer appetite for deals and discounts.
In 2023, it’s not just consumers dealing with rising costs
From rising supply chain costs, and shipping rates, to increasingly expensive COGS, it’s not just consumers that need to watch their spending this year. Ecommerce businesses are up against a ton of expenses that are threatening to chip away at their profits this upcoming BFCM.
That’s why in this article, we’re sharing 12 key profit-optimization strategies for eCommerce managers to put into play this BFCM to maximize each and every profit opportunity and help increase your bottom line.
What do Black Friday, Cyber Monday look like as the world heads into a third year of the recession?
Economic downturns equal less spending and more saving, right? Not so fast. In 2022, people around the world spent more than $40 billion online on Black Friday. While 71% of consumers say they spent more or the same amount on Cyber Monday 2022 than they did the year before. In 2022, retail sales grew during the holiday season by 4.8% YoY and analysts predict a 4.5% growth in sales for 2023.
Source
That’s good news for online merchants as it tells us that shoppers shopped smarter, not less, a trend that’s set to continue in 2023. With people spending less throughout the year, many shoppers will be saving up to buy what they need when the Black Friday deals roll out.
12 proven profit-optimization strategies to level up your profitability this Black Friday, Cyber Monday
You might see 8 figures in sales this BFCM and still not make a profit.
It can be tempting to zero in on growing sales on Black Friday, Cyber Monday — funneling money into ads, sales sequences, and influencer marketing campaigns. But a huge spike in sales doesn’t always mean a healthier bottom line.
While sales-focused strategies and overall revenue are important as you can’t have profit without sales, they can’t come without profitability-focused strategies that help make sure you stay in business survival and business health much after this Black Friday. That’s why these strategies should be a key part of your definitive success criteria for 2023.
With more consumers and eCommerce businesses becoming conscious about how they can cut back their spending, optimizing your profitability should be the main focus of BFCM strategy for 2023.
Let’s dive in.
Offer popular profit-friendly discounts Focus on your VIPs — not just customer acquisition Focus sales efforts on your most profitable marketsDrive profit from enhancing LTV with your customer data-baseImprove your profit for Ad Spent (POAS) Ratio and CAC Hook new visitors with profitable loyalty-building discounts Drive sales with profitable product bundles Use BFCM to shift excess stockPromote your most profitable shipping methods as an incentive to push profit upSwerve losing money on product returns by predicting their likelihood Uncover and optimize your biggest expensesPromote the most profitable payment method that also cultivates loyalty
1. Offer popular profit-friendly discounts
As any eCommerce store owner knows — BFCM is all about driving sales through discounts. But if you’re strategic about your approach to discounting and create them with profitability in mind then you should see more money in hand at the end of the BFCM sales.
To discount strategically, you need to put focus less on profit margin metric and more on contribution profit, customer acquisition, and the number of orders generated.
Check out your past discounts and look into the discounts that brought the highest contribution profit. You’ll also want to see how many new customers they brought and consider their lifetime value and AOV.
Wise Advice: To bring in more sales and drive cash flow, pair your discount pricing strategies with less-margin-depleting hooks like free gifts or tiered discounts.
2. Focus on your VIPs — not just customer acquisition
While many eCommerce companies focus on customer acquisition during BFCM, research shows that just 19% of first-timer BFCM customers stick around after shopping with a business during the sales. Now, we’re not saying it’s impossible to turn these new customers into repeat purchases, but that’s one for a different strategy.
For a successful BFCM, your VIPs are where it’s at. VIPs spend 5x more and order 2x more during the holiday sales. While acquisition is key for growing your customer pool, you should put the first focus on your VIP customers to maximize your Black Friday, Cyber Monday profit.
Your VIPs, the ones that spend the most and come to your store again and again, should be one of your biggest targets for BFCM because they’re already fans of your products. You know what they like and their purchasing patterns, and on top of that, you don’t need to work so hard to get them to buy. The success rate of selling to a customer is 60-70%, compared to 5-20% when it comes to selling to a new customer.
And because you’re not spending more on advertising to reach new audiences, focusing on your VIPs is a smart way to leave you with more money in hand this BFCM.
Putting the right strategies into play to make your VIPs feel valued and drive LTV
So, how do you hook your VIPs this BFCM? First, build buzz with targeted SMS and email marketing campaigns that feature sneak previews of your upcoming BFCM sales. Personalize these campaigns based on their purchase behaviour.
Show your VIPs some love by:
Dropping added perks like private collection, double loyalty points on their BFCM shops, or special VIP gifts Giving them that extra small discounts that’ll make them feel special and will drive more orders Holding exclusive early-bird specials on their favorite products
Remember: increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase your profits by 25-95%. Do this by sweetening up their perks beyond what you’re offering your other customers.
Source: Really Good Emails
3. Focus sales efforts on your most profitable markets
One way to max your profits this BFCM is by optimizing your marketing efforts for POAS (aka Profit on Ad Spend). Unlike ROAS (Return on Ad Spend), POAS factors in your profit margins for each product sale.
To optimize your POAS, zero in on the countries that have the best contribution margins when it comes to shipping packages. Even if these countries have low order counts and there for brought in lower contribution profits, you can potentially drive more profit by upping your marketing efforts for these regions.
Wise advice: for a double win on profitability — combine this strategy with bundling popular and profitable products (more on this later).
4. Drive profit from enhancing LTV with your customer database
VIPs are one of your most important audiences to target on BFCM — but they’re not the only ones. You need to step up your customer marketing across BFCM.
So, how do you improve CLTV to drive profitability? That's easy, you need to make customers feel special. One of the best ways to do that is by rewarding them for their loyalty. Research shows that unique offers can have a huge impact on positive brand associations in the long run. Customers who received a $10 voucher had a 38% spike in their oxytocin levels (that’s the feel-good bonding hormone) — helping them form stronger connections with a business and maximizing LTV.
This year, ‘Black Friday creep’ is predicted to continue with many retailers planning to grab more of the market share by hosting pre-Black Friday sales as early as October.
How do you capitalize on the early BFCM excitement and boost LTV?
Get ready for the shopping season early by offering loyal customers a 24-hour flash sale a month early, giving them the opportunity to grab what they want before it sells out.
Amp up the excitement for your flash sale using pop-ups and banners across your site, dedicated newsletters and SMS campaigns, and social media campaigns
Then, maximize customers’ LTV by:
Offering them customer-only vouchersGive your customers same-day shipping for freeOffer them exclusive deals on products that you won’t offer to new site visitors Offer loyalty-boosting early bird sales that combine personalization and exclusivity
Make sure your VIPs are in on these benefits — along with the ones we covered above.
Wise advice: to maximize your LTV and repurchase rates, tailor your BFCM offering to different customer segments with different psychographic profiles and shopping patterns. What you’ll offer shoppers who seek innovative trendy products, you can’t offer to bargain hunters.
5. Improve your Profit On Ad Spend (POAS) Ratio and CAC
BFCM marketing tends to decrease Customer Lifetime Value because of the epic discounting and increase CAC because of the epic competition driving up ad costs. What’s an eCommerce business to do? To max profits, you need to optimize these factors.
Increase new BFCM customers’ CLTV:
Upsell them in your order confirmation emails. Encourage them to buy more from you by letting them know they can add more products to their cart without paying more for shipping.Leverage the shopping rush by sending them a discount on their next purchase that they need to use in the next 24 hours Customers love interactive content, they love it even more when it comes to them! Which doubles up as a sneaky way to find out more about them. Send your new customers a short and fun quiz to understand their product preferences, shopping habits, and lifestyle, and use the results to personalize your future offers.Send new customers product education emails showing them how to get the most out of your products. Shoppers want to connect to the people behind the brand. Are you big on sustainability, worker’s rights, or “clean products”? Share your values and become their preferred place to buy from.Make the buying experience flawless — make them remember you for their next purchase, by dropping in coveted free samples or cool freebies.Use UGC video ad solutions such as Uplifted to showcase real customer stories, adding a touch of authenticity to your campaigns.
As at least most of your site offers strip discounts, you need to work hard on your upselling strategies. To manage CAC, bring in some tactics to help motivate consumers to fill up their carts.
Increase BFCM cart size:
Offer total look special BFCM dealsPersonalize your upsells by suggesting your most profitable products. Ones that, after deducting all expenses, give you the highest contribution margins or contribution profit in hand. Offering tiered discounts or applicable volume discounts is another winner hereUse steeply discounted products to hook customers and present them with full-priced items or items with less stip discountsDon’t forget to offer a minimum cart threshold higher than your AOV to unlock free shipping
6. Hook new visitors with profitable loyalty-building discounts
To hook your BFCM visitors, optimize your homepage and special event landing page to showcase your most popular products and products your customers previously looked at, and match these items with the discount that shows the highest repurchase rate and LTV.
Review the discounts you've offered throughout the year, with a focus on last year's Cyber Monday sale. Offer the discounts that led to high LTV and repurchase rates at relatively high-profit margins or AOV.
7. Drive sales with profitable product bundles
Everyone pushes their best sellers on BFCM. Spoiler: these aren’t always your most profitable products. While you can hook consumers with your top-selling products, you need to choose the products that have the biggest positive impact on your bottom line.
Bundles are psychologically enticing because they increase customers’ perceived value — they feel like they are getting more for less.
“Save with sets”: Glossier
You can optimize your profits and increase your sales by offering tiered spend rewards to customers who hit a certain spending threshold.
Don’t just offer a 15% discount to consumers who spend $100. Offering a tiered discount should be strategic as well. As goes for everything in marketing strategies, personalization is where it’s at.
To personalize your discounts, create smart segments of customers based on their average purchase spend and match your offering to their usual cart size and push them up.
Balance their budget limitations with increased spending incentives but remember, check your discount rates’ impact on your bottom line so it won’t start to negatively impact profitability.
8. Use BFCM to shift excess stock
Much of your BFCM profit-optimization strategy can be driven by shifting excess stock. An oversized inventory can weigh down your cash resources. From inventory space to insurance — these hidden costs can be unexpected drains on your company’s profitability.
As Dany Couillard, Director of Business Restructuring at BDC, says: “This is little-known, but every dollar of inventory that a company holds over its ideal level generates 20% to 30% of additional costs.”
Identify products that would perform better with a discount or sale, this includes products that have been on the site for over 90 days, have a higher days-to-finish inventory than the shop average, and don't yet have a discount.
You can also use these products as a hook to increase your AOV by offering them as a free gift when customers hit a certain spending threshold. This strategy is also a great approach for optimizing your profitability in the long run by improving customer satisfaction—90% of customers say that a free gift increases brand loyalty.
9. Promote your most profitable shipping methods as an incentive to push profit up
Free shipping had the biggest influence on buying decisions during Black Friday — holding 49% of the sway on consumers' buying decisions. While 32.7% of consumers say they plan to shop in-store to skirt shipping costs and delays — meaning free, fast shipping is more important than ever. How can you give consumers what they want and still increase your profits?
Every online store knows to set a minimum cart threshold to increase AOV.
Note: According to data, the perfect threshold for free shipping that’ll nudge your customers to spend more without putting them off is no more than 20% higher than your average AOV.
But you aren’t everyone. You want that extra profit-maximizing edge.
Then check the carrier’s highest contribution margin shipping method and offer it free in as many locations as possible
Wise advice: Also consider your carrier's AOV, LTV, and repurchase rate. Promoting carriers with these metrics in mind will boost your profits.
Metrics like High AOV, LTV and repurchase rates highlight which carriers your customers trust. By choosing the carriers that are a go-to option for customers, you’ll build a more loyal and trusting customer base, which means good things for your profitability.
If you know this shipping data ahead of time, you’re already way ahead of your fellow store owners for the BFCM rush.
10. Swerve losing money on product returns by predicting their likelihood
Many consumers go big on Black Friday and Cyber Monday — only to regret their impulse spends later, with 1 in 3 consumers returning what they buy during the sales. No matter how many sales you see during Cyber Week, product returns will have one of the biggest impacts on how much money you’re left with weeks after the sales end.
One way you can deal with returns is by analyzing which products in your store have the highest return rates and avoid stipping discounting them as they come with added costs.
As well as working out which products have the highest returns rate, see if you can spot trends in your product returns. For example, maybe there’s a connection between product returns and a specific location or shipping method. Optimize and adjust your BFCM strategy accordingly.
Wise advice: Bringing buyers as close to the real buying experience as possible won’t just impact your return rates, but also increase sales and customer satisfaction. If a customer selects “didn’t match description,” as the reason for their return, there’s a 66% chance they won’t buy from you again. Don’t let that happen.
11. Uncover and optimize your biggest expenses
What were your biggest expenses on last year’s BFCM? For this year to be a success, you need to understand which expenses were the biggest drain on your business and know how to optimize them for 2023.
Review your most costly expenses and see where you can save. From utilities to processing gateway fees, there are many expenses to consider that could be impacting your profitability. Review your main expenses and see where you can make changes this year.
12. Promote the most profitable payment method that also cultivates loyalty
As a profit-first focused business you want to foster loyalty by as many methods as possible. This strategy leverages your payment processors.
See how many fees you’re really paying for each processor, and how much you pay Shopify.
Wise Advice: make it easy to hit “pay.” Add as many payment methods as your customers use — think: Buy Now, Pay Later; split payments, and accelerated payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, or Shop Pay.
How to effortlessly maximize on Black Friday Cyber Monday profits
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are all about driving sales for many eCommerce businesses, but it’s easy to get caught up in zeroing in on customer acquisition and sales without taking the time to optimize profitability.
Selling more on Black Friday, Cyber Monday is great — but not if you’re left with less money than you make. Put these strategies into play and go all in on maximizing profits on Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023.
You can use your own profit analysis methods or use our ready-made reports to identify exactly what is hurting and what is contributing to your profitability without a hitch.
Prepare your eCommerce site for potentially your biggest shopping season yet, get more control over where your money goes, and optimize your eCommerce site for profit first.
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Business metricsThe 4 Main E-commerce Business Models for Building a Successful Online StoreRunning your own online business can be highly profitable, but it is not as simple as building a store and hoping for the best. You still need to have a set of business goals that will make your e-commerce store successful.
That's why, in this post, we will cover the four main types of e-business models and how they can help you build a successful e-commerce business.
What Is an E-Commerce Business Model?
An e-commerce business model is a company's plan for how it will monetize selling products or services online. There are many ways to do this, but some common e-commerce business models include selling goods directly to consumers, selling goods to other businesses, or providing digital services.
The defining difference between e-commerce and digital marketing is that digital commerce includes all forms of electronic communication, such as social media, text messages, emails, etc., whereas e-commerce only includes transactions that take place on websites.
In addition to understanding the basics of an e-commerce business model, it is also essential to familiarize yourself with the available development platforms. Read the following comparisons to learn more about the three most popular e-commerce platforms:
Wix vs. ShopifyWix vs. WooCommerceWooCommerce vs. Shopify
Maintain a Profitable Edge
You can now automatically calculate profits from multiple sources, saving time and effort.
Analyzes results to ensure consistent, accurate profits.Keep track of data points from multiple sources at once.Both desktop and smartphone versions are available.
Regardless of the e-commerce business model you adopt, the BeProfit analysis dashboard was designed specifically with the goal of making your life easier.
The 4 Major E-Commerce Business Models
There are many types of e-commerce business models. With examples, we cover the most popular ones here.
1. Business-To-Consumer (B2C)
Business-to-consumer refers to transactions in which a business sells its products or services to consumers. B2C is the most common e-commerce business model, and, therefore, many online niches fall into this category. They often use digital marketing for their e-commerce business success.
Example of B2C
Think of a clothing, entertainment, and household supplies retailer like Walmart, which sells products to individual consumers online.
The main advantages of B2C include:
Potentially endless customer base.Greater potential for sales and profits.
The disadvantages of B2C include:
Competitive business niches.Difficulties presented by customer service and return policies.
2. Business-To-Business (B2B)
A business-to-business e-commerce model is one where a business sells its products or services to other businesses rather than to consumers. This model is generally associated with high-end, high-priced products or services in industries in which the bulk of the revenue is generated by business purchases. The business-to-business model generally ends at the purchase stage—the company sells its product to another company, which then sells it to its customers.
Another subsection of B2B is business-to-government (B2G)
Although business-to-government e-commerce models are often grouped together with the B2B business model, instead of a business supplying another private business, they sell goods and services to government organizations. This can include anything from office supplies and technology products to complex consulting services. The B2G e-commerce model has become increasingly popular in recent years as governments seek to find ways to reduce costs and streamline operations.
There are several benefits that businesses can experience when selling to governments through the B2G e-commerce model. First, businesses can enjoy increased visibility and access to decision-makers within government organizations. Additionally, businesses can benefit from cost savings associated with streamlined procurement processes. Finally, businesses can also benefit from opportunities to build long-term partnerships with government organizations.
Example of B2B and B2G
Think of an online retailer like Amazon that uses the B2B and B2G e-commerce business model. Amazon.com sells various products and services to businesses, including books, software, and electronics. In addition, Amazon has developed several web-based applications specifically for government entities, such as Amazon's Web Services (AWS), GovCloud.
The main advantages of B2B or B2G include:
Larger orders.Fewer transactions.Shorter cycle times.
The disadvantages of B2B or B2G include:
Limited customer base compared to B2C.Potentially higher customer demands, like product customization and pricing options.
3. Consumer-To-Business (C2B)
A slightly less common but no less effective strategy is the consumer-to-business e-commerce model. C2B involves a consumer selling their products or exchanging their services directly with businesses. This generally occurs without the need for a middleman, such as a manufacturer or a wholesaler.
Example of C2B
Think of an online review website like Yelp or a social media platform like Facebook where consumers leave customer reviews, participate in company surveys, or even share product-focused social media content as an influencer. This is done in exchange for some kind of perk like the chance to win a prize, receive a discount, or be awarded a free product.
The main advantages of C2B include:
Affordable or free advertising.Potentially limitless brand awareness.
The disadvantages of C2B include:
Unpredictable outcomes.The potential for negative responses.
4. Consumer-To-Consumer (C2C)
C2C, also referred to as peer-to-peer (P2P), is an e-commerce business model where a consumer sells their products or services directly to other consumers. It contrasts with business-to-consumer, where the focus of the business is selling products or services to consumers. C2C is a very popular e-commerce model as it allows business owners to broaden their customer base and reach a larger audience.
Example of C2C
C2C websites are often referred to as P2P selling platforms. The concept is very similar to classified ads, which are often posted locally at a neighborhood or community level. Think of something like Facebook Marketplace, which is essentially a sub-platform of Facebook's main platform—a place that connects consumers with other consumers.
Facebook makes money from the buyers and sellers viewing on-site ads, and the consumer gets the benefit of connecting to another consumer who either wants to buy or sell secondhand goods. Leveraging this business model is a great way for businesses to increase their profit margins by growing their brand awareness.
The main advantages of C2C include:
Potential for high margins.Low to zero manufacturing costs.
The disadvantages of C2C include:
Highly competitive market.Increased potential for scams.
Another "Fast-Growing" Business Model
Direct-To-Consumer (D2C)
In this post, we've outlined the four most common and most successful e-commerce business models—but know that there are more than just four. For instance, D2C, or direct-to-consumer, is now becoming a very broadly used e-commerce business model. D2C cuts out the middleman and allows a manufacturer to sell directly to a consumer.
Regardless of which e-commerce model you choose to roll with, just be sure to clearly understand your business goals and which direction you'd like your online store to be heading. You should also take into consideration that you will have to address some of the challenges associated with e-commerce.
Example of D2C
D2C brands like Warby Parker and Harry's have disrupted the traditional eyewear and razor markets by cutting out the retail middleman and selling products directly to consumers online.
The main advantages of D2C include:
Control over brand messaging.Direct access to customers and their buying behaviors.
The disadvantages of D2C include:
Increased liability.Complex internal management.
A great way to boost direct-to-consumer profits is through the use of advertisement.
» Need help with ad management? Read our beginner's guide to effective advertising in e-commerce
Selecting the Best E-Commerce Business Model
There are a few key things to keep in mind when selecting the right e-commerce business model for your company. The first is deciding if you want to sell directly to consumers, businesses, or governments.
Each e-commerce model has its own set of pros and cons, so it's essential to select the right model for your business. Here are a few things to consider when choosing an e-commerce model:
What are your business goals?
Analyze the market to better understand which e-commerce business model suits your business best. What is your target market?
Define who they are, what they want, and how to reach them.What products or services do you offer?
Decide this early on and market it appropriately.What is your budget?
Set realistic budget goals, and stick to them as closely as possible.What is your level of technical expertise?
Decide where your specialties lie, what you'd like to tackle yourself, and what work would be better outsourced to outside contractors.
Once you've landed on a decision for each of these key considerations, you'll need to decide how you're going to reach them by choosing the correct e-commerce business revenue model. Is your new business model going to use an existing platform like Amazon or eBay, or are you going to build your own website? If you're going the self-hosted route, make sure to have a solid understanding of web development and e-commerce platforms. That way, you can create a site that's both user-friendly and profitable.
Profit calculationNet, Gross, & Operating Profit Margins: What Is High?Two popular metrics commonly used to gauge the success of a business are profit margin and net profit. And, while net profit is great at reflecting how much profit is generated from revenue, for some applications, it's arguable that a business's profit margin is a more valuable metric. This is because profit margin allows you to gauge how efficiently your business is running overall.
Understanding these metrics—involving income, revenue, and profit—and the benchmarks of each of these can provide insight into a business's overall profitability.
» Book a demo with BeProfit and learn how to calculate profit and other metrics with just one tool
Difference Between Net, Gross, & Operating Profit Margins
These three metrics are commonly used to analyze and measure the income of a business. All three metrics differ based on industry and business size and are typically not stagnant. To help you better understand the differences between the three margins, consider learning more about:
1. How to Calculate Net Profit Margin
Net profit margin is a measure of profitability. It's calculated by determining a business's net profit as a percentage of revenue.
Net Profit Margin = [(Revenue - Cost) / Revenue] x 100
For example, in e-commerce, the average net profit margin is 0.64%, whereas the average total market net profit margin is 7.77%, as reported by NYU Stern School of Business. But this can fluctuate depending on a number of factors, such as the number of sales, merchandising costs, and product prices.
Another way to look at net profit margin is by using a net profit margin ratio. The net profit margin ratio is just another way to measure a company's profitability.
Net Profit Margin Ratio = Net Income / Revenue
This ratio tells you how much profit a company makes on each dollar of sales. Simply put, a high net profit margin ratio means that the company is making a lot of money on its sales. In contrast, a low net profit margin ratio means that the company is not making as much money on its sales.
2. How to Calculate Gross Profit Margin
The gross profit margin differs from the gross profit and is expressed as a percentage. Gross profit margin is the percentage of revenue that remains after paying the cost of goods sold (COGS). The average, per NYU Stern School of Business, sits around 33% for all industries, and 42.78% for e-commerce, particularly.
Gross Profit Margin = [(Revenue - COGS) / Revenue] x 100
This calculation is useful because it measures the efficiency of the business's operations, provides a benchmark for measuring other business expenses, and shows changes in gross profit margins over time. Thus, e-commerce businesses prove to be excelling at managing operational costs efficiently for a maximal gross profit margin.
If you find your gross profit margin is low, however, you can look into reducing COGS, including lowering shipping costs or cutting out unnecessary expenses like excess staff or unneeded operational costs.
» Need help managing expenses? Keep track of your e-commerce business expenses
3. How to Calculate Operating Profit Margin
Operating profit margin (or return on sales) is the ratio of operating income to net sales. This is usually expressed as a percentage.
Operating Profit Margin = (Operating Profit / Revenue) x 100
The operating profit margin ratio is used to determine how well a company can cover operating costs with revenues. In other words, how effective a company is at generating profits from its sales. This is a useful performance indicator when making comparisons to similar companies. The average total market operating profit margin is 13.52%, with the e-commerce industry at 5.85%. This can change drastically based on net sales or even streamlining operational processes to lower costs.
» Find out how to calculate gross profit percentage
Easily Track and Analyze Your Profits
View and manage your profit trends on one dashboard.
Provides a complete business and financial overview.Access to real-time data and custom reports.Link multiple platforms and shops for an aggregated view.
BeProfit's app makes it simple to track and analyze your profit margins, saving you time and effort.
Benefits of Knowing Your Profit Margins
The ultimate goal for a business is profitability. If your sales are up, but your margins are down, you may need to take a deeper look at how you're running your business.
A business with a good profit margin is able to remain afloat during tough times and capitalize on opportunities, such as seasonal marketing strategies, to help boost sales. A high-profit margin means that the company is making enough money on each sale to cover its costs and generate a positive return on investment (ROI) for continued growth.
A high-profit margin also sends a positive signal to potential investors, lending credibility and stability to the business.
» Learn about effective cost leadership strategies to help improve profitability
Limitations of Profit Margin Calculations
To calculate a profit margin, business owners need to calculate total revenue and total expenses. This can be complex. Research and development (R&D) costs are expensed in the year in which they occur, while depreciation expenses are spread out over the life of the asset.
Profit margins also don't always consider changes in sales volume. If a company doubles its sales volume but keeps costs constant, the profit margin doesn't change. If a company reduces its sales but also lowers expenses and increases prices, its profit margin will increase. Calculating profit margins is not an exact science, and the outputs, while helpful, should be considered an estimation.
» Discover how to perform a profitability analysis for your e-commerce store
Knowing These Margins Can Help Improve Profitability
Because margins can fluctuate and depend on a number of factors, knowing the benchmark values can provide an estimated guideline to assess your business. Ultimately, a good profit margin is essential for maximizing company growth, understanding how other successful businesses in your industry are performing, and achieving optimizing your processes. If you have low-profit margins, tracking these same metrics on all-in-one platforms, like BeProfit's, can offer useful insight for making sales strategy adjustments, operational optimizations, and improving revenue management.
Business data analysisShipping Analytics: Benchmarks and Insights for E-Commerce SellersShipping costs can have a significant impact on an online merchant's profits. In this post, we take a closer look at the cost of shipping across different industries, providing insights into the average shipping cost per order, shipping costs out of total revenue, and customer charge rates. We also analyze the most popular shipping platforms used by online merchants and average delivery times in the U.S.
The Impact of Shipping Costs on Your Revenue
At BeProfit, we believe in identifying what's eating your profits in each area of your business and optimizing accordingly. With our powerful Shipping Analysis tool, you can gain insight into shipping operations, carrier performance, and shipping methods to optimize your shipping strategy and increase your gross margin.
» Learn how to maximize your profits by improving your shipping strategy—Book a demo
Shipping Benchmarks and Key Insights
Knowing and understanding the importance of key shipping benchmarks and insights can help you optimize your profits regardless of industry.
The Cost of Shipping in E-Commerce
Shipping costs can make or break an online merchant's profits. Let's take a closer look at the average shipping costs, shipping costs out of total revenue, and customer charge rates across different industries.
Home and beauty products have the lowest average shipping cost per order at $6.03, while electronics have the highest at $10.60.
However, in terms of shipping costs out of total revenue, clothing and fashion top the list at 12.73%, while electronics have the lowest percentage at 3.18%.
The customer charge rate for the electronics industry stands at an elevated 118.95%, implying that they impose a higher shipping cost on their customers than what they incur. In contrast, the home & beauty industry has a customer charge rate of merely 65.10%, indicating a negative profit margin for shipping.
These numbers highlight the importance of understanding shipping costs in relation to your industry and business model. While it may be tempting to charge your customers more for shipping, it's essential to find a balance between affordability for your customers and profitability for your business. By analyzing the data for your industry, you can make informed decisions about your shipping strategy and optimize your profits.
Which Shipping Platforms Do Online Merchants Prefer?
Choosing the right shipping platform can be a game-changer for online merchants. Let's delve into the shipping platforms used by merchants using BeProfit.
Shopify Shipping is the clear leader, with a whopping 85.81% of merchants opting for this platform. ShipStation comes in second with 5.38%, followed by Shippo at 3.1% and ShipBob at 1.63%. Other platforms, including Shiphero, Easyship, Shipping Easy, Shipmondo, Shiphawk, and Shipwire, are each used by less than 1% of merchants.
Average Delivery Time
According to PrettyDamnQuick, a provider of checkout-to-delivery management platforms for e-commerce businesses, the average click-to-door time for U.S. brands is 4.87 days, including non-business days. This metric represents the time it takes for an e-commerce order to be delivered to the customer's doorstep from the moment the order is placed. By revealing this data, e-commerce businesses can use it as a benchmark to measure their shipping efficiency and identify areas for improvement in their processes.
Shipping is the final touch to a perfect customer experience that will make or break your customer loyalty and retention. These three shipping factors are a trifecta:
1. Win customers in your local geography first - offer local customers personalized shipping options such as 'same-day or next-day delivery.'
2. Use a multi-carrier platform - customers desire a variety of shipping options, such as 'Free,' 'Express,' and 'Overnight,' to give them control and flexibility over when they'll receive their order.
3. Show a precise delivery promise in checkout - Include specific 'Arrives By' dates on each shipping option so customers know when they will receive their orders."
- Avi Moskowitz, CEO at Pretty Damn Quick
Streamline Your Shipping Performance with BeProfit's Shipping Analysis Tool
Efficient shipping is a crucial aspect of any online business. With BeProfit's Shipping Analysis tool, merchants can now track and analyze their shipping performance with ease.
Our powerful tool allows merchants to gain insight into their shipping operations, identifying areas for improvement and tracking new customers. By analyzing their shipping data, merchants can optimize their shipping strategy, save time and money, and increase customer satisfaction.
The Shipping Analysis provides an intuitive interface that displays essential shipping metrics, such as shipping costs, carrier performance, and shipping methods. Merchants can compare shipping data across different carriers and methods, helping them make informed decisions about their shipping strategy.
» Make the most of your shipping operations by booking a demo with BeProfit
Bring Your Company Up to Its Full Potential
Our analysis of shipping operations for online merchants has yielded some important benchmarks and insights. These include:
Shipping costs vary by industry, with electronics having the highest average shipping cost per order at $10.60 and home and beauty products having the lowest at $6.03.When looking at shipping costs as a percentage of total revenue, clothing and fashion have the highest rate at 12.73%, while electronics have the lowest at 3.18%.Some industries, such as the electronics industry, charge their customers more for shipping than they incur, with a customer charge rate of 118.95%. In contrast, the home and beauty industry has a negative profit margin for shipping, with a customer charge rate of 65.10%.The most popular shipping platform among online merchants is Shopify Shipping, with 85.81% of merchants opting for this platform.Delivery times vary by carrier and method, with the benchmark being 4.87 days in the U.S.BeProfit's Shipping Analysis tool can help merchants streamline their shipping performance by providing essential metrics and insights, such as shipping costs, carrier performance, and shipping methods.
With powerful insights and intuitive metrics, our platform can help you streamline your shipping performance and take your business to the next level.