Utilizing Multi-Channel Marketing to Grow Your Shopify Store

Published on May 18, 2022
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Filed under Selling Channels
Read time 7 Minutes

This post was contributed by Ashley Scorpio, Senior Vice President of Partnerships at Hawke Media.

Shopify provides an easy way to manage your shipping. It’s right there on the platform. You can compare rates, show them to your customers, print labels, and track your shipments, all without breaking a sweat. And for many shop owners, Shopify Shipping is all they need. But there are some limitations to what you can do with it as a growing business.

For example, Shopify will only ship orders from the U.S. and Canada, with limited carrier options. Depending on which plan you have, there may be an additional monthly charge as well. If you want to use FedEx freight, Shopify can’t support that option at all. Furthermore, if Amazon, eBay, or Etsy are part of your channel strategy, you’ll need to set up another shipping solution.

Once you start to scale your business and you’re executing a multi-channel strategy, you may find that you’ve outgrown the built-in software or it simply doesn’t work well anymore for your products or customers. That’s where third-party resources like ShipStation come in, providing everything you need to grow your business and support your customers.

Fulfillment Is King

According to advisory firm McKinsey & Company, it’s critically important for ecommerce businesses to be able to scale when needed (the pandemic has only further proven this to be true.) It’s simple enough to sell online, given platforms like Shopify, but a sustainable business must look into the horizon and make choices that will support the business as it grows and thrives. Strategy isn’t just for big business. Small and medium-sized enterprises must have a plan for expansion. 

High shipping costs and poorly managed inventory are surefire ways to lose money online. Customers want quick, on-time delivery of the goods they purchase. Companies like Amazon have set the bar high with Amazon Prime. Customers expect fulfillment without a hitch and free shipping. Nearly 70 percent of consumers say that they are less likely or much less likely to shop from a merchant again after a single two-day delay in delivery. 

ShipStation Integrates Seamlessly With Shopify

Growing businesses need a more robust shipping solution. ShipStation offers everything that Shopify can do, and more. You’ll still be able to:

  • Save on shipping costs since the discounts offered by UPS, USPS, and DHL are similar
  • Provide real-time, in-cart shipping rates to customers
  • Send shipping confirmation emails to customers with real-time updates, either through ShipStation or with Shopify, whichever you prefer
  • Avoid standing in line at the post office with scheduled daily courier pickups
  • Manage your inventory accurately in ShipStation with complete visibility into what you have and where it’s located
  • Use multiple Shopify locations without having to manually map them to your ShipStation From Address

ShipStation can be seamlessly integrated with Shopify in just a few clicks. It’s so effortless, it will feel as if it’s native to the platform. 

To find out more about how ShipStation can help you ship your Shopify orders, read our Shopify Merchant’s Shipping Guide.

ShipStation Benefits

When you have an omnichannel strategy, ShipStation can take your business to the next level by instantly integrating all of your selling channels. But that’s just the beginning. ShipStation will support your growing demand. Who has time to view individual labels and print small batches of 20? You can streamline your order processing by viewing up to 500 orders at a time and producing branded labels in an instant. By automating repetitive tasks, you save time and money.

Your customers choose their shipping option during checkout. That might be free, standard, or expedited shipping. When ShipStation sees the requested service, this data informs the order processing. Customers get exactly what they want when they want it. Happy customers are repeat customers.

Customers Expect Options

Your online store needs flexibility. Even if your product selection is limited, you still need more than one way to meet customer demands. Can I get this order overnight? Do you ship overseas? We need 2,000 of these. How soon can we get them? Happy problems to have, but challenges nonetheless. Your system must adjust to whatever the customer wants. This is where exceptions can create manual labor, expensive errors, and costly overruns.

With ShipStation, you can automate nearly any shipping-related task. Using built-in automation rules, you’ll have an error-proof fulfillment process. These rules are applied based on a set of predetermined criteria and take priority over Product Defaults and Service Maps. They can also be written to override each other in certain circumstances. For example, if the customer requests expedited service at checkout, ShipStation will automatically apply FedEx Standard Overnight® to the order, ensuring your customers’ on-time delivery.

You’ll also get the best shipping rate discounts. Discounts aren’t just for high-volume businesses. Top carriers, such as UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL, Hermes, and others negotiate inexpensive options for many businesses. ShipStation has already created partnerships so all you have to do is take advantage of the great savings. It may even be possible to stack discounts or add discounts together. Discounts do change frequently but with ShipStation’s rate calculator, you’ll be able to see all of the rates in one convenient location. 

To find out more about how ShipStation can help you ship your Shopify orders, read our Shopify Merchant’s Shipping Guide.

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