Growing a fashion business is a big enough challenge as it is without throwing a clunky website into the mix. You want to focus on marketing and sales, you don't want to be spending hours and hours every week on inventory management and website fixes.
When you're trying to sell as much as you can, you need to remove as many roadblocks and time-suckers as possible. Your selling platform and who you choose to use - Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace - is such a big part of your slow fashion business success and because your website is your customer-facing store front, it is so important to get right.
When I first launched The Fashion Advocate, I started it as a blog on Tumblr and it was great because that's all I needed, but I had big plans to grow the business and I needed more functions, so I switched to Wix.
For a short time, Wix was great. I got to flex my design muscles and create the look and feel I wanted, but when I wanted to start selling ethical and sustainable fashion, Wix became a big problem. Yes, I could plug in a few apps and host a clunky version of an ecommerce store on my Wix blog, but I was constantly finding issues, roadblocks and limitations and that's because Wix was designed to be a blog service, not an ecommerce service. They built in the ability to host ecommerce 'blocks', but it's so clunky for customers and it crashes all the time - which is not what you want when someone is mid-checkout.
When I worked out that Wix was going to hold me back from scaling, I researched all my other options - Shopify, WooCommerce and Squarespace - and Shopify won hands down for so many reasons.
WooCommerce and Squarespace are super basic with their capabilities, so if you want to add the essential functions that you need to compete with the market and create an incredible online shopping experience for your customers, both WooCommerce and Squarespace require developer-level skills and HTML editing. That means paying someone else and that's money I'd rather spend on marketing or a VA to lighten my workload.
Shopify on the other hand, has over 2000 apps you can seamlessly add to your store and you can literally do everything yourself with drop-and-drag functionality. There's also an Australian-based support team that you can speak to any time for help and a Shopify help center with answers to any problem you might face. Fonts, images, design features, checkout changes, the way my sales pages are laid out... I can do it all with Shopify because it's so user-friendly and seamless which means I'm in and out, I make the changes, and I'm off to use my time wisely on building my business, not building my website.
And before you think, 'She's obviously getting paid by Shopify to write this blog post", I'm not. Shopify doesn't even know I've written it and I don't get paid by Shopify every time someone clicks on a link in the blog. This blog isn't for my gains - it's for yours. I want to help you grow your ethical, sustainable, handmade or slow fashion business as easily as possible so I'm sharing the content that help you do that.
The fact is, Shopify is the best platform to use if you want to scale and grow your slow fashion business. I've tested all the platforms and used all the hosts, and I know from running one of largest online stores for ethical and sustainable fashion, that Shopify is the best choice.
And if you're struggling with sales, I know it's easy to want to spend on marketing and advertising, but if your foundation - your website - isn't right, the rest won't matter. So, if you're running a slow fashion business and you want to scale, a powerful online store is going to help you do that.
Shopify's SEO prowess, user-friendly-ness, and easy inventory management make it the best platform for building your sustainable fashion business and here are the top three reasons why...
1. Shopify is better than Wix, Squarespace and WooCommerce for SEO purposes.
- In the crowded space of fashion and e-commerce, having a good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy is essential for driving organic traffic to your website. Being seen in a sea of fashion websites is key, and Shopify takes the cake in this department.
- It has a plethora of built-in SEO tools and features, a user-friendly dashboard, and every function and feature you need to optimise your online store for search engines.
- Shopify also creates user-friendly URL structures and it generates clean and SEO-friendly URLs to improve your store's chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- In the era of mobile dominance, Shopify also ensures that your store is mobile-friendly, contributing to better search engine rankings and a better experience for your customer.
- Shopify also has an integrated blogging platform and blogs are essential for fashion business growth. It allows you to maintain an SEO-optimised blog too, improving your search engine rankings.
2. Shopify is easier for your customers to use than Wix, Squarespace and WooCommerce.
- Wix, Squarespace and WooCommerce websites have a track record of not working properly or clunking out at the worst possible time and the last thing you want is a website that doesn't work properly when a customer is half-way through the checkout process.
- Your website is your connection to your customers, and you have to think about your platform as your sales assistant. Wix was created as a blogging platform and Shopify was created as a dedicated e-commerce platform, so Shopify will always win when it comes to the customer experience. It's called UX (short for 'user experience') and while it can sound tech-y and complicated, the simple fact is this: Shopify is easier for customers to use which means they check-out faster and they're happier to come back.
- The success of your sustainable fashion business heavily depends on your customer's experience when they're on your online store, and Shopify delivers above. It offers an intuitive and seamless user experience that keeps customers engaged and coming back, and it offers creative themes that are tailored to fashion businesses which means less time designing your website and more time selling your products.
- It's also crucial that your website loads in less than three seconds, and Shopify pages are optimised for faster loading times which means a reduced bounce rate and better conversions. You might be selling slow fashion, but customers want a fast online experience and Shopify wins again at this.
3. Shopify's inventory management system is streamlined and built for growth.
- Keeping track of your inventory and supply chain is essential, but it's a lot of information to juggle if you're using Wix, WooCommerce or Squarespace. Shopify's inventory management system is built-in and it has all the tools you need to efficiently manage your products, collections and ranges, to cut down on inventory management hours, and maintain stock levels easily.
- Shopify's centralised product management system also allows you to easily add, update, and organise your products, which means more accurate information for your customers and less risk of overselling.
- Shopify also allows you to add sustainability-related product attributes such as eco-friendly materials or ethical sourcing details, so you can easily share your commitment to responsible practices and share your values as a business.
- Shopify integrates with postage, shipping and order fulfilment services, so if you're using a third-party fulfilment service, you can streamline your order process, automatically generate shipping labels instead of manually doing it through Australia Post, and completely remove the risk of hand-written address mistakes.
In a nutshell, scaling your slow fashion business is easy but only when you're using the right platform.
Shopify is hands down the best possible choice for sustainable fashion business and brand growth because of its powerful SEO capabilities, design ease, user-friendly experience, and efficient inventory management features.
I am all about working less, living more and using fashion as a force for good, and that means working smarter, not harder. The smartest thing you can do for your ethical, sustainable, circular or slow fashion business, brand or label is to give yourself a good foundation to build on - and that's a Shopify website.
If you're ready to transition but you need a little help to do it, book a strategy call and I can help you through the process.
Claire x
