If you own a dropshipping business, every detail matters. You may be wondering whether it’s best to use Clickfunnels or Shopify. In other words, you’re contemplating whether to build a sales funnel or build a whole store. You might even be tempted to try both. But don’t overcomplicate your ecommerce empire — I recommend the sales funnel. Let’s discuss why.

Don’t Build an Online Store with Too Many Options

What’s one of the problems with relying on stores like Shopify alone? It’s difficult to make a profit on cold traffic from basic ad campaigns. For example, you might be selling a pet product and lure people to your store with ads. When people get onto your landing page, they’re likely to encounter multiple sizing and color options for the product. The problem with offering too many options without any instructive advice on what to get is that the customer may have too many questions. Remember, confused customers never buy.

Take our pet product example again. It could be a chew toy that’s available in small or large sizes, but the customer may consider one size to be too inconvenient to carry with them to the dog park. At the same time, the other is possibly too small for larger dogs. Giving customers too much of a headache around the buying decision can lead them to simply turn away from your store. 

As the owner of a Shopify store, you may see this activity in the form of plenty of “at the cart” statuses that end right there. We’ll discuss this more later.

Another potential issue is that prospects may see too many suggested products that don’t seem relevant to the product they’re currently viewing. That confusion alone can lead to mistrust — and, again, they’ll leave your store without making a purchase. 

The key is narrowing down your focus on specific products and mastering that category. Whether you prefer Clickfunnels or Shopify, focus is essential.

What Should You Do Instead? Choose a Single Profitable Niche

A big mistake that many Shopify store owners make is adding too many products to their store. Then the store doesn’t seem to have a clear focus and merely exists to generate sales for random products. It’s best to spend your energy on a particular niche. Start learning the ins and outs of it, and focus on creating offers that fit within that niche. You can even focus on selling just a single product for your whole business (which I dive into here).

Shopping Carts Can Let Customers Leave Your Store

As we mentioned, a general store with products offering too many options could lead many people to add products to their cart. But the process of actually making a purchase could also be too daunting.

For instance, customers might have to choose specific options for a product before even adding it to their cart. That’s a barrier. Even once they finally click that button and move on to the next screen, they land on the cart page. Many people don’t like cart pages, and that means they reduce the odds of people making a purchase through cold traffic. 

At the cart page, the customer may begin to experience what’s known as buyer’s remorse. In the process, they may regret their decision when faced with the total cost. Maybe they’ll remove multiple items from the cart. Maybe they’ll decide to leave altogether. This reason alone is why the average Shopify store has a conversion rate of under two percent. When you’re choosing between Clickfunnels or Shopify, Shopify is a little underwhelming for sellers and overwhelming for buyers.

Even if the customer gets past the cart page, they’re then faced with a third page to complete the checkout process. Checking out also involves entering shipping and billing information, resulting in more unnecessary clicks that draw out the buying process. By that point, there is a myriad of holes in the funnel that makes it clear why so many people leave the store without buying.

While Shopify can still help you earn the profits you want, the key is selling smart. Keep in mind that many people who visit your store are just visiting you for the first time. They don’t know if they can trust the merchant or their products at this point, which can give them some doubts that lead them to the door without spending a dollar.

Why You Need an Effective Sales Funnel in Place

For cold traffic, you should always have a sales funnel that helps improve conversion with a proven process. Clickfunnels can help.

What first happens with a sales funnel for cold traffic is this:

When a person clicks on your ad, he or she will be redirected to what you may refer to as a squeeze page. This is also called a landing page or a sales page. The point of these pages is to highlight one particular product and show why your product is worth buying. You may include benefits, features, testimonials, reviews, and other information that convinces the customer that the product is right for them before simply leading them to your store.

After the customer has had a chance to review the page and the product it’s advertising, you can ask them to simply provide their email address to begin buying the product. At this point, in lieu of a traditional checkout page, you would lead the customer to an order form that’s simple and to the point. Without all the complexities of a general Shopify cart and that opportunity to experience buyer’s remorse, the customer will be more engaged and be more likely to make a purchase.

An effective sales page boosts the perceived value of your product among your audience. You’ll have a much better chance of increasing sales for that product. 

Our “1, 2, 4, 6, 8” Philosophy

There’s even a great strategy to increase sales for a product in the sales funnel through your order form/ It’s what we call the “1, 2, 4, 6, 8.” This entails listing various quantities of the product in a dropdown going from one to eight by an increment of two, which highlights how much they can save if they order multiple quantities of a product at once. Showing a person how to get the best value is more likely to get them to buy more of your product in a single sale. In turn, this can give you more money to spend on ads for that product and expand your reach through reinvestment in your business.

You can further boost sales by leading customers to an upsell page after the initial purchase with a discount. This can encourage people to buy even more with the understanding that they’ll continue to save. If you can show the value of your products and the purchase, you can include as many upsells as you want without worrying about the customer simply leaving — we recommend using around three to four, but feel free to experiment.

Using Both Clickfunnels and Shopify

In the end, it’s best to have a Clickfunnels sales funnel at the front end of the sales process. By using a sales funnel, you can build a list of nonbuyers and prospective customers. Then, you can sell them premium versions of your products. At the same time, you could have a simple niche-specific Shopify store that you use to sell a premium-priced product to existing customers or ones who are more likely to buy. This is generally a better strategy than relying on sales through cold traffic.

Take all of these aspects into consideration when choosing between Clickfunnels or Shopify.

Consult With the Pros 

At Ecommerce Empire Builders, we can help you determine which steps you need to take to maximize sales and ROI. To learn more about how to build your dropshipping business with ease, reserve your seat at our free Ecommerce masterclass. You’ll find out how to earn a full-time income online without the need to build a website or even touch the products you’ll be selling. Also, keep your sales strategies sharp by watching our videos on YouTube.