WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems in the world. And Shopify is a great solution to set up an eCommerce store. Since WordPress has its own popular solution WooCommerce for eCommerce capabilities, an integration between Shopify and WordPress might look a little unreal. However, for websites, blogs, and small businesses who want to get the best of both worlds, there is a solution. Shopify had a WordPress plugin for a while for this integration, though they have discontinued it now. Instead, Shopify suggests a process of embedding a piece of code on your WordPress site or blog to display a “Buy Button”. This article will discuss the process of embedding the buy button, and will also discuss some of the standout features of Shopify. You will also get an idea on some exclusive WordPress themes for this integration.
How to Embed Shopify Buy Button on your WordPress Site?
You can embed the Shopify buy button in two ways:
- on an individual post in a WordPress blog
- to a menu on your WordPress site
Let’s quickly look at the procedure for both.
How to embed the Shopify ‘Buy Button’ on a WordPress blog post?
- Create a ‘Buy Button’ on your Shopify admin (you can customize the color, text and appearance of the button).
- Generate and copy the embed code of the button.
- Go to the post editor on your WordPress admin (you can choose to add a new post or open the editor of an existing blog). Make sure the editor is in the Text mode, and not the Visual mode.
- Paste the code on the place you want the buy button to appear, and save the post.
How to embed the Shopify ‘Buy Button’ to a WordPress Menu?
- Copy the embed code the same way as explained in the previous step.
- On your WordPress Dashboard, go to Appearance > Customize > Widgets
- Choose the area where you want to add the “Buy Button.”
- Add a widget or open an existing widget.
- Copy the embed code into the text field on the widget and save changes.
What exactly is Shopify’s eCommerce solution for WordPress?
As explained above, the process of integrating Shopify to WooCommerce is pretty simple. The advantage of doing this is that you will have a mini storefront on your WordPress site or blog. At the same time, you get access to the secure features of Shopify, including the shopping cart. Moreover, you can fully customize the look and feel of this storefront according to the specific needs of your store.
How does it make a difference?
When you are starting a new online store with Shopify, you are actually starting from scratch. What if you already have a blog or website that drives considerable traffic, and want to sell products through it? In such cases, this integration can really help you set up a storefront quickly and effectively. Let’s look at a few positive points.
Utilize the traffic on your site
If you are maintaining a popular blog or website for some time, you may considerable traffic coming on a daily basis. And, if you want to sell a small set of products, or may be even just a single product, you can effectively take advantage of the existing traffic. Simply add the buy button and start selling!
Simple set up
Setting up the eCommerce feature on your site or blog using the Shopify code is pretty simple and straightforward. When you want to incorporate the feature to sell some product, you can easily manage it without external help.
Options to personalize
You can personalize the look and feel of the storefront as well. Shopify offers option to change the color, text and appearance of the ‘buy button’.
Cost effective solution
Shopify WordPress integration is a cost effective solution, as you get access to some of the great features of Shopify. The cost of the monthly subscription is only $9 per month. With the subscription, you will get unlimited products, over 100 payment gateways, secure checkout, etc. In addition, you can track your sales performance, integrate shipping options, and get support for tax calculations.
Access to great resources
Shopify offers great resources to help budding entrepreneurs build their dreams. You can access podcasts, marketing tips, etc to understand the nuances of running a successful business.
Synchronizing multiple sales channels
If you have multiple sales channels, there are no more hassles of managing each one separately. Shopify automatically syncs inventory and orders from all your sales channels, to avoid any possible complexities.
Reliable support
On top of everything, Shopify offers dedicated support round the clock. You will get access to a knowledgeable support agent all time of the day via email or live chat. It definitely makes a difference, if you face any roadblocks in the set up or management of your storefront.
Top notch security options
Another important aspect that sets Shopify apart is the security options. The 256-bit SSL certificate ensures the safety and security of your customers’ data. In addition, Shopify platform is level-1 in PCI compliance.
Variety of payment options
The built in payment options of Shopify itself is capable of providing a great experience to your customers. You can accept payments via all major credit cards using the in built options. Furthermore, it offers more than 70 payment gateways including PayPal and Stripe.
Automatic shipping rates and taxes
Shopify helps you by automatically setting up shipping rates and tax calculations as well. In fact, this will save you from a lot of trouble that is normally associated with eCommerce store management.
Try Shopify Lite at $9 per month today!
Shopify WordPress Themes
As the Shopify WordPress integration is gaining momentum, theme developers are focusing on developing exclusive themes for it. Here are a couple of themes handpicked by experts that you can use for the Shopify WordPress integration embedding the buy button.
Pulse
This is a theme that is exclusively built for the Shopify WordPress buy button integration. You can simply download and install this theme on your WordPress site for free. This theme suits really well even if you are selling just a single product through your store. With the Shopify integration, you can actually forget all the hassles that you otherwise needs to face while incorporating an eCommerce solution on WordPress. This theme enhances the overall smoothness of Shopify WordPress integration.
Here is a list of features of Pulse Shopify WordPress theme:
- Perfect integration to Shopify
- Responsive design
- Retina display support
- Great customization options including color, layout and font
Simple
True to its name, this theme projects simplicity as one of the important aspects that sets it apart as a good WordPress theme. You can use this theme on any WordPress blog or site, for a great look and feel. However, it particularly helps if your blog or site features the ‘buy button’ of Shopify. Basically, you can feature products for sale on your WordPress site, and manage the eCommerce aspects of the store like inventory and orders from the Shopify admin. And, you can use the theme’s page builder to customize the site according to your own personal choices with a simple drag and drop interface.
A quick look at the standout features of Simple
- Header options — You will get an option to set up a transparent and sticky header on your website. This will make navigation on your site more easy, and the result will be a better user experience.
- Page title — Simple offers an option to customize the page title on your site. This would give you more flexibility to attract the attention of the users to wherever you want.
- Intuitive navigation — Features like an intuitive ‘Back to Up’ button provides convenience to users to navigate through your site. Such user oriented features would help a lot in overall site experience and subsequently, conversions.
Advantages of Shopify over other eCommerce platforms
Shopify is clearly one of the most preferred eCommerce platforms currently available in the market. The huge popularity of the platform is due to a variety of aspects of Shopify that its users love. Here is a look at some of the interesting features that set apart Shopify from its competitors.
Ease of setting up
This is one of the primary reasons for a lot of new entrants to eCommerce prefer Shopify over other solutions. You can set up an online store using Shopify in a matter of minutes, and without coding knowledge or any other hassles. The fact that Shopify is a hosted solution means that the powerful servers of Shopify will take care of your store without any intervention from you. That means a lot, because you can start small and upgrade to a bigger plan taking into account the growth curve of your store.
The responsibility of finding a good hosting plan and domain might be difficult for users with no technical knowledge in solutions like WooCommerce. However, once hosting and domain registration is taken care of, WooCommerce too offers great flexibility.
Ease of use
This is another factor that drives no technical entrepreneurs towards Shopify. The interface is quite user friendly and intuitive, so that anybody can customize the requirements according to their liking. You can configure various functionalities related to your store and products pretty comfortably. Moreover, integrating different payment gateways, shipping solutions, and tax calculations are pretty easy with Shopify.
No worry about server
When running an eCommerce store, you need to ensure continuous uptime for your site. This is only possible by hosting your site on a reliable server. Shopify ticks this part quite well, with their superior server management. More importantly, users vouch for the reliability of Shopify servers that ensures continuous uptime.
Great features
The great range of features is another obvious crowd puller for Shopify. You will find a great range of features critical to eCommerce store maangement integrated to Shopify. Inventory management, payment gateways, shipping options, marketing tools, analytics reports, etc. In addition, you can make use of the large variety of add-ons as well.
Awesome design
Shopify presents a great design language, which is loved by experts. You will find a lot of paid themes and a few free ones in the Shopify theme store. These themes are suitable to any kind of product range that you are planning to sell. The modernistic and contemporary styling ensures that your site design is never behind any of your competitors.
Supports all type of products
Shopify is really flexible when it comes to product range. You can sell any products like physical or digital using Shopify. If you consider other solutions like Easy Digital Downloads, you can see they are more comfortable with downloadable products. There is no such worry if you are using Shopify.
Security
You need to take extra care to keep the data of your customers safe on your site. Shopify handles this too, as you can rest assured. All Shopify plans come with a free SSL certificate. In addition, Shopify is level-1 PCI compliant.
Dependable support
One of the major requirements of an eCommerce platform is to get dependable support when you need it. With Shopify, this factor is well taken care of. They have 24/7 support over email, phone and live chat. That means, you will get to speak to a support agent when you face an issue with your site. For an online store, getting timely support is crucial, as any delay can affect their revenue and profits.
Conclusion
WordPress is adored all over the world as one of the best content management solutions in the world. Similarly, a great range of online stores across the world uses Shopify platform, and simply love it! That is why a combination of both can prove to be a winning deal for many small time merchants. Bigger stores often have the bandwidth to customize features with technical support. But with a single embedding of a code, you can incorporate a Shopify ‘buy button’ on your WordPress site or blog. This article has provided a step by step account of the Shopify WordPress integration. You have also seen a few exclusive themes that support this integration, and a range of standout features of Shopify.
Originally published at learnwoo.com on January 19, 2018.