Shopify Food Stores: Weekly Inspiration Issue #9
Table of Contents
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
What brings people together more than food? Not much. There’s no point in talking about the importance of food though, we all know it’s necessary for survival, but it has a bigger role than just satisfying our hunger. Food supports community. It gives us immense pleasure. And by making the right food choices, we can thrive by feeling better day to day.
So take your pleasure seriously. Life’s too short to go hungry. And it's certainly too short to eat bad food.
Luckily, there are people dedicated to the craft of great eats, on a lifelong mission to make your food experiences as delectable as possible. Which begs the question...
Do you have a passion for food? If the answer is yes, you might have considered the possibility of using Shopify as an avenue to sell your food services or products.
A really interesting insight that you’ve no doubt heard of already is: 60% of all restaurants shut down within the first year of operations, and up to 80% of restaurants close their shops inside five years. The overhead investment that comes with opening a restaurant, cafe or similar venture is huge. High rent, no marketing and lack of experience are just a few reasons why such a process can be overwhelming, leading to failure within the first year according to Business Insider. There is a lower cost solution though, and it goes by the name of Shopify.
Using Shopify for any eCommerce site will save you money so you can initially focus on building your business. We recommend picking a niche product/service and explore selling that first. Last week I looked into inspirational Shopify games stores, feel free to check it out. So if food is your avenue, look within that industry and widdle it down. The more specific your niche the better.
In this post, we’ll be looking at all things food-related with our top pick of Shopify food stores to get inspired by. This article will contain actionable solutions for anyone thinking about building a Shopify online store, so fear not dear reader.
Lettuce dive right in as always.
Inspirational Shopify Food Stores
Protein Bakery
Cookies and brownies that shred you up? This is an amazing concept that I wish more people would get on board with. If you are a fitness enthusiast you can probably appreciate the invention of guilt-free baked goods. Eating healthy should be fun, and the Protein Bakery injects excitement back into hitting your daily protein goals.
Social buttons accessible in the top right corner and an abundance of menu options for currency, FAQs, retail partner opportunities and more.
Large imagery is paramount when it comes to showcasing your food products on your Shopify food store. The goal is to make your product irresistible. If you can make the viewer drool all over their keyboard, you’re already halfway there. The quick shop option when hovering the mouse over a product makes the purchasing process easier meaning increased conversions.
The testimonial section cleverly named Taste-A-Monials adds credibility and weight to the buying decision. Remember consumers tend to trust testimonials from real people over anything else. Adding photos to match the text would make these even more effective, bringing a more human element to the page.
Protein Bakery has nutritional information available for every product - super important being in the food sector.
Conclusion: Nice large hero imagery, quick shop feature, social buttons and testimonials all play a role in influencing the prospect visiting their page.
Actions: Social Sharing Buttons is the go-to for social media tabs like the ones shown on the homepage. For customized testimonials that include images, you can use the Testimonials & Reviews app.
Jerky Spot
As I write I grow hungrier, and Jerky Spot definitely isn’t helping things. But alas, I must push through. The simplicity of this page is admirable, and the call back button in the bottom left corner is a nice touch, showing their commitment to customer service standards.
Scroll down and you find a few guarantees along with a carousel of testimonials beside some imagery. There’s an email subscription prompt also. Meanwhile, the Call Back button stays in view to utilize wherever you are on the site.
The product page is simplistic and actually directs you to Amazon to continue the purchase. It seems that Jerky Spot curate and provide access to jerky from different providers rather than sell their own. They do however stock a range of jerky making products under their own name.
My favorite feature is probably the pop-up cart that gives you quick access to your shopping list before you checkout without navigating you away from the product page.
Conclusion: While the site itself isn’t fancy or containing a large product range, the layout is simple and easy to navigate with a few neat features.
Actions: Raven Callback Request Shopify app can be used to schedule calls to turn your site visitors into customers, although Jerky Spot claim to used Zendesk - another popular customer service app.
Get inspired any of these stores? Now you can pinpoint exactly which Shopify theme they are using and try it for your own Shopify store.
How To Do It: Simply use our Shopify Theme Finder Here.
Nutriseed
As healthy eating trends continue to gain popularity, more and more people are looking towards vegan, gluten-free and superfood options to reach for vitality. Nutriseeds homepage contains an abundance of information and relevant features. Email capture, guarantees, customer service chatbot unique menu options like “Shop by Goal”.
Scroll down to see their curated list of best-selling products accompanied by product reviews. Listing the benefits of the product using a tick list is super powerful when it comes to influencing the customer to purchase. It’s important to remember that people buy based on emotion, not logic, so speak to them as if you understand their pain points using a list of benefits just as Nutriseed have.
Credibility is everywhere, elevating their status as leaders in their industry. Starting up your own Shopify store, you may not have magazine features or celebrity endorsements initially, but there's nothing to stop you from collecting testimonials to build trust in the consumer's eyes.
This is a product page done right. Several tabs for FAQs, nutrition info and reviews along with testimonials and related products below. There’s a lot going on here but the reviews along with extensive information about the product and delivery puts the buyer's mind at ease while purchasing.
Conclusion: Nutriseed screams credibility and boasts all the features you want to see in a Shopify store.
Actions: You can collect reviews like Nutriseed have done with the Judgeme app to build trust in your brand. The judge me app lets you collect reviews by email and can even optimize them to display in Google searches.
For building impressive pages like this one, the PageFly page builder app lets you easily construct and completely customize them with drag and drop technology. Testimonials, email capture, and cart countdown tools can all be found in the PageFly app without having to look to other paid third-party apps for these features. They also offer a 14-day free trial, so check them out if you’re serious about building high converting Shopify pages. If you are a Shopify partner building a store on behalf of a client, note that PageFly is partner friendly - meaning you can make use of all their features free of charge, without any trial period.
Caboose Spices
Caboose spices focus on storytelling to promote their brand. Reading through their About Us page, it’s written in a conversational tone and their passion for food leaks through - another method of building trust and credibility with consumers without having to use testimonials. They offer rewards programs as seen in the bottom left corner and the interactive product collection is a nice touch - just hover the mouse over the spices to quick view information.
Capture consumer attention and offer them a discount in exchange for their email address. A nice trade off as that customer can be turned into a repeat visitor to your site through a well thought out email campaign.
The Smell-o-Vision Gallery alone makes me want to go all in on these spices to recreate these dishes at home. Really nice use of high-quality food shots to influence visitors on the site to take action and buy.
The blog brings value to the reader with tips and tricks to implement at home. This can also be used to drive traffic to the shop by sharing it across other platforms like Facebook, Quora, and Reddit.
Conclusion: The site predominantly revolves around adding value through content and information - a smart move for anyone who sells a food product. The food gallery sparks interest and the email capture can be used to great effect to market content even further.
Actions: Privy is a standout choice for pop-up email windows like seen above. If you want to incentivize customers with rewards, try the popular app by Swell designed to do just that.
Mobile Compatibility
I speak about the importance of mobile in every post I write, simply because it’s a necessity these days to optimize your store across all devices. If you’re not building your store with this in mind, you are going to lose customers - it’s that simple. Let’s have a look at how some of these sites perform from a mobile standpoint.
Food shots on Protein Bakery are just as tempting in mobile view as they are on desktop.
Jerky Spots home and product page fall in line with the desktop version - no thrills here but an easy to use layout works with a PayPal option upon checkout.
Equally as impressive viewing from your smartphone. Nice to see Nutriseed displaying all the relevant information found on the desktop version of their site.
The text falls on the righthand side - not sure if this was intentional or not. Either way, it works fine, with imagery displaying nice and crisp.
So how do you optimize your site for mobile? There are many ways, but the easiest method is to use a page builder app that will automatically do this for you. For example, when building your store with PageFly, you can view your page in mobile mode by clicking the ‘All’ button shown below to view your page in desktop, mobile or tablet mode and customize it accordingly.
Lets Recap
In the case that you’re feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of options and information available to you, let’s quickly recap on the above stores and how you can achieve Shopify success.
- Testimonials - Add credibility and weight to the buying decision using PageFLy. Pair them with faces if possible to match the testimonials for more powerful persuasion.
- Email - Always utilize email to market your new products and promotions turning customers into repeat visitors. There are tons of email automation tools to choose from on the Shopify app store. Check them out here.
- Imagery - Use professional high definition photography on your site to showcase your food. The aim is to create a strong sense of desire and how delicious it is through photos and descriptive language.
- Mobile - Optimize your store for mobile to make sure you don’t lose out on potential customers. PageFly remains our recommendation for fully customizable mobile Shopify pages.
- Content - Content marketing takes priority over many other forms of marketing in today's world. If you provide a food service or a product, use content and relevant information (nutritional info, health benefits, recipes, blogs etc) to bring value to visitors on your page. This will help convert prospects into buyers.
- Simplify Purchases - Make the purchasing process as easy as possible to increase conversions. The more the reader has to work to purchase, the more likely he is to click away due to confusion. Use ‘Quick Shop’ features and strategically placed ‘Add To Cart’ buttons.
What's Next?
Sadly, this is the last edition of our Shopify Weekly Inspiration Series. It has been our pleasure to provide you with the tools needed to start your own Shopify online store.
But, it’s all in vain unless you actually take action today. With Shopify's free 14-day trial, you can get to building your own business right now, and start turning your passion into income. After all, isn’t that the dream? It truly is an amazing time to be alive. eCommerce is the future of shopping and it’s only going to get better with the progression of virtual and augmented reality around the corner. So get on board and this fast-moving train before it’s too late.
We genuinely hope these insights have given you a real hunger to start your own Shopify food store. Got questions? All you have to do is ask. Comment below and we’ll get back to you in a jiffy.
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