The internet has created a lot of ways to make money from home and “making money on Shopify in Nigeria” is a proven way. It is now possible for you to sit in your bedroom and make money round the clock daily if you know how to play your cards well.
With Shopify, you can sell different products online to people from different locations without having to see them or interact with them. They will make their purchase and it will be shipped to them without any physical contact whatsoever
Having a shop without walls has been made possible with e-commerce. You can now sell your products to someone in Kano even if you live in Port Harcourt.
And Shopify will make it possible for you to set up your e-commerce website and sell products to people in different parts of Nigeria and even beyond Nigeria if you have a system in place to take care of shipping.
You will learn the different ways you can use to make money on Shopify, how to set up your Shopify store and Shopify alternatives.
What is Shopify Nigeria
Shopify Nigeria is an e-commerce platform that allows you to sell your products to people around the world using its advanced technology and expertise.
You don’t need to have coding skills to design your eCommerce store on their platform because they have already made templates you can take advantage of to customise your store to the feel you desire.
They also have apps that can perform different functions that will take your website to the standard you want. In case you couldn’t find an app to perform a certain task on your website, they are experts that can design an app that will perform it for you.
Who can make money on Shopify in Nigeria?
1. Youth
Any youth that is looking for a way to make money online can use the opportunity Shopify offers to design a website e-commerce site and make money selling products or using his or her expertise to work for Shopify users.
2. Business owners
If you have a brick-and-mortar shop already and you are looking for a way to get your business online so as to reach many people, then you can hop online to make money on Shopify in Nigeria.
3. Sit at home mum
Full-time housewives looking for ways to occupy themselves with something meaningful can make money on Shopify in Nigeria by using methods explained subsequently in this post.
What to do before you start a Shopify business in Nigeria
1. Think long term
Don’t limit your thinking to your present circumstances or just the trending business, you need to think long-term. Think about the long effect of your business.
Is it something you can do for a long time? Do you see yourself excelling in that niche? Do you have what it takes to start and grow the business?
The above are some questions you need to ask yourself before choosing what you want to do.
2. Decide your niche
You need to think long-term while deciding on your niche. A niche is a specific area you will want to specialise in. Do you want to sell only baby clothes? or focus on digital downloads? Do you want to be a Shopify expert?
When you check the pros and cons and compare them with your strengths and weaknesses, you will be able to come to a logical conclusion on which one is best for you.
3. Write a business plan
After you have decided on the niche you want to start your business, you will need to write a business plan that will help you to make more informed decisions that will benefit your business more.
4. Count the cost
The cost here is not limited to money alone, the time, effort, energy, sweat, sleepless nights and sacrifices involved. Have you thought them through? Can you pay the price?
There’s a popular quote that rightly says, “nothing works until you work”. Success in any field is not automatic, you need to do everything legally possible to be successful in your chosen niche.
As is in every field, there are failures and successes, if you want to make money on Shopify in Nigeria you need to be willing to pay the price.
How to make money on Shopify in Nigeria
1. Sell products in Nigeria
Shopify Nigeria makes selling online since they provide the facilities that make everything simple and effective. But you need to use the money to pay for the services they are providing for you.
Search for a vendor
If you already have a brick-and-mortar store, then this process will not be foreign to you, however, if you are just starting, you will need to look for a vendor that sells what you are interested in.
One of the ways to get good vendors is by asking family and friends who are already in the business, and by investing in your potential competitors.
Try to check as many vendors as possible to get the best out of them.
Some of the things to look out for when searching for vendors are price, quality of service and product, customer service and customer reviews.
From the factors above you can make your decision of picking from one of the best vendors out there, so your business will grow without many hitches.
Buy your products
When you are done with your search, the next thing to do is to buy products from the vendors so you can start selling them on your Shopify store.
Capital for your business can also be gotten from family and friends, grants and loans in addition to your savings to get your shop running online.
If you are on a budget, you can buy small products first and expand with time, as your business grows.
Snap them
Having clear and beautiful pictures of your products is non-negotiable because people are attracted to beautiful things. Make sure you snap your pictures from different angles so your potential customers will have a good view of what they want to buy.
Since having clear pictures are important, you will need to have a good camera to do the magic for you. If you don’t have money for the camera, you can use the services of a professional photographer
Describe your products
The space for product description is an opportunity to sell your products in writing, so you need to use the opportunity to convince your potential customers that your product is best for them.
2. Start a print-on-demand business in Nigeria
If you have not heard about Print on demand ( POD ) before, then you are lucky to read this post because it’s one of the easiest ways to sell online in this age.
Print-on-demand is a business model that allows you to create a brand without directly being involved in the production of the products.
For example, if you want to have a clothing brand with your design, you can give the work to a POD company to design for you and then you will place the products on your website, so that customers can make their orders. When they make the orders, your products will be shipped directly to them without your involvement.
Sounds cool right?
That’s how Print on demand works. Remember that you are not keeping the products with you, the
company is the one responsible to produce and also ship the products. Yours is to set up your Shopify store and market it.
Look for print-on-demand companies
There is a handful of print-on-demand companies out there that you can choose to use for your business with different methods of doing the same thing. Some examples of print-on-demand companies are Printify and Printful while in Nigeria we have Kiakia Print and a few others.
Some factors to consider while looking for the right POD for your business are the transparency of the shipping cost, cost of services, customer service and customer reviews.
These factors can help you make a more intelligent choice of company to use.
Create a design
You are responsible for the design of your products, you are to make your design and send it to them for printing. If you are imaginative, creative and good with design tools, you can make designs yourself, however, if it will be too much trouble, you can outsource it.
There are design experts out there on platforms like Fiverr and Upwork that you can use to make beautiful designs for your products.
Tell the design professional the purpose of your products and show them your website so he or she will have a feel of your brand.
Another option is to buy already-made designs made by professionals.
Market your products
When you are done with the design and all other considerations with the company. You are now to market your products to customers so they can purchase your products.
Without marketing, all your other efforts will be futile, therefore, you need to employ strategic ways to grow your business by making sales. You will learn more about this later in this guide.
3. Start a drop shipping business in Nigeria
Drop shipping is a business model that allows you to sell products on your online store without having the products in stock. How does it work?
You are to connect with a merchant that has the products you desire to sell, then you display them on your online store for customers to buy.
And whenever a customer orders a product, the merchant will take charge of the shipping of the products to the customers thereby making the whole process simple for you.
Starting a drop shipping business doesn’t need much capital because the merchant is the one in charge of inventory, storage of products and shipping. Your role is to display the products on your platforms for people to buy. How do you start a drop shipping business on Shopify?
Choose a niche
You can’t escape choosing a niche because it will help to give your business a focus. When you are trying to sell to everyone, you may end up not selling to anyone.
Therefore, you need to decide the niche you want to focus on, for example, if selling clothes is a niche you want to focus on. You can still move further to sell children’s clothes.
This makes it easy for you to create a brand around that niche because your brand will be known for “selling children’s clothes” and not just clothes.
Specify your target audience
Still, based on the analogy given before, if you are selling children’s clothes, then your target audience will be newlyweds, young couples, and even family relatives.
This makes your marketing more strategic because you have a target set of people. Keep in mind that your niche is what determines your target audience.
Therefore, pick a niche that has a reasonable market with buying power.
Perform competitive analysis
Competitive analysis helps to know what not to do and what to improve on. When you know what your competitors are doing, you will be able to create your uniqueness.
Your uniqueness is your selling point.
Look for drop-shipping suppliers
Now, you already know the products you want to sell, what’s next is for you to look for a supplier that you can collaborate with to sell on your Shopify store in Nigeria.
Looking for a good drop shipping supplier can be a daunting task because you need to look for a reliable one that offers quality services.
There’s good news for you if you are using Shopify for your drop shipping business in Nigeria, they have an app called DSers that can help you to connect a marketplace where you will find suppliers for your business.
The suppliers have reviews from their previous customers that will help you in making a choice.
Market your business
When you have set up your Shopify store, you will have to market your store so people will know what you are selling. You can use your social media accounts, SEO and paid adverts to bring customers to your store.
4. Become a Shopify Expert in Nigeria
Shopify has a marketplace where their users go to look for experts that will set up their Shopify store. You can learn the needed skills that will lead you to make money on Shopify in Nigeria.
Learn a skill
As an aspiring expert on Shopify, you need to have a skill that you are trying to sell to people.
The skills you can sell as an expert on Shopify Nigeria, compiled by the E-commerce platform are listed below
- Marketing and sales:
- Email marketing
- SEO
- Search engine advertising
- Search engine marketing
- Content marketing
- Sales channel setup
- Conversion rate optimization
- Analytics and tracking
- Marketing and sales guidance
- Online shop setup:
- Store build or redesign
- Store Migration
- Product and collection setup
- Shopify theme customization
- Custom visual elements
- Ecommerce website settings configuration
- POS setup and migration
- Checkout customization
- Store setup and design guidance
- Amazon or Etsy integration
- Development and troubleshooting:
- Custom app development and API integrations
- App installation from the Shopify App Store
- Custom template development
- Custom domain setup
- Custom commerce experience
- Site functionality and speed
- Troubleshooting
- Visual content and branding:
- Product descriptions
- Website and marketing content
- Content writing:
- Product descriptions
- Website and marketing content
- Expert Guidance
- Online business strategy guidance
- Product sourcing guidance
- Store setup and design guidance
- Marketing materials and sales guidance
- Help merchants with site performance and speed
- Sales tax guidance
After learning the skills you will need to have a proven track record for you to be listed on their platform as an expert. Below are the requirements:
- A Shopify Partners account: You can join the platform for free
- More than 5 client stores on Shopify: When you have successfully worked with at least 5 clients on Shopify, it shows that you have experience and expertise. You can build stores or apps for eligibility in the Shopify Experts program.
- Experience in a given area: Categories include development, design, writing, marketing, product development, and more.
- A solid portfolio: A portfolio isn’t required, but it helps to show your skills to Shopify and potential clients. Include links, pictures, project details, and some references.
Source for clients
When you are done learning a skill, you are expected to source for clients that you can work for to build your experience and expertise.
Build a portfolio
You need to deliberately build a portfolio if you want to be accepted on the platform.
Join the Shopify partners
Joining the Shopify partners platform is the first step to joining the Expert community. All Shopify experts are Shopify partners, but not all are Shopify partners.
5. Make Shopify Apps in Nigeria
Learn Coding
Creating a store like Shopify is not as easy as it looks, you need to learn programming languages to be able to write codes.
When programmers are done with writing the codes and all, it looks easy for users. Becoming a Shopify developer will require that you put yourself out there to learn.
Study Shopify
Shopify platform has its uniqueness therefore you will need to understand how the platform works, the programming languages they use, and a lot of others.
Create apps
When you are done learning how to create apps, start creating apps. Look for problems and provide solutions to them on the Shopify platform. There are two ways to go about developing apps on Shopify.
Firstly, you can create and publish an app on the Shopify app directory for people to purchase and use. Secondly, you can create a customized Shopify app for individuals.
To become a Shopify app developer in Nigeria, go ahead to learn the programming languages today to get started.
6. Sell digital products in Nigeria
A digital product can be digested virtually. Examples of such products are courses, webinars, ebooks and swipe files.
You can display the products on your Shopify store for users to buy. This is a growing way of making money online in Nigeria.
Build an audience
People will not just buy your products without knowing you. They need to know you, they need to see your expertise and your work. These things show your competence and authority.
When people see that you know what you are saying and doing, they will easily buy your products, however, if they are not sure of what to expect from you they will be sceptical about buying from you.
Therefore, you will need to build your brand by giving people free resources and information.
Create a digital product
After building an audience that trusts and believes in you, you can create a digital product to sell to them.
Upload your digital products
When you have created digital products, you can upload them on your Shopify store for people to buy.
Market your products
The products won’t sell themselves by themselves, you will need to let people know what you are selling by putting it on their faces. How can you do that?
Search engine marketing and social media create visibility for your brand.
7. Set up a freelancing service
Freelancing involves providing a service to different clients through a skill. Freelancers are free to sell their services to different clients online. Some skills you can sell our website design, content writing, ebook creation, and virtual assistance.
Learn a skill
If you want to provide freelancing services to people, you will need to learn a skill that you can sell.
Create a portfolio
A portfolio shows that you know what you are doing, it displays your work to potential customers so they can see samples of what to expect from you when they hire you.
The Shopify Nigeria website will help you to organise your work in a way that will appeal to your target audience so they can easily use your services.
Look for clients
Find a way to attract clients to your website through Search engine marketing, networking and SEO.
8. Start a Shopify Blog
A blog is used to display information on a website in reverse chronological order, i.e the latest post replaces the old post whenever it is published.
When you start a blog that talks about Shopify you will attract people who have an interest in Shopify. From which you can sell your skills and expertise to them.
You can monetize the blog through course creation, ebook sales, selling of your skills, and many other blog monetization methods.
Create a blog
You can create your blog using Shopify or using WordPress. You should use WordPress to start your blog because it’s free to use, inline Shopify which requires you to pay a subscription fee.
Write
Write SEO-optimized blog content using the best SEO practices out there so your website will rank for blog posts you have written
Monetise your blog
Use different ways to monetize your blog so your effort won’t be in vain.
Mistakes that can make you not make money with Shopify Nigeria
When you are starting a Shopify store you may think it will be rosy all through, but that thought is far from the truth. Research shows that about 95 % of Shopify stores fail, and only about 5% succeed.
Why is it so? There are many reasons but this post will outline about five of them
1. Lack of marketing
When people set up their Shopify store, they have this notion that they will miraculously start making money. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way, because nothing works until you work.
You will have to market your shop aggressively.
2. Poor customer service
How do people attend to customers when they lay complaints or try to make inquiries?
Is it swift and concise? Or do they respond nonchalantly?
This may seem insignificant but it goes a long way in getting repeat customers and increasing the customer base. Try to have 24/7 responsive customer service on your website to help you make money on Shopify in Nigeria.
3. Bad products
What products are you selling? Is it what people want?
And if it is what they want, does it have quality?
Sometimes, people ship bad products to customers in an attempt to make an outrageous profit. This behaviour can lead to bad reviews and reputation.
Make sure you provide quality products to your customers at good prices.
4. Low-quality shop
Make sure the design of your shop is clean, beautiful and easy to navigate to attract customers when they visit your store.
An aesthetically appealing store will keep people scrolling down your website.
5. Wrong niche
When the niche you choose has a low market or has a market with low buying power, it will reduce your chance to make money with Shopify in Nigeria.
Shopify Alternative in Nigeria
Shopify Nigeria has cool features that you can use to start your online store in Nigeria, however, if you are looking for an alternative that will also give you cool features but at a cheaper price, we have one for you.
OLITT store is a platform you can use to sell your products in Nigeria. It has beautiful themes, drag-and-drop features, Integrations and several payment gateways you can use on your online shop at an affordable N12,000 per year.
The price is nothing when compared with that of Shopify and other website builders. Take advantage of this unbelievable offer now.
Conclusion
To make money on Shopify in Nigeria, you need to be deliberate about what you do.
From the way you monetize your shop to how you promote it, everything should be strategic if you want to succeed in this digital.
Finally, peradventure to decide to choose OLITT to start your online shop, click OLITT to get started.