Two years ago, I was sitting on my laptop, looking out the window in my apartment in Paia, Hawaii. I thought I had just struck gold.

I figured out how to sell things on Showit, the most intuitive design platform I had ever seen. It was as good of a day as if it were to have rained Spicy Margaritas, my favorite drink!

For the two years leading up to this moment, I had been exclusively designing soulful websites in WordPress. But, I found that my clients weren’t happy with the rigorous back-end runarounds that came with the platform. After deciding my clients and I both deserved better, and that it was time for a real change. I began exploring the other design platforms out there. I found Squarespace, Wix, and Weebly, but realized that nothing came close to beating their competitor — Showit.

Fast forward two amazing, sun-filled years. It was my turn to create my first, and very own eCommerce store.

Drum roll, please…

I’m pleased to present to you, Bold x Boho.

At this time, I didn’t know a thing about setting up an eCommerce store. I knew it would be hard but knew there was a multitude of tools to help me figure it out. So, first things first, I went and advised with my two virtual BFFs: Youtube and Google.

My decision to switch from WordPress to Showit was actually really going to help me along this journey. Go figure! Not only does Showit have a beautifully intuitive user-interface (UI), but it also integrates with Woocommerce and Shopify. (If you’re new to digital marketing or eCommerce, these are two of the biggest names in the eCom game!)

There are five basic steps you’ll need to follow to set up your eCommerce store like mine on Showit, let’s dive into them:

1. Pick out your favorite template from the Bold x Boho Website Template Shop! (If you’re looking for some help, the Wild + Free Template is our best seller and the Wildly Wealthy is my personal favorite for customizing!)
2. Customize your site with beautiful brand colors, font pairings, and your gorgeous photos! I’ve seen this done in as little as eight hours before! Or, hop on a 1-hour branding call with me, and let my team do it all for you.
3. Choose which eCommerce solution is best for you. (I recommend all of my clients to use Shopify, but I am also a big fan of Woocommerce and Bigcommerce.) This is how we’ll sell things on Showit!
4. Add your products and shipping information if you’re selling a physical product. If you’re selling digital products or services, you’ll do the same process minus the shipping information.
5. Set up your Social Pixels! Trust me, babe, this is an important step if you want to advertise in the future! Setting these up actually super easy, and only takes about an hour for each platform and is super important if you want to sell things on Showit with real success.

Let’s dive into these bad-boys in more detail!

01. Set up your Bold x Boho Template.

Believe it or not, but setting up your website is actually way easier than it seems. There’s a common misconception that the back-end of a website is always and forever horrible, but as technology evolves, so does the back-end of things. Know what I mean, girl?

02. Customize your template, or hire my team to do it for you.

As crazy as it sounds, I’ve seen this step take as little as 48-hours by my client Laura Marlene! If you’re interested in working together 1:1 to create a magical website of your dreams, I’d be honored to help. Let’s start the conversation off here!

03. Choose which eCommerce solution is best for you.

(This is how we’ll sell things on Showit!)

Step aside cashier checks, it’s time for a modern solution for taking payments and tracking finances! There are a few big players when it comes to eCommerce cart solutions, so here’s my take on each of them:

Shopify or Shopify Lite (My recommendation for anyone building an eCommerce site on Showit and personal eCommerce solution).

Shopify has great customer service, tons of partners and a super intuitive dashboard setup. One of their partners is Affiliatly, which I’d highly recommend using if you’re using affiliate marketing in your sales strategy.

**My eCommerce secret: use clear Javascript embedded Shopify buttons directly covering your “Buy Now” buttons on your Showit website so that your clients don’t need to leave your site! For an example of this, check out Boldxboho.com and add any product(s) to the shopping cart to see what I mean.

ThriveCart

This is a popular choice for small to medium-sized eCommerce companies and also provides a native affiliate tracking system. The platform is constantly doing updates, which is a good and a bad thing in my opinion, and is one of the major reasons I stick with Shopify. The one huge con of Thrivecart is that it won’t let you add more than one product to your shopping cart. Since Bold x Boho sells Website Templates, Brand Kit’s and services, this immediately ruled it out. If you only sell one product or service or sell products that would never be bought together, Thrivecart could be a good solution for you, but if you want my advice, go with Shopify.

WooCommerce (The newest Showit eCommerce integration of 2019)

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that is one of the most powerful eCommerce tools out there. If you sell tons and tons of products, this is definitely a platform worth exploring. One thing to note is that WooCommerce and Showit are still in a Beta phase of their partnership, which means that Showit’s Customer Service Team isn’t responsible (yet) for helping if the integration breaks or you’re having issues with the shopping cart features.

If you want to sell things on Showit and want my opinion though, I’d totally recommend using Shopify or Shopify Lite!

04. Add your products or services to your new eCommerce site!

Adding your products into your chosen eCommerce platform is actually super easy. Simply add an image of your product that will be used as the thumbnail, the title, price, shipping information and quantity (if it’s a physical product). If you’re selling physical products, you’ll also need to know the exact weight of your packaged product, if you’re selling a digital product like my templates or an evergreen masterclass, this step will only take a minute. If you’re using an embedded code from Shopify or WooCommerce as your buy-buttons, this is where you’ll paste the HTML in the Head section of each sales page.

05. Set up your Pixels!

(This step isn’t necessary if you don’t ever plan on advertising your products or services, but if you want to sell things on Showit, this is a worthwhile step.)

Adding custom code into your website sounds like a headache and a half, right?

If you’re using a Bold x Boho template, or any other Showit template for that matter, think again missy!

Decide which Pixel(s) are right for your business, pour yourself a cup of coffee and dive in. We use a Facebook Pixel as well as a Pinterest Pixel since these are our two primary sources of traffic. If you aren’t yet familiar with what a Pixel is, it’s essentially a snippet of javascript code that you place on each page of your website (Home, About, Services, Contact, etc.) that tracks each users behavior on your site. Every single action is tracked, down to the mouse clicks and pauses they take to read a sentence. Oh, and it’s all for free by the way! Check out this resource if you need any more help on this step, or drop your question in a comment below!

I hope this has helped you figure out how to sell things on Shopify!

Remember, if a high school drop-out turned Soulful Webdesigner and tropical traveler like myself can do it, I know for a fact that you can too. If you’re interested in building an eCommerce site and don’t have the time or patience to do it yourself, the Bold x Boho books are open, and we’d love to explore what you’re thinking.