CBD/vape are currently two of the most profitable industries on Shopify. However, with more startups hitting the Shopify platform than ever, business owners must educate themselves on the ins and outs of Shopify and online marketing.
This article will show you how to grow your Shopify CBD/vape shop in 2023 and teach you a few things to avoid with your online shop. The purpose of this article is to give you proven, actionable tips that you can use to take your CBD/vape store to the next level.
*I have over ten years of growing businesses on Shopify through SEO and have also built SEO departments for CBD shops. So all of these tips are actionable and work.
How To Grow Your CBD/Vape Business The Right Way
- Speed optimization can significantly increase sales at checkout.
- Focus on SEO to bring in new customers and drive sales.
- Implementing reliable payment processing and chargeback management is a must for optimal profitability.
- Email marketing is a must to grow a successful business.
- Fully understand the laws and regulations regarding CBD and or vape
- Start and manage an affiliate program
- Invest in trade shows
Speed Kills
One of the biggest problems that Shopify stores have when growing their CBD and vape shops is speed. Outside of the apparent reasons that nobody likes a slow website, neither do search engines.
If you have a clunky website, you are throttling your conversion rate, and you will drive less traffic to your landing page.
Slow websites are undoubtedly the biggest culprit in limiting growth with a Shopify store.
Now that we got the obvious out of the way, let's look at some quick, actionable things you can implement:
- Install WP-Rocket - This plugin drastically improves speed, especially if you need to become a webmaster familiar with coding. It helps with caching, minifying resources and is the best plugin for optimizing speed on the market.
- Webhosting - Cheap web hosting isn't worth the aggravation and havoc it can unleash on your rankings. Recommended choices: Bigscoots, WPengine, Cloudways, and Siteground.
- Image optimization: Properly size your images and install a compression plugin such as Imagify.
SEO
Effective SEO is essential for all CBD and vape shops looking to grow. While speed optimization also falls under the SEO category, it's different as it is something that also directly affects conversion rate.
For CBD and vape shops specifically, the easier wins are to ensure that your business has solid product pages so that you can rank near the top of the SERPs for each product.
Product optimization is typically the first thing to implement for most CBD and vape shops as there are so many different products to rank for that bring in traffic and sales.
Every successful Shopify store has someone on their team or an agency that does their SEO for them. This is an area that can't be overlooked.
Suggested channels to follow:
- Doug Cunnington
- Kyle Roof
- Income School
- Spencer Haws
*These are all SEO experts that break down SEO basics on Youtube.
Payment Processing
Payment processing is typically thought of when merchants pay the fees and wonder why they are so costly. With CBD and vape, payment processing fees are higher than your standard Shopify store.
This is an area that many merchants can improve on as you can find CBD payment processing companies that can not only lower your fees but also diminish your chargebacks, which overall affect your bottom line.
The recommendation here is to find a few companies that offer to process and then compare rates and features to ensure you're not getting ripped off. Pricing for CBD and vape can vary heavily.
Email Marketing
To properly perform email marketing is by focusing on growing your email list. Offering a free sample is an effective way of capturing emails at checkout and throughout the checkout process.
Email marketing allows you to send discounts and limited offers to customers with the potential of making them lifetime clients.
What's nice is that services like Mailchimp can automate most of it and also test to see what types of discounts work the best. It's also highly cost-effective as opposed to methods such as PPC.
Understanding Laws And Regulations
Every country has its laws regarding CBD, especially when shipping internationally. Therefore, being familiar with each country's laws is a must.
In certain countries, selling CBD with any THC is prohibited, and most countries have specific labeling requirements for such products.
Follow the steps below:
- Check local laws
- Only buy CBD products that have been tested
- Ensure all labels are clear and show certification
- Stay away from medical claims with your products
- Never been products from unregulated sources
- Ensure CBD is always lower than .3% THC
Importance Of Affiliate Programs
Starting an affiliate program for your brand is one of the biggest needle movers in Shopify stores. CBD is an incredibly competitive SEO industry; some heavy-hitting affiliate marketers are in this avenue.
Creating an excellent affiliate offer will incentivize affiliate marketers to push your product, which can massively impact your sales.
The best way to determine your affiliate offer is to research keywords such as "buy CBD." Then, look at where those websites are sending their offers and check what the Affiliate program is paying them.
Offer more than your competitor, and watch affiliates line up to push your products.
You also will want to create a page that targets "CBD affiliate marketing programs."
Targeting Instagram influencers is another angle to this approach. Building a reputable brand that genuinely seeks to benefit others will help you land affiliate marketers on Instagram.
You will want a social media presence that shows what your brand is about.
Trade Shows
Trade shows can be significant when it comes to growth. While expensive upfront, a few leads can make them completely worth it.
Wrapping Up
You will see fantastic results by following these steps and incorporating whichever makes sense to your business.
Growing a Shopify CBD/vape shop isn't easy, but it is doable, especially in 2023.
If you take only a few things from this, emphasize SEO and speed optimization and watch the results flourish.
