Emerging Into Ecommerce

Ecommerce has revolutionized the way we buy and sell, and platforms like Shopify have made it easier than ever for businesses to establish a strong online presence. Today, we'll dive into the world of Shopify and explore how software development can unlock its full potential for your business.

Image courtesy of Freepik

The Foundation

Shopify is a leading ecommerce platform that provides businesses with all the tools they need to create and manage an online store. From inventory management and payment processing to marketing and customer support, Shopify offers a comprehensive suite of features that streamline the ecommerce experience.

At Lightning Kite, we had the privilege of working with a client whose successful business operates on Shopify’s platform. While Shopify's out-of-the-box features are impressive, even the highest-tier subscriptions don’t always cover the fine tweaks needed to perfect a brand’s presence and customer shopping flow. To achieve a fully customized experience, businesses can develop tailored features and functionalities that cater to their specific needs.

This is where we were able to pick up the line. The vast customization options provided by Shopify’s developer tools allowed us to make significant improvements to streamline client’s B2B customer visibility and support. When Shopify's vast app store options just wouldn't cut it, we stepped in and wrote a number of bespoke apps and integrations ourselves. We revamped login and registration pages, created custom user flows, and ensured proper validation for business-to-business transactions. We are still actively developing new features, but that was only the beginning.

Unlocking the Potential of the Shopify App Marketplace

As we continued working in the Shopify space, we realized the immense potential of the Shopify App Marketplace. As it turns out, anyone with some JavaScript knowledge can submit an app to the marketplace—and potentially make money from it. Shopify even provides thorough documentation to guide developers through the process. However, there is a lot of information to sift through. Fortunately, AI has been an invaluable tool in compiling and distilling the most important details, making development more efficient.

Developing FlashFlow: AOV-Boosting Cross-Selling

With this knowledge, we set out to develop FlashFlow, an app designed to increase average order value (AOV) through simple cross-selling. When a customer adds a product to their cart, merchants can set rules to suggest and redirect them to complementary products—such as add-ons or commonly used-together items.

We are currently adding an analytics component to FlashFlow, but even without it, we didn’t even need to stand up a backend! All the necessary data was already available within Shopify, so our frontend simply needed to interact with the store API.

It’s been quite a journey learning about ecommerce, and now the initial version of FlashFlow is up and running, ready for merchants to leverage for increased sales and customer engagement. There’s still so much to explore, and it’s exciting to watch trends evolve in the online business space. The ecommerce ecosystem is thriving and continuously growing, leaving plenty of opportunities for innovative software solutions to help it along.