ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: How Both Can Boost Your Drop Shipping Business

More and more people have been contacting us to ask if they should use ClickFunnels instead of Shopify for their drop shipping stores.  We’ve been answering the question on email, Facebook, and Webinars, so we figured it was the time to give the information in a concise way to help everyone understand the information and put it to use!

ClickFunnels Overview

ClickFunnels is a platform that helps you create opt-in pages and landing pages. It can also be great in assisting in managing other different forms used in your sales funnel. You can create sales funnels for enhancing your marketing techniques used on your eCommerce store.

ClickFunnels is not the ideal choice if you have multiple items you are wanting to sell. In this case, the best option would be to do this with an eCommerce website, such as Shopify.

Shopify Overview

Shopify has become one of the most popular eCommerce platforms for creating an online store to sell products. The platform can be used for selling both physical and digital goods. Shopify includes tons of resources and tools that can help you set up and run your business even faster and more efficient than expected.

With Shopify having an easy-to-use interface and tons of themes to choose from when building your store, you will have a professional looking online eCommerce store and functionalities that can help in streamlining the selling experience customers will experience in no time. These aspects are just as vital in online sales as it is in brick-and-mortar stores.  

Example of Using ClickFunnels

In this example, we will say that we have a bunch of people trying to sell a $10 and $20 item that also includes a free shipping offer. The way this works is that the seller (you) is paying for a click from ads that are running somewhere online that you've chosen (Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.). You could be doing cost-per-click (CPC), cost per lead (CPL), or cost per sale (CPS).

When the potential customer clicks the ad, they are sent to a product page with the goal of the buyer buying the item immediately. When this scenario occurs, it is called using Direct Response Marketing.

Mostly, these types of ads direct the person to the page of a small, low-ticket item. In this scenario, we would refer to the customer as a Cold Lead. This term is used because the potential customer would have been navigated from an offer on an ad for either an extremely cheap item or a freebie of some sort. They were not actively looking for this offer, but it was of interest to them and our goal is to get their name and email address to add to our funnel for later marketing efforts.    

Why low-ticket items? The odds of a cold lead clicking a Facebook Ad and purchasing a high-ticket ($200+) item are very slim. Sure, it can happen. But, it will not be a typical occurrence and is not the known techniques that we teach and focus on at Drop Ship Lifestyle.

Later we will explain how you can use ClickFunnels in your high-ticket store to convert cold leads into high-ticket item buyers!

How ClickFunnels Can Have an Adverse Effect

This is where the concept of “funnels” come into play. The bigger question that most people have is what to do from this point moving forward. It is vital to always ask yourself, “If I am selling only low-ticket items, am I really going to be making a profit?”

The following are elements when running an online drop shipping business that can bring down your profits (especially when focusing on low-ticket items):

• The Cost of The Product
• Shipping Charges
• CPC Charges
• Lead Charges
• Web Hosting
• Email Campaign Hosting
• And much more!

Your time is valuable! When you are selling low-ticket items, you are barely making any money in the end, if any at all!

ClickFunnels and How They Can be Beneficial

ClickFunnels is one of the easiest tools for using funnels for your online store. This option is great and works very well with either free offers or low-ticket offers. If you are trying to do what we teach at Drop Ship Lifestyle and are ready to make the most money and move on to high-ticket eCommerce profits, ClickFunnels can be extremely useful!

Although we aren’t the biggest fans of low-ticket eCommerce scenarios, this option does work well and is better than Shopify for that aspect. If you are wanting to go with extremely low-ticket and low-value item’s, then ClickFunnels will be the best solution.

With ClickFunnels you are not sending potential buyers to your site. They will not be clicking any links or browsing around for other products. They will either buy the product on the page, or they will leave. This is what ClickFunnels work well for doing, but is not the best scenario when used alone and having the focus on high-ticket items.

The Shopify Difference

The biggest difference between Shopify and ClickFunnels is that Shopify allows you to build a powerful online store. It is a store builder that lets you control the experience a potential customer will have. This is vital in ramping up customers to buy the high-ticket items, which of course is the end goal!

When a person comes to the page for a high-ticket item after clicking on an ad, they will be met with other similar products to browse and choose from. It is like walking into a brick-and-mortar store, with more options and features. Whereas, only using ClickFunnels is like a customer going up to a kiosk in a mall that only sells a single product.

Perks of a Shopify Store

A Shopify store gives you the opportunity to show different sections and variations, along with a story about what you are selling, and information about your company and you as the owner of the business. With potential buyers, branding yourself as trusted and knowledgeable is vital and will help in keeping customers coming back or referring their friends to the online store.

When focusing on selling higher ticket items, it is important to give a great user experience. You want the customers to have the option of clicking on an About Us page, reading about your business's story, and even about you, the owner.

The goal is for them to have information on who it is that you actually are because you aren’t just selling $10 and $20 items. These sales are going to be closer to the $1000 mark, and this aspect is important for individuals before spending that amount of money. It adds value to their experience as a customer which can be the deciding factor in purchasing high-ticket items.

If this is done right, it can be the perfect push for the customer to add their item to the cart and push the “Buy” button! In the end, it adds immense value to the customer’s buying experience, and that is exactly what you want!

Should You Just Avoid Funnels?

The short answer is, “No! Of course not!” We definitely do use them, just not on high ticket stores. This does not mean that if you have a high-ticket store that you should ignore funnels and never use them. Instead, you have to tweak and adjust how you use them to turn the leads into high-ticket buyers.

They Visited Your Shopify Store Without Buying. What Now?

After a potential customer has visited your Shopify store and decided that they are not going to buy anything and are trying to exit the page, this is where using funnels even on your high-ticket store would be beneficial.

One of the best tools that would be used in this scenario is an App called Privy. By using Privy, we are able to implement what is called an Exit Splash. It is a pop-up, but not like the annoying pop-ups that create a new screen on your computer.

This splash page comes up over the screen in the web browser as the customer is about to leave and simply says something like, “Hey, wait. We see you’re trying to leave. Can you enter your email address and we’ll send you a discount code.”

The goal is to capture the potential customer's email address so that we have a funnel behind it. We use the email as they try to leave to be able to follow up and have them buy more from us.

What About When They Do Buy?

What about the concept of funnels if they do make a purchase? How can we turn a $1,000 order into more? We will use eCommerce Lead Value Optimization.

Before we explain in detail what Lead Value Optimization (LVO) is, it is important to clarify the difference in Lead Value Optimization and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). These two are commonly mixed up and confused on the details of each.

The difference between the two is that CRO refers to getting as many visitors to buy your “core offer” as possible. This isn’t focused on high-ticket items and focuses on the number of people that buy the main product you are selling, and not focused on the ticket price and selling high-ticket items.

On the other hand, LVO is focused on the goal of earning more money from each visitor that is directed to your website. By increasing your conversion rate, you can further optimize the value of your leads by offering different products and services during the journey of the customer.

eCommerce Lead Value Optimization

In short, the goal is to earn more money from every visitor. How can we do that?

1. Cross Promote Your Own Related Stores
2. Cross Promote Affiliate Stores
   
3. Promote Information Products
4. Upsell Add-Ons
5. Upsells Intangible Items
   

We can use different techniques to turn a $1,000 customer into a $1,200 customer. Even when someone is going to leave without making a purchase, this is the time we truly appreciate the concept of funnels. It gives us the ability to follow-up with them in the hopes of them becoming a buyer instead of just a browser!

If you are still wondering if you are drop shipping like you should be, it all comes down to marketing and selling high ticket items. This is the method we at Drop Ship Lifestyle believe will actually make you money with this business model in drop shipping.

Now that you have all of your bases covered, you should be in a good spot. After setting up your Shopify store and creating a great user experience, using the Privy App to assist in capturing visitors information, and having the right follow-up strategy, you are in a very good place to start making profits.

Tapping into “Cold Audiences” on Facebook

It is extremely unlikely to send a cold Facebook Lead to a high ticket item and have them buy it. How do we do this with Facebook Ads to make this method profitable when used for high ticket drop shipping?

This is the time you would opt to send the Facebook Ad to a ClickFunnels page, instead of the high ticket item page. They will then be sent to an Opt-in page. You aren’t asking them to buy an item, but instead, you have the goal of having them give their email address and name to get something for free. We are not talking about an actual item, but a freebie like a PDF or eBook. 

There are cheaper ways to collect leads. However, with high ticket drop ship stores this would be the way that we would want to turn a cold lead from Facebook (or Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.) to the ClickFunnel opt-in page. Then, via email, we will funnel them to the product page to get them to buy a high-ticket item.

ClickFunnels vs. Shopify Are Both Valuable

It is safe to say that when it comes to ClickFunnels and Shopify, both can be extremely valuable and vital for your drop shipping business. Although, when first starting out it is best to focus on your Product Listing Ads (PLA), the Privy App, and the Shopify store.

If you are still confused about when to use Facebook Ads and ClickFunnels, never fear! The rule of thumb at Drop Ship Lifestyle is that the optimal time to begin using ClickFunnels and Facebook Ads is when you are making $30,000 to $50,000 in sales per month.

In the end, Shopify is one of the best options for your drop shipping business, and utilizing these tools and strategies will ensure that no matter where you are on your drop shipping journey, there are always more options and ways to enhance sales, even if they become stagnant and you are looking for ways to enhance the business and increase sales.