3 Ways to Integrate Shopify with Your Website

New research indicates that e-commerce sales will reach $6.8 trillion by 2028. Regardless of whether you’re in the B2B or B2C space, this growth suggests that the ability to sell products or services direct-to-consumer via an online store will become a valuable component of a brand’s overall sales strategy. 

Shopify has become a very popular e-commerce platform that a number of our clients have expressed interest in or inquired about. As a result, we’ve recently built and integrated several different kinds of Shopify sites with client websites based on specific sales objectives or goals. 

These different integrations range in terms of scope and scale, but each integration serves as a valuable model for brands as to the ideal Shopify website for their needs. While there are many ways to incorporate Shopify as part of your website presence, here are 3 recent Shopify integrations we completed and a quick look at how we did it.

A sample ordering and processing platform

Using Shopify as a platform for customers to order free sample products is relatively unique, but it turned out to be just the ticket for a global paper manufacturer. This paper producer was looking for an easy, user-friendly way for designers and printers to request paper samples that also helped relieve the strain on the company’s sample center. 

Because Shopify sites are used as a more direct way to generate sales and revenue, the platform helped us build a storefront that provided customers with detailed, relevant information about each sample, and the backend processing capability accelerated the rate at which the manufacturer’s sample center could fulfill, package, and ship samples. 

One of the biggest advantages of using Shopify in this way was the ability to style the storefront to match the manufacturer’s website and blog to maintain consistent, unified branding. The goal here was to provide a more cohesive brand experience that didn’t leave customers feeling as if they had to jump between different website experiences to request a product sample. 

This simplified sample order platform resulted in an increase in the number of sample order requests and new contacts that the brand’s sales team could follow up with and nurture into sales qualified leads (SQLs).

A small-scale store for in-demand products

In the concrete batching industry, the ability to source pumps and water meters quickly is key for concrete plants to maximize productivity and profitability. One of our longtime clients, an industrial equipment distributor, identified a growth opportunity to offer consistent in-demand products like water meters, spare parts, and accessories in a more direct way that helped customers accelerate their speed-to-market and reduce downtime. 

This client wanted a simple, easy-to-use online store to quickly move in-stock products — and they wanted to use this store as a tool to engage customers in larger conversations about the distributor’s ability to create custom industrial equipment solutions. 

This project provided the opportunity to work in a more substantive way with Shopify’s themes and basic functionality, but also style and customize the theme based on the client’s requests. 

For example, the client wanted a more complex Shopify site navigation with multiple pages that linked within the Shopify site but also directed back to the main site. In addition, we were able to create a drop-down style navigation with specific product types along with a more comprehensive online product catalog to streamline the UX for customers who know exactly what they’re looking for and those who are exploring the breadth of what the distributor offers.

A jump from the B2B to the B2C model

Another paper brand wanted to make the transition from strictly a B2B model to a more B2C approach to help increase sales and transform itself into a more customer-centric business. With a well-established website and brand, the manufacturer wanted to integrate a custom storefront into the existing website in order to leverage their HubSpot CRM sales and marketing automation tools for a more visible, transparent end-to-end sales process. 

To achieve this goal, we built a custom, headless Shopify storefront — a headless storefront allows brands to use Shopify’s ecommerce platform to build custom storefronts for web and mobile use. This gives businesses more flexibility and control in customizing their storefront experience. 

Then, we were able to integrate this custom storefront with the company’s CRM to centralize order and contact data. Doing so allowed the company to leverage HubSpot’s sales and marketing tools to automate activities like sending abandoned cart emails or entering contacts into email workflows, and it also provided more detailed customer behavior data in the form of website visits, email open and click-through rates, and engagement with digital ads. 

Each of these Shopify integrations proved successful in helping our clients provide the kind of e-commerce experience to best satisfy their customers. These integrations also demonstrate our ability to create the kind of custom Shopify storefront that can help maximize productivity and grow your business. 

We’re ready to partner with you to create your ideal e-commerce storefront. Contact us to get the ball rolling.