10 Best Shopify Sales Channels to Increase Sales

by The MNTN Team

6 Min Read

The world is more interconnected than ever, so to maximize their chances of success, most business owners use an omnichannel marketing strategy to reach potential buyers. In the realm of ecommerce, though, there are so many potential Shopify sales channels out there that it can be hard to know where to start.

Thankfully, you can read up on ten of the best sales channels for Shopify right here to start boosting your revenue immediately:

1. Online Store (Direct to Consumer)

By simply running your Shopify store, you’re already using this particular sales channel. A direct-to-customer (D2C) store is exactly what it sounds like. Your company is selling its products straight to customers — without a third party like an established chain store taking a cut.

That said, you shouldn’t look at your Shopify store as just another sales channel. It’s easy to make it a nexus of your sales strategy. In other words, you can operate through several channels, most of which can ultimately direct customers to your store.

Your customers, both current and future, are already spending time on social media. As such, it stands to reason that you should focus some of your efforts on connecting with them there. As more businesses begin selling through social media, these channels have, in turn, expanded how businesses can advertise.

For example, when your company creates an Instagram post, you have the option to make it “shoppable,” which means all a viewer has to do is simply tap on an icon to visit your store and make a purchase.

Instagram isn’t the only social media platform where you can connect with customers. Between the shops and marketplaces run on TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, and other platforms, you can reach millions of potential customers in one fell swoop.

3. Traditional Marketplaces

When you picture a traditional marketplace, you might imagine something like a farmer’s market or other physical location. But in the context of ecommerce, a traditional marketplace is instead an established sales platform like eBay, Etsy, or Amazon. These sites offer you the advantage of a large, pre-built customer base, but you’ll face significant competition and need to pay a commission on any sales you generate.

4. Retail

Selling your products in a physical location might not be feasible for every business owner. But you don’t have to rent a space in a mall to make use of retail as a sales channel. Temporary pop-up shops or even a booth at a craft fair are both great approaches to retail.

You may ask, though, “Why should I bother with retail when I run an ecommerce business?” The answer is simple: face-to-face interactions with customers build lasting connections — and they offer the opportunity for live feedback, too.

5. Wholesale

If you don’t want to worry about continually promoting your inventory and don’t mind selling at a bulk discount, wholesale is another sales channel to consider. You’ll sell large quantities of your products to other businesses that then sell them to consumers.

Selling your product in bulk tends to be more convenient than packaging and shipping multiple orders. But you’ll want to keep in mind that operating as a wholesale business means that you need to have a significant amount of inventory on hand. You’ll also need to pay for space to store that product, which can get expensive very quickly.

6. Resellers

You don’t necessarily have to manufacture the inventory you sell. Some shop owners opt to purchase a product and sell it at a markup. The process might involve improving the product in some way or even doing something as basic as repackaging it. You can base a whole business around reselling, or you can just use it as another channel in your greater marketing strategy.

Doing so might seem simpler than producing your own products, but it isn’t without risk. In most cases, the legal obligation is to comply with the original manufacturer’s resale terms. You also don’t have control over the pricing or availability of your products, which can hurt your business, too.

7. White Label

White labeling involves buying generic items, paying to add your brand name/logo, and then reselling the finished products. Souvenir T-shirts are a great example: most souvenir stores will buy generic T-shirts, put the name of the tourist destination on them, and sell them for more than they initially paid for them. Sites like Redbubble and Society6 are also examples of sites that allow you to white label products with your own designs. As a channel, white labeling can drastically reduce your production costs. But remember that price fluctuations in the source products can be unpredictable.

8. Mobile Apps

Mobile phone users spend about 88% of their time on apps and only 12% on websites. Therefore, if you have the resources to build a brand-specific app, you’ll have a greater chance of engaging customers and making more sales. That said, apps can be costly to build, and they require regular maintenance and updates.

9. Partnerships

Strategic partnerships are an excellent way to reach new customers and keep your brand in the minds of current ones. Much like an endorsement, a partnership involves paying a person or an organization to promote your brand or product.

The most common example of a partnership is influencer marketing. A brand works with a social media influencer with a significant following and then pays them a flat fee or commission to encourage their followers to make a purchase.

When you choose the right partners, partnership marketing can be very cost-effective. But there’s always a risk that a partner can cause reputational damage, either by misrepresenting your brand or through their own changing relationship with their audience.

10. Business-to-Business Sales

A lot of dialogue around Shopify stores centers on direct-to-consumer sales. However, when you sell to another business, you have the potential to create lasting relationships with consistent income. Businesses tend to make larger purchases than individual customers, too.

Still, because businesses don’t generally make impulse buys, you might find yourself waiting some time for a purchase to be made. Creating products for high-volume business orders may also take more time and resources.

Bonus: MNTN Performance TV App

There’s one last performance marketing channel you might not have thought of, and that’s television. TV advertising might sound like a significant departure, but it’s easier than you think. If you’ve already run an ad campaign for search or social, you’ll be familiar with Connected TV advertising.

With MNTN Performance TV, television becomes a marketing channel that can target millions of potential shoppers. Use built-in analytics to track marketing metrics like cost-per-acquisition, cost-per-visit, return on ad spend, and more.

Download the MNTN App on Shopify

Best Sales Channels for Shopify: Final Thoughts

The more Shopify sales channels you’re able to use, the more diverse and resilient your business becomes. Nevertheless, you must focus on quality over quantity when diversifying your channels. Using a few channels and optimizing their quality is likely to bring you greater success than using many channels with minimal effort put into each.