7 Great Ways You Can Add Social Proof to Your Shopify Store Today

A guest article was written by Tom Davies, the creator of Best Seller Insights, the Shopify app that helps you increase your sales by promoting your best sellers, as well as the newly launched Flair product badges, a Shopify app for promoting your products using social proof, scarcity, and urgency with badges.

Posted 6 years ago by Jonathan Kennedy

Humans are social by nature. Like it or not, we have a tendency to follow the wisdom of the crowds in many of our decisions in life.

This holds true in eCommerce as well in the form of social proof. When your customers see that a product is popular with others, they are much more likely to buy it.

In today’s post, I’d like to share with you 7 great ways you can add social proof to your Shopify store today. These social proof techniques should help you grow your store and capture more sales.

​We’ll discuss:

• Why using social proof can lead to more sales
• Promoting your best sellers
• Showcasing product reviews
• Showing recent sales
• Promoting out of stock products
• Recommending products with staff picks
• Displaying customer photos
• Using social buttons

Why using social proof can lead to more sales

Studies have shown that marketing techniques such as social proof can have a huge positive impact on your store’s sales.

Why is this?

You see, the act of buying things involves a fair amount of psychology. A product’s perceived value can vary greatly depending on how you present your offers.

One of the easiest ways to increase a product’s perceived value is by showing that is popular with other shoppers. This is commonly referred to as social proof.

Products with a higher perceived value are much more likely to sell since it lowers the risk to the shopper. A product with a proven track record makes it easier for a person to make the purchase decision.

1. Promoting your best sellers

Using products sales is one of the best indicators of what is popular with other buyers. Promoting your best sellers can help lead to even more sales to make them even more successful.

To promote your best sellers, you can display best seller badges prominently next to your best selling products throughout your Shopify store.

This will make it easy for shoppers to see, at-a-glance, which products are popular.

2. Showcasing product reviews

Another tried and true technique for adding social proof to your Shopify store is by adding product reviews.

Product reviews make it easy to see what other shoppers are saying about your product.

In addition, the star rating system gives buyers a way to tell if a product is well received by others using a nice visual star indicator that is familiar.

3. Showing recent sales

You can show recent sales as a way to add a current view of what is happening within you Shopify store. Recent sales let shoppers know which products are being bought right now.

The fact that these sales are recent adds a nice degree of social proof since this lets your customers know what is being bought based on current sales trends.

Showing recent sales can be a great way for customers to discover products in your store. This can help customers who don’t know what to buy to get some ideas based on what is happening right now.

4. Promoting out of stock products

This may seem counterintuitive, but promoting your out of stock products can lead to more sales.

How is this?

You see, when a product is out of stock, it lets shoppers know that this product was so popular that everyone scooped it up. This can make people more likely to want a product since they can’t have it.

If you promote your out of stock products, you’ll want to capture customer’s email so they can be notified when a product is back in stock.

Promoting out of stock products can be a great way to determine which items to restock. This can also help you sell out of your popular items even faster.

5. Recommending products with staff picks

Social proof doesn’t have to only come from other shoppers. You can also add social proof by displaying staff recommendations for products.

Who is better equipped to recommend your products than members of your own store?

By providing recommendations from staff members, you are giving your customers an expert opinion on what products they should consider.

Your staff’s opinion should carry more weight and trust for helping shoppers find the right products more easily in your store.

6. Displaying customer photos

One of the most visual ways of providing social proof is by showcasing customers using your products. Showing your products in action with real people is a very powerful way to add social proof to your store.

Seeing your product in action lets your customers know what to expect based on visual proof.

If you happen to sell a product that does well in customer photos, such as apparel, this can be a great way to add social proof to your store.

7. Using social buttons

Last but not least you can add social buttons to give a little social proof to your products and Shopify store.

Social buttons involve likes, hearts and thumbs ups from social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Social buttons can be a great way to show that others like your products based on how many likes, hearts, and thumbs ups a product receives.

Products with higher social indicators will let your shoppers know a product is popular and should help lead to more sales.

Summary

Social proof can be a powerful motivator for your customers during the buying process. By using these social proof techniques you should be able to grow your store’s sales.