Building Your Community
When it comes to gaining traction for your Shopify business many appreciate the need to build a community, or tribe if you will. But few look beyond the superficial aspects of viewing that community as anything other than potential customers. Each and every action you take can bring you closer to building the community and business you want, or it can take you further away.
Consider These Examples
1. Installing lots of apps, with different branding, might make your store look unprofessional and decrease trust.
2. Running lots of promotional campaigns might prevent people from purchasing anything that isn't on sale. Or worse still, lose trust in your pricing completely.
3. Trying to compete with larger stores might just leave you competing on price. It might also turn you into 'one of them.'
4. Partnerships with other companies can be great, unless of course that company doesn't really share your ethos. In those situations people may lose trust in your company for the recommendation.
So, what's the answer when building a community? Spend a lot of your time figuring out who your people are and what they want. Then make sure that all your decisions are based around supporting those people. Trying everything can work but what kind of business or community will you be left with at the end of it?
Most, if not all, of the best companies get this right and they try to avoid diluting what they do. Amazon are big and cheap, Google are innovators, Apple are 'the brand'.