Your school website is such a brilliant tool to communicate effectively about your school with the wider community. From news and events to statutory content, a great school website provides a great tool.

But there's also lots more you can do with your school website. The Schudio School Website Software provides you with an option to sell directly within your school website. Whether you're looking to sell uniforms and kit or event tickets, Shopify is a brilliant tool. It is also integrated into the Schudio School Website Software.

The Tools

Here's how we do it ...

The starting point is to set up your very own Shopify account. Choose the package that is right for you - the vast majority of schools work brilliantly well using the Basic Shopify of Shopify account. Either of these will provide everything you need. The difference at time of writing is based on the rates per purchased that are charged and a couple of nice features, such as abandoned cart recovery.

From a school website point of view, we automatically pull your products from your school Shopify account into your website to create a lovely shop, right in your school website.

The process is slick and streamlined so that buyers are reassured that they are buying directly from you throughout the entire process.

The Strategy

From an e-commerce point of view, to maximise the potential of selling through your school website, there are things you need to get right.

Firstly, it's vital that as much as the sales process takes place directly within your website. As an example, let's say I am buying a pair of shoes and I think I'm buying from a particular online store. If at any point in the process I'm taken off to another site to view my basket, to checkout or especially to pay I am more and more likely to abandon my purchase.

Secondly, putting some thought into what you want to achieve by selling online will significantly increase your chance of success. Don't just throw a badly conceived shopping cart online and expect the sales to rattle in while you're sleeping.

Think through what your community already buys from you or what they want to buy from you. That's your starting point. From there, establish what the core products and get those on your school website shop.

Finally, promotion is vital. Make your online shop easy to find on your website. Talk about your shop through your social channels.  Remember as well, in any contact with your school community, link directly to your shop.

If you're emailing about a specific product or event, always 'deep-link' direct to the specific page, not your generic store page. That way you'll see a greater return.

The Measurement

Then it all becomes about measuring the return. It's vital that you justify the expenditure so measuring how well things sell and making some tweaks is really important. As an example, let's go back to the pair of shoes we're selling through our school website shop. How many people visit that page? Do they add the product to their basket? How many people convert to a completed sale? Measure this information directly in your Shopify account (if you go for the full Shopify product) and let that influence if you need to tweak things on your website a little.

Always keep an eye on what you're spending and what you're earning. Shopify isn't free sadly so it's important to make sure it's profitable for your school. For our part, we charge a very small setup cost to hook your Schudio School Website up to Shopify. That's it. There's no ongoing costs from us.

If you'd like to chat to us about how we can enhance your website through a school website shop then get in touch - we'd love to chat with you about making your school website earn money for your school.