To increase Shopify sales, pull four levers in the right order: email, apps, free shipping, and a blog. Most owners run them backwards. Start email marketing early, because email drives 20% to 30% of ecommerce revenue and returns roughly $36 for every $1 spent. Add a few high-value apps for reviews, discounts and email, but do not bloat your store. Offer free shipping with a minimum order threshold, since extra costs at checkout are the number one reason buyers abandon carts. And add a blog for long-term SEO once your paid channels are working. This is the V8 Media Q&A with Jason Modlinne, written out with the Rand math, from the team behind R2+ billion in client sales.
Most store owners ask "what one thing will double my sales?"
There is no one thing. There are a few levers, and the trick is knowing which to pull first.
We sat down with Jason Modlinne for episode 2 of our ecommerce Q&A and answered the real questions store owners keep sending us. Blogging. Email. Apps. Free shipping. Watch the full chat below.
This is the written version, with the stats and the SA examples so you can use it today.
Does blogging actually help your online store sell more?
Short answer: yes, but slowly, and not first.
A blog is a long game. It builds your organic ranking on Google over months, not days. In a competitive niche it can take six months or more to move.
But the payoff is real. HubSpot found companies that blog get 55% more website visitors and produce 67% more leads each month than companies that do not.
Side effect nobody talks about: it makes you a sharper marketer. Researching what your customer actually Googles forces you to understand them. That sharpness bleeds into your ads and your product pages too.
So why not first? Because when you are starting out, cash and time are tight.
Blogging pays off in month six. Paid ads pay off this week. If you are early, put your energy into the channel that brings sales now, then layer in content once you can afford the wait.
We break down that exact trade-off in our guide on paid ads vs SEO for a new business.
Rule of thumb: if you are doing under R100,000 a month, get ads working first. Add the blog when you have the resources to keep it consistent. One post a year does nothing. One good post a week compounds.
Should you use email marketing for your store?
Yes. Start it from day one. This is the lever most SA store owners ignore, and it is leaving money on the table.
Email is the cheapest channel you own. You do not rent the audience from Meta or Google. You own the list.
Numbers first. Klaviyo's ecommerce benchmark data shows email and SMS drive 20% to 30% of total ecommerce revenue. For brands that set it up properly.
Yet most SA stores I talk to have never sent a single automated email. Cape Town or Joburg, same story. They hand Klaviyo nothing and wonder why revenue is flat.
And the return is brutal in a good way. Across the industry, email earns around $36 to $45 back for every $1 spent. No ad channel touches that.
The biggest win hides in automations. Klaviyo reports automated flows generate about 41% of email revenue from just 5.3% of sends.
That means a handful of emails, set up once, quietly print money while you sleep. The three to build first:
- Welcome sequence. Greets new subscribers, tells your story, makes the first offer.
- Abandoned cart. Wins back the people who almost bought.
- Post-purchase. Thanks the buyer, asks for a review, sets up the next sale.
We walk through the first one step by step in our guide to ecommerce welcome sequences, and the second in abandoned cart automations.
"But I do not want to annoy my customers." We hear this all the time.
Here is the truth. If you provide value, you will not annoy anyone. Watch one number: your unsubscribe rate. Keep it under 1% per send and you are in a healthy spot.
Start with one email a week. Give a real reason to open it: a deal, a useful tip, an early-access drop. Then adjust based on how people respond.
The fear of annoying people costs you far more than the odd unsubscribe ever will.
Which Shopify apps actually boost sales?
Shopify out the box is fine. A few apps make it dangerous. The mistake is installing too many.
There are three categories worth your money.
First, reviews. Social proof sells. Apps like Judge.me or Loox collect and display customer reviews, photos and even video, automatically. New stores live or die on trust, and reviews are the cheapest trust you can buy.
Second, discounts and upsells. Shopify's native discount options are limited. Apps like Bold Discounts or similar tools add advanced offers: buy-one-get-one, conditional deals, tiered pricing. These lift your average order value without extra ad spend.
Third, email. Plug in Klaviyo or Omnisend to run the automations we covered above. This is the one app category you should not skip.
Here is how the three stack up.
| App type | What it does | Why it lifts sales |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews (Judge.me, Loox) | Collects and shows customer reviews, photos, video | Builds trust, the number one thing a new buyer needs |
| Discounts and upsells (Bold) | Advanced offers and bundles Shopify can't do natively | Lifts average order value with no extra ad spend |
| Email (Klaviyo, Omnisend) | Runs welcome, cart and post-purchase flows | Drives 20-30% of revenue from a list you own |
Now the warning. Do not install 20 apps.
Every app adds code to your store. Too many and your site slows down, which kills conversions and even hurts your Google ranking.
Apps can also clash with each other and break things in ways that are a nightmare to debug.
So audit your apps every few months. If you are not using it, delete it. Lean store, fast store, more sales.
We go deeper on the exact stack in our breakdown of the 5 must-have apps for an 8-figure Shopify store.
Is offering free shipping a good idea, or does it kill profit?
Free shipping is one of the strongest levers you have. But only if you do it without bleeding your margin.
Here is why. Shipping cost is the single biggest reason people bail at checkout.
Nearly half. That is a lot of nearly-sales you are losing at the final step.
So free shipping removes the biggest objection. The mistake is offering it on everything and watching your profit vanish.
The fix is a free shipping threshold. Set a minimum order value to qualify for it.
Say your average order is R450. Set free shipping at R600. Now customers add one more item to hit it, your average order climbs, and the bigger basket easily absorbs the courier cost.
Here is how the threshold changes the maths.
| Approach | What happens | Effect on profit |
|---|---|---|
| Free shipping on everything | You eat courier cost on every tiny order | Margin gets crushed on low-value baskets |
| No free shipping at all | Shipping fee shocks buyers at checkout | You lose ~48% who abandon over extra cost |
| Free shipping over a threshold | Buyers add items to qualify | Higher order value covers the cost. Best of both |
Do not guess at the number. Track it.
Use a profit-tracking tool like BeProfit or TrueProfit to see exactly what free shipping does to your bottom line, not just your revenue.
Then test it. Run free shipping for a month, measure the impact on sales and profit, and adjust. If your margins are too thin to absorb it, nudge your product price up slightly to cover it. Customers feel the "free shipping" win more than a small price bump.
We dig into protecting margin while you grow in our guide on how to optimise your online store for profit.
How to prioritise all four when you are just starting
You cannot do everything at once. So here is the order we would run it.
- Get traffic and sales now with paid ads. Meta Ads and Google Ads bring buyers this week, not in six months.
- Turn on email the same week. Welcome, cart and post-purchase flows. Cheapest revenue you will ever earn.
- Add free shipping with a threshold to lift order value and cut abandonment.
- Layer reviews and upsell apps to push average order value and trust.
- Start the blog once the above is humming, for long-term free traffic.
The theme is simple: cash in hand before vanity projects.
And one rule sits over all of it: let data decide, not your gut.
Do not act on a fear or a single complaint. Watch your numbers. Unsubscribe rate. Cart abandonment. Average order value. Profit after shipping. The data tells you what is actually working.
That is the playbook. Not sexy. Just the order that works. Pull the levers, measure each one, double down on what pays.
It is also exactly how we took a store from zero to 10,000 orders in 12 months with Jason. Boring discipline, not magic.
Frequently asked questions
How do I increase sales on my Shopify store?
Pull four levers in order. Drive traffic with paid ads first for fast sales, then turn on email marketing because it drives 20% to 30% of ecommerce revenue from a list you own. Add free shipping with a minimum order threshold to cut cart abandonment, and use a few high-value apps for reviews and upsells. Start a blog last, for long-term SEO once your paid channels are profitable.
Does email marketing really make a difference for ecommerce?
Hugely. Klaviyo benchmark data shows email and SMS drive 20% to 30% of total ecommerce revenue for brands that use them well, and email returns roughly $36 to $45 for every $1 spent. The biggest win is automation: Klaviyo reports automated flows generate about 41% of email revenue from just 5.3% of sends. Build a welcome, abandoned cart and post-purchase flow first.
Will email marketing annoy my customers?
Not if you provide value. Watch your unsubscribe rate and keep it under 1% per send. Start with one email a week that gives a real reason to open it, such as a deal, a useful tip or early access to a drop, then adjust based on engagement. The fear of annoying people costs you far more in lost sales than the occasional unsubscribe.
Which Shopify apps boost sales the most?
Three categories matter most: review apps like Judge.me or Loox to build trust, discount and upsell apps like Bold to lift average order value, and an email app like Klaviyo or Omnisend to run automations. Avoid installing too many apps, because each one adds code that slows your store, hurts conversions and can clash with other apps. Audit and remove anything you are not using.
Is free shipping worth it for a small online store?
Yes, if you set a minimum order threshold. Extra costs like shipping are the number one reason for cart abandonment, with Baymard finding about 48% of shoppers leave because of them. So free shipping removes the biggest objection. Set it above your average order value, for example free shipping over R600 when your average order is R450, so customers add items to qualify and the bigger basket covers the courier cost.
Should I blog for my ecommerce store?
Eventually, yes. Blogging builds long-term organic traffic, with HubSpot finding companies that blog get 55% more website visitors and 67% more monthly leads. But it is a slow game that can take six months or more to pay off. If you are early and cash is tight, prioritise paid ads and email for immediate sales, then add a consistent blog once you can afford to wait for the SEO payoff.
Key takeaways
- To grow a Shopify store, pull fast-payback levers first (paid ads, email) and slow-payback levers later (blogging).
- Email is the cheapest revenue you own. It drives 20-30% of ecommerce revenue and returns about $36-$45 per $1, with automated flows making 41% of email revenue from 5.3% of sends.
- Pick high-value apps only: reviews, upsells and email. Too many apps slow your store, hurt conversions and clash.
- Free shipping works because extra costs cause ~48% of cart abandonment. Use a threshold above your average order value so it lifts profit instead of killing it.
- Blogging pays off in months, not days. Add it once paid and email are working, then stay consistent. Let data, not fear, drive every decision.
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