How a Photographer Turned Her Passion into a Profitable Shopify Store: Case Study

In this article:

• What made you choose eCommerce?
• Has PageFly helped you increase traffic/conversions to your store?
• Why did you choose the PageFly app over other similar solutions on the market?
• How has PageFly helped you to customize your storefront?
• Would you recommend PageFly to a colleague or friend?
• What would you say if we told you PageFly would soon be unavailable? What would this mean to you?
• Passion, Patience, and Custom Pages = Merchant Success

“PageFly is critical because they make it easy to design pages, collect emails, grow my list and bring in more sales!”

The advent of eCommerce platforms like Shopify has revolutionized the world of online shopping. Merchants no longer have to deal with inventory, shipping, and costly overheads to start their business. But that doesn’t mean diving into eCommerce comes without its challenges.

One of the most difficult aspects of running an online store is gaining traffic. Which must then be converted into customers.

Convincing visitors to take a particular action on your site, such as clicking a link, signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product, is known as a conversion. And it’s no easy feat.

So, where should your focus lie when trying to optimize this process? A number of factors come in to play.

Your store should be designed to portray the true nature of your brand and contain a range of tools to effectively market your products to drive traffic to your site. 

I had the chance to catch up with Elena over the weekend and chat about obstacles she overcame by using PageFly - an advanced page builder for Shopify.

This case study focuses on solutions PageFly provided for Modern Market, an eCommerce store selling digital photography products. Their top challenges included customizing their store beyond Shopify’s capabilities, designing landing pages to collect leads, and conversion rate optimization.

Elena is the brains and brawn behind Modern Market, whose passion lies in documenting organic moments unfold through photography.

She turned this passion into a scalable online business by providing digital products to help other photographers capture and create images that reflect who they truly are.

"It's not often that I find apps that really help me grow my business and this is one of them!"

Stretching beyond a retail store, Elena is a voice in her industry, and Modern Market provides an environment to connect, learn and get inspired.

How would you describe your role in Modern Market and what’s it all about?

I am the founder of Modern Market, and I manage all aspects of my business. I actually started out as a portrait photographer, and over time started creating tools to help me run my business better. I started to share those products with fellow photographers and that's how Modern Market came to be.

Today, it has over 700 products specifically for portrait photographers ranging from editing presets, marketing sets, legal forms, branding collections and so much more.

What made you choose eCommerce?

Since all my products are digital, it only made sense to go the route of using an eCommerce store. I have customers from all over the world who can purchase and then instantly download my products.

How has PageFly helped you showcase the value of your products to your customers?

PageFly is one of my favorite, most-used apps. I've used it to design beautiful landing pages to announce upcoming products and online classes as well as create specific lead capture pages to grow my email list. PageFly makes it really easy to customize and design beautiful pages.

I've looked at other lead capture page sites (which would end up taking customers from my store to another site) and they cost hundreds of dollars each month. Being able to create these specific pages on my own site AND the excellent price and usability made it an easy choice to use PageFly.

Has PageFly helped you increase traffic/conversions to your store?

Absolutely! One of the main ways I use the app is by creating specific landing pages with an opt-in form to collect more emails. With a list of 80,000+ people, I have a way to reach out to them personally every time there's a new product release or special store announcement.

Note: PageFly has a number of tools integrated for collecting email leads, the most well-known being MailChimp. Elena was able to effectively use these to reach more people and capture more sales through email marketing.

Having a well-rounded marketing strategy on social media, Google and email marketing is the key to growing my business. The great thing with email marketing is that I can reach out to my list anytime I want without having to pay for it and get a better ROI than on social media. PageFly is a critical piece in that equation because they make it easy for me to design pages to collect those emails and grow my list and bring in more sales!

Why did you choose the PageFly app over other similar solutions on the market?

I had tried other lead capture pages and they cost over $79 a month to use. With PageFly I can do everything I need for so much less, all while keeping it connected to my Shopify store. This makes it easier than any other app to import products and grow my business.

It's made it possible to create pages to collect leads, and I've built complete online classes out using this app without having to also pay monthly for expensive lead capture pages, or online class hosting.

Specifically, how has PageFly helped you to customize your storefront?

Having a store that reflects my brand and style is really important. PageFly made it really easy for me to keep things consistent across my site. When people land on a page I designed with PageFly, it matches the quality of my whole store giving my customers a seamless experience.

Were there any other advantages you discovered when using PageFly over time?

I know that PageFly is often used to create custom sites and product pages. But I've gotten the best use on designing pages with it. For anyone using Shopify to run their store and looking to grow their business, collecting leads is key in a successful long term growth.

The truth is that although we live in an incredible time with social media giving us a platform to connect with potential customers, it doesn't matter how many people give us a like on Facebook or follow our pages on Instagram. You'll never own those connections like you do your email list. I have over 112,000+ fans on Facebook and another 22,000+ on Instagram and only about 6% of the people who follow me see my posts.

I have to pay a lot of money to get my business in front of them. My actual website and email list are pieces I own, and I know the importance of focusing on growing that list.

Would you recommend PageFly to a colleague or friend?

Absolutely yes! Install it and start building those custom pages, so you can grow your business!

What would you say if we told you PageFly would soon be unavailable? What would this mean to you?

Oh this would be terrible and I'd beg you to keep PageFly up and running. It's not often that I find apps that really help me grow my business and this is one of them!

Passion, Patience, and Custom Pages = Merchant Success

Talking with Elena was enlightening. As someone who was running an eCommerce store before using PageFly, she was looking to take the next step in her business. This involved creating fully customized landing pages to generate more leads while remaining in line with the current design of her site.

Shopify, while being an amazing platform, is limited in terms of design tools and customization.

The code editor is hard to access, and the templates are modest, leaving a lot of merchants wondering how to fit the vibe of their brand into them. Not to mention it’s next to impossible to make a special landing or sales page.

PageFly - Shopify Conversion Rate optimization solution gave Elena the power to create responsive Shopify pages - fully customizable and equipped with quality SEO (all the good stuff Google loves) to help gain more organic traffic. She was also able to grow her email list even further with lead capture pages, a vital aspect of her business.

Because she’s the driver behind all aspects of her business, Elena needed an app that had several conversion rate optimization and design features rolled into one.

Read More: 

• Best Shopify Stores: 20+ Case Studies 
• Best Templates and Examples For Building Your About Us Page
• How To Build Your Shopify Coming Soon Page - A Tutorial