5 Ways To Add Social Proof to Your Shopify Store

How does a shopper decide which product to buy out of the sea of possible product options available? In other words, how does one product stand out from the crowd? One powerful way to make your products stand out is by using Social Proof.

People, by our very nature, are social creatures. Like it or not, we are influenced by the actions of others. Social proof makes it easy for prospective customers to see what products are popular with other shoppers. Products with more positive social indicators make it easier for a shopper to decide which products to buy.

In this post, I'll outline 5 types of social proof techniques including examples that you can easily add to your Shopify store. Adding these social proof indicators within your Shopify store should ultimately result in more sales thanks to increased conversions.

Social Proof — What is it and why you should use it

Social proof is one of the original 6 principles of persuasion outlined in Robert Cialdini’s famous book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

In e-commerce, social proof occurs when a person relies on the behavior of others to help them decide what to purchase.

According to Wikipedia:

One study found that when evaluating a product, consumers were more likely to incorporate the opinions of others through the use of social proof

Highlighting the social proof of your products in your Shopify store can help other shopper's decide what to buy.

5 Ways to add social proof to your store

1. Best sellers

Your best selling products have built-in social proof. These are the product that are already selling well. So highlighting their popularity can make them sell even better, thanks to social proof.

The easiest way to promote your best sellers is by adding best selling badges to your products. You can also organize your best sellers into one or more Shopify collections to make them easy to find all in one place.

This is the same technique used by the retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart.

Best seller Shopify apps

Here are a couple apps to help you promote your best sellers:

• Flair product badges - to add best selling badges
• Best Seller Insights - to add best selling badges and collections

2. Recent sales

Showing recent sales within your Shopify store is a great way for customers to see what other shoppers are buying.

Displaying recent sales activity in real-time can also convey that your store is a popular venue for shoppers.

Recent sales Shopify apps

There are many Shopify apps available to display recent sales. Here are a few you can try:

• FOMO
• Recently
• Credible

3. Social buttons

You can add social buttons to your Shopify product pages for popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

These buttons display the number of likes, tweets and pins your product has received which is a great social indicator that others are interested in your product.

Social button Shopify apps

If you are comfortable editing your theme files, social buttons can be added manually fairly easily. However, if you prefer to have an app do it, here are a few you social button apps that should do the trick:

• Social Sharing Buttons
• Get Social

4. Product ratings & reviews

Product ratings and reviews let shoppers know how other customers liked a product after purchasing. Since ratings and reviews (typically) happen post-purchase, they provide an additional layer of social proof so shoppers can trust a product is well received.

Product ratings & reviews Shopify apps

Product ratings and reviews is also a pretty crowded space in the Shopify app store. Here are a few of the more popular ones for you to check out:

• Shopify Product Review
• Judge.me
• Yotpo

5. Customer photos

If you are selling products that photograph well (such as t-shirts, hats, apparel), customer photos are a great way to showcase your products in action by real customers. Customer photos are a great way to provide instant social proof of your products in use in the real world by people. When done well, this can be a powerful combination where your happy, smiling customers are putting your products on display in a positive way.

Customer photos Shopify apps

There are many customer photo Shopify apps to choose from. Here are a few you can try:

• Loox
• InstaPhotos
• Covet.pics

Summary

That concludes this post of 5 ways you can add social proof to your store.

To recap, we discussed how social proof can help shoppers when making a buying decision. Making it easier to decide what to buy should increase your store's conversions and ultimately lead to more sales.

Here is the list of the 5 types of social proof and example apps you can add to your Shopify store:

1. Best sellers
2. Recent sales
3. Product ratings & reviews
4. Social buttons
5. Customer photos

Add some social proof to your store and you should see a nice uptick in sales. All the other stores are doing it. 😀