ClickFunnels vs. Shopify: How Both Can Boost Your Drop Shipping Business

More and more people have been contacting us to ask if they should use ClickFunnels instead of Shopify for their drop shipping stores.  We’ve been answering the question on email, Facebook, and Webinars, so we figured it was the time to give the information in a concise way to help everyone understand the information and put it to use!

ClickFunnels Overview

We will start with one vital point of explaining the concept of funnels. Rest-assured, It is not as complicated as many people think when first exploring the topic. Although you may not be aware, you are more familiar with funnels than you think.

clickfunnels logo

ClickFunnels is a platform that helps you create opt-in pages and landing pages. It can also be great in assisting in managing other different forms used in your sales funnel. You can create sales funnels for enhancing your marketing techniques used on your eCommerce store.

ClickFunnels is not the ideal choice if you have multiple items you are wanting to sell. In this case, the best option would be to do this with an eCommerce website, such as Shopify.

Shopify Overview

shopify logo

We will start with one vital point of explaining the concept of funnels. Rest-assured, It is not as complicated as many people think when first exploring the topic. Although you may not be aware, you are more familiar with funnels than you think.

Shopify has become one of the most popular eCommerce platforms for creating an online store to sell products. The platform can be used for selling both physical and digital goods. Shopify includes tons of resources and tools that can help you set up and run your business even faster and more efficient than expected.

With Shopify having an easy-to-use interface and tons of themes to choose from when building your store, you will have a professional looking online eCommerce store and functionalities that can help in streamlining the selling experience customers will experience in no time. These aspects are just as vital in online sales as it is in brick-and-mortar stores.  

Example of Using ClickFunnels

In this example, we will say that we have a bunch of people trying to sell a $10 and $20 item that also includes a free shipping offer. The way this works is that the seller (you) is paying for a click from ads that are running somewhere online that you've chosen (Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc.). You could be doing cost-per-click (CPC), cost per lead (CPL), or cost per sale (CPS).

When the potential customer clicks the ad, they are sent to a product page with the goal of the buyer buying the item immediately. When this scenario occurs, it is called using Direct Response Marketing.

Mostly, these types of ads direct the person to the page of a small, low-ticket item. In this scenario, we would refer to the customer as a Cold Lead. This term is used because the potential customer would have been navigated from an offer on an ad for either an extremely cheap item or a freebie of some sort. They were not actively looking for this offer, but it was of interest to them and our goal is to get their name and email address to add to our funnel for later marketing efforts.    

Why low-ticket items? The odds of a cold lead clicking a Facebook Ad and purchasing a high-ticket ($200+) item are very slim. Sure, it can happen. But, it will not be a typical occurrence and is not the known techniques that we teach and focus on at Drop Ship Lifestyle.

Later we will explain how you can use ClickFunnels in your high-ticket store to convert cold leads into high-ticket item buyers!

How ClickFunnels Can Have an Adverse Effect

This is where the concept of “funnels” come into play. The bigger question that most people have is what to do from this point moving forward. It is vital to always ask yourself, “If I am selling only low-ticket items, am I really going to be making a profit?”

The following are elements when running an online drop shipping business that can bring down your profits (especially when focusing on low-ticket items):

  • The Cost of The Product
  • Shipping Charges
  • CPC Charges
  • Lead Charges
  • Web Hosting
  • Email Campaign Hosting
  • And much more!

Your time is valuable! When you are selling low-ticket items, you are barely making any money in the end, if any at all!

ClickFunnels and How They Can be Beneficial

ClickFunnels is one of the easiest tools for using funnels for your online store. This option is great and works very well with either free offers or low-ticket offers. If you are trying to do what we teach at Drop Ship Lifestyle and are ready to make the most money and move on to high-ticket eCommerce profits, ClickFunnels can be extremely useful!

Although we aren’t the biggest fans of low-ticket eCommerce scenarios, this option does work well and is better than Shopify for that aspect. If you are wanting to go with extremely low-ticket and low-value item’s, then ClickFunnels will be the best solution.

TIP

ClickFunnels do not send people to an online store. Instead, it sends them directly to a sales page for a single product.

With ClickFunnels you are not sending potential buyers to your site. They will not be clicking any links or browsing around for other products. They will either buy the product on the page, or they will leave. This is what ClickFunnels work well for doing, but is not the best scenario when used alone and having the focus on high-ticket items.

The Shopify Difference

The biggest difference between Shopify and ClickFunnels is that Shopify allows you to build a powerful online store. It is a store builder that lets you control the experience a potential customer will have. This is vital in ramping up customers to buy the high-ticket items, which of course is the end goal!

When a person comes to the page for a high-ticket item after clicking on an ad, they will be met with other similar products to browse and choose from. It is like walking into a brick-and-mortar store, with more options and features. Whereas, only using ClickFunnels is like a customer going up to a kiosk in a mall that only sells a single product.

Perks of a Shopify Store

A Shopify store gives you the opportunity to show different sections and variations, along with a story about what you are selling, and information about your company and you as the owner of the business. With potential buyers, branding yourself as trusted and knowledgeable is vital and will help in keeping customers coming back or referring their friends to the online store.

When focusing on selling higher ticket items, it is important to give a great user experience. You want the customers to have the option of clicking on an About Us page, reading about your business's story, and even about you, the owner.

The goal is for them to have information on who it is that you actually are because you aren’t just selling $10 and $20 items. These sales are going to be closer to the $1000 mark, and this aspect is important for individuals before spending that amount of money. It adds value to their experience as a customer which can be the deciding factor in purchasing high-ticket items.

If this is done right, it can be the perfect push for the customer to add their item to the cart and push the “Buy” button! In the end, it adds immense value to the customer’s buying experience, and that is exactly what you want!

Should You Just Avoid Funnels?

The short answer is, “No! Of course not!” We definitely do use them, just not on high ticket stores. This does not mean that if you have a high-ticket store that you should ignore funnels and never use them. Instead, you have to tweak and adjust how you use them to turn the leads into high-ticket buyers.

They Visited Your Shopify Store Without Buying. What Now?

After a potential customer has visited your Shopify store and decided that they are not going to buy anything and are trying to exit the page, this is where using funnels even on your high-ticket store would be beneficial.

One of the best tools that would be used in this scenario is an App called Privy. By using Privy, we are able to implement what is called an Exit Splash. It is a pop-up, but not like the annoying pop-ups that create a new screen on your computer.

This splash page comes up over the screen in the web browser as the customer is about to leave and simply says something like, “Hey, wait. We see you’re trying to leave. Can you enter your email address and we’ll send you a discount code.”

The goal is to capture the potential customer's email address so that we have a funnel behind it. We use the email as they try to leave to be able to follow up and have them buy more from us.

What About When They Do Buy?

What about the concept of funnels if they do make a purchase? How can we turn a $1,000 order into more? We will use eCommerce Lead Value Optimization.

Before we explain in detail what Lead Value Optimization (LVO) is, it is important to clarify the difference in Lead Value Optimization and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). These two are commonly mixed up and confused on the details of each.

The difference between the two is that CRO refers to getting as many visitors to buy your “core offer” as possible. This isn’t focused on high-ticket items and focuses on the number of people that buy the main product you are selling, and not focused on the ticket price and selling high-ticket items.

On the other hand, LVO is focused on the goal of earning more money from each visitor that is directed to your website. By increasing your conversion rate, you can further optimize the value of your leads by offering different products and services during the journey of the customer.

eCommerce Lead Value Optimization

In short, the goal is to earn more money from every visitor. How can we do that?

After the customer is Facebook pixeled and their email has been captured, here are four different ways to help in getting these leads to buy high-ticket physical products. 
  1. Cross Promote Your Own Related Stores
  2. Cross Promote Affiliate Stores
  3. Promote Information Products
  4. Upsell Add-Ons
  5. Upsells Intangible Items

We can use different techniques to turn a $1,000 customer into a $1,200 customer. Even when someone is going to leave without making a purchase, this is the time we truly appreciate the concept of funnels. It gives us the ability to follow-up with them in the hopes of them becoming a buyer instead of just a browser!

If you are still wondering if you are drop shipping like you should be, it all comes down to marketing and selling high ticket items. This is the method we at Drop Ship Lifestyle believe will actually make you money with this business model in drop shipping.

Now that you have all of your bases covered, you should be in a good spot. After setting up your Shopify store and creating a great user experience, using the Privy App to assist in capturing visitors information, and having the right follow-up strategy, you are in a very good place to start making profits.

Tapping into “Cold Audiences” on Facebook

funnels

It is extremely unlikely to send a cold Facebook Lead to a high ticket item and have them buy it. How do we do this with Facebook Ads to make this method profitable when used for high ticket drop shipping?

This is the time you would opt to send the Facebook Ad to a ClickFunnels page, instead of the high ticket item page. They will then be sent to an Opt-in page. You aren’t asking them to buy an item, but instead, you have the goal of having them give their email address and name to get something for free. We are not talking about an actual item, but a freebie like a PDF or eBook. 

There are cheaper ways to collect leads. However, with high ticket drop ship stores this would be the way that we would want to turn a cold lead from Facebook (or Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.) to the ClickFunnel opt-in page. Then, via email, we will funnel them to the product page to get them to buy a high-ticket item.

ClickFunnels vs. Shopify Are Both Valuable

It is safe to say that when it comes to ClickFunnels and Shopify, both can be extremely valuable and vital for your drop shipping business. Although, when first starting out it is best to focus on your Product Listing Ads (PLA), the Privy App, and the Shopify store.

If you are still confused about when to use Facebook Ads and ClickFunnels, never fear! The rule of thumb at Drop Ship Lifestyle is that the optimal time to begin using ClickFunnels and Facebook Ads is when you are making $30,000 to $50,000 in sales per month.

In the end, Shopify is one of the best options for your drop shipping business, and utilizing these tools and strategies will ensure that no matter where you are on your drop shipping journey, there are always more options and ways to enhance sales, even if they become stagnant and you are looking for ways to enhance the business and increase sales.

  • Anton Kraly says:

    Hey Everyone,

    As many of you already know I created Drop Ship Lifestyle after selling a network of eCommerce stores and then trying to find a community of other store owners to network with… What I found was a bunch of scammers who promised newbies they would get rich quick by following their push-button systems!

    This led me to create a new community along with an online training program that shares how to build a REAL online business.

    I’d love to hear what you think… it’s a 2.5-hour training designed to help you drop ship profitably… all for free.

    Be sure to click here to check it out and send me your feedback!

    If you go through the “How To Start & Grow A Hyper-Profitable Online Store” webinar and still have questions just contact me and I will help you out.

  • This post is problematic in so many ways!

  • Anton you said: ” The rule of thumb at Drop Ship Lifestyle is that the optimal time to begin using ClickFunnels and Facebook Ads is when you are making $30,000 to $50,000 in sales per month.”

    why can’t i start Facebook marketing with maybe 100$ budget ? is that not enough to get sales ?

    • For remarketing, you can start with FB right away but it doesn’t make sense to start using them for cold traffic until you’re already successful with Google Ads.

      I cover this in detail in my webinar here: Drop Ship Lifestyle Webinar.

  • Do you use Carthook do combine Clickfunnels and Shopify

  • Great comparison post. Thank you!

  • Great video Anton. It will definitely help me decide which option to chose for my new eCommerce business.

    • Anton Kraly says:

      Awesome! Happy to help, Mortey.

  • Thanks for the video review Anton. It was clear to understand and a great watch.

    • Anton Kraly says:

      You’re welcome, Luther. And thank you for the feedback!

  • Excellent info, thanks! What would you suggest if I’m selling a pediatric nutrition product ($20-50 range) targeted to the parents of 8-18 year old kids? You mention shopify is better for high ticket items and CF for cheap. I feel like I’m in between. Plan is to have WordPress site for info/about and link out to CF for the actual product sales. Thoughts?

    • Anton Kraly says:

      Hi John,
      Great question! For that price range and product type I would 100% recommend Click Funnels. If I would use I would host all of the content pages on WordPress and then have each product lead to a Click Funnels page.
      You could put Click Funnels on a subdomain like store.yoursite.com and leave your main site as yoursite.com
      The reason I would recommend Click Funnels for your product type is that it’s perfect for upsells and CF makes that very easy on you.

  • I am a branding and creative services expert/professional but have been thinking of starting and online store. Do you think my skills could benefit me in this business? If so, what course of action do you think I should start with? Do you have a course for me to get started? Thanks, Jason

    • Anton Kraly says:

      Definitely! While branding skills aren’t necessary when building a store – I do think that would give you a big competitive advantage when starting out.

      Thank you!

  • Hi Anton, How does one acquire images to build a demo Shopify site?

    • Anton Kraly says:

      Hi Heather –
      Basic stock photos are fine 🙂
      We use Google Image Search. Once you search for your main niche (ie: Chandeliers) you then click on “Setting” and change “Usage Rights” to “Free To Use Or Share”.
      Hope that helps!

  • Wow! Great info in a way I can understand. Answered a lot of questions I had. Great explanation. 🙂

    • Anton Kraly says:

      Thanks Cynthia! I’m happy to help clarify the different use cases of Click Funnels and Shopify!

  • Thanks for taking the time to post this episode. It is chock-full of information! It’s good to know that we don’t have to do all types of campaigns at once (overwhelming). Grow sales with PLAs then move to social channels using Click Funnel….
    I so appreciate everything you do to help us with our drop shipping businesses. I feel I have invested wisely.
    PS: sure would like to know how to add that blinking tab to my store 😉

    • Anton Kraly says:

      You’re welcome! Glad to hear you got value 🙂

  • as always amazing video with priceless value.

    • Anton Kraly says:

      Thanks for watching!

  • This was helpful. I am just starting out in e-comm and need all the help I can get.

    • Anton Kraly says:

      Happy to help, Stan! Keep checking back every Thursday for new episodes of Drop Ship Weekly 🙂

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