How to Add an Online Shop on Showit

With Shopify Lite + Cart Systems

Are you thinking of adding an online shop to your Showit website and increase your revenue streams? In this post, I go over ways to add an e-commerce store to Showit. Whether you’re planning to sell digital products, courses, or physical products – I’ve got you!

Is Showit Right for You?

Showit is by far the best website platform I’ve worked with, from a designer’s perspective. But will I say it’s great for every type of business? The main downfall is Showit does not have any built-in e-commerce stores, but they still allow you to add Buy Buttons from third-party platforms (Shopify, ThriveCart, etc) very easily through embed code.

Now you might be wondering what’s the point of doing this when you can just build your shop on Shopify? Shopify has some great templates – but if you’re looking for an easy-to-use and unique website, this is when Showit is preferred. To have a unique design on Shopify, you will need to hire a professional designer & developer to bring your vision to life through coding. But with Showit, there is no coding required!

I personally only recommend Showit for service-based businesses or smaller online stores that have 20 products or less. Showit is not an e-commerce platform, and I don’t recommend it if you plan to have a larger inventory or your main goal is to grow an e-commerce business (Shopify itself is better suited for this).

However, if you’re a photographer selling presets, or a life coach selling courses as an example – this is when I recommend Showit all the way! I recommend building your shop using a Showit website template, or getting one professionally designed – as it can be a bit tricky to build. View my website template shop right here!

1. Pick a Cart System for Your Shop

In order to have a payment/checkout system on your Showit website, you’ll need a third-party platform. You have the flexibility of choosing any cart system that works for your business. Your shop will be fully designed on Showit & then you simply add your Buy Buttons on the website through an embed code (very easy to place!)

Shopify Lite

Shopify Starter Plan is the most popular option for Showit users due to its affordable plan & ability to use Shopify’s powerful platform. You’ll need a Shopify Starter account to set up your products, payments, shipping/delivery, etc. After all your products are ready to go, you’re able to place Buy Buttons on your website.

Shopify Lite Pros:

• Customers Can Add Multiple Products to Cart
• Affordable at $9 USD/month
• Ability to Use Some Shopify Apps

Shopify Lite Cons:

• Cart only shows up on the side when someone has added a product
• Checkout opens in a new window

ThriveCart

I personally use ThriveCart for my template shop and I LOVE it. But I understand it’s not everyone’s choice due to the bigger one-time investment. If you’re constantly creating sale funnels, and also looking for built-in payment plan options – ThriveCart might be worth it for you.

You can sign up for lifetime access right here available for a limited time!

ThriveCart Pros:

• One-Time Fee For Lifetime Access – For a $495 one-time payment, you get access to the cart system & future features forever. If you’re planning to sell long-term – it will be worth it in the end as you only pay once, and there are no constant monthly payments.
• Payment Plan Options – This is the biggest reason I got ThriveCart, as I wanted to offer payment plans at checkout for my template customers.
• Other Great Features – Affiliate Program, Upsells/Downsells, Flexible Checkout Page Design (see my cart design here as example), sell subscriptions, and integrates with all of your favourite platforms.

ThriveCart Cons:

• Only recommended for sales funnels, limited-time offers, digital downloads, or higher ticket items. Customers can only add one item to the cart (although you can add upsells to that checkout page).
• Limited Payment Gateway Options
• 3rd Party Platform Needed for Product Fulfilment

Other Cart Systems

There’s many other options that may be best suited for your business! Here are more cart systems to explore:

• WooCommerce – Please kind in mind that it’s in “beta” with Showit & you will need a developer/skilled designer if you’re not familiar with it. It’s great for larger stores, but Showit technically does not support WooCommerce. If something happens to your store, Showit is not responsible.
• SamCart
• Podia – I use this platform for my online courses, but I link them with ThriveCart.
• Any Course Platform Checkout if Selling Courses (e.g. Kajabi, Teachable)

How to Design the Shop Pages on Showit

Designing the pages can be tedious if you’re not familiar with the process. This is why I recommend starting off with a Showit template or hiring a designer (like myself!) to help make the process stress-free. However, here’s an overview of how to add a shop on Showit.

Design the Main Online Shop

I’m using my Palm Beach Showit template as an example for the design. Designing your shop pages is the same process as any other Showit page! First, you’ll design the main shop area where you can display all of your products.

In the example below, you can see I designed 3 images per row with titles understand. To make it easier for my customers and clients, I recommend designing one row & duplicating the design for the number of products. This makes it easier for adding products in the future.

Designing the Product Page

You’ll design only one design that will be duplicated for each product. In this example, I placed an image on the left-hand side and product information on the right. You can get really creative with this! Some people create separate canvas views to have a product tab menu (for description, ingredients, disclaimers, etc).

Once you’ve finished designing the main product page, you’ll want to duplicate this for however many products you have. This is why I don’t recommend larger stores, as this step is the most time-consuming part. For each duplicated page – you’ll rename the page for that specific product, change the images, titles and descriptions. On this page, you’ll add an embed code with the buy button that links to this specific product.

Launching Your Online Shop

Once all product pages have been created, you’ll have to set click actions for each product on the main online shop. They should all be clicking to their specific product page. Once it’s all set up, I recommend testing everything out before launching it to the public. Check that all products on the main shop are being redirected to the proper product page and that all buy buttons work properly.

Once everything is linked correctly, you’re ready to launch!