A new shopping platform I am loving—shopmy
Who else is loving the new shopping platform taking over affiliate marketing, shopmy? My web designer heart absolutely loves the user interface and how the content can be categorized for an easy to navigate shopping experience. If I were advising a content creator about what to use for their business, I would 100% recommend shopmy integrated with social media like Instagram and a blog designed on Squarespace. Especially for the woman in business growing a community alongside her full time job (outside of the home or raising children) while also churning out content as an influencer/digital creator. Time is precious—keep it simple for both you as an influencer and the people shopping your content.
The other group with a great opportunity to use shopmy are business owners in service based industries who own salons, spas or interior design firms. Read on to learn more about how and why this could be an opportunity for those business owners who continuously get asked by clients about product recommendations.
So who is this new platform for? Here are 3 solid examples of businesses I believe should be using a platform like shopmy for affiliate marketing:
The obvious numero uno—influencers/bloggers/digital creators.
The influencer marketing industry seems to be in the midst of a shift yet again with authenticity and transparency being very important to the consumer. Just look at the growth in the influencer space over on Substack which is another opportunity for influencers to connect with their audience without the interference of the dreaded algorithm. In addition to being over the algorithms controlling their social feeds, consumers are tired of seeing the overdone push for fast fashion and are seeing through product recommendations that are more about earning a quick buck than making quality recommendations.
I have also recently heard feedback from influencers about shopmy and how the platform has been able to help them connect more directly with brands and their community of followers. Shopmy offers an easy way to share product recommendations along with discount codes in a very organized manner. The end result is a better user experience leading to more conversion and growth for the influencer. Win/win!
Shopmy accomplishes this by enabling the influencer to organize their content into appropriate categories or shelves as they call them. Social media posts are easily integrated into the platform making it easy for consumers wanting to shop recent posts to find the linked content without having to search. Of course it is up to the “shop owner” to ensure their content is organized in a user friendly manner. The tools are definitely there if you know how to use them in a strategic way.
Salon & Spa Owners
If you are a spa or salon owner, why aren’t you earning a small commission on your product recommendations? You know you are a trusted source for your client base and they are always asking you about tools and gadgets to keep their hair or skincare up to par at home. Having a central place to send clients like shopmy will be user friendly for them while freeing up your time of sending individual links while also giving you the opportunity to earn a small commission for your advice.
You are giving this advice anyway, why not make a little extra revenue for your time? I fully support this as a web design consultant AND as a consumer. It doesn’t cost me anything to support my trusted circle of people I see for services on the regular. Why wouldn’t I support them further in this way for the advice they are willing to share with me?!? Integrate shopmy into your social media and website for an easy way to share with clients. If you are unsure how to approach this, please reach out as I would be happy to help.
Interior Designers
This same thought process applies to interior designers growing a community on social media. Of course your top priority and goal as you share your work on social media is for people to find you and hire you to help them with their home decor. Consider this—what about those folks following along because they are inspired by your work but aren’t necessarily in the market to hire a designer? Shopmy is a great way to earn some dollars on your social media posts and products you are sharing. Multiple income streams are never a bad thing; don’t leave money on the table!
Another example and side note that further solidifies this thought process can be found in a recent Podcast episode I listened to last week. I follow and adore, The Second Life Podcast by Hillary Kerr and she recently had Shea McGee on the show sharing her story. The way Shea built her business is quite interesting and actually gave me several ideas for future blog posts. I love nothing more than hearing the stories of strong women who bootstrapped their business from the ground up. She got her start on Instagram utilizing the platform as a free way to connect with potential clients. Building an Instagram community led her down the road of affiliate marketing in addition to the bread and butter of her business we all know today as McGee & Co. Give the Podcast a listen here if you enjoy this sort of content (which I obviously do). Take a page from Shea’s book and implement a similar strategy for your business by adding shopmy to your marketing toolkit.
Another much appreciated opportunity at the hands of shopmy is the fact that I was able to further test the platform as a web designer by signing up to explore and create my own shop. This also enabled me to support my clients by sending them a referral link to join if it was a fit for their industry. If you are an influencer, aspiring influencer and/or service based provider who enjoys sharing product recommendations with clients, hit me up for an invite to join shopmy by sending me a quick email. I will be happy to share my sign-up link with you to curate your own storefront. If you own a salon/spa or interior design firm, and aren’t taking advantage of affiliate marketing income, take this as your sign that you should be and send me a message!
No onto the fun part, here is an example of what an embedded shoppable feature would look like in Squarespace:
Or you can embed like this if you want to have a page dedicated to current favorites—I am using the category of ‘favorite flats’ but it could be current season favorites or however you choose to organize it. I would style this differently and add a title and intro section but you get the idea!
Of course these are very simple examples and as a website designer, I would definitely adjust the formatting where possible to better flow with the brand aesthetic of the website. Having worked with both LTK and now shopmy, I think they both could use some improvements when it comes to embeddable options that include some ability to customize to the creator’s brand. There are most definitely some formatting tricks I would play around with using code to improve the overall look.
Even with room for improvement, my opinion still stands that shopmy has a top notch user interface when the ‘owner’ takes the time to curate their shop with user experience top of mind. Shopmy seems to have more streamlined options available to organize content and links for ease of user experience when it comes to locating what shop visitors want to click to buy. In addition, the ability to organize promo codes for easy access and use is a huge plus.
One final feature to highlight that was recently added, is what shopmy refers to as ‘Opportunities’. Here is the description verbatim from an email that came from shopmy:
“Opportunities is a revolutionary way for you to further benefit from promoting brands you already love on ShopMy. They guarantee you a fixed fee in addition to your regular commission, providing stability and consistency in your earnings.
The beauty of Opportunities is in the simplicity. Brands set broad expectations—such as sharing a certain number of links within a month—and once your meet those expectations, you’ll automatically receive payment. No more waiting for approval or following restrictive briefs. Instead, you can focus on what you do best: crafting extraordinary content.
While the payment for an Opportunity may at times be lower than traditional paid campaigns, they offer other significant advantages. They require less time and effort and allow you to engage with your audience in a way that feels natural and aligns with your content calendar.”
It truly feels like shopmy is positioned to further amplify the push I am seeing as a website designer to simplify how we share content, and I am here for it! If you would like to give shopmy a try and see for yourself, feel free to send me an email and I will respond with a link for you to sign up and/or answer any questions to the best of my ability. I have been exploring the platform for a few weeks now so I know enough to be dangerous—message me at: jlwatrob@north8designs.com. I would love to help point you in the right direction or discuss how we could integrate shopmy into an existing blog or website. Let’s connect and chat!
