Power Up Your Store with Google Domains and Analytics

It's important that you put a professional face on your business. That doesn't mean losing your personality or pretending to be a bigger operation than you are, I'm just talking about a little bit of polished presentation, and using data to guide decisions. Google has some tools that easily connect to your Big Cartel store, and give you more power than ever. Ready to super-charge your online shop?

Custom domain

One of the strengths of Big Cartel as an ecommerce platform is that the power to craft the way your business shows up in the world stays with you. We don't keep your shop within the strict framework of a marketplace, and we want your customers to proudly declare "I got it from (insert your shop name)," and not the name of a platform.

One way you can strengthen the name recognition of your brand is with a custom domain. That's where people go to greatstore dot com rather than greatstore dot bigcartel dot com: it's simpler and shorter, and it centers your brand. Google Domains are built right into your store admin, so they're one of the easiest ways to set your shop up with a custom domain. This help article walks you through each step. But don't fret -- if there's another domain provider you prefer, we can help you connect your store with those too.

Analytics

It's important to get to know your customers: how they find you, where they hang out, and which of your products they're most often drawn to. It's easier to make data-informed decisions for your business when you connect to Google Analytics.

Before we get too deep, I want to emphasize that connecting Google Analytics to your Big Cartel store is only available for paid plans. It makes sense, since this is often a feature that people add once they're past the testing phase and their business is up and running. And remember that Big Cartel's paid plans start at just $9.99 per month with no listing fees or other sneaky add-ons, so it's incredibly affordable, if I do say so myself.

Once you connect your shop to Google Analytics (we've got instructions right here), you can start to think about how the data can inform your decisions. If you have the highest traffic to your store on Wednesdays, that might be the perfect day for your next product launch. If a lot of people find you on a particular website, that might be a great place to test some advertising. Is there a product in your shop that gets a lot of views, but fewer purchases? Try remixing the design in a different color or on a different item to see if you can change the outcome.

Google Analytics can present you with so much information that it can feel overwhelming to start. This toolkit will help you examine a few data points to start. Smaller, iterative changes can better help you understand if the tweak you made had the intended effect, so focus on one area at a time and remember that growing a business is a long game.

Apps and add-ons like Google Domains and Google Analytics add horsepower to your store. See more of the available integrations on Big Cartel's help site.