How to Remove “Powered by Shopify” from Your Store’s Footer

By default, all Shopify themes include a branding message at the bottom of every page. The branding appears as a link in the footer that takes clickers to Shopify’s homepage. You’ve recently launched a store and now you’re wondering how to remove “Powered by Shopify” from your online store. Here, you’ll find everything you need to know. 

Why is the branding there, in the first place? Why would you want to remove it? Step-by-step, how do you remove it? Once we’ve covered the ins and outs of Shopify branding removal, we will take a look at some other steps you can take to retain shoppers and increase your online store’s sales. 

Read on to get even more from your eCommerce ventures. 

Why Does Shopify Add This Branding to their Themes? 

Branding is a major part of any business. And, as a major player in the eCommerce platform game, Shopify has most of their business operations honed in. The point of including the ‘powered by’ link in their theme code, Shopify has implemented a simple way to advertise their product to shoppers who visit a site hosted on their platform. 

Let’s examine this a bit further. 

Imagine that a shopper lands on Olive and Poppy’s store in search of totes or jewelry. 

[Screenshot source: Olive and Poppy]

Eventually, the shopper may find themself down in the footer of the site looking for more information about how to find the brand on social media or in search of answers to FAQs. 

That’s when they see the “Powered by Shopify” branding and think, “Well, what’s this?” And, they click through to find out; this redirects them to Shopify’s homepage where their question is answered. 

[Screenshot source: Shopify]

“Whoa, I really liked Olive and Poppy’s store — I wonder if I could use this platform to build my own online business. It’s free to try! I’m going to check it out,” they might think. And from there, the rest is history. 

The ‘Powered by Shopify’ box is one of the tactics the brand uses to build their business and attract new users. Perhaps it’s how you found out about the platform in the first place. So, if it helps them out, why would you want to remove it? 

We know you love Shopify (we do too), and you may not have a problem helping them out by sharing some of your traffic. But, you should reconsider. Here’s why you definitely want to know how to remove “Powered by Shopify” from the footer of your website.  

How Competitive is eCommerce, Really? 

You’ve launched an online store, and so you know it’s hard work. I will start by saying do not let these numbers discourage you. The fact is that plenty of Shopify sellers make millions, and you can be one of them. 

Instead, take this in and let it sink in. Then, use it to motivate yourself to do everything in your power to optimise your eCommerce operations, including learn how to remove “Powered by Shopify” from your store. Let’s get started.

Shopify Statistics 

To begin to illustrate why you need to learn how to remove “Powered by Shopify” from your site, let’s first take a look at some data that was recently announced at Shopify Unite in 2019. 

• For one, 820,000 merchants are currently using Shopify. This means that you are one of many. You are a single drop in an ocean. So, while you may love the platform and all it stands for, it is not going to harm the company if you don’t help them with their traffic. Leave that to their affiliates.  
• Next, in 2018, Shopify generated $1.073 billion in revenue. Did you make that much from your store? I didn’t think so. Again, you’re a small player. And, if you want to be the needle in the haystack, you need to do everything you can to stand out. 

More statistics can be found in the above link that show just how big the company really is. 

General eCommerce Statistics

Now, here are some stats, not necessarily related to Shopify, that illustrate how competitive eCommerce is in General.  

• In the last six months, 83% of US consumers made a purchase on Amazon. And, my bet is that, unless you are Jeff Bezos, 83% of US consumers didn’t make a purchase from you. 
• The average click-through rate for links in eCommerce emails is only 2.32%. This means that 97.68% of the links you send out in emails will never get clicked by your customers. 
• 80% of consumers will stop doing business with a company after just one poor experience. All it takes is a single moment of dissatisfaction to drive most people away. 
• The probability of selling to a new prospect is as low as 5%. So, as many as 95% of the consumers who land on your site will never make a purchase. 

In addition, one thing we all know is that once a customer moves away from your online store, the chances of getting them to come back, especially if they have not yet entered your sales funnel. 

You are undoubtedly in a competitive industry and need to leverage every opportunity to optimize your processes. 

Takeaway

Once a shopper moves away from your online store to go learn about Shopify’s award-winning eCommerce platform, they’ll lose interest in buying from you. Instead, they’ll be thinking about which wholesalers you work with and trying to find out how they can get in with them. 

In a nutshell, you don’t want any traffic leaving your site once you’ve put all the work into getting them there in the first place. Instead, use every effort direct shoppers through your lead funnel and start generating more sales. So, know how to remove the “Powered by Shopify” link from your store to improve the odds of keeping shoppers on your website. 

How to Remove “Powered by Shopify” From the Footer of Your Online Store

Now, you’re ready to learn how to remove “Powered by Shopify” from your website. So, acknowledge that this is part of your theme code. Hence, you’ll need administrative access to your online store’s dashboard. 

Do you have that? Alright, awesome — you’re ready. Don’t know how to edit code? No problem! Just follow these steps to make it happen. 

Step #1: Login

The first thing you will need to do is log in to your Shopify store. Logging in requires your online store’s URL and password. 

Step #2: Navigate to “Online Store”

The next step is to navigate to the “Online Store” section of your admin (For the sake of this tutorial, I created a dummy store. Your admin dashboard may look a little different with real sales information). It can be found near the bottom of the page in the left sidebar. Once you find it, click the button. 

Step #3: Enter the “Themes” Page

After you click the ‘Online Store’ button, a dropdown will appear. At the top of the list, you will see a button titled, “Themes.” Click this link to move to your Themes page where you will be able to take the next step to complete your task. 

Step #4: Choose the Theme You Wish to Edit

Once you’ve made it to the Themes page, you may see one theme or you may see several. In most cases, you will want to select the Current Theme since this is the one your store is using at this time, and likely the one you want to make changes to. 

While, as a rule, the current theme is the one you are likely to be editing, this is not the case. For example, you may have a previously-published theme in your library that you would like to switch back to. In this case, you may have to choose differently. 

At this point, you simply locate and acknowledge the theme you will edit. 

Step #5: Click “Actions” 

Once you have located and acknowledged the theme to edit, find and click Actions.

Step #6: Select “Edit Languages”

This step isn’t super obvious because when you ask how to remove “Powered by Shopify” from your footer, you probably weren’t thinking this had anything to do with translating your page to Spanish. And, you weren’t wrong. 

Still, when you click actions, you will see another dropdown menu. Near the bottom of the list, you will find, Edit Languages. Click the link to move forward. 

Step #7: Locate the “Filter Translations” Box

From the Edit Languages page, you must find the Filter Translations box, which is located near the top of the page under the page’s top menu. Click inside the box. 

Step #8: Type “Powered” 

Once you’ve clicked inside the Filter Translations box, type the word, “Powered;” this will filter through various translations within the language files and deliver results containing this word. You should see a green progress bar flash across the top of the page. 

Step #9: Locate the “Powered by Shopify” Box

On the filter results page, you are likely to see more than one result in several categories. Before you take the next step, you must locate the box titled Powered by Shopify. In most cases, it can be found within the first few results. It looks like this. 

Step #10: Type a Single Space in the “Powered by Shopify” Box

Once you have located the Powered by Shopify box, click inside of it and type a single space. 

Step #11: Click “Save”

The final and most important step is to click Save in the top right of the screen. 

Now, the theme will display nothing. 

At this point, you are done…. Unless you have an “Opening Soon” page displaying for your store. 

In this case, you will repeat the steps for the Powered by Shopify HTML box. But, rather than simply entering a single space, you will need to highlight and delete the existing text. Be sure to remember to click Save once more. 

+Bonus: What Else Can You Do to Generate More Sales On Your Shopify Store? 

In addition to removing Shopify’s branding from your store, there are many other steps you can take to ensure that more sales take place on your site. Let’s explore some of them together. 

First, we’ll look at some live chat tips, explore an abandoned cart recovery plan, and touch on SEO basics. Then,  we’ll touch on a reviews strategy, social media, and the possibility of upgrading to Shopify Plus. Let’s get started! 

1. Optimize Your Live Chat Operations to Improve Customer Service

Live chat isn’t just for answering questions. You can also use it to upsell and retain customers. Here are five tactics you can take to make the most of your Shopify help chat operations. 

• Make sure your resolution time for customer inquiries is as short as possible. 
• Integrate your Facebook Messenger with your store’s live customer support software. 
• Power subscription business sales using multi-channel marketing campaigns. 
• Across all sales channels, learn to provide a consistent customer service experience. 
• Leverage automation to make your support processes faster and easier — for you and for your customers. 

Apply these strategies to generate more sales via live chat. Just don’t forget that the main goal of live chat is to solve problems, and you’ll do great. 

2. Hone Your Abandoned Cart Recovery Strategy to Move Shoppers Through the Checkout Process

Shoppers abandon their carts for many reasons. But, why is a secondary issue. Instead, you need to focus on getting them back to their carts to continue with their purchases. Here’s how you can implement abandoned cart recovery on your Shopify store. 

• Decrease shipping costs as much as possible.
• Implement discount and rewards programs. 
• Minimize your shipping, handling, and delivery times for orders.   
• Streamline the checkout process on your website.

The above tips will help you decrease the rate of abandoned carts in your store. The following steps will help you get shoppers back to their carts after abandonment. 

• Review the abandoned cart data in your Shopify dashboard. 
• Send manual or automated abandoned cart reminder emails. 
• Try using checkout page exit intent pop-ups. 
• Optimize your email subject lines for higher open rates. 
• Offer discounts in your abandoned cart recovery emails. 
• Try sending abandoned cart reminders on social media rather than email.

With this advice, you can further increase your selling potential by decreasing the number of abandoned carts and getting those that do abandon back to your store to complete their purchases. 

3. Master Shopify SEO to Generate More Search Traffic

Another major factor in website traffic generation is search engine optimization (SEO). Here, I’ll summarize a previously published Shopify SEO guide for a few tips on how you can get more search traffic to your store. 

• Create a list of relevant, high-volume, low-competition,  long-tail keywords to rank for. 
• Learn about and leverage Shopify SEO apps that are designed specifically for stores like yours. 
• Master the art of writing effective page titles, meta descriptions, and product descriptions, or outsource your copywriting to a professional. ‘
• Enhance navigation UX with autocomplete, filtered and faceted search, subcategories in your display menu, promotional banners, and optimized user support.
• Don’t forget about your image descriptions (titles and ALT text). 
• Implement a content marketing and backlink building strategy for off-page SEO. 

For most people, the above advice will require more research and understanding. Yet, it should not be ignored. How will people ever find your products and services in the first place if they aren’t available in search? 

4. Implement an Online Reviews Strategy to Increase Trust for Your Brand

Positive online reviews are one of the most effective ways to showcase how and why shoppers should purchase from you rather than your competitors. Shoppers naturally have more trust for friends, family, and other consumers than they do for brands (like yours, unfortunately). 

So, implement an online reviews strategy that allows shoppers to see for themselves what others think of your products. Individual product reviews and company reviews should be leveraged. 

• Ask satisfied shoppers to leave reviews and make it easy for them. 
• Share user reviews on social media. 
• Reply to and try to clean up bad reviews by making changes to your internal operations when needed. 

Not only does a reviews strategy let people see what others think of you — it also lets consumers know that you care, especially when you take accountability for negative reviews. 

Your review strategy isn’t just about advertising what’s great about your company. It also lets you know how customers really feel about you, which gives you powerful insights to make changes to your strategy. 

5. Think About Diversifying Your Social Media Marketing Strategy to Reach More Prospects

How many social media platforms do you leverage to promote your online store? Two? Three? It might be time to consider branching out and adding some new traffic streams to your store. 

Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook are some of the most popular platforms for eCommerce brands. But, they aren’t the only ones out there. Consider more obscure social media sites like Reddit and Medium. 

In addition to adding more platforms to your strategy, diversify your tactics. Constantly talking about your own brand, for example, is boring. So, think about fun and creative ways you can engage with the community without being overly promotional or advertorial.  

Social media is fun and effective for eCommerce promotion when you use it right. So, go take a look at how some other online stores are leveraging various platforms and then make a list of ideas that you like. Talk to your marketing team about how you might implement some new tactics and open some new traffic streams via social media. 

6. Consider Whether a Move to Shopify Plus Might be Right for You

Many enterprise sellers are making the switch to Shopify Plus. If you have a large catalog, this is an option you should consider. To get an idea whether or not you might want to make the switch, let’s briefly explore the differences with Shopify vs Shopify Plus. 

First, the pricing tiers for Shopify and Shopify plus vary. So, depending on your sales volume, making the switch could make financial sense. In addition to the subscription pricing, you will pay transaction fees, which are also different for each platform. 

Next, Shopify Plus provides users with unlimited staff accounts. So, if you find yourself in a position where you need more Shopify admin accounts for your team, it might be a good idea to consider upgrading. 

Then, theme design customization is enhanced with Shopify Plus — the checkout page is fully-customizable as it’s not part of the main theme file. So, if you find yourself needing more control over the design of your website, a switch might be good for your store. 

With Shopify Plus, you can provide shoppers with a greater number of user discounts, access more detailed reporting, and leverage a higher level of merchant support. These are just some of the differences. The point is that upgrading to the Plus platform could just be a wise move that helps you scale your operations. 

Final Thoughts

Now you know how to remove “Powered by Shopify” from the footer of your website. In addition, you’ve learned why Shopify put it there in the first place, why you should be concerned, and some other steps you can take to increase your odds of online sales generation. So, what are you waiting for, go clean up your footer, make sure you continue to capture leads, and sell, sell, sell!

Special thanks to our friends at Gorgias for their insights on this topic.