Lots of people asks which ecommerce platform is the best suited for a company wanting to get onto an ecommerce business. The answer is Shopify because it offers all the functionality you need. Shopify is filled with tools for launching a site within minutes, plus you don't have to worry about self-hosting or buying a domain name from a third party. In that respect, one could call it the perfect out-of-the-box solution, built with pricing plans that cater to small starter stores as well as shops that are bringing in millions of dollars in sales. Here's a short summary of what Shopify has to offer and why it's perhaps the platform that you should use when launching an ecommerce business: The Pros and Cons of Shopify. What are the Pros of Shopify?
What are the Cons of Shopify?
Why Choose Shopify? How Does Shopify Work?Shopify was founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke (CEO of the Year in Canada), Scott Lake and Daniel Weinand. Since the launch, the platform has quickly grown from a small player to one of (if not the) leading ecommerce solutions alongside BigCommerce, Volusion, Magento or WooCommerce. The company is currently powering more than 1,000,000 online retailers (December 2019). Clearly, there has to be a reason why Shopify has grown to be this popular and held its position in the market for more than a decade. Perhaps its main advantage is that Shopify offers a great balance between ease of use and functionality. On the one hand, Shopify is incredibly friendly even for beginner users who haven't operated an ecommerce store before. And on the other, it delivers all the features that a business owner might need. Plus, you don't have to take a web development or coding class. That being said, more advanced users gain access to the CSS and HTML files, and can upgrade their Shopify plan to get more robust features as their store grows. Overall, it's a beautifully constructed ecommerce platform with plenty of themes that look modern and stylish but also simple and minimal if that's what you're looking for. If you're curious, some of the more notable brands using Shopify include: General Electric, Amnesty International, Tesla Motors, Encyclopedia Britannica, Foo Fighters, GitHub, and many, many, many more. Shopify Reviews: Shopify Pricing Explained Shopify pricing can be a bit confusing at first. The main thing to know is that there are two components that add up to your final Shopify bill:
But before you calculate away, consider the following factors: Other factors that play a role in your Shopify pricing are things like whether you're using Shopify Payments (Shopify's own payment processing mechanism), whether you're ready to pay annually vs monthly (there's a 10% discount if you pay annually), and how high your credit card fees are. Experiment changing the values in the calculator to see what impact those factors have on your bill. Monthly Plan: All plans allow for an unlimited number of products, unlimited file storage, shipping label printing, and a retail package if needed. ANNUAL PLAN All plans allow for an unlimited number of products, unlimited file storage, shipping label printing, and a retail package if needed. Shopify offers five pricing plans. The most popular Shopify Plan among new online store owners is Basic Shopify at $29 / month. It comes with all the features a new store owner would need, and allows for reasonable growth before you have to upgrade. Speaking of upgrades, the next plan up – simply called “Shopify” – is $79 / month and provides a good platform for growth and expanding your business. Additionally, you have the opportunity to try out a free, 14-day trial before committing to anything. What's also worth pointing out is that Shopify is not only your “online store system”, but you can also use Shopify tools in your actual brick-and-mortar business location or store. Shopify makes available their POS (Point Of Sale) package that allows you to set things up quickly, and have your offline sales added to the main Shopify system. Having everything in one place surely does make doing business a lot easier. What are Shopify's Most Important Features?If you spend a lot of time browsing through Shopify reviews or checking out the highest-ranked CRM and website builders online, you'll notice that Shopify has a lot of features to offer. The question is, what are the most important ones you should be paying attention to? We've scoured through many Shopify reviews from leading companies online, and tested the software ourselves to come up with this list of the most crucial components on Shopify:
The Main Advantage of the Shopify FeaturesIt's this: It doesn't matter if you are planning to run your store fully online or from a brick and mortar setting, there is something for everyone. The reason Shopify manages to achieve such a strong feature set is that they either have a tool built-in, or let you install it through an app. For example, taxes and shipping are included in the Shopify interface. Yet, for many of the themes, you're still going to have to find a free app for social media buttons. Both options work, and you often don't have to pay any extra money when opting for an app. The company has one of the most complete dashboards or control panels I have seen. All tasks, from processing orders to managing inventory, can be done in an easy to grasp manner. The platform also provides an interface called Shopify Partners, where developers can play around with new websites without having to open up free trials every time. It's like a sandbox interface. You can install new themes, customize full websites and seamlessly transition from a Shopify Partners website to a launched site. Not only that, but you gain a commission for every client you bring on board with Shopify. Moving forward, the reports in Shopify are my favorite out of all the ecommerce platforms. They're organized, clean and simple, with options like looking at sales by billing address, sales by traffic referrer and gross sales by product title. If you are looking to sell your products in an actual retail setting, then you can opt for the Shopify POS. This includes everything you need to sell your products offline, both on the software and hardware side. The software includes an iPad app, which makes selling your products in a retail setting much easier. With the app, you can use the credit card reader to swipe the customer's card right on the spot. You can even purchase additional hardware from the company such as a cash register, a receipt printer and a barcode scanner. Also, Shopify offers a mobile app with which users can:
Thanks to their formidable content management system (CMS) you can create additional pages, as well as pages through which your clients can easily contact you. Furthermore, Shopify makes running your own blog super easy, since everything is handled from a single dashboard. Keep in mind that the entire Shopify feature-set is hard to walk through in a single section, but it's worth mentioning that each of the Shopify themes available in their theme store, is responsive with mobile-ready checkouts. The responsive checkout means that your site automatically adapts to the size of the customer's screen, whether it be through a tablet or smartphone. Along with direct Facebook and Pinterest integration, gift cards, discount codes and a decent customer profile, the company has pretty much perfected the built-in features. In general, if you need a feature that's only in the app store, you can always test it out, and move onto another option if it's not working out on your website. Shopify Reviews: Inventory Management FeaturesInventory management is an important part of running your store, and Shopify has you covered in this area too. Once you are ready to add inventory to your store then all you need to do is press the Products tab in the sidebar on the dashboard. You will then automatically be taken to the following page: As you can see in the image above, everything from product title to description and price is customizable. In addition, you can give each product a distinct SKU, as well as a barcode. Transfers, Inventory, Collections and Gift Cards are seen as tabs in this area as well. I like the Inventory tab because it features all of the items in your store, all organized into a clean and manageable list. The product page also offers several options for things like SEO, shipping and the imagery that users are going to see when landing on this product page. Also, Shopify now offers embedded Oberlo integration if you'd like to go the dropshipping route. It depends on your payment plan, but once you get everything activated, it allows for gift card codes in the checkout area. To help boost your marketing, Shopify created a discount code coupon generator to promote your products on different social networks. Along with selling options on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, your marketing game is in good hands with Shopify. Shopify has also introduced product tagging on Instagram, which allows you to link directly to your product page. Finally, the email collection form is pretty simple. It certainly does the job and integrates with the major email options, but many ecommerce stores tend to look towards the app store to find a more suitable add-on. Shopify PaymentsTraditionally if you wanted to accept payments, you would have to use a third-party payments processor like Stripe, PayPal, or others that would charge a certain fee per transaction. Shopify has created their own payment processor called Shopify Payments (Powered by Stripe). If you decide to sign up for this program then all transaction fees will be lifted. We covered credit card fees in the pricing area earlier, but it's worth noting that you do have the option to integrate with over 70 different payment gateways. These include accepting payments from credit cards, Google Checkout, PayPal, and many more. The gateways all come with their own transaction fees. Since these can get a little confusing, I strongly recommend that you familiarize yourself with them before signing up, as you might otherwise be surprised at just how much you'll have to pay. In short, Shopify has one of the biggest lists of supported payment gateways out there. This doesn't mean you'll use them all, but it opens up more opportunity for people from all over the world. It also gives you a chance to research which of the payment gateways are going to work for your particular business. There are a number of reasons why people choose Shopify Payments, however, it does have setbacks as well. Below, we explore them a bit more:
In the end, the pros definitely outweigh the cons, and using Shopify Payments will reduce your overall operating costs. Shopify vs the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)In May 2018, GDPR took effect and brought in new regulations in regards to how companies need to handle personal information of their European customers. This regulation has made things really problematic for many businesses across the globe. (1) The rules were not that clear, and (2) the fines were extreme – even up to €20 million or 4% of the annual worldwide turnover. For most businesses, a penalty like that means bankruptcy. Shopify, though, really came in ready and did some fantastic work to protect their users and customers. In short, at this point, all business running on Shopify have the tools required to make their operation comply with the regulations. Specifically, here's what Shopify put into place:
The app store interface has also been updated so that it shows what specific customer information is being kept by the individual apps that you have installed in your store. (Shopify recommends that you speak with a lawyer in regards to data protection so that you are clear on how this will affect your particular business.) Shopify has also worked out a way where you can request that the details of an individual customer can be deleted from all of your apps. That option is available in your customer privacy area. It looks like this: Shopify vs Mobile EcommerceWhat's great about Shopify is that you can also manage a lot of your operations from the mobile app. Some of the tasks that you can do via the Shopify mobile app include:
The fact that you can fulfill orders is a fantastic option for events or fairs that you are attending. The Shopify app also integrates with third-party marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay and Etsy so users can effectively manage their sales and inventory over multiple platforms. Unique Features in Each of the Shopify Plans ⭐Let's now explore each of Shopify plans and their features a little deeper. Shopify LiteAt just $9 per month, Shopify Lite is possibly one of the cheapest options available to people who are looking to sell online. However, the price is so low because it doesn't actually provide you with a standalone online store website. In a nutshell what the Shopify Lite Plan offers is:
Embedding Products on to Your Website With Shopify Lite
The way Shopify Lite works is that it allows you to create products in the Shopify UI, and set up individual Buy buttons for them. You can then take those Buy buttons and publish them anywhere on the web. The publishing part itself is done via a quick piece of code. When setting up your buttons, you get to customize the way they look, the sizes, the colors, the images used alongside, etc. Then, when you're done, Shopify gives you a piece of code that you can post on any website. The code looks something like this: |
AuthorNicholas Joseph Lim and guest writers contribute the latest on internet marketing strategies. Archives
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