What Is Shopify
Shopify is a web based commerce platform that helps you create and grow an online ecommerce store. If you want to sell products, services, or digital products, Shopify has everything you need to start and run your ecommerce business.
What Can You Do With Shopify?
- You can design your store with ease. Shopify has a drag-and-drop store builder that lets you customize your store’s look and feel without any coding skills. You can also choose from hundreds of themes created by professional designers.
- You can sell anywhere, anytime. Shopify integrates with various sales channels, such as social media, online marketplaces, and physical locations. You can also accept payments from multiple methods, such as credit cards, PayPal, and cryptocurrencies.
- You can manage your business with efficiency. Shopify has a dashboard that shows you your sales, orders, inventory, and customer data. You can also use Shopify’s apps and tools to automate your marketing, shipping, fulfillment, and customer service.
- You can scale your business with confidence. Shopify supports businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. You can upgrade your plan as you grow, and access advanced features and services, such as Shopify Plus and Shopify Experts.
Why Would Someone Use Shopify?
Lets look at some of the pros and cons of using Shopify.
Shopify is ideal for anyone who wants to start or grow an online store. This is particularly true if you don’t have a budget to hire a web developer or you don’t have a lot of technical skills yourself.
You can try Shopify for free for 14 days, and then get your first 3 months for $1/month To learn more, visit Shopify’s website or log in to your account.
The Pros of Shopify
Lets look at some of the pros of using Shopify.
- It is ease of use: Shopify is very straightforward and simple for beginners and developers to use. You don’t need any coding or design skills to create and manage your online store. Shopify provides a user-friendly interface, a drag-and-drop editor, and a step-by-step guide to help you launch your store in minutes
- Security and reliability: Shopify is a secure and reliable platform that handles everything from hosting to backups to updates. You don’t have to worry about hackers, downtime, or data loss. Shopify also offers SSL certificates, PCI compliance (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), and fraud protection to ensure your store and your customers are safe.
- Dropshipping integrations: Shopify supports dropshipping, which is a popular method of selling products without having to stock or ship them yourself. You can integrate your store with platforms like Spocket, AliExpress, and various others, and access millions of products to sell. You can also automate your orders, inventory, and tracking with these integrations
- Abandoned cart recovery: Shopify offers abandoned cart recovery on all plans, which is a great feature for avoiding lost sales. Abandoned cart recovery allows you to send automated emails to customers who leave your store without completing their purchase. You can remind them of what they left behind, offer discounts, or provide other incentives to bring them back.
- App store: Shopify has a huge app store with thousands of apps that can help increase your store’s functionality, performance, and user experience. You can find apps for analytics, email marketing, customer service, loyalty programs, reviews, upsells, cross-sells, and more. You can also customize your store with apps for design, themes, and widgets.
There are many more pros to using Shopify, too many for the scope of this article, however these are some of the main ones to consider if you are trying to decide between Shopify and another platform.
The Cons of Using Shopify
With most software or systems there are down sides or compromises that sometimes have to be made if you want to get some of the pros of them.
Below are some of the cons of Shopify.
- Transaction fees: Shopify charges a transaction fee of 2%, 1%, or 0.5% depending on your plan, on top of the payment gateway fees, unless you use Shopify Payments, which is their own payment processor. This means that you have to either pay extra for every sale you make, or use Shopify Payments, which may not be available in your country or support your preferred payment methods.
- Limited product options: Shopify only allows you to create up to 3 product options, such as size, color, or material, and up to 100 variants, such as small, medium, or large, for each product. This can be limiting if you sell products that have more than 3 options or 100 variants, or if you want to offer customizations or personalizations to your customers. You may need to use third-party apps or code to overcome this limitation.
- Less customization: Shopify uses a unique templating language called Liquid, which is different from the common languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This means that if you want to make custom changes to your store’s design or functionality, you need to either hire a Shopify expert, or learn Liquid yourself. Shopify also restricts access to some parts of its code, such as the checkout page, which makes it harder to customize your store to your liking.
- App dependency: Shopify offers a large app store with thousands of apps that can help you enhance your store’s features and performance. However, many of these apps are not free, and some of them may require a monthly subscription fee. This can add up to your costs and make your store dependent on external apps. Some apps may also conflict with each other, or cause your store to load slower.
- Migration difficulty: Shopify is a hosted platform, which means that your store’s data and files are stored on Shopify’s servers. This also means that if you ever want to move your store to a different platform, it can be very difficult and time-consuming. Shopify does not provide an easy way to export your store’s data and files, and you may lose some of your content, such as product images, during the migration process. You may also need to redirect your URLs and rebuild your SEO rankings on the new platform.
Alternatives to Shopify
As mentioned in the article above, Shopify is one of the most popular and well-known e-commerce platforms in the market, but it is not the only one. There are many other e-commerce platforms that offer different features, benefits, and drawbacks for online sellers.
We will cover some of these alternatives in future articles, but in the mean time here is a brief comparison of Shopify with some of its main competitors:
- Wix: Wix is a website builder that also allows you to create and manage an online store. Wix is best for beginners who want to create a simple and beautiful store without much coding or technical skills. Wix offers a lot of design flexibility, customization options, and templates, but it has less advanced features and integrations than Shopify. Wix also charges transaction fees on top of its monthly plans, unless you use Wix Payments, which is not available in all countries.
- Squarespace: Squarespace is another website builder that also offers e-commerce functionality. Squarespace is best for visual designers who want to create a stunning and elegant store with high-quality images and videos. Squarespace has a lot of aesthetic appeal, but it has less functionality and scalability than Shopify. Squarespace also charges transaction fees on its lower plans, and it has fewer payment gateways and sales channels than Shopify.
- BigCommerce: BigCommerce is a powerful and robust e-commerce platform that offers a lot of features and integrations for established businesses. BigCommerce is best for large and complex stores that need more flexibility and control over their store’s performance and functionality. BigCommerce has a lot of advanced features, such as multi-currency, multi-language, and multi-store support, but it also has a steeper learning curve and higher pricing than Shopify. BigCommerce also imposes annual sales limits on its plans, which can force you to upgrade to a more expensive plan if you exceed them.
- WooCommerce: WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress, which is a popular content management system. WooCommerce is best for WordPress users who want to add e-commerce functionality to their existing website or blog. WooCommerce is very flexible and customizable, as you can access and modify its code, and choose from thousands of plugins and themes. WooCommerce is also very affordable, as it is free to download and use, and it does not charge transaction fees. However, WooCommerce can be very complex and challenging for beginners, as it requires a lot of technical skills and maintenance. WooCommerce also has a lot of hidden costs, such as hosting, security, updates, and extensions.
Although you came to this article to answer the question “What is Shopify?” I felt its worth mentioning the platforms above as these are alternatives worth looking at if Shopify doesn’t meet your needs.
Hopefully this article has answered your question about Shopify– I do suggest heading over to their official site shopify.com and go to their resources section which has loads of information and “How to” articles