Looking for Shopify Review. Today, we are back with a Shopify review for e-commerce users.
Let’s start Shopify Review. In this era of digitalization, online stores and easy deliverance of products have been the new gateway to heaven. And to gain the advantage of such a good marketplace, every start-up is eyeing the opportunity of grabbing the platform of e-Commerce.
And why shouldn’t be? It is easy and the best way to sell your products without any kinds of hassles.
This Shopify review will solve the confusion. However, the one question that remains how to create the perfect website for e-commerce sales? You can easily buy domains on Namecheap or GoDaddy but what after that?
Here, we will clarify your confusion with the Shopify review.
I bet lots of people have heard about Shopify, but not all people know about what is Shopify and how does it work!
This Shopify review will guide will help you for sure. But if you want to join the league of e-commerce soon, you need to have concrete knowledge on that. But you do not need to indulge much in these wanderings because we have constructed a whole new article regarding Shopify’s pros and cons.
Let us have a look at Shopify review.
But before we get into the circle of pros and cons, let us get a brief description of Shopify.
What is Shopify and how does it work?
What is Shopify?
Shopify is nothing but a fully hosted e-commerce platform that rescues you from building a complicated website from scratch.
Shopify is that hosted e-commerce that provides you everything from end to end to setup your perfect business of selling products. All you need to do is to put up the products on that constructed site and start selling with your unique business plan.
Using Shopify makes you an owner who hires a general contractor to build a building.
There might be many pros and cons to the approach of Shopify, but in a nutshell, Shopify is that platform that only competes with BigCommerce and Volusion in respect of turnkey e-commerce solutions.
Also, Shopify has a fully integrated system with Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Facebook, etc.
Check out Shopify Plans here
Founded in the year of 2004, Shopify is basically a Canadian e-commerce company, having its headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario. Currently, Shopify has more than 600,000 merchants using this platform, and it has a turnover of $151.7 million a year.
How does Shopify work?
Lots of people back off from buying Shopify, thinking that it might cost them a fortune and the complicated process might overwhelm them. But that is just a rumor.
Shopify is completely straightforward, and it has an effortless way to work; even any amateurs can easily handle this. Let us have a look on the way Shopify works.
Firstly, you need to buy the one Shopify plan that fits your budget and necessity among the three plans. Also, for a starter, there are cheaper plans to avail from.
Secondly, you have to ‘point’ the one domain that you have already bought from ‘Namecheap’ or ‘GoDaddy’. And if you do not have one, you can buy one easily from Shopify easily.
Thirdly, choose a design for your e-commerce platform. You can edit a free one with the help of their drag and drop a tool, or you can buy their premium version to afford a better one. And if you are still not satisfied, you can always hire a designer for this purpose.
Fourthly, add your products on your newly created Shopify page. You can also add page contents, payment options, and many other things as well. Also, set up shipping and tax rates too.
Fifth, all you have to get your customers now. Go live with your Shopify e-commerce page and also integrate other social media pages along.
Shopify Pricing System
Shopify currently has three layers of plans to provide your e-commerce with– Basic Shopify, Shopify and Advanced Shopify. Depending on the plans, each one has their own characteristics and benefits as well.
Basic Shopify
Basic Shopify starts at $29/month. However, if you are willing to take a one year contract beforehand, it will only cost $26/month. As you will extend the time of the contract, the per month rate will decrease as well. In the basic form, you can add unlimited products.
You will get the benefits of digital products, customer logins, manual order creation features, discount codes, the privilege of websites and blogs, free SSL certificates and 24X7 Customer Support systems.
The credit card rate for basic Shopify is 2.9%, and the transaction fee is 2%. This Shopify version is perfect for any startup business.
Shopify
The next level of the Shopify plan comes on $79/month. You will get five staff accounts with this plan and also with a renewal of the yearly contract, per month rate will decrease.
With unlimited file storage and products, you will have many other features as well such as 24X7 Customer Support, fraud analysis, manual order creation, discount codes, websites and blogs, Gift cards, professional reports, and abandoned cart recovery options.
The credit card rate and transaction fees for this Shopify plan are 2.5% and 1% respectively.
Advanced Shopify
Advanced Shopify comes with a plan of $299/month. It is best for shaping your business properly. It comes with 15 staff accounts and unlimited product and file storage.
Advanced Shopify plan has many great features such as fraud analysis, manual order creation, discount codes, websites and blogs, free SSL certificates, gift cards, professional reports, abandoned cart recovery, advanced report builder, 24X7 Customer Support and third-party calculated shipping rates.
Also, it has a lower credit card and transaction fees such as 2.25% and 0.5% respectively.
None of these plans includes domains or email accounts. If you do not own a domain, you can buy one from Shopify at $13per annum, and for the purpose of emails, you have to find your own email hosting provider.
Shopify Offers Free Trial
Shopify’s best E-Commerce Platform also provides you with a free trial for 14 days.
Shopify Pros and Cons
Shopify is a worldwide famous application to sail your ship of e-commerce smoothly. It is one of the best-hosted e-commerce platforms with many pros and cons on its side.
And if you are planning to buy it soon, you have got to measure the weight of the pros and cons first. Let us enlighten you with this discussion here.
Pros of Shopify
With so many user acclamations, plans, and features, Shopify own many good points on their side of the story.
Some of them are really good that you will consider using Shopify for the rest of your life.
The pros of Shopify are as follows–
1. Built-In speed and secure system
Honestly, if a person has to wait for 10 seconds or more for the purpose of payment, it is more than frustrating, and the possibilities are that the customer will never use your e-commerce site ever again.
Reportedly, it has been seen that a person will only wait up to 4 seconds to get a page loaded. Along with speed, your e-commerce site has to go through all the credit card entities securely too. And to your comfort, Shopify can merge these two features perfectly.
With an all-in-one solution, Shopify takes all these things to worry about their own hands such as hacker’s problems, caching and other issues that come with hosting an online store.
But is Shopify legit? Yes, it is 100% legit and provides 100% SSL.
2.All The Necessary Features
Whenever you are in the league of running a successful e-commerce site, there will be many features that are absolutely necessary such as an easy way to add and remove products, easy process of customization, easy built-in analytics to track everything, etc.
And if you have to seek the help of different apps for every other action, it will be frustrating and hectic too. And to your surprise, Shopify has all the necessary features; any vendor can ever look for. It has a perfect integrated system that helps you to get done easily with your e-commerce site.
3. Amazing Customer Support System
Shopify has an amazing Customer Support System that will only enhance your experience with Shopify.
It does not matter if you are an amateur in the process of e-commerce, Shopify customer Support System will easily clear out all the doubts.
Not only that, but it also has a huge database of the FAQ. Here, you can search for any questions regarding any complexities, and you will get the help. Also, you can always turn to their email/live chat support and phone support as well.
In a nutshell, when you are trying to run an e-commerce site on your own, Shopify will always have your back.
4. Marketing
No e-commerce site is up for any good, if you cannot turn anyone to show up on your site, is not it? In a simple word, marketing is very important, and Shopify perfectly excels in this act.
It does not have fancy marketing tools, but it has the basics such as SEO, which will perfectly produce the right amount of marketing for your e-commerce business.
For marketing tactics such as email setups and AdWords, Shopify can provide you with easy landing pages.
Also, as for SEO Shopify creates 100% clean codes. They will provide you with customize title tags, Meta descriptions, sitemaps, etc. In a nutshell, Shopify is the perfect solution as your marketing tool.
5. Design
If you want to attract customers to your online e-commerce store, designing of such a website is absolutely necessary. And in such case, Shopify can provide you with many free templates and designs to choose from.
Also, Shopify makes its theme system easily available, and thus you can customize the designs on your own as well.
6. ADD-ONS
And above all, the add-ons of Shopify are perfectly integrated. Shopify is available in the app store, and Shopify provides you with the buy buttons which in turn help more people to connect with your e-commerce business easily.
Also, it has a well-integrated program with social media.
Cons of Shopify
It is true that no platform is free of cons and Shopify is no exception in such a case. Just like other platforms, Shopify has many cons as well.
Those are as follows:
1. Pricing System
The pricing system discussed above; can be a discussed con of Shopify. In four layers, we will be discussing the pricing structure of Shopify.
Firstly, the monthly price– Shopify’s plan starts with a lite plan of $9 per month and goes up from there. But this lite plan works for only ‘Buy Button’ sellers.
Thus it is actually an ignorant plan, and the Shopify plan starts from $29 per month which is quite expensive.
Secondly, Platform transaction fees– Shopify has additional platform transaction fees which were once included in the plan price.
Thirdly, Credit card fees– Recently Shopify has standardized their credit card fees rate, and thus you do not have to go through any 3rd party processor anymore.
Fourthly, Add-on fees– Apart from all the fees mentioned above, Shopify has Add-on fees which are basically a one-time purchase.
Considering all the above points, it is pretty much clear that Shopify can be expensive on the pockets on small businessmen.
2. Hacking Around Customization
It was previously noted that Shopify has an option available to customize themes, but that option does not always do good.
Shopify uses a unique setup to customize their themes instead of PHP. Thus you cannot just have a little customization on their existing templates. It can be annoying sometimes.
3. Content Marketing
Nowadays, Content marketing is one of the best ways to get your business circulated among the customers.
But Shopify does not come with a great platform for blogs. It is somewhat good but not as good as WordPress.
4. Shopify Jargon
Another con of Shopify is the store setup. The store setup options of Shopify are not exactly properly themed, and it is somewhat difficult to manage. Also, it is not at all straightforward.
5. Initial Setup
Shopify is not that simple to setup. Rather it is complicated for those who come without a background of technical know how’s.
Shopify Comparison
In comparison to other hosted e-commerce platforms such as BigCommerce and Volusion, Shopify is surely the best one among the lots if compared with the features.
However, if you compare the pricing system, you may found other platforms better than Shopify; especially if you are planning to lead a small shop.
Also, to handle Shopify you need to know a little bit of technical know-how. On the basis of technical ground and pricing system, other platforms might be better than Shopify, but if you are truly considering a good e-commerce platform with all the necessary features handy, Shopify is the absolute choice.
Shopify Review: Conclusion
This all about Shopify review. Though Shopify has many cons, the pros of Shopify can be the perfect reason to try it out.
Along with all the necessary features, Shopify provides you with a perfectly secure system.
Thus if you are trying to start a successful e-commerce business, it is better to start with a good provider than an average one, no? Happy Purchasing!
Shopify is the best e-commerce solution, it has best features that use to make a complete e-commerce website.