In this extensive Shopify review, we will discuss what Shopify is, how it works, and what you can build with it. Shopify is one of the best e-commerce platforms available in the market right now.
With different plans like Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Shopify Plus, every Shopify user can find a plan that suits their business needs. The platform makes it easy to create a stunning online store with its user-friendly website builder.
You can manage your inventory, process orders, and accept payments all in one place. However, it's important to note that Shopify doesn't offer shipping rates via Shopify Shipping for all regions.
Additionally, Shopify also has a help center with resources and guides to help you get started with Shopify and make the most out of the platform.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is an e-commerce website builder platform that allows you to create an online store without knowing how to code. You can create an online store for your existing brand or an e-commerce business. Shopify is easy to use with a very user-friendly interface.
If you want to learn more about Shopify or how to use it you should check these articles:
Benefits of Shopify
As a user-friendly oriented platform, Shopify's main goal is to provide each user with the tools needed in order to create their dream e-commerce site, reach out to customers and improve your online presence for your new or small online store.
Such tools are designed to benefit them in many ways such as:
- Easy to use: Shopify makes it easy to set up and manage your online store even for beginners. It is known for its user-friendly interface.
- Multiple sales channels: Sell your products on your website, social media platforms, marketplaces, and even in physical stores through Shopify.
- Secure and accessible: Shopify is a secure platform that you can access from any device with an internet connection.
- Variety of themes: Choose from a wide range of themes to create a visually appealing and customized online store.
- App store: Extend the functionality of your store with a vast app store offering features like marketing, shipping, and accounting.
- Customer support: Shopify offers 24/7 customer support to help you with any issues you may encounter.
What can you build with Shopify?
The Shopify platform is an all-in-one e-commerce platform that allows businesses to manage their sales from one place. This includes taking orders, managing customers, and selling through multiple channels like websites, social media, and even physical stores. Shopify is secure and accessible from any device with an internet connection.
- Reliable website hosting
- Domain name registration
- Countless tools
- Apps, stock photos
- Helpful resources
- And so much more
With Shopify, you can build an online shop for your brand, products, and services tailored in a way that best suits your business needs. Whether you already have a real store or you are interested in building an e-shop, Shopify is for you.
Key features of Shopify
- User-Friendly Interface: Shopify has an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, allowing users to set up and manage their online stores efficiently.
- Customizable Themes: Shopify offers a wide selection of customizable themes and templates, enabling users to create unique and visually appealing storefronts that reflect their brand identity.
- Mobile Responsiveness: All Shopify themes are mobile-responsive, ensuring that online stores look and perform well on various devices, including smartphones and tablets.
- App Store: Shopify's extensive app store provides users with access to a variety of apps and plugins to enhance their stores' functionality, including marketing tools, inventory management systems, customer service solutions, and more.
- Payment Gateway Integration: Shopify integrates with multiple payment gateways, including its own Shopify Payments, allowing users to accept payments from customers worldwide through credit cards, digital wallets, and other payment methods.
- Inventory Management: Shopify provides the tools that you need for robust inventory management, allowing users to easily track stock levels, manage product variations, set up automatic reorder points, and synchronize inventory across multiple sales channels.
- Marketing Tools: Shopify provides built-in marketing tools to help users drive traffic to their stores and increase sales, including SEO features, social media integration, email marketing campaigns, discount codes, and abandoned cart recovery.
- Order Management: Shopify streamlines the order management process, enabling users to fulfill orders, print shipping labels, track shipments, and manage returns efficiently from within the platform.
- Analytics and Reporting: Shopify delivers the tools for detailed analytics and reporting tools, allowing users to track key metrics such as sales, traffic sources, conversion rates, and customer behavior to make data-driven decisions and optimize their store's performance.
- Security and Reliability: Shopify prioritizes security and reliability, providing SSL encryption, PCI DSS compliance, automatic backups, and 24/7 monitoring to ensure that users' data and transactions are protected and their stores remain operational at all times.
Who can use Shopify?
Whether you're a complete beginner with a business idea or an established entrepreneur looking to expand your reach, or a local or a small business owner looking to sell online, Shopify's user-friendly platform and comprehensive features can cater to your needs. Also, Shopify is perfect for online sellers.
It empowers anyone from solo artists selling crafts to large companies, managing complex inventories to set up and manage a successful online store.
How much does Shopify Cost?
Shopify offers several plans with a 3-day trial upon creating your first store. After the end of your free trial, you have the option to choose one of the available Shopify plans, depending on your needs.
- Basic, 24€ , per month
- Shopify, 69€ , per month
- Advanced, 289€ , per month
- Plus, 2300€ , per month
If you’re not ready to publish your store but want to keep creating it, then there is the starter plan available for you, until you are ready to sell.
The Shopify Experience
In my personal experience with Shopify, I created a very simple print-on-demand apparel store, using Printful. By following Shopify’s simple setup guide I managed to create a very basic website for my products.
As you can see in the first image, there is the basic website called “ClothingLand” completed with working tabs like: Home, Catalog, Shipping, Contact and About us.
In the second image we see one of those tabs, the catalog tab where all the products are.
The product you see was made using Printful, an app that can be found on Shopify’s App Store.
Printful has a step-by-step tutorial on how to make a print-on-demand product for your store that is automatically added to it when you finish creating it.
Reviews about Shopify
G2
- Ease of Use: Super user-friendly interface! Navigation is a breeze.
- E-commerce Services: Offers all the tools you need for successful online selling.
- Easy Integration: Works great with various platforms and tools.
- Online Sales: Increased our revenue significantly through online transactions.
- Quick Setup: Installation was fast and straightforward. Highly recommend!
Muhammad M.
“It is a top choice for creating and maintaining professional online stores. It has managed to and changed the way e-commerce business is conducted online.Because of Shopify, online store owners can now focus more on their products and customers without needing extensive technical expertise.”
Jose A.
“Simplification and ease of set up are some positive points, you can set up your online store in minutes, compared to other competitors, it takes days to set up everything.”
Khaled A.
“One of the best ecommerce sites right now, to be honest, I couldn't find anything I didn't like about Shopify. It solves a lot of problems with tech startups and helps us manage our orders either inbound or outbound.”
Kholizio A.
“Shopify is very user-friendly and makes it easy for any business to get started and create a digital presence. From creating a website and integrating payment gateways, to managing product inventory and more.”
TrustPilot
The reviews from TrustPilot were mostly negative. Here’s a summary of the positive ones:
- Amazing Customer Service: The user had an excellent experience with Shopify support, specifically mentioning assistance from Sairahbel. They found the support team to be incredibly helpful in resolving their issues.
- Love it: This reviewer expressed complete satisfaction with Shopify, regretting not switching earlier from Wix. They found Shopify easy to use and were surprised by the negative reviews, stating that their experience with customer support was quick and efficient.
- Brilliant simple site to earn a few pennies: The reviewer appreciates Shopify as a simple platform for making money, but mentions a limitation regarding the inability to delete old receipts. Despite this, they still recommend Shopify for others to use.
Kelly
“I've had stores with Shopify for a few years and have never had an issue with them. I've needed to reach out to their support team a few times in the last couple of weeks for some niggling issues and they have always resolved really quickly and with no problem on the customer service front.”
Hub
“I've been using Shopify for over 5 years, looking after accounts worth over £2 million. The platform is excellent.”
Richard H.
“Love it. If I knew it was so easy and so good I would have started using them long long ago. Shopify has all the tool I need. I contacted support has no issue at all few mins.”
Erika
“So far my experience with shopify has been brilliant, setting up entire shopify shop with all integrations have been extremely challenging, but shopify support + shopify youtube tutorials really made this so much easier"
Shopify pros and cons
Pros
- Ease of Use: Shopify offers a user-friendly interface and intuitive design, making it easy for beginners to set up and manage their online stores without extensive technical knowledge.
- Customization: With a wide range of customizable themes and templates, Shopify allows users to create unique and visually appealing storefronts that reflect their brand identity.
- App Store: Shopify's extensive app store provides users with additional functionality and features to enhance their online stores, including marketing, inventory management, customer service, and more.
- Scalability: Shopify is suitable for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large enterprises. Users can choose from various pricing plans with different features and scale their businesses accordingly.
- Customer Support: Shopify offers 24/7 customer support through various channels, including live chat, email, and phone. Users generally report positive experiences with Shopify's support team, citing helpful and prompt responses to their queries.
- Payment Options: Shopify integrates with multiple payment gateways, including its own Shopify Payments, providing users with flexibility in accepting payments from customers around the world.
- Security: Shopify handles security and compliance concerns, including PCI DSS compliance and SSL encryption, to ensure that users' data and transactions are protected.
Cons
- Transaction Fees: Shopify charges transaction fees for each sale made through third-party payment gateways if users don't use Shopify Payments. These fees can add up, especially for high-volume sellers, and may cut into profits.
- Monthly Cost: While Shopify offers various pricing plans, some users may find the monthly subscription fees to be relatively high compared to other e-commerce platforms, particularly for advanced features.
- Customization Limitations: While Shopify provides extensive customization options, users may encounter limitations in fully customizing certain aspects of their stores, especially for users with specific design requirements.
- SEO Limitations: While Shopify offers basic SEO tools, some users may find them to be limited compared to dedicated SEO platforms, potentially affecting their store's visibility in search engine rankings.
- Learning Curve: Despite its ease of use, users may still encounter a learning curve when setting up and managing their Shopify stores, especially when integrating third-party apps or customizing advanced features.
- Dependency on Apps: While Shopify's app store offers a wide range of additional features, users may become dependent on third-party apps to fulfill specific needs, which can add complexity and additional costs to their store.
- Limited Blogging Features: While Shopify includes a blogging platform, some users may find its blogging features to be basic compared to dedicated blogging platforms, potentially limiting their content marketing efforts.
Conclusion
Shopify takes away all the responsibility of website building and helps you focus on creating and selling your products, this is why it is a beneficial tool to help you get into the business world. The more you understand the platform the more it can benefit you and your business.
FAQs
- Is Shopify free to use?
Shopify offers a free trial at the creation of your store. After your free trial ends you must select a paid plan to continue.
Shopify is a user-friendly platform where users can create their own website to sell their products. Conversely, Amazon is an online marketplace with millions of consumers where you can sell your products, but not on your website.
Shopify is a great option for those who value ease of use and customer support, while WooCommerce is a better choice for those who want more control and flexibility over their store.
Shopify and Etsy each provide an e-commerce platform for shop owners to sell goods and services. The major difference between the two is Shopify allows users to create their own branded space, whereas Etsy is a marketplace.
If you found this article intriguing, we suggest exploring our in-depth beginner's guide of Shopify. Additionally, you can delve into our detailed guide on how to fully leverage the benefits of this platform.
