Shopify eCommerce Platform Review efulfilled.com /shopify-e-commerce-platform-review

Richard U.

In this Shopify eCommerce platform review, you will find insightful answers to questions like; what is Shopify? Whereand when did Shopify start? Is Shopify secure? How much does it cost to sell on Shopify? What pros and cons areassociated with this eCommerce platform and what are people saying about it.

Where Did Shopify Start?

Shopify eCommerce platform “was founded in 2004, by a Canadian e-commerce company Situated in OttawaOntario. Its services was initially based on software written by its founder Tobias Lutke for their snowboard store.The company reports that it has over 300,000 merchants using its platform there by generating about $10 billion”.Source: Wikipedia

Name: Shopify

Website: www.shopify.co.uk (which is the Shopify Inc. Canada)

Owner: Tobias Lutke

What It Does: Powering over 300,000 + Stores Online

1/14

Rating: 9 out 10

How To: 14 Days Free Trial Available (No credit card details required)

What Is Shopify

Shopify eCommerce platform is a web dependable application that gives you the opportunity to create your ownonline store with ease. A solution that gives you what you need to set up your online store with zero technical orcoding experience. A complete turn key eCommerce from end to end.

The core competency within Shopify as my research tells me is their ability to bring e-commerce solutions to bothspecialist and newbies with ease without the hassle of a middle man or duplicated due process.

This means anyone without much in the way of design or technical skills can build an online store and say bye byeto design agencys.

The platform also makes things much easier for people that are familiar with HTL and CSS because they areallowed to edit both and have good amount of control over their framework.

How Much Does It Cost To Sell On Shopify

If this is your first time, then you will be pleased to find out that there are five Shopify Plans one can choose from tosuit your business needs, Which, to be frank is quite different from what other competitors are offering as myongoing research tells me.

The five plans are:

Shopify Lite = $9 per month

Basic Shopify = $29 per month

Shopify = $79 per month

Advanced Shopify = $229 per month

Shopify Plus = The fees here are negotiable as they cater for client with big businesses that attracts hugetransactions.

From my findings, it will be good to point out here that there is no such thing as something for nothing within theShopify e-commerce platform. It is a professional e-commerce platform built for the sole purpose of helping folkachieve their e-commerce dreams with ease and peace of mind.

Among all the plans offered,the ‘Shopify Lite’ plan is the cheapest at $9 per month and obviously not the ultimateplan that can bring you success. If you really want to build a successful online eCommerce store, then their ‘BasicShopify’, ‘Shopify’ and ‘Advanced Shopify’ plans will be a better suit for you.

On the other hand, if you already have a website like WordPress, Joomla, Wix, etc and you just needed some sortof eCommerce to tweak your website into an online store, then the Shopify Lite plan will be the best option to get.

What Does Shopify Do?

Shopify helps you establish a successful eCommerce store by giving you all the tools to create your online shop withease. Find out how easy it is to use Shopify by clicking and watching the video below:

2/14

Shopify Features and Tools

The Shopify e-commerce platform gives you the following key tools to:

Track order details placed by your customers

Build web pages and blog sites so you can reach out to wider audience

Enable and create discount codes with the discount code engine

Properly organize and manage your inventory so you always know when to re-stock.

Import and export data

Sell digital and physical products in any category of your chosen there by making things easier for yourcustomers to find what they are looking for in your store.

Helps you accept payment from over 70 different payments in various currencies across the globe.

Create an advanced search engine optimization options (SEO) so you can add keywords that are relevant toyour products, page site and promotions.

Manage more than one staff login so you can establish who to grant access and what level of permission theywill need. Giving you ultimate control of your important business data.

Enables you to be able to edit HTML and CSS if you know how to.

Enables you to integrate with PayPal.

Enables you to integrate with email correspondence software

Enables you to better understand your customer original location, market behavior, money spent, etc so youcan better serve them.

For those opting for the Shopify Plan and Advanced Shopify Plan, here are some extra features you will get:

Better reports on the levels of activities to enable you properly manage and plan your success

Abandoned cart recovery functionality which basically means an auto-email sent to your customers who didnot complete their order as a reminder to do so. These works in two ways: First it enables you to view thenumber of customers who actually abandoned their carts and lets you manually send them a reminder email.Secondly you can tell Shopify to send them auto-email with a link containing the abandoned carts on youronline store.

A gift card

Also if you opt for the Shopify Plus which by the way is the best and most expensive package, you will get thefollowing extra features too:

Real time carrier shipping for all items and then some more.

More advanced report of all level of activities.

Themes And Template Design Options Within Shopify

There are over 100 premium and non premium themes offered by Shopify e-commerce platform to enable you dressup your online store and build trust.

First lets take a look at the premium themes.

3/14

Do note that these premium theme range from $80 to $180 and are not a recurring cost but a one time cost so aninvestment to giving your online store a strong reputation to build trust.

However, you do not need to invest in any premium themes if you are on a tight budget as there are manyresponsive free themes to get started with.

You can always upgrade to a premium theme as you start to see your sales grow.

Shopify App Store

This feature helps you add more functions to your online shop which ultimately gives an answer to the question ofhow to sell using shopify. There are over 1,500 number of apps offered here so you can put more functionalitiesinto your online shop or automate plenty of work processes.

4/14

It is important to also point out that the app store does not only contain marketing and sales tools, but it also containstools that enable you to solve administrative problems like book keeping and accounting apps, fulfillment, customerservices, shipping and tracking.

Some of these apps are free but some come with a cost and they occur separately from the cost of your plan sokeep an eye on this. Although as your business starts to grow and you begin to see good results, these cost won’tmatter as they actually support your success

How To Sell Using Shopify

Selling by using Shopify involves to two major ways which are:

1. You can use their online channel to sell your products on the internet

2. And you can use their Shopify POS (Point of Sale) apps to sell in any retail setting using your iPad or Androidwhich gives you access to huge market coverage.

5/14

Shopify allows you to process payment in two different ways:

To use Shopify Payment system powered by Strife; or

You can use an external payment gateway like PayPal etc all well integrated with Shopify

Shopify Payment and Transaction Fess

By using Shopify payment system to process your sales, all transaction fees will be waived. Only credit card fees willbe paid which is just to enable Shopify to collect money from goods sold to your customers as and when they madepurchases.

You can expect a credit transaction fee of about 1.6%to 2.2% plus a few cents extra but again this depends on whatplan you are on. This rates do not differ much from usual purchases made any where else in your daily life out sideof Shopify.

Again, these rates depends on your plan, The bigger your plan, the lesser the credit card transaction fees you pay.

Payment Gateways

Shopify has their payment system powered by Strife. This works well within all countries available on their platformlike Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Ireland, Puerto Rico and Australia.

However, you can use other payment gateways to process your sales such as PayPal etc as Shopify integratessuperbly with over 70 different payment processors out there. This helps those outside the available zone to find asuitable payment gateway that works with their country and still process sales from anywhere.

6/14

Shopify Point of Sales

This particular sales feature makes Shopify a giant among its competition. The POS kits and options enable you tosell not just online but through offline physical stores with an iOS and Andriod device.

Watch the video below to see how it works.

This is very helpful if you want to sell your product offline or host a pop-up store. You can still process your salesaway from your computer whilst keeping your stock count in check and automatically synchronized.

Is Shopify Secure?

Shopify does not muck about when it comes to security. Their shopping cart is hosted on a Level 1 PCI DSS servercomplaint meaning your data, your customer data and your other important business data is secure.

There is also 99% up-time guarantee and a very secure backup mechanism in place to ensure all your data can berecovered should any unforeseen circumstances occur.

When it comes to anything eCommerce, be it a major player or small market share in the industry, security is alwaysin the forefront of their business aims.

Shopify Customer Service Review

The first thing i look into before reviewing any products or services is the customer service center or help andsupport center as you may call it. I have had many vendors and product owners approach me for help to review theirproducts or services but when i start asking complex questions regarding their customer services/support, some ofthem tend to shy away.

Now that said, let us take a look at Shopify customer service and see how you can get help and support to gettingstarted:

7/14

First they have open live chat with an average of 2 minutes to get someone to start answering your questions. Theyhave experts in all aspects of the business which means all your technical hick ups and questions has some withanswer waiting to chat live at the other end.

I tested this personally and it didn’t take more than two minutes for a lady to pop in and ask ‘how can i help’ justafter she introduced her self.

The second way to get help is by email. I would suggest using this as a second alternative or if you are havingdifficulties that will need more detailed information in order for them to ascertain how they can help you better.

The last method is by direct telephone. This is another great way to get additional help and also speak to a realhuman being who will be more than willing to help you.

Pros of Using Shopify

With so many Shopify reviews out there with more pros than cons, I would like to emphasise here that every attempthas been made to portray a true state of facts which my findings led me. I also noticed that what works for Mr A maynot work for Mr B and with that said, please read on to find out among these pros to see if any resonate with youwhen you do try to use Shopify for your online store:

Very secure hosting and built in high speed. Page speed is 4 seconds max meaning your customers won’thave to wait too long. Speed and security at global level is their ultimate and all their site are SSL 100%provided and well integrated with many payment providers meaning you get paid right away and yourcustomers don’t have to wait for slow page load on.

Shopify ‘Lite’ plan, pioneers one of the cheapest way to start selling online using a hosted and securedsolution.

8/14

Shopify app store will significantly extend the character of your online store with great functionalities. This ismade easy with their most advanced app store which in itself is an invaluable tool for pushing your onlinestore beyond more than just a built-in features.

Shopify’ robust eCommerce platform provides enhanced abilities that includes partial-refunds, SEO friendlymeta descriptions that helps as well as improved search filters.

Third party hosting is not required with Shopify.

Uploading products from a CSV file or migrating your store from a host to another platforms’ is very easywithin Shopify.

A 14-day free trial allows you to test the waters, get used to things before committing any payment. No creditcard details or any payment details is require to get the trial out.

Most importantly, there is no PCI compliance concerns which is a requirement of any merchant that takes anycredit card payments. Shopify get around all the problems of going through assessment and audit which mustbe passed if you are operating as individual.

Shopify allows you to easily and quickly create a landing page which puts them ahead of other competitorsout there.

Their themes are made available in a way that any designer or developer can customize to suit their shop orclients need.

Regarding taxes, Shopify helps you configure how much tax to charge based on country jurisdictions.Thismeans when a shopper inputs their address after purchase etc, the proper tax rate will be applied to the finalbill.

Having the Shopify payment system as a gateway payment processor which is powered by Stripe means youdo not have to pay any transaction fees.

Very competitive pricing mostly if you use Shopify payment system.

Excellent help and support. For example there are lots of positive reactions about Shopify’s customer supportwhich is a rare in today’s eCommerce industry. Many shopping cart providers cannot boast of this but Shopifyseems to be doing pretty well on that.

Full control over HTML and CSS

Great track record for server up-time

Up to 165,000 active Shopify online stores, increasing as we speak which means it is a safe bet that thecompany is doing a pretty good job of keeping their online shop owners happy.

Setting up shop which includes adding products, setting up payment and shipping options works painlesslyfine.

They offer eCommerce detailed reports in Advanced and Shopify Plus plans which enable you to see monthlyperformances and raw data to help you scale up your success. This can do wonders for your business if youhappen to add Google Analytic to your marketing tool kit.

Cons:

9/14

The cheapest plan is the ‘Shopify Lite’ for $9 but this cannot let you build fully functional online shop with allthe features you need. Unless you go for the Basic Shopify and up wards.

You cannot avoid transaction fees if you use a third-party gateway payment processor. But then whateCommerce business doesn’t attract transaction fees these days even if its out side of Shopify?

With the Shopify Payment powered by Stripe,this means you can sell from certain countries like: the UnitedStates, Canada, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia. Selling from other countries out sidethese means you will need a third-party payment gateway. The good news is that Shopify is properlyintegrated with a great number of other gateway payments outside the aforementioned countries.

Starting with a small online store will seem more expensive with Shopify to start with, but will become moreaffordable as you start to see more sells over time. BigCommerce may sound like a good idea in terms ofstarting cost but lacks the many features found in Shopify which may limit your result.

Shopify is not a get rich quick scheme meaning if you expect to become successful in your online store in 20minutes then be ready to be disappointed. You have to put in the time and effort because they do it right andthey do not cut corners as you will surely see good results.

Shopify has a built -in software for blogging but it may not impress those who are more familiar withWordPress.

Shopify Vs Competitors

The major differences between Shopify and other e-commerce platforms out there are as follows. (Please note thatthe list below is not all there is as i am working on a more detailed comparison article which is coming soon.)

First you don’t only pay for the plans on monthly basis. They also allow you to pay on annual or biennial basis.

Shopify do offer a 10% discount on an annual and a 20% discount on a biennial plans when you pay at onceor up front.

With the volume of uncertainties associated with many businesses today, most folk with a low budget dochoose the monthly basis until they are certain that their business will survive long term. Shopify make thingseasy for folk starting out fresh.

Another big different between Shopify and other competitors out there can be found within the Shopify LitePlan which whilst you are not getting the full hosted online store, it still does allow you to make use of ahandful of vital Shopify tools for an unbelievable low monthly payment. Other competitors don’t offer this.

Who Are Shopify Competitors?

Below are the list of Shopify competitors. And this is an open list as i will be updating it from time to time just as newcompetitors do pop up:

BigCommerce

Volusion

WooCommerce

Magento

Squarespace

10/14

What People Are Saying About Shopify

Lets take a look at the general trends and opinions of people regarding what shopify is and how it works.

Google Search Term on Shopify

From the above statistics, you can see for the past 5 years, there has been a tremendous growth on searchactivities relating to Shopify. Also the recent spike in search from 2012 to date and on going is enough to tell youthat your online store is on to something big with Shopify. If you are still considering, then now is the time. SourceGoogle trends

Yahoo Trends on Shopify

11/14

Even on Yahoo ask and answers the topic is not left out as people are always talking about Shopify and sharingtheir experiences. Source: Yahoo Answers

What Experts At Wealthy Affiliate Are Saying About Shopify

12/14

Now these are real-time comments and bear in mind that Wealthy Affiliate is one of the most reliable and reputableplace to get one on one help on how to make money online. The community is great with expert help and the livechat is the best I have ever seen.

Go here and find out more on what experts are saying about what does Shopify do and is Shopify the best option foryour online store?

I will be comparing Shopify with other major players in the market soon on my upcoming posts so keep an eye out.

In the meantime, if you are still considering which eCommerce platform to join and help jump start your online storebusiness, i would recommend you give Shopify eCommerce platform a trial especially now that they are offering a 14Days Free Trial.

Drop me a comment with any questions below and i will get back to you as soon as i can.

About Author:

My name is Richard U. and i am the owner of efulfilled.com Join my newsletter and get your 187 New Product ideasfor you eCommerce. Plus you get to enjoy Shopify free trial.

Disclaimer:

The purpose of this review is to help you understand what the product is before making any decision. Some links onthis post are directed to other post here while some are directed to the product page. The whole intention is not tomake sell but to help you make informed decisions via thorough and insightful research as above. Therefore any

13/14

purchase made through the link will not cost you any extra but commission will help us continue to do more researchto provide you valuable information.

14/14