Everything you need to sell anywhere. Trusted by 160k stores
4.5/5 (2853 reviews)Shopify is a commerce platform that allows anyone to easily sell online, at a retail location, and everywhere in between. Shopify offers a professional online storefront, a payment solution to accept credit cards, and the Shopify POS application to power retail sales.
With Shopify’s eCommerce software, users get one unified platform to run their business with ease. Users can fully customize their online store, add new sales channels in seconds, manage unlimited products and inventory, fulfill orders in a single step, track sales and growth trends, and more.
Establish the company's brand online with a custom domain name and online store. With instant access to hundreds of the best looking themes, and complete control over the look and feel, users can have a gorgeous store of their own that reflects the personality of their business.
Shopify currently powers over 160,000 retailers in 100 different countries, including: Tesla Motors, Gatorade, Forbes, Amnesty International, Encyclopedia Britannica, Maxim Magazine, CrossFit, Black Milk Clothing, Herschel Supply Co., and many more.
Pros
I love many things about Shopify. Honestly, I've not fallen in love with any other alternative as much as I have with Shopify. The pros of Shopify includes:
1. No Hosting required: This is a beautiful part of Shopify. With Shopify, I never had to worry about purchasing a hosting plan. Shopify hosts all merchant accounts on their server.
2. Free SSL: I love this a lot. With some other alternatives, a user may need to purchase an SSL certificate to keep his/her site safe, but not with Shopify. Shopify provides free SSL for all users.
3. Easy to use: With Shopify, I was able to get up and running in about half an hour. No programming skills required. Customising and tweaking everything can be done in about an hour. This is beautiful compared to alternatives.
4. Free trials: Shopify allows a new user to tryout it's services for complete two weeks without paying any money if the user desires. Being curious, I had to try the free service before deciding to make any purchase.
5. Easy to install apps: Shopify have apps to help users add functionalities to their websites. The apps are very easy to install. Their are both free and premium apps on Shopify.
6. Easy payment collection: Shopify has it's own payment system for users. This allows users collect payment for products and services from their customers. The payment processing fee varies from plan to plan.
7. Easy to integrate with drop shipping services: A large chunk of Shopify users are drop shippers. This is a plus.
Cons
Inasmuch as I so much love Shopify, honestly, there are a few turn offs. They include:
1. Expensive: For a starter, Shopify may be very expensive compared to alternatives like woocommerce. With woocommerce, a user can build a free forever ecommerce/ drop shipping site. The user only need to purchase a hosting service and an SSL certificate if need be.
2. Some apps are not available: I opted to using another payment gateway other than Shopify's. The issue I had was that I couldn't find the app for my desired payment processor on the App store. By this, I was compelled to use another payment processor.
3. Premium Apps: Shopify apps helps users add features to their websites. The con here is that many of the apps are premium apps, and should be paid for. This means that apart from the money one have to pay to use Shopify, the one still need to pay some more to have his/her desired apps installed. This can be a turn off for newbies, and others users.
Apart from those cons, Shopify is a beautiful app to use.
Shopify is amazing. Building an e-commerce website on your own or with a developer is ultimately complex. Shopify has made this a simple experience. Building your own eCommerce site typically would require you to pay for a lot of things in all different places such as hosting with GoDaddy and a URL and then you need to buy all this different plugins from different developers. It becomes a headache. Your site can also crash and get buggy as a result. Shopify is an all-in-one solution and will usually never crash unless all of Shopify is under maintenance. It's just a really great software and a must use if you're building an eCommerce website for the first time. You can start with Shopify and most likely find all the features you need to keep your site there for the long haul.
Pros
Shopify allows even a beginner to build a really nice looking, responsive eCommerce site. You offer templates that you know help store owners be more successful. They are already designed really well and someone just needs to switch out elements to make the store their own. You made it easy to buy a domain, a template and hosting all in one place. You also have it easy to setup your sales tax which on platforms like Magento and Wordpress can requires additional plugins that can be a headache. You connect well with distribution channels such as Amazon and eBay and I can manage my inventory quantities all in one place.
Cons
Cons is of course with any DIY software limitations within the software. You also to customize this need to work with developer who really knows Shopify and deep coding experience, versus building a website on Wordpress, millions of developers know wordpress, Shopify has less true experts to choose from.
I love that shopify will scale with my business and that there are various pricing plans that give you different options and shipping discounts. It's easy to use and has other apps that work with it so I can easily generate line sheets and product catalogues.
Pros
I love that shopify integrates seamlessly into my inventory program, social media accounts, email marketing platform, etc. They also work really well with google ads so you can add products to google shopping and run really effective retargeting ads. Their live view option is great and gives me an idea of where my customers are coming from.
Their shipping discounts are also great!
Cons
The only thing that really annoys me is that I can't pick which shipping option comes first. Because one of my shipping options is "local pickup" and is free, I'd rather that not be the default shipping option (a lot of out of town customers accidentally choose local pickup and then I have to contact them and it looks unprofessional). Apart from that, it's a great platform
I've attended a Shopify master class speaker event, done some studying along a roadmap towards certifications on the platform, and I've begun some nominal work upon creating web stores as a developer seeking to start establishing an E-commerce and brand management solution.
Pros
There are many aspects to the Shopify software platform, including 3rd party app development, e-commerce, retail Point-of-Sale hardware, affiliate programs for referring merchants, professional learning articles and paths to professional certifications of the Shopify platform.
In addition, the Shopify experience, for users, admins, developers, partners, etc. is richly engaging with Shopify retail store events, here in downtown Los Angeles. Shopify's retail store presence features master classes from professionals who have successfully launched brands and online and physical stores using Shopify's technology and features, as well as their own third party establishments which integrate nicely within the Shopify platform.
Cons
There's a high learning curve to establishing a professional web presence in an E-commerce setting, and many steps and lessons to learn along the way, but for dedicated developers and entrepreneurs, the Shopify app is a truly viable tool for establishing an E-commerce web presence.
I have been rapidly deploying eCommerce customers, and they have been quite pleased with the handover. I love watching them take ownership of all the intuitive tools - the burden of training has decreased exponentially.
Pros
Shopify is a fully managed platform on the software level. Things just work all the time. No hosting hassles, code bugs, no downtime.
Cons
Certainly feels overpriced if you can launch an equivalent WooCommerce store for close to free. I don't like how their pricing model is based on access to modifying the checkout process. Templating is a new language based on the Shopify variables,
BASIC SHOPIFY: $29 per month
Online rate: 2.9% + 30¢
In person rate: 2.7% + 0¢
SHOPIFY: $79 per month
Online rate: 2.6% + 30¢
In person rate: 2.5% + 0¢
ADVANCED SHOPIFY: $299 per month
Online rate: 2.4% + 30¢
In person rate: 2.4% + 0¢
Below are some frequently asked questions for Shopify.
Shopify offers the following pricing plans:
Starting from: US$29.00/month
Pricing model: Subscription
Free Trial: Available
BASIC SHOPIFY: $29 per month
Online rate: 2.9% + 30¢
In person rate: 2.7% + 0¢
SHOPIFY: $79 per month
Online rate: 2.6% + 30¢
In person rate: 2.5% + 0¢
ADVANCED SHOPIFY: $299 per month
Online rate: 2.4% + 30¢
In person rate: 2.4% + 0¢
Shopify offers the following features:
Shopify has the following typical customers:
Freelancers, Large Enterprises, Mid Size Business, Non Profit, Small Business
Shopify supports the following languages:
English
Shopify has the following pricing plans:
Subscription
Shopify supports the following devices:
Android, iPhone, iPad
Shopify integrates with the following applications:
Bookeo, OrderHarmony, Ordoro, Post Affiliate Pro, Sendloop, ShipStation, Stitch Labs, Storefront Social, Veeqo, Yotpo
Shopify offers the following support options:
FAQs, Forum, Knowledge Base, Online Support, Phone Support, Video Tutorials
Generally, Shopify has been an awesome service. I was able to build many sites with it. Ecommerce and Drop shipping is very easy with Shopify. With Shopify, I didn't have to bother about hosting my store or making my site secure. All these were taken care of by Shopify.
It's ease of use for drop shipping is second to none, and I didn't have to be a programmer to enjoy it. The only turn off I had while starting was the initial cost because I wanted to start on a very lean budget.
It's ease of use is beautiful. Using Shopify is fun.