The Advantages and Disadvantages of Shopify
Is it really the best option for your eCommerce business?
Anyone with the smallest connection to the eCommerce domain has heard of Shopify. Used by brands like Tesla, Nestle, and Redbull, Shopify is one of the strongest leaders of the online world.
In this blog post, you’re going to find out what brought Shopify to the top, what their offers look like, what are the advantages and disadvantages of Shopify
What is Shopify?
Chances are, you’re a business owner looking for a platform that will allow you to sell your products online or help you take your online store to the next level.
That’s exactly what you can expect from Shopify.
Shopify is a well-known, dedicated eCommerce website builder that will get you ready to sell in no time. It has been consistently growing its user base by up to 74% every year from 2012 until 2017. Now, it serves over 600,000 million businesses all around the world.
The advantages of Shopify
Ease of use and design
Perfect for beginners or people who are not tech-savvy, this amazing platform will get your online store up and running immediately.
It’s super simple, easily customizable, and you have 10 free, beautiful themes to choose from. You need no coding skills or any other tech knowledge – the drag-and-drop feature makes it easy to use.
The platform is popular for its visually pleasing and professional design, which will enhance the customer experience.
Speed and performance
Shopify hosts your shop and has over 1,200 ready-to-use apps available to enhance its performance and functionalities. All apps are properly integrated and can save a lot of time and effort, while also providing relevant data.
It loads incredibly fast and makes the transaction flow smoothly.
Capabilities
From a user-friendly interface to upload your products to easy check-out and payment, Shopify provides:
- Help with email marketing, Facebook ads, and Google ads – Shopify will make the marketing process easier with different tools.
- Shopify Payments – instead of using a third-party vendor, you can take care of the payment process with this feature. It’s easy to use and free. However, if you don’t use it, Shopify will charge a transaction fee of up to 2%, depending on your subscription plan.
- Shopify POS – for brick and mortar shops that want to accept payments using the mobile app.
Support
You get 24/7 customer support via multiple channels (live chat, social media, forums etc.). But because of their workload, you might not receive help exactly when you need it.
If you want qualified help to set up something on your website, you will have to pay $55/hour for their services.
Security
Shopify is a safe and reliable platform. The team is available at all times for any issues and is constantly monitoring the servers to ensure the highest security.
The Disadvantages of Shopify
Price
If you’re just getting started and you’re looking to cover only the basic needs of your eCommerce website, then the basic subscription plan that starts at $29/month should be good for you. You can cancel or upgrade the subscription at any time.
However, if your business is growing and you need more functionalities, the price goes very high. Add-ons, apps, and any other extra features add up.
Also, the more you grow, the more help you’re going to need to update your website. You’re either going to invest in someone to help you with that or to pay the Shopify team $55/hour for their services.
Loss
When changing the theme, the products and the rest of your website’s content don’t automatically adjust to the new theme.
Shopify is a fully hosted platform, so, if you cancel your subscription, you’ll lose your entire website.
Possible poor SEO ranking
Shopify divided the world into 2 sides: the one that considers it bad for SEO, and the one that says Shopify isn’t the problem.
While Shopify offers SEO tools, you have to be ready to optimize your content to rank as high as possible, which is a difficult task.
Conclusion
Shopify deserves its spot at the top of the eCommerce platforms hierarchy for its accessibility, speed, and security. If you’re just starting out, it’s fantastic.
But the moment you decide to add extra features or buy an upgraded plan, that’s where things get more complicated and expensive.
For a business owner that has better things to do – like sales & marketing – spending so much time and money on admin stuff will probably take a toll on you, so you’ll have to get help.
If you’re going to hire a team anyway to build a truly high-performing eCommerce website, you might as well hire someone that does it all for you, gives you full control of your website, and supports you all the way.
That’s where Mejix comes in – a team of professional young leaders, ready to develop the perfect website for you that does exactly what you want and how you want it.