As the pandemic pushed more buyers to start shopping online, companies were quick to react and platforms like Shopify subsequently experienced exponential growth. According to the e-commerce giant, the number of new online stores created on its platform increased by 71% in the second quarter of 2020 alone with growth showing no signs of slowing down. Today, 1.75 million merchants across the globe use the platform to sell their products online including well known brands like Fitbit, Whole Foods Market, Kylie Cosmetics, Kraft Heinz Co. and many more.
Shopify is undoubtedly shifting the e-commerce and digital landscape and helping some of the world’s most successful merchants build their brand and business. But with so many e-commerce options to choose from, how can you be sure that Shopify is the right solution for you?
In this blog, we explore some key Shopify features to help you determine whether the platform can meet your unique e-commerce needs.
Before we dive in, let’s first uncover what Shopify really is…
Put simply, Shopify offers a full service solution for e-commerce to help users spin up an online store and start selling their products quickly. Minus the product(s) and business know-how, Shopify provides merchants with essentially everything they need to set up and start selling online. It doesn’t matter if you’re a first time seller or a multi-million dollar business, as long as you have access to Internet and something to sell, anyone can create an online store with Shopify.
The Shopify platform uses a Software as a Service (SaaS) model and is sold on a monthly subscription. As a cloud-based solution, merchants have the flexibility to access and run their online shop from anywhere with an internet connection and on any device. The company unifies commerce into a central command centre, which means that if you are selling both online and in-person, you can sync your inventory and stock to easily manage your store(s) from one account. As a SaaS solution, users also automatically benefit from automated updates, simplified maintenance and out-of-the-box features such as scalability, built-in shopping cart functionality and pre-built themes.
From 24/7 customer support to built in SEO and marketing tools, these are the top benefits to choosing to sell with Shopify:
Speed – Shopify partners with Google Cloud for back-end infrastructure to provide its merchants with a world class content delivery network (CDN). This means that those operating an online shop with Shopify will automatically benefit from a fast, secure and scalable server.
No backend developer necessary* – Since Shopify templates are built using front-end programming languages, a backend developer is only required if you are looking to create a custom Shopify theme or API integration/app.
Design – With numerous free and paid-for designs and templates and a block editing feature built into the backend of Shopify, you can customise and build a beautiful online shop that fits nicely with your brand identity.
Secure and reliable – Since e-commerce stores deal with sensitive customer data, it’s important that your site is secure. Shopify provides a safe shopping experience by keeping its security systems up to date with both industry standards and best practices. As a merchant, you can also enable SSL certificates on your Shopify site to encrypt data and pass it through a secure online connection.
Seamless integration of apps – Shopify has over 6,000 apps and integrations that help merchants customise and grow their online operation and improve their marketing, sales and social media strategies. The apps are designed to be incredibly easy for users to install and utilise.
Support – Whether you’re troubleshooting a site issue or looking for online sales support, Shopify has a top notch team that provides 24/7 customer support. Shopify’s Help Centre also hosts a range of documents and videos to help answer your questions.
Payment gateways – Shopify integrates with over 100 payment providers around the world to provide your customers with a swift and seamless checkout experience.
Ultimately, if you’re looking to sell directly to consumers online, we believe Shopify is a great solution 99% of the time.
However, we wouldn’t recommend Shopify if you have unique design and technical website requirements but no means to build a custom Shopify site or are looking to sell products or services directly to other businesses online* (this will depend on your unique B2B requirements).
While Shopify’s pre designed page layouts are a great and affordable solution for people looking to build an e-commerce website without any coding required, if you have highly specialised functionality requirements or are looking for a completely unique website design, building your site with a pre-made theme is not the best solution. Shopify may still be a good platform fit for your business, you’ll just want to consider teaming up with a web design and development agency to create a custom built website rather than using one of Shopify’s off the shelf items to spin up your online shop.
Along with customisation, Shopify also often falls short for B2B sellers who don’t have the means to subscribe to Shopify Plus or team up with a digital agency who can help them create a custom solution to meet their unique B2B needs. Shopify traditionally serves B2C transactions a lot better than it does for merchants looking to make transactions with other businesses. B2B sellers often require customer specific and wholesale pricing or discounts by quantities, which often don’t work so well with the simpler Shopify solutions.
Ultimately, if you:
Then Shopify may be a great fit for you.
