Taking your business online is one of the best decisions you can ever make. But starting an e-commerce business is not easy. With hundreds of e-commerce platforms out there, picking the one that best suits your requirements can be challenging.
Shopify turns out to be one of the best picks for starting an ecommerce store for businesses of all types and sizes.
Table Of Contents
- The Best Features of Shopify
- Drag and drop web builder
- Customization
- Apps and integrations
- Scalability
- High-volume traffic capacity
- Marketing and SEO
- Store management features
- Wholesale management
- How is Shopify a cost-effective e-commerce solution?
- Why choose Esferasoft for Shopify development?
- Final Thoughts
For those who don’t know, Shopify is a multinational e-commerce company that allows you to start your own e-commerce business. And as of June 2019, more than 8,20,000 merchants were using the Shopify platform for their store. Thus, Shopify has a market share of 20%, second only to WooCommerce.
So, what’s up with all this popularity? Let’s find out.
Why use Shopify?
Shopify is the go-to option for building e-commerce websites for most businesses. From small companies and dropshipping stores to big brands, everyone is using Shopify. But why?
For starters, the platform is easy to use, and if you can create your e-commerce store even if you don’t know any coding or web development. But that doesn’t mean it’s only for beginners. Big brands like Tesla, Nestle, and RedBull use Shopify, thanks to its robust customization and integration capabilities. Besides, Shopify has its own hosting service, so you don’t need to worry about server costs. And if you buy your website from Shopify, you can get your online business up-and-running and minimal expenses.
Why is Shopify the ideal pick for both small and large businesses?
On the one end, Shopify is an easy-to-use platform that requires no coding. So, it’s ideal for new entrepreneurs that aren’t acquainted with the world of web development. On the other hand, Shopify offers an exhaustive suite of advanced features that make it the first choice of most medium and large-sized businesses. Let’s take a look at both these aspects in detail.
Shopify for Small Businesses
Easy to set-up: Small business owners may be young and inexperienced. They might not have the coding and development skills, but they have big dreams. Shopify helps small business owners gain global exposure.
Easy to manage: Shopify is effortless to operate. It is a SaaS product, and thus, it provides all the admin and frontend support. Besides, it handles servers, security, software updates, and other things as well, which business owners might find uncomfortable to deal with.
Advanced features: Even at the “Basic” level, Shopify provides all the necessary features required to add and manage your products, inventory, shipping, and more. It also offers tools to accept electronic payments. Other features of the Basic plan include fraud protection, PCI compliance, and third-party integration.
Low cost of entry: Shopify offers a 14-day free trial. So basically, it allows you to start your online business for free. After that, you have to pay a nominal monthly fee.
Support: As a new e-commerce entrepreneur, it might take you a while to get accustomed to the functionality of Shopify. However, Shopify helps you through the transition by providing 24/7 free support.
Hire Shopify – Best Ecommerce Platform to Launch an Online Marketplace
Shopify for Large Enterprises
Shopify is ideal for large brands, too. Here’s why.
Handle traffic and sales spikes with ease: Bigger brands are often concerned with site crashes and downtimes due to sudden traffic and sales spikes. Shopify has one of the best e-commerce hosting services out there. So, no matter how much traffic or sales your site attracts, it will never crash or slow down.
Seamless customer management: Large enterprises require a platform that integrates their store with other essential systems, such as CRM, CMS, ERP, etc. These integrations can reduce labor costs and increase productivity. Shopify Plus offers out-of-the-box CMS and OMS capabilities along with robust integration capabilities. Shopify Plus can integrate with the following enterprise applications:
- 3PL
- IMS
- PIM
- WMS
- ERP
E-commerce automation: All e-commerce platforms offer traffic, sales, and order management capabilities. But what sets Shopify apart is its e-commerce automation toolkit, which helps you save your most valuable asset: time. With Shopify Plus, you get tools like Shopify Flow, Launchpad, and Shopify Scripts to take your e-commerce selling to the next level.
Multi-channel selling: Do you know e-commerce sites with three or more sales channels make 190% more revenue than sites that rely on cart sales only? Based on your plan, you can link your Shopify store to multiple sales channels. Shopify Plus offers over 20 sales channels, including offline channels, too.
Compliance: The rise in traffic and sales also increases the risk of data breach and violation of compliance. Shopify Plus provides robust safety and support capabilities, along with PCI compliance, to ensure you can do business without bothering about security standards and compliance-related issues.
The Best Features of Shopify
Shopify offers a ton of features to boost your e-commerce sales. While these features might differ based on your plan, there are a few common functionalities, almost all plans offer. Let’s take a look at some of these best features of Shopify.
Drag and drop web builder
Shopify allows you to build a complete online store without the need for any technical knowledge. Shopify takes care of all the technicalities involved. All you need to know is how your store needs to look, and Shopify gets things done for you. Besides, it also provides various payment gateways to help you start receiving payments right away.
Customization
One of the biggest USPs of Shopify is its customization capabilities. It offers loads of ready-to-use themes and templates, which can be further customized as per your requirements. And with Shopify Plus, you can take your store’s customization to a whole new level. You can use JavaScript and CSS to fully customize your store and give it a unique experience.
Apps and integrations
Shopify’s app marketplace has more than 1,500 verified applications. These apps can assist you in the following areas of e-commerce management:
- Customer service
- Marketing & promotions
- Inventory Management
- Accounting
- Wholesale & B2B customers
Of course, the higher you go with plans, the more access to apps and integration capabilities you get. For example, you don’t have to worry about hitting your API limit with Shopify Plus. You can integrate your store with your CRM, accounting, and multi-channel software to make your business more profitable and productive.
Do you know?
Shopify has had 218 million buyers, from 175 countries, in the last 12 months.
Scalability
Shopify allows you to grow and scale your business without stressing over your site. It offers high bandwidth and multiple order processing at a time. Its cloud-hosted software makes it easy to manage variable checkouts and flash sales.
High-volume traffic capacity
As discussed before, Shopify’s in-house hosting guarantees 100% uptime and site performance regardless of the traffic and sales your store gets. And with Shopify Plus, you can automate your flash sales, too.
Marketing and SEO
Shopify features advanced SEO capabilities, such as giving the right meta tags and titles to your pages. It also offers plugins like SEO Plus and SEO Booster to help you dominate the search rankings. Additionally, Shopify offers social media integration, automated sitemap, and multi-channel selling, which help you reach a broader range of customers.
Store management features
Shopify offers various store management features. For starters, it provides the option to create customer profiles, accounts, and groups. It also includes email templates to support your promotional activities.
If you don’t want to handle the fulfillment of your orders that involved storing, packing, and shipping, Shopify does it for you. It can also take care of your returns/refunds and update your inventory accordingly. Lastly, you can manage an e-commerce store even if you don’t have any products. Shopify is the best platform for dropshipping. So, you can create a store and act as an intermediary between the customer and the supplier.
Wholesale management
If you are interested in selling wholesale, Shopify offers the Shopify Plus Wholesale Channel. It allows you to create a separate storefront and expand into the wholesale sector. This channel is excellent for companies looking to do both wholesale and retail. In addition, you can also integrate your wholesale and retail channels to streamline your operations.
How is Shopify a cost-effective e-commerce solution?
As discussed before, you can actually start a Shopify store for free. But since you’re looking to build your brand, that is not something you should do. Shopify offers a wide range of plans, starting from $9 to $1,500 per month. So, of course, your costs would depend on the plan you choose.
The starting plan of Shopify is Shopify Lite, which costs $9 per month. But it’s not worth it if you’re looking to build a global brand. So, let’ keep it out of the equation and talk about other plans.
Basic plan: The Basic Shopify Plan costs $29 per month. It includes all the necessary features like gift cards, reports, and abandoned carts to help you get started. If you are new to e-commerce and don’t know where to start, use this plan to take the first step.
Shopify plan: The Shopify plan costs $79 per month. It includes almost the same features as the Basic plan but with a few advancements.
Advanced Shopify: Advanced Shopify costs $299 per month and offers robust features such as advanced report builder and third-party calculated shipping rates. This plan is ideal for large, established businesses.
Shopify Plus: Shopify Plus’s pricing starts at $2,000 per month. If your store makes more than $800,000 per month in revenue, the fee will be translated into a revenue-based model, and you’ll pay 0.25% of your monthly revenue.
But for businesses just starting to sell online, Basic Shopify and Shopify plans are ideal. And if you know coding a web development, you can get your store up and running for under $100. However, you might need to spend some extra money on Shopify experts if you aren’t proficient in e-commerce development. You can build your store if you want, but to make it look unique and professional, you’ll require expert assistants. Shopify Experts can cost anywhere between $500 and $2,000.
All in all, you will need around $500-1,000 to set up and launch a professional e-commerce store. Thus, starting a business on Shopify costs less than starting a home-based micro business, making it the most cost-effective e-commerce solution out there.
Why choose Esferasoft for Shopify development?
With more than a decade of experience in providing online business solutions, Esferasoft is one of the most trusted Shopify development companies in India. We specialize in delivering customized e-commerce solutions that are tailored to transform your dream into reality.
At Esferasoft, we understand your business requirements and create a Shopify store that takes your business globally. Our Shopify development services include:
Shopify setup and product import: We set up your store, configure it, and take care of its design requirements. We also add products to your store, along with installing payment gateways.
Responsive theme development: If you want your store to look unique, we got you covered. We convert PSD to Shopify themes to give your store a professional look and feel.
Shopify app development: Shopify offers thousands of third-party apps and extensions. But if none of them align with your requirements, Esferasoft develops custom Shopify applications for your e-commerce store.
API and plugin integration: We offer solutions, including multi-channel listings, e-commerce plugins, module management, and API integration, to provide enhanced functionality to your e-commerce store.
Mobile app development: If you want a mobile app for your Shopify store, Esferasoft will develop a fully-functional mobile app to help you target your mobile customers.
Support and maintenance: We offer 24/7 support and maintenance. If your store runs into any problems, we’ll make sure to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
Final Thoughts
There’s not been a better time than now to take your business online. The sales of brick and mortar stores are plunging, and soon, such companies shall go obsolete. So, it is critical to start selling online. As discussed, Shopify offers robust features and functionality at an affordable price tag, making it the best e-commerce platform out there. If you want to develop a successful e-commerce store that outshines your competitors, Get in touch with Esferasoft.
