What is Shopify?

Shopify is a web based ecommerce software. Shopify is a complete ecommerce solution that allow to set up an online store to sell your products. It let’s you organize your products, customize your storefront, accept credit card payments, track and fulfill to all orders with a few clicks of the mouse. Shopify is a web application that allows you to create your own online store. Shopify is one of the top eCommerce platforms available to any size of business for online sellers with drop shipping. It’s a fantastic, easy-to-use eCommerce platform. Start your online store without fuss over server and development costs. Shopify make it easy for you to edit the most important elements of your eCommerce website. The company reports that, it has more than 400,000 merchants using this platform, with total gross merchandise volume exceeding $34 billion. Get the hardware you need for your store. Easily add a cash drawer, receipt printer and barcode scanner to your checkout counter. You can sign-up for a free 14-day trial of Shopify to test it out for yourself. During your trial, you can build your own online store, test out free Shopify apps, and if you promote hard enough, make your first sale. Shopify’s pricing starts at $9 a month if you use the Lite plan. However, most first-time store owners start on Shopify’s Basic plan at $29 a month. If you’ve been running a business for quite some time, you may prefer Shopify, Advanced Shopify or Shopify Plus depending on your business needs.

What is Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus is Shopify’s enterprise ecommerce platform for larger businesses or businesses looking to scale. It offers advanced reporting features, higher priority customer support, capacity to handle higher order volumes, and more.

What is Shopify Lite?

Shopify Lite is an affordable plan that allows you to sell products on an existing website. If you have a website that isn’t hosted on Shopify, sell with a Buy Button without Shopify’s hosting. You can also use Messenger chats, sell both online and offline, and send invoices on the $9 plan.

What is Shopify POS?

Shopify POS (Point of Sale) is an application that allows you to sell products offline. You can sell products at a physical store, trade shows, pop-up shops, or other events in-person using Shopify POS. You can accept payments with your iPhone, iPad, or Android using the POS app.

Shopify Pros

There are many advantages to using Shopify, here are a few:

1. It’s affordable The number one rule for startup in any industry is to keep lower costs. If you start small business, you can start with a lower fee. Shopify is a different pricing layer eCommerce platform, where you can get available features and tools for your eCommerce store. When compared to other shopping cart platforms, your money goes furthest with Shopify. For a relatively low monthly cost, you get everything you need to power a fast and reliable eCommerce website.

2. Self Web hosting Shopify is a Self hosted solution, you don’t need to worry about buying web hosting or installing software onto servers. Shopify is good if you don’t know how to setup a basic website, don’t have good knowledge of hosting and need to get going quickly. Shopify maintains your site’s servers, pays for hosting, maintains the software, and handles the payment gateway, so all you have to do is run your business and sell your products.

3. World Class customer support Shopify has Well documentation and very strong community. Shopify has a dedicated support team available 24/7 as well.

4. Multiple Sales Channels You can use Shopify to sell your products online in an online store, on social media and online marketplaces and using other online sales channels. Shopify makes it easy to sell your products anywhere. Selling the same product across multiple sales channels used to be complex and frustrating. Shopify gives you one unified platform to do it all. You can sell your products on a Facebook page, sell your products with Facebook Messenger, sell your products pinterest buyable pins, sell anywhere online website, blog using Buy Button, sell your products in the Amazon marketplace and many other places. Selling wholesale on Shopify.

5. Shopify POS Solution POS (Point of sale) software system that’s easy to use. Checking out should be simple no manual required. Shopify POS you can sell your products and accept any payment on any device. Shopify connects with retail hardware ( like barcode scanners, receipt printers and cash registers, chip & swipe reader) that help you build your business, both in person and online.

6. Make Shipping Simple Save time and money with Shopify Shipping. You can set up shipping to be a fixed price or based on the weight of individual products. Accurate rates and simple order fulfillment all in one place. Dropshipping made easy. Start a hands-free online business with Shopify. Have your products shipped directly to your customers.

7. Easy to Customization Shopify makes it easy to edit theme files with their built-in Template Editor. You can easily edit or customize your eCommerce store. Shopify is very customizable and you definitely will want to have customizations done if you want to be one of the better-performing stores. Find the right apps to create the user experience you are looking for. If you’re looking for apps, set goals for what you need to achieve first. Shopify free and paid apps to add features to your online store. There are so many available and you can end up spending a lot in monthly subscription fees.

8. High Security Shopify invest millions of pounds into ensuring their platform is secure and adhere to PCI rules and regulations. Security is ever more important and when store owners are taking customer’s credit card details to make purchases it’s important you’re PCI compliant and your website displays “HTTPS” when users come to process their orders. Shopify take care of all of this for you.

Shopify Plan & Pricing

Try Shopify free for 14 days, no credit card required. You can sign up and use Shopify for 14 days without entering your credit card details. At the end of your trial, when you decide to launch your store, you will need to pick a plan and enter your credit card details.

Here are the Shopify plans as they stand at the moment:

Shopify Lite – $9/month – Sell on Facebook and chat with your customers on Messenger, add products to any website or blog.

Basic – $29/month – All the basics for starting a new business

Shopify – $79/month – Everything you need for a growing business

Advanced Shopify – $299/month – Advanced features for scaling your business

Shopify Plus – Enterprise grade solutions for high volume merchants and large businesses.