What is Shopify?
Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform and online store builder that enables businesses to manage and grow their operations online.
The experiences of millions of businesses on the eCommerce platform have shaped Shopify’s expertise and position as a leader in eCommerce. Many successful brands trust Shopify to sell both physical and digital products online, ship as well as process payments.
What is the difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus is an eCommerce platform for fast-growing and upcoming brands and companies with a large volume of business. It’s a great solution for companies with a high sales volume, or new businesses that are willing to make a high investment to facilitate rapid growth. On the other hand, Shopify is the best solution for small and medium businesses due to the affordable cost and efficiency.
Here are some of the main characteristics of Shopify Plus:
- No transaction fees. Shopify charges 0%, so you keep all of the money you make.
- Greater checkout personalization. Shopify Plus gives users more customization options (Shopify scripts, etc.) when it comes to your store’s checkout. For example, you can add discounts or promotions on the purchase page.
- You can manage all your stores from one place. This is very useful for brands with stores in different locations.
- Maximum speed and scalability. Shopify Plus is designed to process higher volume of requests and it has unlimited bandwidth. This is very useful to maximize conversions.
- Unlimited staff accounts. Unlike Shopify plans, you can create as many user accounts as you wish at no additional cost.
- Internationalization. Businesses can create up to 9 additional online stores if they wish to expand their business in other languages and currencies.
- Omnichannel store management. You can use the Shopify POS Pro for free, which, unlike the other Shopify plans, allows better omnichannel management of your physical stores.
- Launchpad. This application allows you to schedule special promotions, with specific start and end dates.
- Protection against bots. An automated solution protects your store against bots, which can harm your sales.
- Integration with Avalara Tax. This functionality allows you to calculate taxes in real time for each order, according to updated tax rules. This is a key feature if you do business is the United States.
- Advanced support service. Shopify Plus users benefit from a 24/7 support service and other advantages such as access to Shopify Plus Academy and its private Facebook community.
What does Shopify cost?
The cost of Shopify depends on the plan you select for your business. Shopify’s pricing plans include:
- Shopify Lite: $ 9 per month.
- Shopify Basic: $ 29 per month and 2.9% + 30¢ per online transaction.
- Shopify: $ 79 per month and 2.6% + 30¢ per online transaction.
- Advanced Shopify: $ 299 per month and 2.4% + 30¢ per online transaction.
- Shopify Plus: starts at $ 2,000 per month.
If you’re considering Shopify as a possibility for your eCommerce business, you should know that it offers users a free trial of 14 days so you can see if it’s a good fit before committing. The cost of Shopify depends on your business needs, the scale of your operations and your projected growth. The eCommerce platform offers business owners an adaptable shop builder to boost their sales channels and conversions, to cut down on administrative duties and to access insightful data.
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How does the Shopify eCommerce platform work?
Your entire business is integrated into a single platform via Shopify. With Shopify, entrepreneurs can create and personalize an online store and market their products via social media, online marketplaces, pop-up shops, web, mobile, in-person, brick-and-mortar locations, and other channels.
Shopify is entirely hosted in the cloud so you can access it from any connected device. A commerce company needs a variety of tools to handle its products, inventory, payments, and delivery on any given day, and it spends a lot of effort and money fusing the many systems and data together. By combining such technologies, Shopify guarantees that you can quickly access and integrate any additional business tools you might require to make Shopify work for your company.
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Why is Shopify best for eCommerce?
Hosted solution
Web hosting can be extremely difficult when starting a new online business. Startups are especially limited on free time, and hosting a shopping cart requires some amount of technical support.
The great thing about Shopify is that it’s a hosted solution that is cloud-based, so you don’t need to bother about servers or databases. Without any setup, you can access your store from anywhere by using your admin login information and an Internet connection.
Built-in marketing resources
Shopify comes with integrated marketing campaign tools that help businesses cut down expenses. Through a wide variety of customization options, Shopify enables you to create page titles, Meta descriptions, and unique URLs. You can also make pages visible or invisible and redirect them as needed. It also gives you the option to customize your online store. Additionally, it integrates with the most well-known social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, opening up new opportunities for promoting goods.
Excellent technical support
Running an online store with an eCommerce shopping cart requires some technological knowledge. Shopify offers round-the-clock technical help, so you can contact customer service whenever a problem arises. They will answer the phone or guide you through live chats.
Rapidity and security
Speed is a key component of an eCommerce site’s success since it encourages sales. The greater the user retention on your website, the quicker your web pages load. Shopify allows consumers to complete payments within the allotted loading time thanks to an internal speed tester.
Why do you need a fast website speed?
Reduces errors and issues with duplicate data
Manual data entry involves the risk of mistakes and duplications when entering information into several fields and forms. Additionally, problems arise if the faults are not properly tracked. To make data entry easier and eliminate duplicate data, Shopify offers automated solutions.
Superior functionalities
Shopify offers you advanced capabilities through a platform that works like a plugin or program that lets you download, install, and personalize the website. It offers inventory management, accounting, and company reporting tools in addition to features to boost sales and social media promotion.
Payment gateway
Shopify accepts a range of payment options. It offers its own payment gateway in addition to being linked with numerous others. Its payment gateway provides lower credit card costs and no transaction fees. To utilize this gateway, a merchant account is not required.
Eye-catching online store
A variety of templates are available in Shopify, allowing you to build distinctive and eye-catching online stores. Although it does not only use the online theme editor, it contains a range of themes. With Theme Kit, Shopify developers and designers can create themes locally.
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What are the benefits of having a Shopify ecommerce store?
Quick and simple setup
Shopify is one of the greatest platforms to use if one of your goals is to swiftly and easily launch your business online. Technical knowledge is not necessary to set up a Shopify e-commerce store and the user interface is very user-friendly and intuitive.
Customer service
With Shopify, customer service specialists are on hand around-the-clock to help you. If you have any inquiries, they can assist. The Shopify Help Center also provides access to useful forums and other resources. Shopify offers convenient customer service in comparison to many other eCommerce platforms.
Mobile-friendly
Your webstore must be mobile-friendly given the increase in mobile shoppers. Shopify was created with mobile responsiveness in mind so users can view your online store from any device. Additionally, Shopify’s iOS and Android apps make it simple to manage your entire store.
SEO and marketing tools
eCommerce also places a lot of emphasis on marketing, which Shopify greatly simplifies through its eCommerce SEO function. You can use a variety of marketing techniques, including social media, email marketing, and product reviews with Shopify. The tools that come with Shopify can also be used to make coupons for discounts.
With Shopify, you can create fantastic landing pages for your Google Ads or PPC social ads. One of the main benefits Shopify provides is its robust SEO features, which enable you to increase your website’s ranking and online traffic.
Safety and dependability
Protecting confidential customer and business information is essential. Shopify provides PCI compliance and SSL certification to encrypt all data. With Shopify, all your business and customer information are protected.
Flexibility
The adaptability of Shopify is one of its best features. Thanks to its many built-in capabilities, Shopify is simple to customize. You can display products that are on sale, provide coupons, and create unique delivery options with Shopify. The fulfillment, shipping, payment, and inventory control tools built into Shopify are also very useful. Additionally, there are a large number of free Shopify themes that you can use.
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