Is Shopify eCommerce Store The Best Solution for Your Business?

If you are setting up your first eCommerce store today, you are very fortunate.  Compared to just 5-7 years ago, things are so much easier to not only setup but to manage and run daily tasks as well.

I know personally how much things have changed.  I purchased an online store software solution around 2002 and it was so frustrating to work with, the site never got off of the ground.  Today incredible solutions like Shopify and BigCommerce make things a walk in the park, so to speak.

My past struggle isn’t really important.  The important thing is you are about to have a great experience with your new 24 hour internet store.

Is Shopify The Right Solution For Your Online Store?

Before making the decision to use Shopify as your eCommerce store solution, let’s look at some of the benefits to see if it is the solution for you.

What Are the Benefits of Using Shopify

• No coding or design knowledge is needed.  Shopify has already done all of the heavy lifting of coding the back end for you.  They also provide multiple free design template in your subscription to make your store look professional and convert sales easily.  It is so simple to setup.
• Your store is designed to grow with your sales.  Pricing for Shopify’s incredible platform starts at only $14 per month.   This allows you to get the sales rolling for the price of  a single dinner.  It is really surprising they are able to do this.  Larger plans are available as you need more features and come with reduced processing fees to increase your bottom line.  You will never outgrow Shopify, there is no need to worry about moving your store to another service.
• They provide all of the hosting and tech support.  If you have run a website before, you know reliable hosting can be frustrating and expensive.  This is especially true when you are getting a lot of visitors and downtime is lost money.  Shopify handles all of the hosting for you so there is no need to hire an IT guy.  They screen, hire and pay the professionals for you at no extra charge.
• Shipping is simple. In the back office you only need to setup shipping once for each item. Shipping fees can be set to a flat rate or by the weight of the single item.
• Add-On Apps Galore.  Because Shopify is such a great system there are a lot of software developers making very specific apps to do almost anything.  Many of the apps are free and some are also paid.  Some of the things they can do are advanced shipping, upsells, customer reviews, name your price, live chat and export sales to accounting software or other online marketplaces like eBay.  Most apps install with just a click or two.

With all of these Pros, there has to be some Cons right?

Well of course, there are never zero Cons.  The major complaint is if you add on a lot of apps, the platform can get expensive.  That is completely true but you are paying for the convenience of an instant store upgrade and you do not have to use your time talking to developers to make solutions nor fix them when they break.  You are really paying to save yourself a lot of time to focus in more productive places like finding new products to sell.  Sometimes we also want to add apps we don’t actually need and the cost will deter this problem.

Another thing to look at is transaction fees in the lower cost plans can add up quickly.  The $14 and $29 plans have a 2% transaction fee if you use a credit card processor other than Shopify Payments.  If you use Shopify to process payments, there is no fee and you don’t have to setup a payment gateway and merchant account to use it.  It’s basically clicking a few buttons and agreeing to the terms and can process payments through Shopify Payments.

The higher level plans come with a reduced transaction fee for 3rd party processors if  you don’t want to use Shopify Payments.

Want to Take Shopify for a Free Test Drive?

Shopify.com offers a Free 14 day trial, no credit card required.  There is only an upside to this.  I setup my first store with them in only a few minutes and had an item ready to sell in less than 30 minutes.

We will cover the step by step setup in the next post.

If you would like to discuss setting up your eCommerce store or optimizing your Shopify profit, please contact us here.

Financial Disclaimer: Crosshairs Marketing is financially compensated when users sign up for Shopify.com.  We would recommend them regardless as they have the most user friendly robust product on the market in our opinion.

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