What is Shopify? Is it a platform for you? Pros and cons!

Shopify what is it and how does it work?

Let's start by introducing the concept of this solution. Founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake, Ottawa-based Shopify offers comprehensive online sales tools, including payment, marketing, shipping and customer relationship management. Shopify is a Saas (subscription-based) e-commerce platform for simply and intuitively setting up and running an online store. Its offer is mainly aimed at small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, especially those with little technical knowledge, who want to manage their business successfully and without stress.

Shopify is a universal e-commerce platform operating in no-code technology. It allows not only classic online sales, but also the sale of digital products, wholesale and local sales.

The platform enjoys a global reach, serving more than 1.2 million merchants in more than 175 countries.  In 2023, Shopify reached revenues of $7.06 billion, representing a 20% year-on-year increase in gross merchandise volume to $235.9 billion. The platform allows integration with numerous applications and tools, allowing for flexible customization of the store's functionality. Thanks to its intuitive interface and wide range of features, Shopify has become one of the leaders among e-commerce solutions, supporting entrepreneurs in successfully conducting online sales.

Now that you know, What is Shopify, let's look at the pros and cons of using this popular solution.

Advantages of Shopify

They could be multiplied. However, users asked about Advantages of Shopify most often indicate the simplicity of use of the platform and great opportunities for the expansion of the store to foreign markets.

However, this is only the tip of the iceberg of what is available inside.

Simple store management

With Shopify, everything is in its place. The platform has an intuitive panel that can handle even a person completely green in the subject. It's hard to break or switch something by accident. And the potential of Shopify is huge.

It is possible to track orders, manage inventory, handle complaints or returns. You will quickly add products to your store - with the help of a properly formatted CSV file, as well as set SEO or start writing a blog in a simple text editor.

In a few steps, you will launch your first email campaign, automating the sending and adding a simple subscription form to the newsletter. You can easily set the rules for the discount codes available in your store, add free shipping or a page with frequently asked questions from customers.

Interestingly, with Shopify Magic in a few minutes with the help of AI, you will generate unique product descriptions for your store. Unfortunately, this option is currently only available in 8 languages:

• English;
• German;
• Spanish;
• French;
• Italian;
• Japanese;
• Portuguese;
• Simplified Chinese.

A huge amount of integration

In addition to the built-in functionality The advantage of Shopify there is undoubtedly access to a huge number of additional applications and plugins available in Shopify App Store. Thanks to them, you have the opportunity to customize the store individually to your requirements without having to write code.

In the store you will find applications for better sales management, marketing, A/B testing or accounting. You will integrate your store with tools such as MailChimp, HubSpot, HotJar, Zapier or Google Analytics, among others.

Currently, there are more than 8,000 different applications in the library. All of them are regularly updated, and in addition, each of them passes tests covering as many as 100 checkpoints before it reaches the store. All this to give you the confidence of its security and full compatibility with Shopify.

Multi-channel marketing

Shopify's multi-channel marketing is an approach that allows it to use multiple sales and communication channels to reach customers wherever they spend time online and offline. In practice, this means that a Shopify store is not limited to selling through its own website, but uses a variety of platforms and tools, such as social media, online marketplaces, direct sales and advertising. The goal is to create an integrated shopping experience that gives customers easy access to products and increases customer engagement.

The main channels in multi-channel on Shopify

1. Online store on Shopify: As the main e-commerce platform, Shopify is the heart of the sales strategy. This is where full store personalization, inventory management, order processing and customer service takes place.
   
2. Social Media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest): Shopify allows integration with various social media platforms, where products can be promoted and sold directly from posts and ads. For example, Facebook and Instagram allow you to tag products in photos, which takes the customer directly to the store on Shopify.
   
3. Marketplaces (e.g. Amazon, eBay): By integrating with Amazon or eBay, merchants can reach customers who prefer to shop at popular online marketplaces. Shopify allows inventory and orders to be synchronized between the store and the marketplaces, minimizing the risk of over-selling or shortages.
   
4. Google Shopping: Google Shopping ads are a great solution to promote products directly in search results. Shopify offers plugins to integrate products with Google Shopping, making it easier to reach customers searching for products based on keywords.
   
5. Email marketing: Shopify supports integration with email marketing platforms such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp and Shopify Email. This allows you to create mailing campaigns tailored to customer behavior, informing them of promotions, new products or abandoned shopping carts.
   
6. Offline sales (POS - Point of Sale): Shopify POS allows you to manage sales at physical points, which is especially useful for hybrid businesses. With Shopify POS, it is possible to collect customer data from different channels and create more complete shopping profiles.
   

Key benefits of multi-channel marketing on Shopify

1. Reaching more customers: By having a presence on different platforms, a store can reach a wider audience, both online and offline.
   
2. Consistent brand across multiple channels: Shopify allows you to create a consistent image and service standard, regardless of the sales channel, which builds customer trust.
   
3. Better understanding of customer needs: Shopify integrates data from different channels to analyze shopping behavior and better tailor offers to customers.
   
4. Inventory optimization and logistics management: Synchronizing inventory and orders between channels makes inventory management easier and reduces product availability issues.
   
5. Increase customer loyalty: With integrated campaigns, customers are more likely to be engaged and more likely to interact with the brand on their preferred channels.
   

How to implement multi-channel marketing in Shopify?

To effectively conduct multi-channel marketing, it's a good idea to start by understanding what platforms your customers are on. Then:

1. Choose the right sales channels: Match the channels to your target audience by analyzing where they shop most often.
   
2. Integrate Shopify with your chosen channels: Take advantage of Shopify's apps and plugins, which allow you to seamlessly sync products and customer data.
   
3. Personalize the shopping experience: Create marketing campaigns and messages tailored to customers' preferences, based on data collected from Shopify and other channels.
   
4. Monitor and analyze results: Use Shopify's reports and analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of each channel and adjust your strategy as needed.
   

Multi-channel marketing is a powerful tool that helps companies increase sales, build customer relationships and develop a presence across platforms. However, it's worth remembering that the key to success is consistency and managing each channel in an integrated way, which Shopify makes easy with its numerous tools and integrations.

Extensive analytical capabilities

With Shopify, you get access to a lot of analytics that allow you to assess whether your store is growing. This includes information on:

• sales from different channels and different periods;
• the rate of returning customers;
• best selling products;
• return rate in the store.
  

But custom store analytics reports are only available on the Advanced or Shopify Plus plan.

24/7 Customer Service

It is already available in the basic package. Shopify has employees present in multiple time zones who, according to customer feedback, respond very quickly to questions posed to them.

Moreover, you have the opportunity to contact customer service in any way you like - by phone, mail or live chat.

An added benefit of Shopify is a huge database of tutorials, how-to videos, and guides to help store owners quickly troubleshoot issues. You can also use the help of the Shopify community.

Unfortunately, most of these resources as well as 24h customer support are available in English.

Security

Let's start with the fact that Shopify is a closed environment and practically no one has access to its source code. As part of the package you get a domain, stable hosting and a free SSL certificate. Additionally, Shopify offers PCI DSS compliance and 3D Secure authorization, securing the entire sales process and protecting customer data.

Stable servers with 99.9% failure-free guarantee that the store will always work, even in case of high traffic and with a huge amount of products. And in case of problems, Shopify support will work so quickly that you will not have time to blink and your problem will be solved.

Extensive design possibilities

One of the key benefits of Shopify is the huge customization capabilities of the store. The platform gives you access to more than 220 different templates. You can modify them in virtually any way, changing their colors, fonts or layout of elements.

All templates are available by industry to better match the style to your market segment. The only downside is the small amount of free themes (currently 13) and the rather high price for paid solutions (from $100 upwards).

In addition, you have the opportunity to prepare the store completely from scratch, e.g. by cooperating with our agency - so that it stands out from the competition.

Ideal for foreign markets

Do you want to sell your products abroad? With Shopify, you'll get ready for it faster than you think. The platform offers users a range of solutions, making it easier for them to reach international customers. These include different language versions of the store, as well as the adaptation of the currency to the country of sale.

Changing the language of the store is done by changing the theme language in the settings - as long as the language is available. You also have the option to add your own translation.

Entry into foreign markets also makes it easier Geolizr app. With it, you can display special offers depending on your location. The application automatically converts prices into the currency of a given country.

Extensive tools for SEO

The big plus of Shopify is simple SEO management. The platform is fully responsive and automatically creates a sitemap.

And for this it allows you to:

• adding meta titles, meta description and alt descriptions of images;
• creation of canonical links in the store;
• generating friendly urls;
• editing the robots.txt file.
  

Payment gateways in Shopify

You can easily integrate your store with the most popular payment methods in your country. You have many different standard options to choose from, such as:

• payment or credit card;
• Blik;
• Google Pay;
• Apple Pay;
• AmazonPay;
• MetaPay;
• PayPal;
• instant transfer.

In addition, you can opt for additional payment methods, such as cryptocurrencies.

Interestingly, Shopify allows you to search for available payment gateways in a given country along with the currency they support.

In a similar way, you will synchronize the delivery option in your online store. Here you have several options to choose from:

• buying labels through Shopify Shipping: This option is only available to a few guides in countries such as Canada, USA, Australia, United Kingdom or Italy
• connect an external carrier account directly to Shopify (for FedEx and UPS)
• use the carrier's app available in the Shopify App Store;
• integration of couriers using BaseLinker.

Disadvantages of Shopify - what to look out for?

This solution - although it has captured the hearts of many entrepreneurs - is not without its drawbacks. Shopify is primarily a universal platform that targets the US market. So not always what works in the US will work in your country as well.

But that's all that's troublesome. Currently, the biggest problem for customers is the high cost of using the platform and the inability to connect Shopify Payment in some countries.

Let's take a closer look at these Shopify flaws.

Shopify Payments limited option

Shopify Payments is the native payment system in the Shopify store. Compared to other ways, it is free and does not charge a commission on transactions. It also allows you to customize the currency depending on the country.

Unfortunately, this option Currently only available in 23 countries, thus making it difficult for international customers to start selling in foreign markets. An alternative solution is to create a separate store for each market.

High costs of running a store

Shopify — compared to other e-commerce platforms — is quite an expensive solution. Fees and costs add up quickly, which makes Shopify an average fit for people taking their first steps in the industry.

See also: Types of online stores - a dedicated solution, open source or a SaaS platform?

Shopify offers 4 different plans depending on your store's needs.

• Basic for 27 euros per month
• Shopify for 79 euros per month
• Advanced for 289 euros per month
• Shopify Plus from $2300 per month
  

Additionally, in addition to the monthly plan, Shopify charges fees for the transaction. Their size depends on the plan you have.

Commissions per transaction are:

• 2% in the Basic plan,
• 1% on the Shopify plan,
• 0.6% on the Advanced plan.
  

However, this is not all. In some countries — due to the lack of Shopify Payments — additional fees are charged to payment gateways and couriers. You can also purchase a store template at a time, the prices of which start at $100 per theme, as well as add plugins whose fees vary depending on the solution offered. Some of them have free packages, but for many stores they remain insufficient.

Shopify Plus - an option for big players in the e-commerce market

It is accepted that Shopify is a solution rather for small and medium-sized online stores. Nothing more wrong. The Shopify Plus plan is designed for the biggest players in the market, whose revenue reaches $1 million in a year. This is the most extensive solution with a huge amount of functions and automation.

With Shopify Plus, you have the ability to:

• the creation of 9 additional stores;
• support as many as 20 languages (in the basic plan there are only 5 of them);
• Better automation with Shopify Script and Shopify Launchpad, which give you the ability to add unique promotions to your cart, as well as automate promotional campaigns
• Access to more advanced statistics.
  

For years, companies such as Red Bull, Tesla Motors or Sony have used this package.

User reviews on Shopify

Shopify is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the market, which translates into a large number of opinions and reviews from users. An analysis of these reviews gives an interesting insight into how the platform is perceived by those who use it on a daily basis to run their online business.

According to data from G2.com, Shopify has an average rating of 4.4 out of a possible 5 stars based on more than 4500 reviews. Users praise it above all for its intuitiveness, ease of use and wide range of functionalities. Many also emphasise that Shopify makes it significantly easier to launch and run an online shop, even for those without technical expertise.

Compared to other popular e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce, Magento or PrestaShop, Shopify compares very well. On G2.com, it has a higher average rating than its competitors - WooCommerce has 4.4 stars, Magento 4.2 and PrestaShop 4.1. Users praise Shopify for its more intuitive interface and the richer possibilities to expand the shop without interfering with the code.

Among the individual positive feedback about Shopify, the most frequent items include:

• Easy shop management, even for people with no experience
  
• Wide selection of templates and themes to personalise the look of the shop
  
• Large number of apps and integrations to extend functionality
  
• Robust tools for data analysis and sales performance tracking
  
• Good quality customer service and support
  

Of course, as with any platform, there are also criticisms. Some users complain about the high subscription costs and transaction fees, especially for smaller shops. There are also individual complaints about limitations in the configuration of certain functions or performance problems with very large shops.

Nevertheless, the overall perception of Shopify among users is very positive. The platform definitely stands out from the competition and is a popular choice for both novice sellers and experienced online shop owners.

Who is Shopify best for? Summary

Unlimited design possibilities, an intuitive interface and a huge amount of integrations make Shopify a platform with great potential for anyone who wants to grow their business in e-commerce. Its only drawback - relevant from the point of view of small online stores - is its price. Despite this, it is a solution worth paying attention to, especially if you are planning to expand your store to international markets.