Shopify – The Way to Go

Shopify, Magento, Woo Commerce, Big Commerce, which e-commerce platform should you choose for your business? We have worked on all of them and our recommendation quite clearly is Shopify.

So let’s dig a little deeper to establish why we believe Shopify is your Go-To product for your business.

Shopify: The Product?

The good news is that you can get into Shopify for a very small upfront price. Known as software as a service (SaaS) you do not actually buy Shopify, you rent it. There are three price levels priced in dollars.

Basic Shopify costs $29 per month. Shopify have set up several Free templates which are actually quite nice. There is also a library of special designs priced very competitively. You can add products either one by one or in bulk using a spreadsheet. You also get access to an admin panel where you can manage your orders, products, inventory, and shipping.

There is also an App store enabling you to empower your store to match the most sophisticated of e-commerce applications.

Shopify adopts a multi-channel approach to selling. You also need to know that you don’t have to just sell via your Shopify website. The software is automatically set up for mobiles. You can also embed your shop or elements of your shop into blogs, Social Media, on-line marketplaces and pop-up shops.

Shopify can integrate with other software, such as Amazon, Oberlo, and Clickfunnels.

If you wish to try before you buy Shopify offers a free 14-day trial.

Call us to discuss which Shopify variant is right for your business. +44(0)7769977598

The History of Shopify Explained

Originally founded in 2004 as a company selling snowboarding equipment. The venture was not particularly successful and in 2006 they moved into E-Commerce software.

The company was reborn in 2006 with the objective of building an easy-to-use eCommerce platform that allowed anyone to create and manage their own store.

The product was probably a little too early into the marketplace and it wasn’t until 2015 that the product took off. This was off the back of Amazon announcing that Shopify was to be the primary migration provider for their store merchants. The link between the companies is now very strong and you can now sell directly on Amazon from your Shopify store.

Today Shopify Inc. is a multinational company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, with over 5,000 employees and 1,000,000 users.

How Does Shopify Work?

Even with little experience of E-Commerce, Shopify provides a step-by-step process to get you going. We do recommend that we help you get started and can then hand over the system to you for ongoing development.

• Basic Shopify: This plan costs just $29 per month and allows you to create a store with unlimited products, a blog, free SSL certification, and 24/7 support to improve customer experience.
• Shopify Plan: This is the most popular Shopify plan and costs $79 per month. In addition to everything from the basic plan, you get access to premium themes, professional reporting, and abandoned cart recovery, which prompts customers to finish incomplete orders.
• Advanced Shopify: In addition to everything from the Basic and Shopify plans, Advanced Shopify allows you to have up to 15 staff accounts, advanced reporting, and unlimited cart recoveries. Best suited to high revenue companies, this plan costs $299 a month.
• Shopify Plus: How many stores can you have on Shopify? Starting at $2,000 per month, this plan allows big companies that want to sell in different markets to create up to nine stores, unlike the other packages where you can only build one store. You also gain access to more features, including the Shopify Plus academy. This resource has a Shopify website tutorial and other online training resources to help you grow your store.

Understanding Shopify: Why Is It So Popular?

There are lots of reasons why Shopify is so popular. Let us address the most important ones below.

Easy to Use.

In basic form you can be up and running in just a few days. Shopify is cloud based so when you create your store, you do not have to worry about maintaining web servers, finding a domain name, or resolving potential Shopify software issues.

Everything is included in your plan, which ensures your hosting will be secure and reliable.

And if you have any problems or just need a Shopify tutorial, we are on hand to provide those services.

Can I customise my Shop?

You might start off with one of the standard templates, but as likely as not you will want to personalise your presentation.

We can assist you in selecting and modifying a designer template to make the shop your own.

There are over 2,000 customisation apps with price points ranging from $9.99 to $60+.

Performance

The performance of Shopify is second to none.

It’s fast!!

It also loads amazingly fast on mobiles too, which translates into encouraging your customers to stay longer in your shop. Faster loading speed also reduces your bounce rate and has a positive impact on your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) score.

Some Excellent Sales Features

• Abandoned cart recovery, which emails potential customers who clicked off your website after adding products to their cart and reminds them to complete their transaction.
• Third-party integrations with companies. For example, Sprocket and Oberlo make drop-shipping from your Shopify admin no trouble at all.
• Targeted marketing campaigns, where you can adjust the type of discount and coupon you apply to products and send them exclusively to your email list to encourage more sales.
• Cross-selling and up-selling, which will help you drive up the average order value.
• Multi-channel selling, thanks to integration opportunities with apps like Facebook, eBay, and Amazon, can prompt more sales.
• Built-in SEO, including the ability to provide ALT tags, meta descriptions, and title tags which can drive traffic to your website through search engines and increase your conversion rate.
• Analytics and reporting allow you to assess which products are selling well and which products aren’t, so you can adjust your sales strategy accordingly.

Summary

In the same way Google has captured the search market, Shopify is fast approaching a similar position in E-Commerce. Developers have climbed on board providing a multitude of useful add-ons for pretty well every contingency.

Call us now on +44(0)7769977598 to discuss how you wish to approach your Shopify plan. Whether is be self-build with a little advice from us, a middle ground development with us doing the hard bits leaving the rest to you or a full-service option for busy businesses who just want someone to handle the shop for you.

Here is an example of our work. A Rock Merchandise store out of Florida USA. We are based in the UK but can handle business across the globe.

Click here to view site. House of Merch