Shopify is a platform that provides entrepreneurs with the tools they need to create an online store. It’s simple to use, has a wide range of features, and is a leading ecommerce platform on the market.
It is a great platform to start an eCommerce business to sell anything. but it may not be the best fit for you. Like any platform, Shopify has its own share of advantages and disadvantages over others.
So, let’s look at some of these points before you make a decision.
Advantages of Shopify
- Ease of Use: One of the biggest advantages of Shopify is its ease of use. Even if you have no prior experience with website design or coding, you can create a professional-looking online store with Shopify. The platform is extremely user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy to add products, set up shipping and payment options, and customize your store’s design.
- Wide Range of Features: Shopify offers a wide range of features to help you run your online store effectively. From marketing and SEO tools to product management and sales reports, Shopify has everything you need to sell online successfully.
- Apps & Plugins: If you need more advanced features and functionalities, hundreds of apps are available in the Shopify App Store that you can add to your store with a click. From store designing, sales, and marketing to inventory management, and conversion optimization, you can find apps for everything you need. (Read: Best Shopify apps)
- Paid & free themes: Are you not a skilled designer or developer? No worries, Shopify offers plenty of pre-designed themes you can easily customize to fit your brand guidelines. Moreover, you can find thousands of themes on marketplaces like ThemeForest.
- Multiple Payment Processors: Whichever payment method you want to offer to your customers in any part of the world, you can most like find a supporting payment gateway. It supports multiple payment options via third-party payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and other international and regional processors. ( Read: How to add multiple payment methods to Shopify)
- SEO-friendly: Shopify makes optimizing your store for search engine rankings easy. It allows you to add custom titles and meta descriptions on every page and supports 3rd-party SEO apps to automate SEO optimization of the store pages and images.
- High Scalability: Shopify supports the growth of its merchants in every possible way. From increasing the warehousing locations to staff accounts, you can increase it by opting for higher plans. You can also migrate your store to its enterprise option, Shopify plus, for a high level of customization and scalability. (Read: Shopify vs Shopify plus)
- Excellent Support: Another big advantage of using Shopify is its excellent customer support. If you ever have any questions or run into any problems while using the platform, you can contact their support team 24/7
Disadvantages of Shopify
There are a few disadvantages of Shopify to be aware of.
- Limited Customization: Shopify is a closed platform, which means that you are limited to the choices they offer and cannot make any changes to the code. This can be restrictive for some businesses in terms of customization.
- Transaction Fees: If you don’t use Shopify Payments, an in-house payment system, which is not available in the majority of countries, you will have to bear transaction fees on every online sale. ( Read: How much does Shopify take per sale?)
- Expensive: The platform can be expensive for small businesses as you have to pay for its monthly plan, and then you also need to pay for app subscriptions and transaction fees.
So, do you think Shopify is the right platform to start your eCommerce business? Sign up for its free trial and enjoy the next 3 months at just $1/month to experience the platform yourself.
Once you sign up, you can follow our Shopify beginners tutorial for a step-by-step guide to building a Shopify store.