Shopify is one of the most popular online platforms used to design e-commerce websites. Millions of online stores use Shopify and the number is increasing by the day.
What is Shopify?
While e-commerce is happening in many ways, the two most common channels are marketplaces and online stores. Amazon, ebay and Flipkart are examples of marketplaces while Shopify, Woo commerce and Bigcommerce are examples of e-commerce platforms.
In an e-commerce platform such as Shopify, the business does not have to share a large part of their earnings with anyone else, while marketplaces charge anything upwards of 7% of the sales. Also, once the customer is on your website, with Shopify, you are in complete control whereas you have little choice on marketplaces.
While there are many e-commerce tools/platforms to build your own online store, millions love Shopify for the reasons listed below.
1. Pre-installed and easy to setup
Shopify comes pre-installed and you do not have to do any technical configuration to be able to run an online store with Shopify. Just put your store details, upload your products and you are ready to sell!
2. No technical knowledge needed
Shopify can be used by people with zero technical knowledge , without any difficulties. If you know how to use Facebook, you can use Shopify to sell your products. Not a single piece of custom coding is required in using Shopify as your online store.
3. Customizable design
Shopify websites use themes for wrapping up a design layer on the online store software. The design can be customized very easily using the free themes provided with Shopify. These themes allow you to put your own logo on the store, use the typographic fonts you like, colours and pictures of your liking to pep up the store your way.
4. Customer Support
Shopify has a dedicated customer support if you need any help with making your store online. It also has its own developer community that can help you overcome and trivial issues you may face while customizing the store.
5. Secure Online Store
Shopify is one of the most secure online stores. Since millions of stores depend on security provided by Shopify, they cannot afford to let it lose. Small businesses otherwise have to spend a lot on store security and often find themselves struggling while protecting customer data.
6. Mobile Friendly
Shopify stores are mobile friendly, meaning the websites made using Shopify self-adapt themselves to mobile phone screens to give a pleasant viewing experience to the users.
7. Inbuilt Sale Channels
Shopify comes pre-integrated with Google, Amazon, Facebook and Instagram sales channels. This means you can set up advertising display for your products on all these external platforms without having to leave Shopify ever.
8. SEO & Other Marketing options
Shopify gives you pre-integrated SEO tool for each product. You can easily edit the SEO for your products according to your own preferences. Recently, Shopify has introduced its marketing tools across the plans. These tools help store owners to send emails to groups of customers from within Shopify. The email marketing tool provides reports on how many people have opened the emails and how many actually bought the products via these emails.
9. Payment and Shipping
Shopify has one of the most easily configurable payment processing and shipping options. You can use your own payment gateway or one provided by Shopify. You can also use multiple payment gateways to collect customer payments. Similarly, most popular shipping companies come pre-integrated with Shopify. Customers can view real time shipping costs and make their selection. You can create shipping labels from within Shopify, without ever having to leave the store.
10. Mobile App for management
Shopify has a full featured mobile app that allow, order management, processing, accepting payments, edit products, view sales reports and much more. With the Shopify mobile app, you have the freedom to sell your products while being on the move.
If you are planning to start your online store, get in touch and we will be glad to help you out.
Recommended reading: The Definitive E-commerce Website Launch Checklist
Recommended reading: How to Select The Right Shopping Cart For Your Online Store?
Recommended reading: 10 Reasons to use Woocommerce for your online store
