Shopify Review
Stunning, secure & full featured websites
Create a website in minutes
A fully customizable website builder
Certified Level 1 PCI compliant for safety
Pros & Cons
- 3-day free trial
- Getting started is super easy and fast
- Shipping integrations with major vendors is easy
- Certified Level 1 PCI compliant
- Powerful analytical features
- Not a multi-lingual platform
Plans & Pricing
Special offer: Start a free trial and enjoy 3 months of Shopify for $1/month on select plans
Shopify offers the following packages:
Starter: This package costs $5 per month.
Basic Shopify: This package costs $39 along with credit card rates. Features include free SSL certificate, website and blog, discount codes and manual order creation etc.
Shopify: The Shopify package costs $105 per month and comes with all the basic Shopify package features along with gift cards and professional reports.
Advanced Shopify: The advanced Shopify package is priced at $399 per month and it includes all of the Shopify package features along with advanced report builder and third-party shipping calculation rates.
Overview
Offering an easy-to-use interface and an impressive number of tools and features, Shopify.com is one of the most popular online store builders today. The greatest part about Shopify is that it is a one-stop shop that covers all your eCommerce website building needs in a professional and secure manner.
Features & Functionality
Themes
There are more than 100 Shopify themes, and all of them have been created by world-renowned designers like Pixel Union and Clearleft. The mobile-friendliness makes it easy for customers to make purchases directly from their mobiles or tablets.
Products Listing and Inventory Management
Shopify provides online shops owners with professional tools to track all items they have in stock. The platform’s new POS system also enables you to sync online and offline inventory. If you are looking for more advanced features, the App Store has plenty of add-ons to help you improve your online store’s functionality. A central dashboard gives you a holistic overview of your online business by providing you details pertinent to sales, orders, and traffic.
Marketing Tools
When it comes to marketing your online store built with Shopify, you will certainly appreciate its easy integration features, especially the ability to sync between your eCommerce website and popular social media or retail platforms like Facebook, Rakuten, and eBay. This way, you can extend your potential market and benefit from even more exposure without having to invest extra effort or time. Another important feature when trying to sell your products online, search engine optimization is easily performed thanks to Shopify’s built-in tools. You can enter meta titles, keywords and descriptions without having to make special setups. You can create different versions of the same page using canonicals, and check your keywords density on each particular page.
Payment Options
Shopify has a built-in credit cards processing system, which enables you not to go through a 3rd party processor like PayPal, Stripe or Authorize.net. However, their system allows the integration of a variety of payment gateways, including the above-mentioned options.
Safety
Professional and secure, the Shopify system enables eCommerce website owners to build PCI and DSS Level 1 compliant product pages. Your customers won’t have to worry about credit card data being kept and falling in the wrong hands. The safety of all online stores built with Shopify is ensured by the use of 128-bit SSL encrypted technology.
Design & Templates
Building a good looking e-commerce website with Shopify is really easy as they offer a good collection of professional website design templates, featuring different pages and posts formats. Moreover, all templates are easily customizable, providing you with full control over your online shop’s look, including the color scheme and the layout. Only a few of Shopify’s website design templates are free, though. However, they all come with different versions and multiple page formats, which translates in reality into a variety of design options. If you have advanced HTML and CSS skills, you can also build your own website design. Shopify’s resources and documentation are very helpful in both cases. However, if you decide to build your own theme from scratch, you should have some prior web design knowledge and experience.
Ease of Use
Being such a popular eCommerce platform, Shopify.com has set into place a professional customer support system. A comprehensive manual is available on their site, answering many of the questions you might have. There is also a forum, where you can interact with other eCommerce websites owners and developers. Shopify’s agents are also available 24/7 via live chat, email or phone, should you choose to contact them directly.
Customer Support
Shopify is really easy to use and offers the amazing feature of managing your shop from your phone and even your watch. This is available on iOS and Android. The Shopify Storefront Editor is simple to navigate and editing is a snap!
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24/7 Help & Support
The Shopify support team is available 24/7 by email, live chat and phone. -
Phone Support
You can give them a call using either their North America, UK, Australia or New Zealand number. -
Live Online Chat
You can chat directly with Shopify support and get help with your questions. You can also send them a Tweet on Twitter. -
Email
Email support is available. -
Video Tutorials
There are visual guides available as well as many video tutorials. There are also webinars. -
FAQ
The FAQ comes in the form of questions & solutions. You ask a question and a list of possible solutions appear. -
Community Forum
There are many different forums available. -
Blog
There is a large blog available with many useful articles.
Final Word
All in all, Shopify is a powerful eCommerce website building tool, providing good value for your money. An all-in-one platform, Shopify offers online store owners a variety of features that can help to improve the site’s performance and boost sales.