Shopify Review: What To Notice?

Shopify has flourished since its establishment in 2004, offering users unparalleled functionality alongside a seamless and user-friendly experience. As such, the LitExtension team has diligently researched and crafted this Shopify review to provide you with comprehensive insights into its offerings.

What is Shopify

Shopify functions as a SaaS (software-as-a-service) eCommerce solution, encompassing all the essentials for website creation. Rather than grappling with hosting and technical intricacies, users simply visit the main website, set up an account, and they're good to go.

Launching a Shopify store is hassle-free, regardless of the size of the business. The platform's scalability contributes significantly to its credibility and appeal to users. Offering a vast array of add-ons and integrated features, Shopify ensures exceptional satisfaction, even for expansive stores.

Shopify Review: Is It The Ideal Option?

1. Ease of Use

In terms of ease of use, Shopify stands out as one of the most beginner-friendly platforms available, making it effortless for individuals, especially novices, to initiate their eCommerce ventures efficiently.

During our assessment of Shopify for this review, we enlisted the help of various staff members with diverse technical expertise to test the platform, and none encountered difficulties in constructing a Shopify website. The setup process proved to be incredibly straightforward, with everything neatly organized and logically presented, ensuring that we never felt lost throughout the duration of our Shopify review.

2. Themes

Shopify ranks among the top eCommerce platforms, offering an extensive array of website designs, including both paid and free Shopify themes. Engineered with performance as a priority, all Shopify themes receive acclaim for their impressive speed without compromising on striking and sophisticated aesthetics.

Given the plethora of options available, selecting the right theme might seem daunting; however, Shopify enables users to test their templates indefinitely. Specifically, users need only commence the Shopify free trial and select a theme from the Shopify theme store.

3. Pricing

The platform provides a 3-day complimentary trial granting complete access to its features. While Shopify's pricing plans may appear relatively expensive compared to some alternatives, they become highly cost-effective as your business achieves significant growth by leveraging the robust tools offered by Shopify.

There are 3 main Shopify pricing plans for you to choose from, and here's our thoughts on each of them:

• Basic Shopify: Priced at $39 per month, this plan includes all fundamental eCommerce features. It's an appropriate choice for those who are just starting their business or wish to establish a straightforward online storefront for their existing brick-and-mortar establishment.
• Shopify: This costs $105, and encompasses all the essentials for a burgeoning business. Investing in this package offers additional advantages, such as enhanced reporting capabilities and reduced fees associated with third-party transactions and credit card rates.
• Advanced Shopify: At $399, this plan streamlines the management of a sizable eCommerce enterprise, offering all the premier features of the preceding plans along with exclusive perks like customized reports and the most competitive fees for third-party transactions, shipping, and credit card rates. Additionally, it facilitates tax and duties calculation at the checkout stage.

4. Integrations

Shopify boasts the leading eCommerce app marketplace in the industry, presenting an extensive selection of over 8000 plugins through its Shopify App Store, surpassing the offerings of many other hosted solutions. Furthermore, the platform meticulously assesses each app to ensure seamless operation without compromising your store's speed.

From our analysis and review, the Shopify team excels in aiding users to navigate the vast store by providing options to browse through categories or collections. Their dedication is evident in the creation of a "Staff picks" section featuring apps handpicked by the team themselves.

5. Inventory management

Shopify offers the option to manually add products or import them via CSV files, and it also allows for the import of customer data, orders, and other relevant information.

The process of adding products is straightforward. Simply navigate to the "Products" section on the main dashboard, where you can manage your products. If you haven't added any products yet, Shopify prominently displays a large button for adding one.

You can input all pertinent details about your products, including titles, descriptions, featured images, videos, and more. Features like SKUs and quantity tracking aid in efficient inventory management and automatically indicate when products are out of stock.

6. Payment & Shipping

Shopify provides an extensive selection of over 100 payment processors, potentially surpassing those offered by other platforms. This includes widely recognized names like Stripe, 2Checkout, PayPal, and Authorize.

However, the capability to accept payments in multiple currencies is exclusive to Shopify Payments. With this feature, the system automatically adjusts prices based on current exchange rates. If your business targets international markets and your location is supported by Shopify Payments, this option is worth serious consideration.

We are confident that Shopify offers great flexibility in terms of shipping options. You have the ability to customize your shipping rates, whether it's offering free shipping, a flat rate, or rates based on regions, among other configurations.

7. SEO & Marketing

The success of eCommerce stores largely hinges on effective SEO and marketing strategies for product sales. Regardless of the resources invested in website development, poor Search Engine Optimization and ineffective marketing can adversely impact sales, given that customers are pivotal to any business.

Thankfully, Shopify's SEO capabilities are notably effective. They are sufficient, user-friendly, and have the potential to improve ranking when utilized correctly. Once more, Shopify's user-friendly interface proves advantageous, as most built-in functions are easily accessible without complications.

8. Security

Every Shopify site is equipped with SSL Certificates, ensuring that all data exchanged between you and your customers is encrypted. This enhances trustworthiness by safeguarding sensitive information like credit card details. Furthermore, Shopify is PCI compliant, adhering to security standards for processing credit and debit card information. Additionally, users have the option to implement the Shopify cookies policy generator on their sites.

9. Support

Shopify provides round-the-clock support through phone, email, and live chat, offering a significant advantage over its open-source competitors. The dedicated Shopify support team is known for delivering high-quality assistance with prompt response times.

In addition to direct support, users can utilize resources such as the community forum, help center, and video tutorials. For the utmost support, hiring certified Shopify experts ensures thorough problem resolution and smooth business operation.

Conclusion

In this Shopify review, we've examined the platform's advantages and drawbacks and discussed whether selling on Shopify is worthwhile. However, you can still find more insights in our blog post here .

Hopefully, this article has addressed any uncertainties you may have had about Shopify—an eCommerce powerhouse and a compelling alternative.

As the leading expert in eCommerce migration service, LitExtension recommends Shopify for starting your business. Its high flexibility, extensive app store, reasonable pricing options, and an array of built-in features make it an appealing choice.