With the current increase in the number of accessible online building tools, selecting the appropriate one can be overwhelming. I assume you are here today because you are familiar with the giant, popular, and top eCommerce solutions, Shopify, skeptical if it is ideal for you.
Our review today will look into all the questions you have been asking yourself about Shopify, and by the time we are through, you will have made up your mind. But before that, let’s know Shopify is.
Table of Contents
Shopify Founding, Market Cap, and What It Does
Founded in 2004, Shopify is an Ontario-based (Canada) web app that enables you to build your personal online store without coding skills. It offers a variety of customizable themes to suit your branding requirements and lets you vend their digital or physical products.
The company is the brainchild of Scott Lake, Tobias Lütke, and Daniel Weinand. With a market cap of 121.51 billion, Shopify currently includes over 200k merchants with online stores under their platforms, plus over $10bn merchandize volume.
Tobias Lütke is Shopify’s CEO.
Are Shopify Stores Legit and Safe?
That’s a common question among many people. Yes, Shopify is a legit eCommerce platform that is useful in building online stores, and it is also certified Level 1 PCI DDS compliant, which means it’s safe and secure.
How Shopify Dropshipping Works
For those new to online stores, dropshipping refers to a supply chain management technique in which the retailer transfers client’s orders and shipment details to wholesalers, who then ship the goods to relevant customers.
Shopify approaches dropshipping in two ways. One is by seeking out a supplier situated in North America or elsewhere globally via supplier databases. Alternatively, it looks for a Shopify app that links you and your store to a bunch of suppliers.
We suggest Orbelo for the second method, a Shopify-developed marketplace that aids individual business proprietors find products to sell. With the click of a button, you can use Orbelo’s automated process to import your preferred products from AliExpress to your store.
All you have to do as the buyer is ensure you check the order details and click on the Order button.
How Shopify Makes Money
Shopify makes most of its money from subscription solutions which come in three separate plans. the Basic plan costs $29/m and includes a card reader, capacity to sell unlimited products, 24/7 customer support, a discount code engine, and fraud analysis.
The Professional and Unlimited plans cost $79/m and $179/m simultaneously, and include real-time carrier shipping, ability to sell gift cards, and an abandoned cart recovery. You also get professional reports and a progressive report builder.
In 2014, Shopify launched Shopify Plus subscription plan, tailored for merchants with higher volume sales and extra functionality needs. It includes unlimited bandwidth, a scalable SaaS platform, and more than seventy (70) payment gateways. The subscription does not include any specific price.
Subscription solutions revenues constituted 63.5% of Shopify’s total income in 2014, and $25.5 million in the second quarter of 2015.
How Shopify Payouts Works
An order is not instantly added to a payout when it is placed on your store, not until the business day (24 – 72 hours) ends. Yet, you can click Settings > Payments > Shopify Payments Payouts > Transactions, and find the payment.
How Shopify Payments Works/ How Shopify Pays You
The easiest way to accept online payment is via Shopify Payments. It removes the stress of putting up a merchant account with a third-party payment provider, and keying in your account info on Shopify. Payouts are accessible in the Shopify Admin as it is fully combined with your store.
Payments are synchronized with their orders, such that you use a card rate via Shopify Payments without paying a subscription transaction fee. If your store uses third-party payment provider pay both credit card fees and Shopify’s subscription transaction fees.
When Do I Get Paid/ When Does Shopify Pay You?
The payment period is five days, in addition to the number of remaining days until Friday. For instance, if your client places an order on your store on Tuesday, the order’s money is banked to your account on Friday, next week, nine days later.
Can Shopify Integrate with Amazon and eBay?
Yes, you can sell on any eBay and Amazon 40 global marketplace directly from your store using Amazon & eBay by Codisto app, from $29/m, 14-day free trial. Additional charges might apply. Codisto includes a completely-featured multichannel solution and inventory & pricing synchronization.
Codisto has four pricing plans, including Flexi ($29/m), Starter ($59/m), Pro ($99/m), and Elite ($249/m). Each plan has unlimited listings, orders, and Amazon & eBay Marketplaces.
Can Shopify Make You Rich?
No, Shopify is not going to make you rich, it just makes setting up an online store easy even with no money. While you will not succeed with the sales you make, eventually you will prosper and within a year or less, you will become rich.
Assuming you open ten stores running on autopilot, if each store earns $10,000/m (which is possible), you will be a millionaire in a year depending on the margins.
When Does Shopify Report Earnings?
Shopify’s report earnings were made on July 29, 2020 for the period ending June 2020.
Will Stock Split or Go Up?
Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) reported Q1 earnings in early May which were robust enough to cause 5% pop in SHOP stock to top highs capping $700.
Shopify for Beginners
Online store service providers for eCommerce online service include useful features including user-friendly apps and interface, dropshipping, and do everything for you. Yet, these services might make the platform seem complex, right?
If you are a beginner in online eCommerce platform and have less acquaintance with web coding or development, worry not. Shopify offers a complete eCommerce web builder that has customizable templates to help you set-up an online presence for your business.
eCommerce platform is a venture you want to be sure before you spend your hard-earned dollars. Shopify offers a 14-day free trial so you can test out their services, useful and informational articles, set-up process help, and reliable customer support just in case.
Shopify for Artists
If you advance past the Starter plan, Shopify can become very pricey as there are other extra paid-for apps. Yet, it is an ideal choice for sharing your artistic talents with the public. It includes intuitive tools, free training, and dedicated client support to help you grow your artwork.
You can scale your sales with features such as more than 4,100 Shopify custom apps to help create sale experience and flexible selling that keeps track of sales and inventory via its POS App.
Shopify for Charities
Shopify enables you to develop an impressive storefront that allows for the preferred representation of your charity or NGO and includes a 14-day free trial. Charity-personalized online stores help your advocates stand loud and proud via purchasing t-shirts and other branded products.
Many foundations, NGOs, and charities use Shopify to run their fundraisers as it easily accepts donations, and vend products globally. As such, this increases the awareness for your charity’s cause and initiatives.
Shopify offers excellent rates for charities plus the ability to maintain a stream of sales and donations that helps power your charity cause. Intuitive reports enable you to track and evaluate growth in actual-time.
Shopify to WooCommerce
WooCommerce is as robust as Shopify, but offers more control than its counterpart, as you can decide who hosts your online store. However, WooCommerce is not beginner-friendly and overlooks some features in its core system.
.0Connecting Shopify to WooCommerce is easy and requires no coding experience. You can use Zapier to connect them automatically and send info between the two platforms. To use this integration, you just need to verify Shopify and WooCommerce, choose an app as an activator. You can then select a follow-on action from the other application, and choose the data you need to transfer or send.
Which Shopify Plan is Best?
In our opinion, going past Shopify Basic plan calls for additional costs that makes it high. The Basic plan offers a lot of useful features, including reliable customer support (absent in many other providers).
The snapshot below shows the three main Shopify pricing plans.
However, depending on your business needs, you can choose the most appropriate plan, but keep in mind that this means incurring higher costs than the one listed. You can see more details about these plans on Shopify’s website here.
Who Are Shopify’s Competitors/ Alternatives?
From free services specifically made to support small businesses to giant eCommerce systems with advanced tech, Shopify competitors are available in a range of different kinds. As such, choosing the accurate eCommerce solution for your online store can be difficult.
When selecting the appropriate software, you will never find a no one-size-fits-all strategy. So, what should you look for from the plethora of options?
- Cost – this depends on the features you expect from your preferred platform. Some will even offer a free plan for dummies.
- Size – what size of business is your eCommerce platform designed to support? Startups, SMBs, or giant stores?
- Type – Shopify, for instance, is available in several styles, from hosted solutions to open-source software.
- Simplicity – is the platform user-friendly? Are there tutorials, informational articles, or set-up guides?
- Support – customer support is critical when choosing an eCommerce software. So, how available and responsive is it?
- Plugins – can you include additional functionality to the experience as your business grows?
- Payment Processing – are your preferred payment methods offered by the platform? Any fees that you should know of?
As mentioned above, some eCommerce platforms are suitable for larger stores than others. As such, we shall split Shopify alternatives/competitors into those tailored for large businesses and small ones.
Shopify Alternatives for Big Businesses
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a popular eCommerce software solution that contains everything you require to grow effect online business. Its Standard Plan costs $29.95 with robust features, perfect for B2B eCommerce. BigCommerce does not rely on plugins and apps for excellent customer experience.
The company launched a WordPress plugin that allows merchants to increase their sales strategy with a blogging approach. Features include unlimited product listings, no transaction fees, abandoned cart saving and recovery, and backend marketing tools.
Magneto
Magneto earns the title of top Shopify competitor and has been there even before BigCommerce and Shopify came to existence. It is a reliable SaaS option that offers the freedom to build exciting shopping experiences with rich performance, unlimited product uploads, and security.
Magneto Commerce includes a section of Adobe Commerce cloud experience that connects you with a global network of developers, partners, and dealers, all aimed at your business’ growth. In terms of business intelligence, order management, and market support, Magneto is beneficial for giant businesses.
Shopify Alternatives for Small Businesses
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source solution and top eCommerce solution for WP sites that includes add-ons for greater experience and easier monetization. You can adjust some of your platform’s abilities if your small business has developers, a customization you cannot achieve with Shopify.
Being an open-source solution means you are responsible for your store’s hosting, security, and compliance. But you are assured of a large community of experts to help you build and maintain your store.
From SEO management to Google Analytics, WooCommerce is compatible with other WP plugins, and has shipping and tax management add-ons.
PrestaShop (Free Shopify Competitor)
PrestaShop is an incredible free and open-source platform and great Shopify alternative for smaller companies. It’s designed to aid individuals to open their online startups within minutes, and includes everything to help you tap the eCommerce world.
Like WooCommerce, PrestaShop profits from a dynamic and dedicated developer community to ensure your business’ growth with CRM tools. PrestaShop incudes unlimited access to the core software code, but you will need to setup your security, compliance needs, and hosting.
Others include 3D Cart, Volusion, Squarespace, Big Cartel, Wix, and Weebly.
Why Shopify is Bad/Cons
While Shopify is a great online store platform, it has its downfalls as well, including:
- Includes a free trial but NO free plan
- Extra transaction fees for utilizing external gateways
- Transaction costs
- Lacks B2B abilities
- Customization is limited to platform abilities and themes
- Customer support might delay before response
Shopify to Squarespace
To switch from Shopify to Squarespace, go to your Shopify Admin > Settings > Import, and on this page (import your data into Shopify), choose Squarespace from the drop-down menu. Click on Add File in the Upload Files section, select the exported files, and click on Continue Import > Import.
Shopify to Etsy
Etsy marketplace integration helps you to manage inventory, orders, listings, and more on Etsy.com. The application was developed with an ultimate focus on offering a 100% growth scope to sellers. It includes a 7-day free trial, unlimited orders management, and up to 10 product listing.
You can get the Etsy app here and you can follow these steps to integrate Shopify with Etsy.
You just need to set-up your Shopify store, create an Etsy marketplace seller account, install some product feed management like ExportFeed, and connect your Etsy store with your Shopify shop via the plugin. You can then choose the products you wish to upload to Etsy.
Shopify without Dropshipping
Dropshipping simplifies seller’s ability to launch eCommerce stores without the need to make products, maintain inventory, or manage shipments. Shopify is not tailored for dropshipping only, but rather is an eCommerce platform that you can use to create your eCommerce site and start selling your products.
Depending on the size and needs of your business, dropshipping can either be expensive or appropriate.
Shopify to Credit Cards and PayPal
When selling products on your Shopify shop/store, you can receive payment via both credit cards and PayPal. To set-up credit card payment, activate Shopify Payments by setting up a credit card provider on your account and click Complete account set-up. After that, enter your store and banking credentials and Save.
PayPal is among Shopify’s default payment providers, but it’s not mandatory to use it with Shopify. Click this video to set-up a PayPal account on Shopify.
Shopify vs WooCommerce
Overall, Shopify beats WooCommerce in terms of features and user-friendliness. WooCommerce is an ideal choice if you have an existing WordPress website and adore its plugins, require multilingual support, SEO-oriented, and working on a tight budget.
If you also are not bothered by scalability and speed, WooCommerce seems a wonderful choice for you.
But if you adore speed, scalability, simplicity, reliable customer support, and don’t mind about the dollars you will spend, Shopify is what you are looking for. It has a user-friendly interface for easy set-up, and includes robust features that prioritize your online store’s growth.
Shopify vs Etsy
From a distance, both platforms seem familiar, but there must be something that differentiates them. Both platforms are PCI compliant systems and offer SSK certificates, and are reliable. Shopify offers better payment options (no transaction fees), but they draw in their pricing.
Etsy is a free and open-source solution that is ideal for beginners with minimal inventory, and offers you a subdomain. Shopify, on the other hand, requires you to register your domain and hosting. In terms of customizability and designs, they almost draw, but Shopify wins on customizability, while Etsy prevails on design.
Shopify is ideal for large businesses as it offers a high-quality inventory system that enables apt tracking and stock analyzation. If it’s hard to choose between them, you can Etsy marketplace integration with your Shopify store (covered above).
Shopify vs BigCommerce
In our opinion, this is the hardest comparison as both BigCommerce and Shopify are excellent choices. They both offer similar features and pricing plans (with differences in pricing details), and it depends on your preferred features.
Shopify has a better third-party network, as you have access to a dynamic community of developers, freelancers, and designers with Shopify expertise. It is also beginner-friendly compared to BigCommerce.
On the other hand, BigCommerce offers intuitive features without the need to upgrade on the app store. If you opt for a granular-level tinker for your store, BigCommerce is a fantastic choice.
Shopify Apps/ Apps Store
Shopify recognizes that each business that each business is unique. As such, it offers apps that are specifically tailored for your business and created apps such as GoBD-Export, Offset, Geolocation, Shopify, and more. Click here to visit Shopify Apps Store for more information.
Shopify Affiliate Program
The Shopify Affiliate Program comprises of educators, entrepreneurs, influencers, content creators, and other people who refer their commercial audience to Shopify. You can join the program for free, become an affiliate, and monetize your audience to earn commissions from new referrals. We included Shopify’s affiliate program in our list of high-paying affiliates.
Shopify Businesses for Sale
Purchasing a website is like capitalizing in online real estate, and if you choose and maintain an eCommerce business carefully, you can grow and succeed without starting from scratch. Currently, there are over 10k eCommerce stores for sale and Shopify’s Exchange app offers a marketplace for merchants to sell and buy their Shopify stores.
The Exchange app from Shopify pulls info such as revenue and traffic data from Shopify to allow merchants list their online stores for sale. This, of course, triggers security anxieties, but you can be sure that a seller cannot edit the store’s data.
Stores vary from start-ups to fruitful eCommerce stores, and so do prices, with Starter stores costing $50 and six-figure empires at $1m plus.
Shopify Contact No/ UK
Shopify provides 24/7 customer support via email, phone, and live chat.
Shopify services are also available in the UK with Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify plans for small businesses and dropshipping stores. The Basic plan costs £22, a 1.9% + 20p transaction fee.
Shopify Domain
Shopify custom domains start at $11/year. Once you purchase the domain, Shopify automatically sets it up for you, and you retain the ownership even after migrating your site. However, Shopify does not offer email accounts in its domain services. Instead, it offers unlimited email forwarding accounts for your domain name.
Shopify Discount Code
Shopify allows you to create discount codes that offer your clients a fixed percentage, value, or shipping on your store’s products, warrants, and collections. All Shopify pricing plans have discount codes, with 20 million unique discount codes limitation for each store.
When discount codes are set-up, you can utilize the Sales by Discount report to their application. Click here to create discount codes on Shopify.
Shopify Email Marketing
Shopify Email offers email marketing designed for eCommerce for free to use until October 1, 2020 for merchants. It allows you natively to create, send, and track email marketing campaigns within Shopify Marketing.
Shopify allows you to currently send up to 2,500 emails/month for free, and $1 for every 1000 emails you send per month.
Shopify GDPR
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) affects any European-based Shopify merchants and stores that serve clients within the region. As of May 25, 2018, Shopify has been looking into being GDPR-compliant to help merchants comply with the law.
Shopify fulfils its obligations as a data processor under the GDPR and offers merchants a platform that can be configured to be GDPR compliant. However, you must think about how you want to operate your business.
Shopify GraphQL
GraphQL ranks as the tech of choice that Shopify uses to create APIs, which may seem confusing at first if REST APIs are your preferred choice. When you start using GraphQL, you need to change your perception towards data retrieval and usage.
Visit Shopify developers’ site to learn more on GraphQL benefits and other crucial things you should know about GraphQL.
Shopify Google Tag Manager
Your Shopify Plus online store can use the Google Tag Manager, but you must make sure that you use Shopify’s integration for Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics rather than using them with Google Tag Manager.
You also must copy the code snippets provided by Google Tag Manager into your checkout.liquid and theme.liquid theme files. Click here to learn more on how to add Google Tag Manager code to your theme and installation verification.
Shopify Inventory Management
Inventory refers to the quantity of a certain product that’s available for sale. Inventory tracking is useful in reminding you when to order more stock or make, and avoid selling products that are out of stock.
Shopify’s Inventory section can help you set-up inventory tracking, watch your inventory, and regulate your inventory counts. Shopify also allows you to view the inventory’s adjustments history and tracking.
Shopify Print-on-Demand
Print-on-demand refers to a process where a store-owner works with a supplier to personalize white-label products with his designs to sell them under their brand on a per-order basis. Shopify offers all the tools you need to start a print-on-demand business.
Shopify Partners
The Shopify Partner Program refers to a diverged group of developers, designers, affiliates, and marketers who use Shopify platform to create eCommerce sites, apps, and themes. Shopify offers its partners three excellent techniques to grow their business and make ongoing monthly income.
The techniques include referring clients to Shopify, build eCommerce themes and publish theme and create Shopify apps then publish them in the Shopify Theme Store.
Shopify QuickBooks
Shopify’s QuickBooks are useful in allowing you to seamlessly export your entire Shopify sales to QuickBooks, directly from your Admin. You order data with a single click (plus taxes and items) during the exportation.
Shopify IP Address
Are you setting up an existing domain? You need to set you’re a record to Shopify’s IP address which is 23.227.38.65.
Shopify Inspector
Shopify Commerce Inspector allows you to trace product launches, traffic sales, ad campaigns, best sellers, apps, and more on Shopify stores. Click here for more info.
Shopify Image Resizer
Shopify offers a free online image resizer that helps you perfect your product’s photography. The optimizer tool to resize your images as per web optimization to suit a variety of apps, whether for your online store’s product photo, e-newsletter, or social media profile.
Shopify Kylie Jenner
Kylie Jenner is an American media socialite, personality, businesswoman, and model. Kylie uses Shopify to manage her business and host her site. The company, Kylie Cosmetics, is currently worth $800m (Forbes).
Shopify JavaScript
Shopify themes do not include JavaScript, perhaps on other installed apps (besides yours) that might have their JavaScript.
Shopify Nameservers
A nameserver refers to a stand-by computer that answers questions about your site’s location. An A record, on the other hand, denotes the piece of info that the nameserver stores that links your domain name with an IP address.
A CNAME record refers to a different piece of info the nameserver can store that links a name with another name. To point the domain at your Shopify store and be visible in search engines, you must change this set-up so that the ultimate A record will point at Shopify IP.
Shopify Narrative Theme
Narrative is free impactful theme that is designed for product and brand storytelling. Narrative theme features include fixed navigation, vertical slideshow, a wide layout, user-friendly design, social media icons, updates, SEO, and Hero video. Click here for more info.
Shopify Xero
Bold Commerce’s Shopify Integrations enables you to sync your orders automatically your Shopify orders to Xero. Discounts, taxes, and sales are automatically exported to help you keep an eye on your eCommerce business performance.
Shopify XML Sitemap
All Shopify stores automatically creates a sitemap.xml file includes links to all your products, pages, product images, blog posts, and collections. It is useful for search engines like Google in indexing your website to help the pages of your store to feature in search results.
Click here to learn more on Shopify XML sitemap.
Shopify Zapier
Shopify integrates with Zapier to enable you connect with more than 2,000 apps to automate your tasks and find productivity influence, including MailChimp, Salesforce, and more.
Shopify Zendesk
Shopify integrates with the Zendesk app to automatically set-up the Shopify app in Zendesk to display essential Shopify data to clients and sales reps. It is useful in marketing your online store’s services.
Shopify Zoho
With a single Zoho Inventory, you can integrate over one Shopify store which allows you to sync orders and items from your entire online stores into Zoho Inventory at once.
Shopify Chat
Shopify Chat is the ideal method for online shoppers to communicate with a brand, answer questions, and make recommendations for an improved shopping experience. This, in turn, changes your site visitors into clients. Chat works with Shopify Ping, a free mobile app, including iOS, Android, and iPad.
My name is Nate Reiner and I am the editor here at 10Webtools. I have 8 years of experience using 50+ different web tools ranging from podcast, web hosting, email marketing, and much more. I previously managed a team offering support services to a large conglomerate that utilized tens of software solutions. I now run this blog full-time and when I am not reviewing or testing software, I enjoy riding bikes and supporting my clients achieve internet success. You can reach me directly at [email protected]