Shopify: Features, Pricing, Pros & Cons

Shopify is one of the most used e-commerce platforms on the internet. It is an all-in-one e-commerce solution for which you don’t need any technical skills, design knowledge, or significant investment to sell products or services. This means that anyone in the world can build a potentially successful online store with it.

The platform offers over 100 optimized themes for your website and allows you to accept online payments (with credit cards, PayPal, etc.). It also integrates with third-party apps so you can extend your toolkit without slowing down your website.

Overview of Shopify

Shopify is a user-friendly e-commerce platform that helps small businesses build an online store and sell online through one streamlined dashboard. Its merchants can build a modern online store and sell on social media sites, seller marketplaces, other blogs, and websites and via email, text and chat.

In-person selling is a snap on Shopify too, with its built-in point-of-sale (POS) for retail stores, pop-up shops, market sales, and more.

Shopify works by centralizing your product data, customers and operational tasks in one system that connects to all of your sales channels seamlessly. Once the essentials are in place, the platform makes it easy to explore and expand into new product lines and sales channels. On the backend, it has a Storefront Renderer infrastructure that accelerates site speed, making your website load x2.97 faster than the average. It also has built-in SEO features that help you optimize your website for search.

Using Shopify is as easy as registering on their website, following an effortless setup process, and customizing it to your likings with its highly intuitive interface.

How does Shopify work?

Here’s a step-by-step look at how Shopify works from initial set-up to managing sales.

Sign Up for Your Free Shopify 14-day Trial: You can test drive Shopify risk-free for two weeks. Shopify doesn’t even ask for your credit card upfront.
Connect Your Sales Channels: The account setup wizard connects your initial sales channels, which you can change and expand at any time. If you want to sell through your social media accounts, you can connect those in the setup wizard too.
Enter Your Product Data or Find Items to Sell: Enter item details, pricing, and images for products that you make or source yourself. You can also tap into Shopify’s Handshake wholesale network and dropship vendors to find items to sell.
Set Up Your Payments: You can activate Shopify Payments with one click to start accepting payments right away or connect your own payment processor to your dashboard. Shopify supports more than 100 external payment processors.
Set Up Shipping and Taxes: Under the Settings tab, set up your shipping methods and fees and your applicable sales tax information. You can start selling now while you build your Shopify online store.
Set Up Your Shopify Online Store: If you want to sell through your own branded website, your next step is setting up your Shopify online store. Again, Shopify makes this easy with an assortment of plug-and-play themes that require just a bit of setup and added content to make it your own.
Process, Ship and Track Orders: This lets you manage everything within your Shopify dashboard. Shopify’s built-in tools make it easy to set up efficient workflows for managing orders you ship yourself, dropship products, and even virtual items like e-books and music downloads. It also emails order status and shipment tracking information automatically to your customers.

Who is Shopify Best Suited for?

Shopify is a solid platform that is made for anyone to use. And the reason why it stands out is because of how versatile and user-friendly it can be.

With its easy usability, affordable pricing, third-party integration, offline support, and scalability, Shopify can fit almost any business. We can recommend Shopify for:

Great speed and load times
Setting up your business in one afternoon
Third-party apps integrations
Great design
Amazon Integration
Integrated retail POS
SEO features
Social selling features including Buyable Pins, Facebook Shop, and Facebook Messenger

However, if there were a perfect Shopify user, it would be someone who is either starting in the e-commerce space, building a business on a low budget, or both. This is because they would benefit the most from the platform’s user-friendliness, low pricing, and complete kit of features.

On the other hand, an e-commerce expert with years in the industry and significant funding might still benefit from Shopify’s advanced plan.

Advantages of Using Shopify

Quick & easy to set up & use

Shopify offers an easy way to quickly launch an online store without the fuss over servers and development costs that can be incurred with self-hosted platforms such as Magento. The admin interface is clean and user-friendly and pretty intuitive because all the features are logically structured.

You can also find extensive documentation and video guides on the Shopify site. All you really need is a product to sell.

Customizable

There are 160 themes to choose from (free and paid) in the Shopify Theme Store. All of them are mobile responsive, plus hundreds are available on sites such as ThemeForest. Each theme is also fully customizable by editing the code.

Secure & reliable

One of the big advantages of a hosted solution is the reliability it provides. If you have an e-commerce store, you will be dealing with sensitive customer information including credit card details, plus impatient customers. This means your site needs to be fast, secure, and always online.

Shopify will take care of all server maintenance and upgrades to keep your store and shopping cart available at all times and ensure that pages load quickly. You can enable SSL certificates for your store to encrypt all data and pass it through a secure connection. Shopify also takes care of PCI compliance for you (required when you deal with credit cards).

Mobile ready

With mobile visits to websites now higher than desktop, it is essential, not optional, to have a mobile-optimised site. Luckily Shopify knows this. All of Shopify’s themes are mobile responsive and the platform includes a free built-in mobile commerce shopping cart, meaning your store looks great on all devices and your customers can shop freely wherever they are.

In addition, there are free iPhone and Android apps that let you manage your store on the go.

Functional app store

Shopify’s app store is a treasure trove of functionality that you can add to your shop. You can add reviews, loyalty programmes, and customer wishlists. You can also get in-depth analytics, print labels and packing slips, and integrate with accounting software, shipping programs, and social media sites. All the marketing apps are also available.

With over 1,500 to choose from, it is likely there is an app for whatever you want to do. But note that whilst many are free, over half are paid.

No tech worries

As stated above, you do not need any technical expertise to launch a basic Shopify store. The platform provides all software and hosting.

Not only does this make it easier to get up and running, but it is likely that Shopify’s hosting will be faster and more secure than you could achieve alone. It will also easily accommodate any spikes in traffic you might receive.

Shopify also takes care of all software updates so you can focus all your efforts on selling and not worry about technical issues.

24/7 customer support

Shopify is big on customer support. They are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the response time is fairly instant. This means your business is never on its own.

You can get in touch via phone, email, or web chat. There are also a number of community forums, extensive documentation in the Shopify Help Centre, and a range of advanced Shopify University guides.

Abandoned cart recovery

What happens if a visitor to your store places a product in their shopping basket but leaves without buying it? According to statistics, over two-thirds of potential customers will do this. Shopify offers an abandoned checkout cart recovery service that automatically tracks and emails these potential customers to remind them to complete their purchases.

This is an easy way to potentially generate more revenue.

SEO & Marketing tools

Having a beautiful online shop means nothing if no one visits. Another of Shopify’s big selling points is its powerful Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) features that will help your website rank higher in search results so customers can find you. You also have access to advanced analytics to tell you where your customers are coming from so you can tailor your marketing accordingly.

The app store gives you access to a huge range of marketing tools including social media integration, product reviews, and email marketing. As standard, Shopify allows you to create discount codes. Gift vouchers are available at the next level up. Social media icons are included in all themes.

And if you’re a bit overwhelmed by digital marketing and the time it could take, Shopify Kit has been designed to help. It acts like a virtual employee, recommending and executing marketing tasks based on your products, audience and store performance.

Shopify Prices and Cost

Here’s the official Shopify pricing table for the premium plans:

The difference between these pricing plans is quite high as they’re designed for different segments and the size of the business.

Shopify Pricing Reviews 2023	Shopify Basic	Shopify	Shopify Advanced
Monthly Price – $/month	$29	$79	$299
1 Years Price – $/month	$26.10	$71.10	$269.10
Savings (%)	10%	10%	10%
2 Years Price – $/month	$23.20	$63.20	$239.20
Savings (%)	20%	20%	20%

However, the cost of using Shopify isn’t limited to the plan you choose. There are premium themes, features, and third-party apps that you’ll probably need to keep your store efficient that you’re not accounting for.

The 14-Day Free Trial

Shopify offers a 14-day free trial that unlocks all the features. This way, you can test the platform thoroughly with no commitments and decide whether or not it’s a fit for you. You can even create an account just to play around with the platform and cancel your trial account once you’ve made a decision.

Shopify Lite

This is for if you already have a website or blog. The Lite plan allows you to implement a catalog of products for $9/month. You can accept credit cards and include a lite POS app for offline sales. You can add as many products as you need.

It works with WordPress, Squarespace, Tumblr, and any other platform where you’re hosting your online presence.

Shopify Basic

This option is the most recommended for anyone who wants to launch a new online store. It will come with the basic features to host your website with a custom domain name, accept payments, and handle the technical backend of your store.

As part of the $29 / month price tag, you get access to:

Shopify’s online store module.
The Point Of Sale (POS) system for offline sales.
The Facebook and Pinterest modules, which allow you to sell directly on Facebook and Pinterest.
Multilingual and multicurrency support.
Shipping support.
Unlimited products.
Sales channels on marketplaces and social media.

Shopify Standard

Unlike the basic plan, the standard plan adds more features that will help you manage your business more efficiently. Giving you access to features such as:

Standard analytics reports to track your business performance, weak points, and opportunities for improvements.
A lower fee from Shopify payments.
The ability to add international domains and pricing.
A higher number of staff accounts to increase the size of your team.
Shipping discounts up to 88%.

Despite being more than double in price compared to the basic plan, this plan is worth it if your business is in the right size. This is so your reports can make a significant impact on how you’ll direct and market your online store.

Advanced Shopify

The most expensive plan ($299/month) expands on key features that will allow you to grow and scale your business further. For example:

You’ll have access to the custom report builder. Which has advanced features to collect more data, track nuanced metrics, and come up with insights that will potentially help you scale your business indefinitely.
Includes advanced reports to segment your customer base, attribute revenue to your sales channels, and optimize your store.
Comes with third-party calculated shipping rates that are more accurate. So you can be more transparent with your customers when it comes to shipping costs and offer more shipping options (standard, express, and one-day).
Up to 15 staff accounts to manage your business. Which is enough for building a decent-sized company.

This plan is almost quadruple the standard plan and ten times more expensive than the basic plan only for the analytics. So it only makes sense to take the extra cost when your business has grown enough and business decisions become more impactful.

What is the Best Shopify Plan?

The best plan to start with is the basic $29/month plan, which will offer everything you need to set up a 100% functional online store. You’ll naturally upgrade your plan as your business grows.

However, if you have the experience and you’re building a very specific business. Then you’d be more likely to choose a more advanced plan from the start in order to grow more quickly.

Table of Contents Hide

Overview of Shopify

How does Shopify work?

Who is Shopify Best Suited for?