What is Shopify?

Shopify is the Apple of e-commerce platforms. For those of you that know me, you will know that is saying a lot. Shopify is in my opinion the best e-commerce platform available for new small and large businesses. It allows you to build online stores quickly and easily. You can sell both physical and digital products. Its themes automatically add a website builder so building a Shopify store visually is not only easy but can be done quickly.

You can manage your inventory and Shopify offers many payment processing options like Paypal, and Shop pay is Powered by Stripe so you can take almost any type of payment including debit and credit cards. You can also easily integrate buy now pay later options like Klarna, Clearpay and LayBuy. Shopify also has an App Store for third-party apps giving your store more functionality. Lastly, they have a great built-in Analytics function to help you better understand and track sales. Did I mention it is a beautiful and clean interface?

Benefits of why to choose Shopify

You don’t need to have any knowledge of code. You don’t need to have any technical knowledge at all. The themes use a simple “drag and drop” page builder style layout. Each theme comes equipped with different functions too, so be sure to try different themes.

I started my e-commerce journey using Woo-Commerce and WordPress. They have no native app and the Shopify iPhone/iPad App is fantastic! You can completely manage the store on the app. You can access the analytics data, manage the orders and update the store from anywhere. You can stay in the loop and have full control of your store even when you are not at your desk. The App makes a satisfying cha-ching sound each time an order comes in. So if you are out and about and hear that noise you will know you are making money.

A user-friendly platform

It doesn’t matter what your technical knowledge and technical skill is, Shopify is designed to be able to be used by anyone. They make it very easy for anyone to set up and manage their online store. Shopify is clean and pretty intuitive. The interface makes it easy to create and manage products. You can manage the orders easily too. You can also create draft orders, even modifying orders so that you can add extra items once a new order comes in.

A wide range of customisation options available

There are many free customisable templates you can use to get started. Before you know it you have a unique and professional-looking store. Shopify has an Apple-like approach with their app store. They will test and check each of the apps that you can add to your store for extra functionality and customisations. Each app allows you to customise the store differently. There is also a selection of themes that offer different functionality built in. With Shopify OS 2.0 new customisations were baked in as standard giving you even more customisation options.

There are many great apps on their Shopify App store. They have over 8,000 apps on their app store. Using a similar approach as Apple every app is checked and tested before they go live in their App store. Shopify says that “each app goes through a 100-checkpoint review before it hits the Shopify App Store” to ensure that there will be no issues. Each App gives you store additional functionality. I will do another blog post in the future with the Apps I have used and experimented with. If for whatever the reason an App doesn’t work as expected and you get in touch with Shopify they will follow up with the App Developers and hold them to account, ensuring any issue is resolved.

Scalability

One of the challenges that comes with an online store is scalability. When you build a website you need to consider the infrastructure. Can it easily support more traffic? Can you keep the site up when it grows in more products, more sales and more pages? This is all taken care of by Shopify as a standard. Knowing that no matter how many people visit your site and buy from you is a real relief. Just think if it is good enough for Gym Shark it will work for you just fine.

Payment Processing

The Shop Pay payment platform is a very complete platform. It is built on Stripe so it accepts all the well-known cards. You can also Paypal. If you are considering not using Paypal, then think again. A lot of the users on the site expect to see Paypal and prefer to pay with Paypal, it makes them feel much more secure when they come to pay and they may also have credit on their Paypal account which they would rather use. To set it up you will need a Paypal business account for it to work on Shopify. You can also set it ip with Amazon Pay. As it works with Stripe as the underlying technology for Shop Pay it also has Apple Pay and Google Pay compatibility. Once a payment is made using Shop Pay it saves it to the user’s Shop Pay account. So they can come back and find your products again. It is all immensely easy to set up, you don’t need to create any accounts, other than a Paypal business account which you would need to do anyway.

With Paypal business there is one thing to keep in mind, the first few transactions may require you to provide proof of delivery via a tracking number of some kind. Paypal wants to see that their customers get their deliveries. Keep this in mind with your first orders to ensure that you getting tracking numbers should they ask for it, which they probably will.

Customer support offered by Shopify

One of my favourite features of Shopify is the customer service and customer support. This is something I have not found with other e-commerce platforms and they offer to all customers. If there is an issue with the site, with the theme or any kind of support that is needed they offer two really good options that I have used frequently. One is a live chat. You can speak to someone in real-time and get support. They seem really friendly and the majority of people I have spoken to have their own Shopify stores too. They also seem really interested in your business. The second option is a call-back feature. You share your number and they will give you a callback. Usually pretty quick call-back time and you can speak to someone on the phone who will answer any and all questions. I have even used this level of support for advise on Apps to install.

Conclusion A. Recap of the benefits of using Shopify

In summary, Shopify as an e-commerce platform is my platform of choice and the one I would suggest you start with. Here are my 10 reasons why:

1. Affordable as a platform to use.
2. Simplicity to get set up and running.
3. Fun to use on mobile, tablet and desktop.
4. User-friendly platform.
5. Continuous development and innovation.
6. Simply and broad customisation with new functions.
7. That addictive cha-ching sound.
8. Scalable, from Ospeka to Gymshark.
9. Large selection of payment options.
10. Personalised customer service and support.

Try Shopify today using the following link: shopify.pxf.io/rQnK73 to get 14 days free to get started and see what you think of the platform. More content to follow on my journey with Shopify from a £1,000 investment to what it is today a £250,000 a year revenue.

Learn more about Yeison Ospina