What is Shopify? Why are more people using it?

Nowadays, online merchants are no stranger to Shopify, one of the most popular eCommerce platforms. If you plan to start a business, Shopify should be the top choice in your mind. Today, we’re going to share with you important information about Shopify including its features & pricing, and figure out why this platform is on the trending now. Maybe after that, you can know Whether Shopify is suitable for you or not.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that allows users to create their own online stores to sell their products. Merchants can manage products and inventory, payments, and shipping easily, and an Internet connection is enough to sell on multiple channels. Particularly, it’s a cloud-based and hosted platform, so you don’t have to worry about managing and updating your software and web servers.

What can Shopify do for your store?

Shopify store owners can get all the following features:

• Customize and brand fully an online store, website, and blog with free and paid themes.
• Sell unlimited products and upload unlimited files and photos.
• Sell on various sales channels like Facebook, Amazon, Instagram, and Pinterest.
• Provide more than 100 payment gateways.
• Improve your store and your business with third-party apps that serve all your needs.
• Support 24/7 on email, live chat, and phone call. With email support, Shopify offers 20 languages and English in live chat and phone support.

How much does Shopify cost you?

Shopify requires businesses to pay recurring payments to experience its amazing features, with 3 main plans as below:

• Basic Shopify: $29/month 
• Shopify: $79/month 
• Advanced Shopify: $299/month 

Moreover, Shopify also provides two specific plans: Shopify Plus and Shopify Lite. While Shopify Plus is the most expensive plan that is used by big companies and enterprises, Shopify Lite is the cheapest version that is suitable for one product stores or businesses managed by individuals.

Shopify Lite users spend $9/month to start selling by adding their products to any website and blog with “click” buttons. With Shopify Plus, merchants will start from $2000/month. It costs businesses enormously but they can enjoy tons of great features to leverage the eCommerce system.

5 Reasons why more and more people are using Shopify

At first, we quickly see some amazing statistics, especially the number of merchants, that show overall the development of Shopify: 

• Shopify has over 1 million businesses across 175 countries, and it is the third top e-commerce platform with a market share of 20%. From 5 years from 2015 to 2019, the number of businesses increased from 243 thousand to 1 million merchants, grew more than 300%. 
• 2019 revenue: $1,578 billion, showing a 47% increase over 2018. During this time, Subscription Solutions’ revenue grew 38% to $642.2 million, while Merchant Solutions’ revenue grew 54% to $935.9 million. 
• Reported in October 2019, $135+ billion in sales on the platform overall. 
• In 2019, 25.8 million apps have been installed, with more than 80% of merchants using third-party apps. The Shopify app store offers more than 2,400 apps (the majority are paid apps). Until now, there are more than 4500 apps that are available. 
• There are over 100 free and paid themes on Shopify theme store. 

Let’s figure out the top 5 reasons why more people are using Shopify!

#1 It’s super easy to use 

Unlike Magento or OpenCart, Shopify users don’t need to know about coding, hosting, and HTML to use and build their website. Thanks to its user-friendly interface, anyone can build an online store smoothly for the first time.

Another advantage of this platform is that it provides detailed beginner guides, extensive documentation, and 24/7 support. So if you’re a new e-commerce merchant, Shopify is definitely suitable for you.

#2 Shopify is safe and reliable

With Shopify’s top-end servers and technical support working 24/7 behind the scenes, you don’t have to worry about any problems that may arise. Moreover, Shopify’s add-ons have a certain standard and will not pose the risk of giving you trojans or viruses. You can also choose SSL or even PCI compliance to accept credit cards and store sensitive information without having to know the technical details of how it works. 

#3 Shopify’s ecosystem is becoming better

Shopify’s ecosystem is one of the best among other eCommerce platforms with Shopify App Store, Shopify Theme Store, Shopify Experts, and Shopify API.

• Shopify App Store: The Shopify App Store is the app ecosystem of Shopify that helps you easily add more specialized features for your store without coding. Whatever you need to run your business from finding products to shipping them to your customers will be fulfilled by third-party apps on the Shopify App Store. This is one of the main reasons why Shopify attracts an ever-increasing number of merchants in recent years. The App Store is now invested more to encourage developers to increase the number of apps.

• Shopify Theme Store: This is where you can choose your theme to quickly design your website. Those themes are classified by industry and easily customized to your demands. You can buy a paid theme or choose a free theme.

• Shopify Experts: You can easily find a wide range of experts in different fields like Store Setup, Graphic Design, Digital Marketing,… to help you grow your business. 

• Shopify API: Shopify provides users with an API to easily connect and integrate with any third-party systems, apps, or ERP, CRM systems.

#4 Shopify offers various plan choices

When you want to start with Shopify, you can opt for the plan which is suitable for your requirements. Shopify has a 14-day free trial, so you can try to set up your online store first and pick a plan after a trial is over. 

Moreover, if you are not a fan of monthly payment plans, you can buy for up to a 3-year contract. More information is detailed below:

#5 Big brands are using Shopify 

There’re numerous of big companies using Shopify for their businesses that we can list: Tesla, Nestle, GE, Red Bull, GymShark, etc.

If Shopify is trusted by those well-known brands, then it’s definitely worth trying by smaller store owners.

Final thoughts

In the end, there are many e-commerce platforms that you can choose to build your store. Compared to other platforms like Magento or OpenCart, Shopify wins the heart of business by its easy-to-use functionality and features and flexible pricing.

Why don’t try to start your own business today with Shopify? If you have any questions, please comment in the section below.