Hands down the best e-commerce platform today, Shopify is a Canadian e-commerce company based in Ottawa and created, like many other companies, by people who looked for something, didn’t get it, and decided to do it and take advantage of it. the public.
Shopify has grown rapidly over the years and its purchase of resources, or better yet, from other small business brands to further develop the business is impressive. What’s more impressive is their easy-to-remember tagline: “Whether you’re selling, on social media, in the store, or out of your car trunk, Shopify has you covered.” A better version is: “Shopify, the best place to sell online, in person and anywhere in between.”
Shopify doesn’t leave you hanging, either. The platform hosts a Podcast and offers various resources to business owners in the form of blog posts. In fact, you could be an affiliate, an investor, or someone who just follows the platform and they won’t let you down.
Are you new to business and the platform in general? You get posts that will help you get your first sale. Are you an affiliate? You get the resources you need to help you better understand and promote the platform. Are you a professional entrepreneur with a lot of experience? Believe it, Shopify has you covered.
But a platform like this has its drawbacks, especially since the apparent rise in drop shipping in 2015, where it became saturated with people who thought outsourcing products from AliExpress was a good idea (although drop shipping has been around since people thought in selling things). to other people) and everyone who failed labeled it a “get rich quick” scheme, even though Shopify has never publicly or privately hinted that use of its platform ensures / ensures success.
WHY PURCHASE?
There are many attributes that make Shopify a sexy platform; in particular, which can be personalized according to the wishes of each one. They are listed below;
• Friendly interface.
• Catering plans tailored to you.
• World-class customer support.
• Easy customization.
• A blog for your store.
• Access to Shopify experts to help you with your store at a negotiable cost.
• An app store with apps to help you manage your store and many more.
PURCHASE PLANS
Shopify has plans with features that fit all the criteria that one can get. Generally, there are five Shopify plans with specific features available to them. The respective plans and features are discussed below;
THE LITE SHOPIFY PLAN
If you have a Facebook page about a particular activity or service and you have products that you could sell on your page, this is the plan for you. It is limited to selling only on Facebook and costs $ 9.
THE BASIC SHOPIFY PLAN
This plan costs $ 29 and has card fees of: 2.9% + 30 ¢ for Canadian cards, 3.5% + 30 ¢ for Amex or international cards, and an in-person card fee of 2.7% + 0 ¢. There are no transaction fees for using Shopify payments as your payment gateway, but using external payment gateways has a 2.0% percent transaction fee.
With this plan, you get these features: two (2) staff accounts, the ability to add an unlimited number of products, an unlimited amount of file storage space, a $ 49 retail package, a “good” shipping discount from Shopify, printed shipping labels, 24/7 support, fraud analysis, the ability to manually create orders, discount codes, a website and blog, and finally a free SSL certificate. Features you don’t get on this plan are: gift cards, professional reports, advanced cart recovery, advanced report generator, and third-party calculated rates.
THE SHOPIFY PLAN
This plan costs $ 79 and has card fees of: 2.7% + 30 ¢ for Canadian cards, 3.4% + 30 ¢ for Amex or international cards, and an in-person card fee of 2.6% + 0 ¢. There are no transaction fees for using Shopify payments as your payment gateway, but using external payment gateways has a 1.0% percent transaction fee.
With this plan, you get these features: five (5) staff accounts, the ability to add an unlimited number of products, an unlimited amount of file storage space, a $ 49 retail package, a Shopify shipping discount ” better “(than the basic plan), printed shipping labels, 24/7 support, fraud analysis, the ability to manually create orders, discount codes, a website and blog, a certificate Free SSL, gift cards, professional reporting, and advanced cart recovery. Features you don’t get in this plan are: advanced report generator and third-party calculated rates.
THE ADVANCED SHOPIFY PLAN
This plan costs $ 299 with card fees of: 2.4% + 30 ¢ for Canadian cards, 3.3% + 30 ¢ for Amex or international cards, and an in-person card fee of 2.4% + 0 ¢. There are no transaction fees (as usual) for using Shopify payments as your payment gateway, but using external payment gateways has a 0.5% percent transaction fee.
On this plan, all features are available to you. Specifically, fifteen (15) staff accounts, ability to add an unlimited number of products, an unlimited amount of file storage space, a $ 49 retail package, Shopify’s “best” shipping discount, printed shipping labels , 24/7 support, fraud analysis, the ability to manually create orders, discount codes, a website and blog, free SSL certificate, gift cards, professional reports, advanced cart recovery , advanced report generator and rates calculated by third parties.
THE SHOPIFY PLUS PLAN
The Shopify plus plan is Shopify’s “custom” plan. There is hardly any information on this plan except that you get what you agree to with Shopify. If a business is interested in the plan, they contact an affiliate or some affiliate brands of Shopify and they will send / recommend Shopify to you. After which Shopify will call you and create a store for you based on the agreed criteria.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH PURCHASE
My personal journey with Shopify has been very interesting. In my first week of opening my first two stores, I had several abandoned carts. Why so many abandoned cars? You ask! Because living in a third world country, Nigeria, I couldn’t get a payment processor. All good options required a business to be registered (until recently, but only for new accounts). It’s sad. So if you fail, it’s always easier to blame your country than the platform. It’s like criticizing Google because they didn’t get results for a strange name / word you were looking for.
My first store sold geeky merchandise and the second store I still work at sells Long Boards. I still can’t get a payment processor and therefore I have a lot of abandoned carts while trying to make it look attractive and trustworthy. I have not given up!
So, I saved the best for last. Shopify allows a 14-day free trial after which you will need to purchase a plan to continue using the platform unless a developer store is created for you. There is still no escape because once a store is 14 days old; You will need to continue purchasing a plan regardless of whether it was created as a development store. The only other option is to be added as an employee and when the store places 50 orders you will need to purchase a plan and the store will be delivered to you. You also have the opportunity to hire Shopify Experts to help you with your store as agreed.
If you have a product, whether it was made or made for you and you would like it or are ready to launch it, then there is no better platform to sell than Shopify.