Shopify.com

Shopify is a blown eCommerce brand. The company is currently headquartered in Ontario, Canada. The website builder was launched in 2004 and has become one of the most successful startup projects in the niche since that time. According to recent reviews, the site builder is used by over 200000 clients nowadays. That’s an impressive statistics, indeed!

The official website of the service looks trendy and appealing. The site builder is primarily used to create online stores. Let’s have a look at its basic features now to get the idea of whether the resource may be useful to an ordinary user or not.

Templates

The choice of design is somewhat unusual for a SaaS platform. To some extent, it resembles that typical for CMS. To start with, you need to set up the online store at the home page of the website (Add Online Store) by choosing one of the plans. To customize the design, just choose settings in the «Online Store»/«Themes» section.

Free and paid templates are available in the Shopify store. You can sort them out by choosing “Free” option. As a result, you will be offered 26 free templates, the majority of which look quite interesting. They are trendy, if not even bold sometimes. Large sliders, impressive photos, extensive use of white space, stylish menus and logos. There are no complex effects here, but the templates still look quality and encouraging.

The cost of paid templates ranges between $100 and $180. Their quality is somewhat better as compared to that of free ones. This is manifested in the versatility of elements used in the process of template creation. There are also many unique templates here, but the difference in quality with Free ones contradicts with the cost.

All the templates are responsive, while their customization options are quite powerful in Shopify and have individual differences depending upon the template chosen. You can set up the color scheme, fonts, header, footer, sidebar, shopping cart, social bar, showcase design and other elements. If there is anything that puzzles you here, you can find out more info about each template.

Template code editing is a real benefit for experienced web designers. If necessary, you can download the source code of a template or edit it online.

Functionality

Shopify dashboard is powerful and resembles CMS like that in Prestashop or Opencart. It abounds in versatile settings and is quite complicated, although, it is also user-friendly.

The functionality of the website builder is on the top notch level. The feature set is conveniently subdivided into several categories that matter a lot from the eCommerce point of view. Thus, eCommerce features encompass powerful synchronization options, blogging engine, live view mode, product reviews, CSV file import/export, multichannel and multilingual support, abandoned checkout recovery, SSL Certification, fraud protection for all Shopify payments, Shopcode introduction, Augmented Reality feature, etc. Speaking about marketing features, it makes sense to mention POS software, customer profile sort out, Shopify Ping mobile app, integrated app store, BOGO (Buy One, Get One) discounts, dynamic checkout, Tap & Chip Reader, advanced retail features, Shopify Google Pay, marketing activity and sales tracking reports, UPS for Shopify Shipping as well as powerful SEO settings. The eCommerce software also comes with integrated Google Analytics needed to track your web store performance and adjust the required settings to boost the results. To sum it up, Shopify functionality is on the top level.

Domains

Right after the registration, you will get a domain that looks like “shop.myshopify.com” that can be further changed. You can purchase another domain in the «Online Store»/«Domain» section of the dashboard. The .com domain will cost you $13.

You can also attach the domain from another register, which is also simple. Just login into the account at the website of the chosen register and enter the provided Shopify IP-address in the DNS settings.

Pricing Policy

Shopify offers free 14-day trial period. Afterwards, you will have to choose one of the following plans:

Basic provides unlimited traffic and amount of products, 1GB of disk space, 2% commission rate, product discounts, 24/7 tech support.

Standard plan, called ‘Shopify’ ensures 5GB of disk space, 1% commission rate, gift cards and extended statistics.

Advanced guarantees unlimited disk space, 0.5% commission rate, report builder, delivery cost calculator etc.

Additionally, Shopify offers a Lite Plan, the cost of which constitutes $9/mo, making it possible to integrate eCommerce functionality into any website. The subscription comes with an opportunity to add the unlimited number of products, more than 70 payment gateways, global currency and tax support, sales tracking feature etc.

Apart from custom plans, the system also allows selling an unlimited amount of products through social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Bottom Line

Shopify is an appealing, easy to use, convenient and functional web building tool. However, it is not worth the investment. It’s quite easy to find decent and reasonably priced alternative to the system today.

Other detailed Shopify reviews:
https://superbwebsitebuilders.com/shopify-review/

Summary

Reviewer

Mary Simons

Review Date

2019-06-17

Reviewed Item

Shopify.com

Author Rating

5