Shopify - Easy to Setup, Easy to Earn Money
Updated December 18, 2014
Shopify - Easy to Setup, Easy to Earn Money
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Basic
Overall Satisfaction with Shopify
I use company to allow my clients to focus on marketing their products instead of focusing on the technical setup supporting their shop. Previously I used other software to setup e-commerce websites, but Shopify is so much more user friendly that it both helps my clients and helps myself by minimizing the amount of support requests I receive after the launch of a client store.
- Shopify takes care of hosting your store, so there's no need for server administration or stressing about security.
- Shopify has extremely high quality standards for themes, so clients can know they'll always get a quality theme to build their store with. It delivers efficient code and attractive appearance for an affordable price.
- Every time I've contacted Shopify for support I've received a prompt answer with the correct solution. Many times even better solutions than I hoped for.
- Shopify comes with support for running a blog, but the content editor has the occasional quirk that causes annoyance when you find them. Luckily there are work arounds and many users will never encounter these difficulties, but it takes some time to figure out a solution when you do.
- While you can almost 100% customize the visual appearance of a store, some of the customization of features is limited. This can often be rectified by using one of the apps in the apps marketplace, but this adds monthly costs to your store.
- I've moved more than one client to Shopify from other software and had them experience a surge in sales because they were able to stop focusing on the tech side of things and simply focus on getting more people to their store and convincing them to convert into customers.
I've used both Magento and WordPress for running stores and while I typically suggest Shopify, WordPress and Magento both give much more room to customize the store. Since you host the software you have the freedom to customize the entire store from the home page to the checkout process. That flexibility comes with a lot less user friendliness and a much higher technical knowledge requirement. Magento in particular is powerful but it is the least user friendly (and even difficult for developers), and I've never personally encountered a time where I couldn't achieve the same deep customization required using WordPress instead. Outside of those heavy feature customization cases though Shopify streamlines the process so much it's the best option. Between the apps available and the features it comes with out of the box you can almost always create the store you want.
Using Shopify
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Adding products
- Changing basic aspects of the visual appearance like font family, color, size, etc.
- Installing themes in order to make a store look good as soon as possible.
- Creating unique methods to calculate shipping charges is difficult if not impossible, though it allows basing off of weight or quantity.
- Adding content to pages can be cumbersome if you utilize a complex page layout.
Yes - The Shopify mobile interface works great. Most themes are responsive so the front-end of your store formats itself for display on all devices, and the app makes it easy to manage your store with a phone or tablet.