Shopi-No!
February 07, 2017
Shopi-No!
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Basic
Overall Satisfaction with Shopify
I used Shopify as a sales platform for my paper collections. It was meant to increase sales and reduce the profit loss on the backend. It was used across my organization. Etsy takes 50% and it's super frustrating. Shopify takes less and the learning curve wasn't as steep. But the traffic flow to Shopify isn't as large as Etsy and driving traffic to the shop became a huge time suck that cost me more in the end than just using Etsy.
- User Interface - learning to use Shopify took less than an hour and the storefront was ready by the end of the business day.
- Commission - You get a bigger take on your sales compared to Etsy.
- Inventory System - I never worried about the inventory updating. As soon as an order was placed the inventory updated immediately. Overselling was never an issue.
- Payment Integration - It was so easy to take payments and the fees were low.
- SEO - honestly, it sucks on Shopify. No matter how it was tagged it never showed up.
- Driving traffic to my store was a pain in the butt. It cost more in marketing labor than Etsy ever cost.
- Shopify actually cost me 63% versus the 50% on Etsy. Babysitting the SEO cost me big in labor.
- I didn't have the same constant traffic as Etsy. It got super frustrating that everything was done to maximize traffic and it still didn't work.
- Most inquiries were price complaints or asking if I would sell for less. NO!!! I'm not giving my product away for free.
- Roughly 58% of my sales were Etsy in 2016 versus only 5% on Shopify.
- Etsy
I was looking to try something different than Etsy to increase my profits. While it seemed great at first, it did cost me more in labor. Both have their positives and negatives but I wouldn't recommend it for a professional design business.