How to Get Started with Shopify (Review)
Shopify has been around for just over a decade and yet it’s one of the leading platforms in the eCommerce industry and the chances are you’re wondering how to get started with Shopify right now.
Just like WordPress, Shopify is a platform that allows you to create an online store without a lot of hassle.
For a very minimal investment, you can have your store up and running in no time which eliminates the fee you would have to cover if you hired a professional to create you an online store.
In this article, I’ll tell you more about Shopify, but I’ll also show you how you can use it to create your own online business and how to take full advantage of it.
Whether the Shopify’s pricing plan is worth it or not – you’ll have to keep on reading to find out!
Overview and Rankings
Name: Shopify
URL: Shopify.com
Features: 4.9 out of 5.0
Support: 4.8 out of 5.0
Community: 4.8 out of 5.0
Benefits: 4.8 out of 5.0
Success Stories: 4.9 out of 5.0
Price: 3 Pricing plans – $29/month or $79/month or $299/month
My Overall Rating: 4.9 out of 5.0
What is Shopify About?
Shopify is a platform that anyone can subscribe to in order to get access to software that can help you build and publish an online store in a very simple way.
You don’t need any coding experience or knowledge, and yet all you need is a bit of time, effort, and an idea.
I like to think of Shopify as WordPress, just in a different industry. If you don’t know what WordPress is – it is a platform that allows creating dedicated websites online in a very simple way.
What Can You Do With Shopify?
The great thing about Shopify is that it comes with all features required to run a successful online store. This includes a cart, the payment gateway, a solution to sell, manage, and ship products, and more.
Therefore, with the Shopify service, you can create your own online store in a matter of minutes. From there, you can take your idea (or vision) and put it all into your store – to make one very unique store.
Add the products, set up the terms of your store, set up the payment & shipping – and you’re ready to process orders, and sell products to anyone on the internet.
But how will anyone find and visit your online store? This is the part you’ll have to take care of as you will be responsible for marketing your store. However, Shopify also introduced a couple of marketing tools in the platform to help the users out.
The most common way for this is to run ads on social media platforms such as Facebook and gain quick exposure, clicks, and engagement for your store by investing a bit of money into the ads.
Things I Like the Most About Shopify
You can’t learn everything there is about Shopify until you actually try it – so here’s my take on the things I like the most about Shopify. These things are often the ones that make my work easier and more efficient.
You’re still probably wondering how to get started with Shopify, and if you are – these things will help you learn exactly what Shopify is capable of and what your options will be.
Suits Any Business Type or Industry
No matter the industry, or if you’re a new or existing business – you can join the Shopify platform and take the advantage of the powerful tools to help you succeed.
If you’re already running an online store of your own, you can easily transfer your store to Shopify for better speed, management tools, and support.
Ability to Take a Local Business Online
As technology advances, it’s crucial to keep up to date with the trend. The thought of taking your local shop online can be terrifying.
However, Shopify makes this very simple, and as long as you take action and create your first online store – you’ll have enough support and educational material in there to start listing your products, design your store further, and make it fully functioning.
Shopify Experts for Hire are Available at Any Moment
If you ever feel stuck or you just need someone’s help – you can hire a freelance Shopify expert from the Shopify Experts Marketplace.
This way, you will be able to solve any issues, have someone with experience design your store, or just help you improve your marketing.
Have No Limit on the Number of Markets You Sell To
Even if you have a local business, there is nothing to stop you from selling on any market around the world.
This is the biggest opportunity for online business and with over a billion daily active internet users – it’s definitely a chance you shouldn’t miss.
Shopify doesn’t have any limits on the countries you can work with so as long as you are able to ship worldwide, you can sell your products in any country you wish.
Currently, Shopify helps a million businesses that operate in 175 countries around the world that net revenue of about $200 billion.
Great Store Managing Tools
Once your store gains a bit of traction, you’ll be able to use store managing tools provided by Shopify to keep an insight on the number of visitors you had, the conversion rate, orders & sales, and manage everything even when you’re on the go.
The great thing about these tools is that they come included with the price of the membership so you’ll have everything you need listed in one neat dashboard.
Lots of Support (The Learning Section)
Even if you don’t plan on hiring someone to help you out – you will have an access to the learning section of the Shopify platform even if you aren’t a member yet.
In the learning section, you can find help to frequently asked questions, helpful blog posts, business courses, guides, free tools, forums with an active community, podcasts, and even a business encyclopedia.
The great thing about this is that you can start learning about an eCommerce business even before becoming a Shopify member. Also, you won’t have to purchase a single eCommerce course as you’ll have plenty of information available for free by Shopify.
Shopify Pricing Plan
What I like about Shopify is that they have a clear pricing structure that’s easy to understand.
There are 3 different pricing plans:
- Basic Shopify – $29/month – ideal for staring a new online business
- Shopify – $79/month – ideal for a growing online business
- Advanced Shopify – $299/month – ideal for scaling an online business
Also, you can first set up your store without even having to put in your credit card details, give Shopify a try for the first 14 days, and then pick a plan.
The Verdict
If you’re looking to get into eCommerce, start your own online business, or get your local business setup online – I think that Shopify is the best platform to use.
Why?
Not only it is specially designed to help new online business owners & existing business owners – but it also provides tools, educational material, and support you need.
Shopify is definitely the top choice when it comes to creating an online store – and yet it still offers a 14-day trial and has very affordable pricing plans.
When it comes down to the pricing plans, I like how they’re very fairly priced. You can cover the Basic Shopify pricing plan as a new store and you can always switch to another pricing plan.
But when your store gains traction, keeping up with the Shopify fee won’t be an issue at all and yet you’ll have a custom-designed platform for eCommerce owners. To me, this is just one of the reasons why Shopify is the place to be.
Not only you can create your own store, market it, and have all statistics in one dashboard – but you can also continue to learn and grow your knowledge to improve your store’s performance.
If you were wondering how to get started with Shopify – the 14-day free trial that doesn’t require a credit card is the best way to go!
