Shopify is one of the leading eCommerce platforms which is best known for its ease of use. This makes it an excellent platform for businesses of all sizes to build their eCommerce website. But like any platform, it has its strengths and weaknesses. In this blog, we’ll discuss pros and cons of Shopify to help you know if it’s best for you.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is a subscription-based SaaS sales platform that helps businesses set up and sell their products online. It provides a streamlined dashboard that users can use to manage their sales, market products, and accept payments. The platform offers four standard subscription plans starting at $29 per month.
Shopify works by allowing business owners to sell their products in multiple locations. Apart from their Shopify store, online sellers can list their products on marketplaces like Amazon and social media platforms like Facebook. Moreover, sellers can use Shopify POS app to sell anywhere including offline stores, pop-up shops and markets.
Here are the major pros and cons of Shopify:
Pros of Shopify
Customizations
Shopify offers a wide range of customization options that allow business owners to create a unique online store. Developers can further use its proprietary Liquid templating language to modify the design and functionality of their Shopify store to a great extent.
Those with less to no coding skills can use Shopify’s pre-designed themes to personalize their Shopify stores. These themes are not just visually appealing but also highly customizable through a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor. This allows Shopify users to change layouts, colors, fonts, and other visual elements with ease.
Extensibility
Another pro feature of Shopify platform includes extensibility. Shopify app store allows website owners to add various functionalities to their Shopify stores. It includes apps for inventory management and customer service tools to marketing automation and analytics. This platform also allows you to evolve and scale alongside their business by accommodating new demands and opportunities as they arise.
Integrations
Shopify offers seamless integration with a wide array of third-party services and tools. These integrations include popular accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero, email marketing services such as Mailchimp and Klaviyo, and social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. It further helps automate and optimize workflows, from financial management and email campaigns to social media marketing and customer service.
Easy to use
Another pro of using Shopify is its user-friendly interface, making it accessible to users with varying levels of technical expertise. The platform’s straightforward setup process allows online stores to create and launch their Shopify store quickly even if they don’t have any prior experience with eCommerce platforms. Shopify dashboard is intuitive and well-organized, providing clear navigation and helpful prompts.
Available customer support
Shopify offers 24/7 customer support through various channels, including live chat, email, and phone. This constant availability ensures that business owners can get help whenever they encounter issues. Additionally, Shopify apps provide a comprehensive help center with a plethora of tutorials, guides, and community forums where they can learn how to make the most of the platform’s features.
Multiple payment processors
Shopify supports a wide range of payment gateways, allowing you to offer your customers various payment options. This flexibility can enhance the shopping experience and increase conversion rates by accommodating different customer preferences. Shopify Payments, the platform’s own payment solution, can integrate seamlessly with your own online store. If you don’t want to use Shopify Payments, you can also use other popular third-party payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe, and Authorize.net.
Variety of themes
Shopify theme store offers a vast selection of professionally designed both free and premium themes. These themes are mobile-responsive and customizable, ensuring that Shopify store looks great on all devices, from desktops to smartphones. Each theme is designed to enhance the shopping experience, with features like easy navigation, fast load times, and attractive layouts.
SEO and marketing
Shopify offers built-in SEO features and marketing tools designed to help website owners easily attract and retain customers. Using this feature, online sellers can optimize their online store for search engines with customizable meta tags, alt texts for images, and sitemaps. This makes it easier for potential customers to find you online. Additionally, Shopify provides marketing tools like email campaigns, discount codes, and gift cards. Businesses can further integrate their online stores with Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel to track and analyze their marketing efforts.
Hosting and security
Another advantage of Shopify is that it also takes care of web hosting and security of online stores. It is further PCI DSS compliant, ensuring that the customers’ payment information is safe and secure. Moreover, the platform handles hosting for their users, so they don’t have to worry about server maintenance, uptime, or security updates.
Shopify shipping discounts
Shopify has partnered with major shipping carriers to offer discounted shipping rates. This helps businesses save on shipping costs and provide competitive rates to their customers. These discounts can further make a significant difference for sellers who ship a high volume of orders at a time. Shopify shipping also provides tools to streamline the process. It includes printing shipping labels directly from the admin panel and offering real-time shipping rates at checkout.
Sell online or in-person
With Shopify POS (Point of Sale) system, you can sell your products both online and in physical stores. This integration provides a seamless experience for managing your inventory and sales across different channels. Shopify POS system allows sellers to accept payments, manage their inventories, and track sales from their physical store, all synced with their online store. This unifies the business operations and keeps them efficient, regardless of where the sale takes place.
Cons of Shopify
While Shopify has many pros, it’s not without cons. Here are some detailed cons of using Shopify that you should consider before deciding if it’s the right fit for your business.
Pricing
Shopify’s pricing structure can be a significant drawback, especially for small businesses or startups operating on tight budgets. The platform offers several pricing plans ranging from Basic Shopify to Advanced Shopify, and Shopify Plus for enterprise-level businesses. While the basic plan starts at a relatively affordable rate, the costs can quickly add up when you factor in:
Monthly subscription fees: These fees increase with higher-tier plans.
Transaction fees: If you choose a payment gateway other than Shopify Payments, additional transaction fees apply.
App subscriptions: Many essential features might not be included in your plan and require you to buy them from Shopify app store. This can significantly add to the monthly costs.
Themes and design costs: Premium themes and custom design services can also increase the overall expenditure.
For businesses with high sales volumes, these costs might be justifiable. But for smaller businesses, they can be a financial strain.
Difficulty with content marketing
Shopify is primarily designed as an eCommerce platform. And while it offers a basic blogging feature, it lacks the advanced content management and SEO tools found in dedicated content platforms like WordPress. Some limitations include:
Basic blogging functionality: The blogging interface is less sophisticated compared to other platforms like WordPress. It lacks advanced editing tools and flexibility.
Limited SEO tools: While Shopify does offer some SEO capabilities, they are not as comprehensive as those offered by specialized SEO plugins like YoastSEO available on other platforms.
Content management: Managing large volumes of content can be cumbersome, and Shopify doesn’t provide the same level of content organization features as a dedicated CMS platform.
Despite the pros, these cons of Shopify can make it challenging for businesses that rely heavily on content marketing to drive traffic and market their products.
Limited customization
Despite its extensive customization options as pros, Shopify does have its cons. This is especially true for users who lack technical expertise. Advanced customization often requires knowledge of:
Liquid: Shopify’s proprietary templating language.
HTML and CSS: For detailed design adjustments and customizations.
JavaScript: For adding dynamic features and advanced functionalities.
Non-technical users may find it difficult to implement advanced customizations without hiring a developer. This may add to the overall cost and complexity of managing the Shopify store.
No email hosting
Shopify doesn’t offer email hosting in its services. This means you will need to set up a separate email hosting service to manage your business emails. This can be an additional inconvenience and expense. Some implications include:
Additional costs: Paying for a separate email hosting service.
Technical setup: Configuring and managing email hosting can require additional technical knowledge or support from a professional.
Integration challenges: Ensuring seamless integration between your email hosting provider and Shopify can sometimes be tricky.
Difficult exit
Due to its proprietary setup, it can be challenging to cancel Shopify account and migrate to other platforms. In doing so, you may face challenges like:
Data export: Exporting the data of your Shopify store, including products, customer information, and order history, can be complex and may require manual adjustments.
Theme and design: Your Shopify theme and customizations won’t transfer to a new platform, requiring a complete redesign of your new online store.
App dependencies: Any apps or plugins you use in Shopify will need to be replaced with equivalents on the new platform, which can be time-consuming and costly.
The process of leaving a Shopify account may require a lot of work. Also, you may need technical expertise to do it, resulting in additional expenses.
Manually intensive
Some Shopify tasks can be manually intensive, particularly when dealing with large inventories or processing bulk orders. While there are apps that can help you automate some of these processes, they often come at an additional cost. Some of the examples include:
Inventory management: Updating and managing large product inventories can be time-consuming without the use of third-party apps.
Order processing: Bulk order processing and fulfillment may require manual intervention if not automated through apps.
Reporting: Custom reporting and analytics may need manual setup and adjustments.
This manual workload can be a barrier for businesses looking to streamline their operations efficiently.
Development process
One of the pros of Shopify is ease of use, but its complex development process is one of the cons. This is especially for those looking to implement advanced features or custom integrations. Key challenges include:
Specialized skills: Advanced customization and development require expertise in Liquid, as well as general web development skills (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).
Developer costs: Hiring a skilled Shopify developer can be expensive, adding to the overall cost of running your Shopify store.
Complex integrations: Custom integrations with other systems (e.g., ERP, CRM) can be complex and costly, requiring significant development resources.
These challenges can make it difficult for businesses to implement sophisticated features without incurring high development costs.
App integration issues
While the Shopify App Store offers a vast array of apps to extend your store’s functionality, installing new apps can sometimes disrupt the functionality or appearance of your store’s theme. Some of the issues faced by business owners include:
Conflicts: Installed apps may conflict with each other or with your theme. This may lead to display issues or broken functionalities.
Theme adjustments: Integrating certain apps may require manual adjustments to your theme. It can be a complex process, thus requiring developer’s assistance.
Performance: Adding multiple apps can impact the performance of your Shopify store, potentially slowing down page load times and affecting user experience.
These disruptions can lead to additional troubleshooting and potential costs to resolve the issues.
High transaction fees
Unless you use Shopify Payments, the platform charges additional transaction fees on top of your payment gateway fees. These fees can add up, particularly for high-volume online stores. The implications include:
Increased costs: Paying additional transaction fees can significantly increase the cost of your online business. This is especially if you prefer to use a different payment gateway.
Limited options: To avoid these fees, you may feel obligated to use Shopify Payments, which might not be the best fit for every online business needs.
These high transaction fees can be a considerable drawback as they impact on your overall profitability.
Web.com: Best Shopify store alternative
While Shopify is a versatile eCommerce platform, it may not be the ideal solution for everyone, especially for small businesses and startups. In this context, Web.com stands out as its best alternative. Web.com offers affordability, ease of use, customizable templates, and robust eCommerce features.
These functionalities make it an excellent choice for businesses seeking a simple and cost-effective web host and eCommerce platform. Here’s why Web.com is worth considering as an alternative to Shopify.
Advantages of Web.com over Shopify online store
Lower costs
One of the most significant advantages of Web.com over Shopify is its cost-effectiveness. This platform offers more affordable pricing plans, which can be crucial for online businesses with limited budgets. With Web.com, you get:
Affordable monthly fees: Web.com’s pricing plans are generally lower than Shopify’s. This makes it a more accessible option for small businesses and startups.
No transaction fees: Unlike Shopify, which charges transaction fees unless you use Shopify Payments, Web.com don’t impose additional transaction fees. So, you can keep more of your profits to yourself.
Inclusive features: Many essential features that require additional paid apps on Shopify are included in Web.com’s standard packages. This can reduce overall online business set up costs.
By minimizing expenses, Web.com provides a budget-friendly platform that doesn’t compromise on essential eCommerce functionalities.
Simplicity and accessibility
Web.com is designed with simplicity and accessibility in mind, catering to users who may not have extensive technical knowledge. Its user-friendly interface ensures that even those without a background in web development can create and manage a professional online store. Web.com offers:
Comprehensive support: Web.com offers extensive customer support, including tutorials, guides, and direct assistance. So, you can easily navigate any challenges you may encounter while selling your products.
AI builder: Web.com’s AI website builder automates and simplifies the process of designing your site by doing it for you. It works simply by asking some questions in the beginning. The builder, then, uses your responses to automatically build a customized and fully functional website in under one minute.
All-in-one eCommerce business solution
Web.com provides a comprehensive, all-in-one eCommerce hosting plan that includes everything you need to set up and run your online store. This integrated approach simplifies the process and reduces the need to juggle multiple services and tools. Key features of Web.com include:
Integrated hosting: Web.com includes secure and reliable web hosting as part of its service. It ensures that your site remains up and running smoothly without the need to manage separate hosting services.
Free domain name: To reduce your initial business set up cost, Web.com includes a custom domain name in its hosting plans, which is free for the first year. You can also use Web.com’s free AI domain name generator tool to create a perfect domain for your brand.
Customizable templates: The platform offers a wide range of customizable, mobile-responsive templates that can be tailored to match your brand’s identity. So, you can build a professional-looking website without requiring design expertise.
eCommerce tools: Web.com comes equipped with robust eCommerce features. It includes product and inventory management, payment processing, and order fulfillment, all integrated into one platform.
Multichannel selling functionality: Web.com offers integration with popular online marketplaces, social media platforms, and international marketplaces. So, you can easily expand your business and increase profits by selling your products on different channels, including offline storefronts or pop-up shops.
Marketing tools: Web.com eCommerce hosting plan also includes social and email marketing tools. So, you can drive traffic to your online store and increase sales, all using the same platform.
Payment options: The eCommerce website builder of Web.com integrates easily with popular payment gateways like Paypal and Stripe. Moreover, it allows you to accept payments via credit and debit cards.
Conclusion: Pros and cons of Shopify
Shopify is a robust and versatile eCommerce platform that offers numerous benefits, from ease of use to extensive customization options. But its high pricing, transaction fees, and limited content marketing capabilities can be a disappointment for small businesses. By carefully weighing these pros and cons of Shopify, you can determine whether Shopify is the right fit for your eCommerce business needs.
If you’re seeking a seamless, cost-effective, and simple platform to build and manage your online store, Web.com is worth considering. Its lower costs, ease of use, and comprehensive all-in-one solution make it an excellent choice for those who want to focus on growing their business without getting bogged down by high expenses and technical hurdles.
