As you may have read from reading other Shopify reviews online – Shopify is not only a market-leading all in one e-commerce solution: it is also probably the most user-friendly option available, and can be used by anyone. That was the mission of Shopify at the outset — to develop a solution to help business owners setting up an e-commerce business, without any fuss or headaches.

Shopify Review Scores

If it’s not obvious by now, we think that Shopify has few if any peers in the e-commerce development arena. If it’s the e-commerce component that is the most important aspect of your business, rather than additional content pages or a blog section, then Shopify is the platform for you. Here’s how Shopify shapes up across our four criteria of price, ease of use, support and features.

That’s the end result. Now to show you how these scores were arrived at, which entailed a thorough exploration of every significant aspect of the platform, both from an expert perspective, and from the viewpoint of the most frequently asked e-commerce questions by business owners.

The table below highlights the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) about Shopify, with links to reviews that explore how to use Shopify, suggest who it’s best suited to, and compare its pricing and functionality with other e-commerce options. But first, the most important question—especially for those who have heard about Shopify, but are not quite sure what it is.

1. Shopify Reviews: What is Shopify?

Getting started is a dream. You only need to sign up (and commit to the monthly payment plan). Like WordPress for websites, Shopify is fully integrated. You can choose from more than 100 (fully optimised) high quality online store designs with as many or as few features as you deem fit.

One of the big bonus points of Shopify is that you don’t have to worry about web hosting. It’s a single-point process, which means there’s no need for an external hosting service. Also, Shopify’s server is optimised specifically for e-commerce.

In general terms, its user-friendly multi-purpose nature makes it easy to use for e-commerce beginners. It’s also relatively affordable and so ideal for startup businesses who are budget-conscious. It’s also easy to integrate with your existing operations, and, crucially for small businesses in growth, it will enable your e-commerce capacity to grow with you, regardless of how many products you are adding or selling.

2. Shopify Reviews: How much does Shopify cost?

Shopify operates on a series of monthly pricing plans, running from Lite (with no online store) and Basic (selling with your online store, for $29), up to Unlimited, which unlocks all features for $179 per month.

The good news for beginners is that the 14-day free trial (which can be cancelled at any time), which includes all the features, so you’ll have a chance to give them a thorough test before commiting to a plan.

If you want to launch an online store, however, the $29 monthly Basic plan is recommended, for a decent range of features, and also handles the payments and technical aspects of the online store. This package fives you not just the online store module, but also the Point of Sale system; modules allowing you to sell directly on Facebook & Pinterest; a Shopify Buy button, which enables you to add a custom button to any site, not justyour Shopify one. One word of caution though—if you are not using Shopify Payments, Shopify will charge a transaction fee on every order that your store processes.

3. Shopify Reviews: How easy is Shopify to use?

Extremely. It gives you access to a working online store structure. There is nothing piecemeal. It’s fully integrated, and you don’t need any visual design skills either, just a solid sense of how you want your store to appear. The platform also handles online payments, as well as your entire product / service catalogue.

If you lack the in-depth design and development skills, but have an urgent need to set up an e-commerce store that you can use yourself, without external outsourcing, Shopify has been designed with you in mind!

4. Shopify Reviews: How does Shopify work?

Entry into the Shopify world couldn’t be simpler. It’s a standard online wizard-guided sign-up. The platform will seek details about what you plan to sell (something about which you need to be as clear as possible), and at that point you will be prompted to select an online store design.

There are more than 100 slick, modern themes, so there’s something to cater for every taste, and they’re optimised for viewing and use on desktop, mobile and tablets. Every template is also customisable, so you’ll be able to select your brand or company colours, add your brand logo, as well as setting the appearance of your store homepage.

Editing text on the pages of your store is very easy through the Pages section of the Shopify dashboard. There is nothing in there that would frighten anyone who has even the most basic experience of Microsoft World.

Managing your products is as easy as editing the textual content of the Pages. By configuring the general Settings of your store, you will be able to establish every piece of relevant information about your store, such as its name, address, etc.

5. Shopify Reviews: How good is Shopify at handling Online Payments?

The good news is that it’s all very much determined by you. The platform enables you to accept credit cards through a selection of gateways, in addition to other options such as bank transfers or cash on delivery.

Shopify is also integrated with PayPal, and your new store will be provided with a PayPal Express Checkout account.

The easiest way to accept payments is Shopify Payments, which is integrated with your store (so no need to set up any third party gateways), and so enables you to manage every aspect of your online business in one place.

Shopify Payments can handle all major cards automatically, and allows you to select a card rate, and change it, when required. The dashboard will also enable you to track the pending payout balance and payout schedule, view what you will receive and be charged in payment fees, recover lost sales by means of chargeback responses that are compiled by Shopify for particular orders.

6. Shopify Reviews: What other options are available?

The Settings/Checkout tabs on the dashboard allow you to customise other key matters such as the choice of whether or not user accounts are required; the amount of data required from customers when making a sale; order processing, language and refund policies; incorporate any domestic or international shipping cost; easily calculate any necessary tax-related data; as well as determining how your store contacts and communicates with customers, and what messages you receive when a new order comes in.

7. Shopify Reviews: Adding & Editing Products in Shopify

Again, the dashboard has a specific Products option that allows you to set everything related to products or services that you are selling through your e-commerce store.

Adding products includes guided editor windows where you can set the title and description of the item; a drag and drop images upload option; pricing; as well as selecting how and when the product will be visible to customers.

8. Shopify Reviews: Showcasing products using Shopify

The homepage of your online store is a fantastic shop window for showcasing your key products and services. All of this is easily handed through the Customisation option that you used when selecting the theme of your store.

This process will enable you to select individual products or a product range, and you’ll also be able to realign product blocks on the homepage, or use them with pieces of text that are alternative to what’s displayed on the main listing.

9. Shopify Reviews: Tracking your Progress on Shopify

The ‘Reports’ section of Shopify’s dashboard allows you to access every single piece of data that you need to check the progress of your online store. You can browse your business data on sales by a range of possible options, including product title, payment method or customer traffic, to name just three possibilities.

10. Shopify Reviews: Additional functionality on Shopify

After a while you may wish to enhance or ‘fill out’ your online store, depending on your customer activity or demands. It will be easy to create a blog, for instance, and add some regular posts of content.

It’s possible also to add new pages and, as we’ve seen, editing existing ones. It is also very easy to tweak the navigation of your store, and choose what appears on the header and footer menus.

11. Shopify Reviews: So, is Shopify the best option for e-commerce?

As our review table above makes clear, it is certainly an excellent start point. There are other platforms such as Magento available, but in the end, the answer to this question depends on the user’s requirements.

As we’ve seen, it’s ideal for small businesses with limited resources and no e-commerce technical expertise, enabling them to get a smart e-commerce store off the ground with no help.

12. Shopify Reviews: Does Shopify have the best audience research?

The answer to this question depends on the marketing of your website. An e-commerce store like Shopify is designed to sell goods online. E-commerce is not a content management system such as a blog or a website, however, plugins are available for CMSs such as WordPress to enable the management of e-commerce within the CMS.

13. Shopify Reviews: What advantage does Shopify have over free e-commerce platforms?

Shopify is optimised and designed for convenience, and is absolutely perfect for people with little experience in e-commerce. If you go the open-source route, you will definitely require expertise in domain names, web hosting, online security and other issues that Shopify handles for you.

14. Shopify Reviews: Conclusion

Shopify is one of the most user-friendly e-commerce solutions available, particularly for users without a high level of technical back-end e-commerce expertise. It’s relatively affordable, comes with full 24/7 support via telephone, e-chat or email, and offers all the features you need to get into the e-commerce game.

To finish on the possible downsides of Shopify, they are few but significant. The fact that it involves a monthly fee as well as individual transaction fees for stores not operating Shopify Payments. This can be costly, especially if you’re selling in high numbers.

Another negative is that its unique code is inaccessible to all but an expert in proprietary coding. If you need to explore the back-end, you’ll have to figure in additional maintenance and management costs.

But overall, our 9.8/10 score speaks for itself!
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