Undoubtedly the best E-commerce platform today, Shopify is a Canadian E-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa and created by, like many other companies, people who sought out for something, didn’t get it and decided to make it and avail it to the public.
Shopify has had rapid growth through the years and their purchasing of resources, or better yet other small business brands to further build the company is impressive. What’s more impressive is their easy-to-remember slogan: “Whether you sell, on social media, in store or out of the trunk of your car, Shopify has you covered”. A better version is: “Shopify, the best place to sell online, in person, and anywhere in-between”.
Shopify doesn’t leave you hanging either. The platform hosts a Podcast and avails several resources to business owners in the form of blog posts. In fact, you could be an affiliate, investor or someone whom just follows the platform and they wouldn’t let you down.
You’re new to business and the platform in general? You get posts to help you get your first sale. You’re an affiliate? You get the resources you need to help you better understand and promote the platform. You’re a professional Entrepreneur with lots of experience? Believe it, Shopify has you covered.
But a platform as this does have its drawbacks, especially since the evident rise of drop shipping in 2015 where it became saturated with people thinking that outsourcing products from AliExpress was a good idea (even though drop shipping has been here since people thought of selling stuff to other people) and everyone who failed labeled it a “Get rich quick” scheme, even though Shopify has never publicly, or privately insinuated that using their platform assures/insures success.
WHY SHOPIFY?
There are a lot of attributes that make Shopify a sexy platform; particularly that it can be customized according to ones wishes. They are listed below;
• User friendly interface.
• Plans catering to your needs.
• World class customer support.
• Easy customization.
• A blog for your store.
• Access to Shopify experts that’ll help with your store at a negotiable cost.
• An app store with apps to help you manage your store and many more.
SHOPIFY PLANS
Shopify has plans with features that fits every criteria one may garner. There are generally five shopify plans with specific features available for them. The plans and respective features are discussed below;
THE LITE SHOPIFY PLAN
If you have a Facebook page about a particular activity or service and you have products you could sell on your page, then this is the plan for you. It is limited to only selling on Facebook and costs $9.
THE BASIC SHOPIFY PLAN
This plan costs $29 and has cards rates of: 2.9%+30¢ for Canadian cards, 3.5%+30¢ for Amex or international cards and an in- person card rate of 2.7%+0¢. There are no transaction fees for using Shopify payments as your payment gateway, but using external payment gateways has a transaction fee of 2.0% percent.
With this plan you get these features: two (2) staff accounts, ability to add an unlimited number of products, an unlimited amount of file storage space, a $49 retail package, a “good” Shopify shipping discount, shipping labels printed, 24/7 hour support, fraud analysis, the ability to create orders manually, discount codes, a website and a blog and finally a free SSL certificate. Features you do not get on this plan are: gift cards, professional reports, advanced cart recovery, advanced report builder nor third-party calculated rates.
THE SHOPIFY PLAN
This plan costs $79 and has cards rates of: 2.7%+30¢ for Canadian cards, 3.4%+30¢ for Amex or international cards and an in- person card rate of 2.6%+0¢. There are no transaction fees for using Shopify payments as your payment gateway, but using external payment gateways has a transaction fee of 1.0% percent.
With this plan you get these features: five (5) staff accounts, ability to add an unlimited number of products, an unlimited amount of file storage space, a $49 retail package, a “better” Shopify shipping discount (than the basic plan), shipping labels printed, 24/7 hour support, fraud analysis, the ability to create orders manually, discount codes, a website and a blog, a free SSL certificate, gift cards, professional reports and advanced cart recovery. Features you do not get on this plan are: advanced report builder and third-party calculated rates.
THE ADVANCED SHOPIFY PLAN
This plan costs $299 with cards rates of: 2.4%+30¢ for Canadian cards, 3.3%+30¢ for Amex or international cards and an in- person card rate of 2.4%+0¢. There are no transaction fees (, as usual) for using Shopify payments as your payment gateway, but using external payment gateways has a transaction fee of 0.5% percent.
On this plan, every feature is made available to you. Specifically, fifteen (15) staff accounts, ability to add an unlimited number of products, an unlimited amount of file storage space, a $49 retail package, the “best” Shopify shipping discount, printed shipping labels, 24/7 hour support, fraud analysis, the ability to create orders manually, discount codes, a website and a blog, free SSL certificate, gift cards, professional reports, advanced cart recovery, advanced report builder and third-party calculated rates.
THE SHOPIFY PLUS PLAN
Shopify plus plan is Shopify’s “custom” plan. There is barely any information of this plan except that you get what you agree on with Shopify. If a business gets intereste in the plan, they contact an affiliate or some affiliate brands of Shopify and they will submit/refer you to Shopify. After which Shopify will call you and create a store for you based on your agreed criteria.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH SHOPIFY
My personal journey with Shopify has been very interesting. In my first week of opening my first two stores, I’ve had several abandoned carts. Why so many abandoned carts? You ask! Because living in a third world country, Nigeria, I couldn’t get a payment processor. All good options required that a business be registered (Until recently but only for new accounts). It’s sad. So if you fail, it’s always easier to blame it on your country rather than the platform. It’s like back lashing at Google because they didn’t have results for a weird name/word you were searching for.
My first store sold geek merchandise and the second store that I still work on, sells Long Boards. I still can’t get a payment processor and so have a vast amount of abandoned carts while I simultaneously try to make it look appealing and trustworthy. I haven’t given up!
So, I saved the best for last. Shopify allows a 14 day free trial after which you’ll need to buy a plan to keep using the platform unless a development store is created for you. There is still no loophole because once a store is 14 days old; you’ll need to still buy a plan regardless of if it was created as a development store. The only other option is for you to be added as an employee and when the store makes 50 orders, you’ll need to buy a plan and the store gets handed to you. You also have the opportunity to employ Shopify Experts to help you with your store based on what you agreed on.
If you have a product, whether you made it or had it made for you and would like or are ready Launch, then there is no better platform to sell on than Shopify.
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