Shopify is the most common name that comes to mind when people think about online e-commerce software.
What is Shopify? It's a comprehensive online selling platform with a monthly subscription. But how does Shopify function in practice? We'll go over the most important aspects of what you need to know if you're thinking about starting an ecommerce website. You may use Shopify to market, sell, and ship your products to clients. Your will also enjoy the benefit of being able to manage your store via the Shopify app store.
Shopify is popular due to its low startup cost and easy-to-use interface. Shopify is an excellent solution for many small businesses, although it’s not perfect. Read the rest of this blog post to learn more about what goes with a Shopify membership, how to utilize it, what items you may sell on Shopify, and whether or not it's worth it.
You'll also discover what it means to be a business owner when you start an online store, since running a Shopify store business necessitates knowledge of additional company administration processes.
What Is Shopify?
Shopify is a cloud-based software that allows you to set up and run your online store. Shopify is a monthly subscription service that provides small company owners with access to an admin panel where they may integrate special offers, add items, and process purchases. The program is simple to use and has a short learning curve, so you can have your store up and running in no time. There are many Shopify stores as many small business owners find this option as the perfect solution.
With hundreds of themes to choose from, you'll be able to pick any design template that fits your taste. These themes are clean and modern, and Shopify provides a number of customization options so you can adapt the theme to fit your company's style. You may build a catalog for each line of goods or a single product store using these templates. The Shopify dashboard allows owners to implement changes to the store as their business is growing and offer more products to their clients as time goes by and they decide to offer more products to their clients.
Shopify subscription
Start selling on Shopify is not that complicated and very affordable. The Shopify subscription service base offer its clients few plans that support the Shopify store growth. The most important factor to consider while selecting one option over another is how many individuals will require access to manage the online store.
Basic Shopify plan: $29 a month
This plan allows its owners to have two users accounts ( if you have another partner or you plan on having an helper this can be a great plan to start with), up to four locations, online marketplaces and social media access, and an limitless number of product items are all available if you go with the Basic plan.
Shopify: $79 a month
This Shopify plan allows five users accounts, up to five locations, access to online marketplaces and social media, and unlimited products.
Advanced Shopify: $299 a month
Advanced Shopify allows 15 staff accounts, up to eight locations, access to online marketplaces and social media, and unlimited products.
Shopify is an integrated package, according to Shopify. With a Shopify membership, you'll have everything you need to start selling on your own site quickly and expand your business as needed.
What Is Shopify Lite?
Shopify Lite is a Shopify plan for sellers who don't want or need a full online store. Shopify Lite is an eCommerce store tool that enables you to add a sales feature to any webpage for a $9 monthly subscription fee. That includes social media posts on sites like Facebook and your blog or existing website, as well as buy buttons at check out. You will be able to accept payments via a credit card payment processing system.
What Is Shopify Plus?
Shopify Plus is an advanced Shopify plan designed for businesses with more than $500,000 in annual sales on their online store. It's the company's top-tier plan, which costs $2,000 per month or 0.25% of total transactions each month. Shopify Plus is elegant, simple, and intuitive, like all Shopify versions. Although this top-tier Shopify version comes with more sophisticated features such as unrestricted selling capacity and specific tools like Shopify Flow for automation, it is similar to its predecessors in that it is user-friendly, feature-rich, and easy to use.
What Can I Sell On Shopify?
Shopify is accessible to a wide range of eCommerce businesses. Shopify users can sell tangible items, digital goods, and drop-shipped items on the platform (as long as none of the items are illegal). There is a verity of different items you can sell on your Shopify store, such as:
Books or eBooks
Home furniture
Gardening and outdoor supply
Clothing and other fashion related
Electronics
Courses
Hand made
As you may sell anything on the Shopify store, your limit is only your imagination. The only ironclad rule is that you can't offer anything deemed illegal, and the following items are strictly prohibited: alcohol, cigarettes, e-cigarettes, fireworks, narcotics, video game money or credits.
What Are The Pros & Cons Of Shopify?
While Shopify is a great solution for many companies, it isn't right for everyone. Here's a short list of the reasons merchants opt for Shopify, as well as a list of typical client dissatisfaction:
Shopify Pros
Easy To Use: This is by far the biggest reason merchants love Shopify. Shopify is built for the average user, not skilled developers. It’s simple to add products, create discounts, and process orders. Web design is user-friendly and even easy with Shopify’s drag-and-drop editing tool.
Low Startup Cost: Shopify’s relatively low monthly fees make setup affordable. How much does Shopify cost, you ask? The basic plan costs $29/month, and the mid-level plan is priced at $79/month.
Beautiful Themes: Subscribing merchants can choose from a variety of free, mobile-responsive themes. Premium (paid) themes are also available for merchants who want more options.
Good For Dropshipping: Shopify is the platform of choice for many dropshippers. Shopify’s dropshipping integrations with top names like Spocket and Oberlo make dropshipping from your Shopify admin a lot simpler.
Lots Of Support Options: You can access technical support every hour of the day through phone, live chat, and email. Self-help options are available as well. Customers like that Shopify’s support is available outside of regular business hours.
Shopify Cons
Limited personalization: Shopify has most of the features that a small business requires to establish an online store preinstalled. However, every company has unique needs, and Shopify typically does not have the capabilities to fulfill them all. This is when add-ons come in useful. Many businesses find themselves needing a variety of add-ons to make this shopping cart operate as they need.
Costly Add-Ons: While Shopify is a quit affordable online store builder and offers almost every basic feature to help start a basic online shop, the software is lacking many advanced features. You will need to find a third party provider to fill this gap for example if you sale a service rather than an product you may need to find a special shopping cart solution.
Transaction Fees: Shopify has kept its 0.5% to 2.0% transaction fees, despite the fact that most shopping carts have completely eliminated them (depending on your pricing plan). You have the option to waive these expenses if you use Shopify Payments to take payments. However, Shopify Payments has a poor reputation among consumers and might not be the finest
Strained Customer Support: Many customers who buy on Shopify are extremely pleased with it. However, because Shopify is growing increasingly popular, they may not have enough personnel to help new clients. It's possible that's why more recent client evaluations are less favorable. Some consumers were frustrated since Shopify support staff were unable to assist them in resolving their difficulties.
How To Use Shopify To Build Your Shop
Choose a store name
Make sure that the store name you choose not limiting you to future growth for example if you choose a name like yoga mat supply you will limit your online store to only sell mat and in the future it will be harder to promote other yoga related products. Your name should be simple to remember, easy to pronounce, and have a positive vibe.
Get the domain for your online store
When you've decided on a name, you may use a third party domain provider like Godaddy.com and confirm that the primary domain yourstorename.com is available for purchase. You may get started by opening a professional mailbox like support@yourstorename.com after you've acquired the domain.
Open a Shopify account
The next thing you will need to do is to actually create a Shopify account by signing up and choosing the subscription plan. You're also entitled to a 14-day free trial, which may assist you in determining whether Shopify provides the right service so that you can run your online business.
Connect your primary domain
Connect your new domain with your online store by following their simple, step-by-step instructions this will connect your domain and your store automatically.
Choose your store theme
Once you have created your store and connected it to your domain you will be able to choose from over 150 free themes or you can also purchase a premium theme that might be more suited to your online store. You can then customize the appearance of your Shopify website with a few clicks using the intuitive admin panel. You should also check your Shopify app store to make sure the theme look appealing both on the Shopify app store and also on your own online store.
Building the Shopify theme store
Sections, in particular, is a tool I like. The Shopify drag-and-drop editor, as you may know, is one of my favorite features. The Sections editor allows you to customize the appearance of your homepage with simple drag-and-drop design tools. I'm a fan of how simple it is to rearrange components of your web pages. If you want more flexibility, Shopify also allows you to modify the appearance of your site via site code editing. If you have a larger budget you can also contact a professional ecommerce website builder to personalize your ecommerce store for you.
Take Advantage Of Shopify Add-Ons
Shopify has a lot of add-ons. There are more than 3,000 for you to use. Because Shopify is relatively lightweight out of the box, you'll most likely need to connect it with a few additional applications to integrate them with your online store like shipping software, payment processing, or email marketing software, Shopify dropshipping integrations. With so many available add-ons, you'll be able to locate the ones you need in no time, some may even be free of cost.
Shipping:
Shopify’s shipping module allows you to integrate with major shipping carriers to calculate real-time shipping rates. You can purchase and print shipping labels directly from your admin panel. With Shopify Shipping, you can even display calculated rates in your customers’ shopping carts.
Dropshipping Apps:
You may connect Shopify with a few dropshipping apps, including Oberlo, which is a well-known option.
Mobile Management:
Shopify offers mobile apps for Android and iOS that will let you manage your store from anywhere. You can
Integrations With other ecommerce platform:
Connect your Shopify account to two of the world's largest marketplaces and power orders from all of your sales channels in Shopify.
Social Media:
Your client should be able to find your online store and you should have online presence in your marketing. Don't forget to link your Shopify store with your social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest so that you may promote your items to a larger audience.
Business structure for your Ecommerce business
Now that you have learned how does Shopify work and what services Shopify offers to its clients in helping with online sells. we can go a head and covered the other part of what it takes to be a business owner.
Selling online, owning your own website and your online store is wonderful but every business comes with risk and you should do your best to protect your personal assets in case your business is not as successful as you thought it will be or even worse now you in debt to creditors that trying to recover their losses.
Limited liability company, such a company is designed specifically for that purpose, to separate your business assets from your personal assets and safeguard them via the corporate veil so that if your firm goes bankrupt, the creditors will be able to recover only the corporate assets and not your personal belongings.
Forming an LLC is an easy process you can form an LLC by going HERE and following the steps. the following are some of the things you will need to operate a legit business and to preserve your cooperate veil protection:
Forming an LLC and file all annual reports.
Obtaining an EIN number and open a business bank account.
Having a register agent on record.
Shopify makes it easy for you to build your online store and we make it easy for you to form your LLC and help you stay in compliance. read What is an LLC?
