How good is Shopify for Your eCommerce Website Development?

According to the latest usage statistics posted on W3Techs.com, “Shopify is used by 1.5% of all the websites whose content management system we know. This is 0.7% of all websites.” As a hosted ecommerce solution, Shopify enables both large and small enterprises to set up, run, and scale custom web stores within a short amount of time. An enterprise can use Shopify to create web stores for selling wide variety of products.

Also, the developers can easily customize the ecommerce website according to precise needs of a business by availing the themes, apps, and tools provided by the ecommerce builder. At the same time, Shopify allows web store owners to sell their products through a number of channels — web store, retail package, Facebook Shop, Facebook Messenger, Amazon, Buy Button, and Shopify POS. There are also a number of reasons why many enterprises prefer Shopify to other ecommerce builders.

Why Many Enterprises Prefer Shopify to Other Ecommerce Builders?

Bare Minimum Theme Design Options

The look and feel of an ecommerce website influences its user experience directly. Shopify makes it easier for users to improve and customize the look and feel of their web stores using a wide range of themes. The users can select themes based on a number of criterions — minimalist style, grid-style layout, large inventories, small inventories, and big and beautiful imagery. The developers can easily customize the themes to make the web store look more appealing and deliver richer customer experience.

A Variety of Apps

Each user has option to choose from a large number of free and paid apps from Shopify’s app store. These app stores help developers to build and run web stores without writing lengthy and complex code. The businesses can use specific apps to simplify inventory management, shipping, social media integration and accounting/bookkeeping. Likewise, they can use marketing and sales apps to drive traffic to the web store, keep visitors engaged, and increase conversion rate. The reporting apps further help users to analyze sales, monitor customer behaviour, and identify traffic sources without using third-party tools.

Roust Tools

Shopify further helps businesses to make their web stores interactive using a variety of tools. The users can avail specific tools to enhance customer experience by adding 360-degree product views, videos, and smart search tools to the website. At the same time, the web store administrators can also avail specific tools to simplify tasks like data transfer, subscription management, and blog importing. Hence, the tools provided by Shopify help businesses to simplify web store management and increase conversion rate.

Multiple Sales Channels

Shopify is developed as a hosted ecommerce development tool. It enables businesses to set up web stores without availing additional hosting services. At the same time, it helps enterprises to boost online sales revenue by selling their products through multiple sales channels — web store, social networking platforms, and in-person. The users can synchronize customers, products and orders across sales channels using Shopify admin interface. They can even use the Shopify Buy Button to add their products to any website or blog. These options help enterprises to bridge the gap between their brick-and-mortar stores and web stores.

Mobile Optimization

Most customers nowadays access ecommerce websites on their mobile devices. Hence, the ecommerce website must deliver richer user experience across varying mobile devices and platforms to increase conversion rate. Shopify helps eCommerce application developers to optimize ecommerce websites for mobile devices using responsive themes. Also, the developers can enhance customer experience using the built-in mobile commerce shopping cart provided by the ecommerce builder. The business owners can even use the Mobile Shopify App to contact customers, accept payment, fulfil orders, and manage web stores directly from their iOS or Android devices.

Multiple Payment Gateways

Shopify supports more than 70 international payment gateways. Hence, an enterprise can easily choose and integrate a reliable payment gateway into its ecommerce application. However, it has to pay transaction fees each time a customer uses a third-party payment gateway. The business can avoid paying transaction fees by opting for Shopify Payment. However, Shopify Payment gateway is currently available in selected countries.

Reliable and Secure Hosting Solution

A large percentage of customers nowadays abandon ecommerce websites that take more than 3 seconds to load. Likewise, many customers avoid new web stores due to security and privacy issues. Shopify is designed as a hosted ecommerce solution. It allows you to customize the entire web store hosting process, in addition to availing unlimited bandwidth. Also, the ecommerce builder comes with features to speed up the ecommerce website and keep all sensitive data secure. The businesses can simply implement SSL to keep all sensitive customer data and online transaction processing 100% secure.

Options to Reduce Checkout Abandonment

Often customers add items to shopping cart, but do not complete the process. An enterprise can seduce such customers and compel them to complete the checkout process by providing exit offers or discount code. Likewise, it can display security badges to convince customers about the security of their sensitive and personal data. Shopify tracks the abandoned checkout without creating customer accounts. The information helps enterprises to persuade the customers to complete the checkout process.

24X7 Technical Supports

Often website downtime directly affects the reputation of a web store, in addition to causing revenue loss. That is why; many enterprises deploy a team of technicians to avoid website downtime and resolve performance issues. But the small businesses and start-ups often lack the resources required to deploy full-time technicians. Shopify makes it easier for businesses to avoid website downtime by providing reliable and consistent customer support. An enterprise can get the website related problems resolved immediately by contacting the customer support staff through emails, live chat, or phone call.

However, Shopify is a commercial ecommerce builder. An enterprise can use Shopify free for 14 days. But it subsequently has to choose from three different editions of the ecommerce builder — Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify. The three editions of Shopify differ from each other in terms of features and monthly price. Hence, each enterprise has to incur additional expenses to run the web store with Shopify. Likewise, the business also has to spend more money to avail commercial themes, apps, and plug-ins. But the features provided by Shopify help businesses to build, run, and scale their ecommerce applications smoothly.