Shopify powers stores for more than 1.75 million sellers around the world. It processed more than $108.b billion (AUD) in sales in the first half of 2021. And it’s the home of more than 3.76 million live and thriving websites. These are impressive claims, sure, but — why Shopify?
When starting your online store, choosing the right e-commerce platform sets the rest of your business in motion. Your e-commerce platform affects everything from the customer experience to getting found in search results. Adding products, changing designs, keeping good sales records, and getting paid can all be made easier (or more difficult).
At Just Create It Digital, we’re experts in Shopify website development and design. Our experience tells us the answer to “Why Shopify?” is easy: It’s the most powerful e-commerce platform for the best value around, and these 7 reasons prove it.
1. Shopify shortens the e-commerce learning curve.
If you’re brand new to e-commerce (or even if you’re not), you’ve got a lot of mechanics to figure out before you start selling. From building your online store to setting up payment gateways, setting tax rates, buying a domain, and designing your checkout process and product pages, you make a huge time investment before you make any money. And if you’re not sure how to design a product page or you don’t know what a payment gateway is, you spend even more time learning about it!
Shopify shortens this learning curve significantly by laying most of the groundwork for you. The platform offers more than 160 templates and themes that take the guesswork out of design. Just plug in your copy and content — no coding required.
The platform also makes it easy to install payment options (more on this in a moment) and other features. You can get your store up and running in a fraction of the time compared to other platforms, which means you can start selling faster!
2. Shopify offers powerful features as a standard model.
There’s nothing “bare bones” about Shopify’s base model. It’s extremely feature-rich to help you create a custom store without the fully custom process. In its most basic form, you can set up a fully functioning store, sell on social media and online marketplaces, and the ability to stock your store with unlimited products.
It also offers superior features like fraud detection, language translations, currency conversions, local payment options, and even get competitive shipping rates from the top carriers. And that’s just the base level plan!
It’s a user-friendly platform for serious sellers, and no other platform packs in this level of value at its lowest tier.
3. Shopify is inherently scalable with 3000+ integrations.
Using a template or theme doesn’t mean you can’t make your store experience special. Shopify’s app store has grown to more than 7,000 integrations (some are free, some are paid) that you can use to build out your store.
Customer wishlists? There’s an app for that. Loyalty programmes? Sign us up! Email marketing? Got you covered. Whatever you need, Shopify’s app store allows you to focus on creating the experience that will make you stand out in your market.
4. Shopify makes it easy to keep the conversation going.
There’s nothing more satisfying than making a sale! But Shopify makes it easy to turn that sale into many more with its suite of marketing tools.
Keep the conversation going with buyers via email marketing. Shopify makes it easy to set up automatic campaigns so you can target customers with special offers that keep them coming back.
Or, for customers who visited your site but didn’t finish checking out, Shopify includes abandoned cart marketing with its base plan so you can encourage them to finish the process.
Abandoned carts account for nearly $24.5 billion AUD in lost sales each year. And since more than 2 in 3 shopping carts will be abandoned, it’s imperative that e-tailers have a way to reach back out to their customers.
Shopify has also doubled down on its SEO (search engine optimisation) features over the years. Optimising your store for search ensures people can more easily find you online. You have a better chance of ranking higher in search results for people who are actively searching for products like yours.
5. Shopify caters to the mobile user.
Mobile browsing has overtaken fixed connections. With mobile-friendly payment options like Apple Wallet, it’s easier than ever for customers to complete the entire shopping process (search, discovery, purchase) online.
That said, Google and other search engines are now prioritising websites that offer mobile-friendly experiences. Your store can rank higher when it caters to mobile users, and Shopify’s themes and features do this on your behalf.
6. Shopify offers 24/7 technical store support.
Shopify operates more like a business partner than a service provider, especially when it comes to support. If you have problems you can’t solve or questions you can’t answer, Shopify’s support team is available 24/7 to offer technical help.
Many store owners don’t recognize the value of support until they really need it. Without good service, your store may end up losing sales as you try to find solutions on your own.
7. Shopify makes it easy to get paid.
One of the most essential parts of being an e-commerce store owner is ensuring you’re paid for every sale. Shopify has you covered with a wide option of payment methods, including local options for your international customers. In fact, half of customers will leave a transaction because their preferred payment method isn’t available. You can also choose to connect to Shopify’s own payment gateway for zero transaction fees and lower credit card fees.
Why Shopify? Final Thoughts
Instead of asking why Shopify, we prefer to say, why not Shopify? We became Shopify website development experts because we believe it truly is the best e-commerce solution available. And we’ll prove it to you — get in touch today and let’s start customising your Shopify store!
