Shopify Review: Is This One of the Best Ecommerce Website Templates?
Deciding to build an online store is a big decision and a solid business model. Once you’ve decided on a product to sell, your next big decision is choosing a great eCommerce website template. I’ve tried many eCommerce templates, and I can say without a doubt that Shopify offers one of the best eCommerce website templates and platforms when you consider pricing, template options, styling, and ease of use. use.
In fact, many eCommerce store owners have extremely successful online stores using Shopify.
Let me jump right into the features and benefits in this Shopify review. I will also talk to you about some of the drawbacks of this ecommerce platform but in the end it is one of the best ecommerce website options available (note these are the features and benefits at the time it was published) this article). published).
Features and benefits of using Shopify for your eCommerce store
Free Trial:
You can try it free for 30 days. Take advantage of this offer by exploring the many eCommerce website templates they have to choose from. Take a look under the hood and discover how easy it is to get your online store up and running quickly.
50 eCommerce / storefront templates to choose from:
Shopify has 50 awesome themes/template styles to choose from. You can also easily customize any theme or template you get to ensure you get the precise look and feel you want for your business.
No contract required:
When you use Shopify, you don’t need to commit to any duration. You pay month to month. I don’t need to tell you how advantageous this is. After all, when you’re just starting out, the last thing you want to do is commit to long-term spending.
No computer coding skills needed:
You don’t need to know how to create websites to set up a Shopify eCommerce store. Shopify makes it very easy to choose and configure any of their 50 templates by simply clicking the buttons.
Processing payment:
Shopify makes it very easy to integrate with a credit card and/or Paypal gateway. If you sell digital products, no problem, you can deliver them through an integrated app included with your Shopify subscription.
Use your own domain:
I can’t stress enough the importance of building your store on your own domain. Yes, you can use a Shopify domain, but in the long run it’s much, much better to start building your store on your own domain. Shopify makes it easy to create an eCommerce store on your own domain.
Why use your own domain? Because if you start getting links to your store (great for search engine rankings and highly recommended), if you switch domains, those links you get to a Shopify domain are wasted. Start your business on the right foot by investing the $10 it costs to get your own domain.
Low Monthly Cost:
Once you decide to use Shopify, it only costs $24 per month for a basic plan. You can sell up to 100 SKUs with this plan, which is a great deal in my opinion. There is also no setup fee. If you ever need to upgrade your plan, it’s easy to do. Shopify = flexibility.
In addition, however, you also pay a 2.0 percent transaction fee as part of your cost (when you upgrade plans, the transaction percentage decreases). This allows Shopify to charge low monthly flat-rate fees. Being able to limit fixed costs and having a variable cost option (ie costs directly tied to your sales) is a great feature and advantage as you get your online business off the ground.
SSL payment:
You definitely want to offer your customers safe shopping. With all of Shopify’s ecommerce website templates and plans, you can automatically offer secure shopping for your customers with industry-standard 128-bit SSL encryption.
Bandwidth: Unlimited.
This means that if you get a flood of visitors, your site won’t shut down. Obviously, this is critical to running a successful online eCommerce store.
Discount codes for your customers:
You must upgrade to a $59 monthly plan to offer coupon codes. If you are just starting out, this is not necessary. Once you start generating sales, you’ll be in a position to monitor your sales and then decide if coupon codes can help you build your business.
Automatic backups:
Shopify backs up your store so you don’t have to worry about losing data.
Add a Shopify eCommerce template to your existing website:
If you already have a blog or website and want to add a store, that’s no problem with Shopify. You simply set up your Shopify store on a subdomain (subdomains don’t cost anything to set up).
Customer service and technical support:
You can contact Shopify for help, use their Shopify forums, and check out detailed tutorials on the Shopify Help wiki. You won’t be stranded to fight.
Dropshipping Integration and Partners:
If you don’t want to pack and ship your orders, you can use a partner provider such as Fulfillment by Amazon, Shipwire, and Webgistix.
Drawbacks of Shopify for Your Ecommerce Template Solution
- I don’t like that you have to upgrade to a $59/month plan in order to offer coupon codes. I find that coupon codes are a powerful way for a new business to generate revenue. It should be offered on all planes.
- Very few dropshipping associations. Now I’m not sure if you can set up drop shipping with a company other than Amazon, Shipwire and Webgistix. Chances are one of these 3 will suit your needs, but if not, it may be more complicated than it needs to be than setting up an automated order processing system. Again, this is something you need to discuss with potential shippers and Shopify.
Despite my 2 dislikes mentioned above, I still believe that Shopify offers one of the best eCommerce templates available anywhere.