Do you want to build your own e-commerce store with a powerful platform like Shopify? Well, your preference is credible since it is already an industry leader among the e-commerce builder platforms and a hugely popular one thanks to its exceptional ease of use and flexibility. But like every other platform, it also does not come without its share of pros and cons of Shopify Website development.
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Pros of using Shopify
Unquestionably Shopify as an eCommerce platform is popular because of a long list of pros. Let us have a look at a few of them.
- Ready to deliver
Shopify is ready to deliver a turnkey solution that just allows you to build your website as a straightforward solution. All you need is to sign up and you are ready to design and build your online store. The fast-paced setup allows you to sell your products in the fastest possible time.
- Exclusive built-in features
There is an array of powerful built-in features this platform offers. With these features, most of your technical issues are solved and you get most of the functionalities one normally needs with an online store.
- Hosting service
When building your store with Shopify you can also get their hosting service equipped with powerful servers. This also takes away the entire trouble of handling your server and troubleshooting to run it.
- Exceptional security
Shopify being completely PCI DSS compliant offers optimum security for credit and debit card transactions as per industry standards. Moreover, the store enjoys a free SSL certificate to allow the encryption of all your business-sensitive data.
- SEO advantages
Shopify offers foolproof features for your eCommerce site to target search page ranks. Besides allowing adding metadata and tags it allows integrating analytics to evaluate your SEO practices and make them better over time.
- Easy UI
Shopify offers an easy-to-use UI equipped with great design features. Shopify UI allows everyone to find their way while browsing the store. While offering a visually appealing UI Shopify store makes it extremely easy to order and buy products.
- Multitude of add-ons
Shopify also offers a great App Store featuring a multitude of add-ons allowing you to expand the site features. Many of them just come for free while a few of them require one time or monthly subscription.
- Customer support
Shopify also offers around-the-clock customer support ready to help you in solving all technical problems and in answering all your queries.
- Responsive web design
Shopify’s eCommerce design is totally mobile-friendly and allows users to easily browse and make purchases through a mobile-friendly responsive UI.
- A lot of customization options
Shopify also offers an array of customization options with a multitude of free themes as well. Over and above the available free or paid themes one can add custom design attributes to come with his preferred look and feel.
Cons of using Shopify
In spite of so much to offer Shopify does not come without an array of drawbacks as well. From the point of view of establishing an e-commerce business, Shopify also comes packed with a few disadvantages.
- Shopify is not free
Yes, like many other free and self-hosted e-commerce platforms Shopify is not free. In complete contrast, you have quite great options for building e-commerce stores like Magento, Zen Cart, WooCommerce, etc. If you are a programmer with some years of experience in building a web interface, you can go with these free and self-hosted options to build your own custom-designed web store. Obviously, for security certificates, payment gateways, and many other features you need to pay while with Shopify all these features just come for free.
- Limitations with customization
Though Shopify comes with an array of powerful themes they are often proved problematic when you need to customize them. There is also some learning curve involved as Shopify is built with its own language called Liquid. Though you can use other programming languages while coding, with Shopify you have certain limitations.
- Very basic marketing tools
There is another big accusation against Shopify and it is its very basic and elementary nature of marketing tools. Though many think saying this unnecessarily undermines the capability of the platform, it depends on the type of e-commerce store you need to build with Shopify. There is a gamut of tools available for free and you can always go to the App Store for additional tools you need.
- Not organized in the way other platforms are
Shopify offers a differently organized interface with many interesting choices in respect of choosing the preferred category names. Many of these category names can add to the confusion of the users adding more difficulty in navigation through the website. Such unconventional category names and difficulty in user experience add to the learning curve and difficulty of use.
- Migration difficulty
It is not unusual for the users of Shopify to migrate to other platforms. But many users complain that when deciding about such switching it can add to the difficulty in migration in more ways than one. You also can lose some of your stored information in the process of migration from Shopify. You have only the CSV export of your site left as a choice. This is a persisting issue with many eCommerce platforms including Shopify.
Final Verdict
Pros and Cons of Shopify, in the final analysis, is a kind of platform that goes well with most people looking to make an online business presence. The best thing about Shopify is it is versatile and flexible enough to go with a variety of preferences, niches, and needs. Most notably, apart from paying a price as a subscription, you do not need to pay any price for most other things required to set up your store. A Shopify store can be set up within a quarter of an hour with all features and design attributes intact.
Lastly, Shopify also offers one of the best pricing plans in the market. Even if you have chosen the basic one with the lowest subscription fee you can always go to the app store and access what you need.
