If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the complexities of building, marketing, and managing an online store, our Shopify review should help. We thoroughly researched and tested the leading ecommerce website builders to find out why Shopify is so popular and most people’s top choice for building an online store.
Shopify comes with a user-friendly interface, unlimited product cataloging, and a comprehensive suite of e-commerce tools, making it ideal for selling both digital and physical products.
But it’s not the cheapest ecommerce platform out there, so is it worth it? We’ll explore its features, pricing, and Shopify pros and cons so you can decide if it’s the right fit for your online business.
What Is Shopify?
Shopify is an all-in-one ecommerce website builder solution that helps online businesses of all sizes sell to customers anywhere in the world. The cloud-based Shopify platform uses powerful tools and services to make managing your products, inventory, shipping, payments, and marketing under one roof easy.
It also offers a range of user-friendly third-party apps in its Shopify app store and features that work with Shopify’s editor to customize your online Shopify store.
Shopify stores provide entrepreneurs in over 175 countries with the building blocks and tools to start, grow, and manage an e-commerce business. Want to learn more? I’ll continue with our Shopify review below and discuss pricing, its key features, and more so you can find out if it’s the best way for you to sell online.
Shopify Cost – Pricing & Plans
When it comes to Shopify pricing, Shopify owners can begin with a 3-day free trial. Once the trial expires, you’ll have to select from the available Shopify plans: Basic, Shopify, Advanced, & Plus.
Shopify Plans | Basic Plan | Shopify | Advanced | Plus |
---|---|---|---|---|
Starting Price (annually) | $29/month | $79/month | $299/month | $2,300/month |
Free Trial | ✅ 3-day free trial |
✅ 3-day free trial |
✅ 3-day free trial |
✅ 3-day free trial |
Free Domain | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Storage & Bandwidth | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Drag-and-Drop Interface | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
API | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
SSL Certificate | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
E-Commerce Capabilities | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Does Shopify Have A Free Plan?
Unfortunately, Shopify does not have a free plan. The platform operates on a subscription basis and charges a monthly fee starting at $29.
However, Shopify offers a 14-day free trial period, during which you can explore its features and functionalities before committing to a subscription. This option is as good as a free plan, as it lets you try out everything on the platform to see if it suits your needs for your online store.
Shopify Key Features
Shopify websites are designed to create user-friendly, hassle-free purchase experiences that convert visitors into customers. Like its other features, the Shopify platform has tools and features to make this happen.
Shopify has over 150+ ecommerce Shopify themes. You can choose from both free and paid Shopify themes. You only need to pay for paid Shopify themes when publishing, so feel free to test the theme carefully before committing.
It also provides an option to upload your theme, so it’s easier to migrate from other platforms to Shopify. Shopify themes are also responsive, ensuring a seamless shopping experience across desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
Shopify has a drag-and-drop theme editor to add, remove, or rearrange content on your site. It uses sections and blocks so beginners can easily make a website without any hassle.
Shopify’s AI website builder can customize any theme to your requirements. However, there may be some limitations depending on the theme or section. For example, its free theme, Dawn, only lets you add one heading, paragraph, and button.
Shopify’s app roster allows you to add to existing theme functionalities and improve user experience by adding admin capabilities and integrating with third-party tools and services.
You can find apps for enhancing SEO, marketing automation, customer support, inventory management, and more, allowing you to tailor your store’s capabilities to meet your specific small business needs.
You can also get comprehensive analytics data for your ecommerce shop since Shopify apps let you integrate all store-related systems and processes, providing a clearer view of operations. For example, you can use the Event Ticketing app to scan tickets sold on your Shopify website.
Shopify is designed for online small businesses and includes e-commerce-specific solutions with all its themes. You can make it easier to navigate your website and find the right products using tools like:
- Filters, which make it easier for new customers to navigate and find items on the website.
- Sales channels to link your online shop to your social media channels or websites.
- Metafields to include specialized information about listings, orders, and customer profiles, such as product specs, a list of ingredients, dimensions, etc.
- Currency to add location-specific prices so customers can make informed purchase decisions.
- Abandoned cart recovery: To entice new customers to follow through with their purchase.
I’ll discuss Shopify as an ecommerce platform in more detail below.
Shopify includes built-in SEO features like customizable meta tags, automatic sitemap generation, and mobile-friendly themes to help optimize your content for search engines.
This helps improve visibility and attract organic traffic to the store.
Shopify provides detailed analytics and reporting tools that give you insight into your sales performance, customer behavior, and traffic.
You can track key metrics, monitor trends, and make data-driven decisions to optimize your store’s performance.
Shopify offers 24/7 customer support via phone, email, and live chat, with its availability dependent on your plan.
Additionally, you’ll have access to Shopify’s extensive help center, community forums, and online resources for guidance on using the platform effectively.
Is Shopify A Good Ecommerce Platform?
Shopify is one of the leading ecommerce website builder platforms on the market today, and its full range of features and integrations are just a few of the reasons why.
But is Shopify right for your online store, and what can it do for you? We’ve mentioned some of Shopify’s features above, but now I’ll dig into more of its advanced ecommerce features to give you a better idea of why it’s so popular:
Shopify Magic
Shopify Magic is not a specific feature or tool within Shopify but rather a term used informally to describe the platform’s ongoing efforts and advancements in technology, innovation, and user experience.
It encapsulates the brand’s continuous development of new features, enhancements, and integrations aimed at simplifying e-commerce operations, enhancing performance, and improving user satisfaction.
Shopify integrates these features into its platform, and they are designed to enhance the various aspects of e-commerce operations. Through its automatic text generation capabilities, Shopify Magic streamlines content creation for tasks like product descriptions and email subject lines.
Shopify Sidekick, another component of Shopify Magic, is an AI-driven feature introduced by Shopify designed to simplify and enhance various aspects of managing an online store. It acts as a personalized commerce assistant, offering tailored support and guidance to merchants.
Additionally, the platform leverages AI for media generation, simplifying tasks like image editing. It can also give you actionable insights and performance recommendations to help you optimize your operations and boost sales.
You can use Shopify Magic to:
- Create or edit images without professional help. For example, you can remove the background in pictures so your product stands out.
- Automatically generate content like product descriptions, FAQs, headings, and emails.
- Predict future customer spending using purchase history and market trends.
What Is The Shopify Shop App?
The Shopify Shop App is another must-have, but what does it do? The Shopify Shop App is a mobile add-on in the Shopify App Store designed to elevate the shopping experience for both customers and merchants.
It enables seamless mobile browsing and shopping, personalized product recommendations, and real-time order tracking, all while offering push notifications for sales and promotions.
With streamlined checkout processes and features like wishlists and store locators, it enhances engagement and boosts retail sales with Shopify POS systems, making it an invaluable tool for both small businesses and established retail stores looking to thrive in the digital marketplace.
You can add apps in three ways:
- As app blocks: Drag and drop app functionalities where you want them in the theme. For example, a product ratings function. You can customize them using the theme editor.
- As app embeds: Add popups and floating elements to themes, such as the chat bubble at the corner of the page. You can edit them using the theme editor.
- As custom code: These are for apps that need you to add code directly to the theme to function. You can do this in app settings or using the theme editor.
NOTE: App blocks are only available with Shopify Online Store 2.0 (Shopify’s new website editor). Also, some theme sections may not support app blocks.
Shopify Vs. Other Top Ecommerce Website Builder Platforms
Let’s take a quick look at how Shopify stacks up against the other top website builders in the market today.
Website Builder | Starting Price | Top 3 Features | Free Domain | Storage & Bandwidth |
---|---|---|---|---|
Wix | Starts at $17/month | Wix ADI, Intuitive Editor, Wix App Market | ✅ | 2GB storage & unlimited bandwidth |
Square | Starts at $29/month | Business-specific plans, Email Marketing, Scheduling | ✅ | Unlimited |
BigCommerce | Starts at $39/month | Multi-channel integration, API, B2B & B2C tools | ❌ | Unlimited |
GoDaddy | Starts at $10.99/month | GoDaddy InSight, GoDaddy Studio, Website Security (SSL) | ✅ | 100GB storage & unlimited bandwidth |
Shopify Reviews
To understand Shopify’s pros and cons in the real world and write a balanced and informed Shopify review, I analyzed customer feedback from online sellers on the most trusted sites.
On Trustpilot, Shopify has a Bad rating of 1.5 out of 5 from some 2,347 reviews—but I suggest taking this low rating with a grain of salt, as I’ll explain.
Most people are happy with the platform, highlighting the excellent customer support. Shopify’s website builder reviews praise its simplicity, integrated marketing, and SEO tools, such as email marketing, generative AI features, and Shopify payments.
However, positive reviews are mostly from long-term customers who have used the platform for a minimum of 4-5 years.
Meanwhile, negative reviews raise legitimate concerns about a lack of transparency and delayed refunds. For example, some people have stated that customer service reps ask them to pay for features previously available for free.
They’re also frustrated with the AI-powered chatbots and prefer interacting with human reps to resolve problems faster.
It’s worth noting that some people have left negative product reviews regarding late deliveries, wrong items, etc. However, these reviews target particular Shopify stores hosted on Shopify or are product reviews, not reviews of Shopify itself.
This contributes heavily to the low Shopify rating on Trustpilot, so read everything carefully to evaluate whether Shopify is right for you.
Read all customer reviews on Trustpilot
How to Use Shopify - A Step-by-Step Guide
There isn't one fixed way to get started with Shopify, but there are some important steps you need to take to get going. To help you get started, we've listed the steps to setting up your Shopify account (in the recommended order).
Sign up for Shopify
First, start by creating a Shopify account. You can go with a 3-day free trial or choose a paid plan, starting at $29/month. You’ll need to answer some basic questions about your online business like your experience, location, and operations type.
Update your business settings
When Shopify creates your account, it uses default account settings to fill in a few blanks. For example, the default store name is MyStore.
Remember to update these settings before designing your online store because they’re global settings (like online store name, legal name, address, time zone, and default currency) that can impact online store functions.
Choose your Shopify theme
Next comes selecting the right Shopify theme for your online store. Shopify offers both free and paid themes, with the option to preview up to 19 paid themes.
While selecting your theme, you can also update your domain name. When you start, you’re assigned an automatically-generated myshopify.com domain name. You can update the domain name once for free or purchase a custom domain name.
Set up your store
Now, it’s time to bring your store to life by adding your products, descriptions, pages, menus, and interlinks. It’s the most time-consuming part of setting up your Shopify store. So I recommend adding and organizing your product catalog before moving on to the rest.
You can create product collections to organize your products based on customer preferences and product types. Shopify offers an option to add products to your catalog automatically. But this setting can’t be modified later, so be careful to get it right the first time.
Create your email addresses
Next, set up your communication emails. Shopify has two types of email accounts: store address Shopify email and sender address Shopify email. Each email address serves different purposes:
- The Store address Shopify mail is for communications between you and Shopify.
- The Sender address Shopify email is for communications between you and your customers.
Shopify also supports email forwarding, so you can direct emails from your Shopify branded domain to a third-party email account.
Choose your online store management settings
In this step, define your store-related settings before opening your virtual door to customers. It deals with all the boring (but important) bits like inventory settings, payment methods, taxes, etc. You can find these in the Settings menu at the bottom right-hand corner of your Shopify dashboard.
Test & launch your store
Test your store by placing some orders to see how everything is working. Evaluate your checkout process, navigational experience, inventory settings, and Shopify shipping log update. If you’re satisfied with how everything is functioning, hit publish and get ready to start servicing orders from around the world.
Techopedia Pro-tip: Download Shopify’s Setup Checklist
There are a few things to remember while setting up your Shopify site. Download Shopify’s general checklist to ensure you don’t miss a step.
To provide our readers with accurate and well-informed recommendations, we test the most popular website builders on the market to find the best options for you. Our methodology consists of the following criteria:How We Review And Test Website Builders
How to Choose the Best Website Builder
Here are a few things to consider while choosing a website builder:
Is your website for driving inquiries or sales? Do you sell physical products or services? Begin by drilling down on why you’re building an online website before diving into the different website builders.
Designing and maintaining a website isn’t easy, especially if you’re new. Find a solution that simplifies website building with drag-and-drop editors, block-based website building, and an extensive help center to find answers to any queries.
Every website requires certain vital features, like hosting, domain name, website editor, and basic SEO tools. Depending on the type of online business, you’ll also need a few extra capabilities. Check the website builder’s feature list to see if it offers these capabilities.
Website builders offering specialized solutions like ecommerce or community-based websites are more expensive. Set a budget based on required and optional features, and use that to help you narrow down the list of website builders.
Your website should reflect your brand and voice. Use the free plan trial to set up a dummy website and see if the website builder offers all the design and customization options you need to provide the right customer experience.
The right support makes managing your website easier. Ensure the platform offers extensive customer support options, including chat, email, and phone support.
FAQs
Is it a good idea to use Shopify?
How trustworthy is Shopify?
Can I really make money on Shopify?
What are the disadvantages of Shopify?
Is Shopify legit?
References
- About Shopify (Shopify)
- General checklist for starting a new Shopify online store (Shopify)
- Shopify Flow (Shopify)
- Shopify Reviews (Trustpilot)