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Looking for an honest and brutal Shopify Review?
For many years, Shopify has been the top choice for eCommerce businesses looking to set up, launch, and scale their online store.
Is it still the most customizable and feature-rich online store website builder on the market, or is there another competitor that has the cutting edge?
In this comprehensive Shopify review, I will delve into Shopify’s key features and analyze its performance to determine whether it is the best choice for you!
So, let’s explore Shopify’s capabilities and decide if it truly lives up to all the hype!
Quick Summary
- Shopify is a premium eCommerce platform providing everything you need to build, launch, and manage your online store.
- Shopify is best for a range of business types and levels of expertise, from small business owners to large enterprises within any eCommerce industry!
- You can sell different products and services online, offline, and via different social media platforms and marketplaces on Shopify – the world is your oyster!
- My top Shopify alternatives are Wix, WooCommerce, and Hostinger’s AI Website Builder. But in my opinion, the functionality vs. user-friendliness level is unmatched in Shopify!
- Check out my in-depth Shopify video tutorial here, where I dive deep into Shopify or my quick video guide on how to set up a Shopify store here.
What Is Shopify?
If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur looking to carve your niche in the eCommerce world, you’ve likely come across the name Shopify.
But what exactly is Shopify?
Shopify is an all-in-one, fully hosted CMS and eCommerce platform that powers over 25% of online stores globally.
Made for beginners, Shopify gives you all the tools and resources you could ever need to build, manage, and scale your online business.
And the best part is that you don’t need to know an ounce of code to get up and running with Shopify!
From creating visually stunning and responsive websites to managing transactions, emails, and inventory, Shopify’s suite of features allows you to take control of all aspects of your online store.
Shopify truly empowers entrepreneurs with little to no technical expertise to bring their dreams to life.
Honestly, it’s no surprise that Shopify is a force to be reckoned within the eCommerce landscape!
Read more: Do You Need An LLC For Shopify?
What Can You Sell On Shopify?
Some online store platforms are limited in what you can sell. But with Shopify, the sky is your limit!
You can sell a diverse range of products and services, including:
- Physical products.
- Digital downloads such as eBooks, music files, and podcasts.
- Subscription boxes.
- Coaching, consulting, or beauty services.
- Gift cards.
- Memberships.
- Online courses or training.
- Tickets to events, attractions, or tours.
- Donations or fundraising.
With Shopify’s expansive capabilities, there are virtually no restrictions to the types of products and services you can offer!
Read more: How To Remove Powered By Shopify On Your Website?
Shopify Review 2024
There are many reasons why so many online businesses choose to use Shopify over other competitors.
With its user-friendly interface and extensive third-party ecosystem, Shopify empowers individuals of all skill levels to build a visually stunning and user-friendly website effortlessly.
Basically, Shopify goes above and beyond to provide brands with an unparalleled eCommerce experience. And boy, does it deliver.
Let’s look at some of Shopify’s impressive and unique features now.
Ease Of Use
Shopify’s intuitive interface and hundreds of professionally designed templates make it a popular option for newbies looking to establish a beautiful online store.
Although being feature-rich, Shopify caters to beginners and seasoned professionals alike!
Shopify offers a decent range of themes, but many are premium designs, meaning you’ll need to pay an extra fee (on top of your monthly subscription fee).
In saying this, all themes are fully responsive and can be customized using Shopify’s structured and easy-to-use drag-and-drop website builder.
Upon signing up, Shopify provides an easy-to-follow setup guide that takes you through each step of creating your store.
This walk-through includes step-by-step instructions on how to:
- Add products.
- Customize your website’s appearance.
- Set up a domain name.
- Configure sales channels.
- Implementing a POS system for your store.
Read more: Magneto vs Shopify.
Pricing
There are four plan types within Shopify. However, the Starter plan ($5 per month) only allows you to sell on social media channels.
The three plans that allow you to build and sell through your very own website are as follows:
- Basic: $29 per month.
- Shopify: $65 per month.
- Advanced: $399 per month.
And for teams that require more complex storefronts, you can opt for a Shopify Plus plan (a Shopify Plus team member determines the costs for Shopify Plus plans).
There are also additional costs like theme payments, domains, and credit card and transaction fees (unless you use Shopify Payments).
Shopify doesn’t have a free plan but offers a three-day trial period, where you can test out all of Shopify’s impressive features for yourself!
Read more: Shopify vs Shopify Plus.
Key Features
As I’ve already mentioned, Shopify is jam-packed with features and tools to help your eCommerce business thrive online.
So, what exactly does Shopify offer?
Shopify Generator Tools
In addition to being a fully-fledged website builder, did you know you can also leverage other handy generator tools to get your business up and running quickly?
That’s right! If you need a logo, slogan, domain name, or even business name, Shopify can help you with its dynamic content generator tool!
And with Shopify’s AI tool, Shopify Magic, let AI do all the hard work for you regarding product descriptions!
Sit back, relax, and let Shopify help you with all the tools needed to set up a successful business.
eCommerce Tools
Shopify offers a wide range of product management features to help you manage and organize your products, inventory, and customers within one centralized platform.
Simply create and manage unlimited product listings on all plans to suit your business and industry type, and edit these to your heart’s desire!
You can add and edit the:
- Title.
- Description.
- Price.
- Images.
- Variants, and more.
Plus, you can organize products into different categories and subcategories and bulk edit multiple products simultaneously.
Shopify’s inventory management tools, like low-stock notifications and task automation, allow you to stay on top of your inventory.
Teams with many products will be pleased to know that you can add up to 10 inventory locations on all plans!
Additionally, you can set up filter and search options, allowing customers to easily find what they’re looking for and include customer testimonials to build credibility and trust.
And finally, optimization of product listings for search engines is possible by using integrated SEO tools, including alt text, title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs.
All plans come with abandoned cart recovery and discount capabilities, so you can zone in on customers who might need a helping hand or highlight products you’re pushing to sell.
In terms of the checkout process, it’s possible to customize the style of your checkout cart with your brand logo and font.
If that wasn’t enough, simply integrate a checkout app to your store through Shopify’s incredible app store (with over 8000 apps) to add checkout functionality.
But that’s not all!
When you’re finished setting up your shop, simply dive head first into their incredible analytics tools to dive deep into customer behavior, inventory data, website traffic, and more.
Read more: Ecwid vs Shopify.
Shopify Built-In Tools
Use Shopify’s built-in additional tools that take Shopify from being a standalone eCommerce website builder to an all-in-one eCommerce solution!
- Shopify Mail: Send captivating emails directly to your email list from your Shopify account, segment your audience, and automate workflows quickly.
- Shopify Payments: Allows you to take payments from all major credit card providers like ApplePay, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and more without nasty transaction fees.
- Shopify Fulfillment: Offers a convenient solution for teams looking to handle their shipping, storage, and returns.
- Shopify Flow: Automate repetitive tasks and workflows, ensuring fast and accurate completion of tasks like tagging, sending emails, and updating inventory.
These built-in products, paired with strong omnichannel marketing capabilities that let you sell on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok, make your online store unstoppable!
Security
How can you be sure that your store is safe with Shopify? Well, Shopify prioritizes security!
Security features include end-to-end encryption, two-factor authentication, a dedicated security team, automatic data backup, Shopify alerts, and fraud protection.
These measures safeguard customer information, prevent unauthorized access, and mitigate potential security threats more efficiently.
Read more: Weebly vs Shopify.
What I Dislike:
- There are only a handful of free themes.
- The higher-paid plans can get expensive (and there’s no free plan).
- You’ll have to pay a transaction fee every time you sell a product unless you use Shopify Payments.
- Shopify’s structured editing tool means advanced customization is limited.
Read more: ClickFunnels vs Shopify.
What I Dislike:
- There are only a handful of free themes.
- The higher-paid plans can get expensive (and there’s no free plan).
- You’ll have to pay a transaction fee every time you sell a product unless you use Shopify Payments.
- Shopify’s structured editing tool means advanced customization is limited.
Read more: ClickFunnels vs Shopify.
My Favorite Feature of Shopify
As you can see, there’s a lot to love about Shopify. But what’s the best thing about it?
I love that Shopify is so easy to use yet super flexible and scalable!
Shopify’s ability to capture the hearts of beginners and seasoned experts is unparalleled by anything I’ve seen.
Newbies can launch their Shopify store in minutes and understand and use the incredibly dynamic product, customer, and inventory management features in the blink of an eye.
And growing teams will love that Shopify’s advanced omnichannel capabilities, SEO functionality, and seamless marketing tools can help propel their business to new heights!
With the ability to sell online, in-person, via social media, marketplaces, and more, there really is nothing quite like Shopify on the market today.
Read more: Shopify vs Etsy.
Shopify Alternatives
Shopify is a pretty impressive online store website builder.
But it’s not for everyone, and that’s okay! There are plenty of Shopify alternatives out there that give it a good run for its money.
Here are my top 3 Shopify alternatives:
Wix
Wix is often compared to be a fundamental and user-friendly Shopify alternative that offers creative freedom to users of all skill levels.
With its intuitive interface and drag-and-drop editor, creating a stunning website is effortless, thanks to Wix’s 800 pre-made templates.
Beyond its usability, Wix is also known for its affordability, offering free and low-cost paid plans, which Shopify lacks.
Don’t get me wrong, Shopify is highly versatile in its offerings, but it is limited to just eCommerce.
On the other hand, Wix isn’t limited to online stores!
Whether you’re an eCommerce brand, hotel, restaurant, consultant, or marketing firm, you can use Wix as your chosen website builder.
Overall, beginners will love Wix’s simple features, but advanced users will crave something more robust, which Shopify can certainly provide.
Read more: Is It Better To Use Shopify Or Wix?
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an eCommerce plugin designed for WordPress that enables website owners to create and manage their online stores.
One advantage WooCommerce has over Shopify is the level of customization.
Users have access to a range of themes, extensions, and plugins that can be used to customize their store to suit their unique needs and preferences.
In saying that, WooCommerce is also more difficult to use.
Shopify offers a one-stop, easy-to-use shop with a comprehensive suite of tools to help you create and manage your online store.
In terms of prices, WooCommerce is free to download and use, but you’ll have to pay for web hosting, maintenance, themes, and extensions.
Both are excellent tools! But if you’re after complete design freedom and flexibility, WooCommerce is the better choice.
On the other hand, Shopify is much easier to use, allowing beginners to get up and running in no time.
Read more: WooCommerce vs Shopify.
Hostinger AI Website Builder
Hostinger AI Website Builder (previously known as Zyro) is an innovative no-code solution driven by cutting-edge Chat-GPT technology.
With Hostinger, you can leverage AI technology to craft a personalized website easily in minutes!
All you need to do is answer just three straightforward questions about your business.
There are many similarities between Shopify and Hostinger AI Website builder.
Both include website hosting, SSL certificates and security, and handy eCommerce features like multiple payment gateways and shipping management tools.
Shopify is undoubtedly the more comprehensive eCommerce solution, but if you’re an eCommerce store after an AI-driven website builder, I certainly recommend Hostinger!
Hostinger is affordable and easy to use, and its AI capabilities blow Shopify’s out of the park.
Read more: Hostinger AI Website Builder Review.
Stews Final Thoughts
Choosing the right eCommerce platform for your business can be tough; I know, I get it!
But at the end of the day, it all comes down to your business needs, preferences, and goals.
If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, scalable, and premium online solution that can skyrocket your eCommerce business to the top, I personally can’t recommend Shopify enough!
I still believe that Shopify is the best comprehensive eCommerce platform on the market today.
So, if you’re willing to invest in a premium platform to build, host, and manage your online store, don’t look further than Shopify!
Whether you’re a complete beginner or already have a successful business and are looking for a change, Shopify has you covered.
Do you agree with me? I’d love to know!
