What Is Shopify And How Does It Works?

What Is Shopify?

Shopify is an online commerce platform that allows you to build your online store where you can sell the product and run your business. The platform can be operated both online and offline. Shopify is very similar to WordPress and works the same way WordPress works for bloggers. Just like a blogger creates a blog under WordPress, a business owner also creates an online business store under Shopify. However, if you intend to sell your product in person, you can do this through the Shopify POS. The platform is equipped with features for both beginners and e-commerce experts.

For starters on the platform, Shopify offers a 14 days trial which permits you to test your ability with the platform, learn how it works and builds your own online store. You can also make some sales during the trial period, however, when the 14 days trial period elapses, you would be required to pay $9 per month if you are using the Shopify lite or $29 if you are using the Shopify Basic plan. If after the 14 days trial, you have registered your business, you can choose any plan of your choice ranging from Shopify, Shopify Plus to Advanced Shopify. Your choice would be based on the nature of your business. 

What Is Shopify Plus?

This is Shopify's enterprise e-commerce platform made available for larger businesses or businesses looking for a way to scale their sales. The platform offers more advance features than ordinary Shopify. Its features include higher priority customers support, advanced reporting features, more capacity to handle higher orders and volumes and much more. 

What Is Shopify Lite?

Shopify Lite is more affordable than Shopify Plus. It allows the business owner to sell his or her products on an existing website that is not necessarily Shopify. If you already have an existing website for your product but would like to market your products on Shopify, you can do this using the Shopify lite. Also in this plan, you have access to features like the messengers' chat. The price of the Lite plan is $9 per month.

What Is Shopify POS?

Shopify Point of Sale (POS) is an application that makes it easy for the business owner to sell their products offline. With Shopify POS, you can sell your product at a physical store, pop-up shops, trade shows and so on. Payment can be made through technological devices like your Android, Ipad or iPhone. 

Shopify's Pros

Few of the numerous advantages of using Shopify is highlighted below:

• Detailed design

Shopify's design is very detailed. At the backend of the store are different features and reports that are created to help the business owner understand how the store works. From this page, as a business owner, you can easily check your best performing product and also view your customer's order. Also, you can have a real-time view of your visitors and customers to check what stage of buyer they are in. Shopify is a well-detailed store that makes it easy for anyone to operate. It does not involve any technicality. The features are set in such a way that you understand the function of each of them at a glance.

• Free features

Assuming you are building a new website for your business online, you would be required to pay for the layout of the page, the designed and every other necessary aspect of creating the page. However, this is not so with Shopify. Shopify provides all potential business owners with free themes irrespective of the Shopify plans chosen. The themes are loaded onto your store and available for you to customize your website to your desired taste. Also, there are features for you to customize your page and branding to soothe your desire, you can change the color of the screen, choose the available free font or add your own picture. These free themes are perfect for beginners who just want to see how the platform works and play around the different possibilities with the platform. 

Shopify also makes it easy for you to choose from the thousand e-commerce theme stock photo taken by Shopify's photographer. If you are not convenient with any of the stock photos, you can use any one of your choices. With Shopify's tools and features, you would be able to build a better and more powerful website.

• Shopify Is On A Cloud Network 

Shopify uses a cloud network and not a server. This is to avoid the incessant crashes applicable to server especially on days like Black Fridays or during big events. Also, if you work with a server you would continue to hope that another website is not as popular as Shopify so that your page can beat the traffic. But this is not so with the cloud network. The odd of facing network challenge or that your network would be down is very rare on the cloud network. 

The cost for the cloud network is already calculated with your subscription, hence you have no reason to worry about additional charges. With the cloud network, you can run your business with ease.

• Everyone Has A Plan

This simply means that with Shopify, there is a plan for everyone irrespective of the stage or level of your business. If you are on a really tight budget, then the Shopify Lite of just $9 per month could be for you. If you have a large business or want to scale your business, you can use the Shopify Plus. For those who are interested in one on one business negotiation and agreement, you can use the Shopify POS. However, as your business progress, you can move from a previous plan to other plans.

• Tons Of Apps

Everything on the Shopify platform has an app for it on the Shopify app store. Although while some of the apps are paid plans, there are also free ones. For instance, the starter plan had about 500 free apps  On the app store, you would find apps like image background remover, countdown timers, product sourcing apps like Oberlo and so on. The Oberlo is available if you want to add more products to your store, though this is unnecessary as Shopify has provisions for all that you need.

• Tons Of Support

The major goal of Shopify is that all sellers on the platform succeed in their individual businesses. This is why the Shopify Academy is created to help business owners learn more about how the platform works. The Academy is loaded with free e-commerce courses explained in detail by experts in the field. There are no time restrictions on when you can learn, you learn at your own pace. 

Also, there are a lot of customer support representations who are there to answer your questions and help you out with your areas of challenge. There are lots of Facebook groups created by Shopify users interested in helping new users achieve their aim. Shopify's ecosystem is massive, there are lots of people available to help you grow. 

• Low Barrier To Entry

There is no barrier to entry on Shopify, anyone can start his or her business on Shopify irrespective of whether you are just building the business or have been running the business for a long time. For business starters, operating on Shopify might not be easy at first, but it is a lot easier than employing a website designer to help create and design an entirely new page.  Shopify is very easy to operate as a beginner. There are lots of features and tools to pull you through the different stages on the platform. Also, there is a free 14 days trial for you to experiment with how the platform works.

Shopify Cons

• Shopify Does Not Immediately Start Yielding Sale

What most persons creating their online store on Shopify do not realize is that Shopify is not a stream of income platform and would not start yielding immediately. Shopify is an avenue to grow your business and like every business avenue, it would take a while to grow. Also, like every business in the beginner stage, it will take some time to start earning on the platform. It would also take some time to master how the platform works. However, irrespective of the challenges that might be faced at the initial stage, Shopify is intuitive and you will catch up quickly.

• Do Not Depend On The Power Of Shopify Alone 

It is true that Shopify is equipped with great apps and features to make your business run smoothly, however, whether or not you will make sales and earn as much as you want is your decision and not Shopify. You need to have the marketing chop to promote your business and platform. Share your business on some of the social media platforms and ensure you keep developing and expanding your shores. Shopify only helps you with an online presence for your business, whether or not you will earn from this depends on your level of operation and how well you market yourself.

How Does Shopify Work?

Having considered Shopify's pros and cons, the next step is how to make your income through Shopify. Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows you to create an online business store and engage in the act of buying and selling. It is equipped with features and apps that help organize your stores' appearance through themes. If you are not okay with the themes available on the site, you can change to any one of your choices. You can also change the business layout and modify as you want. Here are the steps to get started on the platform.

How To Get Started On Shopify?

Create your Shopify Account

Create your Shopify blog or account, design and modify it to your taste. After this include your product on it before test running it to see how it would come out, also check to see that both desktop and mobile views are available to the public.

Market your business

After creating your Shopify account, start promoting your product. If you want to check when a customer visits your store, you can check from the view in real-time to know if the customer is adding to his or her cart or completing a purchase. Once a customer makes a purchase from your store, Shopify would process the payment and credit your account. When the payment has been made, you can easily process the order and ensure that the customer receives the product. To know who your audience and potential customers are, go to the Shopify report. When a visitor becomes a customer, he or she can opt into your email list to get all your subsequent marketing.

Shopify does not only provide you with an online store to market your business, but also allow you to know the audience who would become your potential customers. 

Therefore if you are looking forward to building a good online store for your business, Shopify is good and available for you.

Things You Can Sell On Shopify

There are lots of trending products you can always sell on Shopify. Product ranging from home appliances to fashion all do well in the business store. Here is a brief list of what you can sell on Shopify

• Jewelry
• Clothing
• Home accessories
• Baby or maternity products
• Travel products
• Fitness accessories
• Bags and luggage
• Kitchenware
• Beauty products 

Things You Cannot Sell On Shopify

While Shopify allows you to sell a lot on your business store, there is a strict guideline on things you cannot sell. This includes certain firearms, regulated products and services, and illegal products. Here is a brief list of what you cannot sell on Shopify

• Unauthorized or counterfeit products
• Certain firearms and their parts
• Gambling products
• Adult products
• Drugs
• Products and services that are regulated
• Tickets to event
• Telecommunication equipment
• Computer technical support etc.

How To Grow Your Money In Shopify

There are a lot of ways you can grow your business on Shopify, among these ways are these three:

• Run ad

You can do this on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google and every other social media platform of your choice. Running ads for your Shopify business store would help increase your range and coverage. You never can tell, your next customer might be on any of the platforms you are yet to explore. However, when picking a page to run an ad for your business, chose one that works well for your niche. Facebook and Google are the two best online platforms for marketing or running business ads to date.

• Content Marketing

Content marketing is the powerhouse at bringing the desired traffic to your online store. SEO articles are the best way to go about attracting the desired traffic on your page. However most times, business owners miss out by focusing only on running ads and after a while, they realized they have spent a lot on just ads with little or nothing to show for it. But by engaging in content marketing, you can just run a retargeting ad targeting your blog traffic. This works excellently with SEO and is cost-effective. 

• Social Media

Aside from running ads and making use of content marketing, social media platforms are another great place to get your products and services into the limelight. One of the best tricks to using the social media to market your product is running a form of notification before launching your Shopify business store when you do, you are already gathering some audience, hence when you launch your page, you already have an audience in place to try your product or services.

Summary

If you are looking at creating an online presence for your product or services, Shopify is the best platform for this. It is all about making your business known to all and sundry. If you are still in doubt of how it works, start by taking advantage of the 14days free trial, after which you get into the platform fully.