There are a handful of ecommerce platforms available today that are used to power the world's online businesses. Whether you are a budding new startup or a multi-national enterprise, you want to settle for the best option. In your search for the best available platform, you would have come across Shopify, one of the most popular platforms used in ecommerce to date.

A subscription-based software and store builder, Shopify is a sophisticated eCommerce platform used to run over 1 million online businesses in 175 different countries.

Preferred for its ease of use, Shopify is a straightforward choice for merchants because it offers a way to quickly build and launch online businesses and start selling to a target market, whether local or global.

Whether you are looking to start a simple online business or run a large enterprise, Shopify is a versatile ecommerce platform with something in it for everyone. Most importantly, it is a platform designed to mold and grow with you and your business.

If you’re wondering what makes Shopify the ideal ecommerce platform for you and your online store, this article lists 10 reasons why you should use Shopify to build and run your online store.

 

1. Affordable Pricing

An important consideration when choosing an ecommerce platform is price. One of Shopify's biggest advantages is that they offer price ranges for various businesses, from startups looking to start small, to Fortune 500 companies.

If you decide to commit to a Shopify website, fees are affordable and contracts with Shopify are renewed monthly. Monthly plans on Shopify cost $29 a month at the lowest standard plan. 

Here is a short overview of Shopify’s standard plans:

Basic Shopify:

‍Monthly Cost: $29, Transaction Fees 2.9% + $0.30

‍Shopify:

‍Monthly Cost: $79, Transaction Fees: 2.6% + $0.30

‍Advanced Shopify:

‍Monthly Cost: $299, Transaction Fees: 2.4% + $0.30

 

2. Safe, Secure, Reliable

Shopify is PCI compliant, having invested significant amounts of time and money to ensure that their solution is safe and secure for both merchants and shoppers. The platform stays up-to-date with automatic security updates that help keep merchant and customer data safe against fraud.

Shopify is also highly reliable as a SaaS-hosted solution. This means that your store is fully hosted on their servers providing merchants with a 99.98% uptime guarantee. This helps merchants avoid losses in sales due to their store crashing during times of heavy web traffic. 

 

3. Visually Appealing Shopify Themes

One of the most exciting design choices you will make in the course of your business is theme choice, and Shopify offers its users beautifully designed, versatile, and sophisticated website themes.

Shopify provides its users 15 free templates from their theme store that you can use to build your site, with options to customize and create a feel that is true to your brand.

These themes are designed to be fully responsive, capable of adjusting their layout to the device your customer is viewing your website from, whether they are shopping from their smartphones, laptops, or tablets. Shopify themes are designed for ecommerce and designed to sell products and services. 

All new Shopify stores come with the free default theme called Dawn, a highly sophisticated, aesthetically pleasing theme that allows your products to take center stage. Shopify also offers users premium themes with prices that range from $150 to $350.

 

4. 24/7 Support

Any Shopify plan of your choice entitles you to some of the best free customer support an ecommerce platform could offer. If you ever get stuck in any process of opening and running your online shop, Shopify has a network of support that you can count on.

For any challenge that you encounter as a seller, or as someone who is still in the process of building your store, you can be sure to find customer support services in the form of email, live chat, blogs, video tutorials, and online web seminars. Shopify also has an active community of users who frequent forums for you to check and consult.

5. Easy to Use

Shopify is a go-to because of its ease of use. For merchants who don’t want to be weight down by complicated systems and websites, Shopify designed its technology for the less tech-savvy to be able to navigate administrative tasks.

The admin pages of Shopify are made to be user-friendly and intuitive. You will find that the interface is logically structured and is easy to take up. In addition, some online resources and communities help guide users to quickly find and understand the ins and outs of their store.

Technical expertise is less important when using as Shopify is fully hosted, making it easier to build, launch, and grow your store singlehandedly.

 

6. Powerful SEO 

A major advantage to using Shopify is its powerful features in Search Engine Optimization. Everyone wants to be on the first page of Google’s search results, and Shopify is built to help you boost your website’s ranking on the SERPs so that customers can find you by organic means.

Shopify covers all the SEO necessities with built-in tools and functions from the admin to help you rank. With Shopify, you’ll be able to easily customize meta-titles, meta-descriptions, have custom URLs, and add image ALT texts to your shop.

What’s more, is that websites on Shopify have great loading speed and uptime. This is important to SEO because faster loading times improve customer satisfaction, also an important ranking factor on the Google search engine.

 

7. Sell in Multiple Currencies & Languages

Shopify allows you to sell in multiple currencies and languages, increasing the rate of sales significantly for merchants selling in multiple countries and regions.

International customers can view prices for products and services, checkout, and receive refunds in their local currency. Prices can be converted automatically according to current exchange rates.

Moreover, all Shopify plans allow merchants to sell in up to 20 different languages, giving merchants another great advantage as people tend to prefer shopping in their native language. This way customers can better understand your products, marketing, and store policies.

You can enable multiple languages from the Shopify admin and create separate URLs for your translated content.

 

8. Multiple Sales Channels

One of the key advantages to Shopify is selling on Multiple Sales Channels. Sales channels represent the different platforms your business uses to sell and keep track of your products. Not just a sales platform, Shopify is a product database that helps you stay on track of everything.

This means that you will be able to sell your products across different social media sites and even sync your online store to your physical shop.

You can access sales channels from the Shopify dashboard where you can add various channels quickly and easily, including Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Pinterest, and eBay.

By connecting each of your sales channels to Shopify, you can keep track of your products, orders, and customers in a unified and comprehensive manner.

Shopify also offers solutions for ecommerce businesses with physical retail locations, and for merchants who attend pop-up events, and markets with the Shopify Point of Sales app or POS. Shopify POS helps you track your orders and inventory in one place, helping you view and manage orders from a single location.

 

9. Shopify Apps

Want to add more functionality to your Shopify store? There’s probably an app for that. Shopify offers its merchants an extensive app store for those who wish to bring in a variety of functions to their shop. Most apps are built by 3rd party developers who designed apps that help you monetize your store and hit those sales targets.

There are apps for you to include product reviews to your store, improve marketing, send email alerts, create VIP-based loyalty programs and so much more.

With over 1,500 apps to choose from, it's easy to get the look and function that fit your vision and brand. You’ll find that many apps on Shopify’s app store are free while paid apps are relatively affordable.

 

10. Multiple Payment Gateways

One of the ways that Shopify provides a great user experience for customers and merchants alike is through its variety of payment gateways. Shopify payment methods are payment solutions that let customers pay for products and allow you to receive payment in a variety of secure and highly convenient methods.

The best solution that Shopify offers is their payment system called Shopify Payments, which is powered by Stripe. Merchants who use this method are not charged regular transaction fees, which makes it a popular option.

Alternatively, other payment methods include PayPal, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Cryptocurrency, credit card, and much more.

Shopify assures that you and your customers can use their preferred payment methods when they shop with you.

 

Conclusion

In this article, we have given you 10 reasons and advantages to choosing Shopify as your ecommerce platform. Easy to use, safe, and sophisticated, there’s a reason why Shopify runs over a million online stores. Constantly innovating and fine-tuning their software to stay on top of the game, Shopify is one of the best ecommerce platforms and an easy choice for the online entrepreneur. 

 

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