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Shopify Review with Video of the Shopify Backend

October 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

For almost all types of websites, I recommend WordPress.

Yes, WordPress can create e-commerce websites, but I think Shopify does a better job in the easy department.  I also think Shopify e-commerce website templates look incredible – better than most WordPress e-commerce themes.

Recently I took Shopify up on their 30 day free trial to see how this very popular e-commerce website creator worked.  After all, if 30,000 online stores use Shopify, they must be doing something right.

Watch my Shopify Review Video for a Backend Look

Set Up Your Shopify Online Store in 11 Easy Steps

Step 1:  Get a free account here.

Step 2:  Set up your store basics (title, description, etc.)

Step 3:  Choose an e-commerce template.

Step 4:  Set up your admin pages (About, Contact, Terms of Service, Privacy, etc.).  Consider getting an SEO Meta app (it costs $5 per month) so that you can input a meta title and description for SEO purposes.

Step 5:  Add products (images, title, descriptions).

Step 6:  Set up navigation.

Step 7:  Set up payment system, shipping details, e-mail notifications, and taxes.

Step 8:  Publish.

Step 9:  If you like the free Shopify site, register a custom domain and move your e-commerce website to that domain.

Step 10:  Market your store like crazy and make tons of sales!

Step 11 (optional but highly recommended):  Integrate customers’ emails with your e-mail autoresponder.  I use AWeber which integrates with Shopify easily.  Just read this AWeber article.  This way you can communicate into the future with your customers to generate more sales.

Shopify Pros & Features

  • Excellent e-commerce website template designs (many to choose from – many are free and some cost extra).
  • Mobile friendly templates.
  • No SSL Certificate needed!
  • An insanely high number of apps you can integrate available through the Shopify app manager.
  • Easy-to-use (no coding skills needed whatsoever – a true drag and drop e-commerce website template solution).
  • Coupon code / promo options.
  • Web hosting included.
  • Automatic e-mail notification notices for orders, shipping updates and cancellations.
  • Integrate with e-mail autoresponder (I use AWeber – the instructions for integrating AWeber with your Shopify customers’ email addresses is here).
  • Create product collections.
  • Integrates with Quickbooks.
  • Excellent support.  There’s a decent article/FAQ library that answers many questions.
  • Shipping options:  UPS, USPS and FedEx (not available on free plan).
  • Easy credit card processing set up with stripe or PayPal.  Note, you do have to set up a Stripe account in order to transfer money to your bank account.  Stripe fee structure is 2.9% on each transaction plus $.30 per transaction.  No other gateway or merchant account is needed.
  • Blog included (not the best blogging platform, but it’s available).
  • Can register your custom domain through Shopify (see con below … it’s expensive).
  • 30 day free trial – no credit card needed – just sign up and try it.
  • Low Price:  Get a plan starting at $29 per month plus a 2% transaction fee.
  • Upgrade or downgrade plans any time.

Cons

  • No meta SEO data input for blog posts/articles unless you pay extra.  You can get the SEO Meta Manager app for $5 per month.  You can import WordPress and use that as your blogging platform (highly recommended).
  • Expensive domain registration ($25) – go with a cheap domain registrar and point the nameservers to your Shopify store.  Yes, it’s an extra step.  If you don’t care about paying an extra $10 to $15 for a domain … by all means register through Shopify.
  • No gift certificate generation mechanism.  However, you can offer coupon codes to trigger discounts.  It’s not the same as gift certificates … which are great as … gifts.
  • Can’t set up subscriptions or recurring payments.

Shopify Review Conclusion

Do I recommend Shopify?

Yes.  I wholeheartedly recommend Shopify.  It’s my first choice for an e-commerce website … primarily because it’s easy to use, has incredibly great looking templates, is reasonably priced and basically does what you need it to do.  My Shopify recommendation is notwithstanding the several cons listed above.

–>> Click here to start a 30 day free Shopify trial.

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