Shopify is still one of the most popular options for dropshipping platforms. With it, you can quickly set up an online store and start selling things in a matter of hours.
There are so many options out there, like Wix, Magento, and BigCommerce, that a lot of people who are just starting out get confused when they want to start a dropshipping store. So, in this review of Shopify, I’ll quickly go over its pros and cons so you can easily decide what to do.
What’s the deal with Shopify?
Let’s start our review of Shopify by talking about some basics. Shopify is a hosted eCommerce platform that makes it easy to set up and run your dropshipping store.
It makes it easy for newbies to set up their own online stores by using pre-made themes and other customization tools. So, you can start selling your goods or services right away without having to worry about technical issues. But if you are a developer, you can also use tools like Liquid, HTML, and CSS to change the look of your store.
Some of Shopify’s most impressive features
Now that we’ve talked about the basics, let’s get into some of Shopify’s most important features and benefits.
Simple to Use
This has to be one of the most important reasons why you should use Shopify. After all, there is a reason why Shopify is used by more than 500,000 active stores that bring in more than $40 billion a year.
Shopify has a clean, easy-to-use interface that makes it possible for almost anyone to start an online store. I used Shopify while I was writing this review, and I didn’t run into any problems.
Shopify’s content management system is based on a WYSIWYG editor, which means that what you see is what you get. This makes it easy to set up stores that are easy to use. Aside from that, Shopify has also made Online Store 2.0 available. With it, you can easily change the look of your store’s front end by dragging and dropping.
Also, you can easily use the Shopify page builder tool’s building blocks and page sections. There are 13 free themes you can use in Shopify right now. But you can also try out a wide range of paid themes and third-party Shopify page builder apps.
Extremely safe and quick.
One of the best things about Shopify is that it has a strong security system built right in. You don’t have to use third-party tools like WooCommerce or Drupal because Shopify has taken care of PCI compliance to help you protect and back up your data.
You can do the same thing by using a content backup tool or by exporting your data directly to CSV files from your account. You can also add two-factor authentication to your Shopify account to make it even stronger.
LMS and Customer Service
Another good thing about Shopify is that its customer service is quick and helpful. A Shopify customer service rep is available via chat, email, or phone 24 hours a day. Shopify also has a busy online community where you can talk with other users about important things and get their feedback.
If you are new to Shopify, you can also check out its system for managing learning. Here, you can find out about all of Shopify’s main features and find out more about dropshipping.
Lists of products
Our review of Shopify wouldn’t be complete without a list of all the great cataloging features it has. Shopify has a good system built in that lets you make small changes to your images. For example, the Shopify interface lets you crop, flip, rotate, and change the size of your product images.
Shopify also lets you make different versions of a product based on things like size, color, material, and so on. There is a way for a single product to have up to 100 different kinds. Shopify also lets us completely change the way products are listed by letting us change their title, meta, description, and so on.
What Else?
You can also check out a couple of other features of Shopify, such as:
- Unlike other platforms, you can accept payments from all over the world and in a number of different currencies.
- It has a great tool for finding and recovering leads from carts that have been left behind.
- There are a lot of ways to change things to make a unique storefront.
- The Shopify App Store is pretty good, and it has thousands of paid and free apps in a variety of categories.
- With its advanced subscription, you can get access to a lot of reports for sales, marketing, finance, data search, and more.
- Several built-in and add-on features, such as Shopify blogging, Shopify Shipping, Shopify Markets, and so on.
Shopify’s Drawbacks: What Could be Better?
Shopify has some limits, just like every other eCommerce platform. So, before you buy a Shopify subscription, make sure you think about this important part of our review.
Product Categorization
This is one of the main things that makes Shopify work. Tags and filters can be used to sort products into groups, but these options aren’t very many. As your store grows, it might be hard to sort your product listings into groups.
Few SEO and marketing tools available
Shopify has all the basic SEO and marketing tools that a new store needs, but it might not be enough for your more advanced needs. Your product listing can have meta and alt tags set up. Compared to other platforms, like WordPress, which has a lot of SEO plugins and options, Shopify doesn’t seem to do as well here.
Some other limits
Shopify also has a few other restrictions, such as:
- There are complicated ways to add custom fields.
- In the long run, the premium subscription to Shopify can be a bit pricey.
- Users with a basic account can’t get any insights or reports from it.
- Its built-in payment method, Shopify Payments, doesn’t work in a number of countries.
- The email marketing feature of Shopify needs to be updated more.
- Compared to WordPress, there aren’t as many free apps in the Shopify app store.
- Alternatives to Shopify
You might want to get around the problems listed above, or you might be looking for an alternative to Shopify that costs less. In this case, you might want to look into the following:
- Wix WooCommerce
- BigCommerce
- Magento PinnacleCart Shift4Shop MemberPress
- Price of Weebly Web Shopify
Before we finish our review of Shopify, let’s take a quick look at the tool’s prices and plans. As of now, Shopify gives you up to 14 days to try it out for free. Once it’s over, you have to upgrade your account to one of the following plans:
Simple [$29 a month]
This is the Shopify plan that most people who just opened a store should start with. You can manage up to 2 staff accounts and 4 inventory locations, and it can host more than one product. The fee for each transaction is 2%, and there is no way to make reports.
Shopify costs $79 per month.
This plan is great for a store that is already doing well and wants to grow. In addition to all the features of the Basic plan, this will lower the transaction fee to 1%. You will have access to all the standard reports and can manage up to 5 staff accounts.
Ahead [$299 per month]
This is Shopify’s most powerful plan, and most big store owners use it. You’ll get everything that comes with the Shopify plan and be able to handle up to 8 staff accounts. With access to advanced reports and a ton of other features, the transaction fee goes down to just 0.5%.
dropship-empire, give your Shopify store more power.
From our Shopify review, you can see that the tool makes it easy to set up the front end of your store. Though, dropship-empire would be the best tool to use with your Shopify store to find all kinds of products to sell and keep track of your stock.
- Dropship-Empire works well with Shopify and a lot of other platforms, such as WooCommerce and Wix.
- It is the official dropshipping tool for AliExpress. It has thousands of suppliers from all over the world in many different categories.
- dropship-empire also has a unique feature called Supplier finder that lets you choose the most reliable and profitable supplier in a matter of seconds.
- dropship-empire lets you order a lot of products at once, manage bundles, map variants, keep track of your stock, and do a lot more.
- You can easily make the most of your time with its advanced features, like automatically updating order statuses and syncing tracking numbers.
Last Words
This is the last part of this long review of Shopify. I’ve written about Shopify’s pros, cons, pricing, and everything else you need to know to make things easier for you. Shopify can be a great place to start if you are just getting started with dropshipping.
With Shopify, it can be a bit pricey to keep all the high-end features of your store running as you grow. Explore Shopify for free to get a feel for it and then connect your store with dropship-empire to get the best results.