Shopify: the pros and cons

If you are planning an ecommerce business, you may be considering whether to use Shopify as your platform to sell your products. By considering the advantages and disadvantages of the site, you can decide whether this would be the right option for you.

The pros

1. Shopify is easy to use, from the sign-up to creating your platform. This means you will not need to spend much time learning about how to use the site.
2. It is straightforward to customise your Shopify store. Using a drag-and-drop menu, you can change layouts, branding, and colours for a unique appearance. While it is fairly easy to do this yourself, you may want to entrust it to a designer experienced in Shopify web design, such as co.uk/shopify-web-design.
3. There are a number of themes and apps you can use to create a sleek, professional store, including some that are free to use.
4. As Shopify is a hosted platform, you do not need to pay additional costs to host your domain name. It also means you have access to the high-level security features and app updates available to a market-leading company.

The cons

1. Shopify can be pricey. It comes with three payment levels and while the lowest one of £19 a month is affordable for small businesses, it comes with limited features. To get the full benefits of Shopify, the prices start at £259 per month.
2. The platform fees are not the only cost involved. If you are in a country that doesn’t allow Shopify payments, the third-party gateways carry a transaction fee. There are also credit card processing fees, and you will usually need apps to get the best user experience. Many such tools carry additional costs, which can easily mount up to prohibitive amounts.
3. While the platform does not require coding knowledge to set up, there are some features that need to be coded in, such as custom forms. This means learning Shopify’s coding language, called Liquid, which even those with coding experience are unlikely to be familiar with.