Don't Shop Around, Shop-ify!

Overall, Shopify has been good to me. They made me a Partner because of the – you know I can't actually recall what the criteria was to become one – maybe you just apply to become one. But if you are a Partner, you can develop stores at no cost, and then get paid a referral fee and a residual for transferring it to a paying client. A very nice gesture towards us store-builders – I wish all creative software or SaaS platforms were as fiscally friendly. They also make it easy for devs looking to expand into Shopify App creation – so they can be on the receiving end of that sweet, month-to-month autocharged booty.

Pros

Shopify is where it's at if you want to get involved in the whole Direct 2 Consumer craze! You could literally have a store, up and running and transactional in 10 minutes assuming you're computer / web literate, have a bank account, and a product to sell...For getting up and running with hundreds of attractive themes to choose from (not all on Shopify.com, there are online stores that sell themes...) you really can't beat the ease of Shopify – with just the right amount of freedom, and automation to make sure you can get your products and logo looking their best, and not accidentally break the whole thing. And if you know a little HTML/CSS, the sky is really the limit in terms of customizing the theme. Plus there's a Shopify "App Store" that offers every possible function you could imagine if you wanted something not natively offered such as pop-ups, rewards clubs, or wholesale pricing.

Cons

In the beginning, I found it a bit cumbersome to deal with large catalogs with lots of variants (color / size) per sku. But Shopify and their lightning-fast chat support are nothing if not good listeners and they've made editing part of, or your whole catalog, much easier than ever before, with tons of filters for tailoring your product selection on the back end, to making almost any variable from Title, to Inventory, to Weight, easily bulk editable. So the thing I'll say that still stinks, is that all the apps charge subscription fees, which is super annoying, especially if you rely on a bunch of them. I would much rather pay a one and done license fee as opposed to $3 a month for my mailing list manager app, $16 a month for my Wholesale price tiering app, and $5 for my abandoned cart retrieval system. It adds up to a big, never-ending headache.

Moving from woocommerce to Shopify: the right direction

We managed to set up a new website from scratch in a matter of days by modifying a paid theme and adding a set of key plugins.

Pros

Shopify is a simple solution to get you started fast, without the need to code. The rare coding I had to do was also quite simple, allowing me to create the website from scratch in a matter of days (as opposed to weeks before). The visual approach of the many themes that you can simply buy, add and start adapting makes it a breeze. It is this community approach that makes it interesting as the web is filled with questions & answers, plugins and themes - both free and paying. The multitude of plugins make it easy to connect payment methods, delivery solutions or add additional features in no time. Not each plugin is equally well integrated, but that's rather the plugin's issue, not Shopify's. Comparing it with our previous webshop that we created in Woocommerce, it wins hands down.

Cons

The downside of its more simplistic approach (in which you do no longer need to code), is that you give up on flexibility. Tweaking a theme is cumbersome, yet not impossible. Coming from Woocommerce (in combination with Wordpress), we had to switch our mindset: from creating what we wanted, we needed to comply with what was offered. Luckily, we found a great theme that made it easy to make that switch. For companies who require a very specific approach, it might take some more work, but it is definitely feasible. Technically speaking, it sometimes works strange, even counter intuitive or it's even hit or miss (with regards to saving, language switching etc). Luckily, it is a rare thing. The monthly fee could be a drawback for some, but when you see what you get, it is definitely worth the cost.

Thought I was signing up for an Integrated POS System and Website

Feels like Shopify sucks you in and is not transparent. When you realize what the system doesn’t do...they apologize and are very kind but not very helpful. There are a bunch of awkward apps you can buy to fix the problems but they don’t work very well. Wish someone would just make an easy functioning system that met business that sell inventory on line and in person.

Pros

It is easy to get a website up and running. Adding products is easy.

Cons

WHERE DO I BEGIN: -inventory records only go back three months...I was horrified to find out I lost 4 months of inventory records. -to print a receipt...you need to buy and download an app...it is awkward to use and takes a couple minutes for the receipt to upload before you can print it. -to have employees log in you need to download and app and pay monthly -you can not do a credit on someone’s account if they return something...You need to either return their money or give them a gift card it is awkward and difficult to use. -if you mark an order pending payment you cannot take payment on the POS system. -you cannot add any vender information that is not visible to your customers. -the duplicate feature when adding products doesn’t work properly....to hard to explain what should be duplicated and what shouldn’t but trust me it wasn’t created by someone that understands business

Quick and Easy to Use

A few years ago we were having issues with the security implementation on our WooCommerce site. We switched to Shopify and to be honest, it is much easier for our customer service people to use. Although, editing the code may be a little more difficult, it is not anything that anyone should really be afraid of. There is a pretty active community forum for help as well as the help desk has answered my questions when I have had them as well.

Pros

I find that it is pretty easy to create products and make them go live. Further, the fact that Shopify provides the hosting and therefore, the security for the site is quite amazing. I also like that Shopify is a major player in the marketplace. So many times I have had to go for knock offs and Shopify is not that.

Cons

Having been a guy that had never edited liquid files before, that was new to me, but finding what I need to edit and adjust in the code is really not that difficult. There is a lot of help available for this too. I do find that there are not as many apps to connect to your site as there is with WooCommerce. That is also connected to the security aspect as well though as sometimes having too many apps allows for more opportunities for things to go wrong.

Increase sales with Shopify

We have used Shopify to sell coffee online for over 5 years. After looking at other similar platforms, Shopify had the best eCommerce and shipping integrations out there. In 5 years we've seen a lot of improvements in efficiency and ease of use. The Templates selections are awesome, and you can really easily make a website that represents your company, and increase your sales.

Pros

I like how easy Shopify is to set up. We use Shopify for our online store, and the integration with shipping and the Shop Pay network is crucial! There are so many apps and features you can add, you can really get Shopify to work for your specific needs. We use Shopify every day to increase sales from our brick and mortar store.

Cons

Sometimes the image quality gets compressed or the colors get messed up upon import. I wish Shopify had a better file system for product images that would help size them and make sure they're correct right inside the browser. You really have to have your product images perfect before import., which can be challenging sometimes.