OK but MUCH room for improvement

2014 = great 2018 = terrible I would encourage rep. to contact me.

Pros

When I first signed up for Shopify 4-5 years ago I thought it was the best thing to happen to ecommerce. Gurus were knowledgeable and accessible (via phone!), the product worked beautifully and it met my needs. Now that my business has grown and I'm finding that Shopify is not set up to handle a business of high growth. Shopify has grown so fast that the average conversation with a Guru has dropped from outstanding to barely acceptable. Most of the time, the I know more than the Gurus. Follow up from the gurus is also terrible. You can still reach them by phone but if you need to speak to someome in the company with more experience, you can only access them via email and they take FOREVER to get to you. So you can forget about getting any help from someone with real knowledge of the product. The native functionality is also only good for very basic businesses. For example, if you need to ship a single item in multiple boxes, you can forget about doing that natively in the app or taking advantage of their discounted shipping rates. If you want to get a custom app built, you can forget about getting any support on the API from the gurus because they don't know anything about API. Again, there is no escalation point for customers who have a higher level of needs. Want help from the Shopify Expert community? You can forget about being called and speaking to someone local. Most won't do it, I've tried. If you get a response, the best you'll get is an email that reads something alo

Cons

ng the lines of "I can do this for you." and it's from someone on the other side of the world that has no clue about you, your business, your country or it's customs. I could go on and on but in summary, I am HIGHLY disappointed with the level of support and in 4 years have gone from a loyal, enthusiastic customer to a highly disgruntled customer looking for new options.

Very easy to get started with advanced features for those who need it

For the price of the software, it is hard to complain about anything. It is super easy to set up and manage, tons of usability and plugins for advanced features, great customer service.

Pros

Shopify is very easy to get started with. It practically holds your hand with simple shops and the plugins make for a robust software that almost anyone can make use of. I use it primarily for selling eLearning courses. Shopify has plugins available for most LMS software. Simply connect the LMS to Shopify with a plugin, input the course identifier, with my LMS it is a string of numbers and letters that is unique to each course, then set the price and start selling. When you sell a course through Shopify, the purchaser automatically gets login information for the LMS and is automatically assigned the course they purchased. Shopify has a couple of options for setting up a shop. The first option, which is the easiest, is to create a storefront within Shopify that is like a website, just for your store. It is very easy to pick a theme and then just type in the information. The storefront through Shopify looks very professional and is worth it if you just need a simple storefront. The second option is the buy button, which I use for my companies website. This way, if you already have a website, you can just use Shopify to generate a code that will give you a button to place on your website. There are other options I rarely use such as generating a code for email which is similar to the buy button but I am sure it would be very useful for those wishing to email out their products. There are so many plugins to sell different ways that there would be too much to post in this review. The customer service is top-notch. They respond quickly and when I needed something, they worked with me until it was resolved. The last customer service need I had took a few tries to get everything going but they kept at it until it was fixed.

Cons

The only con I have is for a lot of the advanced usage, you will need plugins for anything beyond selling simple items, like I said before, this is a pro but it can be a con at the same time. Some of the plugins are simple and free but a lot have an extra cost to either purchase the plugin or a monthly fee to use the plugin. The creators of the plugins do need the pay, that is understandable, but most are out of small businesses', like my company's, budget.

Shopify is a Clean, Responsive E-commerce Solution

Helped a friend setup multiple online businesses.

Pros

If you want to stick to just basics and you need a clean, responsive E-commerce site, then Shopify is for you. No programming knowledge is required and there are many fine templates to choose from, and you can always find more. If you are interested in starting online, Shopify is a good choice because it offers a PCI compliant and secure shopping cart and payment gateway solution. Adding products to Shopify is surprisingly fast and easy but you are limited to 100 Variants. Shipping integration with USPS, UPS and Fedex is included and integrates with many popular software via Add ons. Things like email marketing, product feeds, and popups are easy to find and setup. And you can export your products to Google, and setup customer reviews with some other add ons. Having all these extra with add ons is both good and bad, and customers should be aware of the small downsides to Shopify.

Cons

Most things come included, however any extra customization requires some kind of add-on with monthly charge. Thankfully they have a good amount of add-ons to choose from, but most have fake reviews. Shopify much like other modern shopping carts is unable to store credit cards, out of the box. If your business needs to charge a customer for re-shipping, you have to create an invoice each time using an addon or creating a new order. Customer support is responsive but very general, but the basic Shopify will suit most small business owners. I am however not like most people, and like more customization. You cannot customize things too much other than what templates and add ons offer. Development on Shopify is highly difficult and goes above and beyond html / css however you can make some small changes like adding an image, or a link, a variable, or a tracking script with a look in their help center.

I have successfully built 5+ websites with Shopify

Pros

If you want to build an ecommerce website and you have little to no experience with web development, then Shopify is your place to go. Anybody can easily get something set up in less than a day and begin selling immediately. I have created multiple websites on Shopify for myself and it is a very user-friendly platform with a lot of basic functionality that you will need in your business. Shopify can automate many steps in the process of selling products, and it will also act as a central hub for all your customer and product information. If I wanted to set up a website from scratch or piecing together other applications, it would take a lot of time and proabably cost me a lot more than the monthly cost of Shopify.

Cons

Shopify is perfect for getting you going and it's great if you have a pretty standard and straightforward product line. If, however, you need to have some kind of a custom made function on your website, it's possible you can run into some hurdles. Shopify is in a tricky situation where they are trying to cater to those with little tech skills, but also needs to be able to work well with those that DO have the tech skills and want to customize things. One thing that is frustrating with Shopify is you're limited in certain ways when it comes to customizing website themes. You also are not allowed to upload your own theme. You must purchase the theme through Shopify. You are limited in your ability to customize the checkout page on your website.

It is a good software- would recommend to try it out

Pros

Good UI but some of the simple options available with other ecommerce products are unavailable or cost extra. For example, if you want to calculate shipping for each item (as opposed to a flat shipping charge) you have to pay extra monthly. Also, you cannot adjust image sizes. If you want a different size image for the category page and the product page, you have to upload 2 images.

Cons

This may be a good platform to start your online experience with, despite the high fees.However, I've run into an unexpected hurdle that I can not seem to resolve. I have had a chargeback (stolen credit card) from an order. It was settled, I had to pay out of my pocket. After I covered the chargeback willingly to keep my store operating, they froze my orders and would not let my money out of my account. They have started a fraud investigation on me, and requested my re-seller agreements and shipping and tracking information for my latest orders, which I produced promptly. This is not the frustrating part. I understand the importance of security and fraud prevention and would assist in any way I can to resolve the issue. It has now been two weeks since I submitted all the required information for review, and I have not heard anything back. No, we've received it and it's in review no we need more information. NOTHING. I have been calling back and they would not let me talk to the person who requested the information from me, because he is either out of the office, or we are unable to transfer your call directly to him. I have sent many emails directly to the investigator, starting off with nice and progressively more frustrated, but still professional and non-offensive.

Best E-commerce platform in the market

I have tried several similar platforms but Shopify is hands down the best E-commerce platform in the market. Definitely will recommend to all new entrepreneurs who are trying to learn drop shipping.

Pros

Shopify is the best platform for drop shipping and also for retailers who want to take their shop online.

Anyone with no previous experience with web designing can also easily set up a shop and start selling globally.

The dashboard is very user friendly and they also have tips and instructions displayed upfront to help you set up easily.

It also has a 14 day trial that allows you to set up things and check out if your products are working.

The customer service team is also quick to respond, I was not able to attach my card to one of my stores due to some issues with my bank and when I informed them that I was not able to take my shop online because of this and the trial period was about to come to an end and they extended the trial for me in just one request made via email.

Once your website is set up it also has additional applications to help you add inventory, up sell products, send automatic emails, track orders, basically all that you will ever need to run an online store is taken care off all under one platform.

I would rate it 10/10

Cons

Shopify has no cons to be honest.
Everything works fine from the day you set it up and you do not need to patch or upgrade anything ever.
The basic fee per month is also money well spent for all the amazing features.
Its all just upto you to market your products and get sales to keep ur shop running.

Best Value for your Money

Pros

Shopify provides you with the solid framework to create a successful webstore very easily and for a good value. The templates they have available are reasonably priced and allow you, if you have an eye for design and a head for layout and organization, to make a very high quality and professional looking webstore with only a little effort.
I really appreciate that Shopify provides a "all in one solution" for small businesses like mine to manage their web presence. Shopify has the basic reporting I need (at the basic level, advanced reports are available with bigger plans) and integrates with many apps for reviews and customization and planning and management etc. Shopify also provides you with your code base so that you can REALLY customize if you have a programmer at your disposal. However, I LOVE that it CAN be an all in one solution for anyone with basic computer skills.
Their customer service, the two times I needed help, was responsive and helpful - so thats another plus.
Without Shopify we couldn't have gotten our business off the ground - so we can't say enough good.
I've tried both Wix and Big Commerce, but for an easy to use and fair priced website - Shopify is the BEST value for your dollar, hands down!

Cons

I really don't have many complaints. I wish I had more access to certain reporting features, but I CAN have access if I choose to upgrade my plan. But thats on me, not Shopify, because I choose to stay at the basic plan. There was one day, in the last six months, where they seemed to have trouble processing and loading and hosting my site -- but one day in six months isn't bad.

Great potential and possibility, but cannot skip tech spend

Shopify is riding a popularity wave right now which makes integrations plentiful and easy. Their CDN is fast and dependable. If you dedicate a decent development contractor budget, you'll be fine. If you try to do it solely on your own, it is very time consuming.

Pros

The interface is easy enough to understand that, even if a programmer has rewritten the entire site in unique liquid code, someone unfamiliar with the platform could verify order information, write blog posts, refund customers, etc. Businesses require collaboration so this is certainly advantageous. Plugins/apps don't crowd the original UI so your main menu will always stay the same. Finally, Shopify is a major, for-profit market force which compels older applications to update to become compatible, and also new entrants elect to work solely with shopify. WooCommerce users demonstrate that they don't want to pay for even basic expenses.

In this way, it separate to two extremes what wordpress tries to meet in the middle. WP has a short, steep learning curve with a lot of interface changes with plugins.

Cons

Always another tech language that's used, always another developer required. Customization nearly always requires a developer if its beyond swapping photos or fonts. Products with complex dependent variants do not work past a certain number of options. Limited.

Be very wary of Shopify's app for Google products (ads, tags). These are essential for remarketing and configuration is often better done through coding and google than one of shopify's apps.

Great Online Store Builder for Beginners

I will say the first time I used Shopify I was very impressed with how easy it was to work in. I got a call from a friend who runs a non-profit. He had his designer bail on him after saying he would start the project in Shopify. I took at look and after getting into the system it was clear the other designer had done nothing with my buddy's web site. I had never used their system before but the interfaces were very easy to work in and we had his full site created with all of his products (about 30+) listed online and selling by the end of the day. It was pretty sweet to get that knocked out for him and because of that experience I have been using and recommending Shopify to clients where the system fits their needs. I definitely would not recommend it if you run retail stores with more the one location or if you need true inventory control, or accounting software syncing. Shopify is designed for the small retailer or business owner who is looking to get selling online for the first time. It works great and is very affordable for what it does. As you grow it may not be a fit anymore, but if you have sales coming in then you hopefully have the money to pay for switching to another system as well.

Pros

- Really easy for beginners to build an online store; you can literally build a store in a matter of minutes
- Does not require any coding knowledge
- Excellent interface to work in
- Great built-in tools for working with social media networks
- Fantastic choice if you have a small inventory and are wanting to dip you toe into the e-commerce world cheaply

Cons

- Reporting is a bit lack luster for medium to larger businesses
- Inventory tracking is not good if you need more than just quantity on the shelf
- If you have a lot of products and skus it can become hard to manage products; their system is truly targeted to smaller merchants or business owners selling out of their garage
- Does not sync with Desktop accounting software

the BEST e-commerce software available

THE BEST PERIOD. no other e-commerce platform compares.

Pros

Shopify has many benefits: 1) extremely easy to navigate platform - they make everything so user friendly and beautiful. tons of images to visually keep you engages and interested while using 2) shopify blogs, help articles, education portal, and resources are AMAZING. This is the single best company I've ever seen that offers so much education and help for FREE. This is very helpful for a small business owner doing everything yourself. 3)thousands of apps available to further the shopify experience and add to your store to do anything possible. 4)cost effective - they offer so much for the most basic plan and you can even pause your subscription whenever you need to

Cons

sometimes the apps are not quality made and can slow down your store or not work properly, and sometimes you can't find help on really detailed things that are related to coding/building your site in a customized way. I also don't like that only the first page in your site is drap/drop and easy to create without coding/html experience, and all other pages you add have to be custom coded. This is not easy for 90% of the population who are not web developers. If they can do it for the landing page, they should provide it for any page you want to add to your site. I'd even be willing to pay more.

Shopify Perks & Shortcomings

Overall, Shopify is the clear leader in their industry. Do they have shortcomings? Sure. But compared to their competitors, the shortcomings are few and far between. After all, no system will ever be exactly perfect to your unique business unless you decide to build your own software which comes with the glitches and lack of functionality that building your own software entails.

Pros

AMAZING CUSTOMER SERVICE. Shopify is entirely unparalleled in this regard. Their live chat option is not only convenient but staffed by PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT! They are not an outside tech support and it is clear how well each of them is versed in the system and its capabilities.

Another amazing feature about Shopify is the plethora of apps that are available in order to customize your system (many of which are free!). This means that if Shopify is lacking in any way in terms of your particular business needs, there is definitely an app for it.

Cons

1. They dont allow for multiple warehouses/locations in their inventory system!
2. They dont allow for cost of goods (COGs) vs. Retail pricing in their system which means it is completely useless for any inventory management or accounting needs
3. Their inventory system doesn't have an "inventory taking" system built in which means it has to be done manually (NOT an option for anyone who has ever had to actually manage an inventory. which i assume is ALL of us)

Overall, their shortcomings are ENTIRELY within the inventory department which is such an essential aspect of running a business and book keeping.

A pretty good option for a small business!

Overall, Shopify has made it simple to showcase and sell our product to customers all over the world. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone considering opening a small business.

Pros

As an employee of a (very) small business--just me and one other full-time employee, and a handful of part-time folks--I was so relieved to find an e-retail option that had just the right amount of functionality. We only offer a couple hundred products, so we didn't need something exhaustive. And because a number of our employees were part-time, we needed something with a low bar for entry. We found it! It's Shopify.

Shopify makes it easy to add, edit, and update product pages, giving our online store a sleek and simple look that's easy to navigate. It also has a ton of handy guides for updating your site and ecommerce tips overall. I learned so much from their features on social media!

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