Today, eCommerce has changed the business scenario allowing sellers to showcase and sell their products online. These websites offer far more benefits to entrepreneurs than brick-and-mortar stores. They provide a wider reach and 24/7 accessibility, so eCommerce stores have much potential for business growth and revenue generation. Nevertheless, there are lots of eCommerce platforms to build robust online stores. Shopify is one of the most sought-after solutions for creating top-of-the-line eCommerce websites. Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that offers excellent features and benefits. For many entrepreneurs, Shopify eCommerce website development is a premier choice to kick start their online businesses.
A brief introduction to the Shopify eCommerce platform
It is one of the most prominent and trusted eCommerce platforms that you can use to build top-notch online stores. Shopify offers outstanding features and benefits to create top-of-the-online eCommerce stores. Unlike open-source platforms, it is a proprietary eCommerce platform that is available on a subscription basis. Further, Shopify is an all-in-one solution with features to create and manage websites and host and other benefits. You can create, manage, host, and maintain your eCommerce store only with Shopify. It is preferred for many retailers who want a simple and easy-to-use eCommerce platform.
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Benefits of choosing Shopify for creating an eCommerce store
Shopify is a popular and robust eCommerce platform that offers all kinds of solutions, from creating to hosting a website. Indeed, on Shopify, you can easily set up a full-fledged eCommerce store within a few clicks, and you don’t require anything else after this.
1. Quick and easy set up
As a no-fuss eCommerce platform, Shopify offers an easy way to quickly launch online stores without the hassles of hosting and other setups. Indeed, this platform is the best alternative for sellers looking for a simple solution with no technicalities to build online stores. Shopify’s admin panel is very clean and user-friendly because it is structured logically and caters to a layman’s needs.
To get familiar with the platform, you can find lots of video guides and comprehensive documentation on the Shopify website. The platform comes with both hosting and a content management system. So, you will have features and tools for creating, modifying, and managing your site along with the hosting service on Shopify. It is a matter of only a few clicks to build the desired eCommerce solution.
2. Attractive online stores
A Shopify eCommerce platform comes with tons of benefits, including the flexibility to create appealing websites. With Shopify, you can build attractive eCommerce stores by using a suitable website template/theme from many options. The platform offers many professionally built website themes/templates that help to create unique and visually appealing online stores. You can also select a desired theme/template from a third-party theme service like ThemeForest and install it on your online store.
You can opt for PSD to Shopify conversion service to create a custom website based on your requirements with the help of a Shopify developer. This method is quite beneficial when building a highly customized website according to specific business requirements. There is a lot of potentials that you get with Shopify for creating unique and appealing online stores.
3. Extend with apps
It is common to make use of additional functionalities on an online store. Often the existing features and functionalities are not enough to fulfill all your requirements. In that case, you can utilize Shopify Apps to extend the functionality of your eCommerce store by adding more features and tools. These apps are easily accessible through the Shopify Marketplace, and you can find apps for almost every need, whether shipping, payments, accounting, or anything else. These apps are just like plugins or extensions on other platforms.
You can add reviews, customer wishlists, loyalty programs, integrate with accounting solutions, social media platforms, get in-depth analysis, and more with the apps. All in all, whatever you want to do, it is likely there is an app that you can utilize for that. Many such apps are available for free, and many of them carry a price tag.
4. Reliability and security
Undeniably, a secure online store is a preference of any online retailer. Indeed, security is the utmost requirement for an online business today, especially when news of hacking and malware attacks rocks the digital world now and then. An online store owner deals with sensitive customer information such as credit/debit card details, banking details, address, etc. So, being an online store owner, it is your responsibility to ensure the security of this data. You need to have a fast and secure website that is always online.
An advantage of a hosted solution like Shopify is its reliability. It will take care of everything from server maintenance to upgrades to ensure that your online store is available all time and pages load quickly. Therefore, reliability is a crucial factor for selecting an eCommerce platform like Shopify.
5. Effective customer support
When you choose an eCommerce platform for creating your online store, you ensure that it comes with proper customer support. In case of any technical glitch, you can only rely on the customer support service. They can help you to resolve your issues as well as assist in other online store-related problems. Shopify has robust customer support that is available 24/7. So, when you are stuck with any technical glitch on your online store, you can approach the customer support team to help you get rid of any issue.
Apart from reliable customer support, you can also find answers to your questions related to your Shopify store on various forum sites. There is a significant community of Shopify users, developers, and other stakeholders providing help and support. You can also go through video guides and documentation for help.
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6. Excellent loading speed
Shopify is a worldwide hosted eCommerce solution. It has reliable infrastructure along with optimized software and hardware. Due to this capability, Shopify offers fast-loading speed, and websites built on it load very quickly. It is a reputed eCommerce platform for loading speed and enables developers to build fast-loading eCommerce stores. You can take advantage of its loading speed and features with the help of a Shopify web development company to create a superior online store for your business. Loading speed is vital for a better user experience. Faster loading speed offers a pleasing user experience.
7. Mobile responsiveness
Creating a mobile-friendly website is essential, not optional, with more online visitors from mobile devices than desktops. Therefore, you need to choose an eCommerce platform that enables you to build responsive online stores that anyone can access irrespective of the device they use. Shopify themes are responsive, which means you will be able to create mobile-optimized eCommerce stores to reach every single customer.
8. Easy payment
Integrating a reliable and secure payment gateway into an eCommerce store is one of the biggest challenges for online retailers. The payment service you choose for your online store should allow customers to quickly make payments with different options. Shopify allows store owners to set up payment gateway in a simple way. It supports the Stripe payment option that gives freedom to buyers to make payments without extra fees. With Shopify integrating a payment gateway is not a hassle, and it provides a convenient way for customers to make payments via diverse payment options.
9. SEO friendly
With the acute competition between online businesses, you will want to make sure to stay on top of the competition. If your online store is in the best position in the search engine ranking, you will have more customers and higher ROI. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is essential to secure a higher place on the search engine results pages. Shopify is an SEO-friendly eCommerce platform. Consequently, on Shopify, you can create an SEO-friendly eCommerce store that is essential for higher traffic and revenue for your business.
10. Powerful marketing tools
Being a full-fledged eCommerce solution, Shopify also offers a marketing edge. It comes with different types of tools and features, including marketing solutions that help online retailers. The basic version of the platform provides SEO features as well as advanced eCommerce analytics. It also offers many other marketing features, including targeted email marketing, gift cards, store statistics, discount coupons, and more.
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Wrapping up
With the increasing popularity of online shopping, eCommerce development seems to be an attractive investment. Therefore, entrepreneurs are heavily putting their money into this field. To build a perfect eCommerce website, you need to choose the right eCommerce platform. Shopify comes with tons of benefits and lots of great features that make it a sought-after eCommerce solution for a wide range of businesses. It is a premier choice for lots of entrepreneurs and developers. You can partner with a Shopify eCommerce web development company to create a highly customized website for your business. By harnessing the features of Shopify for your benefit, you can ensure a more significant ROI for your business.
This article is written by Emily White. Emily is a senior eCommerce developer at CSSChopper with extensive experience in the web development industry. She is a passionate developer and an amateur writer who loves to compose quality blogs and articles for her audience. She wants to spread knowledge through her informative content.
Web Developer & SEO Specialist with 15+ years of experience in Open Source Web Development specialized in Joomla & WordPress development. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions".