With so many different options available for an e-commerce website, it's hard to choose how to move forward with your online business. Deciding on the costs, tools, and features that your business may need in the future is an important decision. Shopify remains to be the biggest e-commerce platform, providing the necessary tools for sellers with the easiest user interface to navigate. Our e-commerce clients at Hungry Ram love Shopify and its ease of use.
With big-name companies like Gymshark, Staples, and Kylie Cosmetics using Shopify, there are no other tools that can compete but every platform has its pros and cons. Find out more below.
Why Shopify Is Our Preferred Choice
As website designers, we've used various tools for website building to accomplish our client's vision for their online store. From using custom development tools like Snipcart and WordPress plugins like Woocommerce, we always found building websites on Shopify more enjoyable, especially with their 2.0 online store.
We also can't forget that everything is mobile now. So having an app to manage your store is a must. So it's definitely hard to compete against others while Shopify offers a POS system on the go that runs smoothly.
Trusted Themes and Plugins
Having an online business means your website needs to scale with tools and additional features. What we love are the apps that could be used to add features Shopify may not offer right out the box. These apps range from free to paid apps that are trusted by Shopify developers. An issue we had with WordPress was the third-party plugins that were not monitored as close, and potentially breaking your website when it was time for updating. One of the main reasons why we no longer support WordPress.
Some clients may be on a budget when it comes to owning a website, and a custom e-commerce store can become expensive. Shopify offers several free themes to easily begin selling. Need a more advanced theme? A premium theme may range from only a few hundred dollars. A great investment to kickstart your Shopify store.
Shopify Offers Code Editing
As developers, our team at Hungry Ram loves handling code-related projects. Shopify offers a code editor that allows us to modify existing code. Giving us the ability to add new sections and features to the website.
Getting easy access to code means we have more control over the design and features that an online store may need.
Secure Payments and Hosting
Shopify is a hosted online store with the needed security for handling payment processing. Meaning any Shopify customers never have to handle the maintenance on servers and collect any sensitive information. This was a big yes for us on deciding the best e-commerce platform for our client's online stores.
Shopify's basic plan starts at $29/mo and we couldn't be happier with the price point. No need to worry about the headaches of server maintenance and software updates! (looking at you WordPress).
Shopify Cons: The Downside to the Largest E-commerce Platform
Not every platform is perfect, but we weighed the pros and cons and came to the conclusion that Shopify was best for non-technical business owners and the ease of navigating Shopify.
Needing app extension
Depending on how fast your business scales, it's hard to keep your expenses low. But that's all part of business, investing back into it for growth. But adding premium apps in Shopify definitely adds up and can become overwhelming. For example, needing to add subscription packages or bundling packages may require an additional monthly for that third-party app installation.
Not the best content management
Shopify has the best POS system but when it comes to content management, it can be lacking. However, Shopify Online Store 2.0 allows owners to add sections as a page layout now. Meaning more design flexibility when it comes to structuring basic web pages. Before it acted as a standard word document with no layout structure. Our team at Hungry Ram will add custom sections to add to specific pages that need structure and design.
This is great and all but it separates how pages are edited. If using custom sections for pages, you may need to edit it in the theme customizer rather than the normal "pages" editor. This can cause and has caused our clients confusion on where to edit pages.
We're Shopify Partners
So there wasn't much downside to going with Shopify. This leads us to sign for Shopify Partners. Meaning we're able to provide unlimited trial while your website gets built out. A huge plus for our clients, giving them time to poke around the admin area where they will manage their online store.
So if you're looking around for an e-commerce website designer for your online store, contact Hungry Ram and we'll be happy to hear about your business and find out if Shopify is right for you. If not, we may recommend other platforms that may best suit your business.
