Is 'Shopify' as good as the reviews are?

[BartJr]

Hi all, so my question is regarding Shopify, I've read hundreds of reviews and it looks very nice and promising. Fees are not that big and after taking a trial, I've had no difficulties to build and design store etc. My question is, what are your thoughts on shopify? Thanks, Bart

 

[evocart]

You may wish to ignore me as I am slightly biased, however when choosing a company to create a website or online store you need to think about the future, try and think about what you may need in the future and what happens if you do become unhappy with the provider.

Therefore if possible I would always advise you to use a company that will not only register the domain in your name (or allow you to register it elsewhere) and just as important a company that will definatly allow you to take your website and/or online store with you should you need decide to leave and if they do say you can, then make sure they are not doing to sign you into a long contract or make you pay a large fee for moving away from them.

Whatever you decide, best of luck.

 

[kulture]

You may wish to ignore me as I am slightly biased, however when choosing a company to create a website or online store you need to think about the future, try and think about what you may need in the future and what happens if you do become unhappy with the provider.

Therefore if possible I would always advise you to use a company that will not only register the domain in your name (or allow you to register it elsewhere) and just as important a company that will definatly allow you to take your website and/or online store with you should you need decide to leave and if they do say you can, then make sure they are not doing to sign you into a long contract or make you pay a large fee for moving away from them.

Whatever you decide, best of luck.

All good points, but what has any of this to do with Shopify

 

[Earplugsprotection]

I have used Shopify for a couple of businesses that I have started up (now sold) and found it did what it said it did and provided a reasonable level of control. Probably like most people, used the Free / low product model and then as I added more products needed to upscale the Shopify product fee. I would recommend it though, no problems for me.

 

[LMDServicesUK]

Whilst a good platform, beware that it is US based and therefore they do not support 3D Secure so if you are selling high value items, this could be a serious risk re your security..

Not everybody likes 3D Secure but it is there to protect you as a Merchant, so why not use it. It does not cost you or your customer anything to operate.

As mentioned by others as long as you are not being asked to lock into a 12 m plus contract a good choice otherwise.

 

[Dejay1788]

We've been using Shopify for over a year now, and whilst it can be a little pricey, it's never let us down. It's easy to use especially if you have no idea what you're doing to begin with.

The only issue for me, is that you end up having to use paid apps to features that should really be in the basic package.

 

[EcommerceTools]

Shopify is a great platform, but like any it does have its drawbacks. It is perfect for anyone who wants a streamlined platform that is simple and easy to use - freeing up more of your time to focus on other more important things than fiddling with your websites back-end.

Their sort of forced Shopify checkout system is a love it or hate it. Some people don't like that they can't have their own custom checkout but others argue that because so many businesses use it customers recognise the checkout and recognise that it is secure and safe to use.

As LMD mentioned the lack of 3D Secure support can become an issue for you if you are selling high value products.

Also be careful when choosing your payment gateway as some don't sync very well with Shopify's checkout and can leave you open to large amounts of chargebacks and lost stock. Best to go with either Stripe or PayPal's merchant services if you are going to use Shopify. Also don't rely on Shopify's free fraud tools, if you are going to pay for any third party application go for the premium fraud tools.

 

[ParcelBright]

Unless you have very specific needs or a huge number of produces (10K+), I don't see any reason someone would go with any platform other than Shopify.

I'm a big fan

 

[CreativeWest]

The problem with the SaaS tools and WooCommerce are also their advantage, they are based around time so your growth is the amount of hours you put in, however they are simple to use from a business view. Magento is the other end and can be automated but is not business friendly due to hosting problems, data loading, etc. Shopify is simple to have running with nice themes so often the chosen method.

 

[RakeMark]

All good points, but what has any of this to do with Shopify

If you become unhappy with Shopify you're stuck. You need to find a new provider and then get all your products into the new providers system and then get you're domain name moved over and then launch you're new shop and when you do that the URLs might change so Google might lose some of your listings (and find loads of new ones) and its a pain for you.

Now consider going to a developer and getting a store developed in say NopCommerce or Magento. You register the domain at 123reg, you point that at your developers name servers, they design and develop your site. You pay, they host your store. Make sure you have access to your web files and a database backup (because this is your store, you paid for it, you own it).

Now you're unhappy, you want some changes and the design company wants a fortune. You can shop around. You can find a new NopCommerce developer that will make these changes. If the hosting you have is poor then you can upgrade your hosting either with your existing provider or move elsewhere.

When you use a pay monthly like shopify then you're tied in. When you use a web design company you keep flexibility.

Loads of people love the pay monthly stores, but I get plenty of new customers who've not enjoyed the experience.

 

[JamieM]

When you use a pay monthly like shopify then you're tied in. When you use a web design company you keep flexibility.

The only thing you are tied in to with Shopify is their hosting which is extremely reliable with unlimited bandwidth. If you are not happy with NopCommerce you also have to change solution. Whether a web design company is involved is completely irrelevant.

 

[RakeMark]

The only thing you are tied in to with Shopify is their hosting which is extremely reliable with unlimited bandwidth.

You've surprised me there. So I'm not tied into the shopify platform at all? So if I have a shopify store and I don't like it for whatever reason, what would the moving process be? Would shopify give me a copy of all my products, images, web files and copy of the database and I would be able to host it somewhere else or give to a new developer so they can do a data conversion and can move in a nice controlled way? What would happen with my domain? Would it be registered with shopify or someone else? Would they transfer it for me? How would the domain name transfer happen

My month on month contract and commitment to shopify are different to the level that I'm tied into them their platform

If you are not happy with NopCommerce you also have to change solution. Whether a web design company is involved is completely irrelevant.

If I'm your developer and your on NopCommerce and want to move to Magento I can't continue as your developer any longer because I don't have the required experience in Magento so there will be an element of transfer and data conversion required. In that regard the process of moving from Nop to Magento and moving from say shopify to Magento would be similar.

Here's the difference and why my opinion differs to yours.

I would give your new developer a copy of the web files and a copy of the database that the store runs on. If the domain name is registered with me then I would arrange an orderly transfer. Please note: I do not recommend website owners registering domain names with developers, all website owners should always register and maintain their own domain name, always without exception.

I would also liaise with the new developers to ensure that there was an orderly handover, that the urls for pages and products could be mapped to their new urls. I'd do this because I'm a nice guy, a professional developer and because even that even though I was losing a customer they would leave with a sweet taste (not that I have ever lost an e-commerce customer to another developer)

I hope this clears up why I think there is a difference and why I believe using a reputable company that uses supported, mature and stable open source e-commerce software gives you greater control and flexibility.

There are further flexibility advantages when your store grows and needs bespoke development like it needs to connect to your non-standard accounting package, or your shop till system or your newly acquired competitors website or you need to sell rope by the metre but you want the user to put in 1.235m of rope (does shopify do this) or sell fish by the Kg but the user enters a part of a Kg (e.g. 1.25kg) you couid change the unit to grammes but you don't want to sell it as grammes, or you want to sell by width, breadth and depth (and then calculate a price based on volume in m3) and keep stock of the piece you cut and the piece that's left, or you need it to talk to your bespoke access database or you want it to have a forum or a blog or you want to create a sub-domain (like go.mystore.com) or you want other retailers to be able to add products or you want a loyalty system and it has to talk to you existing bespoke loyalty system or ... I don't know, these are just a few things I can think of that I've been asked to do. Oh, bespoke reports, that's common, customer's want all kinds of reports, with charts, no not a line graph I want moving charts, I want a bouncing ball that bounces higher the more I sell and then gets fatter the more customers buy it...

I think you might begin to see where the relevance comes in where the difference is. The flexibility is that good Magento and NopCommerce developers have full access to the code base that runs the website, we can edit and update. I have no doubt that shopify will let you say import products (but pictures usually gets a bit tricky in these situations) and maybe export to a csv file (again, pictures). They probably give very good reports, but the bouncing ball one, please phone em up and ask them. I might do it myself for kicks.

I've gone on a bit, I blame it being Saturday and that I've had too much coffee. I'm normally more composed. I may well have convinced you of my opinion, I may not. If you have other things that re-enforce your view, please share them. When someone disagrees with me its an opportunity for learning.

Finally, would you mind considering the OPs question? If you have a wealth of Shopify experience then the OP would probably value your input.

Thanks, and enjoy the rest of your weekend,
Phil

 

[Laurentb]

I would agree with @RageMark. My opinion is biased as I am a web developer, but I feel that for long term commitments it is better to have a platform that can be adapted to your needs. Especially if you want to start small and grow at your own pace a platform you have full access to will give you the most freedom.
I found switching to Magento a massive improvement, but at the same time a grievance and learning curve. Once you master the basics (setting up products, bulk imports), you will have full control over your data and be able to very quickly spread your catalog over to other platforms (ebay, amazon..) with free/cheap extensions.
Also, there are a lot of Magento developers out there. If you go smart about it, you should be able to trade-swap with one, so the cost aspect is not really an excuse...

 

[JamieM]

You've surprised me there. So I'm not tied into the shopify platform at all? So if I have a shopify store and I don't like it for whatever reason, what would the moving process be? Would shopify give me a copy of all my products, images, web files and copy of the database and I would be able to host it somewhere else or give to a new developer so they can do a data conversion and can move in a nice controlled way? What would happen with my domain? Would it be registered with shopify or someone else? Would they transfer it for me? How would the domain name transfer happen

Yes, of course they would give you a copy of all of your products, images and web files in terms of your web design. It's your data in the first place and you can also use migration software. As mentioned you cannot host it elsewhere if using Shopify but that is not a problem. Domains aren't registered to Shopify so there is no issue there either.

Here's the difference and why my opinion differs to yours.

I would give your new developer a copy of the web files and a copy of the database that the store runs on. If the domain name is registered with me then I would arrange an orderly transfer. Please note: I do not recommend website owners registering domain names with developers, all website owners should always register and maintain their own domain name, always without exception.

I would also liaise with the new developers to ensure that there was an orderly handover, that the urls for pages and products could be mapped to their new urls. I'd do this because I'm a nice guy, a professional developer and because even that even though I was losing a customer they would leave with a sweet taste (not that I have ever lost an e-commerce customer to another developer)

I hope this clears up why I think there is a difference and why I believe using a reputable company that uses supported, mature and stable open source e-commerce software gives you greater control and flexibility.

There are further flexibility advantages when your store grows and needs bespoke development like it needs to connect to your non-standard accounting package, or your shop till system or your newly acquired competitors website or you need to sell rope by the metre but you want the user to put in 1.235m of rope (does shopify do this) or sell fish by the Kg but the user enters a part of a Kg (e.g. 1.25kg) you couid change the unit to grammes but you don't want to sell it as grammes, or you want to sell by width, breadth and depth (and then calculate a price based on volume in m3) and keep stock of the piece you cut and the piece that's left, or you need it to talk to your bespoke access database or you want it to have a forum or a blog or you want to create a sub-domain (like go.mystore.com) or you want other retailers to be able to add products or you want a loyalty system and it has to talk to you existing bespoke loyalty system or ... I don't know, these are just a few things I can think of that I've been asked to do. Oh, bespoke reports, that's common, customer's want all kinds of reports, with charts, no not a line graph I want moving charts, I want a bouncing ball that bounces higher the more I sell and then gets fatter the more customers buy it...

I think you might begin to see where the relevance comes in where the difference is. The flexibility is that good Magento and NopCommerce developers have full access to the code base that runs the website, we can edit and update. I have no doubt that shopify will let you say import products (but pictures usually gets a bit tricky in these situations) and maybe export to a csv file (again, pictures). They probably give very good reports, but the bouncing ball one, please phone em up and ask them. I might do it myself for kicks.

I've gone on a bit, I blame it being Saturday and that I've had too much coffee. I'm normally more composed. I may well have convinced you of my opinion, I may not. If you have other things that re-enforce your view, please share them. When someone disagrees with me its an opportunity for learning.

Finally, would you mind considering the OPs question? If you have a wealth of Shopify experience then the OP would probably value your input.

Thanks, and enjoy the rest of your weekend,
Phil

Shopify has an API that allows you to do pretty much any bespoke custom development you need. I think this seems to be a point that is missed by many developers. There are some limitations on the checkout side of things but that is not an issue for most users.

The point is that aside the hosting you are not really stuck with Shopify any more than you are stuck with NopCommerce. If you don't like it you change. Whether you use a web design company or not with Shopify or with NopCommerce it's really not relevant to the comparison of each platform. A Shopify developer could assist with all the same handover you do for NopCommerce.

The bonus of using Shopify is that a novice can do loads whilst cutting out the need for a developer. You can easily install and experiment with hundred of public apps with powerful features, some free, some paid for. If you need something really customised you would need to hire a developer to do it for you.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

 

[adamo]

I'm of the opinion that if you're going to do something, you should do it properly to start with.

With Shopify, there is the 'tie in', that you must pay the monthly fee or your site will go down and you'll lose your data. It's probably good if you're wanting to start a business that'll be a side project and you just want to try out the market, but I don't think it works out the best in the long-term.

On the other hand, you can use a free platform such as Magento, which is still packed with features, yet doesn't have a tie-in. Yes, you'll pay a monthly web hosting fee, but you can move your files around with no hassle. Magento is also used by many of the major ecommerce brands, and has a large community of developers, plugins and extensions that mean you can do almost anything with it!

 

[Nickdavis87]

The biggest issue for us with Shopify is the "collection" system, why they can't have normal categories is beyond me.

 

[DJE]

But the customer never sees the word collection unless you want them to be including it in your category menu etc.

I would suggest signing up to the Shopify blog. After reading a few posts you will realise they really are the expert in their field. No one even comes close.

The points about leaving shopify later on are not really needed. They can handle almost all companies on their servers. If you ever get so big they have an Enterprise package which means you will have your own dedicated server.

 

[Nickdavis87]

But the customer never sees the word collection unless you want them to be including it in your category menu etc.

I would suggest signing up to the Shopify blog. After reading a few posts you will realise they really are the expert in their field. No one even comes close.

It's not what customers see that is my issue, it's that collections were a PITA for us to manage over a large catalog. Everytime we change something it required manual inputting of the collections / "sub" collections into the menus

 

[webstore]

Shopify is proprietary software and as such they don't give you access to site code plus you are restricted to whatever apps they offer. Given this, your online shop cannot be moved elsewhere, plus I believe hosting is in the US (albeit I stand to be corrected about this), so that might make for a slight latency issue and the fact its SEO advisable to be hosted locally in one's own country. On the positive side Shopify is an easy to use solution.

On the other hand the likes of Magento & OpenCart etc are OpenSource meaning you or your developer has full access to site code - with an ability to add from a huge range of extensions/apps. Being OpenSource they are fully portable meaning you should be able to easily request transfer of your entire online shop "as is" (products, customers, orders etc etc) to another design/host company - which using a cPanel-to-cPanel transfer can take about an hour - with change of DNS records possibly taking a little longer.

 

[exom_expert]

I used shopify a few years ago, and finally moved to https://sellbeing.com/
my wife, who actually managed the store, could figure out how to organize categories in shopify and how to add options

 

[DJE]

I used shopify a few years ago, and finally moved to https://sellbeing.com/
my wife, who actually managed the store, could figure out how to organize categories in shopify and how to add options

That site looks great but that has got to be the worst name for a eCommerce platform I have ever heard. Sellbeing literally makes no sense.

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

It is certainly a popular option both with developers and businesses themselves. There seem to be plenty of Shopify 'experts' here in the UK despite it being a US based company. We have recently completed integration of our payment gateway with Shopify (after several requests from merchants wanting to use it with our system) so it will be interesting to see how things go but it certainly looks like a decent site builder solution. 170,000 websites processing $10 Billion to date so they say.

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

That site looks great but that has got to be the worst name for a eCommerce platform I have ever heard. Sellbeing literally makes no sense.

I suppose most platforms tend to have 'sell', 'cart', 'shop' or 'commerce' in the name but what does Volusion or Magento actually mean ? At least Sellbeing has 'Sell' in the name

 

[JodieVeeqo]

To be honest, if you're quite comfortable with building and designing your own store, you might be better off with Magento or WooCommerce as both are free (well, Magento Community is at least) and give you free reign over your site's code, so you have a lot more flexibility with what you can do. I tend to think of Shopify as more for customers who need a bit of guidance and hand-holding through their ecommerce journey because the support they offer is absolutely fantastic.

I work for a Shopify add-on (Veeqo, it's for inventory management) and most of our customers are on Shopify, so it's very popular - I guess it just depends on how much you're willing to spend - it might be worth spending a little more on Shopify if you feel like you'd need the support, the hosting etc. Either way, it's a great platform, you can't go wrong with it!

 

[Richard Cattel]

Just had a trial with shopify and signed up after because out of all the sites i had looked at it seams to work (well maybe if your in the US, ye ha cowboys..) It was easy to set up with my basic knowledge of design and skills, certainly easy to list products and they for a reasonable fee of 2.2% Plus £0.20p would process the transactions without having to have a third party.

I chose there basic package at 14$ (note i say Dollars $) and off we went, I decided to pushed a new customer through the website so that i could have a real trial and they found it easy to find and buy an item i was selling. I found it easy to deal with and was very happy at that point. then.....

The hidden charges..... The site runs in $$$$ dollars as its yanky site, they refer to UK and Canadian business all through the set up but what ever you do on there from subscription to receiving payments (if you use the shopify payments app) it will be passed into your bank as a dollar transaction and for me with a an account with Lloyds I get charged 2.7% to convert this to £ pounds... This might be ok on a $14 dollar transaction = £0.24p but on a £200 pound payment in is £5.50 plus the 2.2% + 20p fee for the payment transaction this is another £5 off your bottom line.

I will have to see if this works out, i was thinking of transferring another shop onto shopify but its not very attractive with hidden charges. You can use a third party payment gateway but they charge you 2% to use one such as paypal or world pay.

 

[TotalWebSolutions]

Hi Richard,

This is very useful information. With regards to using a 3rd Party Gateway, yes they will charge 2% for this but then you get Sterling payments into your Sterling account without the bank charges. If you can get your merchant account rates at less than 2% then it could still work out more cost effective as you won't have the bank charging a 2.7% conversion rate.

 

[junipaire2009]

Shopify I think as I'm currently in the process of starting up with it has certainly come on leaps and bounds since the early days and their blog is awesome even for people on other platforms, loads of great tips on running a ecommerce site. I can't comment too much as yet about using it as well I'm not there yet but does appeal is the fact you can pretty much streamline the running of your store much more than other platforms with the use of the apps. Thats said they are quite pricey for stores not making a huge number of sales and would eat away at your profit if you only were getting a few daily sales. I guess you add the more apps though as your business grows.

From a design point of view I don't think the themes are all that impressive not after looking at some Woocommerce themes, theres the odd nice one but lots of the themes seem very over priced and bland on the shopify store. But that's only cause I'm used to paying $40-60 on a wordpress theme.

So it certainly has its good and bad points in my view, on one side lots of the apps charge monthly fees, some asking for several hundred dollars a month but other really useful stuff with the advantage is they have to keep them updated and operated well or people would unsubscribe, Woocommerce do lots of the same thing though for a one off fee so Woocommerce who itself has come on so far over the last few years.

I read somewhere of someone from the UK selling with his store in the states and using a company called payoneer which is what I'm looking into using for the problems with the currency issues. Not really gone into this yet though so only going on what I read, they got a recommendation anyway and looks like a professional site.

I guess I'm still a little in two minds weather to choose Shopify or Woocommerce as most of the good apps were themselves available on Woocommerce. I think both are good choices for those people wanting to get started quickly without the huge learning curve of Magento but Magento store when setup correctly and you know what you're doing is probably still a great choice longterm. Saying that all 3 I mentioned have been around for years now and going strong but you never know what is around the corner on any platform.

 

[Costa Del Digital]

Shopify is really good for starting out. However after a certain point I believe it can only take you so far.

 

[Richard Cattel]

Just had a trial with shopify and signed up after because out of all the sites i had looked at it seams to work (well maybe if your in the US, ye ha cowboys..) It was easy to set up with my basic knowledge of design and skills, certainly easy to list products and they for a reasonable fee of 2.2% Plus £0.20p would process the transactions without having to have a third party.

I chose there basic package at 14$ (note i say Dollars $) and off we went, I decided to pushed a new customer through the website so that i could have a real trial and they found it easy to find and buy an item i was selling. I found it easy to deal with and was very happy at that point. then.....

The hidden charges..... The site runs in $$$$ dollars as its yanky site, they refer to UK and Canadian business all through the set up but what ever you do on there from subscription to receiving payments (if you use the shopify payments app) it will be passed into your bank as a dollar transaction and for me with a an account with Lloyds I get charged 2.7% to convert this to £ pounds... This might be ok on a $14 dollar transaction = £0.24p but on a £200 pound payment in is £5.50 plus the 2.2% + 20p fee for the payment transaction this is another £5 off your bottom line.

I will have to see if this works out, i was thinking of transferring another shop onto shopify but its not very attractive with hidden charges. You can use a third party payment gateway but they charge you 2% to use one such as paypal or world pay.

Hi again, Just as an update, 7 days have finally past and i can confirm that my fear of being charged a transaction fee by my bank was false as i discussed above.

Payment from a purchase was paid in £s and was paid to me in £s, so its just the fee for running the site thats charged in $s and will recive a 2.7% fee by my bank to process.

This is a BIG TICK towards Shopify payment (powered by STRIPE) for now......

It seams the shopify help/website/site gurus are not really a Guru but a damp squid as they told me different...

So for a few products im selling is £11 a month plus 2.2% +20P.... Thats better then PAYPAL at 3.5% + 20p already.

 

[deniser]

Whilst a good platform, beware that it is US based and therefore they do not support 3D Secure so if you are selling high value items, this could be a serious risk re your security..

Not quite accurate. You can have 3D Secure through Sagepay Form but it isn't fully integrated in that you have to log in to Sagepay to issue refunds. So almost good but not quite.

 

[deniser]

Now consider going to a developer and getting a store developed in say NopCommerce or Magento. You register the domain at 123reg, you point that at your developers name servers, they design and develop your site. You pay, they host your store. Make sure you have access to your web files and a database backup (because this is your store, you paid for it, you own it).

Now you're unhappy, you want some changes and the design company wants a fortune. You can shop around. You can find a new NopCommerce developer that will make these changes. If the hosting you have is poor then you can upgrade your hosting either with your existing provider or move elsewhere.

When you use a pay monthly like shopify then you're tied in. When you use a web design company you keep flexibility.

I think this is where you are at an advantage with Shopify. Upgrades are done for free so your site always complies with the latest Google requirements eg. SSL certificates, legislative requirements, general best practice things etc.

You can makes changes to Shopify yourself or hire a developer to do them for you. Having used a web designer in the past, I know how things can change years down the line and feel safer being with a large hosted company like Shopify.

 

[deniser]

I have two sites on Shopify; one is successful, the other isn't. However, even the unsuccessful one is in the top 7% of Shopify sites in terms of sales numbers. As this takes hardly any orders, it leads me to conclude that at least 93% of all Shopify sites are failing.

For this reason, it is good to minimise the money you spend upfront and with Shopify it's only the monthly fee. Compare this to the many thousands of pounds you may pay a developer only for the site not to work.

I have probably run about 15 different websites. Not all of them have been successful and I think I know what I am doing in retail.

I have looked at all the DIY platforms and think Shopify is the best one. It is not always immediately apparent what you can do with it and a few years in, I understand it so much better than I did first time round. The flexibility of the Collections (or categories) is brilliant - not sure what the other poster had so much trouble with. The support by live chat is also superb and now seems to operate during UK working hours which it didn't in the past.

There are however some quite major and costly downsides:
1. Only Sagepay works with 3D Secure - and refunds still need to be done externally.
2. If you go for Shopify payments and they waive the monthly fee, you are exposing yourself massively to fraud. Any successful webshop is going to attract fraudsters eventually and the more shops that protect themselves makes the unprotected ones more vulnerable.
3. If you do have to pay the transaction fees - because you chose Sagepay for example - then be aware that there is no refund for the transactions fees you paid when an item was returned by the customer. If you sell clothing - which has a huge returns rate - you are having to pay transaction fees on the original sale and also on the refund - so you are trading at a loss because you didn't even make that sale. This for me is a dealbreaker so I won't be using Shopify again until they sort the 3D Secure out on their own payments system.
4. Everything has an American bias - you can change the language in most places but not all.
5. If you buy a theme, be very careful who you buy it from and read the reviews. I bought from two different developers. One gives you free upgrades indefinitely and gives you incredible support - actually provides the code and tells you where to put it if you need to change something. The other I have not heard from again since buying the theme.
6. You can't properly test the themes before you buy and they won't allow you to transfer a purchased theme from one store to another.
7. The shipping rates for the UK need sorting out - I asked them to do this years ago but they don't give the UK priority. The US shipping rates are done by zip code and integrated with the US carriers but not here. Although the customer has to input their postcode to get a shipping quote, you can't actually make the shipping rates postcode specific. So you can't charge a different price to say Scottish highlands and islands an other parts of Scotland or for courier to Northern Ireland because it comes within the United Kingdom. They have different regions for Italy and Spain but have not got round to doing the UK and a doubt they ever will.
8. If you are selling clothing, you can't search by size and there is no theme which addressed this or way of doing this I have been told.

There are probably heaps of other things but these are the first that spring to mind.

 

[ExtensionsMall]

Personally, I don't like Shopify at all. It is expensive, gives you limited control, limited customization options and the features are not that great.
We mostly use Magento, but we do have an in-house team of developers that can find solution for anything. I understand, however, that Magento might be too complicated for the less tech-savvy users. But on the good side, there is an extension for virtually anything.
For some of our smaller projects we have used WooCommerce, but only because it is so easy to integrate into Wordpress website.
Magento might not be ideal, but it's still no.1.

 

[antropy]

My question is, what are your thoughts on shopify?

Here's how it compares to the leading self-hosted platform:
http://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/shopify-vs-opencart/

 

[VapeG]

I think shopify is good to set something up quickly and prove a market, bit long term I prefr to have more ownership and customisation over the system so would use something like magento possibly

 

[Abe Choi]

Another thing to note is that if you want to sell in different currencies you will have to set up an individual store for an individual currency. So if you want to sell in USD, GBP and EUR, you will need 3 shopify stores for your 3 different currencies. This can make all the operations difficult because you have to have all 3 stores syncing with inventory, pricing, shipping, customer service, etc.

 

[CoolHandCol]

I didn't want to spend a lot of money building a website to test my new product range so I had a look at "out of the box" solutions. I ended up with Shopify and am really pleased with it. I'm even thinking of moving my other websites to it!

 

[BigTree]

I've recently moved from BigCommerce to Shopify and love it. Thinking of moving a second store soon.

I think the problem is people don't compare like for like. First you need to work out if you want to self hosted or get someone else to do it all for you.

I've tried several open source platforms and found Magento the most complicated and hard to use. It's more for Developers or people who want a bespoke site designed for them by a developer. They used to have a hosted version which I tried but even they couldn't get it to run quick enough.

I've a degree in Computer Science so learning Magento isn't an issue but I don't want to worry about servers, upgrades etc and suspect most store owners don't want to either. I want to spend my time and money marketing my store not on admin or paying others to do it for me. Therefore personally I go for a fully managed store like Shopify. Particularly if your store is like mine and needs nothing unusual doing to it.

 

[pilgrim.marketing]

I'm a Shopify Partner so slightly biased, but I think it's a great solution. The main reasons I recommend it:

• No server worries - everything is taken care of for your monthly fee
• No updating software, compatibility issues etc...
• Very easy to use for any employee/store owner (especially compared to Magento/Opencart/WooCommerce)
• Built in payment system removes merchant account headaches

It takes all the hard parts of having an Ecommerce store and makes them a non-issue. It lets you get on with finding products, listing products, shipping orders.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

What I looked for in starting a web site was

I owned the domain

I could if I wanted control everything, I owned the software

The software had room to grow with me if it all took off

As we grew we could interface with at least one major accounting program

WE could interface with a courier service if required by outside developers

The software could be used with a EPOS system ( actually this has now been discontinued but option never used anyway)

A good support forum, plenty of designers and company paid for support with free upgrades

So in all look to the future to see if it meets your growth plans, changing companies is very expensive latter on and if done wrong can damage your SEO etc very badly if done wrong, companies often go tits up in this industry so don't build up a mega site and hear that the company has been taken over by a competitor who five months later decides to combine the old into there existing system