Shopify

Shopify is not the cheapest option around. Shopify offers four plans: Lite, Basic, Pro and Unlimited.

Shopify Lite

The Shopify Lite plan is designed for people who already have a website – while you are allowed to sell an unlimited number of items, you will be selling them on your Facebook Page or via the Shopify Buy Button on an existing website or blog. With this plan, you also get features like fraud analysis and discount codes. The Lite plan is offered at $9/month.

Shopify Basic, Pro and Unlimited

If you want to set up a full-function online shop, you will need to move higher up the pricing scale. You get more features and tools as you move up the plans, and the credit card rate also reduces.

In addition to the online store (with free SSL certificate), upgrading from the Lite plan to the Basic plan also gives you the ability to add a blog to your online store. The Basic plan is offered at $29 per month.

The Pro plan builds upon the Basic plan with extra features including gift cards, professional store reports and the abandoned cart recovery. The credit card rates (online and in person) are also lowered as well as the Shopify transaction fees.

The Unlimited Plan opens up all the Shopify features on your account, including real-time carrier shipping and advanced report builder. The Unlimited plan is offered at $179 per month.

Note that you don't have to pay for plans on a monthly basis, if you are 100% certain that Shopify is the right ecommerce builder for you, you can opt for an annual term (10% discount) and a biennial term (20% discount). Or, if you want to test out Shopify before committing to even a monthly term, Shopify offers a fully functional 14-day (no credit card required) trial.

Shopify offers an impressive collection of templates. Some of the templates are free, and some are paid. You can browse all the free and paid templates by category, and as far as we can tell, all templates are responsive.

Shopify offers 12 free templates and each of them comes in two or three different variants.

Alternatively, you can use one of the hundreds of paid templates, ranging in price from $80 to $180. Shopify templates are created with trust and credibility in mind. There are a lot of full-time Shopify template creators, and you can find them in Shopify's template store. For example, some premium templates are designed by world-renown designers such as Pixel Union and Out of the Sandbox.

Each template has its own set of customization options and some templates seem to have more customization options than others. Generally, you can edit the color of page items, the fonts, header and footer, as well as various other aesthetic options for individual pages.

One thing missing, though, is a drag-and-drop editor that lets you tweak your template and design your storefront by simply moving things around with your mouse. If you want to advanced customization, you will need to do so via the template's HTML/CSS codes.

The only problem is, Shopify uses ".liquid" programming, a templating language most users don't know.

So, if you want to hire someone to make modifications to your online store, you will have to hire a Shopify Expert who knows Liquid. Or if you want to attack the codes yourself, Shopify does provide a Liquid variable reference that you can use.

Editing your storefront design and adding products is very easy because the editor's interface is clean and straightforward.

New templates and apps can be installed with a simple click via the theme store and app store.

You can also easily add a blog and content pages to your storefront.

In addition, the admin homepage also outlines the main steps you need to take to launch your online store: adding products, setting up a custom domain, customizing your storefront. Adding products is simple – just enter details like product description, pricing, options (ie. size, color, etc) and then upload product images.

The Shopify Buy Now button lets you add embeddable products on your blog, an existing website or even in an email.

With this button, you don't need to have an online store, you can easily market and sell to customers from any website. The button allows you to use Shopify's secure checkout for all purchases via the button. You can even customize the colors and layouts of the button to match your style.

The Buy Now button is included in all Shopify plans.

Importing and exporting product data

Shopify allows you to import product data from Magento, eBay and CSV. You can also export product data as a CSV-file.

Product presentation

Shopify allows you to add a product images and videos on your product pages. Shopify also offers zoom functions to enhance your product presentation.

However, Shopify does not automatically crop your product images to ensure they are displayed using the same aspect ratio. This can lead to a messy presentation unless you have cropped all your images prior to uploading them to your online store.

Payment gateways and options

Shopify lets you accept payments with PayPal, Shopify Payments, money orders and more.

While every ecommerce builder requires you to sign up with a 3^rd party payment gateway, but Shopify has eliminated this requirement by offering Shopify Payments – their own payment gateway, powered by Stripe. This built-in payment option waives all Shopify transaction fee; however, this payment option is only available in the US, UK, Australia and Canada at this time. Also, while the Shopify transaction fee is waived, there is still a credit card rate that you need to pay (the exact rate depends on the type of plan you are on).

If you want to use a third-party payment gateway to process credit card transactions on your online store, Shopify lets you choose from over 70 payment gateways. Note that using a third-party payment gateway requires a bit of configuration and you will need to set up a merchant account with the payment gateway provider. Also, Shopify will apply a transaction fee on top of the transaction fee that the payment gateway charges.

Shopify doesn't include any custom domains or domain email hosting in its packages.

When you create an online store with Shopify, you are given a free, Shopify-hosted sub-domain that looks like your-store-name.myshopify.com.

While it is perfectly fine to use a sub-domain, a custom domain name is strongly recommended for your storefront. A custom domain name will strengthen your brand and enhance the trust and credibility of your business.

If you want to use a custom domain, you can purchase one from Shopify through the account admin panel.

And because you purchased the domain name, you have the option to keep the domain name after cancelling your Shopify store, and/or transfer it to another service provide without paying any additional service charges.

If you already have a domain name (ie. purchased from another domain provider), you can hook it up to your Shopify store. All you need to do is login to your domain provider account and make the necessary DNS modifications to your domain records. In other words, if you want to purchase a domain from elsewhere, you need to make sure the domain provide lets you make DNS changes easily.

Shopify does not offer any email hosting services. That said, you won't be able to create any custom domain emails accounts such as you@yourstore.com accounts.

But, you are allowed to set up an unlimited number of forwarding email addresses for free. Emails sent to an email forward will be redirected to its destination email automatically. In other words, all forwarding email addresses must be forwarded to an existing email address, ie. your existing Gmail email account. If you want to set up an actual custom domain email account (one that allows you to send and receive emails), your other options is to consider using a third-party email hosting provider, such as Zoho mail or Google Apps/Gmail.

Shopify offers a comprehensive knowledgebase and documentations where you will find a lot of answers and step-by-step assistance. They include screenshots so you can see exactly what to do.

If you need further assistance, Shopify also offers 24/7 support via phone, live chat and email.

Shopify also has a community forum where you can find a lot of previously-asked and answered questions. This forum works well because not only can you get answers from Shopify's support team, you can also get real input and tips from other Shopify users.

There are many reputable ecommerce builders that give you all sorts of tools to build and launch your online store, and Shopify is certainly one of the easier, more straightforward ecommerce builders to use.

Shopify caters to a broad range of industries, from arts & photography to clothing & fashion, food & beverages and much more, offering both stunning templates powerful tools and advanced apps to help you set up and maintain your online store.

Shopify is not the cheapest option around. If you are looking for something a little bit cheaper and a little bit easier to setup – then check out BigCommerce.

But if you are looking for an all-in-one ecommerce solution for your online store, and you have a little bit of technical-know-how, the Shopify will be a great fit for you. You will not be disappointed with their high-end solutions, flexibility to grow, 24/7 support and pricing transparency.