When selling products online, Shopify is often the first port-of-call for businesses of all shapes and sizes. With a whopping 20% market share, Shopify is a very powerful tool that empowers many brands to take their products to the masses.
From drop-shipping empires to small creative businesses, Shopify is an excellent scalable solution. With brands worth over $1billion such as Gymshark using Shopify Plus through to small businesses launching niche ecommerce sites with a standard Shopify site, the platform offers an effective selling solution for small, medium, large and enterprise-level businesses. There’s a lot to love about Shopify’s CMS. Unlike many other popular platforms, Shopify is designed specifically for ecommerce, making it an ideal solution for businesses looking to sell products online.
Founded in 2004, Shopify has seen exponential growth. What makes Shopify so popular, and how has it become a leading force in ecommerce? Let’s take a closer look at its monumental success.
Affordable plans
One of the most significant benefits of choosing Shopify’s ecommerce platform is that of value for money. With affordable monthly plans to suit most budgets, Shopify is a great gateway to selling online for a business starting from scratch.
Shopify differs from its biggest competitor WooCommerce (WordPress’ solution) in a number of ways, primarily in that is it an ecommerce platform as standard. Businesses that opt for WordPress can host their stores with whichever host they want, but the initial setup and ongoing maintenance is more advanced than Shopify.
Shopify is the third largest online retailer after eBay and Amazon, with over half a million active stores on its platform. With a platform of this size comes market-leading help and support, as well as optimisation and customisation. It’s not just Shopify that invests into the growth and development of its platform. In recent years, we’ve seen a rise of third-party ecommerce consultants who can help businesses to grow their revenue and harness the power of Shopify. Expert ecommerce consultants
Shopify is a top choice for ecommerce consultants, with many experts specialising in helping online shops to boost their sales, develop their offering and perfect their design. The exponential growth of Shopify makes it a fantastic platform for your online store, but it can also be challenging to keep up with the updates and new tools and functionalities.
While Shopify is an accessible tool for beginners, it also has vast potential that requires consistent and expert nurturing to unlock. That’s where your ecommerce consultant comes in. Meet our Shopify ecommerce experts and find out how they can help take your online shop to the next level.
Huge design capability
Some of the world’s biggest online retailers use Shopify. With over 350,000 paid themes purchased by merchants, Shopify boasts an incredible design capability, especially for those with the expertise to adapt components or even build your own bespoke design themes. There are a huge amount of beautiful Shopify websites which showcase the tool’s amazing design potential – and it’s not just small and medium businesses that embrace the power of Shopify. Gymshark, Stussy and Steve Madden are among some of the most successful Shopify websites processing thousands of orders a day.
As with any CMS, Shopify really comes into its own when you invest in making it work for you – this includes hiring a graphic designer and web developer to take your online shopfront from a standard Shopify store to one that parallels the aforementioned world-famous brands. Need a web developer, graphic designer or marketing consultant? Meet the Flow experts.
Shopify Plus: the premium option
Shopify Plus is an enterprise-level upgrade to your Shopify site which unlocks a variety of key features that make selling more successful. It’s so good, in fact, that many of the world’s biggest brands use it: Heinz, Gymshark, Lindt, Staples, JB-Hifi and more all call Shopify Plus their home.
Why is that? Shopify Plus offers a suite of features such as a ‘launch engineer’ – a personal assistant for your store, full API integration access, exclusive apps, wholesale channels and in-depth analytics. Put simply, it’s a far more serious solution for when your business reaches enterprise-level and requires a full management solution that both sell your products and keeps your business running.
Profitable affiliate programme
Another significant benefit of Shopify is the affiliate programme. Once your online business grows, and you become more influential in your space, you can support fledgling companies and enjoy a kickback with Shopify’s affiliate plan.
This is likely one of Shopify’s critical drivers of success as it encourages active users to refer friends and colleagues, further contributing to the channel’s significant growth over recent years. To benefit from Shopify’s affiliate programme, you have to have a dedicated audience in the market to start their own businesses. While not for everyone, if you qualify and are accepted to the programme, it’s a fantastic way to make an additional income on top of your existing ecommerce business.
So, those are just a few contributing factors to Shopify’s incredible success. Whether you are starting a new ecommerce business, taking your brick-and-mortar store online or looking to transfer your shop from another platform, Shopify is a fantastic choice. Don’t try and do it all yourself, find the experts to help drive your business forward with Flow.
