Xilnex Retail Business Solution vs Shopify Comparison

Hosted solution kept current by provider with a simple method to bring up an active web site to initiate sales online

Is not a mature retail and online solution, lacks features and function needed to run business. Creates significant work to maintain, with limited integration with financial, banking, does not have a complete solution.

You can literally have a store online, customers making purchases of their choice. With detailed information on products. Easy with very secure payments. There are multiple plugins & themes making your store stand out from the rest. Online retail store which is your main website. On Facebook, there's a tab where users can access your store & make purchases. On Messenger you can send a direct message to customers who are interested in your products. With Amazon, it allows you to manage Amazon listings & Shopify products in one location. On Instagram you can make posts shop able for example adding price tags & details on the product.

Its not a free platform to use. Monthly subscription cost. 14 free trial not enough for a upcoming individual/s who want to get started with Shopify. To get the advanced Shopify costs $299 which is expensive.

Shopify is very user friendly and seems to be one of the best in the industry. I recommend it to my clients who have e-retail needs and so far all have been very satisfied. The integration into the Websites is very easy and works well.

I really do not have any cons for Shopify. From my experience, it has been easy to use and the customer service has been good.

If you want to start an eCommerce store, then go for Shopify, easy to use, quick to implement, premade designs, and scalable. It's also good for mid-size businesses. You don't need a developer to start a store.

Limited options for customizing the platform. If you have a different business model than a retail traditional one then probably Shopify is not the best way to go.

Setting up our company and its shop was very easy, as well as finding a visual theme that suited us and meshed well with our existing branding. There's a wealth of free themes, and countless additional paid ones, so it's hard to imagine anyone not finding what they need. Shopify's core functions are quite complete and comprehensive, but if you find there's something they don't do for you out of the box, chances are good that there's a third-party app that will answer the need, and usually for not very much additional expense.

Importing existing products into the store was a pretty big project (although of course, not all new store creators have 200-300 products they need to start up with like we did), and editing and/or customizing those products can be time-consuming and sometimes awkward. There are times when I'd really like to multiple-select several products and modify the same attribute for all of them, but the system doesn't support this. I have a feeling they'll add support for this kind of thing somewhere down the line.

Shopify is an all-inclusive product that has an optional retail pack. You can have bricks and mortar storefront AND an online store that integrates nicely with it. A great solution for selling online.

The cheapest plan is Shopify Lite, but it does not include an online store (you can sell on Facebook, offline and via Paypal style BUY buttons). Be prepared to pay some good dollars for all the bell and whistles.

Shopify is fantastic in the commercial retail and personal retail businesses as you do not have to be an accredited business to list items for sale. Anyone can sell their products or belongings using this secure, convenient app. The interface is very user-friendly, including their phone app.

The store builder for building an online store/website leaves a bit to be desired, but this is from a technical stand-point from a person who has had complete control over the coding of their websites in the past.

I like that Shopify is super easy to use, with no coding knowledge required to make a retail website that looks professional. I like the fact that you can set up different forms of payment for customers to use, giving them more choice and safety.

I do not like the fact that you have to pay a monthly fee to use Shopify and that there are no free options other than a trial. This can be costly especially if business sales are low and you need to cover the cost for Shopify.

Utilizing Shopfiy for our retail management has been an incredibly wise decision for our business model. We operate both an online store but also an in store retail operations as well as a mobile retail when attending events. Shopify's flexibility to meet all three of these requirements has been second to none. The system has allowed us to have more frequent promotional sales, highlight retail items for special pricing for inventory clearance, and allows for special discounts. The inventory management capability has allowed for much more accurate inventory monitoring and reordering of retail items. This list of things we like most goes on and on.

The only thing that would be a draw back is our monthly cost of this software. We receive a non-profit discount for the monthly cost, but a lower cost would always be beneficial for the organization as well as lower processing fees, but their fees are pretty much industry average.

Shopify's ecommerce platform is great for those just getting started in the online retail business. The software is intuitive and user friendly. The app store is chock full of awesome options to help run your business more efficiently.

Unfortunately, customer support is, at times, non-existent. If something goes wrong, your shop may be down for a period of time while you wait for support or search for an answer and solve the problem yourself. Obviously, this can be quite costly when it happens.

It looks good & it has so many useful built in features.

Its kind of expensive, especially when it comes to retail.

It's super easy to set-up! You can customize the store with your own branding and it makes collecting payments a breeze either online or in person with their easy to use app.

I have yet to find something I don't like.

It's an all-in-one solution for small business ecommerce.

Adding variations to products is extremely time intensive and impossible to edit afterwards. Customization of themes is difficult unless you are well versed in HTML and CSS. And themes are expensive.

Shopify is great for any business owner whether it be small or large. I work at a small business and we've used Shopify from the start. It's very easy to use and straight-forward which I think is important when doing retail.

The only thing I don't like about Shopify is that sometimes the software is lagging or will be down completely making the transactions not go through quickly.

great alternative to Etsy and other retail sites

can be glitchy at times but otherwise no issues to report

Build your own online store with a complete functioning point of sale software. Set up your own personal retail business fully online. Large online community through the website can drive traffic and online shoppers to your personal business, and even integrates with Amazon.

There is no free trial, and there are transaction fees that could hamper your interest. The personalization of the web hosting is also limited to the templates offered (example: Your personalized business page will look similar to all the competition that also uses this software.

The sales support help line is excellent and easily accessible. Easy to navigate and set up with large amounts photo uploads. You have the option to do mass uploads which a great time saver. Lots of background layouts to chose from, can change them daily if you wanted to . I liked the shipping charge options based on country or sales price. Can delete info quickly when items sell out.

Only slight con would be credit card payment fees, they are fair prices. The fees charged are not great but not too bad.

Good platform that has many retail spaces on it, one in all

A little hard to distinguish between retail spaces if you have been shopping around - kind of get lost

The user interface is quite easy to understand. Easy to create your own store in Shopify and convert your offline business into online. No matter whether your business is small or big, one can easily swithch to the millions of retail customers and earn an unlimited profits in their sellings.

I didn't find any major issues with this software but it slighly lags while running.

Easy integration with third party tools and systems such as ad networks, tracking tools, affiliate networks, etc.

While it has myriad features, if you want something not supported "out of the box," that's not easy to implement.

I like the easy and simplicity of the integrity for selling retail items.

The cost is what I dislike most about this software- maybe it's because I do not have many in-person customers.

Inexpensive solution that is fairly easy to add new products and customers. Good for our small business.

Clunky to review / update pricing - you have to click through several links to get to the pricing per item. Also clunky to navigate through the product catalog - you have to advance 1 page at a time rather than being able to skip to specific page numbers. Re-ordering products on a specific page is very cumbersome as well.

I like that it helps people just trying to start a buisness from the ground up the tools and support they might not otherwise have.

Its a bit retail focused which mot everyone is looking to start their buisness in that feild.

Robust app and network of tools that integrate well with Shopify. I'm a big fan also of the Shopify Mobile App keeping me up to date on the business while on the road.

For our business, I would like to replicate products on other shopping sites like ebay, etsy and Shopify and partners haven't made an ideal solution for this yet.

We are a Hotel. So when we started to sell t-shirts and books ect it was very different from our usual customer experience. Every since we started with Shopify it has mad expelling a must and only adds about 2 mins to our check in/check out routine. And it's Sales report is easy to read and easy laid out perfectly for us to add to our nightly audit.

This software is 4 star. No bugs. Easy to learn and easy check out!