Shopify Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
Shopify is very easy to get started with. It practically holds your hand with simple shops and the plugins make for a robust software that almost anyone can make use of. I use it primarily for selling eLearning courses. Shopify has plugins available for most LMS software. Simply connect the LMS to Shopify with a plugin, input the course identifier, with my LMS it is a string of numbers and letters that is unique to each course, then set the price and start selling. When you sell a course through Shopify, the purchaser automatically gets login information for the LMS and is automatically assigned the course they purchased. Shopify has a couple of options for setting up a shop. The first option, which is the easiest, is to create a storefront within Shopify that is like a website, just for your store. It is very easy to pick a theme and then just type in the information. The storefront through Shopify looks very professional and is worth it if you just need a simple storefront. The second option is the buy button, which I use for my companies website. This way, if you already have a website, you can just use Shopify to generate a code that will give you a button to place on your website. There are other options I rarely use such as generating a code for email which is similar to the buy button but I am sure it would be very useful for those wishing to email out their products. There are so many plugins to sell different ways that there would be too much to post in this review. The customer service is top-notch. They respond quickly and when I needed something, they worked with me until it was resolved. The last customer service need I had took a few tries to get everything going but they kept at it until it was fixed.

Cons
The only con I have is for a lot of the advanced usage, you will need plugins for anything beyond selling simple items, like I said before, this is a pro but it can be a con at the same time. Some of the plugins are simple and free but a lot have an extra cost to either purchase the plugin or a monthly fee to use the plugin. The creators of the plugins do need the pay, that is understandable, but most are out of small businesses', like my company's, budget.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
If you want to stick to just basics and you need a clean, responsive E-commerce site, then Shopify is for you. No programming knowledge is required and there are many fine templates to choose from, and you can always find more. If you are interested in starting online, Shopify is a good choice because it offers a PCI compliant and secure shopping cart and payment gateway solution. Adding products to Shopify is surprisingly fast and easy but you are limited to 100 Variants. Shipping integration with USPS, UPS and Fedex is included and integrates with many popular software via Add ons. Things like email marketing, product feeds, and popups are easy to find and setup. And you can export your products to Google, and setup customer reviews with some other add ons. Having all these extra with add ons is both good and bad, and customers should be aware of the small downsides to Shopify.

Cons
Most things come included, however any extra customization requires some kind of add-on with monthly charge. Thankfully they have a good amount of add-ons to choose from, but most have fake reviews. Shopify much like other modern shopping carts is unable to store credit cards, out of the box. If your business needs to charge a customer for re-shipping, you have to create an invoice each time using an addon or creating a new order. Customer support is responsive but very general, but the basic Shopify will suit most small business owners. I am however not like most people, and like more customization. You cannot customize things too much other than what templates and add ons offer. Development on Shopify is highly difficult and goes above and beyond html / css however you can make some small changes like adding an image, or a link, a variable, or a tracking script with a look in their help center.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
If you want to build an ecommerce website and you have little to no experience with web development, then Shopify is your place to go. Anybody can easily get something set up in less than a day and begin selling immediately. I have created multiple websites on Shopify for myself and it is a very user-friendly platform with a lot of basic functionality that you will need in your business. Shopify can automate many steps in the process of selling products, and it will also act as a central hub for all your customer and product information. If I wanted to set up a website from scratch or piecing together other applications, it would take a lot of time and proabably cost me a lot more than the monthly cost of Shopify.

Cons
Shopify is perfect for getting you going and it's great if you have a pretty standard and straightforward product line. If, however, you need to have some kind of a custom made function on your website, it's possible you can run into some hurdles. Shopify is in a tricky situation where they are trying to cater to those with little tech skills, but also needs to be able to work well with those that DO have the tech skills and want to customize things. One thing that is frustrating with Shopify is you're limited in certain ways when it comes to customizing website themes. You also are not allowed to upload your own theme. You must purchase the theme through Shopify. You are limited in your ability to customize the checkout page on your website.

Rating breakdown

Pros
Good UI but some of the simple options available with other ecommerce products are unavailable or cost extra. For example, if you want to calculate shipping for each item (as opposed to a flat shipping charge) you have to pay extra monthly. Also, you cannot adjust image sizes. If you want a different size image for the category page and the product page, you have to upload 2 images.

Cons
This may be a good platform to start your online experience with, despite the high fees.However, I've run into an unexpected hurdle that I can not seem to resolve. I have had a chargeback (stolen credit card) from an order. It was settled, I had to pay out of my pocket. After I covered the chargeback willingly to keep my store operating, they froze my orders and would not let my money out of my account. They have started a fraud investigation on me, and requested my re-seller agreements and shipping and tracking information for my latest orders, which I produced promptly. This is not the frustrating part. I understand the importance of security and fraud prevention and would assist in any way I can to resolve the issue. It has now been two weeks since I submitted all the required information for review, and I have not heard anything back. No, we've received it and it's in review no we need more information. NOTHING. I have been calling back and they would not let me talk to the person who requested the information from me, because he is either out of the office, or we are unable to transfer your call directly to him. I have sent many emails directly to the investigator, starting off with nice and progressively more frustrated, but still professional and non-offensive.

Rating breakdown

Pros
Shopify is the best platform for drop shipping and also for retailers who want to take their shop online. Anyone with no previous experience with web designing can also easily set up a shop and start selling globally. The dashboard is very user friendly and they also have tips and instructions displayed upfront to help you set up easily. It also has a 14 day trial that allows you to set up things and check out if your products are working. The customer service team is also quick to respond, I was not able to attach my card to one of my stores due to some issues with my bank and when I informed them that I was not able to take my shop online because of this and the trial period was about to come to an end and they extended the trial for me in just one request made via email. Once your website is set up it also has additional applications to help you add inventory, up sell products, send automatic emails, track orders, basically all that you will ever need to run an online store is taken care off all under one platform. I would rate it 10/10

Cons
Shopify has no cons to be honest. Everything works fine from the day you set it up and you do not need to patch or upgrade anything ever. The basic fee per month is also money well spent for all the amazing features. Its all just upto you to market your products and get sales to keep ur shop running.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10