We often get many questions about which ecommerce platform is worth it (value and feature-wise), especially for beginners.
After trying different platforms and coming up with a list of factors to consider when choosing an ecommerce platform, here is the reality:
Each ecommerce platform has advantages and drawbacks.
However, you may have noted that we often recommend Shopify if your budget allows it.
There's a good reason for that, and we will explain it in this article!
Tip: Have you already created your Shopify account? If not, sign up by clicking this link here to get a free 3-day trial + pay $1/month for the first 3 months!
At a Glance: Is Shopify Worth It?
Yes!
For those with a sufficient budget, Shopify is worth it as an ecommerce platform.
But don't just take our word for it.
Jonathan Bayme, Founder and CEO of Theory11, which, according to Similarweb, generates an estimated annual revenue of $15M-$25M from selling playing cards and magic tricks online, has this to say about Shopify:
Shopify is better than any other platform, and we've played with them all.
Jonathon Bayme, CEO of Theory11 (source)
However, like most ecommerce platforms, Shopify has its fair share of advantages and disadvantages.
Despite that, we believe that if you're looking for an easy-to-use, reliable ecommerce platform and have a budget to play with, Shopify is worth considering and is perhaps even one of the best ecommerce platforms for most peoples' online store needs.
You're probably thinking or wondering, 'It's great that the Do Dropshipping team thinks Shopify is worth it, but what features would you say make it worth it as an ecommerce platform?'
That's a great question.
Let's briefly discuss Shopify a bit more deeply, then focus on the features we believe make it worth it.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is an all-in-one software-as-a-service platform on a mission to improve commerce for everyone by making it easy to start, manage, and grow an online store or business.
Shopify officially launched in 2006. The initial platform had a basic set of merchant tools and features that helped store owners create customizable shop templates, track orders through an RSS feed, and manage inventory.
As you can imagine, Shopify has innovated a lot since then, and its history is rich in many growth and development milestones, as shown by the handy infographic below:
This innovation and exponential growth could explain why, since its launch, Shopify has become one of the most popular and most searched-for ecommerce platforms, as shown by this Google Trends comparison chart:
Now that you know a bit more about how Shopify started, its various development milestones over the years, and how popular it is compared to other ecommerce platforms, let's also briefly mention the platform's pros and cons.
The pros and cons of Shopify
We've already established that Shopify is one of the most popular ecommerce platforms (you can read this article here to learn why Shopify is so popular for ecommerce).
We've also established that, like most other ecommerce platforms, it has unique pros and cons you should know before choosing it as your ecommerce platform of choice.
Here is a handy table summarizing Shopify's main advantages and disadvantages:
| Pros | Cons |
| Beginner-friendliness and ease of use. Both make Shopify ideal for beginners. | Shopify's recurring pricing plans can be a bit of a turn-off if you don't have a budget. |
| Support for various payment processing systems, including Shopify Payments, Stripe, PayPal, and others. | Compared to robust CMSs like WordPress, Shopify has limited content management capabilities. |
| It's affordable, offers great value, and is easy to scale with to match business growth. | Shopify transactions and credit card fees can add up, especially for a store that processes thousands of daily orders. |
| The ability to sell most things (except those on Shopify's Acceptable Use Policy) and run multiple Shopify stores with Shopify Plus. | Premium Shopify apps that extend the platform's capabilities can be expensive, especially because most are recurring. |
| Shopify has one of the best ecommerce trial offers: a 3-day free trial and $1 per month for 3 months on select plans. | Shopify's proprietary system makes migrating a Shopify store to another platform a technical challenge. |
If you want a more comprehensive coverage of these and many other advantages and disadvantages, read our comprehensive Shopify pros and cons guide.
Let's now focus on the key features we believe make Shopify worth it.
5 features that make Shopify worth it for ecommerce
Let's jump right in, shall we?
1. Beginner friendliness
Let's face it:
Not everyone who wants to start an online store is a 'techie' who can write and edit source code, work with themes that require numerous integrations, or do other technical stuff.
For some of us, figuring out some aspects of technology can be a real challenge.
With ecommerce especially, the idea that running a successful online store 'requires some coding knowledge' can turn off the less tech-savvy among us.
That's where Shopify shines.
One thing we love about Shopify and feel makes it worth it is that using it to build world-class online stores does not require you to have any 'coding' or website-creating skills; having such skills can help, but they are not mandatory.
As highlighted on their 'About Us' page, Shopify's mission statement is to improve commerce for everyone by simplifying the process of starting, running, and growing a business:
Shopify lives up to this mission statement by offering everything you need to get an online store up and running quickly.
For example, Shopify's free Dawn Theme is minimal, rich in features, and quick to set up and customize:
Another thing is that Shopify's drag-and-drop features may not be cutting-edge, but they are good enough that it shouldn't take a beginner too long to go from no store to a live online store.
Besides customizability, which we shall focus on shortly, Shopify offers other integrated features out-of-the-box.
These features include inventory management, payment gateways, and many apps that extend the core functionalities.
Another example of a feature that makes Shopify user-friendly is that you can use their 'general checklist for starting a store':
Tip: We also have our own, more in-depth version of a Shopify launch checklist.
Moving on, we cannot discuss Shopify's beginner friendliness without mentioning Shopify Learn.
Shopify Learn is a free resource full of many expert-taught courses and resources meant to teach you everything worth knowing about starting and running a Shopify store, from setting up your store to marketing and sales:
Related article: Shopify Learn: The 15 Best Free Online Ecommerce Courses
2. Customizability
Customizability is an important consideration in ecommerce.
After all, you don't want to use an ecommerce platform that makes your store look the same as all others.
In this regard, very few ecommerce platforms rival Shopify.
For example, at the time of writing this article, the Shopify Theme Store had 138 themes: 12 free and 126 premium.
One of the key features we love about Shopify themes is that you can narrow your theme search process based on price (free or paid), industry, catalog size, and features.
This makes finding a theme that fits your store's needs easier.
Another thing we cannot fail to mention about customizability is the 100+ supported payment gateways:
The ability to customize your payment gateway means your store can accept and process local and international payments from customers who want to pay using credit and debit cards, digital wallets, local payment methods, and more.
3. Tons of tools and features
We've already mentioned this, but if features and tools are the primary things you're looking for in an ecommerce platform, then consider Shopify because it does not disappoint on that front.
Here are five of Shopify's many features and tools:
App Store
Many ecommerce platforms have an app/extensions/plugin store.
However, Shopify's App Store stands out because it offers over 8,000 apps.
The other thing is that, like Shopify Themes, you can use the 'Apps by category' option to narrow your search parameters:
Shopify Fulfillment Network
Shopify Fulfillment Network (SFN) is another great feature that makes Shopify a worthy ecommerce platform.
Here is how this fulfillment service works.
First, you (or your supplier) send inventory to one of Shopify's fulfillment centers.
Then, Shopify uses data metrics, like demand, to re-distribute your products to other fulfillment centers in its network—the goal is to keep inventory close to customers and deliver orders in the US within three days or less.
Besides order fulfillment, SFN handles real-time inventory tracking, customized packaging slips, returns, and more:
This fulfillment service also gives you access to Shopify's Shop Promise, a badge that instills buyer confidence and that, according to Shopify, can increase conversion rates by up to 25%:
Built-in inventory management
This feature makes Shopify worth it because manual inventory management can be an extremely demanding, time-consuming job.
Shopify's built-in inventory management allows you to do multi-device, multi-channel, and multi-location inventory tracking and control.
It also allows you to automate and save time on inventory-related tasks, like stock alerts, adjustments, and reports.
Besides this, you can use features like bulk inventory editing, Shopify Flow, and API integrations to streamline your inventory management.
Related article: The 12 Best Shopify Inventory Management Apps of 2024
Built-in payment processing and shipping
When discussing Shopify's customizability, we mentioned its integration with different payment gateways that allow you to accept and process different local and international payments.
On the shipping front, everything you need to know and manage about your store's shipping settings is easy to find on the Shipping and Delivery page, and you can choose between shipping, local delivery, and local pickup as your at-checkout options.
Additionally, you can use one dashboard to track everything related to sales and payments:
You can also order and print discounted shipping labels, display calculated shipping rates at checkout, track shipments, and more, including getting discounted shipping rates from carriers like USPS and DHL.
These two features save time and money and can potentially boost your conversion rate because a seamless checkout and shipping experience makes customers likelier to complete a purchase.
Reporting and analytics
Shopify has robust reporting and analytics features, as the previous point showed you in a sneak peek of the dashboard and the level of reporting it offers.
You can use Shopify Reports to learn more about your store, from sales, orders, customers, inventory, and other key metrics like sessions, conversion rate, units sold by product (great if you want to know your top products), etc.
You can use the reports to analyze your store's performance over time, understand your customers, and use the data to make informed business decisions.
4. Unrivaled support
All the main ecommerce platforms offer support in one form or another.
What makes Shopify's support unrivaled is the level and quality of support.
For starters, you can expect 24/7 support via live chat, email, phone, social media, and forum.
You can also expect support in various languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, etc.
Let's also mention something else here: the Help Center.
Shopify's Help Center is a one-stop online resource for all your Shopify-related questions:
And if you want tailored support, you can use the Expert Marketplace to find third-party experts.
5. Speed and security
Have you ever added something to your cart and proceeded to checkout, only to abandon your cart due to page load issues or security concerns?
We call that cart abandonment.
According to survey data from The Baynard Institute, the top five causes of cart abandonment during checkout are:
- High extra costs
- Requests to create an account at checkout
- Slow delivery
- Security concerns
- A complex checkout process
Another thing that makes Shopify worth it as an ecommerce platform is its features that optimize your store's page load speed.
For example, consider Shopify's Content Delivery Network, which can enhance content delivery to your customers by hosting files like images, videos, scripts, and written content on servers closest to a user, which improves page load speed by reducing latency.
Besides the CDN, Shopify supports features like lazy loading, image compression, and non-critical CSS and JS deferral.
On the security front, Shopify has features like the Shared Responsibility Model, which outlines Shopify's responsibilities as a SaaS platform and your responsibilities as a merchant:
Besides that, all Shopify stores have chargeback protection, fraud analysis features, and Level 1 Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance.
Summary
Before we go to the conclusion, here is a quick summary of this article for you so you can easily remember it:
- All ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, have advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, consider each platform and remember that the best ecommerce platform is the one that has the features you want.
- If you have the budget for it, Shopify is worth it (that's why we often recommend it).
- The best way to determine if Shopify will be worth it for your store needs is to compare it with other ecommerce platforms.
Conclusion
So, back to our question: is Shopify worth it?
Yes! If you have the budget, we believe Shopify is worth it, thanks to its many features, like ease of use, good value for money, scalability, and top-tier security and support.
Shopify is as great as (if not better than) most ecommerce platforms and deserves its popularity, but remember to compare Shopify to other ecommerce platforms.
We hope we helped you make an informed decision!
Want to learn more about Shopify?
Ready to learn more about Shopify? Check out the articles below:
- Is Shopify a Website Builder (& Is It the Best in 2024?)
- Shopify Admin Dashboard: An Easy Guide for 2024 (+ 6 Tips)
- How Does Shopify Work? (& Is It Good for Beginners in 2024?)
Plus, don’t forget to check out our in-depth how to start a Shopify store guide here.
