What Is Shopify And How Does It Work?

What Is Shopify And How Does It Work

Shopify-One Big Platform for All Commerce

What is Shopify?

Shopify is one of the popular eCommerce platforms that provide a place for merchants to create their online stores on Shopify. Tobi Lütke, the Canadian CEO and founder of the e-commerce platform Shopify.  The founder has a complete story behind Shopify, but we will talk about it later. In the nutshell, the owner has tried to simplify the process of creating an eCommerce platform for the users who want to start their business but couldn’t do so due to lack of support.

Shopify offers a 14-day free trial period. You can sign up for the trial period and you can build your store and test Shopify for yourself. Shopify’s basic plan starts at $29 a month.

Shopify comes with four plans: Basic, Advance, and Plus.  As your business grows, Shopify will provide you with the right path, and the different pricing plans will let your access more features, and give you more tools to grow your business.

 In the initial period, it was just offering merchants to create stores, but after some time, with the help of an API, merchants were able to create custom apps on the Shopify App Store. It was a game-changer for Shopify, and now Shopify has more than 6000 apps listed on the App Store.

There are four common types of apps available on Shopify: Public, Custom, Private, and Draft.  Every app type has its own capabilities and requirements. You can read them here.  Shopify offers different categories for merchants to create apps in.

Shopify also allows users to shift their business from another platform to Shopify with the help of the Store Migration feature. So, if you’re already selling on another platform but want to shift to Shopify, get started with your migration today.

  • What is the Shopify App Store?

The Shopify App Store is the place for all Shopify merchants to find apps that they can use in their business. You can create apps for the Shopify App Store to reach out to millions of entrepreneurs around the world and can grow your app development business.

Our dedicated Shopify app developers can create the best Shopify app for your business.  We provide customized app development features, emerging with advanced technology.

  • What is Shopify Plus?

Shopify Plus is an enterprise eCommerce platform for all big businesses and brands looking for higher growth and scale. Shopify Plus is designed with a robust set of features and tools to handle more data and customer value for better business growth.

The Shopify Plus price starts at $2,000 USD a month.  

  • What is Shopify Lite?

Shopify Lite is an affordable plan that allows you to integrate your existing website or blog platform with Shopify to sell products online. For example, if you have a website that isn’t hosted on Shopify, the Shopify lite plan allows you to sell products with a Buy Button without Shopify’s hosting.  

Shopify Lite pricing starts at $9 USD/month. There is also a 14-day free trial of Shopify available.

  • What is Shopify POS?

Shopify POS is a user-friendly software application that allows merchants to sell products offline. This software allows you to sell products in person, via the physical store, markets, pop-up shops, etc. You can run it on its own, or sync it with an online Shopify store to track all your clients’ online, mobile, and in-store orders in one place

  • How Does Shopify Work?

Shopify is a big eCommerce platform that allows you to create an online store or app and sell your products online anywhere in the world.  With its different plans and pricing, merchants can sell products via different channels without creating Shopify stores. Shopify is a complete cloud-based platform, which means merchants can access it from any connected compatible device. It gives you full support to access or conduct your business everywhere with the internet connection.

Shopify creates multiple tools to make business easy for you. With the help of these tools, merchants can do different things, whether it’s migrating a business to Shopify, developing an app for Shopify, getting free designs and themes, or lots of other perks.

Here’s an overview of how Shopify works.

  • Create your Shopify Store

Shopify has different plans, and most plans come with a 14-day free trial period so that you can have a Shopify experience without bearing any cost.  In this trial period, you can either create your store or sell your already built apps on the Shopify App store and make sales. You can try using tools.

Shopify offers free and paid themes. You can choose as per your requirements.  You can make customizations to themes, colors, images, and fonts.  Shopify offers great mobile responsiveness and compatibility.  Your customers can see your product on every device they want.

  • Shopify Products & Services

Shopify has plans and policies regarding what products & services a user can sell in a particular city, so make sure you check their official terms of service first and then think about what product you’re going to sell on Shopify.

Shopify comes with multiple categories so that every user can find their own category and list their products or services.

  •  Shopify Upgrades

As said earlier, Shopify has different plans and pricing for businesses because they understand that every business is unique and has its own scale rates. 

Business starts from the basics, and as it grows, its needs evolve accordingly. Here, Shopify upgrades help merchants continue their business with more confidence and productivity.

Shopify mainly offers three plans: Basic, Advanced, and Plus. As the business grows, a business can choose the plan according to the requirements and needs of the business. These plans offer different pricing structures that let merchants access various tools and provide great customer support for the smooth functioning of the business.

For example, the basic plan is for small businesses, the advanced plan is for medium-scale businesses, and the plus plan is for enterprise businesses or big brands who are looking to scale.

These tools help them to manage all the extra work, burden, inventory,  order & management, shipment, payments, etc.

  • Sell your Apps on Shopify

The Shopify App Store is a place where developers can sell their apps or any business can provide services to merchants via an app, such as an inventory management app, order management app, payment transfer app, shipment app, marketing app, etc.

You can hire expert Shopify developers from Enact eServices to create a custom solution for your Shopify stores.

Set up your payment gateway

Shopify makes payments easy for you and that’s why it accepts payments from all modes such as via debit or credit card, online, UPI, COD, and payment gateway (RozerPay or others).  You can set up your payment gateway and provide your customers the freedom to choose their preferred payment option.

Sell via multiple channels

Shopify does not force you to sell products only by creating Shopify stores. It allows you to sell your products on Shopify with your existing website or blog, even without hosting on Shopify. This is possible with Shopify Lite, which allows you to integrate your existing website so that you can sell products.

You can even sell your product on social media, or blog pages, Shopify has arranged everything for you. The user can also use Shopify to sell products on big platforms like Google, eBay, Walmart, TikTok, Pinterest, and other sites.

  • What can you sell on Shopify?

Here are the following things you can sell on Shopify.

  • Services
  • Physical Products
  • Digital products
  • Memberships
  • Consultation
  • Apps
  • Experiences
  • Event support
  • Your story
  • Classes, lessons, and workshops
  • Rentals
  • Tickets
  • Gift cards

 

There are a few things that you can’t sell on Shopify. As we mentioned earlier, before listing your product, make sure you check Shopify’s terms on products and services.

  • How much does it cost to create a store on Shopify?

You have two choices: whether you can create your store on your own or hire Shopify app developers to create your Shopify stores. If you are creating this, then there is no development cost. You just have to pay for the plan you select (based on your business scale).

If you want to hire developers to create your Shopify store, then the app development cost may depend on various factors. There is no exact answer to this, as every business charges based on different factors. You can hire a company and tell them your requirements, and they will create your budget plan. Or you can also create your own budget plan, and once you’re satisfied with your budget, you can go ahead with the app development company.

 After creating a store, you have to select the plan that Shopify offers.

Shopify Basic plan starts at $29USD/monthly

Shopify Recommended plan starts at $79USD/monthly

Shopify Advanced plan starts at $299USD/monthly

Read more about Shopify Plans & Pricing.

  • Why Shopify?

The Shopify app store is becoming the most popular eCommerce platform in the world.  Compared to other platforms, there is a much higher probability of getting noticed by the thousands of merchants listed on Shopify. It’s quite easy to launch an app on the Shopify App Store. If you are a developer, you can create a custom app on your own using the Shopify API, or you can launch a public app and sell it on Shopify.

If you are running a business and want to scale it as an app on Shopify, you can take help from leading Shopify app development companies like enAct eServices.

 The second thing to invest in in the Shopify App Store is that the average revenue of an app is $2000 per month per app. However, this was in 2017, so there could be a little bit of change in the revenue due to different factors due to COVID and the revenue base model.

In Shopify stores, merchants really need some great tools to enhance their business services and profitability. You can help them by providing full-featured apps that help entrepreneurs be successful in the market.

 

Conclusion

This was a complete guide to what Shopify is and how it works. I hope this guide will help you get started with Shopify and answer almost all your questions. We have included all the important factors so that you can easily set up your new business or scale it on Shopify.

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