As of September 2020, 18% of e-shops on the entire Internet use Shopify. In the USA, it’s 22%.

There are approximately 1 million Shopify merchants worldwide that draw in 319 million unique visitors monthly. These visitors place around 65.5 million orders monthly. Overall, Shopify customers spent $63 billion since the platform was first launched in 2004.

This huge market share and popularity make taking a closer look at Shopify worthwhile. What can it do? Who is it for? Is it worth its price? What are the alternatives?

What is Shopify exactly?

Shopify is an eCommerce platform that allows anyone to set up an online (or offline) store and sell their products without software programming. No app installations or hosting services are required.

It’s designed for businesses of all sizes. Whether you sell online, on social media, in a store, or out of the trunk of your car, Shopify will help you.

Shopify offers a variety of options:

• Shopify POS (Point of Sale) is an application that allows you to sell products offline (old school - face to face). You can accept payments with your iPhone, iPad, or Android using the POS app.
• Shopify Lite is an affordable plan that allows you to sell products on an existing website. If you have a website that isn’t hosted on Shopify, you can sell with a Buy Button without Shopify’s hosting. As well as use Messenger chats, sell both online and offline, and send invoices on the $9 monthly plan.
• Shopify Plus is Shopify’s enterprise eCommerce platform for larger businesses or businesses looking to scale. It offers advanced reporting features, higher priority customer support, capacity to handle higher order volumes, and more.

Because the platform is so popular, finding tutorials that solve most common problems is no sweat. A quick search will get you detailed step-by-step instructions for anything from creating a shop from scratch to SEO optimization guides.

#ecommerce #shopify