Shopify is a leading e-commerce site that offers a platform for entrepreneurs to open online stores at their sites. The advantages of using Shopify are numerous. Online stores owners enjoy the benefits of, custom –made online stores with unique themes, store front, design, SEO optimized link, customer confidence and loyalty, marketing and promotional benefits as well as robust payment options integrated into the platform. Inventory is also catered for as store owners have access to customer inquiries, orders, and sales reports.

How does Shopify work?

Starting out with Shopify is very easy. The site has a user-friendly interface. The registration process is therefore oversimplified. There is always an introductory offer, a fourteen day offer, after which the, store owner pays very affordable premiums for store ownership. The premiums are available in discounted packages ranging from one month to a year. There are three types of packages; basic intermediary and advanced Shopify, which costs $29, $79 and $299 respectively.

The domain is also compatible with any operating system. They host their own website and the servers are highly protected. For better results working with the platform, it is advisable to own a domain name. Domain names from other host sites are also accepted. Storage space for listing and number of products that can be listed is unlimited for all plans. In addition, there are staff accounts that accompany each and every plan. Basic accounts have two accounts, intermediary five and for advanced fifteen.

The platform has competent shop designers who can help the online store operator tailor make their stores for the purpose of optimization. This helps store owners to print shipping labels and create manual orders. Intermediary and advanced plans have better features such as gift card, recovery of abandoned carts, generate discount codes, and professional reports. Advanced plans’ stores have cutting-edge report- builders tools. Furthermore, all store owners have free access to a retail package that encompasses retail Point of sale software.

Payment options are robust and diversified. One can choose to accept cash manually through cash on delivery, mailed Cheque or via electronic means. Most shop owners prefer to use electronic transfer options such as PayPal, credit cards, and MasterCard. Other options such as money grams are also possible. When an order is paid through Shopify payment option, there are no transaction charges across all plans. Use of external payment options, however, attract charges, with basic accounts being charged 2$, intermediary 1$, and advanced accounts 0.5%. Credit card rates are also applied across the plans, with intermediary charges at 2.4% +30$. Shipping can be done using the Shopify platform or through a third party. There are is a huge discount on offer for advanced plan store members.

The site has a comprehensive customer support service department that operates on a 24- hour clock basis, in all the countries of the globe. The language of communication from the site is in English, but shop owners can code their stores in the language of their choice. All the stores are complemented by SSl certification and have a fraud analysis feature embedded. To ensure that they are able to communicate more robustly with their clients, store owners across all plans are also provided with free access to website and blog site, where they can highlight issues.