Table of Contents
E-Commerce is prospering with an escalation and a common business motto – businesses that save time and capital now, are the ones that flourish later. However, picking up the right platform that helps you manage your online store without any inconveniences down the line is the foremost priority.
Choosing an eCommerce store to start or migrate your online business is a big decision. Nevertheless, there exists a wide array of eCommerce platforms to build robust online stores. Shopify is one of the most sought-after solutions for creating top-of-the-line eCommerce websites.
“Shopify is used by more than 165,000 merchants.”
Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce platform that offers excellent features and benefits, ease of usage, flexibility, and the availability of a host of themes when it comes to design and development. You can easily sell physical products, digital products, services, and even do drop-shipping. And, all this just starts at $29 per month!
So, if you are currently figuring out which eCommerce platform would be the best for your online business or why you should choose Shopify, this article is for you!
Reasons why your business should re-platform to Shopify!
Shopify has propelled itself as the leading cloud-based solution for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. The store powers over 600,000 businesses and has more than $82 billion in sales. The platform has drastically affected the way businesses sell their products online, making even the largest business leave their legacy systems and move towards something better.
We believe and even the stats state that Shopify is one of the most preferred choices for merchants everywhere. Let’s dive in to answer all your Why’s!
- App Extensions and Availability
Your business needs more than a bare-bones online shop. Focusing on customer retention and acquisition strategies likely requires a good level of customization, cross-selling opportunities, and more. To solve these more complex business needs, Shopify offers marketplaces for merchants and brands to leverage.
Shopify’s marketplace of apps is a carefully curated system, with every app vetted by the platform to ensure quality, reliability, and availability. Additionally, Shopify Plus Certified App Program provides a collection of 49 high-quality applications that can solve the most complex problems that advanced and growing merchants may experience. The functionality ranges from personalized recommendations to automated store backups and affiliate marketing opportunities.
- Ease of Use
Custom creation is great — as long as you’re prepared to look out for business advantages.
That’s where eCommerce merchants often fall short. You might think that for major tweaks, adjustments, and evolutions of your online store, you’ll be required to hire out the development expertise. Well, it’s not really necessary if you are using Shopify.
Most eCommerce stores don’t have the bandwidth of hiring a team of developers to outshine their business in the market. This is where Shopify comes into play!
With a user-friendly backend, intuitive menus, and the flexibility of tweaking the feature and functionality right within the user interface, Shopify makes the processes much easier. A comprehensive dashboard offers you a better understanding of orders, sales, and target audience. Also, the built-in drag-and-drop feature can help you in customizing colors, imagery, and fonts easily with little to no design/development knowledge.
- Secured Websites
In the modern world of eCommerce, security is crucial for the peace of mind of customers and the smooth running of your business. Protecting customer information, business, and website against online attacks is not really optional – but essential.
When it comes to merchant data safety, Shopify is very serious about securing hosting and account information. All Shopify-based stores and sites have SSL certificates, covering all six PCI standard categories. This means that your store and customer information will remain secure, at the highest possible levels.
Shopify offers strong security levels and it’s a core reason for migration, regardless of your individual situation.
- Scalability
The ability to scale a business is essential for its growth and success.
Shopify is built for businesses of all sizes. The platform offers an enterprise-grade solution that assigns a dedicated Merchant Success Manager to define your business objectives and positions you for future growth.
You can start with a basic Shopify plan and scale up as your eCommerce business grows. Shopify supports both omnichannel and in-person sales, making it simpler to sell wherever your customers are. Besides this, if you’re looking at expanding your business internationally, Shopify makes it easy to sell in local languages and currencies.
- Hosting and Managing
One of the biggest shortcomings for new business owners is hosting the online store. Migrating to Shopify can fix this!
Some online store builders require merchants to find a third-party hosting provider, which adds costs and complexity to running a website. However, with Shopify, you get it all in one place. The robust architecture provides entirely managed and hosting services without adding extra merchandise or heavy website traffic.
You will be required to pay for your Shopify subscription fees, as well as any extra domain fees if you want to have a custom domain name. And voila! You get web hosting at no extra cost or effort.
- No Hidden Expenses
Initial costs can be quite deceiving if overlooked. Shopify is a robust platform with transparent pricing and plans. With plans starting at just $29 per month, you can set up your store with no long-term commitment.
The platform presents end-to-end cloud hosting services that enable you to create websites at minimal cost and a large number of benefits. If you want to upgrade your plans with growing business operations, you can do it easily at no hidden costs. Moreover, since Shopify handles hosting, you won’t have to worry about your bandwidth as well.
If you’re planning on growing your sales volume and spending on all store-related web development costs, investing in Shopify can do wonders.
- SEO Friendly
Migrating your store to Shopify means changing your product URLs too. However, Shopify doesn’t cause any change in your search engine rankings. The platform even retains the rankings for every product page. With the right steps, you’ll be able to create page redirects, monitor duplicate content, minimize on-page changes, and track your page performance.
Shopify provides you with:
- Robust customization capabilities with which you can optimize content by applying H1, title, and meta tags.
- Proper social media integration on Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, and other platforms.
- Google Adwords credits and optimization services.
Re-platforming is an opportunity to use high-performing keywords, shorter URL strings, and a simpler directory with fewer levels of depth.
- Dropshipping Friendly
Here’s the answer to your first question – what’s dropshipping?
Dropshipping is an emerging eCommerce trend where retailers sell products by a third-party wholesaler or manufacturer. Any logistical aspects of the business like shipping and inventory management are handled by the wholesaler themselves. This means you have no investment costs to worry about.
Unlike other eCommerce giants like Bigcommerce and Magento, Shopify can be used by merchants looking to open their own dropshipping business. The eCommerce platform hosts third-party apps that make it effortless for dropshippers to source their products and run their business. Thus, making it the one-stop shop for all dropshipping merchants.
Looking for a straightforward solution that allows you to easily manage your store in-house even without that dedicated expertise? Migrating to Shopify can be your best choice!
Signs you should migrate your eCommerce store to Shopify
The reasons to use your current eCommerce platform might be quite convincing. However, there are a number of signs under the hood that you should seriously consider re-platforming:
- Spikes in website traffic affect site performance or uptime.
- Major customer support tickets are about site usability.
- The team spends too much time on platform maintenance and development.
- Implementing new features or using new apps is tricky or impossible.
- Failed platform security during the critical sales period.
- Product stock numbers are never correct.
While your site spends time handling website traffic or your team is constantly working on website maintenance, you’ll lose many sales opportunities. The issues are all barriers to your business growth. So, migrating to a convenient, easy-to-use, and customizable platform is the right choice!
How to migrate your eCommerce business to Shopify?
The flexibility and customization options of Shopify are undeniable. Its integrated features make it easier to manage your store and the plug-and-play nature is perfect for the evolving and growing eCommerce market.
If you are looking to migrate your current online store to Shopify, you might consider various migration scenarios, specifically – manual, assisted and automated.
Here are the three ways you can do it:
- Export and import data manually, by following the right instructions.
- Request technical assistance from a developer or even a group of professionals.
- Turn to automated migration service (it doesn’t require strong technical skills to work with).
You can transfer data, design, and functionality from the old store to the new one. The strong CSV tool moves products and customers in and out seamlessly. Also, there are RSS feeds to transfer blog posts correctly and APIs set up for the smooth transfer of orders.
Reap the benefits of Shopify and move your business forward!
Migrating to a new eCommerce platform can sound costly and intimidating. But, it’s actually never been easier. If you want to avoid technical issues, website downtime and would like to focus more on sales, Shopify is the best platform for you.
Irrespective of your business size, type, and growth stage, Shopify is one of the best eCommerce platforms available today. The platform delivers enterprise-level eCommerce solutions at a fraction of the cost of traditional eCommerce stores.
The advantages of migrating to an eCommerce platform like Shopify can help you break down barriers to growth, taking your business to the next level. At the end of the day, your chosen eCommerce platform should facilitate sales growth and act as a trusted partner.
