The E-Commerce platforms in comparison – Which software is the best?
Entering the world of online business for the first time, you can quickly be overwhelmed by the vast array of tools, applications and digital services all around the online sales of products. Running a business is hard enough, so do not make it too difficult to sell your services, programs, or products online.
We start therefore the big shop system comparison and look not only at the most popular Webshop software offerers, but also a few lesser-known shop offerers, which can, however, keep up in our opinion with the big ones and for some areas of application are even better.
In this blog post, we take a closer look at the webshop tool “Shopify“. If you sell digital products, take a closer look at SamCart.
What can Shopify Webshop software do?
Especially if you sell physical products – and a large number of them – then Shopify is the right shop system. With over 100 professionally designed, mobile-friendly and completely customizable shop surface themes, you can present your brand visually outstanding and bring eye catchers for your customers.
Although it is, of course, possible to sell services or digital products with Shopify, it is above all an online shop software for physical goods. For this purpose, Shopify offers many features related to inventory and purchase tracking options, eg. through the use of Liquid Short Codes.
What features does the webshop software Shopify offer?
In a nutshell, some of the most important features of the tool:
- unlimited number of sales items in your store
- Security Mechanisms / Fraud Auditing
- discount codes
- 24/7 live chat and email support
Important when creating an online shop is also the bandwidth and availability of your shop. Shopify offers unlimited bandwidth and online storage. The cost of using Shopify is not tied to how many visitors your store has each month or how many files and product photos have been uploaded.
Another feature of Shopify that stands out positively is Shopify POS: this is especially relevant for those who not only open an online store but also have a physical store or a pop-up store. With an app and smartphone, you can then personally process orders in the store, accept payments, credit cards – all from your iPad or smartphone and the Shopify POS app.
Also exemplary are the link to Amazon, Facebook and Pinterest. Shopping Buttons make selling here very easy. A functionality that not every webshop software offers. More about this can be found in our webshop comparison page as soon as we have tested all providers.
Shopify also lets you manually enter orders. If, for example, an order came in person or over the phone, you can enter the order in your shop system and then create the invoice via the system and send it to the customer via email. An important feature as we find to be able to use the shop system in everyday life.
Another important feature of an online shop software are reports and analyzes. Shopify gives you an overview of your sales, payments and outstanding payments via the financial report. Also very useful for reporting freaks: the dashboard can be customized.
Conclusion: is Shopify worthwhile as a webshop software?
If you sell physical products, Shopify is definitely one of the shop systems par excellence. And since you can try Shopify for 14 days for free, we think you should definitely try it.
After the 14-day trial, the monthly fee will depend on the features you choose. The price range is between $ 9 and $ 299 per month.
What definitely speaks for the use of the tool is that it increases the seriousness and thus the confidence in your shop. If you only offer PayPal as a payment option, this gives customers the impression that you are nothing more than a small startup company. To offer PayPal as a payment method is important. Still, studies show that you lose a lot of potential customers if you do not accept any other payment methods. Shopify makes it easy to offer more payment methods.
What are the alternatives to Shopify?
Depending on what you value in your shop, various tools can present various benefits and bring you different benefits. Our webshop comparison will show you these differences and the benefits of each store, so it’s easier for you to choose the best product. (further tests following shortly).
When comparing the different shop systems, you should focus on the following aspects:
Can I do a free test run to extensively test the system for my needs?
How are different accounts different?
Are there any limitations regarding visitors / products / bandwidth?
Is an affiliate program available?
Depending on your requirements but also personal preferences, the choice of the perfect shop provider for you depends on different factors. The tools available on the market are now well-engineered, which does not necessarily make the choice any easier but nonetheless increases the likelihood that your expectations will be met. In the near future further tests of webshop providers will follow.
Also published on Medium.