10 Reasons, Shopify Is The Best eCommerce Platform For SMEs

The pandemic stimulated loads of chaos in the world and many faced the wrath of a deadly virus. Covid19 took away many lives and brought all economies to a standstill! Lockdowns closed down successful businesses within months. People were shocked by the hold that a microorganism took over humanity. This disaster has revolutionized several things.

The one thing that this pandemic affected positively was eCommerce. Reports state that online shopping witnessed a 200% hike in sales. This made numerous business owners realize the true power of a web store and since then, the eCommerce rise is phenomenal!

There are two factors that are working quite well for the online business arena. First, more and more customers are buying stuff on the internet rather than visiting a physical store as the convenience they experienced during lockdowns was addictive. They love comfort.

Second, business owners like the efficient features and the incredible potential that an eCommerce store offers. They adore handling their inventory via robust tools and growing their revenue using in-depth analysis of customer behavior coupled with digital marketing.

The choice of picking up an online marketplace can be confusing but if you are an SME (Small-Medium-Enterprise), Shopify eCommerce Platform is the perfect companion.

The Brief History Of Shopify eCommerce

Founded in 2006 by Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake, the Shopify online store is developed using an open-source web application framework called Ruby on Rails.

It launched an application programming interface platform and App Store in 2009 allowing developers to create apps for Shopify online stores and sell them. A free mobile app for the store was released on the Apple App Store in April 2010. The company received $7 million from an initial Series A investment round and went on to raise $15 million in Series B.

The eCommerce platform reached the 120,000 online retailers mark in 2014 and earned $105 million in revenue. It also introduced Shopify Plus, the enterprise solution this year.

Shopify indexed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange in 2015. It went public on May 21, 2015, with shares trading at $28, more than 60% higher than its $17 offering price. The IPO amassed more than $131 million.

There were several ups and downs in the journey till now. The major up was when Amazon announced it would be closing its Webstore service for merchants, and selected Shopify as the preferred migration provider. Whereas, the major down was the #DeleteShopify drive.

In case you need help with Shopify eCommerce Website Development, contact Netizens Technologies. The professionals here are truly skillful and can assist you immensely.

The Amazing Facts About Shopify eCommerce

• Shopify supports merchants spread across 175 countries. It breached the one million merchants worldwide benchmark in October 2019 and is growing rapidly.
• Shopify eCommerce revenue for the second quarter of 2021 rose by over 95% to $710 million. The shares more than tripled in value in the past 12 months.
• Spending on Shopify overtook eBay for the first time in June 2020. The particular businesses that observed upraise are food, beverage, apparel, and cosmetics.
• Shopify announced a record $5+ billion in sales on Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend in 2020. Shopify Plus merchants witness 126% year-over-year growth.
• Shopify has paid over $800,000+ to more than 280+ ethical hackers to maintain security. Moreover, the platform aids 1.5 million+ full-time jobs all over the world.

How Does Shopify eCommerce Platform Work?

Complete the standard sign-up to begin the 14-Day Trial. Ensure that all the details are filled up properly to experience smooth sailing. The marketplace asks questions about your business to understand your requirements. Once complete, it will take you to the dashboard.

The Shopify plans start at $9/month and go up to as high as you want them to. Packages like Shopify Lite, Basic Shopify, and Shopify are ideal for small operations. On the other hand, Advanced Shopify and Shopify Plus packages are right for small to big businesses.

The dashboard is the main online headquarter of your enterprise from where you will control all the happenings as well as get essential information about business and more. A top panel on the left of your screen grants access to orders, products, customers, analytics, and more.

One can add new domains, create new pages, or publish blog posts for the visitors from the Sales Channels section. Pick up a free professional theme that reflects your brand value or buy a premium one from the store. Customize it according to your needs. Add products to the database with names, descriptions, images, pricing, and more. Setup the payment.

The eCommerce giant offers more than 100 payment processors that enable you to accept payments from anywhere on the planet. Once your site is ready, don’t forget to check your website performance. Ensure that the site is fast enough to load within seconds. Lastly, start driving traffic. Use digital marketing methods to increase sales and improve brand image!

Top 10 Reasons Why Shopify Is The Best eCommerce Platform

• • Umpteen Astonishing Themes

Shopify marketplace provides limitless themes of various types to give users the freedom to choose from a vast collection. All templates load fast and are made by design experts to work on all sizes of screens. Grab an exemplary first impression!

• • 24/7 Dedicated Support

The platform maintains a qualified team of experts to help users with their issues or doubts at any time of the day. The mediums available to contact are email, live chat, and phone. In addition, the Shopify Help Centre has a number of extensive guides.

• • Surrounded By An Ocean Of Handy Apps

Shopify eCommerce offers many features and tools to develop your online store effortlessly. Furthermore, the app store maintained by Shopify is full of remarkable gears that can help your business. It is a treasure trove of more than 1500 apps.

• • Affordability

The best thing about Shopify is that any level of a business owner can start selling on it. It doesn’t cost much to establish a dynamic online enterprise to sell products globally. The platform grants all of the aspects needed to run a trade at a basic price.

• • Security And Scalability

One of the biggest benefits of a hosted solution is the reliability factor. Shopify takes care of PCI compliance, enables SSL certificates to encrypt all data, and takes care of all server maintenance/upgrades. Your site never goes down and remains safe.

Shopify allows you to sell innumerable products via its marketplace. You can scale from selling 200 products to 8000 products without any restrictions and a great thing about this platform is that its strong servers can handle 4,000 checkouts per minute!

• • Blog And Multiple Language Support

Search Engine Optimization plays an important role in making your brand popular and without valuable content, it’s difficult to rank high on any search engine. Shopify presents a space to frequently upload optimal blogs with multi-lingual support.

• • Exclusive Payment Gateway

Other than all the payment integrations, Shopify eCommerce boasts a proprietary payment gateway. As it is developed in-house, you don’t need to have a merchant account to use it and it involves no transaction fees besides minimal credit card fees.

• • Omni-Channel And Multi-Platform Selling

The Shopify eCommerce platform allows visitors to buy products/services from any device. Secondly, it has social media selling options and integrates with Amazon.

• • In-Depth Analytics

The customer behavior tracking technology made available by Shopify provides a detailed analysis of what’s working for your store and what’s not! It is all visible on the dashboard to help you get a clear idea of the business. Realize, rectify, and rise!

• Mobile-Friendly Management

The Shopify eCommerce services can be handled through a smartphone via an app. Manage orders, products, staff, and other customer requirements on the go.

Winding Up

All things considered, if you are looking for Shopify developers or digital marketers, get in touch with Netizens Technologies today. This website development company has 18+ years of experience in the infotech arena and can literally catapult your business to new heights.