Here at OC Business Websites, our Shopify developer has been raving about the new and improved Shopify platform. We’d like to share the benefits of using Shopify e-commerce software to build your own e-commerce website. While we are proud Shopify developers, you might even be able to be your own Shopify developer!
E-commerce websites rely heavily on user experience; so if the product search, selection, and check-out process isn’t smooth and easy, your prospective customers will turn away. Unfortunately, most business owners don’t know much about web development and often choose e-commerce solutions that lead to bad quality websites.
Be Your Own Shopify Developer
Fortunately, there are comprehensive solutions available for small business owners who want new websites, are on a tight budget, and don’t know much about web development. Shopify is one such solution that has become very popular amongst business owners. It’s simple and easy to use, and is considered one of the best all-in-one e-commerce solutions available today. There are a number of other reasons why people prefer Shopify:
Easy to Use E-Commerce Websites
With Shopify, you don’t need to know difficult web programming languages so you can easily create and maintain your own e-commerce website. All you need to do is register and create an account. Accounts are free for 2 weeks with no credit card required! Once the account is created, you will be directed to a dashboard with a side navigation menu and shortcuts to the most used features. You are now your own Shopify developer. There are only four steps involved in the entire website set-up process:
- Add your products and categories
- Choose and configure your design theme
- Set up store settings (taxes, shipping methods, payment methods)
- Register your domain name
That’s all you need to do and your website is ready for your customers. If you’re really into doing it yourself, you really won’t even need to hire us! But don’t feel bad, we’re up to our eyeballs in web design work already!
All-Inclusive
Shopify offers all features that you can expect from an e-commerce platform, including a comprehensive list of marketing tools for Google, Facebook, product reviews, e-mails, SEO, and installable apps that do almost anything you can imagine. Your new website will also be fully-compatible with mobile platforms, will have customer relationship management and content management system tools, and offer analytics and reporting tools. As a SaaS platform (Software-as-a-Service), you are paying a monthly fee for all of these great features, as well as high speed web hosting. That’s right – you don’t have to worry about server issues anymore! Shopify takes care of everything.
Speed
One of the first things you notice about Shopify websites is the loading-speed. This is very important because research suggests customers will wait only for 2 to 3 seconds for a website to load before they get distracted or look elsewhere. This is also a ranking factor for Google search results! Thankfully, Shopify website pages load very quickly.
Security
Speed shouldn’t come at the cost of security. On an e-commerce platform, you process sensitive information about customer’s credit & debit cards on a regular basis. Most websites rely on outsourced solutions like Google Wallet and PayPal, but Shopify offers pre-approved payment solutions so you can set up your e-commerce store and start selling faster. Because Shopify is an all-in-one platform, you don’t have to worry about outsourcing, delays, and lack of security.
As you can see, there are several advantages that make Shopify the ideal e-commerce solution for small businesses. We encourage you to try building a Shopify website on your own, as there is no risk. Once the 14-day free trial ends, you are not billed and the account is removed. If you prefer to have a trial account that does not expire, contact us and we will get you one that lasts (in private) forever.
If your Shopify e-commerce website design does not look how you imagined, contact us and we will help you build a beautiful tailored Shopify theme! Or if you have way too many products to add manually, contact us for bulk importing and advanced functionality development. We always love helping customers build out their e-commerce stores. Click here to start your free Shopify trial!
