Shopify Solutions - why this eCommerce platform?

While we discuss the merits of the Shopify Platform to be your online store, it may be worthwhile to go over the kinds of solutions they provide for an eCommerce Business to consider them outside of the hard facts and features. Sure, there are a lot of features involved in providing business solutions, and when you try to cater to a vast variety of industries, your platform has to have a very diverse yet structured approach to providing these eCommerce Solutions.

Shopify Storefront

With hundreds of Shopify Themes to build your Brand and Shopping Cart with there are a lot of choices to pick from. Additionally, with a Website Builder interface, you can now easily do your edits, add your content and configure your products and store. These Shopify themes are mobile responsive and can be edited in Liquid, HTML, and CSS to your specific look/feel. The Web-based website builder is a very capable CMS (Content Management System) which also has all the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) features you will require for Google Analytics to track, and Google Search to find. With your domain pointed to the store, your Storefront will welcome your audience with confidence.

Shopping Cart

When selling products, your eCommerce website has to have a process in which customers are familiar. Shopping baskets, gift cards, and coupons but there are more important basics you have to have. Shopify is a SAAS platform, cloud-based software where your customers arrive in an SSL secured site and can accept over 100 credit cards with Shopify's Payment Gateway options. This can happen in multi-lingual and multi-currency at a global level, and you can start selling in as little as 14-days or less which is their free-trial period. Setting up tax tables and variable shipping rates to cover the areas to which you serve rounds up the crucial points of your Shopping Cart experience.

Store Management

Web Designers don't really get too excited in this area, however, store owners can't do without. Features such as Customer Profiles, Customer accounts, and groups are all at the core of your business and are the heartbeat of your sales. Your audience may come from social media or search engine results - however, they arrive, and they sign up, it is now part of your marketing equity for your brand and your re-marketing activity. Managing the customer's experience is crucial in customer satisfaction - anything from promoting your products, discounting them, shipping them (shipping labels, shipping status, and tracking) all the way to refunding and the RMA process. Shopify provides your the full management and control of the experience.

Marketing and SEO

To sell online requires you to be found online. Social Media Sites can point people in the right direction, so does your domain name, yet the largest opportunity is being in-tune with search queries so that your audience can find you. It takes a lot more than friends and family to get your name out there, working through social networks, advertising, and social media marketing. Your Content Marketing will be at the core of your Organic Search with popular search engines, and Keyword Management. Shopify is already set up for SEO, generates the sitemap.xml, can insert itself into Facebook (Buy button), and has Product Reviews at the ready. Shopify isn't a free website builder, it is a fully functional marketing platform.

Products

From Inventory Management to SEO Product Tags, the strengths are Shopify's simplicity in how easy it is to set them up. You can sell digital products, drop-shipping products, and have an import/export of product lists so you can easily add your products in. On the imagery, you have multi-image and views capabilities, video, and 3D support. You can tag products, categorize them into Collections, and have a structure that makes sense to your customers.

Web Hosting

While building your website, taking advantage of unlimited bandwidth, Level 1-PCI Compliant, Email Marketing, and Email management, Domain management, SSL, and no need for software upgrades and management - a SAAS solution has some key advantages. The Shopify Solution in ease of management in this area is strong and makes it very attractive from new entrepreneurs on an entry plan, all the way to enterprise-level businesses with Shopify Plus.

Analytics

As a store owner, you get a Dashboard to see all the details of the sale flow of your online store, the customer experience, all the sales figures, and reports. Product Reports for inventory management, Export reports, and Traffic/referral reports. Google Analytics and Google Search Console complement these reports for the full picture of the Analytics.

Mobile App

Shopify has a full-featured Mobile App for you to manage your store. Your Mobile Dashboard allows you to have the ability to do your order fulfillment, you can Email customers, contact your customers, and can manage inventory on the fly.

Conclusion

Shopify solutions provide a full-featured environment for almost all business types to be online. If the built-in feature is not there, you can easily add features through the Shopify App Store where best in breed features and connectors are available. If it isn't found there are Shopify Experts such as TheGenieLab that can assist in evaluating, planning, and coding a Shopify Custom App or Shopify Private App. If you would like to enquire further - reach out to us at wish@thegenielab.com.