The eCommerce industry, a couple of decades later has made trillions in US dollars in sales all throughout the world. There’s no looking back as everything is headed forward. The retail industry is revolutionized by eCommerce, or electronic commerce, and has evolved to meet the changing demand and needs of consumers and to make for easier online shopping for the customers of today.
The industry was relatively limited in its capabilities from the start. But nowadays, whether it’s improved return policies, customization, or enhanced integration, all these and more have taken the industry by storm. Among the many platforms and solutions to streamline eCommerce workflows and processes is the Shopify platform.
The demand for Shopify app development is escalating as it has become one of the most preferred platforms for online shopping. Moreover, it has in fact transformed the field for good, taking online businesses to the next level. All businesses running in the fast-paced 21st century know about Shopify.
Still, regardless of the pervasiveness of the shopping platform, only a few completely understand the significant return on investment that it brings. The founders, born from the need for a flexible platform built Shopify with an open-source framework and since then has built out its capabilities to include POS, marketing, and user engagement features.
For a Shopify developer and various business organizations, the platform is a lot of things, thus it’s become global among the successful eCommerce and online marketing in the past ten years and more. With the platform, you could sell products not just online, but also in a store, on social media, and so on. Shopify’s flexibility enables organizations of all shapes and sizes to sell however they want to.
Shopify—the Game Changer in the eCommerce Industry
Powering millions of businesses in many countries, Shopify is one-stop-shop for eCommerce business owners willing to leverage their online stores. The demand for Shopify web development services has hugely escalated due to the rising need for integrating the platform into various business processes.
Shopify indeed is changing the world of eCommerce for the greater good. Why? let’s find out.
1. Built-in Marketing Tools
The shopping cart platform has in-built marketing tools, which lower start-up costs. It enables adding the page title, one-of-a-kind URLs, meta titles, making visible and pages, meta description, and when necessary redirect pages. Moreover, it allows optimizing the store based on your preference.
Additionally, it integrates the most popular social media platforms including Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook, paving the way to boost products.
2. Hosted Solution
If you have just launched an online business or store, web hosting could be a real challenge. Shopping cart hosting demands some technical support level, and a lot of spare time, something that startups are short on in particular. Shopify however is a cloud-based hosted and setup solution where you need not worry about databases or servers.
You get to access your store anytime, anywhere with an internet connection and login details minus any setup. The most important thing is that it provides you with support in handling the payment gateway, making the task seamless and easy.
3. Security and Speed
A critical factor in the success of an eCommerce website is speed because it helps stimulate sales. The faster your web pages will load, then the more your website will retain users. Furthermore, the Shopify platform offers the best service when it comes to security, as well as payment providers’ integration.
With an in-built speed checker, it lets users complete payments at a nominal loading time.
4. State-of-the-Art Functionality
The advanced functionality is what makes the platform every Shopify developer’s favorite. with an application/plugin style, it enables downloading, installing, and customizing a website.
Aside from the features to boost sales and promote social media, it offers inventory management, business reporting, and accounting as well. There is also an option to set email auto-responder integrations, which could support you in automating and running your store on autopilot.
5. You have Your Own Payment Gateway
A critical step for your eCommerce store is to maintain an effective payment process. Shopify deals with numerous payment methods. It also offers its own, aside from being integrated with numerous payment gateways. The Shopify payment gateway has no transaction fees and lowers credit card fees. To use this gateway, you don’t need a merchant account at all.
6. Praiseworthy Technical Support
With an eCommerce shopping cart, you would need some technical help when running an ecommerce store. Shopify ascertains technical support 24/7, thus you’ll be able to reach customer care in case glitches will arise. They would pick up the call or direct you to live chats.
7. Minimizes Duplicity Concerns and Errors
In the event of entering information in different forms and fields, manual data entry includes the chance of duplications, and errors. Furthermore, problems occur when errors are not tracked properly. The Shopify platform, fortunately, comes with automated solutions for simplifying the process of data entry and removing duplicity of data.
8. An Online Store That’s Virtually Appealing
The platform is equipped with an array of professional templates that enables building a unique and visually appealing online shop. Developers and designers of the platform could locally develop themes with Theme Kit.
9. Comes with a 14-Day Free Trial
If you want to test the Shopify features first, you could use the free trial pack. The only thing you could do is to make an account by providing several answers to questions and contact details regarding your initiative. After you have created an account, you get a free 14-day trial in which you could test all Shopify features.
You could import products directly to Shopify, build collections, and link them, make product variations, and change the design in the storefront, product filter, language support, dashboard settings, and Shopify store setup. The only free trial action restricted is publishing live your domain, but the platform provides its default primary domain in the ‘examplestore.myshopify.com’ form.
Why the Future of eCommerce Means Shopify
It’s projected that eCommerce sales in the world would reach nearly $5 trillion within this year and the years to come. The figure represents a 265 percent growth than in the past years. The rise of the Shopify platform could be attributed in a great way to the world’s new market opportunities.
By next year, nearly 20 percent of sales in the industry would be attributed to consumers overseas. The same is true for the domestic consumer base since the web breaks regional divisions and breaks cultural boundaries. Now, consumers engage with foreign brands like never before, and that’s thanks to eCommerce.
A savvy strategy, resonating brand, and even compassionate business practice could lead to repeat business nowadays. All these could be credited to platforms like Shopify.
Major Opportunities Driving the Future Growth of Shopify
Fulfillment Network
The Shopify Fulfillment Network has just recently been passed, but all indications signal that its future is bright. Thousands and thousands of merchants expressed a desire to become a part of the access program. Since then, the Shopify platform has taken a measured approach, only adding ‘dozens of merchants’, but maintaining focus on performance quality over scale early on.
International Growth
While the platform has operations in more than one hundred countries all over the world, investors might be surprised to know that the majority of the generated sales are in North America. The company’s been working hard at broadening its international operations, and reach, and providing localized tools for the merchant base in the world as well. Shopify at present is available in 20 or more various languages, and Shopify Payments has reached fifteen countries.
More merchants around the world launched their businesses on Shopify at the end of 2019. No longer Shopify is focusing only on the digital aspect of electronic commerce, it also desires to facilitate every critical process and layer involved in online shopping. This ensures Shopify Shipping, ensuring cheaper and quicker deliveries, which currently are available in Canada, the US, and Australia.
Moreover, the company remains committed to making an investment of $1 billion in its fulfillment network, which includes the development of autonomous warehouse robots. The move of the huge expansion is towards the financial services and payments world as well. It’s clear that the shopping cart platform has the ambition to build an eCommerce one-stop-shop and already they’re well on their way.
Conclusion
As your business booms, the industry needs a robust infrastructure for supporting unrivaled growth. Shopify, at present, is the most competitive great dog when it comes to the eCommerce space, but not the only game in town actually. Nevertheless, even with the other platforms, Shopify stands out and makes it the most competitive option today, transforming how the world of eCommerce works.
Whatever you want to sell, whether selling handmade jewelry from your basement, or designer dresses from Italy, eCommerce provides everyone a shot at establishing a customer base. The entry barrier into the eCommerce world has never been lower, and that’s thanks to the Shopify eCommerce platform. Anyone who has a terrific idea, a strong work ethic, and some luck could shine in the online marketplace.
Author Bio
Shira Gray is working as a Business Development Executive at Mobile App Development Company – eTatvaSoft.
She writes about emerging technologies. Being a tech geek, she keeps a close watch over the industry focusing on the latest technology news and gadgets.