Which e-commerce platform is best?
The Pros and Cons of Shopify
Shopify is one of the world’s most popular e-commerce platforms. It allows businesses to sell products online without the need for a programmer. Since the platform was released in 2006 it has grown to employ more than 10,000 staff members, runs millions of online stores, and has a total sales of more than half a trillion dollars.* Source
We’ve had a lot of experience with Shopify so we broke down our first-hand experience below.
Pros
- One of the most popular e-commerce platforms
- Mature product that has many features
- Large ecosystem of 3rd party vendors works with Shopify
- Regular updates & feature additions
- Security is always being monitored
- Hosted solution
- Many consultants to choose from to work on Shopify
- Development/maintenance costs are lower than many other solutions
- Flexible look with editable themes
- Built as an e-commerce solution from ground-up
Cons
- Ongoing costs can be higher than other options (monthly fee + % of sales + per-transaction fee)
- Centralized solution that is theoretically less redundant than a distributed option
- Business challenges — stock price was $170 in Q4 of 2021 and dropped to $34 today, Q3 2022
Source. - Functionality/customization limitations with proprietary hosted solution
- SEO — has SEO features but has limitations as a pre-built solution
- Need designer for top-shelf results
Working on an e-commerce project? Give us a shout.