What is Shopify and 9 misconceptions about Shopify (2022 Edition)

Shopify is an international e-commerce platform with more than a million businesses in over 175 countries. It has cooperated with many world-renowned brands such as Tesla, Google, Red Bull, Nestle and more. It aims at providing an all-in-one commerce platform for all merchants. It covers everything from website building to payment and shipping. Whether you are starting your business, expanding your original business or simply wanting better management, Shopify is here to support your business. Shopify also provides different plans, including Basic, Standard, Advanced and Plus for you to choose from. The higher the price of the plan, the more features it offers. Here we will introduce you to some hero features provided by Shopify.

Hero features of Shopify

Shopify Theme Store and App Store

Shopify has its own theme store and app store and provides a wide range of themes and apps for merchants to choose from. Theme store provided over 80 free and paid themes. Each theme has its own features and suits a certain business. Most merchants will choose a theme that best suits their needs when building their website.

Because of the openness of Shopify and its comprehensive APIs, many developers around the world can contribute to developing apps for Shopify users. These apps can assist merchants to run their business in all aspects, including marketing, integrating sales channels and managing sales. There are over 7,000 on the Shopify App Store for you to have a better experience with Shopify. And even if you cannot find an app that fulfills your needs, you can contact Shopify Experts to develop a custom app. 

Shopify Theme Store

Shopify App Store

Shopify ecosystem

Shopify is more than just Merchant and Shopify employees. It allows merchants to reach out to a network of digital experts specializing in e-commerce called Shopify Partner. Shopify Partners are experts in different areas such as marketing and design so that the merchants’ vision can come to life. Some external developers are constantly developing new apps and themes to improve the Shopify experience and allow merchants to run their businesses more easily and effectively.

Navy FAB is one of the Shopify ecosystem contributors.

Shopify POS

Shopify has its Point of Sales system for merchants to connect their online business with in-person selling. Merchants can view the performance of the online and offline stores and decide when to restock or move the inventory with this POS system. It also accepts payment in cash, credit cards, and gift cards that the customers purchase online. Shopify POS Lite comes with all Shopify subscriptions, but if you want more advanced features, you can subscribe to Shopify POS Pro.

Automation of marketing and operation

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SMS/Email Notifications

Simple automation like Email/SMS notifications and abandoned cart recovery emails are built-in in Shopify. Recovering the abandoned carts can help merchants to recapture a proportion of sales that were meant to be lost. Shopify comes with a built-in abandoned cart recovery that sends emails with links to the abandoned cart for your customers to check out again.

Shopify Flow

(Originally it was a Plus-only App. Starting from Jun 2022, this feature is also available to Shopify Standard plan and the above.)

For more advanced automation, Shopify Flow is a simple way for you to automate repeated or complex tasks, as well as connect to third-party apps without the need to learn how to code.

More importantly, you can build an automated workflow in Shopify Flow to trigger multiple actions and Shopify Apps’ functionality at the same time, in sequence or by additional conditions. With Shopify Flow, you can do things like start your own loyalty program. You can connect your flow to a loyalty app and reward your customers with points for buying a specific product, leaving a positive review, and then providing discounts according to their points.

24/7 customer support, Shopify Experts and the global community

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There are many ways to find help when you encounter difficulties with Shopify. First, you can join the Shopify Community to start a discussion, and often other community members and Shopify staff will reply as well. Secondly, all Shopify subscriptions come with 24/7 support through phone, live chat, or email. You can ask them for help as well. You can ask them for help as well. If none of the above solves your problem, you can reach out to Shopify Experts for help. 

Benefits of using Shopify

Now, let’s take a look at the pros brought by Shopify.

Flexible storefront design

Photo from Shopify

You can modify almost everything from the homepage, collection page and product pages of your store. For the theme, you can do some basic changes such as the font, color and layout of your page. You can also decide what to include in your content and remove the unnecessaries. For more advanced changes that your theme’s setting does not include, you can change the theme code to turn it into the way you want. In order to increase your conversion rate, you can customize your own discount. By providing discount codes, price discounts or free shipping when the purchase exceeds a certain amount, customers are more likely to place the other right away rather than just browsing. Last but not least, Shopify can link up to many payment gateways. You can choose the best ones according to your target customers.

User-friendly admin panel

One of the reasons that Shopify is so popular is how easy it is to use. Everything about your store can be modified or monitored on the dashboard. You can update, add or remove your products at any time without knowing how to code. The setup process of a Shopify store is very beginner-friendly. You can follow the article here to set up your own store with a few simple steps.

Plug-to-play additional functionalities or customize your own

Looking for a developer to set up a certain function? Try browsing the app store before doing so. Creating an app is time-consuming and you probably need to invest a lot of money in hiring a developer to help you do so, not to mention how the time and money may go to waste if the final product doesn’t meet your expectations. With the Shopify app store, you can find almost everything you need from it. Even though some of the apps may increase your monthly expense on Shopify, it is still way much cheaper than building your own. On top of that, you can unsubscribe the app anytime you like if you think it is not really what you want. Lowering your cost on inserting functions and making your budget more controllable. But if you really cannot find what you are looking for, you can reach out to a Shopify Expert like Navy FAB to help you create a custom app.

Manage multiple marketing channels in one place

Image from Shopify

Shopify provides seamless integration with many other ecommerce platforms. For example, you can start a Facebook store and an Instagram Shop after setting up a Shopify store and link up the products in just a few moments. Then, you can manage the sales of both platforms on your Shopify dashboard. No complicated API integrations or technical knowledge are needed.

Customize your store functionality instantly

Looking for a developer to set up a certain function? Try browsing the app store before doing so. Creating an app is time-consuming and you probably need to invest a lot of money in hiring a developer to help you do so, not to mention how the time and money may go to waste if the final product doesn’t meet your expectations. With the Shopify app store, you can find almost everything you need from it. Even though some of the apps may increase your monthly expense on Shopify, it is still way much cheaper than building your own. On top of that, you can unsubscribe the app anytime you like if you think it is not really what you want. Lowering your cost on inserting functions and making your budget more controllable. But if you really cannot find what you are looking for, you can reach out to a Shopify Expert like Navy FAB to help you create a custom app.

Lastly, if you have any enquiries regarding setting up Shopify for the Hong Kong market, please feel free to contact us!