9 Key Reasons to Choose Shopify for your online shop

If you’re reading this post I’m guessing you are in one of the following positions:

a. starting an online shop from scratch

b. looking to expand from Etsy to your own space

c. moving from another platform like wix or weebly

Let me first say, the fact that you’re on here reading about how to start or better your company YOU ARE AWESOME. And the fact that you want to build your online store with Shopify means you’re on the right track. Now let’s get you to where you want to be with my 9 key reasons to choose Shopify for your online shop.

First, a quick recap of why I believe you should use Shopify.

I’m the owner and artist behind the hand-painted textiles and paper goods brand Teluna. I started like everyone else; doing work for free, getting underpaid for projects, spending countless hours trying to increase traffic to my Etsy page, losing sleep and faith in building my own company and frankly losing money daily.

After two years I made one of the hardest decisions. I chose to take a one year hiatus from my business to really hunker down, do the research and figure out how I can get Teluna to where I wanted it to be in the next 5 years. Now just one year later I can honestly say the time and hustle have been worth it. Among all that research, one of the best things I did for my company was to build my online shop with Shopify. The monthly cost has more than paid for itself and after testing a multitude of e-commerce platforms I can honestly say I trust and advise others to try Shopify. (P.S. After you read this you can read my How To Build Your Online Shop In Minutes With Shopify post for a super easy step by step tutorial.)

I’m further into my business in just one year with Shopify than I would have been 4 years after launch because of that effort. And you know what? I share all of that research and tips and tricks with you right here in the OBJ Business series!

This post is not to convince you to jump ship from Etsy or tell you that you have to start out on Shopify in order to succeed. Rather, if you’re ready to build a real product selling business or planning to build your company for your future, Shopify is my suggestion of where to be. In fact, if this is just a hobby and you’re not worried about making a profit, Shopify isn’t right for you. I’ll be the first to be straight forward with you: you need to go into this with a business plan and a sellable product. If you need to start out on Etsy to test what sells, build your email list first or want to start on a free platform to play around with website design and branding that’s more than okay. Come back over to this post when you’re ready to hustle.

Without further ado… 9 key reasons to choose Shopify for your online shop.

1. YOU ARE IN CHARGE

Yes, this one gets the all caps. With Shopify, you are in charge of your shop. There’s nothing worse than having your company solely somewhere like Etsy, who overnight can change their SEO and algorithm tweeks that changed your pages traffic and most importantly sales. Your livelihood would be flipped upside down, without warning, only for you to spend countless hours relearning their new search requirements, tags, etc. to use to get traffic back to your page.

When a company who of course needs to make their own income is in charge of your site, when they decide they want to make or test changes, they don’t need your permission. It’s their prerogative to mess with your livelihood on a whim. That’s some bullshit if I’ve ever heard it.

With every site you’ll need to keep up with changes and grow with the times, but in this case it would be on your terms. You put in the work you see the results; rather than someone else making a change and essentially saying “Good luck figuring out what we changed!” Why let anyone but you be completely in charge of your company?

2. Shopify is built for selling products

Unlike other sites maybe meant to host blogs or a personal websites, Shopify is built specifically for shops to sell products. They have a massive range of apps and themes to help you build a professional website. It’s the perfect “out of the box” online shop built in with discount options, easy label printing to save time at the post office and more. You’re here to build a shop, not build a blog that sometimes sells things.

3. Free SSL certificate + Level1-PCI Compliant

Say you’re online shopping and you find two almost identical sites where you can buy the same product, at the same price. How do you choose? Most people, (if you’re not looking for this, you 100% should) would look for the SSL Certificate. This is a digital certificate, displayed usually at the bottom of a website that ensures you and your customers that all their personal information, credit card info, etc is protected by the same level of security banks use. While you would usually have to pay for this addition, Shopify comes with a free SSL Certificate for you shop to proudly display.

4. Multiple Selling Platforms

“Say what!? I thought I was only selling on Shopify!?” Well get excited my friends. Not only can you sell from your Shopify online store but you can easily integrate other selling platforms such as selling on Facebook, Houzz, or even Amazon.

5. Shipping Rates

Setting up shipping rates is easy peasy. They can be flexible depending on your settings or automatic if you don’t want to mess with it. You can set up shipping rates by weight, location, fixed-price, or tiered pricing. This includes the automatically calculated taxes.

6. Customer Accounts

Another positive about having your shop as a stand alone entity is your customers are your customers. They can choose to create customer accounts not only to better their shopping experience but also giving you insights on your customers and hopefully an email to add to your contact list.

7. Wholesale

For those of you who are looking to expand or have already jumped down the Wholesale rabbit hole, Shopify offers great features for you to use. Shopify has the tools to help you build out an entire section of your site dedicated to your wholesale shop buyers.

8. Multiple Payment Methods

Remember that SSL certificate we talked about on #3? That certificate also makes it so your site can not only accept credit cards but external payments like PayPal as well.

9. Business Blog

Along with all of Shopify’s positives, they offer a full blogging platform integrated into your theme. As we know, adding a blog, if you keep up with it is aonther great way to increase traffic and bring in more customers.

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So if you’re not getting the traffic or sales you want from other platforms, give Shopify a try. Reread and take notes of my 9 Key Reasons to Choose Shopify for your online shop if it helps. Remember, you can start with a 14day free trial by clicking here and see how it goes. no commitment necessary! This is your business baby your raising. If you really want it to grow, put in the time and effort because there is no better feeling than when your hard work pays off and those sales start rolling in.

I’m here to help you with any questions you have about starting your company or building your online shop so please never hesitate to leave a comment or email me.

Without further ado… 9 key reasons to choose Shopify for your online shop.

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