Is Shopify good for small business in 2024? What to know

Many ecommerce platforms on the market today claim to offer small businesses a quick launch, easy set-up, and customization. However, none of these platforms really hit the nail on the head quite like Shopify.

According to Demand Sage, around 5.23 million online stores are powered by Shopify. 

Shopify shines as an ecommerce platform, ideal for small-scale businesses looking to expand their reach through an online store. 

In this post, we will examine 12 reasons why you should use Shopify for your small business. We'll also briefly discuss some other options and talk about how Gelato integration can make product fulfillment and global distribution easier for your growing business.

• Shopify's ease of use and wide range of customization options drastically improve store setup and customer experience.

• Mobile-friendly websites and stores yield higher conversion rates, sales, and repeat customers.

• The security and compliance that Shopify offers its users meet all industry standards and best practices.

• Shopify offers robust SEO features that enhance site visibility and search rankings through automatic XML sitemaps, optimized URLs, meta and canonical tags, structured data, robots.txt files, and 301 redirects.

• Shopify's built-in inventory management system supports real-time tracking, manual and automatic adjustments, transfer facilitation, insightful reports, and low-stock alerts for efficient inventory management.

• Some of Shopify's limitations are additional transaction fees with non-Shopify Payments, challenges in selling complex products, and customization limitations without coding skills.

• Top alternatives to Shopify include Etsy, Wix, Squarespace, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. Each platform offers unique features, ease of use, and customization levels suitable for different small business needs.

When growing an online presence, a reliable and powerful ecommerce platform is an essential piece of the puzzle. There are so many behind-the-scenes factors to consider when choosing a platform to run an online store, and we'll cover all of them in this section.

Here are the primary reasons for choosing Shopify for any small business.

1. User-friendly interface

As one of the largest ecommerce platforms available, Shopify's ease of use is a significant factor for small businesses to run their businesses.

Setting up a Shopify store is easy and takes just a few minutes. The free and paid themes offer unique customization options so your brand's personality can shine through and build credibility with customers. The setup process is mostly guided and simple to follow, so store owners don't have to do extensive research or heavy lifting to launch their online store.

2. Customer support & resources

Shopify understands that not every business owner is tech-savvy and thus offers 24/7 phone, email, and chat support. This level of customer service empowers businesses on the Shopify platform to grow their online stores with confidence.

Shopify's partner blog offers many beneficial resources, including helpful articles and how-tos for the platform. You'll find tips on customizing the customer journey, optimizing ads in the store, trend forecasting, and much more.

The ecommerce platform also has a help center and offers various valuable guides that will help business accounts with everything from customizing Shopify themes to properly utilizing marketing tools to bring customers in droves.

Lastly, the Shopify community helps sellers to keep up with the latest updates and learn from each other. Sellers can attend virtual events and join community groups via Facebook and Slack. There are blogs, forums, and resources to leverage for sales, development, and marketing tasks and projects as well.

3. Customization options

When creating your own online store, customization options are key so you can create distinct visual elements, build customer loyalty, and establish your brand. We already know customization wins with customers, so your site design, templates, and customer experience should follow suit.

Shopify's customization options allow Shopify merchants to select a template for their store and modify it as they see fit. You can drag and drop various design and visual elements to match your branding and the overall feel of your store.

Don't stress; you won't be starting from scratch! Creating a website or online store can be an overwhelming task for small business owners who aren't web developers and don't have any experience in that world. You will still have total creative freedom and control over how your store looks. This contrasts greatly with marketplace platforms like Etsy, where the seller has minimal control over their storefront.

4. Payment processing

Shopify offers more than 100 different payment options, depending on the location of the store and the customers.

Shopify supports payment options such as ShopPay, the platform's mobile-friendly version, and other third-party apps that can be built into your checkout process for an improved customer experience. These include Apply Pay, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and even text-to-pay functionality.

When it comes to payment processing fees, Shopify has your business interests at heart. They offer Shopify Payments, their own solution, which eliminates transaction fees for any of their main plans: Basic, Shopify, or Advanced. 

By using Shopify Payments, your payment processing fees are stable and predictable. The fee starts at 2.9% plus 30¢ for each credit card transaction for Basic Shopify users. As you move up to higher plans, these fees decline, reaching as low as 2.5% plus 30¢ per transaction with the Advanced Shopify plan.

If you use an external payment gateway, a transaction fee will be added to your costs, ranging from 0.5% to 2%. The percentage is based on your Shopify plan. Higher plans come with lower fees. It's worth considering if you handle a lot of sales or have reasons to use another payment processor.

5. Affordability

Shopify offers various pricing plans to suit a wide range of businesses and their unique needs. There are no hidden fees or long-term contracts, which is ideal for many Shopify merchants who are just building their storefronts and need to cut costs wherever possible.

Shopify pricing plans are as follows:

• Free test phase: Sign up for an account and get started with a free trial. After the trial ends, Shopify stores can pay $1 a month for the first three months when billed monthly.

• Basic plan: The Basic plan is $39 per month and includes everything you need to create a store, ship products, and offer complete payment processing. Credit card rates are 2.9% with 30¢ transaction fees.

• Shopify plan: The Shopify plan is $105 per month, with credit card rates at 2.7% and 30¢ transaction fees. Shopify stores that select this pricing plan receive professional reporting functionality and five staff accounts.

• Advanced Shopify plan: On the Advanced Shopify plan, businesses pay $399 per month with 2.5% credit card rates and 30¢ transaction fees. Businesses have access to custom reporting and the lowest transaction fees, more staff accounts, and impressive shipping discounts.

6. Mobile compatibility

As many facets of the world continue to function effectively online, mobile-friendly sites are essential for the survival and success of any online store. Mobile-friendly sites and stores yield better sales and conversions, more exposure, and more repeat customers.

As an ecommerce platform, Shopify understands this concept better than most.

Shopify has designed many responsive themes for online selling that are suitable for any device, making shopping online a total breeze for Shopify users.

Additionally, Shopify allows its merchants to set up Apple Pay in their checkout process. This streamlines the entire shopping experience for Apple users and makes completing a purchase simple and seamless.

7. A variety of apps available in the Shopify App Store

Marketing an online store is absolutely critical to its success.

In order to help small businesses get traction with potential customers online, the Shopify App Store has an assortment of marketing tools and apps that can be used within your shop. From email marketing to retargeting and SMS, there are various Shopify apps that can help businesses stay top-of-mind with customers online.

The Shopify App Store offers apps for the many other facets of running an online store, from order tracking and customer reviews to unique landing pages, print on demand services, invoicing, and much more. Integrating these apps into your Shopify store will increase your productivity, customer experience, and operations.

The app store also has built-in integrations with Google Analytics, WordPress, and social media channels like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, so you can connect with your audience through your shop.

8. Platform security

When choosing the right ecommerce platform for your online store, platform security should always be at the top of your mind and of the utmost importance for both online stores and their customers.

Shopify’s secure platform is demonstrated through various industry certifications and standards. The platform complies with all privacy and data protection laws around the world to build trust and credibility with Shopify users.

Additionally, Shopify is PCI compliant, which means the platform meets the standards for protected transactions and the secure storing of payment information and business data. From crypto to credit cards, customers can shop confidently through any Shopify store, knowing that their information is secure.

Shopify strives to protect cardholder data by regularly monitoring and testing its networks, maintaining a vulnerability management program, and implementing strong access control measures.

9. Analytics

If you aren't measuring the success of your online store, you'll never know what changes should be made or how you can improve. Shopify Analytics tools can significantly improve your success trajectory.

Detailed reports and analytics provide insight into your store's recent activity, demographics, store speed, and transactions.

All of the Shopify plans offer some level of analytics and reporting, but the more you spend on the platform, the more insight you'll receive in reports.

Gain valuable customer insight through behavior reports, how you're driving traffic to your shop in marketing reports, critical sales reports, and product analytics.

10. Scalability

You've got big dreams for your online store, and you need an ecommerce platform that can grow with you.

Fortunately, that's the whole idea behind establishing a Shopify store - it's built to scale. Conveniently add new products, grow your staff, and add new features to your online store with a few clicks of a button and zero stress about whether or not the platform can handle the changes.

As an ecommerce solution, scalability is one of Shopify's most significant sales features for small and larger businesses. For an ecommerce store with big goals, you want to partner with a platform that can grow alongside you and help you effectively scale without ever having to leave the platform.

11. Search engine optimization (SEO) features

Shopify offers excellent SEO tools designed to help small businesses achieve search engine visibility. For starters, it automatically creates XML sitemaps. This is like giving search engines a roadmap to your site, which helps your website appear in search results faster and more accurately. 

The platform's URL optimization tools are also advantageous. They help you create keyword-rich and straightforward website links that are easy to find, more engaging, and ideal for search engines.  

On top of these, Shopify supports meta tags and canonical tags, enabling you to enhance essential SEO aspects. Thanks to this feature, you can tweak your meta titles and descriptions while managing duplicate content problems effectively. 

The platform also implements structured data using schema markup, which can make your search results more appealing and visually rich. 

Shopify also automatically generates robot.txt files that guide search engine spiders on what parts of your site to index, enhancing visibility. If you need to change URLs for any reason, Shopify has 301 redirects to ensure your website remains user-friendly and maintains its search ranking.

12. Inventory management

Shopify offers built-in inventory management features to help you keep track of your stock levels, optimize ordering, and avoid stockouts or excess inventory. Here's a breakdown of what you can do with Shopify's inventory management system:

• Track inventory levels: You can set up inventory tracking for your products and variants. This allows you to see the real-time quantity of each item available for sale across your sales channels (online store, physical locations, etc.).

• Manage inventory quantities: Easily adjust your inventory levels manually or through automatic updates based on sales and transfers.

• Inventory transfers: Manage the movement of inventory between different locations, such as transferring stock from your warehouse to your retail store.

• Inventory reports: Gain valuable insights into your inventory performance with various reports in the Inventory Reports section of Shopify. These reports can show you the following:

  • Month-end inventory value

  • Average inventory sold per day

  • Percent of inventory sold

  • ABC analysis by product (categorizes products based on their sales value)

  • Product sell-through rate (measures how quickly your inventory is selling)

  • Days of inventory remaining (indicates how long your current stock will last)

• Low stock alerts: Shopify can notify you when inventory levels fall below a predefined threshold, helping you avoid stockouts and ensure product availability.

Without a doubt, Shopify has many great features for small businesses, such as ease of use, customization options, and a wealth of resources. But, like all platforms, it's not perfect for every business. So, keep these limitations in mind when you're choosing Shopify as your ecommerce solution.

• Transaction fees: If you don’t use Shopify Payments, you may have to shell out additional fees per transaction. These fees can add up, especially for businesses with tight margins.

• Limitations on certain product types: Shopify isn't always the best choice for merchants selling complex products with multiple variants or unique attributes.

• Coding for customization: Customizing your shop beyond the available themes and apps often requires knowledge of Liquid, Shopify's proprietary coding language.

While Shopify offers a powerful ecommerce solution for small businesses, there are other options available, too. Here's a look at some of the top alternatives, each catering to different needs.

1. Etsy

If you specialize in handmade, vintage, or craft supplies, Etsy is a fantastic platform to launch your online business. It boasts a dedicated marketplace for these unique product categories, allowing you to tap into a targeted audience.

However, Etsy's customization options are limited, and it might not be ideal for businesses with a high volume of products.

2. Wix

Known for its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, Wix is a popular website builder that also offers built-in ecommerce features. This makes it easy to create an online store with product listings, shopping carts, and integrated payment processing.

However, Wix might not be the best choice for businesses with complex product catalogs or those seeking extensive design customization.

3. Squarespace

Similar to Wix, Squarespace offers a user-friendly website builder with built-in ecommerce functionalities. It's particularly well-known for its beautiful design templates, making it easy to create a visually appealing online store. That said, the ecommerce features may not be as robust as those found on Shopify.

4. BigCommerce

A powerful and scalable ecommerce platform, BigCommerce caters to businesses of all sizes. It offers a vast array of features, including product management tools, marketing integrations, and built-in SEO tools to optimize your online store's search engine visibility.

While BigCommerce provides a robust solution, it may have a steeper learning curve compared to Wix or Squarespace, and its pricing plans might be higher.

5. WooCommerce

This open-source plugin transforms your WordPress website into a fully functional online store. WooCommerce offers a high degree of customization and control over your online store's design and functionality. 

However, setting up and maintaining a WooCommerce store requires some technical knowledge, so it might be a better fit for tech-savvy business owners or those with access to development resources.

For an ecommerce platform that is loaded with features, reporting, and functionality for a small business to flourish, Shopify checks every box. With affordable pricing and impressive scalability, it's a popular and effective platform for small businesses to launch, grow, and scale.

For small shops that are creating custom designs and products for their online stores, Gelato's integration with Shopify makes everything much more seamless. When a customer makes a purchase in your Shopify store, Gelato automatically sends the order to the nearest production fulfillment center, where it's printed, packed, and shipped.

With this convenient integration, small businesses can reach global audiences in a sustainable way and scale their business without having to worry about maintaining inventory, paying for storage, or across-the-world shipping.

Ready to launch your own business? Create a Shopify print on demand store using Gelato today.

Is Shopify worth it for a small ecommerce business?

As you launch your own online store, choosing to partner with Shopify is a wise investment for any small business. From its simple setup to customized templates that provide a smooth store launch, Shopify is an excellent platform for starting an online business. Where other ecommerce platforms have complicated sign-up processes with multiple hoops to jump through before you can start selling online, Shopify offers a streamlined process.

If you're thinking of the big picture, Shopify is also designed to scale alongside a growing business. Whether you add staff to help manage inventory or need access to SEO tools and analytics, Shopify offers many plan upgrades and features that will propel your business to the next level.

How much does Shopify make per sale?

According to Shopify, there are no transaction fees for stores using Shopify Payments.

If you choose a third-party payment provider, there will be additional fees of 2%, 1%, or 0.5% for Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify plans.

If you choose to offer Shopify Payments as the primary payment option in your ecommerce store, you won't have to pay any transaction fees. If you use other third-party payment providers like PayPal, Apple Pay, or Amazon Pay (among many others), you will be charged one of three transaction fees, depending on your pricing plan.

What does Shopify do for small businesses?

Shopify understands the pain points that small businesses encounter and the solutions they need to get off the ground and running.

From simple, mobile-friendly templates and a website builder to marketing tools for increasing store exposure and visibility, Shopify offers many features and functionality that small business owners can implement in their stores. Businesses using Shopify will grow their brand presence online, create repeat customers, and make a consistent profit.

In 2022, Shopify released more than 100 product updates to its platform that are designed to help small businesses showcase their products in new ways, drive sales, grow organically, and even expand into physical stores.

How much money do I need to start a Shopify store?

Starting a Shopify store doesn't break the bank. The Basic Shopify plan costs $29 per month. However, you should also consider other costs, such as purchasing a domain (around $14/year), product costs, designing your store, and marketing expenses.

Depending on your needs and budget, you could spend from $100 to $1000 to launch your Shopify store. Remember, this is just a ballpark figure, and every business situation is unique, so spending a few hundred to a few thousand dollars can be expected.

Do I need an LLC to have a Shopify business?

Creating an LLC (Limited Liability Company) is not a prerequisite for starting a Shopify store. You can absolutely start and run your online business even without forming an LLC.

However, establishing an LLC for your Shopify store could offer certain legal protections and tax benefits in the long run. It's crucial to consult with legal or tax advisors to understand the implications for your specific situation better.

Do you actually make money on Shopify?

Yes, you can make money with Shopify. The platform gives you all you need to start and grow an online store. Earning money depends on your business plan, though. Whether you're selling products, services, memberships, or rentals, if you target your audience effectively and provide value, you can earn a good income. Remember, success isn't instant. It requires hard work and a solid business plan to generate profits over time.