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After much research and analysis of e-commerce software, we recommend Shopify as the best overall e-commerce software for small businesses.
If you want to start an online store, you'll need an e-commerce software. E-commerce software can make your life easier by helping you launch your website, run your online store and automate your operations so you can focus on your customers and growing sales.
The best e-commerce software offers everything from website hosting and design to an online storefront, payment processing, merchant tools, third-party integration and other capabilities. Shopify provides all of this and more, so you can get your e-commerce business up and running in no time.
Read on to find out what makes Shopify the best e-commerce software for small business and why it's our top choice for an e-commerce platform.
Why Shopify?
A full-featured, easy-to-use e-commerce software for any small business
Whether you're launching your first business or you have a brick-and-mortar store and want to sell online, Shopify can help. Shopify is one of the most liked e-commerce software among the e-commerce small business owners we spoke with, and for good reason: It's packed with tons of features to help you launch and manage your online store, and it's supereasy to use because it doesn't require any tech skills to get started. The platform also offers both basic and advanced capabilities, so it grows as your business grows.
Best price
Of the e-commerce software we reviewed, Shopify offers the best and most affordable packages for small businesses.
What we really liked about Shopify is that it offers several subscription packages for any stage of your e-commerce business. For instance, if you're just starting out and only have a few products to sell, Shopify has a "starter plan" that costs $14 per month, allows you to list up to 25 products, and provides 1GB of hosting and unlimited bandwidth. To sell unlimited products and take advantage of more advanced features, you can sign up for one of Shopify's regular plans, which start at $29 per month.
We also liked that, with Shopify, there are no hidden fees. When we called Shopify, the customer service representative confirmed that there are no transaction fees, and added that there are no transaction fees if you use Shopify's payment gateway. Note that this is separate from credit card processing fees, which range anywhere from 2.25 percent plus 30 cents per transaction to 2.9 percent plus 30 cents per transaction, depending on your plan.
Ease of use
To test e-commerce software, we signed up for our own business account on several platforms. We found Shopify to be supereasy to use, and we were able to set up our account in seconds.
When you sign in to Shopify, you'll be greeted with a simple dashboard with a side navigation menu, which makes it easy to get around and quickly get to a specific task. The dashboard home page also has shortcuts to commonly used features, so you don't have to waste time going through each section — for instance, to add products or edit your website.
Using Shopify, you can launch your online store in three steps: add products, customize the look of your website and set up your domain. Adding products is as simple as entering details like product descriptions, pricing and options (size, color, model, etc.), and then uploading product images.
Plus, you don't need any tech skills to build, design or edit your website. You can choose from more than 100 ready-made themes, and then just add your logo and pick colors that match your branding using a color picker. You can also customize its look and feel using menu options located in the Themes section or with HTML/CSS if you're a more advanced user.
E-commerce features
In addition to letting you create a professional storefront, Shopify offers all the tools you need to manage and grow your e-commerce business. These includes an online shopping cart, reports and analytics, marketing tools and mobile access.
Shopify's online shopping cart lets you easily accept credit card and PayPal payments, as well as automate sales to save you time. First, the service has its own payment gateway, so you don't need to set up any third-party processors. The sales rep we spoke to said this means you can start making sales as soon as your online store launches and get paid fast into your merchant account.
Shopify also automates sales while giving customers fast, painless checkout. Products are saved into shopping carts, and when customers are ready to check out, all they have to do is choose their shipping method — preset by you or by using automatic carrier shipping rates — and enter their payment information. Everything works in the background, and orders are automatically added to the Orders section of your dashboard, so all you have to do is take care of shipping your products to the right customers.
In addition, Shopify offers all types of merchant tools to help you run and grow your online business. For instance, you can use its reports and analytics tools to measure the performance of your store and website. There's also a search engine optimization (SEO) wizard that helps potential customers easily find your store, and individual products on Google and other search engines.
Shopify also features several marketing tools to help you find and retain customers, including the following:
- Discount code and coupon generators
- Custom gift cards
- Social network integration
- Facebook selling
- Targeted email marketing
- Product reviews
- Google ads
- Facebook ads
Need to access your store from a mobile device? Shopify Mobile for iOS lets you run your e-commerce business wherever you are. Get order notifications by text or email whenever new orders come in, fulfill orders straight from the app, and even manage inventory and product or pricing information using your iPhone.
Other benefits
One of the biggest benefits of using e-commerce software is that you can easily run your entire business without having to purchase additional solutions or worry about the back end or IT aspects of running an online store.
First, Shopify is an all-inclusive e-commerce software that provides much more than an online store and shopping cart. It also offers the following:
- Customer relationship management (CRM) tools to help you manage customers
- A content management system (CMS) so you can enrich your website with multimedia, additional pages and even a full-featured blog
- Third-party integration so you can connect apps you already use
Second, the company takes care of the infrastructure and security side of your online store and website. We were told that its servers are not only fast, but also guarantee a 99.94 percent uptime, so your store is always live and accessible. In addition, upgrades are installed automatically, so you don't have to worry about manually installing the latest features and updates.
When we asked about data accessibility and security, Shopify confirmed that the company automatically performs daily backups of all data — which includes product information and inventory, orders and customer information — in its secure servers. Shopify also keeps your business's and customers' information safe with 24/7 monitoring, Level-1 Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance for secure credit card processing, and 256-bit SSL certificate for data protection.
Customer service
If you need help using Shopify, the company provides a variety of resources to solve any issue.
For those who want to get in touch with a live person, Shopify's dedicated support team is available 24/7 via email, live chat and phone, so there's always someone there when you need assistance. The small business owners we spoke with said Shopify's customer service is always fast, accessible and friendly, which we also experienced when we called the company, posing as an e-commerce startup.
For those who prefer to resolve problems themselves, Shopify's library of self-help resources include the following:
- A knowledge base of frequently asked questions, and a collection of user guides and tutorials from the Shopify Manual
- Discussion forums to connect with the Shopify community, ask questions and get answers from fellow Shopify users
- An "E-commerce University" filled with e-books, videos, webinars and more to teach you the ins and outs of selling online
You can also find one-on-one help to assist you in growing your online business. Known as "Shopify Experts," these partner designers, developers and marketers have been approved by Shopify to hold your hand as you build your online store, boost engagement and grow your customer base.
Limitations
Although Shopify is our top pick for the best e-commerce software for small businesses, it does have some drawbacks.
One major limitation is that it can be difficult to customize your online store for some users. Although you have several options to change the look and feel of your website, one thing missing is a drag-and-drop website builder that lets you fully tweak templates and design your online store by simply moving things around with your mouse. This was a popular feature small business owners we talked to wished Shopify had.
Another issue we came across relates to Shopify's coding. Many of the small business owners we spoke with said they found it difficult to get the more advanced customizations they wanted without touching its code. Not only is that a problem for non-tech-savvy users, but the difficulty is within the language itself.
This is because Shopify uses ".liquid" programming, a templating language most users don't know. To get around this, one option is to hire a website programmer who knows the coding to tweak your website for you. Another option is to use the simpler HTML/CSS feature to override any template coding.
Keep in mind that these issues apply primarily to those who require advanced customizations for their stores. Shopify offers more than 100 templates, many of which will already fulfill your online store's needs.
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