Over the past decade, eCommerce and online shopping boomed within the Asia-Pacific region with an estimated revenue of $37.5 million in 2020. Moreover, Australia has a lot to do with this increase as one of the largest growing online markets worldwide.

Furthermore, Australia expected its population of online shoppers to reach about 21 million last year. With the rise of mobile devices, eCommerce is becoming a highly profitable niche — and with the plethora of eCommerce platforms and website builders out there, you can now much more efficiently launch your own online store.

On the other hand, lots of people who are looking into eCommerce have asked us which eCommerce platform they should start with. For starters, Shopify is among the best options out there, and here’s how it works as well as the few reasons that prove this point.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is a Software as a Service (SaaS) eCommerce platform that lets small and medium-sized entrepreneurs build their online store with full features and capabilities for online shopping. As of 2019, online shopping and eCommerce shared nine per cent (9%) of Australia’s overall retail sales, with more than 40,500 websites using Shopify as their eCommerce platform of choice.

In other words, Shopify is a platform that allows users to create and manage their online stores. Additionally, its level of personalisation allows designers to have full control over the homepage as if they’re decorating their own storefront. Aside from that, the following are some of the benefits you will receive when choosing to use Shopify as your eCommerce solution.

Self-Hosted Solution

Finding a web hosting service is the first challenge for people new to eCommerce. Additionally, hosting a site requires enough knowledge and experience on technical support as well as a substantial amount of time — which is typically too over the top for most business start-ups.

However, Shopify packs a cloud-based service and hosting solution to take the burden off your shoulders and have you focused on actually selling your products. They essentially make it easy for you so that you don’t have to worry about tweaking with physical servers and databases.

Because of Shopify’s cloud service, you can access your admin console on any devices with internet connectivity, on-demand. What’s more, is that the platform takes care of everything, providing an all-in-one eCommerce solution that includes payment gateways, inventory tracking, and more — providing an easy and smooth workflow.

Built-in Marketing Tools

Starting an online business may cost you additional expenses by paying for individual optimisation services, such as social media advertising and search engine optimisation (SEO). With that, Shopify features built-in marketing and SEO tools that lower your overall digital marketing costs.

With its user-friendly admin console, you can add the page title, meta titles and descriptions, URLs, as well as the option to redirect pages and make pages invisible from search engine crawlers. Besides, it can integrate your store into social channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to boost your product promotions.

Technical Support Round-the-Clock

People who are new to Shopify development may run across potholes and problems surrounding technical aspects of their website. Since eCommerce puts a heavy emphasis on electronic payments, automated inventory, and other processes, Shopify ensures 24/7 technical support.

Here, you can immediately reach out to customer service as soon as a system glitch emerges. Plus, you have the option to either interact with them via call or through Shopify’s live chat support.

Speed and Security

Online shoppers, particularly those who access your site using their phones, shop on their most convenient time, some even shop impulsively. Hence, when your webpage takes several seconds to load, you’ll most likely drive your customers away.

Furthermore, maintaining a secured and reliable website can impact your sales as it builds trust between your consumers and their data. Therefore, speed and security are factors that should be kept in check when finding a platform to run your online store.

On the other hand, Shopify integrates your checkout and payment process with reliable and convenient payment processes. With its built-in speed checker tool, you can ensure that every user can fulfil the entire shopping experience under the optimal loading time.

Minimise Errors and Duplicated Data

Data duplication issues and other minor errors can add up and affect user experience, thereby reducing sales. Also, entering data manually also increases the risks of errors and duplication issues.

However, Shopify includes automated tools that track and fix errors that allow for straightforward data entry while removing duplicated data. That way, you can get your head off the technical side of things and focus more on your sales strategy.

Wide-Range of Functionality Apps

By itself, Shopify already provides a handful of automation services. However, it also offers a wide range of third-party apps/plugins that can give you advanced functionality.

Other than social media promotion and email marketing apps, you can also install advanced features such as automated inventory management, dropshipping services, and analytics reporting tools, among others.

To begin installing more features to your site, simply browse Shopify App Store and pick the best plugins that suit your needs to run your business on auto-pilot.

Exclusive Payment Gateway

For eCommerce brands and customers alike, a reliable payment process can make or break the purchase. A robust and straightforward shopping experience can still lead to abandoned carts because of a complicated payment gateway.

Besides, an effective and reliable payment process is vital for every eCommerce webpage. While Shopify uses popular gateways, it has an exclusive payment gateway that offers zero transaction fees and reduced credit card fees.

Shopify Payments removes the trouble of setting up a third-party payment provider and sets you up with all major payment methods as soon as you create your store.

Design Templates and Themes

Speaking of storefront customisation, Shopify is built with fully customisable professional templates that let you decorate every page on your store depending on your preferences. This includes free and premium themes found on the online theme editor.

Aside from templates and designs in the theme editor toolkit, web designers and developers can also import their own themes on Shopify locally with its Theme Kit.

In a Nutshell

Building a successful online store from scratch won’t require tons of resources, as long as you have the right platform, to begin with. With its plethora of features and tools for automation and functionality, Shopify is arguably one of the best eCommerce platforms for your brand.