The Nerd Series

The best Shopify features you should be aware of

Hosting March, 13, 2025

Have a look at Shopify if you want to sell services or products on your website. One of the greatest solutions for processing physical and digital sales online is the renowned e-commerce platform. Shopify's superb tools propel it above a crowded playfield to link in Wix Stores as a co-executive Editors' Choice option for e-commerce platforms with handy connectors various free and premium themes and a simple UI. Listed below are some best Shopify features you should be aware of:

Shopping Cart Packages: 



Shopify like other e-commerce areas we've looked at allows you to create a store that is housed on the servers of the company (or you can say you can't use it with WordPress). Shopify has three basic plans starting at $29 per month for the Basic plan which allows you to sell products on present social media websites or a Shopify-hosted site. Unlimited goods storage and monthly data transfers are included in this plan as well as a website 24/7 support blog two staff accounts and an SSL certificate. When you use the feature of Shopify Payments you pay no transaction costs which is a great touch. The $79-per-month Shopify plan adds five staff accounts international pricing reports and abandoned cart recovery to the Basic plan. The Advanced Shopify plan starts at $299 per month. This includes an advanced report builder15 staff accounts and a programmed shipping rate calculation.

There are two more plans that the firm is attempting to conceal. Shopify Lite is a package of $9 per month that lets you sell things in person and add a buy button to your existing website. Then there's Shopify Plus which is a custom-built solution with custom-built fees for enterprise-level customers. Transaction fees are not charged by all shopping cart services; For example PinnacleCart and 3dCart. always remember that you'll be charged transaction fees by whichever payment gateway and merchant account you use with those services. The advantage of using Shopify is that it takes care of everything for you sparing you from having to deal with accounts of merchants and their associated fees.

Shopify offers a 14-day free trial allowing you for setting up a store and also test the transactions before pledging to the platform. All popular credit cards are accepted by Shopify. In case you don't like to go with Shopify and don't select a price plan during your free trial your account will be locked and you will not be charged after your trial ends.

Building a Shopify Store:

It's simple to have access to a store up and running using Shopify. Shopify calculated our tax rate and currency depending on our physical address after we opened an account using an email id and password. Our store's name was also used to build a custom URL by the service. In case you have not registered a domain name you can use this method to kick the store's tires.

On a dashboard you perform all of your work and it's quite user-friendly. Existing orders and product inventory are all available to view. To expand our store's capabilities we found it simple to integrate third-party e-commerce apps such as those for recurring billing and reward programs. Furthermore the theme store provides appealing easily modifiable templates. There are help desk tools plug-ins for outside sales mediums on social media accounting tools and even authority to other merchants available in the app store. Know the fact that adding these characteristics to your account may result in a significant increase in your monthly payment.

We submitted the name of the product description of the product its photos p and the corresponding SKU and bar code on the Add a Product page. We also authorized Shopify to keep track of inventories and save the overall shipment weight. Variations such as material style size and color can be specified on this page. For each version Shopify gives unique SKU codes and prices automatically. Shopify showed us how the product page will appear in the result of the search engine at the bottom of the page which helped us focus on SEO (SEO). If all of this seems daunting consider using an e-commerce platform and BigCommerce that divides product pages into tabs.

Shopify offers 11 different categories of free appealing and modern-looking themes including Clothing Home Accessories Food Electronics Books and Art. These are simple attractive store themes that will hold their own against Wix Stores and various other rival providers. We click on Publish to add a theme to our account after we were satisfied with it. Although we were happy with the free themes the Shopify Theme Store has more advanced alternatives (it does have over 100 premium and free templates). With the integrated drag-and-drop editor you can personalize a theme and modify the HTML/CSS with the built-in text editor.

You want your customers to be able to discover the information they need in your online business not just pages of inventory and order forms. Shopify allows you to establish a blog and also static pages like About Us and FAQs to communicate with customers. It also allowed us to introduce our Google Analytics web metrics codes. User accounts can be used to collect client information (users can use these to have a look at the status of an order or enroll in a loyalty program). Shopify lacks a setup in email marketing tools and this is a major flaw. It does however have a function called Kit which is a virtual marketing assistant that can help you design Facebook or Instagram ads and send template emails among other things.

We had the option of using the present domain or creating a domain with Shopify and having them function as my domain registrar. Prices for unusual names (like online) start at $11 per year go up to $14-20 every year for regular domains (like.net and.info) and then skyrocket for bespoke domains. For establishing your domain's DNS records in order to point to Shopify's servers Shopify provides detailed instructions.

  1. Customer experience and payments: If customers are unable to find products or pay for them even the simplest shopping cart software is useless. Fortunately Shopify provides both sellers and buyers with a straightforward seamless user experience.

Shopify Payments Shopify's own payment gateway is used by default as also Checkout of PayPal Express. Shopify also interacts with 70 other payment methods if these are not your choice. We put up PayPal for this review. PayPal occurs its own costs of transactions however if you utilize Shopify Payments the transaction fees are waived by Shopify. In case you do not wish to use Shopify Payments 3dCart and BigCommerce are good options that don't impose transaction fees.

Shopify also accepts checks money orders and bank deposits as well as payment methods that are based on cryptocurrencies and other substitutive currencies like Coinbase BitPay GoCoin and Dwolla it also includes money orders bank deposits and cheques. If you don't want Shopify to charge customer credit cards automatically—or in case you want to wait till everything has been dispatched before charging the card—you can set up the store to merely allow payments and charge the card manually when you're ready. The distinction between manual and automatic payment capture is explained in detail on Shopify's page.

As previously said Shopify allows you to use a similar tool for both online and offline sales. In case you do not wish to use Shopify's website-building tool you may also add a Buy button to another website.

  1. Excellent Customer Service: When sending an email isn't enough Shopify offers phone and chat-based assistance 24 hours a day 7 days a week. A lively discussion forum is also available. A regional phone number is assigned to customers in North America the United Kingdom New Zealand Australia and Singapore. Even at 1 a.m. we were able to get someone on chat quickly and the representative of phone support provided clear answers regarding the various options available in each package.
  2. Great Shopping Right Out of the Box: When it comes to putting up an online store simplicity is crucial. Customers do not wish to go through a complicated procedure to pay and you don't want to waste time learning the program. Shopify makes it simple to get started with basic features later enhance your store's capabilities and integrate several payment platforms. As a result of its flexibility and easy-to-navigate dashboard our co-editors Choice is Shopify for shopping cart software (together with the similarly great Wix Stores).

Here are few pros and cons of Shopify

PROS:

  1. The Dashboard is easy to use
  2. Unlimited storage products and monthly data transfer
  3. Customer support is available 24*7
  4. Shopify payments can be made with a zero transaction fee
  5. 14-day free trial
  6. Attractive themes that are completely free
  7. The third-party app store is expansive

CONS:

  1. There are substantial options
  2. Deficiency of cohesive email marketing tools