If you want to setup your eCommerce store, the best option for you is Shopify because they are huge right now and they have an amazing list of features to help any type of online business.
According to Shopify, more than 1 Million businesses use Shopify platform, and they are serving customers from 175 countries all over the world. That is a great achievement. And it shows that Shopify knows what online stores need to succeed and it proves the point that they are the best ecommerce website builder right now.
If we consider the basic shopify plan, it costs 29 bucks a month and if 1 Million people are using the basic platform and are paying a monthly fee of 29 bucks, Shopify is making a minimum of 29 Million Dollars every single month.
That is the minimum according to my calculations. It is obviously more than that because there are other plans as well. There are two more plans that shopify offers. One is 79 bucks a month and the costliest is 299 bucks a month.
There is obviously a difference in features among the three plans. The higher the cost, the more features you get.
If you are just starting out, go for the least expensive one and try it out first before you go for the more expensive plans.
They do offer a free 14 day trial and you are not required to enter any payment details as well. Just create an account and get on with it.
I do feel that 14 days is not going to be enough to test something out. But that is what they are offering. Might as well take it. If you want more trial time then use another email address you have. Simple.
Another option that you can use for creating ecommerce website is by creating a website with WordPress and using Woocommerce plugin. It is also very popular apart from Shopify.
How do you approach this business?
It is really important to have a goal in mind before you jump into a project. If you already have a brick and mortar store and you want to also take advantage of the internet then it is simple for you.
You have to simply choose a plan, add the products you already sell in your store and you are good to go. For local businesses that want to sell online, it is not a problem of choosing which products to sell.
The main challenge will be to get everything ready for online sales so that you can move as many product as possible through your online store and make more money along the way.
If you are not tech savvy, then you will need to hire someone who can take care of your shopify store and maintain it properly. Someone trustworthy.
It is going to be a completely different approach if you have no products and you are just getting started. You will need to figure out many things before you start creating your store.
The main point is what your store is going to be about. What kind of customers are you targeting. How are you going to get the products and how are you going to ship.
How much money are you willing to spend on buying inventory for your store and what kind of advertising will you be using to get customers into your store.
Just imagine setting up a store and nobody comes to buy. Your store cannot function like that. So you should have a good marketing strategy.
Think about long term functioning of your store. If you have to get up everyday and manage your business for the next 5 years, what kind of business do you want, what kind of products do you want to deal with and how much are you willing to invest.
Pricing for Best Ecommerce Website Builder
| Plan Type | Price per Month(USD) |
|---|---|
| Basic Shopify | 29.00 |
| Shopify | 79.00 |
| Advanced Shopify | 299.00 |
If you want to pay monthly then you will get the above prices. So it means the expense you will have for operating shopify store for 1 year would be 348 bucks for Basic Shopify plan, 948 bucks for Shopify Plan and 3,588 bucks for Advanced Shopify plan.
Let us round them off to a neat figure and show you in a table
| Plan | 1 Year | 2 Year | 3 Year | 4 Year | 5 Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Shopify | 350 | 700 | 1,050 | 1,400 | 1,750 |
| Shopify | 950 | 1,900 | 2,850 | 3,800 | 4,750 |
| Advanced Shopify | 3,600 | 7,200 | 10,800 | 14,400 | 18,000 |
Looking at the above table gives you certain perspective. Thinking long term is very crucial. There has been a trend lately among people who think about getting rick very quickly by selling thousands of products without understanding the work it takes to get there.
They work on something for a few months and if it does not work out they abandon it and then start something else. Then they do not get results on that and abandon that project as well. Hopping from one thing to the next. If your approach to ecommerce is like that then please do not get into it. You will waste money.
Sure you hear stories about people who made a good amount of money in a fairly quick time but that is not common. There are many things which are not shown or told regarding the amount of research and planning that went behind the scenes before they get the result they experienced.
When such stories are told or are written in blogs, you are never shown the actual work that went into making a successful project. So beware of such stories and when you start doing it yourself, you will realize that there is much more to it than you thought.
There are many more steps involved which are totally left out of those stories.
Go to Shopify and create your free trial account to get started.
Great Books
Keep yourself inspired by reading everyday. Books are your best friends.
| Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers -by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur Available on Amazon.com |
| The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur: 366 Daily Meditations to Feed Your Soul and Grow Your Business -by John Jantsch Available on Amazon.com |