Why Shopify works so well for ecommerce

There are a few things in particular that make Shopify good at the job it has been built to do.

Managing the store

This is probably the biggest one for me.

Shopify puts the everyday work of running an online store at the centre of the platform. Products, orders, customers, discounts and the other parts of the business are organised around the jobs the person managing the store actually needs to do.

A website can have an excellent shopping experience for the customer, but somebody still has to run everything behind it.

Shopify does a good job of making that manageable.

Ecommerce tools

Shopify has been built around selling online for a long time, and its ecommerce tools reflect that.

Products, payments, orders, shipping, discounts, inventory and the other parts of the sales process are part of the core platform rather than something that has been added around the edges.

That gives businesses a strong starting point for building an online store without having to assemble the basic commerce system themselves.

The technical side is managed

Shopify is a managed platform.

Hosting, much of the security, software updates and the infrastructure required to keep the store running are handled as part of the service.

That is particularly useful for ecommerce, where reliability and security matter and the website may be directly responsible for a significant part of the business's income.

It means the person running the store can spend more of their time managing the business rather than maintaining the software underneath it.

The ecommerce ecosystem

There is a very large ecosystem of apps, services and integrations built around Shopify.

That ecosystem is particularly strong around the things ecommerce businesses need, from marketing and subscriptions through to shipping, fulfilment, accounting and other parts of running a store.

If the business develops a new requirement, there is often already a Shopify app or service designed to help with it.

It doesn't always have to be the whole website

Shopify can also be used alongside other website platforms.

That can be useful when Shopify is the right system for managing the store, but another platform is being used for the rest of the website.

For example, it is possible to connect Shopify with Webflow so Shopify can handle the commerce side while the broader website is built elsewhere.

That gives us another option when deciding how a particular website should be put together.

Shopify is very good at ecommerce, but that doesn't mean it is automatically the right platform for every website.

Hosting and the platform itself

Shopify is a managed platform, which is one of its strengths.

The trade-off is that the store is built around Shopify's infrastructure and services. You don't have the same freedom to choose where the complete platform is hosted or simply move the whole system to another hosting provider.

For many businesses that won't be a problem at all. For others, having more control over the underlying website and hosting may be important.

Ongoing costs

Shopify itself has an ongoing subscription cost, and the wider Shopify ecosystem can add further costs.

Many apps and services are also subscription-based, so adding functionality to a store can gradually increase what the business pays each month.

That doesn't necessarily make those tools poor value, but it is important to consider the total ongoing cost of the store rather than looking only at the base Shopify plan.

When ecommerce isn't the main thing

Shopify is designed around ecommerce.

If selling online is only a small part of a much broader website, it is worth thinking carefully about what role Shopify should play.

In some cases it may still make sense for Shopify to run the whole website. In others, it may make more sense for Shopify to handle the store while another system handles the rest.

The important thing is choosing the setup around what the website actually needs to do.

More specialised requirements

Every ecommerce platform has boundaries around how it works.

If a store has unusual operational, technical or integration requirements, it is worth checking those carefully before committing to Shopify.

The platform and its ecosystem can accommodate a lot, but a complicated ecommerce business should still make sure the systems it depends on will work together properly.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is another established platform built specifically around ecommerce.

It provides the tools needed to build and manage an online store, including hosting and the systems behind products, orders, customers and the sales process.

If you are looking at ecommerce platforms for a business where selling online is central to the website, BigCommerce is another option worth investigating.