As time passes, you may have to come to grips with the fact that your current platform doesn’t cut it anymore. So, you’re looking into the reasons to migrate to Shopify.
Maybe your website’s performance started lagging behind as your inventory and product range grew. Maybe you lack certain features that would make running your business a lot easier. Maybe the platform got too costly for what it offers.
If that hits close to home, you may be wondering if Shopify could be your online store’s new home. After all, over 4.3 million live websites worldwide use this platform.
But this isn’t a decision you can take lightly. Choosing the ecommerce platform can make or break your store’s growth.
At GenovaWebArt, we’ve helped multiple ecommerce brands like Warner Edwards Distillery, Workout Meals, and Kit & Kin seamlessly move to Shopify from their old platforms. Today, let us help you make your choice by breaking down the ten reasons to migrate to Shopify.
So, Why Migrate to Shopify?
Without further ado, let’s dive right into the ten key reasons to move to Shopify that you should consider.
It’s a Robust and Feature-Rich Platform
Shopify is a platform designed exclusively for ecommerce business owners. That’s why it offers a better feature set in exchange for a subscription fee than its one-size-fits-all competitors like Wix.
Here’s a quick overview of Shopify’s ecommerce functionality that can help you streamline your operations:
- Product management. You can sell a wide variety of products on Shopify, including physical and digital products, services, memberships, subscriptions, and online courses. The number of products is unlimited.
- Inventory management. You can create up to 1,000 inventory locations and let Shopify keep track of your inventory. Also, why not allow customers to pre-order items or purchase products that are out of stock at the moment?
- Shopify order fulfillment. Shopify supports integration with third-party sales channels like social media and marketplaces. Plus, you can manually create orders if they’re placed over the phone, for example.
- Point-of-sale system. All Shopify plans come with the company’s own POS system, Shopify POS Lite. It turns any smartphone into a POS device.
- Shipping. With Shopify, you also gain preferential rates with select shipping carriers, which helps you save up to 77% on shipping fees with UPS, USPS, and DHL Express.
- Ecommerce automations. This relatively new feature lets you create custom automated workflows to save you time (unavailable on the Basic plan).
But that’s not all. If some functionality you need is missing from your plan, you can always add it with a third-party app. Shopify’s app store has over eight thousand apps to choose from, both free and paid. These apps help you reduce Shopify bounce rate, set up delivery, enhance your store’s SEO, and more.
It’s Highly Scalable to Help You Grow
As your business grows, you may need more advanced functionality in your ecommerce platform. Plus, you’ll want it to handle more SKUs, products, inventory locations, staff accounts, orders, and customer profiles.
Shopify’s scalability is one of the key reasons for migrating to Shopify among our clients. Since Shopify is a hosted platform, you don’t have to worry about scaling your servers’ computing resources. The company takes care of it for you while ensuring outstanding 99.99% uptime.
As for functionality, Shopify’s tools allow for streamlining all ecommerce operations, from order inventory management to shipping and customer service. It also comes with solid automation features, allowing you to create custom automated workflows to save time.
It’s Secure and Reliable
Over 88% of consumers consider security important when they're shopping online, regardless of the average order value. So, ensuring your customers feel safe when purchasing from your online store is in your best interests.
Shopify is PCI-compliant out of the box, meaning you don’t have to jump through hoops to comply with this regulation. Your store will automatically meet all six categories of PCI compliance:
- Maintaining a secure network
- Maintaining a vulnerability management program
- Regularly monitoring and testing networks
- Protecting cardholder data
- Implementing strong access control management
- Maintaining an information security policy
Shopify can also help you comply with the GDPR and other privacy regulations. To that end, it offers the Shopify Privacy & Compliance app which allows you to set up cookie consent banners, preferences Shopify pop-ups, and data collection opt-out pages.
As for reliability, Shopify has been in business since 2006 and currently powers over two million websites worldwide. You can count on it to ensure 99.99% uptime and stable performance for your store.
Your Store Will Be Mobile-Responsive and SEO-Friendly
Since 74% of all online store visits and 63% of orders come from smartphones, you need your store to look as great on a mobile device as it does on a desktop.
Shopify can help you do that without significant investment: all Shopify themes are mobile-friendly by default. It also allows you to optimize images for various devices and tweak the mobile store view in the theme editor.
Mobile-friendliness is just one component of search engine optimization (Google indexes mobile versions of websites in most cases). But Shopify has got you covered in all things SEO, such as:
- Setting up Google Analytics and Search Console in your store
- Creating a solid internal linking system
- Optimizing your images to improve loading times
- Editing metadata (titles, descriptions)
- Optimizing copy for keywords (with third-party apps like Yoast)
It Supports 100+ Payment Gateways
Lack of preferred payment options is the second most common reason behind cart abandonment. So, if you want a platform that can support various payment methods, then it’s one of the solid reasons to migrate to Shopify.
The platform supports over 100 payment gateways worldwide, from Adyen and Alipay to PayPal, Stripe, and Braintree. However, the list of available gateways varies from country to country. For example, a US merchant could choose from 95 providers, while a French one has access to 116 providers.
If you plan to sell in multiple currencies, Shopify has built-in currency conversion and market-specific pricing tools.
You Can Count on Its Customer Support
Shopify’s merchant support is available 24/7, no matter your plan. You can contact it via email or live chat to troubleshoot your store if necessary. You can also post your question on the community forum or call a support number if your location has one.
But that’s not all. Self-service customer support is quite comprehensive on Shopify. You have access to plenty of video tutorials and an extensive help center. You can also participate in webinars, business courses, and community events to become proficient at running a Shopify store.
It Comes with Powerful Marketing and Sales Tools
If you’re looking for more reasons to migrate an ecommerce store to Shopify, the platform’s robust marketing and sales tools is one of them. Regardless of the plan, you can:
- Create discount codes and gift cards for your store
- Promote and sell via multiple sales channels (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, Amazon, etc.)
- Set up abandoned cart recovery
- Create customer segments
- Build custom marketing automation
- Set up automated email marketing campaigns with built-in tools
- Make well-informed decisions with a robust Shopify Analytics view of Product Insights and
Sales & Customers, powered by real-time data
You Can Easily Customize Your Store’s Look
Your store’s design is the first impression you make on your customers. So, of course, you need it to be impeccable and help your business stand out at the same time.
Luckily, Shopify makes it easy for anyone to customize their store. All you need to do is choose a theme or start from scratch and use the drag-and-drop store builder to make your store one of a kind. You can customize virtually any aspect of your website’s design, including:
- Layouts
- Colors
- Fonts
- Visuals
- Navigation
- Menus
- Product displays
- User-facing features
If you have no technical skills, don’t worry: you don’t need to write a line of code to use the builder. On the other hand, if you want to enhance your Shopify store with custom HTML/CSS, you can do that, too. Plus, you can also customize a Shopify store with your own functions (Shopify Plus plan subscribers only).
Its Pricing is Straightforward and Transparent
With Shopify, you won’t encounter any hidden fees at the end of the checkout. The current pricing is as follows:
- Basic: $39 per month, or $29 per month if paid annually
- Shopify: $105 per month, or $79 per month if paid annually
- Advanced: $399 per month, or $299 per month if paid annually
Since Shopify is a hosted platform, you don’t have to factor in web hosting and SSL certificate fees in your operational costs. Shopify takes care of both at no extra charge for you.
On top of that, you can start exploring Shopify for free for the first three days and for $1/month for the first three months after that.
It’s Easy to Use
Its ease of use is one of the reasons that make Shopify different from platforms like WordPress and BigCommerce.
With Shopify, even beginners can easily create a beautiful online store and customize it to their liking. The admin panel is also easy to set up and navigate, allowing you to quickly accomplish your tasks like order fulfillment and product management.
This means that your team’s tech skills (or lack thereof) won’t be a barrier to adoption. Even novices will be able to quickly wrap their head around Shopify’s intuitive tools.
Need a Shopify Partner? GenovaWebArt Has Your Back
At GenovaWebArt, we strive to be a one-stop-shop for ecommerce businesses that chose Shopify as their platform. That’s why we offer lots of services, from theme development and customization to bespoke Shopify Plus development and Shopify replatforming.
We’ve already helped our many clients migrate from Magento, WooCommerce, and WordPress to Shopify. If you’d like to see our services in action, head straight to our Kit & Kin case study to see how we helped our client migrate from WooCommerce to Shopify Plus.
Conclusion
So, why migrate to Shopify? In a nutshell, Shopify is a well-rounded platform with a powerful toolkit for any ecommerce operation.
Need a comprehensive set of marketing and sales features? Shopify has it. What about product, inventory, and order management functionality? Shopify has you covered with its sophisticated systems. On top of that, Shopify is also reliable, highly scalable, secure, and easy to use.
So, whether you’re just beginning to grow your ecommerce business or are already on track to success, Shopify can be the right platform for you. GenovaWebArt can also assist you in security and maintenance of ecommerce website.
If you’re ready to kick off your transition to a better ecommerce platform, check out our guide to Shopify migration. Or, if you don’t want to go it alone, let us give you a hand. Drop us a line, and we’ll get back to you to discuss how we can make your migration seamless and stress-free.
