What Is Shopify and How Does It Work?

When it comes to the ecommerce space, Shopify is one of the most popular platforms for business owners looking to build their online store. The platform’s robust features and reliability have made it a staple for ecommerce merchants, and its momentum does not seem to be slowing down. That being said, despite Shopify’s popularity, not everyone may know exactly what it is or how it works, especially those new to selling their products online. If you’re not quite as Shopify savvy as you’d like to be, no worries. We will explain what Shopify is and how it works so you can determine whether it will help your business.

What Is Shopify?

Simply put, Shopify is the modern-day ecommerce merchant’s WordPress. As an ecommerce platform, you can use it to build your store online or offline with a variety of features suited to everyone from ecommerce novices to experts. The great thing is you can test how Shopify would work for your store using their 14-day free trial. With it you can build your online store, try out free Shopify apps, and can even make your first sale during your trial.

If you decide to purchase a Shopify plan, you’ll be able to continue hosting and building your online store after the trial. Here is a brief overview of how Shopify works to help guide you through your first steps.

How Does Shopify Work?

As an ecommerce platform, Shopify allows you to host your online store. You can organize the visual layout of your store using Shopify themes, set up your checkout process and payment processing, and more.

The very first steps you should take are to design or modify your online store, host your products on it, and test your website to make sure the public can view it on mobile and desktop. If you feel your store is up to scratch, you can then begin promoting your products.

Once you’ve promoted your products and begin receiving customers, you can use Shopify’s admin tools to view in real-time when customers are adding products to their carts or purchasing them. After a customer buys from your store, Shopify processes the payment and delivers it to you. You can then process your customers’ orders to ensure they receive their product.

When you’re not busy selling your wares, you can reap the benefits of Shopify’s analytic tools by acquiring sales reports, behavior reports, marketing reports, and more. Use them to better understand your business by getting insights about your visitors, your online store’s speed, and its transactions.

Is Shopify Worth It To You?

Shopify comes packed with a host of useful store building and analytic tools that can help you in growing your business. However, although Shopify works great for many ecommerce businesses, make sure it is the best platform for you. Take note of your own business goals and needs before deciding to integrate it with any platform – regardless of your desired platform’s popularity.