Starting an eCommerce store is not a cakewalk. With so many eCommerce platforms making their way into the market, it becomes really difficult for businesses to choose the best one for their online stores. Although Shopify has earned lots of fame and is considered by hundreds of thousands of businesses for making their eCommerce journey thrive, the platform also received much negative feedback in the past some time. After analyzing all the reviews and personally testing the working of Shopify, we’ve concluded that Shopify cannot suit everyone’s eCommerce needs. In this post, we’re going to give you a brief on factors explaining why Shopify is bad. Read on!
Note – There is no doubt that Shopify is leading the race when it comes to setting up an eCommerce store; we completely agree with this fact. But, if you are looking to start your store and considering Shopify as the only platform for making things happen, then you certainly need to check the breakdown of concerns we’re about to highlight.
Reasons Why Shopify is Bad for Your eCommerce Business
Not-at-all Easy Migration
If after using Shopify for some time, you find it not apt for your business, then you must know that migration of your store to another platform will turn up to a rocket science. You will be just provided with the CSV file of your products and that’s it.
To switch to another eCommerce platform, you need to create everything in your store from scratch right from the design to policies. So, all in all, migrating Shopify to any other platform is a real headache.
Did you find it Cheap?
Well, check this out!Businesses go with Shopify seeing that it is a cheap eCommerce platform. While the basic plan can match the statement, you need to compromise with many functionalities.
A little addition of features can cost you a lot. Apart from that, you need to charge processing fees for credit cards, no matter what plan you have selected for your Shopify store.
Theme Can Also Cost
It has been found that an attractive design of your store can catch the attention of many visitors. In this regard, Shopify can certainly help and make your store jaw-dropping.
But, there is a catch. While the eCommerce platform offers well-designed themes to help you create an attractive store, the number is restricted. Shopify has on-board only 71 themes for you to choose from. You might wonder why I am using ‘only’ with the number 71. Well, this can seem very small if you have lots of competitors using Shopify. You may find it difficult to differentiate your brand from others with selective themes. Just in case you opt for a free theme, you may need to compromise with various feature additions and customizations. Moreover, some users experience a loss of content while changing the theme.
If you are not much bothered about money and looking to change the theme of your Shopify store without compromising any data, here’s our guide on how to change Shopify theme without losing content.
Apps Are Also Expensive
If you want to install some third-party apps to add some functionality to your Shopify eCommerce store, it’s worth noting for you. Most apps available on Shopify can cost you big.
Although you can find apps for almost all functionalities, being a new business you might not find it easy to invest in many apps.
You need to be Tech-Savvy to Make Customizations
Making changes to the functionalities of Shopify is not a cinch for every other person. Even if you want to change the fonts and colors of your Shopify store, you must have access to a pro developer who can manage customizations.
Apart from that, if you love tweaking things –now and then – you may not find Shopify a perfect fit for you. As you can’t have full control over the looks of the store, this is why Shopify is bad for you.
No Email Hosting
Although Shopify offers web hosting, email hosting is not one of its offerings. What’s the issue? You can’t have an email address with your shop name if you don’t have email hosting, though. This is one more extremely simple feature that ought to have been offered by Shopify. Now, some could counter that it’s offers the ability to forward emails. This implies that every email you receive from someone will be sent to your personal email address. However, you must incorporate a third-party email hosting connection to use the email forwarding feature.
Limited Support
Although Shopify provides community forums, a knowledge base, and customer service, some users might feel that their support offerings are lacking than those of rival platforms. Live chat and phone support might not be available on lower-tier commitments, and it might be challenging to get prompt help. This could be annoying if you have significant questions that need to be answered right away or if you encounter technical issues.
Additionally, you will need to get in touch with developers directly through public forums if you have any technical questions about things like purchased apps.
Wrapping Up
There is hope for e-commerce development with Shopify. However, because of its shortcomings in comparison to other eCommerce development platforms, there are situations in which utilizing Shopify is not the ideal choice. All things considered, it’s pricey for new businesses and startups, and there are notably less expensive options out there.
In this post, we have listed various reasons why Shopify is bad, nevertheless making the correct decision requires careful consideration of the needs of your work rather than merely picking one at random.
Every platform has advantages and disadvantages; none of them is flawless. Therefore, I would advise looking over the characteristics of various platforms like WooCommerce, Magento, and Custom eCommerce Solution, and selecting the one that best meets your business needs.
