The COVID-19 pandemic caused a massive upheaval, and while it drastically impacted the global business environment, the fragile ecosystem of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) was almost placed on life support. Many small businesses found their operations at a standstill with sales impacted significantly as precautionary health safety measures were implemented, leading to a drop in foot traffic to physical retail stores.
Thus, it is no surprise that the SMEs have been on a lookout for new avenues for sustaining themselves, as customers have embraced online shopping. eCommerce has gained in importance as a robust channel for continuing sales and sources of income, expanding scale and customer reach, and thereby ensuring business sustainability and resiliency even in times of crisis. However, it is essential for the SMEs to choose the right eCommerce platform that can be managed within the context of their available resources. It is at this time that Shopify has emerged as the platform of choice for more than a million businesses across 175 countries[1] worldwide.
Growing Popularity of Shopify
Shopify is a popular eCommerce platform that helps businesses to launch and manage their online store with ease. The underlying factors that make it a preferred platform lie in the convenience and ease of setting up a Shopify store. Further, it offers strong support to the store owners in crucial aspects such as opening additional channels of marketing (e.g., Amazon, eBay, or Facebook), providing advanced technology-backed customer support tools such as live chats, and also providing continuous technical support.
Shopify offers its customers:
Wide range of features and apps: With hundreds of built-in features, and more than 1,200 apps to build a scalable online store, Shopify offers tools that help in creating, publishing, and running your eCommerce business.
Multi-channel integration: The store owners’products can be sold directly on his website, as well as across multiple marketplaces and social media, including Facebook, Amazon, eBay, and Instagram.
Strong support system: Shopify offers24/7 technical and customer support. As a cloud solution, it also ensures that the management of servers, software updates, security, redundancy, etc., are dealt by Shopify experts, leaving the store owner free from these hassles.
Variety of payment options: It provides more than 100 payment gateways. Additionally, it offers competitive payment processing rates and includes fraud protection and PCI compliance.
Innovative tipping options: On Shopify, merchants can enable tipping during checkout, or customize the text to ask for donations for their business or for a favourite charity.
Easy and rapid set up: It is easy for any business, be it handicrafts, catering or even jewelry, to set up an online presence quickly and with minimal fuss.
Shop app: Through this new personal shopping app, customers can view their favourite Shopify stores, get product recommendations, and track orders. The Shopify app has over 16 million users signed up[2] and growing.
Vast resource library: The platform has extensive online documentation, self-guides, and resources that help merchants in easily manoeuvring on the platform and growing their business.
Advanced eCommerce analytics: Analytical tools provide store owners deep insights into the ever-evolving customer buying behavior and helps the merchants measure the success of their marketing campaigns. These reports also aid in evaluating business performance in real-time, along with gathering comprehensive sales data and reports to enhance the selling approach.
Shopify Balance program: Through this new program, the store owners can pay bills, track expenses, and apply for funding from their Shopify administrator. Further, the merchants are provided with a loyalty rewards program that offers discounts and incentives tailored to the merchants’ needs for growing their business.
Statistics show that the number of online shoppers is expected to grow to over 2.14 billion people worldwide in 2021[3], making an eCommerce strategy a must for both B2B and B2C businesses.
While the enormous number of Shopify services can seem rather overwhelming to a small business, especially for those that are looking to set up online channels for the first time, Saberpoint has experience assisting customers of all sizes with establishing a successful online store.
[1] https://thriveagency.com/news/why-businesses-choose-shopify-for-their-ecommerce-store/
[2] https://news.shopify.com/shopify-unveils-its-consumer-app-shop
[3] https://thriveagency.com/news/why-businesses-choose-shopify-for-their-ecommerce-store/
