Shopify is trusted by millions of online stores worldwide. When you create a Shopify store, you get everything you need to launch your eCommerce site, including website design tools, secure payment processing, powerful sales features, and reliable hosting.
The integrated Shopify App Store also puts scalability and functionality at its core, allowing you to enhance and build up your store as required.
Throughout my tests, I found Shopify servers to have reliable uptime with excellent loading speeds, with some heavier themes admittedly loading slower than others. Despite this, Shopify is one of the more expensive providers, and it isn’t always the right choice if you’re a beginner or don’t require more advanced eCommerce functionality.
Still not sure if Shopify is right for your business’ needs? Let’s look at real-life performance to help decide.
We conduct extensive eCommerce website builder testing for rating each brand in its expert review. We can examine their functionality, determine how well they perform across devices, and assess the dangers through the testing process.
We apply specific parameters that produce the most accurate test results to identify the best builders available. Here are the criteria we used to evaluate Shopify.
| Parameters | Rating | Expert Opinion |
| Ease of Use | 9.8 | Relatively simple interface for website setup, but the editor isn’t the most intuitive and requires a bit of a learning curve. |
| Value for Money – Prices & Plans | 9.6 | Five standard subscription plans to suit varying needs. More expensive than competitors, and not the most flexible. |
| Templates (Design Flexibility) | 9.5 | Offers over 70 themes, but only a few of these are actually free to use. SEO designs that perform really well. |
| Features & Tools | 9.6 | Rich feature set and extensive app store with over 2000 apps available. Some free and some paid apps. |
| Performance | 9.6 | Reliable uptime and excellent loading speeds. Speeds may be affected by the choice of website theme. |
| Help & Support | 9.5 | 24/7 support available via phone lines, social media, email, and live chat. Advanced specialist support options. |
| Overall rating | 9.6 | The Shopify website editor could be improved, which isn’t ideal for a company centering this in their services. Prices are also higher than many competitors. But performance is great, and customer support is reliable and accessible. |
Shopify website builder plans come in five standardised subscription models, with all offering everything you need to turn your website into an online store.
With the 14-day trial period, you can be sure that Shopify is the right choice for your business before fully committing any essential budget. Make sure you’ve fully played around with all the Shopify features for yourself within this time!
I really appreciate the range of accepted payment methods, making them super accessible to all kinds of users around the world. Shopify accepts payment via major credit and debit cards, PayPal, and other localized payment methods – as well as directly using Shopify Balance.
| Plan Name | Space | Bandwidth | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Unlimited | Unlimited | NZ$49.46 | Details |
| Shopify | Unlimited | Unlimited | NZ$134.74 | Details |
I’ve gone through everything, from registration and site setup to the Shopify App Market, to test usability and features directly.
It’s important to note that while I haven’t been able to test this, despite Shopify’s general interface being straightforward enough, the website editor is notoriously confusing – especially if you’ve never used it before.
First things first, how to set up a Shopify account? This bit’s easy. I went to the homepage and clicked Start Free Trial.
From here, you’re asked to fill in the basic personal details like email, password, and the name of your store.
After filling out a brief questionnaire designed to help Shopify setup default settings, I had to enter my address and was ready to create the website! All-in-all, it took a couple of minutes.
Shopify provides around 76 templates in total, each of these have stunning layouts and you’re sure to find one you like. However, less than ten of these are free – so make sure you’re ready to potentially fork out for the one you choose.
Shopify’s template directory is categorized based on niche, purpose, and design style. Each theme is not just a single theme but comes with a handful of styles. In addition, the themes have several features and a set of standard features that all Shopify themes have. 
The free themes are great, and if you are working with a tight budget, you will certainly make your site look presentable using one of them. All free themes are made for quick setup and visual storytelling and can be for any catalog size. You can also use them for editorial content.
Shopify also has a Trending this week section of themes. Here, you can explore all the popular themes updated hourly.
Shopify also has a New themes release section, where you can browse the latest themes.
Shopify provides all the features you want to create the perfect online store, making it easy to build and manage, such as eCommerce tools, mobile applications, or online storage.
Shopify provides a free SSL certificate, privacy protection, regular backups, and full access to the HTML and CSS of your store, making it easy to customize your website.
Shopify offers SSL Certificates for security and daily data backups to ensure that your site is safe. And they also provide instant upgrades, so if your store overgrows or gets a spike in traffic it’s always getting the resources it needs.
Shopify boasts one of the biggest App Stores in the website builder space, with over 2000 apps readily available. This includes both free and paid apps.
The app store makes finding the most likely tools to suit your personal needs and company strategy easier. In a nutshell, the App Store is a collection of paid and free apps designed to enhance and expand the functionality of your Shopify store.
If you have a large social following, you can use the “shop” feature on Facebook to recreate your Shopify eCommerce website.
Consumers can buy straight from you without visiting your website. Shopify also has product tagging on Instagram, which allows you to link directly to your product page.
With Shopify, you can manage many of your actions from the mobile app, available on both iPone and Android.
You can update product pages, fulfil offers and process refunds, print shipping labels, and see live sales details in real-time. The Shopify app is pretty great!
Shopify has an integrated blogging tool that allows you to develop the type of content you’ll need to ensure your site appears in Google search results. However, this blogging functionality is not as sophisticated as that on some other platforms. The editor can use some improvement. It is not as intuitive as it could be.
Shopify has excellent SEO and marketing features. Thanks to the built-in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools, your site will be easily found on all major search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
Even though the SEO settings are automatic, you may adjust your target keywords, URLs, and more for each product page. Shopify has worked with Google to provide you with advertising funds for a new AdWords account.
Shopify introduced a new tool, Shopify Email, that allows you to create email newsletters. The email collection form on Shopify is straightforward.
It does the job well and integrates with the primary email options, but many eCommerce shops prefer to hunt for a more suitable add-on in the app store. But the best thing about Shopify Email is the price: you can use the feature to send up to 10,000 emails a month for free, with a $1 fee for every 1,000 emails sent.
Reliable performance is obviously essential when it comes to web hosting, especially for larger eCommerce sites; so I tested Shopify using GTMetrix and Pagespeed Insights.
The results were solid, but let’s take a look at the details.
My Shopify GTMetrix test results show a pretty good overall performance, with load times being a particular highlight. Honestly, the speed of the site could be improved – and that’s probably not ideal for bigger businesses trying to sell online.
Results:
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Checking Shopify on Google’s PageSpeed Insights has allowed me to confirm the GTMetrix results. Overall, Shopify server performance seems to be decent – though with obvious areas for optimization (most notably general speed).
Results:
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Shopify provides 24/7 customer support through a number of different lines – improving accessibility and emergency response times. Not only can you choose your preferred method of support, Shopify has a team of specialists onboard ready to help with more advanced or technical issues, too.
I tried some of these out, so let’s see how they did!
To access the Shopify live chat assistant, you need to head to the Help Center first. Once there, I got a popup from the chatbot immediately.
The AI chatbot answered my question, then I noticed at the bottom the choice to “Connect manually” under learn more.
This took me directly to an article explaining how I could solve my Shopify store issue (connecting a third-party domain). The article was really helpful, and I really love the smooth, intuitive interface and flow.
Unfortunately, when I asked to speak to a human agent I found out this is only possible for those with an existing Shopify account. Not the end of the world, but I do always appreciate a provider that’s happy to offer support to potential future customers, as well.
Despite being just an AI chatbot, the Shopify live chat was able to provide quick, accurate, and actually helpful solutions for my query!
Since I was already here, I thought I’d take a look at Shopify’s Help Center next.
The first thing I noticed is you can’t actually close the live chat bubble – the idea being that you use it alongside the articles to get more in-depth or tailored responses.
Find the category relevant to your query or issue, and head there. Within each section, you can find specific articles and YouTube videos focused on various topics.
The Help Center provides a solid company-specific knowledge base, but I think it could be improved if it was more streamlined, with an intuitive, powerful search function.
Existing Shopify customers can call their phone support teams, each of which are trained to answer specialized support queries.
This covers in-person sales solutions, Plus plan details, and Enterprise solutions.
Finally, I wanted to check out the Shopify Community Forum, where users can ask and answer each other’s questions and provide community support.
It’s not going to be the right support choice for all issues, but the community is active, and you can filter conversations from the landing page.
Honestly? I think Shopify customer support could be improved overall – especially for prospective customers. Existing customers can access a wider range of support options, able to handle more technical or advanced requests.
However, for those who haven’t yet committed to Shopify hosting, the support options are mostly limited to an AI chatbot and community support.
Shopify is one of the most popular eCommerce website builders and hosting providers on the market – prioritizing speed and customer support throughout its services.
Despite this, I found customer support for potential future customers was lacking, which might put off first-time users. And while registration and setup are straightforward, the website editor itself could be better optimized for beginner use.
It’s not all bad though – and there’s a reason why Shopify is favored by so many websites. Performance is reliable, and response times are great. There’s room for improvement, but with infrastructure specifically optimized for larger eCommerce sites, there’s no reason Shopify can’t support your growing online store.
Shopify prices can be higher than some competitors, especially when you factor in the cost of paid templates, but features are next-to-none; allowing flexibility, scalability, and awesome performance.
| Plan Name | Space | Bandwidth | OS | Panel | Number of Sites | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Shopify | Unlimited | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | NZ$49.46 | Details | |
| Shopify | Unlimited | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | NZ$134.74 | Details | |
| Advanced Shopify | Unlimited | Unlimited | cPanel | Unlimited | NZ$509.97 | Details |
With Shopify, you can keep your business small and manageable or scale it up to an enterprise-level while still receiving your assistance. Shopify has various options for small companies, including free applications, tools, and features that will help you get your enterprise up and running on a budget. Also, Shopify can expand with your business, providing the features you need to meet your requirements.
You should decide if Shopify’s the right product for you during the trial period. If you decide that it is the right website builder, you should upgrade to one of Shopify’s plans within the 14-day trial period. This way, all the content you’ve created will be carried over.
Yes, you can! Shopify provides many themes with built-in languages so that you can create a multilingual Shopify store. If you know how to code, you can translate your store’s content yourself or use a program like Langify or Weglot Translate.
Yes, you can change your plan type at any time. A new billing cycle will be initiated, and close the current one by making an upgrade or downgrade. The already existing funds will be credited to your new plan.
Yes, you can! You can establish and manage your online store with Shopify’s free app for Android and iOS. You can process orders, manage items, add and contact customers, update your template, and monitor the performance of your online store, as well.
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