Review of Shopify: The Best E-Commerce Website Builder

Editors ‘ Statement: Shopify offers substantial e-commerce features, including an advanced check function, stock management tools and automatic sales taxes calculation. Additionally, Shopify offers the best site performance in the industry, including the fastest blog rate of any variety I’ve tested, as well as strong security measures to safeguard your website, account, and information. These attributes earned Shopify a CNET Editors ‘ Choice Award as the best web developer for e-commerce.

---

Does Shopify need its notoriety despite being probably the most well-known e-commerce shop builder, which powers millions of stores?

I built a Shopify site and tested it to establish its ease of use, performance and customer service. Ecommerce impressed me at nearly every move, proving that it is, in truth, one of the best site builders in presence and definitely the best option for e-commerce sites.

Plans and sales on Shopify: A glance

Shopify uses fog having, which stores business data in a series of linked servers in several geographical locations. This kind of website hosting makes for near-continuous uptime because your website may load from a secondary client if the main server fails. Cloud hosting is even easy to scale, as your site can pull storage and bandwidth from further servers as needed, meaning it– and thus Shopify– are equipped to handle the changing needs of big online stores.

All Shopify programs provide complete access to its e-commerce business builder. This physical architecture application makes it simple to build a website with product pages and a fully functional shopping site. You’ll also find Shopify’s internet marketing resources, including abandoned vehicle recovery and automated email campaigns. This is especially beneficial if you already have internet marketing systems in place; however, switching to Shopify instead of using an outside service is a good idea.

Also, speed and storage are limitless on all Shopify ideas, so it can range alongside your project’s traffic.

Shopify even offers shipping deals for USPS, DHL Express and UPS. These shipping discounts can increase by up to 88 %, saving you thousands of dollars as your website expands.

The major differences between programs are exchange rates, shipping discounts and personnel accounts. Here’s how the various Shopify ideas compare:

Plan brand	Credit card transaction charges	Shipping deals	Employees accounts	Preţ
Basic	2.9 % +$ 0.30 USD for in-person purchases, and 2.6 % +$ 0.10 USD for online purchases.	Up to 77 %	One	$ 29 a month, billed annually
Shopify	2.5 % +$ 0.10 USD for in-person purchases, and 2.7 % +$ 0.30 USD for online purchases.	Up to 88 %	Six	$ 79 per month, annually billed
Advanced	2.5 % +$ 0.30 USD for online purchases, 2.4 % +$ 0.10USD for in-person purchases	Up to 88 %	Sixteen	$ 299 a month, billed annually

Transaction costs are set by Shopify, which can be found in various plans.

Transaction fees are charged to your clients ‘ cards when they make a purchase. They are not included in your opening costs, but they can add up quickly. To prevent these costs, determine how many unique transaction fees may set you back and include those costs in your prices. You can also keep more of your profits if you switch to a plan with reduced transaction fees as your store grows.

The prices shown here are based on Shopify’s proprietary payment system, which uses credit card payments. There are additional transaction fees for third-party systems, starting at 2 %.

Shopify Plus

Shopify offers Shopify Plus for enterprise businesses. These plans are customized to individual business’s needs and provide more site customization, inventory locations and unlimited staff accounts. Starts at$ 2,300 per month with Shopify Plus.

Shopify templates let you quickly start your online store

The smallest number of no-cost templates that I’ve tested are available from any website builder, with only 13 free templates on Shopify. The templates are attractive and use responsive design, making them mobile-friendly, but I’m still disappointed with this lack of selection.

If you want to make your store stand out, you’ll need to heavily modify one of these free templates or buy one of Shopify’s 220 premium templates. The majority of these templates are designed for fields like technology and high fashion. They typically cost between$ 200 and$ 500. Many e-commerce stores find this relatively affordable, but it can be prohibitively expensive if their starting costs are modest.

Shopify AI lets you create a custom website theme

Shopify offers a suite of AI tools called” Shopify Magic”. Using the first of these tools, you can create sample themes based on your company name. I like that it creates three themes for you to choose from, and the themes themselves are attractive. However, it took a while to find a theme that would be applicable to the field I chose, and adding more detail ended up being less useful.

An interesting thing about this system is that these images are just samples, Shopify generates the full theme once you’ve decided to try it. This takes a couple of minutes and builds your homepage, catalog and contact page. Although I still prefer the Squarespace AI builder‘s collaborative process, I liked the template it gave me.

Shopify ease of use: Intuitive for daily tasks after onboarding

I used Shopify to test an e-commerce store for ease of use in three areas: the purchase procedure, account management, and store setup. I had some misgivings during the first part of the process, but once I figured out where to find things I realized Shopify’s tools are some of the best in the business.

Procesul de cumpărare

It only takes a few seconds to create a Shopify account. From there, you’ll be asked some questions about where you want to sell your products and what you’ll be selling. You can skip these questions if you don’t want to share that information because this information doesn’t significantly affect the setup process.

The next step in the signup process is to choose your plan. You’ll get free access to this plan for three days, followed by one month at$ 1. Additionally, you’ll notice that the prices listed are those for a month-to-month plan.

The next page further encouraged me to sign up for a month-to-month plan. In fact, during this process, I couldn’t find a way to sign up for an annual plan. I had to skip this step, log into my account and click Select a Plan. This directed me to a new purchase page where I was able to buy an annual plan.

Reaching this page was complicated and frustrating, but I really liked the full scope of the charges presented here. You’ll see when the first dollar comes out of your account and when the full payment will be made so you can plan accordingly. There are no hidden fees or upsells to be had here.

Gestionarea contului

Logging into Shopify opens your shop dashboard, with account management accessed through a user icon in the top right corner. Although this user icon is small, I dislike how small it is, since many websites, including Google, have account management menus in this area.

The account dashboard is clearly laid out, with areas for modifying your name, connecting social logins like Google or Facebook and enabling security features like two-factor authentication.

Unfortunately, this does not contain your billing information. There’s no clear link to your billing area in the store dashboard either. I only found these details when I went to set up Shopify Payments, which opened a box where you can manage the financial and logistical details of your store’s operation.

Store setup

Like the rest of the Shopify process, store setup is counterintuitive, directing you to import or create your products before you choose a site template. The good news is that product creation is simple, with product descriptions, prices, and inventory information clearly marked. You can also add the country of your inventory locations and Harmonized System code to get Shopify to automatically calculate customs charges for each sale.

Next, you’ll be prompted to design your site. There are two choices here: creating a custom theme or browsing premade themes. I selected a premade theme and jumped into the site editor.

Finally, I discovered a simple Shopify tool. The left sidebar lists every section of your site. When you click on a section, the editor brings you to the relevant area on the page. The right sidebar’s block settings give you complete control over the design. Unlike many other website builders, Shopify also allows you to customize CSS if you learn code and styling ( or hire a developer ) later on. &nbsp,

You can also use AI to generate new text by selecting any text block and clicking the diamond icon above the text box. Shopify’s AI tools cannot create images at this time.

By clicking on the section of the store page where you want to add content, you can add sections either through the right sidebar or the right-click menu. There are a variety of e-commerce blocks and some content blocks ( like “image and text” ) for use in areas like your” About” page.

Moving content around is similarly simple: drag a block title up or down in the list and click on it in the left sidebar. The only downside is that you can’t change the width of a block to fit multiple blocks in one section of the page.

The final upside to the Shopify store editor is the Preview tool in the top right corner. In order to view your website on a variety of devices, you can toggle between desktop, tablet, and mobile views. However, you won’t get the extensive mobile editing options offered by Wix.

By clicking the gear icon in the sidebar, you can change the font, colors, and other elements of your website’s overall appearance. I was also pleased to see marketing tools here, like the ability to create a brand statement and add social media links for the website footer.

Overall ease of use: Pretty simple after a cumbersome signup process

With its complicated signup process and hidden billing settings, Shopify initially irritated me. Product and store setup– the things you’ll spend the most time on– were easier, redeeming Shopify and earning it a 7/10 ease of use ranking. ,

E-commerce tools let you manage inventory, shipping and more

Shopify comes with built-in e-commerce tools for things like inventory management, tax calculation and shipping. Without selling any of my own products, I attempted to explore these tools as much as I could.

The inventory management area lists all of your products in an easy-to-understand table where you can view the number of products you have on hand and how many unfulfilled orders there are for each item. As orders are placed through your store, numbers are changed, and they can also be changed manually.

The shipping area is similarly easy to navigate, with clear instructions for setting up shipping options and rates for various locations. You can create preset package sizes ( like a 3-pound box measuring 12 by 12 by 12 inches ) which are used to calculate the exact shipping cost for each purchase during checkout. Additionally, Shopify offers bulk shipping labels.

As for taxes, Shopify lets you enable GST and other automated tax calculations for products sold in 15 countries, including the US, Canada and the UK. These taxes can be included in the prices displayed on your store, or they can be calculated during the checkout process. Shopify automatically builds reports detailing the taxes you’ve collected to simplify financial management.

Shopify performance: Blazing-fast and reliable

Uptime and site speed were the two key factors in my Shopify site’s performance that required a week of testing.

Uptime: The percentage of time your site spends online. Uptime is important because visitors who can’t access your website frequently choose to travel elsewhere. This can lead to reduced traffic, audience trust and, if you’re building a business website, revenue.
• Viteza site-ului: The number of seconds your site takes to load. When loading times range from 1 to 3 seconds, people are 32 % more likely to leave your website after only viewing one page. This reduces your ability to build a loyal following.

Here are the protocols that Shopify uses to guarantee quick, trustworthy server performance.

Instrumente de performanță

Shopify offers a few tools for improving your site speed:

A network of interconnected servers in various physical locations known as a content delivery network ( CDN). Site data is stored in all of these servers, allowing visitors ‘ devices to retrieve information from the server closest to their location. This is frequently quicker than relying on a single server for data retrieval on a different side of the world. You’ll need to manually enable this feature.
• Cache: A specialized data storage technique that helps your devices load websites more quickly. The CPU, which is faster than the RAM used for data storage, connects the site’s data to the CPU, which is typically used for data storage. Some caching tools also store data in your visitors ‘ browsers so that your site loads faster on repeat visits. On Shopify, both types of caching are automatically enabled.
• Image compression: A method of reducing image file sizes to ensure faster loading times without sacrificing the image’s resolution. Shopify offers image compression tools that you can use before placing images on your site.
• Image lazy load: A protocol that automatically loads images as they are encountered rather than loading each image as you scroll to the appropriate page. You must enable this feature manually.

When compared to other website builders like Wix and Squarespace, which only offer a CDN and caching, this is a fantastic range of features.

Timp de funcționare

Shopify offers a 99.99 % uptime guarantee, meaning your site won’t go down for more than 2 minutes a week. This is higher than the industry-standard 99.9 %, which guarantees less than ten minutes of downtime per week. I used Betterstack to test my test site for a week to see if Shopify’s above-average uptime guarantee is upheld. &nbsp,

Unfortunately, Shopify failed this test during my first week of testing, despite having 17 downtime incidents that resulted in two hours and 10 minutes of downtime. This is almost twice as much downtime than the hour and 10 minutes of downtime I experienced during my InMotion Hosting review, which is the most downtime I had experienced with any other web host.

This failure shocked me, especially since there were no recorded outages on the Shopify status page. I reached out to customer service because I thought the issue might be with my website rather than the servers. They confirmed that my issue was site-specific and caused by a failure to properly connect to the server. The rep reset the connection for me, and I began a new week of monitoring uptime. This time I had zero downtime, suggesting that Shopify does in fact live up to its 99.99 % uptime guarantee– and might even exceed it. This also puts Shopify on even footing with other popular website builder companies like Wix and Squarespace.

Viteza site-ului

I spent five days performing speed tests at different times of day to see if Shopify sites regularly load within the expert-recommended timeframe of three seconds or less. I compared the user experiences of users all over the world using Testare pagină web, and I derived the following average site speeds from those tests (keep in mind, lower numbers are better ):

	NE	Regatul Unit	Germania	India	Dubai	Australia
Mobil	2.31	2.34	2.33	2.18	1.99	2.38
Desktop	1.2	1.07	1.12	1.16	1.26	1.26

These numbers don’t accurately represent everyone’s experiences– there are many other countries and speed may vary based on a user’s device and internet plan– but they’re robust enough to represent a high percentage of users ‘ experiences. &nbsp,

According to these figures, the typical site speeds for Shopify are:

• 2.25 seconds on mobile
• 1.17 seconds on the desktop

This leads to an overall average of 1.71 seconds, the fastest average site speed of any web host I’ve tested. In fact, it’s mult quicker than the next-fastest host, GoDaddy, which had an average site speed of 2.29 seconds.

Per total

A 9/10 performance ranking is achieved by Shopify’s excellent uptime and high-speed servers. This is higher than the 9/10 ranking of Wix and the 8/10 ranking of Squarespace.

Shopify security

Shopify offers several layers of security to protect your site and your customers ‘ data in compliance with PCI Security Standards, a set of globally-recognized data security standards used to protect digital payments. The most important of these protocols are:

Secure socket layer– SSL– certification: A protocol that encrypts data sent to and from your website into a language that only computers can understand. It is a protocol that safeguards sensitive data, such as customer payment information. SSL certification signals that your site is safe, which can prevent it from being blacklisted by VPNs and browsers. If your website doesn’t have this crucial feature, Google also rates it based on SSL certification, which makes it harder to rank highly.
• Firewall: Filtration software that analyzes traffic to your site and tries to prevent malicious traffic, malware and other threats from accessing it.
• Denial de serviciu distribuit – DDoS— protection: Distributed denial of service attacks flood your site with malicious traffic to overwhelm your server. Shopify uses automated tools to identify these attacks and stop them before they can stop your website.
• Monitorizare de securitate 24/7: The Shopify security team constantly monitors servers to mitigate threats and vulnerabilities as they occur.
• Account security: Shopify allows you to set up two-factor authentication or a passkey to make it harder for hacked into your account.

These security measures are similar to what you’ll get from other popular website builders like Wix and Squarespace. Shopify also has e-commerce specific security features, like fraud prevention protocols, fraud analysis, proxy detection ( to identify customers using proxy services or IP addresses ), automated dispute management and card testing protection. Users of Shopify Payments receive Shopify Protect, which shields your store from unauthorized chargebacks. All together, these security protocols earn Shopify a 10/10 security ranking.

Customer support on Shopify

As an e-commerce store owner, issues with your site can cost you hundreds or even thousands of dollars if they’re not resolved quickly. This makes it important to have 24/7 access to fast, helpful customer support through your preferred method of communication– live chat, email or phone. In order to find out how high-quality Shopify’s knowledge base is, I conducted a live chat and test it out.

Baza de cunoștințe

The Shopify Help Center offers comprehensive tutorials on store setup, management, and troubleshooting in detail. This help center has both a search bar and several content categories so you can quickly find the tutorial you need. You’ll also see a notification at the top of the page if there are any current issues with Shopify servers.

The tutorials themselves incorporate explainer videos and step-by-step text instructions. I appreciate how this mix accommodates people with different learning styles. However, some articles had only text, while others had only videos, leaving students with preferences for a particular educational approach in the dark if they want to complete specific tasks. &nbsp,

Comunicare directă

An AI Virtual Site Assistant is accessible via live chat on Shopify 24/7. This site assistant pulls data from the help center, sharing quick answers and links to full tutorials. I asked it to connect me with a support advisor after confirming its ability to answer simple questions. The chat told me to expect a wait time of 5 minutes, but I was connected to a person in 3 minutes.

The first representative I spoke to was able to answer simple questions, but each response took 3 to 5 minutes, so the conversation was around 40 minutes long when it could have been 10. My site experienced several more downtime incidents because she failed to correctly identify the source of my downtime issues.

I reached out again, and the second representative identified my problem– the issue with my shop’s connection to Shopify servers I mentioned earlier– and reset it. The representative’s time spent performing the reset was the longest pause in this conversation, which lasted for another 40 minutes. Needing a second conversation isn’t ideal, but if this problem is as rare as the second representative claimed, it’s understandable for it to be excluded from basic customer support training. Similarly, waiting for a significant chunk of time was frustrating, but understandable when dealing with an issue that required a full reset of my site’s connection to the Shopify servers.

Shopify does not provide phone or email customer support. I’m a big fan of live chat, so it’s not a huge issue for me, but I was surprised ( and disappointed ) that such an expensive service didn’t offer either of these options.

Overall: better than other website builders, but not as flawless.

Shopify earns an 8/10 customer service ranking, higher than Wix’s 7/10, because Shopify makes it fast and easy to reach a human support agent. This is also way higher than the 6/10 ranking of Squarespace, where I couldn’t even contact a human via live chat.

Reputaţie

After my tests were finished, I moved on to researching other customers ‘ Shopify experiences in order to assess the overall caliber of its customer service. The Biroul pentru o mai bună afacere shows almost 1, 200 complaints in the past three years. 753 of these complaints have been resolved within the past twelve months, with the majority of them receiving answers or resolutions. This suggests that Shopify’s team is dedicated to resolving issues.

Unfortunately, reviews on Trustpilot paint a different picture, with over 2, 404 one-star ( out of five stars ) reviews. Customer support is the most frequently raised issue. Other reviewers say they’ve had payments withheld or accounts banned with no stated reason and no resources provided to fix these issues. In comparison to the 5.5 million Shopify stores, these reviews are small, but they’re still worth knowing about.

Shopify value: Is it worth the money?

With my hands-on testing complete, I returned to the pricing page to analyze how Shopify compares to other popular website builders. For context, here is a quick overview of Squarespace and Wix’s most affordable plans:

Companie	Lățime de bandă	Depozitare	Securitate	Caracteristici suplimentare	Prețuri
Squarespace	Nelimitat	Nelimitat	Certificare SSL, protecție firewall, protecție DDoS, autentificare cu doi factori, monitorizare a securității 24/7	Instrumente de bază pentru comerțul electronic și instrumente pentru abonamente la conținut monetizat	$ 16 a month, billed annually
Wix	Nelimitat	2GB ( Enough for at least 20 pages )	Certificare SSL, protecție firewall, protecție DDoS, autentificare cu doi factori, monitorizare a securității 24/7	Four lead capture forms, hotel management tools, free domain for the first year	$ 17 per month, billed annually

We can draw the following conclusions from this information:

Shopify is more expensive than other options, with the most affordable plan starting at$ 29 a month–$ 12 more per month than Wix and$ 13 more per month than Squarespace. However, Wix’s lowest-tier plan does not offer e-commerce, and Squarespace’s base plan has much higher transaction costs than Shopify, so the extra money spent on Shopify may be worthwhile.
• Shopify offers more advanced e-commerce tools on its basic plan. The most affordable plans from Squarespace or Wix don’t include the email marketing tools, including abandoned cart recovery. In fact, you’ll need to buy a separate extension to run email marketing campaigns ( beyond abandoned cart recovery ) on Wix or Squarespace.
• Shopify is the only popular website builder with shipping discounts, which can save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars if you’re mailing out a lot of products.
• Both Shopify and Squarespace offer excellent storage and bandwidth, but neither does Shopify. Wix is the only one of these popular website builders that doesn’t offer unlimited storage.
• For a website builder, Shopify has average security, with an emphasis on ensuring compliance with e-commerce regulations.

Overall, Shopify provides good value for e-commerce websites, especially if you’re mailing out many physical products and can take advantage of the shipping discounts.

Shopify vs. traditional web hosts

In recent years, a number of traditional găzduire web companies have launched website builders. These website builders use the same pricing model as other plans offered by these companies, featuring steep introductory discounts for long-term contracts.

Cel/Cea/Cei/Cele Hostinger e-commerce website builder is a fantastic illustration of this. The plan starts at$ 4 a month and renews at$ 14 a month ( based on a four-year contract ) for full access to Hostinger‘s website builder and AI tools. You’ll also get email hosting for up to 100 custom email addresses ( like yourname@yourdomain.com ). You won’t receive any email marketing tools, and you’ll only be able to purchase 500 products. This means the Hostinger e-commerce website builder may not be your best choice for growing your business.

On the Basic plan, which starts at$ 10 per month and renews at$ 16 per month ( based on a one-year contract ), you can create up to 5, 000 products with the GoDaddy website builder. You’ll also get email marketing tools, but you’ll only be able to send 100 emails per month. This is a severe limitation when compared to Shopify’s unlimited email marketing.

Per total

With its unlimited storage, e-commerce tools, and email marketing software, Shopify’s overall value ranking is 8 out of 10. The starting plan is more expensive than most, but it comes with features you won’t get on other website builders ‘ basic plans and some features you can’t get anywhere else even on higher-tier plans.

Shopify: Is it best for you?

Here’s a quick roundup of Shopify’s performance in all of our testing categories:

• Ușurință în utilizare: 7/10
• Performance / 10 / 10
• Securitate: 10/10
• Customer service: 8/10
• Valoare: 8/10

Averaging these out gives Shopify an overall ranking of 8.4/10. In contrast, Wix received an 8 out of 10 rating, with its biggest flaws being its underwhelming customer support and limited storage space. Squarespace, another highly popular website builder, had great tools but poor customer service.

In light of this, Shopify is a wise choice if you want to create an online store. However, the premium you’ll pay– a minimum of$ 29 a month– isn’t worthwhile if your site isn’t focused on selling products, as you won’t use most of the features you’re paying for. I recommend choosing Wix sau Hostinger if you’re building a site focused on something other than sales.

In 2025, will Shopify still be worthwhile?

Yes, Shopify is still worth it in 2025, with e-commerce and email marketing tools justifying the relatively high cost of the basic plan. There are a few more affordable website builders that you might want to think about if you don’t plan to sell any goods on your website.

Afișează mai multe

What is Shopify’s price in 2025?

Plans for Shopify will start at$ 29 per month in 2025. This price requires you to pay for an entire year up front, which costs$ 348. Alternately, you can choose a month-by-month plan that costs$ 39 per month.

Afișează mai multe

Are there any alternatives that are better than Shopify?

Shopify is the best e-commerce website builder, but Hostinger offers the best website builder for sites not focused on sales. If you want to keep your product line small and your maintenance costs low, Hostinger’s e-commerce store builder can also be a wise choice.

Afișează mai multe

Should I move to Shopify?

If you want a sophisticated store builder with integrated marketing tools, you should think about switching to Shopify. Shopify’s also a great choice for anyone selling physical products, as the shipping discounts can save you a lot of money.

Afișează mai multe