Shopify is great way to get your eCommerce business up-and-running quickly and cost-effectively. Yet, here at Brain Bytes we often hear from companies that got started with Shopify and are beginning to outgrow it.
Here are the most common Shopify limitations we see:
- Checkout flow: Shopify offers very few customization for checkout flow. If you want to do something different than the default, there’s a good chance that you just can’t. For example, you can’t do one-step checkout in Shopify which could be costing you as much as 22% of your conversions.
- Limited ecosystem: Compared to platforms like WooCommerce and Magento, the Shopify ecosystem is very small and many plugins require additional monthly fees, adding significant cost over time.
- Contact forms: Contact forms don’t let you specify the subject line or email address that information is sent to.
- URL Structure: Shopify URLs aren’t always ideal for SEO and tend to have unnecessary “junk” in them, for example “/pages/” precedes all page URLs, offering no real value for users.
- Category limitations: Shopify does not support multi-level categories beyond two (2) levels and the workarounds for this tend to get confusing.
- No manual order placement: There’s currently no way to create orders manually as an administrator. For vendors that may need to take orders over the phone, this can be a serious impediment.
Though it takes a little more effort up-front, at Brain Bytes we usually prefer WooCommerce because of its infinite flexibility and ability to scale from simple “Shopify” style websites up to true enterprise level eCommerce. There are no design limitations such as the ones found in Shopify, and virtually all aspects of your website can be customized to meet your businesses needs, however simple or complex.
If you are looking to build a future-ready eCommerce website, contact us for a free consultation!
