@amandathewebdev
Apologies for the late response. We were rolling out a new product line and things have gotten a bit hectic (in a good way).
As for my choice regarding Shopify, I have used many other eCommerce platforms in the past starting from my old Joomla days (~10 years ago) with the free Virtumart and then eventually moving on to Hikashop. While they did the job of serving as an eCommerce platform, both of those options were limited in what they could do in regards to reporting transactions and overall visitor engagement so it was difficult to discern where we were experiencing drop and what we needed to correct or improve on.
I finally made my move over to WordPress and have been utilizing it for the past 6 or so years. I decided to go with Marketpress as the eCommerce platform and while it offered more options it was a bit difficult to deal with and integrate into our set up, however, I must say the customer service was top-notch. I stayed with using Marketpress for the next few years but once again the biggest issue was reporting eCommerce activity and visitor engagement while also trying to tie-in social media initiatives and campaigns to certain product offerings. It was just too simple of a platform at the time (they may have since made some great strides since then though).
When I finally made my way to tackling the Ironclad eCommerce site the eCommerce platform it was working off of was a proprietary platform that placed many of the reporting features, payment gateway options and even simple layout changes behind a paywall. This wasn’t something I was used to, especially coming from such an open-source platform like WordPress.
After reviewing several eCommerce platforms in order to replace the one in place I was down to two platforms – Magento and Shopify. I was very much leaning towards Magento at the time due to it being such an open-source platform and having a greta supporting community. However, I had to come to terms with the fact this was would be my first experience with it and I wouldn’t have the time to compensate for a learning-curve, moreover, nor would I have the luxury of making any mistakes as we process quite a few online orders and the avalanche I would cause if I disrupted that channel would be unacceptable.
So, I investigated Shopify a bit more as it was a dedicated eCommerce platform running on, what looked to be – and confirmed to be, a stable environment – that required little set up on my behalf in regards to integration in a WordPress set up, customized reporting features that showed much of the data that I had always desired without any complex Google Analytics set up, a robust inventory management system and when I noticed they were offering embeds to products and cart integration I figured that this was the direction to go in order to get the desired results quickly while also minimizing any potential mistakes or challenges that may arise while deploying our new website face and store.
Don’t get me wrong, it certainly came with it’s own hiccups such as there being only one button embed style so if you had a dark site, like we do, it would look severely out of place. There were several other issues, many of them cosmetic but some were actual layout conflicts, that had to be ironed out or are still being tweaked but the Shopify dev team was surprisingly responsive with the issues I were bringing to them and they were on it quickly.
As we stand now, we have a solid and stable eCommerce platform that allows us the flexibility to work with whatever platform we are decide to use, we have some excellent integration with our social media channels now that allow us to sell directly through our Shopify store, we pay less than what we were paying on the previous eCommerce platform and I have my sanity. The last item certainly being the most important because I can now focus on running the marketing division, deploying strategic & creative promotional campaigns and make sound adjustments to our WordPress set up as needed in order to accommodate the ever-changing online retail space.
In the end, it all comes down to what works for you and what you are comfortable with, but I think if I hadn’t gone through so much of my previous eCommerce experiences back in the day I wouldn’t be so appreciative of they strides that the Shopify platform offers. And, based on my almost-daily conversations with their dev team, giving feedback on their embed button program, I am confident that this will only evolve and provide more features in the future.
