Is Shopify a Good Platform?
Background | Migrating from Etsy to Shopify
Why I moved my Antique & Vintage items business from Etsy to Shopify
One fine day, after being on Etsy for about 3 years with zero negative feedback, I was locked out of my account - suspended. No reason was given other than violation of their policies. No reference to a specific policy, no warning, nada. Calls and emails to their tech support were ignored and I kept receiving generic email responses - canned template responses all saying that their suspension of my account was final. Eventually, I found an email address for their ‘Trust & Integrity’ team and they reinstated my account saying they were sorry but, gave no reason as to why my Etsy store was suspended in the first place. Also, Etsy came up with a mandatory participation requirement in their offsite ads. If in the past 12 trailing months, your total store sales are $10,000 or more, you HAVE TO pay for offsite ads that show your products and result in a sale. And, no, you don’t get a choice as to which products you want to advertise offsite. Etsy decides. So, products with different profit margins are advertised whether it makes sense or not.
The above disaster with Etsy led me to realize how dependent I was on it, how I had all my ‘eggs’ in one basket. So, I decided to reduce that dependency by shifting my eCommerce store to Shopify. I still use Etsy but, it is no longer the foundation of my online presence (Shopify is my hub and I have multiple spokes of which Etsy is one).
So far, here are my impressions of Shopify:
Setting up an account on Shopify - is fairly straightforward.
Importing items from Etsy to Shopify - sweet! Easy. No re-entering all the products or images though, for some items, it did not import the images so, I had to re-upload them. It also allows you to import past orders and Customer information.
Shopify allows you to set up various sales channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, eBay, Amazon, Walmart, and, Google Merchant Center, etc.
Setting up Facebook sales channel - fairly straightforward from the Shopify end. On the Facebook end, you may have some challenges depending on how you have your Facebook account and business page and Business Manager and Commerce Manager setup. Products from Shopify will show up under Shop on your FB business page. Checkout can be selected for Shopify or Facebook. Same for Instagram. I recommend sticking with checkout in one place - Shopify mainly because of simplicity and to avoid the unrealistic policies of Facebook & Instagram.
Instagram setup - is also fairly straightforward once you have the Facebook part figured out. Products from your Shopify account will show up on the Instagram shop.Pinterest set up - a bit hairy if you already have an existing Pinterest account. I suggest first creating a Pinterest business profile and then logging into it from Shopify. This will then allow you to sell products on Pinterest though I have still not been able to get that piece working.
eBay set up - horrendous. Took endless attempts and even though Shopify claims that it has toll-free phone support, don’t hold your breath. They insist on responding through email and screenshots and it is one frustrating experience. There are so many bugs that it makes me wonder if I should have even used Shopify to export the products from Shopify to eBay and instead used a different import method into eBay (a 3rd party integration tool). For example, Shopify insists on marking ALL your eBay products as ‘New.’ If you want to change them to ‘Used,’ you have to do them individually. Think 125 products. Right, you get the picture. Next, even though you exclude a product from being available in the eBay channel, it has no impact meaning that it will show up on the eBay publish screen in Shopify. Why? Because of a bug in the Shopify API for eBay, they have found out that restricting the eBay sales channel in Shopify makes the eBay experience painfully slow. The solution? Pay for a 3rd party integration with eBay to address the bug-ridden Shopify to eBay integration. eBay charges 12-15% (average) commission on your sales depending on what category your product falls under.
Amazon Seller Central set up - all said and done, Amazon is by far the most expensive platform to have a presence on. It charges $39.95 to have a seller account with the ability to connect your Shopify store product feed to automatically synchronize the inventory, description, prices, images, etc. Shopify requires a 3rd party solution to connect to Amazon Seller Central. Typically, such solutions charge a monthly fee based on either the SKUs or the number of products your Shopify store has, or how many orders you are processing through the integration. So, you have to add that cost to the cost of $39.95 charged by Amazon. Then, there is the approximately 17-20% commission including free shipping required to be competitive on Amazon. The other challenge with selling on Amazon is dealing with abusive buyers who file dubious claims and Amazon happily refunds them - at your expense. If you are a small or medium-sized business, this could severely impact your profitability. If you sell specialty products, be careful of using Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) as wrong quantities may be shipped to buyers, wrong products may be shipped to buyers and returns or refunds happen generously at your expense.
Walmart Seller Marketplace - a half-baked selling platform. Barely ready for prime-time. The platform problems are legendary. Not sure why they keep introducing new features without fixing their core platform which is slow and updates to inventory and prices are a hit or miss. That holds true whether you use a 3rd party integration tool or do updates directly on the Seller Marketplace portal. While they rush to compete with Amazon and Target online, only the bigger merchants that have the budget to use a 3rd party integration tool stand a better chance of succeeding on their platform. Tech support is dismal. Every time you contact them, you have to provide a feed number from their platform, to provide screenshots along with a description of the issue. Then, you get an automated response or acknowledgment. Then, a human responds and asks you to provide the information again. Another major problem is that if you sell products with UPC, no matter what text description and images you may have on your Shopify store, the Walmart system will only use the information that it has in its system - whatever and whoever (a merchant) that created a listing for the first time with that UPC becomes the gospel for that UPC. You have to jump through hoops to correct the information and or images. You have to provide links to external websites to substantiate your changes. Oftentimes, the tech support folks are not familiar with the authority and credibility of such external sources and question their credibility while lacking knowledge of the product. For example, Adorama and B&H are the world’s top 2 (largest) photography equipment stores. When Walmart Seller Marketplace tech support was provided links to correct inaccurate descriptions of a product (based on what was already in their system previously entered by another merchant), support went on to question the credibility of Adorama and B&H. At that point, I just gave up. So, I maintain a presence on Walmart but, do little volume on there.
Google Merchant Center - Saving the best for last. I will write more on this when time permits. In the meantime, you can reach me at (956) 492-7140 by first texting me and I will call back.
