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Shopify vs Own Website: What is the best option for e-commerce?

Introduction

Are you trying to decide whether to use Shopify or your own website for your eCommerce business? The answer to this question is not so simple. It really depends on the specific needs of your business and your budget. Whether you are just starting out or an experienced business owner, understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each platform can be difficult, but it is essential to make the right decision.

In this article, we’re going to take a deep dive into Shopify and first-party websites, so you can make an informed decision about which one is best for your ecommerce business. We’ll talk about the pros and cons of both, as well as the cost of implementation, maintenance, flexibility, and much more. By the time you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll be much more familiar with both platforms and their respective advantages for your eCommerce business.

Shopify and Woocommerce overview

When it comes to ecommerce, the two main contenders are Shopify and Woocommerce. Both have their own pros and cons, so let’s take a closer look at them.

Shopify is an all-in-one platform that makes it incredibly easy to create an online store in no time. Plus, you have access to hundreds of tools, apps, and themes to help you customize your store the way you want. On the downside, Shopify has a monthly fee to use its services.

Woocommerce is a free, open source platform that can be integrated with WordPress websites. It gives you more flexibility and control over how your store looks and functions than other eCommerce platforms. However, this also means there’s a bit more of a learning curve as you have to set everything up yourself.

Advantages and Disadvantages of a Own Website vs Shopify

So should you go for Shopify or your own website for your eCommerce business? Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of each.

 

Shopify

  • Pros: Shopify is a great platform for creating an online store quickly and easily. It provides a ton of great features to help you customize your store, from themes and plugins to payment options and much more. It also integrates well with other services like Facebook, Instagram, and Google Shopping.
  • Cons: The biggest drawback to Shopify is that it has a lot of costs associated with it, from the cost of hosting to transaction fees, which can add up over time. And if you really want to customize your store, you’ll likely have to pay even more for extra help with coding or design.

Own websites

  • Advantages: With a proprietary website, such as one built on WordPress or WooCommerce, you have full control over all aspects of the site, including design and features. This also means there are no transaction fees associated with it, nor do you have to pay extra if you need help customizing it.
  • Cons: Building your own site is much more expensive than using Shopify and takes significantly longer to create. Plus, since you’re responsible for everything from hosting to security updates to backups, there’s a higher risk of something going wrong down the road.

Costs Associated with Creating Your Own Website and Shopify

It’s important to evaluate the costs associated with building your own website and using Shopify. As with any financial decision, you want to make sure that you are investing your money wisely.

When it comes to creating your own site, there are three main costs associated with it:

  1. Development:Developing a web platform from scratch is not cheap and requires the services of specialized personnel and custom designs. This is one of those expenses that can add up quickly if you’re not careful.
  2. Accommodation Services:Hosting services allow your website to stay up and running on the Internet by providing necessary maintenance functions, security features, updates and backups. The cost of hosting will depend on the size of your database, as well as the complexity of your website design.
  3. Maintenance:Along with hosting services, there are other maintenance costs associated with running your own website. This includes making sure everything is working properly (such as page speed), functionality, updating plug-ins and content, keeping up with SEO techniques, and so on.

On the other hand, Shopify is an all-in-one platform that saves you time by integrating everything you need (such as hosting services) into one package, and often at a fraction of the cost compared to building a website. own from scratch. You also don’t need to be an expert in web development or coding to understand how Shopify works – all the apps available on this platform are easy to use.

Hosting and Security Considerations When Using Shopify or Your Own Website

If you’re considering Shopify or building your own website, hosting and security considerations may be important factors for you.

When it comes to web hosting, Shopify takes care of everything for you. All the technical part behind the scenes is already done, so all you have to worry about is running your store. And, speaking of security, Shopify takes care of that too. They provide advanced encryption and security measures to keep your customer data safe and secure.

On the other hand, using your own website for e-commerce means you have to buy web hosting, which can be tricky if you’ve never done it before, and manage your own security features. You’ll need to make sure your site’s encryption is up to date and working properly to maintain the trust of your customers.

When it comes to hosting and security, both solutions have their pros and cons. Do some research and weigh the options before making a decision between Shopify or your own website for your eCommerce needs.

Ease of use when using Shopify or your own website

When it comes to ease of use, Shopify has exactly what you need to set up a store quickly and efficiently. It is very easy to use, with a step-by-step setup process that does not require much technical knowledge. You can choose between different themes, add products and create discount codes as you need. It also integrates with a wide range of third-party apps—from payment processors to customer management tools—so you can customize your store without having to start from scratch.

On the other hand, when using your own website for e-commerce, the configuration process is more complex and requires more technical knowledge. You’ll need to hire a web developer or designer to build the site to your specifications and make sure it integrates well with the payment processor, customer management system, and other features you want. The result is a website fully tailored to your business, but it can be time consuming and expensive compared to Shopify.

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Tools for digital transformation

¿What is digitization?

During the last decades we have witnessed a series of social, economic and technological changes. Technology has surely been the most determining factor in these changes. The technological advances developed during this period have influenced almost all aspects of life, especially pushed by the beginning of the pandemic and the expansion of social networks, workflows have seen the need for digital transformation.

Digitization are actions where traditional companies implement in their processesDigital tools, changing common activities that are carried out manually to automate them with digital tools, obtaining benefits such as reducing costs, working in more organized and efficient ways, improving customer service, among others.

¿Why is it important for companies?

Nowadays, companies cannot sustain their activity solely with a physical environment, since for any business model it is important to take advantage of technological tools to move from complex processes to a simple automated process. Applying and using all the tools that technology offers us can facilitate the user experience, providing the benefits that digital transformation brings us and allowing us to accelerate work processes that can consume more time than normal.

An example is an ecommerce (online store) that works very well on mobile devices can increase your sales and reach places where it would be physically very limited.

Applying digital tools correctly in your company can be the key to success in your business. Some advantages are:

  • Improve customer experience
  • Immediate delivery of information
  • organization at work
  • Immediate communication
  • Market analysis
  • Information for Decision Making
  • Team management
  • Productivity increase
  • Reduce costs
  • Less risk of errors

Digitizing Tools For Businesses

 To understand what this tool consists of, we must first be clear about the concept of digitization, which consists of representing information digitally.Normally we live in an analog world in which diverse information is constantly being received.

Virtually everything can be “made digital Texts, images, music… anythingType of information also referring to work processes, techniquesInternal operation etc.

Business transformation is a business strategy that is related to change management and is looking for a company to achieve desired goals. This change initiative implies a constant update and a digital transformation that entails changes linked to global advances. For this, each action has a fundamental objective when applying a new technique in a company, as well as solving the challenges that digitalization brings and being able to choose strategies or tools that apply according to budgets, objectives or organizational culture.

Below you can see a wide variety of digital tools for the transformation of your company:soul

 File storage

DROP BOX: It is a cloud storage service which is used to host files in the same organizational culture, it is available in a Web version for any device.

GOOGLE DRIVE:It is used to create and save files online, where the basic plan includes a capacity of up to 30 GB of storage ·     

GOOGLE WORKSPACE (EX-G-SUITE):It is one of the favorite tools to store all Google files in the cloud like, Google Sheets spreadsheets, Google Docs documents, Google Slides presentations and other types of documents.

 

Social networks 

HOOSITE:This platform is used to analyze social media strategies and measure reports and be able to evaluate results, it is an automation tool that allows you to program publications on social networks such as: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and to be able to add statistical comments and much more.   

Manage relationship with clients·     

 SALESFORCE:It is a software that allows us to manage all the information of a client in the same History, monitor activities of your work team, assign tasks to specific people. 

HUBSPOT CRM:Software specialized in marketing and sales. Its objective is to promote the growth of your business. It is free and allows you to observe the entire business flow thanks to its activity and contact records, since you can synchronize it with your Gmail and Outlook accounts.

 

Payment gateways:

PAYPAL:It is one of the best known payment gateways, where payments are processed and authorized for your business. If your business has clients abroad, PayPal is your option as it allows you to make payments in more than 200 countries.

 

STRIP:This application is used to receive payments online. You can connect your website with a bank account and thus charge directly from your website.

Business management

GOOGLE MY BUSINESS:This tool is key so that your potential clients can get to know you beforehand. It allows you to create a kind of “file” with detailed information about your organization such as,

Address, description, hours, contact, website.

 

CLICK FUNNELS:It is used to create and design your funnels or sales funnels. This will help you when analyzing which phase of the funnel each client is in and what the digital strategy should be like for each of them.

 

CONSULTOK:It serves to validate decisions quickly and efficiently, Consultok is a technological platform that connects decision makers with experts willing to advise them. How does it work? They connect you with more than 200 experts from different fields so that you can ask them questions, resolve doubts or make queries that you will receive through personalized video messages.}

 

Projects management :

TRELLO:This tool consists of a customizable board that is used to create, assign and track tasks on different created cards. You can apply the Scrum methodology wave Kanban methodology.

ASANA:This work management platform focuses on goals, projects and daily tasks through the planning and structuring of a project. It has a schedule to establish priorities and deadlines for meeting goals.

 

Project automation:

ZAPIER:This tool allows you to unify all your websites and automate the different platforms used in your company.

MONDAY:It is a customizable dashboard that is used to manage projects, workflows and daily tasks but allows you to have a panoramic view of all the processes. You can also make reports using the calendar to schedule tasks for each person on your team

WORD PRESS:The most recognized CMS (Content Management System) worldwide, allows you to create and host your website, as well as the creation and management of written content to position it in search engines such as Google.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS:It is a tool for the analysis of metrics and specific data of your website. You can review all its statistics such as visits, most viewed pages, users, bounce rate, sales, etc.

CANVAS:It is used to design, edit and publish graphic material that will accompany your communications on different social networks. It has a wide variety of templates and images, as well as being a very intuitive tool, so you don’t need to be a great expert to start using it.

 Digital marketing:

MailChimp:Tool for email marketing, It serves to automate campaigns through email. It is one of the best known tools in digital marketing that you can use to improve the campaigns of your business or company.

Google Ads:It works for any business or company regardless of its size, Google Ads is a very powerful tool that can help your business achieve its goals.

SEMrush:It is a tool that helps increase the online visibility of the company’s website through SEO strategies. Helping to increase organic traffic from search engines like Google.

At SMG Creativos we help your company or business to grow digitally, Contact us.