Do you have products to sell? Do you want to sell them online? Know right away that this can be a little confusing and a little complicated for you to do it yourself. And for that reason you are wanting to know more about what Shopify is. And how does this online sales platform work.

If you don't have a platform like this, then you can choose to create your own website starting from absolute zero, but be aware that this can take some time, not to mention the investment. Because if you don't know how to do it, then you will have to hire a professional freelance web designer to do it for you.

And the other option you have then is to use a Content Management System, or CMS, which can help you with some tasks making things a little more automated for you.

However, this other option mentioned above may not work for everyone, especially for those people who know nothing and do not want to venture into the world of Seo applying techniques to position the site in the best search results, among other things.

So the only solution you have left is Shopify, which is a super complete platform for virtual stores, which will offer you several necessary tools to make everything easier for you to manage. So, let's learn all about this platform?

What is Shopify?

So it's time for you to know that it is a great E-commerce platform that will allow you or anyone else to be able to sell your products on the internet.

This platform is an excellent alternative, promising its users much more practicality than having to create their own sales store, not to mention that it is also the most profitable way to sell online. marketplace sites such as Olx, Mercado Livre and eBay.

The platform offers its users many services, such as: payment methods with a transparent checkout, tools to engage customers, marketing tools, business name generator, product delivery system and much more.

All these and other functionalities offered by Shopify to its users will help and even simplify the administration of smaller online stores.

Discover the history of the platform:

Now that you know what she is, let's tell you a little about her story, which is also interesting and important. Shopify was created in the year 2004 by Tobias Lutke.

That at that time he owned a snowboarding company, and needed to sell them, but that would certainly be a great challenge to accomplish. Mainly because it does not have a simple and easy-to-use E-commerce platform.

But as at that time there were still no services of the kind to be able to meet this demand, so he himself made the decision to create his own platform.

And for this feat he had the brilliant help of Scott Lake and Daniel Weinand who are also the co-founders of the platform. So they used the open source web application framework (Ruby on Rails). And after 2 months of development together, they finally created the platform.

In the beginning it had another name, it was called Snowdevil, which in turn was the name of the snowboard shop that Lutke had. But in 2006 the platform was definitively called Shopify. It would then be a new name to better represent the market niche of the surfboard company.

But in 2015 it then decided to go public, and thus entered the New York stock market in the USA, and Toronto in Canada. In the cities of the United States, they started with their shares valued at $ 28 million dollars, a value that was much higher than the initial offer value, which was no more than $ 17 million dollars.

However, its (IPO) Initial Public Offering managed to raise just over $ 131 million dollars. And now, in the year 2021, they already have more than 1 million virtual stores fully operational in more than 175 countries around the world.

All of them together have already achieved an amount of no less than $ 40 billion dollars in online sales, and that number continues to rise.

How it works:

So now that you've known the history of the platform, and you already know what it is, it's time for you to know how it really works. It's really good to understand everything about it if you really intend to use it.

As you might already be guessing, to start using the platform you need to have 1 or even several products to sell, because the coolest thing is that the platform allows you to sell different types of products.

You can either choose to sell physical products, which maybe you or your company already manufacture, and another option is to sell digital products (infoproducts). For example, online courses, e-books that can be downloaded, audio files, among others.

And if you have skills in some areas, such as coaching, for example, then you can also use the platform to sell your consulting services online. The platform also gives you some tips on some products and categories for you to sell in your store, such as online classes and rentals, such as travel and suits, or tickets for some experiences such as tasting wine and traveling.

But before selling them around, make sure they can be sold in your country, so you will avoid future headaches. The platform is very easy and simple to use, even for beginners, as all you have to do is register on their website and then do a brief configuration in your store. And it will be ready to be used.

The platform provides beautiful themes for you to make your online store look beautiful, and with the layout design with your face, after that, just start adding the products and make the necessary final simple settings to finally be able to put your store permanently on the air.

And the last step is for you to buy and register a domain (store name), which will be your internet address. After that, your customers and visitors will be able to access your Shopify store and make their purchases online.

How much does it cost to use the platform:

If by chance you are still not sure that this is the ideal E-commerce platform for your type of business, then you can take a free trial offered by them, which lasts for 14 days. And for that, you don't even need to fill in your card information. Currently, the company offers its users 3 different plans, which in turn meet different needs, which are:

Basic plan:

The basic plan is designed for a smaller online store, where 2 administrators can have access. And this plan costs $ 29 dollars monthly. Essential for beginners or online stores that are just getting started.

Intermediate plan:

The medium plan allows access to up to 5 people, costs $ 79 dollars per month, this plan provides reports at a very professional level. And it even reduces transaction fees from 2 to 1%. So let's say this subscription is for medium online stores.

Advanced plan:

And for the big online stores they offer the monthly subscription for $ 299 dollars, which is the advanced plan. This plan gives access to up to 15 administrators, and even allows the generation of even more advanced data reports, calculation of the freight value by the third-party application. And it also reduces the financial transaction fee to 0.5% for you.

Conclusion:

After reading this short article, you certainly now know what Shopify is and how it works e-commerce platform it works. It is nothing more than a great platform, with more than 1 million users worldwide, with many stores running on it.

But maybe it's not what you're looking for, on the other hand it might be the platform you were looking for, but if you decide to use it, then our recommendation is that you start with the free trial period to get to know all the features available .

And if by chance you really think that this platform is for you and serves your business, then just subscribe to a plan that matches your needs, and the needs of your store.

So that's it, we're done here, we hope you enjoyed this content more, and that it was useful to you in some way. We're done here, big hug and success?