I believe that many of my friends are very interested in Shopify, and people often ask if Shopify is profitable? , Is it necessary to invest a lot of money,And so on,
So let me tell you 4 things
you must know before starting shopify,hope to help some friends start e-commerce business faster.
Before starting today’s topic
You must konw the shopify’s record on Black Friday last year
There are 44 million consumers around the world buying goods from Shopify-supported shopping websites and direct-to-consumer brands.
Consumers spent an average of $90.7 per order, an increase of 31% over the same period last year.
As of August 2021, the company’s Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) was 95.1 million U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 67%;
Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) was $42.2 billion, a record high, an increase of 40% year-on-year; Gross Payment Volume (GPV) was $20.3 billion, accounting for 48% of GMV this quarter, and $13.4 billion in the same period last year, accounting for 45%.
Seeing these data are you eager to try,
But you haven’t started Shopify or you are still exploring,
Here I will introduce the introductory knowledge of Shopify in detail.
I will start with the following four issues that everyone is most concerned about
What is Shopify
Why choose shopify
How to start a Shopify startup
Shopify VS Amazon
Ok, what is Shopify first?
Shopify is a unique online sales business model,
You can simply understand that you have a website with your own domain name, your own server sells your own products, directly to consumers, without any platform at all.
And shopify is a website building tool, it can help you quickly build a professional cross-border e-commerce Shopify, and all you need is a computer with Internet access, log in
Register an account on the Shopify website, and then complete the basic settings, you can have a website of your own
Briefly introduce the history of shopify’s development,
Shopify was founded by Canadian Toby Lutke in 2006.
He is a ski enthusiast and wants to sell his skis online,
But because of the lack of a good e-commerce system, as a programmer, he wrote a program himself.
Later, he felt that the set of e-commerce software he developed might be a better-selling product than snowboards.
I guess the snowboard sales were not good at the time, otherwise there would be no shopify today
After 2010, it entered a stage of rapid development.
In December 2010, the first round of financing was 700W US dollars,
The second round of financing 1500W US dollars in October 2011,
The third round of financing 100 million US dollars in 2013,
This became one of the largest venture capital initiatives that occurred in the high-tech field at that time.
On May 21, 2015, Shopify went public in the United States, with a market value of US$2.14 billion.
And this year due to the impact of the epidemic, more and more people are starting to shop online or start a business
Shopfiy’s market value has exceeded 190 billion US dollars.
It is not an exaggeration to say that it is the fastest growing Internet company in 2021. Looking at the strong development data of Shopify, I believe you will have a more accurate judgment after reading it.
Of course, the site building tool is not only shopify. Magento, WooCommerce, Presta Shop, Open Cart, Oscommerce and EC Shop can all be used to build a website, and most of them are open source and free.
Shopify can create a professional foreign trade B2C website directly by applying for a login account and simple configuration, uploading and selling products to start brand building, without requiring you to have any technical background in website building.
The e-commerce system requires you to download the program system yourself or hire a website building company, purchase a server and install the system on the server, regularly perform security updates to the program system, backup data, and hardware equipment maintenance, etc., and then upload And sell products.
Therefore, in simple terms, the e-commerce system represented by Shopify is a very simple foreign trade B2C website building system. A simple system is not equivalent to a rudimentary system. On the contrary, Shopify has an unparalleled competitive advantage in many aspects-adaptive mobile terminal , Risk order control, multi-language, social network opening, etc.
Through Shopify, anyone can build their own professional cross-border e-commerce website. Then we know what Shopify is. Perhaps the most important thing everyone cares about is the cost.
If I choose shopify to start my cross-border e-commerce, how much does it cost to start a business? Many people think that shopfiy without traffic will definitely require high promotion expenses and costs may actually be completely different from what you think.
Let me introduce in detail how much does it cost to build a website with shopfiy? First, we divide the input cost into 3 parts.
First: fixed costs
Second: transaction costs
Third: marketing costs.
For example, if you want to open a store offline, store decoration, rent, and employee wages are fixed costs.
But in Shopify, this cost may be monthly rent + plus the subscription fee for the must-have app
Shopify monthly rent starts at $29
Domain name fee is about $10/year
Domain email fee is about 10-20 USD/year
Shopify theme fees are free to paid
Shopify App fees.
During the operation of your website, you will definitely need to install some free or paid apps to expand the functionality of our Shopify website. The price of paid apps is usually charged on a monthly basis, and the price range is very large. You have to install it according to your actual situation. Usually, the purpose of installing App is to increase the conversion rate of the website, increase the conversion rate of the website, provide personalized services to customers, or improve our own work efficiency 。
Transaction cost: It is the commission charged by shopify and the payment channel after you generate the transaction. This is because the cost of different payment methods is different. I use PayPal and shopify paymentStripe to illustrate if a customer buys in your store. A product with a unit price of US$100 per customer is the first to use PayPal to pay. PayPal will first charge a fee of 4.4%+$0.3, and your PayPal actual payment amount is US$95.3. Because you are using a third-party payment channel, assuming you are currently using a 29-dollar monthly rental plan, you need to pay 2% to Shopify, that is, a transaction fee of 100 US dollars * 2% = 2 US dollars (this fee is actually Sum up one month’s sales, and then deduct it from the credit card together with the monthly rent)
The second situation is that the customer uses a credit card to pay, and you use the Shopify Payment collection channel. Assuming you are using a monthly rental plan of 29 US dollars, the fee you need to pay is 100 US dollars * 2.9% + 0.3 = 3.4 US dollars , The fee has been deducted when the customer pays, so the actual amount received is 96.6 US dollars.
The third situation is that the customer uses a credit card to pay, but you are using a third-party credit card channel. Assuming you are using a monthly rental plan of 29 dollars, when the customer pays 100 dollars, the first thing you have to pay is the credit card collection The fee is 100 US dollars * 3.4% + 0.3 US dollars = 3.7 US dollars, and the actual amount received is 96.3 US dollars. Then you need to pay a 2% transaction fee to Shopify 100 USD*2%=2 USD. Above, all the expenses can be regarded as the operating expenses that you must pay to operate shopify. And these fees are related to your sales. The higher the sales, the higher the fees paid. Although the higher the sales, you can find PayPal, credit card collection channels and Payoneer for lower rates.
The third marketing cost is basically our advertising cost. This part of the cost can be large or small, and it is controllable. Specifically, because only with better performance, we will invest more advertising costs. Therefore, this part of the cost can directly bring benefits. The advertising method is more important, and we can explain it in depth in the later video.
In addition, there are of course the cost of purchases, logistics costs, and even warehousing, and employee salaries. These costs are all that we have done well and can be controlled. When you just start the company is not large When I get older, it is no longer in the category of beginner. The marketing cost of beginner is to set a stop loss point for myself. If my stop loss point is 3,000 US dollars, it means that I have invested 3,000 US dollars in the advertisement and there is no improvement. At this time I have to consider whether I am really suitable for Shopify, or I have to learn some more knowledge and then start advertising again. The above is about the cost of the investment required for beginner to do Shopify. Of course, for beginner , I think that besides investing money, the more important thing is learning ability and mentality.
I know that e-commerce is an industry that many people want to try. First of all, if you consider changing careers and entering a new field, you have to learn and master a lot of knowledge and skills to make money. It can be said that any industry is not friendly to beginner. If I transform from e-commerce to a traditional industry now , it would be difficult for me to adapt, but I think that as long as I am optimistic about this industry, in the long run, this industry has prospects for development. I am willing to devote time and energy to study and research. I believe I will grow up very quickly. The same is true for e-commerce. E-commerce should be one of the most popular industries recently. Learning ability is far from enough. The mentality of entrepreneurial success accounts for most of the reasons. We must think clearly before making decisions.
First of all, before we make a decision, is there any way that my friends may come to learn, I stand and I independently gave them my Shopify first lesson swot analysis, you want to analyze what are the advantages of doing Shopify by yourself?
There are more than a dozen people engaged in e-commerce, and 20% of the real money may be made. This is a reality that cannot be very real. If you accept failure, you’d better not start.
I will not tell you like other youtuber bloggers that you can make money by entering this industry, just like picking up money. I won’t tell you how long my friend has made sales.
1.So first of all newcomers come in, I hope you calm down. Entrepreneurship is by no means a success by enthusiasm.
2. If you can decide to do this after careful consideration and careful analysis, that’s good. Congratulations, you are half done.
For entrepreneurship, judgment and courage are far more important than wisdom and talent. If you want to learn and understand Shopify in depth, please follow and subscribe to my channel, I will continue to update some knowledge points about cross-border e-commerce and shopify,
Help you avoid detours. I know that some friends have come to ask me about the similarities and differences between Shopify and the platform.
Let’s focus on this below. I will take shopify as an example for dropshipping, and Amazon as an example for the platform. Compare the two cross-border e-commerce models and similarities and differences in terms of ease of use, price, features, and customer support.
The first thing to be clear is that shopify is a dedicated e-commerce platform and Amazon is an online market.
What is the platform, Shopify provides you with the tools to build your own online store, and Amazon allows you to sell together with other online sellers through its marketplace. Selling through Amazon is like having a booth at a famous shoe show. Thousands of people flock to browse and buy-most of them are not particularly looking for your company, but since everyone walks over and sees your booth, you can still make a lot of money. This is the essential difference between the two modes.
1. Policy restrictions. As a platform, the products you sell must meet Amazon’s requirements. From the editing of product categories and product listings to picture settings, they must follow Amazon’s policies. Every time you list a product, you need to be reviewed by Amazon. Only products that have passed the review can be sold normally, while the products on Shopify are more free and allow you to play more space.
2. The difficulty of getting started Amazon first requires high qualifications for opening an account, a business license, a registered trademark, and it is easy to review the store. A novice will consume a lot of energy just to learn platform operations, upload products, and price basic operations, not to mention, Knowledge of operations, advertising, and product selection. In contrast, shopify is very simple to get started. I will post some videos to teach you how to use shopify to build a website and update, so you are welcome to subscribe to my channel and don’t miss these wonderful content.
3.Customer resources It can be said that in terms of customer resources, shopify has unparalleled advantages. We all know the European and American e-commerce platforms. We don’t like to let sellers directly contact customers. Any communication between you and customers must go through the platform. From the perspective of the platform, it certainly does not want sellers to dig its corners and guide customers to other places for transactions. So in essence, for the platform, the buyer is its most precious resource, so it is impossible for it to give this resource to the seller. If Shopify’s traffic is all you find yourself, this problem does not exist, and it is easier to form your own private domain traffic. You are directly facing buyers and communicating directly with buyers. It is also easier to form a brand effect.
4.Traffic As a monthly traffic exceeding 2 billion, more than half of American households have joined Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce platform for Prime members, which is undoubtedly attractive to small and medium-sized sellers. It can be said that Amazon is a mountain that cannot be bypassed when doing e-commerce. Even if you are not an Amazon seller, you also need to understand Amazon’s rules and its algorithms. This is a height that Shopify can’t reach, but it also means that Amazon’s competition is much higher than Shopify. Shopify’s traffic sources are diversified, Facebook ads, Google ads, seo, various marketing, or social media. In short, In terms of traffic operation, there is more diversification and higher requirements for sellers.
5. Operating Model Amazon’s most famous is called flywheel theory (flywheel), which is a closed loop that can start from any point but has no end. What the Amazon platform has to do is to provide consumers with more choices and convenience in the selection process, and the rich selection and convenience are to achieve a good customer experience, when customers shop in the Amazon shopping process If the experience is good enough, customers will become Amazon’s free promoters. Through word-of-mouth, they will influence people around them to join Amazon’s shopping army, thus achieving an increase in traffic or even a geometric double. In this way, an Amazon platform with a large enough traffic , It can naturally attract more suppliers to join in, and the participation of more sellers not only enriches the product category, but also reduces the price of the products on the platform from the level of competition. There are more sellers, lower prices, and more Low prices also further improve consumer satisfaction. This circular process continues to occur, and the Amazon platform continues to grow along this flywheel-like cycle. Shopify is a completely different concept. Compared with Amazon, shopify is more like a decentralized model all the time. There is no center, and everyone can connect to each other through this center. Compared with Amazon, Shopify is an asset-light model. It does not require you to make inventory and does not hold down the money. The money back cycle is much faster than the platform. These all determine the selection and gameplay of Shopify, and there is a big gap between it and the platform. See here if you should have a basic understanding of shopify, you should know how to choose and how to start your own shopfiy business. If you think what I’m talking about is something you are interested in, please subscribe to my channel and like this video. If you have other thoughts and opinions, please leave a message at the bottom of the video to communicate with me. I will reply seriously to every message. Thank you all, today’s sharing is over here.
