The Hidden Costs of Running a Shopify Store

Shopify is an e-commerce platform for businesses selling their products and services online. With Shopify’s subscription-based model, you can create a website and offer managed e-commerce solutions to your customers.

Despite the platform’s popularity, there are many reasons why it’s not the most suitable choice for your e-commerce startup.

5 Reasons Why Shopify is Too Expensive for Your E-commerce Business

1. High Development Costs

Since Shopify is a hosted e-commerce platform, you have limited options when it comes to your store’s design and functionality. If you want to make significant back-end and front-end improvements to your store’s design or coding, you’ll need to hire a Shopify developer. A Shopify developer can charge anything between $4000 and $10,000 for website development. In addition to this, you may also have to pay for web design and content management. For the cost of this development, you would probably have been better off developing your own customized website!

2. Limited Customization Options

It’s no secret that the design of your online store is important. A well-designed website can draw the attention of your prospective customers. Even though Shopify does have some attractive themes, there are only a limited number of themes in the official Shopify theme store. This means that your online store could end up looking exactly like your competitor’s, making it harder to build brand recognition.

3. Expensive Plugins

Shopify users have to depend largely on add-on apps and plugins, most of which are very pricey when compared to the plugins and integrations available on tossdown. While Shopify seems to be a good option for e-commerce startups, it may actually be counterproductive to a growing business. Overtime, you’ll need a variety of plugins for conversions and inventory management; these costs will add up so you wind up paying for more than the entire Shopify service.

4. Commission Charges

Shopify charges a commission fee for all online purchases. The percentage of the fee depends on your subscription plan. You will be charged a 2% fee on all transactions if you subscribe to the Basic Shopify plan,a 1% fee on all Standard Shopify plan transactions, and a 0.5% fee on all Advanced Shopify plan transactions.

5. Content Management Limitations

All business owners know very well that content is king. Unfortunately, however, Shopify is not a content management system and does not allow you to execute effective content marketing campaigns. If you want to upload rich content such as images, texts, and videos, Shopify is not the right platform for you.

tossdown | A Cost-effective One-stop Shop

The answer is right in front of you! tossdown is an affordable e-commerce platform offering commission-free sales and orders, inventory management solutions, and real-time data that caters to your unique business needs.

Here’s why we believe that tossdown is the best alternative to Shopify when it comes to fulfilling your online business requirements.

1. No Developer Required

tossdown offers managed e-commerce solutions – we entirely manage the server side to resolve bugs and fixes. There’s no need for you to hire a developer to sort out any back and front-end issues on your website. We’ll do it for you. Our team provides dedicated 24/7 support to take care of our customers and servers.

2. More Customization Options

With our clear and intuitive user navigation, we make digital interaction as fluid and efficient as possible. We do not have any default themes on our tossdown store; they’re mostly customized, tailored to the exact needs of each individual business. Our layout is simple, clean, and clearly incorporates all elements important to your brand identity.

3. Free Plugins

One of the worst things about most e-commerce platforms is that they are missing basic features so users have to pay for add-on apps and pricey plugins. tossdown offers hundreds of plugins, most of which are completely free, to improve the functionality of your online business.

4. Zero Commission

Does zero commission sound too good to be true? Well, it’s not! Take your business online without any transaction fee. Our commission-free model ensures affordable website development services – perfect for startups and growing businesses!

5. One-stop Solution

All in all, tossdown offers a one-stop solution for all your e-commerce needs. With in-house implementation, we provide a platform for our clients to benefit from marketing and development services simultaneously instead of running around to a dozen firms to complete each item. By offering a comprehensive range of services at reasonable prices in one location, we hope to achieve a correspondingly higher level of client satisfaction.

Conclusion

To sum it up, Shopify started off as a user-friendly and affordable e-commerce platform for startups and small businesses. However, when you factor in expensive plugins and commission charges, it becomes counterproductive to growing businesses. If you’re searching for an alternative that is financially sustainable in the long-run, tossdown is the way to go. It is at par with Shopify in terms of features and functionality, without the added expense of costly plugins and add-on apps.

Interested, yet? Head over to our website and start exploring!