What is Shopify?

Shopify is a platform that lets you quickly and easily build a website for selling products and services online (an online store of your own).  

Opening a physical store involves high costs for rent, renovation, design, merchandise, inventory and more. Now you can tell everyone you have a store of your own, one you set up easily, quickly and for a modest monthly fee.

It is also a subscription-based ecommerce platform that helps businesses of all sizes sell physical and digital products. You can build a Shopify store or sell through an existing website. You can also sell through social media, blog posts, email and in person with the Shopify Buy Button.

Sign up for Shopify and start with a free trial

Shopify is considered the most popular platform in the world thanks to several advantages:

 

1. It's easy to use and works for you even if you're not a developer.

Everything comes ready to go - the designs, the domain, the hosting and the payment processing connection - with no code and no prior technical knowledge needed.

2. Shopify offers a selection of themes for your store.

Shopify gives you more than 12 free themes that adapt to every device - desktop, tablet and mobile - so your customers enjoy a high-quality shopping experience.

3. A convenient interface for managing your store

Shopify offers a range of management tools, including inventory management, content management, data management, customer service, shipping services and more. Together they give you the information you need to run your online store and grow its profits.

4. Shopify helps you market.

The platform connects to the largest advertising systems, such as Google and Facebook, so you can promote your online store and reach broad audiences.

How much does it cost to open a Shopify store?

Shopify offers several subscription plans, suited to everyone from beginners to large businesses. Subscription prices

vary by plan and by country (check Shopify's pricing page for current prices), with plenty of features and a short free trial.

Here are some of the plans:

1. Basic (BASIC, formerly Basic Shopify) 

Suitable for people who want to start building an online store while still getting to know the platform. This plan includes access to Shopify support agents and, of course, everything you need to set up a store 

The cost of this plan is $39 per month ($29 per month when billed yearly) + a 2% fee on sales made through a third-party payment provider (current pricing, subject to change)

2. The Grow plan (formerly the regular Shopify plan) 

This plan suits anyone who has reached a certain revenue level and wants to pay less - about 1% of monthly revenue - plus more seats for additional users and broader reporting The cost of this plan is $105 per month ($79 per month when billed yearly) + a 1% fee on sales made through a third-party payment provider (current pricing, subject to change)

3. The ADVANCED plan (formerly Advanced Shopify)

The plan costs $399 per month ($299 per month when billed yearly; current pricing, subject to change) and lowers the fee charged when you use a third-party payment provider to 0.6% of revenue, with access for up to 15 additional users. 

It also combines the basic features with advanced reports that help you track and understand how visitors behave in your store

 

Want to get started?

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Shopify Lite, a plan for sellers who didn't want or need a full online store, was discontinued in 2022, but Shopify's current plans also let you add a sales element almost anywhere, including:

1. Social media posts on Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest and TikTok.
2. A website you already own that runs on a site builder like WordPress, Squarespace or Wix.
3. Someone else's website.
4. Marketing emails.
5. Landing pages.
6. Direct messages.

But that's not all you get with a Shopify plan. You can also accept credit card payments or create invoices for wholesale, phone or custom orders. You can even use Shopify's point of sale (POS) app to accept payments in person with your iOS or Android device.

What can you sell on Shopify?

You can sell almost any physical product, digital products or dropshipped products. Shopify merchants sell a wide range of products, including:

1. Handmade goods
2. Beauty products
3. Home goods
4. Outdoor gear
5. Apparel
6. Digital products
7. Online classes
8. Events
9. Greeting cards
10. E-books

And of course, there are things you can't sell:

Alcohol, tobacco and e-cigarettes, fireworks, drugs, video game currency or credits, and weapons.

Here's how you can sell on Shopify:

1. Create a website.

Shopify is cloud-based software. That means you can set up a website with your own domain name and an inventory and shipping management system.

Choose an elegant theme, and with a drag-and-drop interface you can easily add physical or digital inventory and launch the site.

2. Sell with the Shopify POS (point of sale) app.

It lets you sell through an iPad or tablet, or even your phone.

3. Sell both online and in person.

People who want to sell online and in person, such as retail store owners or nonprofits that want to collect donations at events and online, can do it with Shopify. Build your store, then sync it with the POS app. That way you can track your revenue and inventory levels.

4. Use Shopify to sell on social media.

With the Shopify Buy Button or Shopify's social media integrations, you can sell on many platforms. For example:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• X (formerly Twitter)
• Pinterest
• WhatsApp
• Facebook Messenger

Your customers can buy without leaving the social media platform they're on, which helps you increase sales. Shopify has several advantages:

1. It's simple and easy to add products, create discounts and take orders.
2. The store designs are friendly and easy to use.
3. Operating costs and monthly fees are low and affordable.

How can you grow your Shopify business?

1. Social networks aren't the only way to market - there's also email, text messages and blogs. Any channel that lets you share content and promote your business.

2. Improve your website's customer experience and its search engine ranking.

3. Getting people into your store isn't enough.

Offer personalized discounts, run sales, create loyalty programs and send abandoned cart emails to encourage people to buy.

4. Remarketing.

Install a tracking pixel on your product pages so you can show your products again to people who visited without buying.

If you feel like trying your hand at a Shopify business of your own, you'll be glad to know you can sign up for a short free trial (check Shopify's pricing page for current terms) without entering any credit card details.

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More articles on this topic:

• What is dropshipping? How does it work?
• Building a professional Shopify store
• Opening a Shopify store and connecting payment processing

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Shopify is the world's leading ecommerce platform for running online stores today.

Here in Israel it is also considered the most popular, and many people build online stores on it,

but because the interface language is English, it can be a barrier to entry for quite a few Israelis who don't speak the language or are wary of English-language systems.

Good news!

As mentioned, the Shopify platform doesn't fully support Hebrew out of the box.

The admin is laid out left to right, and the messages sent to our customers are in English,

as are the buttons on the site.

Shopify is a leading platform partly because it offers a comprehensive marketing package that makes it easier to reach new audiences through SEO, along with other features that save merchants a lot of time-consuming work or technical skills they don't have. Meet the app that saves you money and time.

Until now, Shopify store owners relied on developers to translate their sites into Hebrew, which cost a lot of money and took quite a bit of time.

You'll be glad to know there is now an app that adapts the platform for Hebrew speakers, helps you get past the language limitations and saves you a lot of money and time.

Meet the app Sense RTL

How does it work?

Go to the Shopify App Store and download the app. You get a 5-day free trial, after which the Basic plan costs $7.75 per month (current pricing, subject to change).

Once you've downloaded the app, you can choose the theme you want.

(If you didn't find the theme you were looking for, don't hesitate to contact our customer service, and we'll add your theme within 24 hours.)

Now you can change the text on your site, use new fonts, switch notifications to Hebrew and switch the buy buttons to Hebrew as well.

You can open a profitable Shopify store in Hebrew and save yourself headaches, wasted time and money.

How do you get started?

Developer Sense Apps, which launched the SENSERTL app, invites you to download it by clicking here.

Good luck!