Shopify - What are the pros and cons? A comprehensive analysis

2.1. Quick start without complex setup

With Shopify, retailers can focus on what matters most right from the start: selling their products. As a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) provider, Shopify can be set up relatively quickly and resource-efficiently. Here are the advantages:

Shopify handles the entire technical setup, including server operation and maintenance. Updates and maintenance don't need to be performed manually; they are handled automatically by Shopify in the background, without any additional effort or cost.

2.2. High server stability and availability

Shopify guarantees the highest standards of IT security and availability. With a high-performance uptime of 99.99%, worries about server availability are a thing of the past. Our experience shows that Shopify stores maintain stable performance even during peak times.

This means merchants don't have to rent additional server capacity, even for special marketing activities, and can rely on reliable accessibility to their store even with high visitor volumes. Shopify meets the highest security standards.

2.3. No programming knowledge required

The intuitive modular system makes getting started with Shopify easy: You don't need to know how to code to create an attractive online store. Shopify follows a no-code approach. With just a few clicks, you can add products, customize the look of your online store, or manage orders. Pages like the homepage, product page, blog, or About You page are easily configured. All you have to do is click.

2.4. Large selection of professional themes

A compelling visual identity is essential for a successful online store. Shopify makes it particularly easy for retailers to create a great-looking online store, even without in-depth design knowledge. The solution: a wide selection of themes.

Shopify themes are templates that control the basic layout and appearance of your store. They're available in both free and paid versions from the Theme Store and can be installed on your store in seconds. You can rest assured that they meet the highest quality standards: Themes that aren't performing well or aren't optimized for mobile devices won't be published in the store.

From elegant to playful: Shopify offers a variety of themes to suit every taste. You can filter them in the store by industry or desired features, among other things. Since the large selection of over 120 different designs can be overwhelming at first, we've compiled an overview of the most important Shopify themes for you on the Tante-E blog.

Many successful Shopify stores use premium themes as their foundation. For example, LeGer by Lena Gercke uses the high-quality and elegant Prestige theme.

2.5. Flexibility thanks to the Theme Editor

Fortunately, themes aren't a rigid, unchanging construct. Quite the opposite: You can customize and personalize them to suit your brand. A powerful tool for this is the Shopify Theme Editor.

Here, you can customize more than just basic aspects like colors or typography. Instead, you can make in-depth changes to every single page type of your store, such as the home page, product pages, category pages, shopping cart, or blog. Add sections and sections as desired to ensure your Shopify theme accurately reflects your identity.

You don't need to know how to program for this either: all changes are made by clicking and dragging.

2.6. High adaptability through code access & API-first

Shopify is particularly well-suited for people without programming skills, but it also offers developers extensive options for comprehensively editing the store's code. This allows retailers, with the support of an agency if necessary, to implement individual design and functionality requirements.

For example, we developed a completely customized theme for FC Union Berlin that specifically addresses the club's design requirements and includes custom features. The highlight of the shop is the custom jersey configurator, which allows customers to personalize and customize their own products in just a few steps.

In addition, Shopify offers numerous API interfaces and can be easily integrated into existing infrastructures. Complex IT setups, such as connecting to ERP systems or PIM, are no challenge with Shopify.

2.7 Comprehensive ecosystem of apps

With over 8,000 available apps, Shopify offers the widest selection in the entire e-commerce space. These applications and integrations make it easy for retailers to expand their online store without the hassle of developing their own solutions.

Numerous third-party developers even develop according to the "Shopify First" approach. This has resulted in a dynamic ecosystem of apps that seamlessly interact, exchange, and synchronize data. This creates an outstanding customer experience that, in our opinion, is not offered by any other e-commerce platform.

You can choose exactly the right applications that fit your needs. Customers benefit from a seamless purchasing experience. Employees also save time and effort thanks to intelligent and automated tools.

In the Shopify App Store, you'll find extensions for every feature you need. Shopify apps can perform the following tasks:

• accounting
• Shipping & Returns
• Product reviews
• Multilingualism & Internationalization
• Customer support
• Legal certainty
• Email marketing

2.8. Flexible pricing models

The biggest advantage up front: If you want to try Shopify, you don't have to jump in at the deep end. You can try Shopify free for three days without having to provide any payment details. After that, you'll pay just €1 for each of the first three months. This gives you the chance to get to know all the features and start building your online store without any financial risk. After the trial period, Shopify offers three different plans:

Even the Basic Plan includes Shopify's most important features. This allows you to build an attractive online store for very little money. In the Tante-E blog, we provide more details on Shopify's pricing plans and answer the question of which plan is best suited for your business.

Shopify can be canceled at any time unless you have an annual subscription. Shopify offers a 25% discount for the annual subscription.

2.9. Suitable for brands of any size

As a Shopify merchant, you're in good company. Over one million online stores in 175 countries trust Shopify, including established brands like Gymshark, Kylie Cosmetics, Heinz, Allbirds, and SNOCKS.

Whether you're a small business or a large corporation, Shopify is suitable for brands of all sizes and adapts flexibly to their respective development stages. Beginners can get started quickly with Shopify without any prior knowledge. Should their needs change, they don't have to upgrade to a more complex system. Shopify can be expanded step by step and grows along with the brand.

For particularly fast-growing online shops, there is the Shopify Plus plan, which meets special requirements due to high business and order volumes.

2.10. Easy to connect to Amazon, social media, etc.

With Shopify, you're wherever your customers are. In just a few steps, you can sync and list your products on leading marketplaces like Amazon or eBay. Integration with social media channels like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube is just as easy.

The advantage: You can centrally view all orders from marketplaces or social media via the Shopify backend. This gives you a comprehensive overview of your sales channels at all times.

2.11. Optimized for Omnichannel

Do you plan to sell both online and offline? Then Shopify offers you a decisive advantage: The integrated Shopify POS (point of sale) is a powerful cash register system that seamlessly connects digital and physical sales channels. Thanks to centralized management of all sales channels via the Shopify backend, the system is perfect for brick-and-mortar stores, trade fairs, and festivals. Pop-up stores can also be operated with ease.

Shopify POS enables you to deliver an outstanding customer experience across every channel and analyze customer behavior across all channels. In our opinion, there's no more effective way to combine e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retail.

Shopify POS is included in every pricing plan at no additional cost.

2.12. Accurately addressing your brand

Shopify goes beyond just selling. The e-commerce platform offers you the opportunity to bring your brand and vision to life and effectively build rapport with your customers. Create as many additional pages as you like, customizable to your needs—such as about us pages, team introductions, or compelling insights into your company's history. These elements build trust and strengthen the bond with your customers.

Many shops go even further and create vibrant content worlds with Shopify. Food brands like Hensslers Schnelle Nummer use recipe pages to bring their products to life through shoppable content. Interior brands like HORST showcase their products in action in DIY instructions, providing inspiration. They don't need an additional system for this: Content management takes place directly in the Shopify dashboard.

This way, you can create a brand-aligned and consistent experience throughout the entire customer journey that delights your customers.

2.13 Effectively manage products, orders, and customers

Shopify's admin area is clearly designed and easy to use for everyone, but does not compromise on powerful features.

Products

With Shopify, you can create an infinite number of products and store custom information such as product descriptions, images, or other features. Particularly practical features include defining different variants for a product (e.g., for size or color) and easily creating coupons for your online store. Learn more about how to create product pages with Shopify .

Orders

In the Shopify Admin, you can see the most important information about all orders at a glance. You can also learn more about purchasing behavior: How many orders has the customer already placed or how long the time span between the first and last visit is.

Orders can be easily managed, such as customizing order confirmations, updating shipment status, or adding a tracking link. You can learn everything about receiving and sending orders in the Tante-E blog.

Customers

Shopify offers merchants an integrated customer management system for centrally managing customer profiles. This way, you can find contact information as well as useful information such as the time of the last orders, the order value, and whether the customer has subscribed to the newsletter. This is especially helpful for initiating customized marketing measures to increase customer loyalty. Learn more about customer management with Shopify here.

2.14 Always technologically up-to-date

Shopify is constantly evolving: Thousands of developers are constantly working to add new features, continually optimize the platform, and tailor it to the needs of merchants. Twice a year, Shopify presents all of its new features in a bundle called "Shopify Editions ."

This means retailers can rest assured that their online store is always up to date. As mentioned above, they receive all updates free of charge and automatically, without having to install them manually.

2.15. Independence and reduced administrative burden

One of the most common feedback we hear from merchants switching to Shopify is the significantly reduced administrative overhead. Thanks to its intuitive interface, even small teams without in-depth technical knowledge can easily create new collections and efficiently maintain the store.

While other e-commerce platforms often require external agencies to handle maintenance and server repairs, Shopify eliminates this effort entirely. If you do choose to work with external experts, you can focus on developing new features and optimizing your store—the focus is on the future, not simply maintaining the status quo.

3.1. Not suitable for building marketplaces

If you want to build not just your own online store but an electronic marketplace, Shopify may be the right choice for you. While there is an app for centrally managing and controlling multiple online stores via Shopify, it doesn't offer stable performance and its features are very limited.

3.2. Limitations on product variants

Although Shopify allows you to create an unlimited number of products, there are limitations on the number of variants: 100 variants with a maximum of three dimensions are allowed per product. The good news, however, is that Shopify has already announced an increase to 2,000 variants.

For example, you could offer a T-shirt in different sizes (S, M, L, XL, etc.), fabrics (cotton, polyester), and colors (green, blue, red, yellow, etc.). These three options already use up all three dimensions, so you wouldn't be able to add any other variations, such as the neckline (V-neck, round neck).

In our experience, this limitation isn't a problem for most brands, as they rarely need such detailed product variation. However, for stores with a large number of products to configure, such as those in the Home & Living segment, this could be limiting.

However, workarounds exist: One common method is fake variants. Here, products are divided by color or main variant, so that, for example, each color is listed as a separate product. Meta fields (link) can also be used to create variants as separate products and then link them. Otherwise, configurators can also be implemented with Shopify, but these are usually complex and sometimes costly.

3.3. Limited B2B functions

Most Shopify stores target end customers and therefore operate in the B2C segment. However, in recent years, Shopify has recognized a growing interest from brands in selling their products to businesses and has therefore announced its intention to invest more heavily in the B2B sector.

The first specific features for this have already been introduced, such as the management of wholesale customers and price lists. We have already successfully implemented B2B functionalities for the online shops of companies such as Kloster Kitchen and Heineken Blade .

Shopify currently reaches its limits when it comes to pure B2B stores with very complex requirements. However, we expect this to change in the next one to two years.

Currently, B2B features are only available with Shopify Plus.

3.4. Defined link structures

Although Shopify offers extensive design options, the flexibility in defining links is limited: users are bound to fixed structures regarding link structures.

For example, product pages always have "/products" and category pages have "/collections" in their URL. The following part is customizable, but the predefined structure remains unchanged.

Some SEO experts criticize this limitation. However, our experience shows that many Shopify stores have strong SEO performance and rank well in Google search results. This may be because Google can effectively handle this link structure due to the widespread use of Shopify stores.

3.5. Limitations in the checkout

The Shopify checkout is largely standardized and offers limited customization options. While colors, logos, and text can be modified, the basic layout remains unchanged.

This can be a barrier for merchants with specific requirements for their online store's checkout. However, a study commissioned by Shopify indicates that this checkout has the highest conversion rate worldwide and is very stable. We believe the limited customizability contributes to this, as it protects against bugs that can arise, especially from custom modifications.

Recently, however, Shopify expanded the options for Shopify Plus merchants to customize the checkout process with apps. These offer a certain amount of flexibility (see the example from BADESOFA ), but you still won't be able to deviate completely from the predefined design.

3.6. Lack of data protection in some Shopify apps

As mentioned above, Shopify offers a wide range of apps for expanding your store. However, it's important to exercise caution when using them:

Some apps may not meet data protection standards or handle customer data in a non-GDPR compliant manner by storing information on external servers.

While the variety of Shopify apps is a huge advantage, we strongly advise against blindly installing too many apps. Apps that affect the store's appearance, in particular, can negatively impact loading times. Therefore, it's a good idea to select apps carefully and integrate special features directly into the code in collaboration with a Shopify agency.

3.7 Limitations for individual payment providers

Shopify supports a variety of payment providers integrated directly into the Shopify checkout. However, if a brand has special terms with another provider or wants to use a payment provider that Shopify doesn't support, this can pose challenges.

In our experience, Shopify Payments generally offers a comprehensive solution. However, the payment provider's usability is limited in some countries.

If Shopify Payments or the supported payment providers do not meet the requirements, we encourage store owners to speak with the Shopify Plus team to find out if a solution for integrating the desired payment provider is possible.

3.8. Specified Page Speed & Performance

The bottom line is: Shopify is a very high-performance platform and offers solid loading speeds. However, if you're aiming to build the fastest online store possible, systems that allow for deeper customization may be advantageous.

However, despite these limitations, you can achieve exceptional loading times through targeted improvements such as image compression and optimized content. However, if competing with extreme page speed requirements is important to you, other solutions may be a better fit.

4. Shopify prejudices in the fact check

When discussing the advantages and disadvantages of Shopify, topics such as legal requirements in Germany or limited flexibility are often discussed. However, many of these perceived disadvantages have changed in recent years and are no longer relevant today. We examine the three most common misconceptions about Shopify.

4. Conclusion

In our opinion, Shopify offers a comprehensive e-commerce solution that prioritizes efficiency, ease of use, and scalability. We've witnessed countless cases where even merchants without in-depth technological knowledge can successfully build a modern online store with Shopify.

This is primarily due to the intuitive user interface, the continuous introduction of new features, and the robust, secure infrastructure. Merchants appreciate that by outsourcing hosting and taking over the technical setup, they can focus on growing their business.

However, we also note that Shopify is not yet the perfect solution for every business model and does have certain drawbacks. Weaknesses exist when it comes to complex B2B requirements or the implementation of a 100% customized checkout. Otherwise, Shopify is perfectly suited for B2C brands of any size: The platform adapts individually to different development stages and grows with the brand. At no point is there any need to switch to another, more complex system. Shopify POS also enables an effective combination of online and offline sales channels.

Shopify can be set up legally in just a few steps and is also established on the German market.

At Tante-E, we believe that with Shopify, building your own online store has never been easier. Shopify is suitable for both emerging brands and the needs of established, larger companies, and it's no coincidence that it's one of the world's leading e-commerce platforms.