You started your ecommerce site with Shopify, and you obviously did it right, because you are continually seeing growth. That’s fantastic! But you are starting to see areas where you are outgrowing Shopify. What are the signs you should be looking for to make sure that your business keeps growing and not be held back by your ecommerce platform?
Seven areas to look at if you think you are outgrowing Shopify:
Look at your swivel chair processes.
Duplicating effort and manual processes take time away from important business tasks for strategic growth.Look at all the 3rd party integrations your site needs.
Find an ecommerce platform that easily accepts these kinds of integrations and are securely developed so that you don’t wind up with a liability down the road.Look at your user experience and how you want your brand to be perceived.
Does your site look and feel like the brand you want it to represent? Will you be able to make effective changes within the restrictions of Shopify’s templates?Look at your analytics.
Limited reporting makes it hard to develop a long-term business strategy.Look at the costs of “renting” Shopify’s platform.
The costs of a software-as-a-service (SAAS) platform and additional modules add up and could seriously be eating away at your bottom line every month.Look at your data.
Because you do not completely own it, transferring your data from Shopify becomes a cumbersome process, especially if you have a lot of it.Look at the effectiveness of your CMS.
Shopify can make it difficult to properly implement on-page search engine optimization (SEO) tactics on product and blog pages.
In this blog, we will take a look at a few things you can do if you think you are starting to outgrow Shopify.
Look at your swivel chair processes.
Are you spending too much time every month manually inputting information into your CRM, ERP or inventory systems because there either isn’t an integration available for Shopify or it is not functional? Is there a platform that can automate some of those processes? The time you save can then be put back into important business tasks for strategic growth.
Look at all the 3rd party integrations your site needs.
Or will need to integrate with vendors to keep your ecommerce machine rolling. These integrations should enable you to more securely accept payments, provide more buying and delivery options for your customers, and more. Find an ecommerce platform that easily accepts these kinds of integrations and are securely developed so that you don’t wind up with a liability down the road.
Look at your user experience and how you want your brand to be perceived.
Does your site look and feel like the brand you want it to represent? Is there something missing that the Shopify themes are just not giving you? Does your brand stand out from the rest of the Shopify templated storefronts? Will you be able to make effective changes within the restrictions of Shopify’s templates?
Look at your analytics.
Are you getting the reporting you need? Limited reporting makes it hard to develop a long-term business strategy. Better reporting means better decisions and more growth.
Look at the costs of “renting” Shopify’s platform.
Adding plugins to your base Software as a service (SAAS) platform to add customer-friendly and value-add features come with a price. The costs of those modules add up and could seriously be eating away at your bottom line every month. Consider the long-term advantage of owning your ecommerce website by creating it with an open source platform like Drupal and Drupal Commerce.
Look at your data.
Did you know that your Shopify store is generating a ton of data, but that you don’t own it? Shopify ties up your data, known as service lock-in, so that transferring your data becomes a cumbersome process, especially if you have a lot of it.
Look at the effectiveness of your CMS.
Shopify is not meant to be a content management system, so when it comes to adding videos and rich media, linking pages with products, and managing large amounts of content like a blog, your customer engagement and SEO. Shopify can make it hard at times to properly implement search engine optimization (SEO) tactics that would contribute to your growth.
For small to medium-sized businesses, Shopify is the best in class for ease of getting online, standardization and generally doing the basics in ecommerce.
As your business grows you may quickly learn that the things that made Shopify so attractive in the first place are the elements that are holding you back. If you have taken the time to really look at the above items and find that Shopify still meets your needs, then great.
If you are in a position where you feel that you may be starting to outgrow your ecommerce platform, the sooner you start looking at other options, the better. Making changes away from a standardized platform will get more complicated the more and more data, plugins and services you add to your current site.
Does all of this information leave you feeling a little overwhelmed? Don’t worry, we get it.
For something as crucial as your ecommerce platform, you want to make sure you are doing the right thing. That is where we come in. We live and breathe this stuff. Our ecommerce consultants and subject matter experts are open source commerce pros and are always happy to give as much advice as you need. Reach out today and let’s talk about what your next ecommerce platform should be after Shopify.
