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Shopify and the Power of Platforms

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Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms

#161
post #29
post #4

Shopify is just the next closed-source iteration of WordPress and Magento. WordPress has one of the largest platforms and they've taken over (and open-sourced) blogging, content management, learning management systems, and ecommerce. They and Magento are better examples of a platform than Shopify. In the long-term, "platforms" like Shopify lose because they don't have nearly enough developers. They have ~3000 "apps"…

I think a big difference is Shopify's core product has a bunch of really useful things to help sell things. You don't need plugins or third party apps written by other developers to get a superb selling experience (note: I don't work at Shopify but I used the platform a few years ago and even wrote some custom apps / templates for it). The benefit is the core product is insanely battle hardened and you can depend on…

You didn't mention Magneto, Prestashop ir WooCommerce in your comment.

Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms

#162
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I echo your sentiment as well (also from a background of having ran a Shopify app with thousands of installs). There's a lot of misconception of how much hard work it is amongst beginner Shopify merchants in order to generate sufficient traffic. Amazon, at the very least, provides an audience -- which solves a very major problem for any business (to get traffic). There's a lot of success stories running on Shopify, b…

Why not do both? Amazon gets you your first orders. You ship with a note saying visit mystore.com for the full range, and sign up for discounts at mystore.com/discounts.

This would get you quickly banned on Amazon.

Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not do both? Amazon gets you your first orders. You ship with a note saying visit mystore.com for the full range, and sign up for discounts at mystore.com/discounts.

This would get you quickly banned on Amazon.

Really. I’m not a seller so I didn’t know. But that’s almost serfdom.

Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one other reason to do things: you cannot trust anyone else to do it. Fullfilling and/or profitable are hopefully the only ones that apply, but sometimes you have to do something because the risk is too high...

I’m not sure that applies to the Shopify argument here, but maybe you didn’t intend it to.

Hopefully - for Shopifys sake - it doesn't apply.

An example of how it could apply is if shopify were to "go down" often thus driving your customers to your competitors that roll their own solution that has good uptime.

Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would get you quickly banned on Amazon.

Really. I’m not a seller so I didn’t know. But that’s almost serfdom.

How is not being able to freeload off a platform for free advertising even close to serfdom?

Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms

#167
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big difference is Shopify's core product has a bunch of really useful things to help sell things. You don't need plugins or third party apps written by other developers to get a superb selling experience (note: I don't work at Shopify but I used the platform a few years ago and even wrote some custom apps / templates for it). The benefit is the core product is insanely battle hardened and you can depend on…

You didn't mention Magneto, Prestashop ir WooCommerce in your comment.

[deleted]

Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms

#168
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big difference is Shopify's core product has a bunch of really useful things to help sell things. You don't need plugins or third party apps written by other developers to get a superb selling experience (note: I don't work at Shopify but I used the platform a few years ago and even wrote some custom apps / templates for it). The benefit is the core product is insanely battle hardened and you can depend on…

You didn't mention Magneto, Prestashop ir WooCommerce in your comment.

Shopify's core product is much better than Magneto and WooCommerce. (I don't have experience with Prestashop.)

Example: Shopify sends abandoned cart emails by default. With Magento you can't even see what items are in carts in the core product.

Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms

#169
post #139
post #138

Here are some excerpts from my recent conversation with Shopify support: Q: noticed that sockfancy.com is using shopify? is there a way to set things up like they do: user checks off the options they want and then they go directly to a single-page checkout for their subscription? A: A subscription is a recurring order. For recurring orders they are using Recurring Orders & Subscription Box App by Bold, and Recurring…

Another point about hosted platforms: if they run slowly, there's not that much you can do to fix it. Here's a GTMetrix report for the aforementioned site: https://gtmetrix.com/reports/sockfancy.com/gSNvns6s Fully Loaded Time - 7.8s Not sure anyone would think this is an acceptable amount of time to wait for a page to load.

Shopify as a platform isn't that slow. Much of what caused the performance issue on their site is due to scripts and apps that they install that slow down the storefront and don't adhere to best practices when it comes to page speed and loading assets/JS.

Taking a quick glance, it looks like Privy and Zendesk/Zopim are the main culprits. That can be easily fixed - just don't use those apps or find alternatives that don't slow down your site.

Re: Shopify and the Power of Platforms

#170
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really. I’m not a seller so I didn’t know. But that’s almost serfdom.

How is not being able to freeload off a platform for free advertising even close to serfdom?

You set up a successful business on Amazon having done a lot of marketing yourself and now you are forced to use them to sell everything. You are now working for Amazon, or lose your business.
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