Shopify Facts: Businesses That Can Benefit From the Best E-Commerce Platform

You surely have heard about Shopify being the best e-commerce platform out there. It’s got a simple interface, a very helpful support team, and a variety of customizable themes and very useful apps that can easily add features and other capabilities to your site. This popularity of one of the world’s top e-commerce platform is proven by over 2,000,000 merchants that run business with them coming from over 170 countries.

That rise in the total number of Shopify users was spurred by the recent years of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the time when people had to stay home, the time when businesses had to operate from home. Who knows when the next big pandemic hits? How is it going to affect the way we do business? Whatever the future has in store, we must all be ready to adapt so we can continue to thrive. Business must not stop and the “Business as Usual” sign must continue being displayed!

Shopify for Business: How Is It?

Through the years since it was founded back in 2006, Shopify has had a steady growth. It transformed from a small and simple e-commerce tool to now being one of the biggest e-commerce platforms being used by several successful brands in the market covering a host of different industries. Shopify is the platform of choice for most dropshippers and it continues to be so even as we enter post-Covid economic conditions.

But what are the products that can be sold in this platform? Is Shopify only good for those physical products like women’s accessories, print on demand t-shirts, mugs, make-up, and others? It is true that Shopify is a great tool for building your very own online business but what sort of business can benefit from it? Does it only work very well for dropshipping? We’re going to answer those questions here so keep reading through towards the end.

Businesses That Can Benefit From Shopify

There are thousands of Shopify merchants out there that are selling physical products on Shopify. From shoes, garments, packaging, DIY supplies, phone accessories, women’s accessories, etc. But did you know that there are also some merchants who sell or promote stuff in this platform other than physical products. That’s what makes the Shopify platform flexible. It’s got every feature you need for selling every type of product or service that you can think of. Here are some of the types of businesses that can use Shopify as a selling/promotional platform:

1. Rental Businesses

2. Consultation Businesses

3. Event Tickets and Reservations

4. Digital Products and Services

5. Membership Services

6. Donations

7. Experiences

8. Service Appointments

9. Live Streams

10. Gift Cards and Vouchers

What are these businesses about and how can they benefit with Shopify? Let’s tackle each one of them here. There still are other business types that can be added but we will include them in a spate article. Let’s go to the first one:

1. Rental Businesses

Aside from selling physical products, merchants can also bring their rental business online and use Shopify as a platform. These are businesses that make certain products or equipment available to customers for a certain amount of time depending on the amount they paid. This is one good way of making customers enjoy the benefit of using something so they can avoid any maintenance and storage costs which go for a lifetime if one acquires it.

You may have seen dress rentals, tool rentals, car rentals, and other such businesses around the city and if you want to expand yours to serve people from other areas or states, you can bring your business into Shopify and let the platform sell it to customers online at a very friendly cost.

2. Consultation Businesses

Are you someone that has expertise that others don’t have? Maybe you are an architect, urban planner, a doctor, a coach, etc. People seek such skills and are even willing to pay for people who can provide such services. If you’re looking to promote your expertise to a wider audience then you can do so within the Shopify platform. There are several professionals who do such practice and are getting a good stream of customers/clients with Shopify. Other businesses that specialize in customized products and need to consult with customers who want to give the details on how their made-to-order items should be designed can also do so within the platform. The possibilities are endless and all you need is creativity in this aspect.

3. Event Tickets and Reservations

Themes and apps designed to help merchants sell some tickets are also available on Shopify. That is why running your event ticket and reservation business in their platform would be a good decision. There are several businesses that do this using Shopify including music events, theme parks, theatres, pop-up haunted houses, dog shows, and others. If you need some ideas, just look into popular ticketing sites and see how they did the layout. It will help in ensuring that yours is already optimized for your customers and will spare you from any delays and hassles in planning and execution.

4. Digital Products and Services

Samples of digital products include apps, software, and other tools that people would want to install in order to make their life easier especially in the online activities that they do each day. Other forms of digital products are ebooks and other digital publications. If you have such products that you want to sell to a wider audience or even worldwide then you can do so on the Shopify platform. Selling of online services is also possible within the platform and again, if you need some examples, there are plenty of beautiful ones found all over the web. Online courses that need files, fonts, hd video clips, sound clips, and many others are just few of the other digital products that you can sell and Shopify is a perfect platform where you can do so.

5. Membership Services

Another virtual product that you can sell using the Shopify e-commerce platform is membership service. You can find very good examples of this in non-profit organizations and other groups that use memberships as a source of income and to ensure that financial support is ongoing. Independent creators can also take advantage of Shopify if they wish to sell paid access to their intellectual content. Other examples of businesses that can sell memberships are fan clubs, content producers, golf clubs, tennis clubs, and even galleries.

6. Donations

There is no need to explain this as this one isn’t about selling. It is trying to solicit from the public in the form of donations. Animal shelters, zoos, non-profit organizations, and many others are the sectors that mostly do such activities and Shopify is capable of running such causes over the web. With all the variety of themes that are available, creating an appealing donations website can easily become like a breeze.

7. Experiences

You heard it right, it is also possible to sell experiences over in Shopify but what exactly does that mean? There are businesses that actually produce great experiences such as adventure providers, travel agencies, camping providers, and even those tasting companies for a variety of products. Companies like these ones can better sell their services or products by giving customers the option to make advanced purchases of tickets and even giving away promos and discounts for those early bookers. You can even add a section in your website where customers can pick their most preferred schedule. Now that would mean better customer management and a seamless customer journey for each people that visits your shop.

8. Service Appointments

Skilled workers like hairdressers, make-up artists, plumbers, music coaches, and more can take advantage of Shopify as a platform where they can promote their services and allow customers to book and pay for appointments. This is also possible even for those virtual businesses that need prior appointment or schedules from customers. When you use Shopify for these types of businesses, the overall process becomes a seamless one for your customers.

9. Live Streams

Nowadays, livestreaming and even live selling is becoming very popular. That’s because of the significant improvement in Internet and broadband technology which made connection speeds and bandwidth a lot stronger. Online contents can actually be monetized in many different ways and you can even display ads to your customers which can help earn even more. You can choose to link your monetized content with your Shopify website so you can have total control of everything. Hosting and selling live streams can actually be done within the platform and the biggest advantage of doing so is that you can have full ownership of both content and any customer information.

10. Gift Cards and Vouchers

Finally, another type of virtual product which can also be converted to physical product is gift cards and vouchers. While this can be integrated with a shop that’s selling physical products by way of third party apps and plugins, you can also use Shopify as a platform to sell gift cards and vouchers alone. There are many selling strategies in for such products and all you need to do is to be creative and innovative.

Shopify: The All-Purpose E-Commerce Platform

As you can see, Shopify isn’t only useful for selling some physical products but also for those virtual products, gift cards, coupons, vouchers, services, and more. We have given you 10 other types of items here that are not the usual ones that you see. It goes to show how good the platform is for any kind of business that exists. Just make sure that your product does not violate intellectual property or Shopify’s prohibited products list and you’re all good to go.

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