Shopify Web Design & Development
If you’ve looked into website platforms for your ecommerce business, then chances are you’ve already come across Shopify. A specialist, fully hosted ecommerce web platform, Shopify has a simple and lightweight infrastructure that makes it perfect for businesses, big and small, who are looking to sell online. More than one million businesses around the world already use Shopify, so it has a lot of support and minimum downtime.
Like WordPress, Shopify is a platform that’s easy to use and manage, and completely responsive – meaning it’ll work and display perfectly for your customers whether they’re shopping on desktop, tablet, or phone. It’s also highly scalable so however large your ecommerce operation grows, you won’t need to migrate to another platform.
Here at Superb Digital we want to help you find a web platform that is the right fit for your business. Whether your business is just starting out or it’s a more established brand, Shopify could be the perfect e-commerce solution for you.
Shopify Ecommerce Web Designers
Shopify gives you the option of choosing from a selection of professionally designed themes that we can help tailor to your needs or we can create a totally bespoke Shopify website.
The platform also offers more than 1,500 apps extending the functionality of your online store and the way you manage it. These include useful dashboards, as well as real time analytics and a host of useful reports to help you track how your shop is performing.
We’ll work with you to discover what your site needs and put in place the right functionality. In terms of SEO, there are also a host of plugins that we can download for you, to allow us to fully optimise your Shopify website.
Once it’s up and running, managing your new Shopify website is pretty straightforward – meaning you don’t need loads of development experience and you won’t need to keep coming back to us for updates.
Shopify offers more than 1,500 apps extending the functionality of your online store and the way you manage it
We can customise your online store to your brand’s exact requirements
Shopify Theme Customisation
Like WordPress, Shopify offers a vast range of professionally designed, responsive themes for you to choose from as a starting point for your website. These designs are built with best practice in web design, user experience and conversion rate optimisation (i.e. the percentage of customers who buy your products), so whatever you choose you’ll be getting the best.
If your needs are a bit more complex, however, that’s fine too because we can work with you to develop and build a custom theme to suit your unique brand and marketplace.
Most importantly, you have full control over how your e-commerce website looks and operates. This means we can customise your online store to your brand’s exact requirements – from your domain name and content to its layout, colours, and overall styling. There’s also plenty of scope for growth so you can display your products professionally and make it easier for potential and returning customers to browse your shop.
Our Shopify Web Design Process
Whatever you’re selling – from vaping gear to clothing and jewellery – there are lots of advantages to choosing Shopify in comparison to other shopping cart platforms.
We will assign you an experienced web designer who will work with you to find the right option for your brand and brand image. We’ll then put together a design based on the agreed brief for you to sign off on, before proceeding with the build itself.
We will collaborate with you closely, conducting a fact-finding meeting to ascertain what it is you require from your new Shopify website in terms of look, feel and functionality. We can adapt how we work depending on how much involvement you want, whether it’s a hands-off approach with a broad brief or a more prescriptive approach with a fully developed detailed design.
There’s also no need for you to worry about hosting and security as Shopify deals with all of that. They even offer 24/7 customer support if you get any problems. There’s even a Shopify app to allow you to manage your site on the go.
Other features that come with Shopify that we can set up include:
- Built-in mobile commerce ready shopping cart
- Complete blogging platform
- International payment gateways that accept credit cards
- Customisable shipping options
- Checkout recovery service
- Multilingual store checkout
- Automatic tax rates calculated
- Store management solutions
- Marketing capabilities
- Full inventory management
Shopify’s charges a monthly subscription fee and pricing depends on the size of your business, making it a great choice for start-ups and small businesses.
There’s no need for you to worry about hosting and security as Shopify deals with all of that
Whatever your needs, we can offer an in-house all in one solution
Why choose Superb Digital?
If online selling is crucial to your business, it’s absolutely vital that your ecommerce website looks amazing, has the right functionality and is built on the right platform. Getting these things right from day one really can mean the difference between failure and success in business.
Working with Shopify web designers you can trust is essential and our extensive experience building, developing and doing SEO for Shopify sites means we know the platform inside out and what works and what doesn’t, especially when it comes to long term success.
We’ve built ecommerce sites for numerous businesses, so our experience is varied and we can adapt to any brief, whatever the style, size and functionality of your site.
Whatever your needs, we can offer an in-house all in one solution – guiding you through the process from the discovery stage through to the design, build and finally the launch.
But that’s not all. As an experienced SEO agency, we can also design your site with long term optimisation in mind, ensuring your site doesn’t just look good, but will bring you engaged traffic for many years to come.
Shopify Web Design FAQs
Why use Shopify?
Shopify is one of the easiest ecommerce platforms for beginners. You don’t need to have any coding or web development knowledge to set up an online store. It has an intuitive digital storefront builder, which allows you to pick from a variety of professionally designed themes that make a good impression on customers.
If you want to scale up your business or customise your store even further, Shopify lets you do just that. It also has a dedicated technical support team to address any issue you might have running your store on the platform. Its popularity also has led to many user-created resources that can help you, whether it’s tutorials for understanding how to use certain features or tools to make your job easier.
Shopify comes with a wide range of analytics tools as well, so you can closely track how well your online store is doing, from traffic to product sales to returning customers. There are also numerous plugins to expand upon basic functionality.
What is Shopify and how does it work?
Shopify is an ecommerce platform that lets you create, customise, and run your own online store where you can sell both physical and digital products. You have control over product and inventory management, payment options, and shipping.
Shopify is completely cloud-based, so you don’t have to install any software or run it on any dedicated machine. As long as you have an internet connection, you can access and manage your Shopify store anywhere on any device.
Online stores on Shopify run on Shopify’s own servers, meaning it’s a hosted platform (as opposed to a self-hosted platform like WordPress). In other words, you won’t need to think about hosting and all the hassle that entails. All you have to do is pay the subscription fee.
How much does Shopify cost?
On top of our own design and development costs (get in touch with us for a quote), Shopify has five pricing tiers to cater to differing needs.
Basic Shopify costs $29 a month, which has all of the basic features such as being able to sell an unlimited number of products, an ecommerce site and blog, and 24/7 customer support.
Shopify costs $79 a month, which includes everything from Basic Shopify plus more staff members can access Shopify Admin and Shopify POS, professional reports, and better rates on customer payments.
Advanced Shopify costs $299 a month, which includes everything from the previous two tiers plus more staff access, locations for inventory, an advanced report builder, third-party calculated shipping rates, and even better customer payment rates than the previous tier.
Shopify Lite costs $9 a month, but you can only sell on an existing website or blog. You don’t have your own separate online store.
Shopify Plus starts at $2000 a month with a negotiable price. This tier is reserved for enterprise-scale businesses.
What do I need to start selling on Shopify?
Starting an online store with Shopify is much like starting a small business. You need to consider pricing and sales channels, and you should also think about getting legal and tax advice.
Once you’ve made proper business preparations, you can start with Shopify’s 14-day free trial, which lets you set up and organise an online store.
You need a domain name (the URL for your online store), a logo, products, and product photos. You also have to set up your checkout system, which includes payment and shipping options with tax in mind.
Lastly, you need policy pages for returns, shipping, data collection, and terms and conditions.
Where can I sell with Shopify?
There are multiple sales channels that Shopify supports, including:
Your own online store
Your own website or blog
Google
Facebook
Messenger
Instagram
Amazon
eBay
Walmart Marketplace
Physical stores
You can also add other supported sales channels through the Shopify App Store.
Does Shopify use plugins?
Yes, Shopify has plugins you can use to extend the functionality of your store and add features that you might need to set your business apart from the competition. You can get free and paid plugins on the Shopify App Store, which give you access to features like email marketing, stock management and coupons. Programmers can also create their own plugins using the Shopify API.
Is Shopify secure?
Shopify is certified Level 1 PCI DSS compliant, which means it meets all the security standards for credit and debit card payments. From maintaining a secure network to protecting cardholder data, Shopify ensures all stores on its platform have the highest level of security for paying customers.
There is, of course, a shared responsibility for merchants and Shopify as the platform.
Shopify takes care of everything on the software and infrastructure side. The company has measures in place to keep their service available virtually at all times and with backups in case of large-scale problems that affect the whole platform.
Merchants are responsible for keeping their own online stores secure using Shopify’s security features. If you are going to run a Shopify-based store, you need to follow admin access and password management best practice to avoid security breaches.
Do I need to update Shopify?
For desktop users, there is no updating required for the platform.
You may have to update the theme you picked for your website, as developers release new versions to fix bugs and add features. You may also have to reinstall plugins to ensure they work properly after updating your theme.
For mobile users using the Shopify app on iOS and Android, you need to install updates whenever they are released. Updates address technical issues and add features.
Can I easily edit everything in Shopify?
Shopify gives you plenty of control over how you want your online store to look and how customers interface with it.
You can choose from over 100 themes and customise what you chose to suit your preferences, including colour schemes, product layout, and typography. If you have Shopify coding knowledge, you can also make your own changes to your theme’s code, but we’d recommend using an experienced web developer like Superb Digital for this.
Adding, managing, and removing products is straightforward on the Products page of your Shopify account. Here you can upload product photos and write product descriptions. You can also set up collections of products sharing similarities to make shopping easier for customers.
Changing the checkout process, shipping preferences, and tax calculation can all be easily done on your account as well.
Is Shopify good for SEO?
Yes! In fact, we have case studies that detail our experiences in optimising Shopify websites and delivering fantastic results and ROI. Pretty much all Shopify themes are mobile friendly and they cover all the SEO basics, like meta tag management, generating sitemaps and easily creating 301 redirects. Shopify isn’t as flexible as a platform like WordPress when it comes to SEO and some technical SEO activity can be a bit more complex and involved, often requiring plugins. But what it lacks in flexibility it makes up for in ease of use, robust functionality, scalability and hassle free hosting.
Our Shopify SEO, focussing on on-site and conversion rate optimisation has led to significant increases in organic search traffic and sales for our clients. If you’d like to talk to us about it and find out how we can transform your Shopify web store, give us a call or drop us an email today.