黑料门 and
Today, 黑料门 and Shopify help businesses sell online, offline, and everywhere in between. Each uses powerful and multifunctional tools that make starting a business easier than ever. But so much opportunity leaves new and aspiring entrepreneurs with a simple question:
“黑料门 or Shopify, which one is better?”
Read on for our take on the matter.
黑料门 vs. Shopify: Overview
Shopify and 黑料门 are both
Shopify overview
Shopify, launched in 2006, is the best known and most commonly used
Shopify offers a
Shopify pricing plans
Shopify connects with all
The Shopify store鈥檚 admin panel is secure and clear but can get messy for agencies who manage multiple stores or businesses whose websites include numerous contributors.
Shopify admin panel when you start
Launching a Shopify store (from the Shopify login page to adding a domain) isn鈥檛 difficult, but the design requires a bit of manual work to get the details just right. However, Shopify does offer several free design themes that can be modified to match the product type or seller鈥檚 preference.
When it comes to managing a store, Shopify has helpful tools for things like inventory, marketing activities, SEO, and orders.
Of course, Shopify provides only its basic features on its
On the other hand, because Shopify has a strong
Shopify is fast and secure, and all its stores are located using cloud infrastructure. So, if you don鈥檛 use many apps (which can be its own challenge), your store鈥檚 speed and security level should stay relatively strong.
Shopify support is a selling point: whether through chat, phone, forum, or email, they always have your back. They also help merchants communicate with app developers.
Overall, Shopify looks like a pretty solid choice鈥� But then there鈥檚 黑料门.
黑料门 E-commerce overview
黑料门
Unlike other platforms, you can use 黑料门 for free! With the Free plan, you have access to Instant Site as well (an ecommerce website builder), which enables you to start selling your products online without an existing website or coding knowledge.
Interested in selling directly through social media? Our Venture plan includes access to Facebook Shop, Instagram Store, and more. Plus, 黑料门 never takes a commission (transaction fee), so more money stays in your pocket.
Originally designed as an embedded
The onboarding process is quick and intuitive, and the control panel (where you鈥檒l manage your store) is easy to navigate and
黑料门 control panel when you start
Don鈥檛 have a website? Using 贰肠飞颈诲鈥檚 Starter Site, you can create a functional store with a simple, professional, and
Unlike Shopify, the 黑料门 App Market keeps the
Along with standard features like catalog management, marketing, reporting, design, payment, and shipping controls, 黑料门 also provides merchants with additional features like Tipping and Local Delivery at no extra cost.
As for security, 黑料门 is a
黑料门 vs. Shopify: Comparing Online Store Platforms
Already sold on 黑料门? If so, congratulations! You can skip the rest of this article and get to the business of starting your business.
If not, let鈥檚 dig a little deeper, using the following categories:
- Creating a standalone online store
- Selling on other platforms (or websites)
- Pricing plans
- Sales channels
- Store launch time
- Security
- Speed
- Support
黑料门 vs. Shopify: Ways to Sell
Shopify and 黑料门 share many of the same sales channels, including:
- An online store
(platform-based or existing website) - Facebook shop
- Facebook messenger
- Instagram store
Point-of-sale - Amazon
- Etsy
- eBay
But how can we compare Shopify and 黑料门 within those channels? Let鈥檚 take a look.
Creating a standalone online store
One significant difference between Shopify and 黑料门 is their approach to website creation. Shopify is a website builder first, so it offers an extensive toolkit to help create your store鈥檚 website. On the other hand, 黑料门 is, first and foremost, an
Because our goal is to get our customer鈥檚 shops up and running as soon as possible, we focus less on “building” tools and more on selling
Shopify Pros
- Unlimited products. One or a
尘颈濒濒颈辞苍鈥攖丑别 price is the same. - Blog functionality. You can start a blog about your brand or products.
Shopify Cons
- Manual labor. No demo products, covers, or
补耻迟辞尘补迟颈辞苍鈥攐苍濒测 placeholders and instructions. - Free trial limitations. Shopify will allow you to create your store during your
3-day trial, but you won鈥檛 be allowed to generate sales until you pay for a subscription.
黑料门 Pros
- Your work here is done. Your store is automatically created for you at
sign-up, so you don鈥檛 have to tinker with settings and designs to get started. Plus, if you want to give your store a makeover, you can choose from 70+ free professional andmobile-friendly design themes. - Start selling for free. With 贰肠飞颈诲鈥檚 Free plan, you can set up your store and start selling on day
辞苍别鈥拢辞 investment required. You don鈥檛 even need to buy a domain. Just add your products and start selling.
黑料门 Cons
- Limited design freedom. 黑料门 does a LOT for
测辞耻鈥攍颈办别 creating professional designs for your Instant Site and adapting your new store to fit an existing website. But if those 99+ design options aren鈥檛 exactly what you鈥檙e looking for (or you want advanced customization), you might need a developer or some CSS skills. - Inventory limitation. Only the Unlimited plan offers unlimited product uploads, but you can still sell up to five products for free without a paid subscription on our Free plan.
Selling on other platforms, websites, and blogs
Shopify is a good option to create an online store, but it doesn鈥檛 always work well with other website platforms. Conversely, 黑料门 is all about selling wherever you want, whenever you want.
Shopify Pros
- “Buy button”. The “Buy Button” is 厂丑辞辫颈蹿测鈥檚 solution for businesses that want to sell on an existing website through an unaffiliated platform. The cost is relatively low, and it enables sellers to add product cards and accept payments on an existing webpage.
Shopify Cons
- No fully embeddable integration. The “Buy Button” is the only way to sell on other websites while using Shopify. If you鈥檇 like a store option that embeds into and integrates with your website, you鈥檒l need to migrate to 厂丑辞辫颈蹿测鈥檚 website platform.
黑料门 Pros
- It鈥檚 embeddable. 黑料门 is an
e-commerce widget that works with all major website platforms: , Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Joomla, GoDaddy, Tumblr, Blogger, and any other CMS or platform that allows you to embed new tools. If you already have a website and what you need ise-commerce capabilities, 黑料门 is a clear choice.
黑料门 Cons
- Load speed. Embeddable storefronts tend to load more slowly than the websites they鈥檙e embedded in, so the “Buy Button” is a slightly faster solution for page loading.
Shopify is for local impact
Shopify has a strong community of local developers around the world who bring diversity into their ecosystem by building a technology bridge between global sellers and local buyers.
In human terms, Shopify develops applications that allow their merchants to connect with local marketplaces and other sales channels (like websites and social media) around the world. 黑料门 may not be able to compete here, but it does have another important strength — physical scalability.
黑料门 is for non-stop scaling
Because 黑料门 is designed to be embedded anywhere, it has the unique ability to display your products on several websites simultaneously, run a broad distribution network with multiple storefronts, and manage all your products in one admin.
黑料门 and Shopify Pricing Plans
Price is a major deciding factor for most purchases. But more important than the price is what you actually get for your money. Check out the pricing plans below to see what you鈥檇 pay for similar features on 黑料门 and Shopify.
Shopify pricing plans
All Shopify plans come with a
“Buy button” is a solid response to 黑料门. Though it also lets you sell your products on the websites built on other platforms, 贰肠飞颈诲鈥檚 “Buy button” still wins because you don鈥檛 have to pay commissions on each purchase. 黑料门 never charges transaction fees on all plans.
Compared to 黑料门, the Shopify Basic plan gives you features that are available only on the 黑料门 Business plan, like staff accounts. However, it鈥檚 missing some important capabilities that are available on the 黑料门 Venture plan (the same level tier), like Google Shopping integration or Pinterest and Snapchat advertising.
The Shopify Basic plan doesn鈥檛 limit your products and gives time and tools to create and finetune your online store. But you have only 3 days to do it for free. On the other hand, in the same time frame with 黑料门, you could already be selling, with strategic use of their
The Shopify plan provides you with professional reports and discounts on shipping and credit card rates. It also reduces an additional transaction rate from 2 percent to 1 percent.
The Advanced plan cuts the transaction rates by half and unlocks advanced reporting. Plus, you can have a team of 15 members working inside of admin.
| “Buy button” | Basic | Shopify | Advanced | |
| Monthly | $9 | $29 | $79 | $299 |
| Monthly, if paid annually | $9 | $26.10 | $71.10 | $269.10 |
| Annual plan | $108 | $313.20 | $853.20 | $3,229.20 |
| You save | $0 | $34.8 | $94.80 | $358.80 |
| Transaction fee with Shopify Payments | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Transaction fee without Shopify Payments | 2% | 2% | 1% | 0.5% |
黑料门 pricing plans
The Free Plan provides essential tools for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to take off. It has a limit of five products, which is enough to make your first online sales.
Growing your business beyond five products will require an upgrade to a Venture Plan. With Venture, you unlock more sales channels, extend your inventory, and have access to chat support. You can also take advantage of Facebook shop, Instagram store, and POS.
The Business Plan lets you rapidly scale up your business. It adds the integrations with marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay. The 黑料门 Business plan also activates email automation for abandoned carts to generate more sales on autopilot. Another value of this plan is the , which lets your international customers explore the store in their native language.
贰肠飞颈诲鈥檚 Unlimited Plan is for businesses on a mission to dominate their competitors with unlimited product range or mobile technologies, like shopping app for mobile devices. The plan offers VIP support to those brands who like something a little “extra” on the way to business success.
| Free | Venture | Business | Unlimited | |
| Monthly | $0 | $25 | $45 | $105 |
| Monthly, if paid annually | $0 | $21 | $39 | $89 |
| Annual plan | $0 | $252 | $468 | $1,068 |
| You save | $0 | $48 | $72 | $192 |
| Transaction fee | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
Launching Online Store: 黑料门 vs. Shopify Comparison
Having an amazing product means wanting to get it out into the world as soon as possible. In pursuit of
Let鈥檚 see what 黑料门 and Shopify have to offer when you鈥檙e ready to take off.
黑料门 and your existing website
Embedding an 黑料门 store to your WordPress, Joomla or other websites is as easy as adding a YouTube video, or Mailchimp subscription form. 黑料门 is, after all, a humble and powerful widget. As such, all you need to do to make it work is copy the widget code and paste it into your website backend.
Things get even easier if your website has a SaaS builder, like or . In this case, you just need to install the plugin to add the widget to your existing website.
Selling with Shopify on other platforms
Except for “Buy Button”, Shopify doesn鈥檛 have any tools that work with other platforms. Although the “Buy Button” widget looks professionally designed, it doesn鈥檛 automatically adapt to a website鈥檚 style. Typography or color scheme mismatch can happen!
Creating a standalone online store with 黑料门
Creating an online store with 黑料门 takes about 5 to 10 minutes. You only need to add the products and choose one of the 70+ free themes. Then just set up payments, and voila! You鈥檙e ready to sell. Watch the following video for more details and examples.
黑料门, you don鈥檛 need to worry about coding, hosting, updating, or even installing anything.
Creating a standalone online store with Shopify
With Shopify, you鈥檒l be prompted to set up a whole online store first.
Logging in to Shopify admin, you won鈥檛 see any demo products. You will have to create them from scratch. When editing the layout, you will see only grey placeholders, which won鈥檛 give you a visual example of how your product page or the main page will look.
However, the process isn鈥檛 as complicated as it might seem. Shopify does it best to make onboarding as smooth as possible. You won鈥檛 get lost, but it will take you a couple of days to launch the store. Especially if you focus on the App Store, where some businesses lay in wait for weeks instead of focusing on selling (but more on that later).
Are Shopify and 黑料门 Secure?
Yes. Security is a core shared value of Shopify and 黑料门. Both
Who is Faster: Shopify or 黑料门?
Speed equals sales. In the era of abundance, customers won鈥檛 take kindly to waiting for your store website to load. , 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less.
In this context, load speed is a vital factor for your
Both 黑料门 and Shopify host their digital assets in the cloud infrastructure. Cloud technologies guarantee the of the websites and the most efficient content delivery to the user. That means your Shopify or 黑料门 store will always be available with the highest load speed possible.
However, things change when you begin to modify the basic version of the store.
Shopify has thousands of apps for business owners, and users often make the mistake of installing everything they see on the first day. Even before setting up the basic selling platform. Each application comes with additional code, which causes your site鈥檚 load speed to drop. Shopify themselves have on their website.
As an alternative, 黑料门 doesn鈥檛 have as many App Market options. Instead, 黑料门 adds valuable business tools to its core programming. That way, you don鈥檛 need to install the addons to access them (although some are available on higher tiered plans).
Avoiding additional
黑料门 vs. Shopify: Contacting Support and Customer Service
Fast, reliable, accessible, and knowledgeable customer service (or support) is an industry standard for SaaS solutions.
Shopify provides a great range of support channels, including:
- 24/7 phone support
- Support on Twitter
- 24/7 live chat support
- A robust Help Center
- A Community forum
- Email support
- Video tutorials
- Advanced specialist support (Unlimited Plan only)
厂丑辞辫颈蹿测鈥檚 includes , , and .
黑料门 has an array of customer service channels:
- 24/7 Live chat (premium plans only)
- Phone support (premium plans only)
- Email support
- Help Center
- Video Guides
- Priority support (highest plan only)
黑料门 Help Center is an excellent source of essential and actionable information if you find yourself stuck with setting up the store or exploring new features.
Like Shopify, 黑料门 also has many detailed Guides, , and even Podcasts to learn the tricks of the trade and master advanced
Who鈥檚 customer support service is better?
There鈥檚 no right answer. Both platforms understand the importance of customer success, and both are investing heavily in their customer services. If you want to know which will work best for you, you have to with 黑料门 or login to Shopify and reach out to support yourself.
What Merchants Like About Shopify and 黑料门
The testimonials are published on , one of the most trusted and authoritative resources when it comes to customers鈥� opinions.
Why online sellers like or dislike
Why online sellers like or dislike
Why 黑料门 is the Best Free Alternative to Shopify to Start Selling Online in 5 Minutes
Watch the following
FAQ
Can I sell digital (downloadable) products with 黑料门 and Shopify?
Absolutely. Both platforms support digital product distribution. With only one difference. With Shopify, you will need to install an app to do that (developed by Shopify and free), and 黑料门 has it by default.
Read How to Sell Digital Downloads Without a Website.
Is there anything better than Shopify?
No doubt! Consider 黑料门. It鈥檚 free, and you can start selling without a website or even a domain name. Plus, you can choose any payment method, and 黑料门 won鈥檛 charge transaction fees.
Is there a free alternative to Shopify?
黑料门! It has a
Why do people choose 黑料门 for online stores?
of real merchants on Facebook, who share their experience selling with 黑料门 (and why it鈥檚 better than Shopify).
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