47 Reasons to Set Up a Shopify Store

Starting a Shopify store has quite literally changed my life forever. I remember having my own store on eBay (I've sold on eBay for over 21 years now) and while I was at the top of my game, one of the top five sellers in my niche with over 41,000 other ads to compete with, this massive store I owned with 700 ads, the most I ever made on that platform was $3k/month profits.

For that $3k/month, I had to work 80-120 hours a week. I had to ship every day and help customers and constantly be photographing new products, listing new products, finding products in which to sell, driving around town and spending time searching for deals online.

It was a great business to have. Something that I could fully support me and my two little ones with, but working so much like that, it wasn't getting me anywhere. If I stopped the "system", I lost my income.

I was in essence, trading time for money, something that employees who work at a traditional job do. Something that *I* didn't want to do. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just that I wanted more out of life. I'm a single mom. My family is important to me and I don't just wanna be working all the time!

Opening my own Shopify store, is something that I had no clue would take off like it did. I worked hard to set things up for a year. I focused on creating products, placing product ads on the site, getting reviews, getting my stuff out to the population, so that now, it's this empire that I've created that doesn't need ME to run!

I'm not trading time for money. I can take a vacation whenever I want. I only have to work 20-30 hours a week to maintain BOTH my blog AND my shop. :)

I'm finally FREE from the hamster wheel. I've gotten past that now. My time is my own. And even in the slowest of months ever in my shop, I STILL make plenty of money to support my family.

For me, Shopify has been about FREEDOM. A freedom that after 21 years, I finally FOUND...in this ONE...platform.

But this is only ONE reason...there are 47 more below to inspire you to see the potential of all that Shopify has to offer you!

1. It's YOUR rules, your terms, your life. With a Shopify store, you get to choose what YOU want to do. When you're on another platform like say Etsy or ebay, you have to follow a pre-made-up set of rules. Want to do your own thing? You can't! But on Shopify, you're in full control! You're the boss, the CEO, YOU make the rules! You can do what's right for YOU.
2. Help people by selling products that will change their lives. Think about the impact you are having in people’s lives. It's just not a product, it's about what they are able to accomplish WITH your product! :)
3. Connect your buyers to your email list (for free) so you can keep in touch with them and help them in the future. Unlike Etsy, ebay, Amazon, etc. on Shopify, you can actually use the store to build your email list! Currently, 53.45% of my sales are from existing customers, so this is huge!
4. You can quit you day job once your store starts bringing more money. You don't have to work for someone else. Once you get your store up and going and it's making consistent money, you don't have to depend on someone else. You can have the life you dream of!
5. You can create a community with your buyers. Word of mouth is something powerful! When you offer great value, people will not only come back, but they will also bring their friends and family!
6. You don't have to have a separate blog. While in my opinion, it IS better to have a separate blog, you don't have to. You can provide a lot of value within the blog area of Shopify and reach people that way. This gives you more options.
7. If you already have an email list, you can easily drive traffic to your store and add a store as one more revenue stream. It's incredibly easy to do this when you simply ask your audience what they want you to create for them.
8. It's extremely easy to set up. Listen, I am not technical at all! But when I set up my Shopify store for the first time, I set it all up within 5 minutes. I actually had my store and said to myself, "Wait, that was it?!" I mean, compared to setting up your own self-hosted blog on Wordpress, trying to create a landing page on Leadpages, or create something on Teachable, this is cake. Seriously, cake!
9. You get 24/7 customer service. If you ever have any questions, even in the middle of the night, bam, Shopify's customer support chat feature is ready to help you (and by the way...they are AHHHH-MAZE-ing!)
10. Simply add an app. Need something specific to add to your store? No problem. Everything under the sun, and I mean literally, EVERYTHING under the sun you could possibly think of is there and ready to install. Some apps cost money, so just be careful to find apps that are completely worth your money!
11. You can sell anything you want. From printables, to stock photography, to having your own membership site. Anything and everything you want to sell, you can!
12. It helps you be creative. When you're thinking of what to sell and gauging your audience for interest, you get the beautiful opportunity to really get creative and create products and services that are outside-of-the-box. When I first started selling printables, I kept thinking to myself, "Who would PAY for printables, when they are free all over the net?" And yet, I currently make over $2 million dollars a year in printables. People DO pay when the product is good.
13. Having your own Shopify store is the next "big" thing. I truly believe that THIS is the next mainstream thing. So, get in on it while it's still new and be a front-runner in your industry!
14. You can sell your products all around the world. Unlike ebay, due to shipping and things like that where there's customs, and shipping, and lost packages, selling digital products in your own store, you can reach a much bigger world, thus opening up your horizon to a whole new plateau of what's possible.
15. You can work from the comfort of your own home. This is such a great one because it allows me to spend more time with my kids. You can work in your pyjamas (which I'm currently doing as I'm writing this,) :) You can work from anywhere too, not just your home. Wanna take a vacation, you can do all that with a store, whereas, it's a lot harder to run a blog from a remote location because of all the tools, etc. you need to use/login to.
16. It's more static. Unlike a blog, you don't have to update your store every 5 second and keep up with every trend and social media platform that passes you by like a fly-by-night. Having your own store is more static. You can take your time to create products and therefore, really create high quality products.
17. It's a lot easier to make money than you think. You don't have to stay up all night thinking about how to make money in your store. Just focus on getting people TO your store and offering high-quality products. They will do the rest.
18. Playing into the previous reason, you don't have to be salesy! Do you feel like you're not the best seller? Feel like you can't or don't want to sell? Ever feel uncomfortable trying to get someone to buy something? Again, it's the beauty of having a store! You just get them there (with a freebie), they buy, simple. There's no being salesy about it. You don't have to sell anything or be pushy, which is why this business model works so great for most people because most people hate being salesy.
19. It's the perfect addition to your blogs' current revenue stream. It's something you don't have to stop blogging for or take a huge risk. There's very little risk involved. It's just something you add to your already great blog repertoire.
20. It's your own product, your own creation. There's a lot to be said about a blogger who is NOT copy/paste, because it seems like most bloggers just copy/paste everything. Having your own store separates those copy/paste bloggers from the true leaders like you. The leaders who actually do their own work and not steal other's. Therefore, automatically, it's very successful, because it's new and unique products that are ALL YOUR OWN!
21. You get to build your OWN empire, not someone else's. While you can definitely make money with affiliate marketing and ads, you're really just growing someone else's business and it's incredibly short-sighted. If you really want to make a substantial living, you need to build your own business.
22. No overhead costs. When you sell digital products, which is what I only sell on Shopify, there are no shipping costs, packaging costs, mailing costs (bubble wrap, sticky labels, envelopes, boxes, stamps, etc.) You get to keep all that in your own pocket.
23. ROI is way better. You get to create a digital product ONCE, then resell it over and over and over and over again. It's not like tangible goods, where you can only sell it once. The ROI (return on investment) is much, much better for digital items.
24. It's passive income. You literally sell your products while you sleep. While you are sleeping, people in Europe, Australia, and other countries are shopping!
25. You learn a whole set of skills you didn't even know you had. I had no idea about my potential. I never went to design school or anything. I just really like designing things and the more I do it, the more I can see it growing and growing with each passing day.
26. Rent is a lot cheaper. If you were to rent office space or housing for a brick and mortar store, you're looking at paying a huge amount in monthly costs to rent the space, then lighting, electricity, plumbing, etc. With an online store, you can pay as little as $29 for your store, period. Compare that to a thousand dollars for a brick and mortar shop and over the period of just one year, you are saving $11,652/year in costs. That's enough money to buy a car outright, send your kids to college their first 1-2 years (depending on where they go and if they have scholarships/grants), or take that dream vacation you've always wanted to.
27. More and more people buy online. People don't want to get out of their house to shop. They are looking more and more for online options, and that trend is here to stay.
28. Shopify allows you to cross-sell. By installing apps such as Facebook or Instagram, you can connect your store directly to your social media. Isn't that awesome?! You can make sales on more platforms than JUST Shopify and reach your audience in new and exciting ways.
29. You are the owner of your own shop and can personalize it as you want. The sky is the limit; choose from hundreds of themes to make your store look beautiful and professional.
30. Shopify takes care of all the technical stuff, so you don't have to worry about it. This is so important when starting, because you can take that precious time of yours and work on products rather than trying to figure out technical stuff!
31. Providing great customer service is super easy. You can install a chat box on your store or what I have, a contact form, so your customers can ask you questions and get support. A customer who feels supported is a lot more ready to buy than someone who doesn't! :)
32. Shopify has great SEO. Every store owner has to ability to optimize for SEO. You can add product descriptions and keywords and even change your SEO description, so you can rank better in Google and have great organic growth.
33. If you have a physical store, you can integrate both the physical and online store! How cool is that?! Even if you have a physical store already, with Shopify you can manage inventory and be able to use the power of having an online store.
34. You don't need to have prior experience. The platform is extremely friendly. I can't emphasize this more! It's easy to set up. You don't have to be a tech savvy to open a store.
35. You get to make money doing something you LOVE and are passionate about. For me, I LOVE to design and create coloring sheets and I get to do that in my Shopify store. What do you love to create?
36. While English is best because it's more universal and you can reach more people, you CAN set up your store in any language you are proficient. If English is not your first language, you can open a store in Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc.!
37. You don't need any design or building skills to have a great store. With Shopify's easy to use platform; you can set up the most beautiful store without any coding experience! That's huge!
38. Have your store load faster, ALWAYS! Don't worry about speed problems or a sluggish site. Shopify guarantees your store will load fast every single time.
39. Add products until your heart is content - they are unlimited! Shopify allows you to have unlimited products, so the sky is the limit, my friend! Don't feel constricted!
40. Sleep in peace knowing that you don't have to worry too much about hackers. Shopify has an AMAZINGLY secure platform. This takes a lot of pressure off you to be able to focus on the more important areas of running a store: customer service, creating great products, and marketing your store.
41. Ton of options for your customers to pay. Shopify has tons of different payment methods, way more than I realized were even out there!
42. You can create your own discount codes, something you cannot do on ebay.
43. Likewise, if you have the upgraded Shopify plan, you can create gift cards so that people can buy them and give them to their loved ones. How cool is that, that you get a position in the marketplace, where your customers buy a gift card for someone to shop at YOUR store? That's just an incredible feeling!
44. Analytics. Shopify has great built-in analytics on the $79/month plan. Analytics that have literally made my own store and my clients stores FLY! These analytics will help you to make better decisions by seeing what is working and what is not! You want to pay attention to these things and act on it!
45. You get to get instant feedback. When you set up reviews on your products, you get to hear from the customer exactly what they like and don't like. When you get a lot of great feedback on your products, it really just boosts your confidence like nothing else can! :)
46. No hidden fees. Unlike many other things in our world today where there are secret, hidden fees that you don't know about 'til you get into it, with Shopify, there's not. There are options like some apps that cost money, but Shopify lays out exactly what all you'll pay in their pricing very clearly and apps are always optional.
47. Abandoned carts. In Shopify's $79/month plan, you get free abandoned carts, which is very much worth it. My conversion rate on abandoned carts is 17-20% each month. Truly, it helps and is a great thing to have!

It's a dream come true once you make you first sale on Shopify....you know all of the things mentioned above are possible when you make your first sale!