Shopify offers three price points, the most expensive of which is $299 per month. Is this really what you need if the business you will put up is dropshipping? If you will dropship, the plan I advise you to get is the Basic Shopify, which costs only $29 per month.
It makes sense if we look at the cost alone, right? Today, I will tell you the other reasons why the Basic Shopify plan is best for dropshipping.
What Is The Best Shopify Plan For You?
First we need to break down each plan before you choose what Shopify plan is right for you dropshipping business.
1. Functional Online Store
With the Basic Shopify plan, you can build a fully functional store. What this means is that the website is complete with the following:
- Theme
- Product pages
- Blog pages and others
- SEO
If you get the Basic Shopify plan, you can also integrate these payment processors such as PayPal, Skrill, and many others. You will get a complete set of features, along with the ability to integrate your own domain name.
All themes in this plan come with customizable features. Many of them are also free. If you do not want to pay for a theme, you can use the free themes made by Shopify.
While these free themes have limited customization options, you can still decide whether you want to add sections or remove them.
Overall, the Basic Shopify theme is an all-in-one package. customers can check out and pay you, and you will also get notifications if a sale was made.
2. Social Selling
With the Basic Shopify theme, you will be able to integrate your store with your social media channels. What does this mean?
If you do not want to limit yourself with selling only on your store, you can create an account with Amazon and sell there, too. You can do the same with Facebook where you could create what is called a Facebook shop channel.
The good news is that you no longer have to upload each and every product on these stores. If you create your Shopify store, all it takes is a few button clicks to integrate a social media channel.
Once this integration is complete, all the products you have on your Shopify will also show on your social media page.
Since Facebook does not have a payment processing channel, you can ask your customers to pay you by other means, such as Western Union. Or, you could also ask them to simply go to your Shopify store and make the purchase from there.
If you remove an item from your Shopify store, your product listings on Facebook and Amazon will also change. Facebook and Amazon are not the only platforms you can integrate. You can do the same with Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and others.
3. Staff Accounts and Reports
Many online selling platforms do not offer additional staff accounts in their basic plans. A staff account refers to an account other than yours. For example, you may have an employee who needs access to the store.
With the Shopify Basic plan, you can add one staff account, and you can also control the access level of this employee. If you do not want the employee to be able to create discounts, then it is up to you to do so.
At the Shopify Basic plan, there are two accounts you can make. One is for you and the other one is for another person. Once your business grows big and you need to add more staff accounts, you will need to upgrade.
As far as reports are concerned, the basic plan shows you different stats that matter to your business. For example, you will see a daily and weekly report summary of your revenue. You will also see the best-performing product on your site.
The reports that you see are basic only. This is alright. In a dropshipping business, you do not really need a lot of data to analyze, especially if you are just starting out.
If you love data, what I recommend is that you integrate Google Analytics to your Shopify store. It is free and it is packed with features that will let you know what is going on with your website store.
4. Apps and Support
If you build your dropshipping store on WordPress.Com, you will not be able to get plug-ins unless you upgrade to a business plan. This is a hassle, as you will soon realize that you need to keep on upgrading just to be able to use apps and its other features.
This is not going to happen with Shopify. On this platform, you can download and install apps regardless of your plan type. What this means is that you have an equal fighting chance against the giants who can shell out $299 per month.
If they could install a carousel app, so could you. There are more than 4,000 apps in Shopify. Many are free, and there are also paid ones. Regardless of your plan type, the costs of these apps are the same. The only advantage of bigger businesses over you is that they will have more money to spend on these apps.
Cons of using the Shopify basic plan
There are two things that you may find a little disappointing if you get the Shopify basic plan. The first one is that the cost of shipping is discounted only a little.
If you are at the basic plan, you can integrate DHL Express, UPS, and USPS. What this means is that you can print shipping labels from your account in these shipping couriers. Since the systems know that the sale is from Shopify, you will get a 74% discount.
If you use other shipping couriers, there is no discount. If you are the top plan, you will get up to 76% discount. This may not be a huge difference, but it will still accumulate once your business becomes busy.
The other issue is that you cannot integrate the Shopify Basic plan with other shipping accounts. You can only do this if you pay for the Advanced plan. Since you cannot do this, there is no way you can see the calculated shipping rates of other couriers.
Despite these two problems, I can say that the basic plan is still the best for dropshipping. After all, it does not make financial sense to pay $299 for a store where the only difference you get is pretty much on the number of staff accounts, the shipping discount, and the ability to integrate other shipping couriers
Summary: What Shopify Plan is Best for Dropshipping?
With dropshipping, what you want is to reduce the cost f running the business. It is a great business because you do not need to pay for inventory, but you also have to save on your regular expenses. If you are just starting out, you do not really need the other benefits of the high-tier plans.
For example, there is no reason to get the Advanced Shopify plan because you do not need 25 staff accounts. You also do not need to get big shipping discounts since you are not shipping in bulk.
Get the Basic Shopify plan if you will put up a dropshipping store. It has a complete set of features and functionalities that you need. Use the money you save in other apps that can help you market your store, such as an email marketing software, or you can use it for ads.