Before we dive into this Shopify Lite review, here’s an interesting stat for you. A recent study indicates that global eCommerce sales topped a whopping $4.28 billion in 2020. The Shopify Lite plan is designed to help budding entrepreneurs get a sizable slice of that pie without breaking the bank to do it. This review explores why the plan has quickly become a top choice for business startups.
Shopify Lite brings something a little different to the table from the conventional plans you might have come across so far. It is specifically designed for businesses looking to integrate a Buy button to their current website, blog, or social media channel or conduct in-person sales via POS Lite.
While the plan comes with the standard features for the Buy button, POS sales channels, Finances report, and Overview dashboard, it does not have the online store sales channel synonymous with the other Shopify plans. Here’s what it does have.
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No Shopify Lite review would be complete without discussing the all-important Buy button that sets this plan apart from its competition. What is Shopify Lite Buy button? The whole idea behind it is – it allows you to sell anything from anywhere without the hassle of running a full-blown online store.
All you have to do is generate embeddable product cards and shopping cards and add them anywhere on your website. It works regardless of what type of site you’re running – we’re talking blogs on Tumblr, Squarespace, WordPress; homepages and landing pages; and portfolio websites. It even works with social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
We especially like the fact Shopify Lite lets users customize the Buy button to match their brand. That way, you don't have to worry about it standing out like a sore thumb when visitors browse your website. It gives them a subtle nudge to purchase a product or service without seeming too pushy – and you wouldn’t want to do that.
The plan supports in-person sales via the Shopify POS Lite app and card reader. This feature is ideal for anyone looking to sell physical products at a pop-up store, trade store, or farmers' market. You can conveniently receive payments via credit card using your Android or iOs device regardless of where you are.
Shopify Lite allows merchants to create custom orders, phone-based orders, and wholesale orders conveniently. We particularly like that you can rely on it for new line items or existing products and even incorporate customizable shipping rates or one-time discounts for your customers.
The best part is – once you’ve built a new order, all you need to do is click “Pay with credit card” to enter your customer's billing details into your Admin dashboard. You can also select “Email invoice” to send a bill directly to your customer. You can even add a customized message in your email and a link they can click on to direct them to a pre-filled checkout form.
If there's one thing we want to emphasize in this Shopify Lite review, it's – how important it is to track your site data. It’s the only way you can keep an eye on performance and make the necessary tweaks to optimize your sales. This plan comes with an Overview dashboard that lets you:
The Overview dashboard provides you with invaluable insight into your store's performance and your customers' behavior. You can view metrics in both numerical and graph formats.
Another critical element of the Shopify Lite plan is the analytics – more specifically – the Finances report. It gives you detailed information about your transactions from a financial standpoint. You can view the total sales made over a particular period, broken down into individual transactions, including sales, shipping amounts, and returns.
You also get to view monetary transactions for both payments and refunds, based on the payment providers. Suppose you would rather view a summarized version of all your sales, expenses, gross profits, and liabilities. In that case, this information is readily available on the Finances summary page of your Shopify Admin.
The features we’ve detailed so far are exclusive to the Shopify Lite plan. Nonetheless, here’s a list of additional perks that come with all plans – including Lite.
Pricing is a significant pain point for most business owners. The good news is – Shopify Lite hits the mark as far as costs go. The plan goes for $9 per month, which is a far cry from some of the more expensive solutions on the market right now.
If you want to set up an online store later down the line, you can always upgrade to any of the other Shopify plans without losing the Lite features you’ve come to love. Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify all have the features you find in Shopify Lite plus more, depending on the scale of your enterprise. The flexibility you get with the Shopify $9 plan is why it has several positive Shopify reviews online.
To reiterate, Shopify Lite was created for individuals and businesses who want to sell their products online without committing to running and maintaining an online store. It is also ideal for individuals with an active website who want to dip their toes in the eCommerce world. All this is made possible by embedding the Buy button onto your website.
Here’s how to use Shopify Lite.
Keep in mind that before you can create a Buy button, in step 4 above, you’ll need to have added the product in question to your Shopify Admin before making it available to the Buy button sales channel.
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Once you create it, it also generates a different cart. You can customize the action of your Buy buttons based on how you want them to behave when a customer clicks on the product(s). For instance:
Here’s a detailed Shopify Lite vs Basic comparison of plan features.
Below is a list of perks and drawbacks of the Lite plan.
Pros
Cons
The major takeaway from this Shopify Lite review is – it’s a great option to consider if:
While the plan features fundamentally target businesses that don’t require a virtual storefront, it is flexible enough to upgrade to higher Shopify pricing tiers when you’re ready to set up an online shop.
If you’re thinking of switching from one eCommerce solution to another, you need a foolproof way to migrate all your product, order, and customer data for seamless service delivery. Cart2Cart is the industry leader when it comes to shopping cart migration.
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