Since more and more people are spending their time on social media, tapping into these channels can help your businesses make more money with Shopify Lite.
Shopify Lite is a great tool for small business owners who want to set up an online business and are targeting social media users and anyone active online. If this is you, there are several eCommerce platforms you can choose from. At the same time, it’s worth learning more about Shopify Lite. Shopify is a powerful platform with 121.1 million orders being handled every month in 2020.
This platform is perfect for social selling. It’s an excellent deal for anyone looking to include a shopping cart to an existing blog or a Facebook page. Also, depending on your online store needs, and your existing web marketing approach, this plan can be beneficial in growing your business.
In this Shopify Lite review, I’ll be looking at: what is Shopify Lite? And the different Shopify Lite features that make it easy for you to start selling your products online.
What is Shopify Lite?
Shopify Lite offers you the most affordable plan on Shopify plus it’s among the most affordable plans offered by eCommerce platforms accessible on the market today.
This plan has a $9 monthly fee, and it lets you add a shopping cart into an existing website, like Wix, WordPress, or Squarespace. This capability makes it possible for your readers to get great content from your website and also be able to support you through purchasing from the same place.
One thing that differentiates Shopify Lite from other plans is that you will not be getting an entire online store plus a shopping cart. Hence, it means you will not create a home for your store in Shopify.
On the contrary, the Shopify Lite plan can be incorporated into a social media page or even an existing website. If for instance, your blog runs on WordPress and you’d like to sell some products, then the Shopify Lite plan can let you do that from your existing blog.
When to Use the Shopify Lite plan
So, in what instances should you use the Shopify Lite plan? There are several times when this plan will work perfectly.
- You have an existing website – If you already have a hobby site or a blog, you can simply add Shopify Lite to start selling your products.
- You’re selling products temporarily – It could be you aren’t planning to run a long-term business. You may be selling a service or product for the short term for extra cash. Also, you might not want to spend time and effort in creating a website, so it’s worth considering Shopify Lite.
- You run a cottage-industry business – For people running a cottage industry business, it can be challenging to accept online sales from across the globe. Again, each state has different restrictions, so probably most of your sales come from farmers’ markets, flea markets, or festivals. If that is the case, you might need a website, but it does not require an eCommerce element. However, it should allow you to take orders over the phone or in-person. For this, the Shopify Lite plan is perfect.
Next to consider is the Shopify Lite charges. So, let’s look at the Shopify Lite transaction fees.
Shopify Lite Plan Transaction Fees
I’ve already mentioned the $9 monthly rate which allows you to display your products and add them to your website or even existing social media channels. The monthly $9 fee is all you pay until you make your first sale.
Once you make that first sale, you will have to pay a transaction fee which is standard in this industry. Also, that’s how credit card processors earn money.
If using Shopify Lite, each online transaction will cost you 2.9% + $0.30. That means that if your sale is worth $40, the amount you’ll get totals $38.54 while the difference of $1.46 covers credit card processing. Since this rate applies to each sale, it’s crucial that you factor this into your margins.
However, in-person sales attract a different rate which lets you keep more of your money.
While the pennies may not seem much, they can add up if you’re processing many transactions.
An Excellent and Consistent Buying Experience
Since Shopify Lite offers a secure buying experience, customers won’t have to visit your website. Due to the lack of complexity, Shopify Lite helps offer a consistent customer experience.
Also, buyers can choose to save their payment details on Facebook. That means they can shop more in the future from your store, and the process will be automatic. Due to this, you are likely to get more sales.
This plan will help reduce the steps that buyers need to follow for them to make a purchase. Also, this can increase your revenue since the checkout process is secure while offering shoppers the choice to save their particulars for future purchases.
On the whole, this platform lets you set up a solid Facebook online store, which includes all the necessary tools to help keep you in control of your online hustle. If you want to exclusively sell on Facebook, it makes sense that you consider using Shopify Lite. Plus this tool is perfect for companies with a Facebook page and a blog.
Selling Offline and In-Person Online
If you’re looking to sell your products offline or in-person at exhibitions, markets, pop-up stores, or trade shows, Shopify Lite makes an excellent solution for you. The thing with this platform is that it offers you standard point-of-sale features that provide many options for those who prefer accepting credit card payments via Square, Stripe, or PayPal.
This platform increases your opportunities for selling online and offline thus companies get a plug and play card reader which they can take with them for when they want to accept payments online and offline Point of sale systems allow you to sell anywhere.
Thanks to the POS feature, users can customize taxes, accept credit cards, take gift cards, apply discounts, offer to ship during checkout, and even process refunds.
If you’re faced with an issue, you can get help from a POS dedicated team 24/7. Also, the POS feature will automatically sync your inventory throughout all your existing sales channels. Plus, it lets you directly manage your products from a Shopify app.
Get Paid and Create Invoices Faster
For businesses that mainly process phone, custom, and wholesale orders Shopify Lite can be an amazing tool. It’s an affordable plan that helps you create invoices and also get paid fast and securely without any problems.
This process includes creating an invoice that you then send to your customers. Once your customers receive the invoice, they can then pay using Shopify’s shopping cart. The invoices work the same way as other invoicing tools.
Also, with Shopify Lite you’ll have access to additional tools that you can use for selling online, offline, and even on Facebook. While it’s a basic platform, Shopify Lite provides your company with many options for making money which makes it an undeniable platform for SMEs.
Selling Products to Facebook Users
Shopify Lite works well for people with an existing website and plan to sell their products on both Facebook and the blog. Since it includes an integrated Facebook shop, it is easy for users to sell their products on Facebook.
The Facebook shop in review Shopify helps you advertise on Facebook as well as direct people to your store. Plus, customers won’t need to leave Facebook if they wish to make a purchase. Again, having everything running from a trusted social media channel, the steps to follow when making a sale are reduced.
This platform will embed your existing Facebook Business page to add a Shop tab for your page to allow for you to have product galleries and a shopping cart within Facebook. An ever visible Shop tab is also optimized for mobile which ensures that your customers have that shopping experience to want to come back.
Shopify Lite also simplifies product management since all the listed products in the Shopify Lite plan will be synced with your Facebook store. And that means you don’t have to keep uploading products multiple times. All you have to watch is your Shopify dashboard thus you don’t have to worry about what’s happening on your Facebook store page.
Thanks to the sync capabilities, it means when you make changes to the price, product images, or description, this will also reflect automatically in your Facebook store. If you adjust the collection order in your Shopify account, everything will reflect on Facebook accordingly.
What’s more, with Shopify Lite when any of the products in your online store becomes unavailable, you will get an automatic notification from the store and the item is removed from your shop. Besides, the Shopify Lite Facebook integration comes with a simple yet stunning and functional checkout element.
Facebook Messenger
Like the Shop page found on Facebook, the Shopify Lite plan offers you another way for your customers to get your products via Facebook messenger.
This channel integrates with Facebook Messenger to offer customers a place where they can order and track their purchases using the messaging app.
Shopify Lite and Shopify Basic Plans
When considering Shopify Lite vs basic, the Shopify Lite plan costs $9 per month while Shopify Basic costs $29 a month. In the pricing hierarchy, Shopify Basic is the next step after Shopify Lite. With Shopify Basic, you can setup a stand-alone store, but with Shopify Lite this is not the case.
Shopify Basic gives you more features, however, it will cost you more. So, when you want to upgrade, you’ll get hosting, domains, customizable website themes, SSL, management, and order fulfillment plus inventory management.
Also, Shopify Basic offers many powerful features that help entrepreneurs set up, manage, and operate their eCommerce businesses in one place. With Shopify Basic plan, you can also sell on Instagram.
Even then, Shopify Lite offers you several attractive eCommerce features. This is what you need for that extra layer for your online business, more so if you have a popular blog or are active on Facebook.
How to Downgrade Shopify to Shopify Lite
To downgrade from Shopify Basic to Shopify Lite, you need to remove your Online Store from your Shopify account.
In doing so, all the setting, products (including payment providers), even customer information, etc. remains the same. That means you can still use Shopify Payments. But, all features under your Online Store tab found in the admin – Domains, Themes, Pages, etc. are removed.
Using Shopify Buttons to Sell on Your Blog or Website
In addition to Facebook selling, Shopify Lite offers the Shopify Buy button as the main feature.
The Shopify Buy Button makes it easy to add eCommerce to an existing website, like WordPress, Tumblr, or your blog. You can easily embed the buy button and a gallery of your products which makes a powerful Shopify-powered sales tool for boosting sales.
These buttons can be customized to work for your website theme. Also, you can include shopping carts to provide customers a safe checkout. Sales and inventory are also tracked from your Shopify Lite dashboard, meaning that you’ll only need one interface to run your whole online sales system.
Below are some ideas that you could consider using on your website along with the Shopify Buy Button:
- In your content: A great way of grabbing people’s attention and driving traffic to your store is to directly embed your products within your content. For this, you’ll need to paste a generated code within your blog and the button will appear within your blog post. Since the Shopify Button has different customization options, you can adjust it to go with your brand colors and blog theme.
- Landing page: Another option would be adding eCommerce functionality on your landing pages by adding a generated code for the buy button to your store admin and start selling. Shopify Lite makes an excellent tool for selling digital products like photography, eBooks, or graphic design.
- Sidebar: The sidebar can help you start selling on an existing blog. It also makes a great way to see whether your readers have an interest in your products. With this option, you can introduce new and exciting products or something that’s by now well-known.
Create Discount Codes
With the Shopify Lite plan, you can create automatic discounts and discount codes as well.
Since it offers powerful and flexible discount options, it’s possible to set a fixed or variable amount, free shipping, or the ‘buy X get Y’ discounts. Also, you can come up with your own requirements such as a minimum amount of money that people have to spend for them to qualify for discounts and a lot more.
Again, you can increase the interest from buyers on holidays and any other special occasion. Free shipping, for example, during your store’s anniversary or a discount on your customer’s birthday, and so forth.
Shopify Lite with Oberlo
Finally, Shopify Lite also works well with the well-liked dropshipping app Oberlo. While dropshipping is a free and simple business model, with Oberlo customer orders are automatically fulfilled. Plus it takes care of the packaging and shipping as well.
You can digitally import products from different suppliers on Oberlo or AliExpress and you only pay after a sale has been made. Also, when a product doesn’t sell, it can be removed from your products list. You can also replace it with another product at no cost.
This app is free and can support 50 products, plus 50 auto-fulfilled orders a month. It also gives people access to 1000s of products from Oberlo vetted products and suppliers on AliExpress.
Shopify Lite Pros and Cons
Pros
- POS for selling offline.
- Sell on Facebook.
- Create coupon codes.
- Sell on any website or blog.
- Create Custom Invoices.
Cons
- No dedicated storefront.
- Lacks a few features found on other plans.
Is Shopify Lite the Right Plan For You?
This Shopify Lite review has looked at this competitively-priced plan which lets people test the waters of running an eCommerce business. Shopify Lite is a fully functional tool that allows you to accept sales on social media, in-person, and from an existing website (such as a WordPress blog).
Again, if that’s what you currently need, Shopify Lite makes a great plan for you. At the same time, if you seriously want to set up an eCommerce business but you don’t have an existing website, then you might consider using Shopify’s Basic plan.
Even then, Shopify Lite works in certain situations. It’s a great tool for people who have an existing site and want to start selling a few products on the site without having to build a completely new website.
It also works well for sellers who want to offer their products on Facebook using its live chat module. This plan is also for anyone who wants to sell offline using a standard Point of Sale (POS) system.
Also, depending on your business needs, and your existing web marketing approach, Shopify Lite can be the perfect fit for you. Then this is an amazing way to enter the eCommerce industry and start making sales from your website and any other existing channels.
