Shopify VS The Book Depository

Shopify Reviews

1. Beard    

   9 months ago
   Shopify - the best no code platform.

   Creating my online store for small dog products on Shopify was a remarkably smooth and rewarding experience. Shopify's user-friendly platform guided me through each step of the setup process, making it easy even for someone without prior experience. Their range of customizable templates gave my store a professional and appealing look, and the analytics tools provided have been invaluable for tracking my store's performance and customer trends. Additionally, Shopify's 24/7 customer support was always ready to assist whenever I encountered any roadblocks. Overall, launching my business on Shopify has been a positive experience, and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to start their own online store.

   🏁 Competitors: Tilda, WooCommerce
2. Lori Appleman    

   Founder at Redline Minds | over 3 years ago
   Strong Option for New DIY Stores Serving Consumers

   Shopify is a powerful marketing machine that has driven incredible growth. It's an excellent choice for the store owner who needs to do it themselves, on a shoestring budget, who does not sell complex products and who does not plan to run a hybrid - a store that serves multiple customer bases such as retail and wholesale.

   Due to its sheer market share, there is a robust marketplace of apps that can be added to shape the store to fit most needs. There is an equally robust selection of themes and developers who can assist with any size project. They have a terrific knowledge base which I strongly recommend store owners use as it teaches the basics for e-commerce in general and online marketing. This learning should be done prior to developing a plan for your site. That will help root your project for success.

   Unfortunately, it's also oversold based on name recognition even when the platform is a poor choice for a specific business. There are both policy and technical limitations that impact suitability.

   Shopify stores require many apps, which adds monthly costs and can greatly slow your store down. While ALL online stores end up with some app use, because this allows you to choose the features you want and need, much of what is native in other carts like their most direct competitor, BigCommerce, is not. So you'll spend more money each month and it can be harder to get a fast site.

   Among the stores that should probably NOT use Shopify: - Sells items that are generally prohibited on the platform which includes weapons, weapon-related items, sex objects, tobacco (for some odd reason Vape is currently on the platform but for how long is anyone's guess), alcohol.
   - Sells items allowed but that don't qualify for Shopify Payments which expands the above list to include supplements, CBD, vape products and other items. - Just as above, any store that can't qualify for Shopify Payments or who has good reasons to use another payment gateway. Why? Because if you don't use their payment gateway which they profit from, they will take 1/2-2% of your gross revenues soley because you are using another gateway. For small merchants, this isn't much, for big ones it's a significant cost. - Stores with multiple price structures or catalogs - such as those who offer VIP tiers or wholesale clients. Why not? Because you can't create true customer groups which on other platforms let you segment the catalog and content for each customer group. Groups are really important for B2B. To accomplish multiple audiences on Shopify requires either a separate app (at an added cost) or multiple storefronts, or ShopifyPlus (which is still creating multiple sites). This can greatly increase your operational costs and work efforts. - Stores with complex products - these are items with many options, also known as configurable or customizable products. While Shopify does offer the ability to offer up to 3 options per product with a maximum of 100 skus per product, this limit is very easy to exceed. There is also no native path to add modifiers such as those one would use for personalized products (like custom embroidery. While these issues can be overcome with apps, that adds both load time and costs.

   🏁 Competitors: BigCommerce, Magento, Miva, WooCommerce, Workflow

   👍 Pros:    Easy to use|Low price|Flexible|Large developer base|Great documentation|Reliable|Low maintenance

   👎 Cons:    Limited features|No customer groups for wholesale|Some product types forbidden|Must use their gateway or pay extra fees|Limited api calls|Limited capabilities for products with options

The Book Depository Reviews

Shopify mentions (42)

• shopify.com vs store.link, what do you think is better one?

  Shopify.com vs store.link which one is better? Source: 8 months ago

• Forget Shopify Why MedusaJS Is the Future of Headless Ecommerce

  With a traditional e-commerce platform like Shopify, you're locked into their ecosystem. You have to use their templates, checkout, and backend. Headless platforms like MedusaJS give you the freedom to build the front end however you want, using any framework or library. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago

• Allow Rules not given priority over block?

  For example, if you want to load firewalla.com, just allowing "firewalla.com" will not work, you will have allow shopify.com and few other stuff ... You can see what sites loaded using chrome dev mode. Source: 11 months ago

• Confused on Sales Tax

  If the shipping and sales tax scares you, it may be better to sell through Etsy since it is a marketplace facilitator and is required to collect sales tax from customers when purchasing your items that are sold. People go to Etsy to find something, not sgalv02.com to find your items. I believe Shopify will help you create a site to sell on, but people don't go to shopify.com to purchase various items like they do... Source: 11 months ago

• Seeking suggestions to start a business.

  Create a online website using dukaan.io or shopify.com and then sell something.. Source: 11 months ago

The Book Depository mentions (69)

• Updates?

  I know. I used to collect the LN, however since bookdepository.com closed, I can no longer buy them. Amazon shop is not accessible in my region, so I probably can only get them in a local Kinokuniya store which is usually priced much hire that buying the online. Or maybe I can only depend on the audiobook from somewhere like youtube. Source: 10 months ago

• looking for a substitute to bookdepository

  Bookdepository.com/ is shutting down business and I need a good substitute asap :))) I live in germany and it's really hard to get good international books that here that aren't considered mainstream enough to be in regular bookstores. So any good british website with free EU-shipping would be perfect. Any ideas? Source: 12 months ago

• How strong is bell in the novel currently?

  Damn, I really want to continue reading the novel but sadly bookdepository.com is closing this month. I don't know where I can get the novel unless I pay a visit to Kinokuniya and buy their overpriced light novel. Source: 12 months ago

• bookdepository.com is closing :(

  So here's something very few of you may be aware of: Your local bookstore probably has the ability to order whatever title you could get on bookdepository.com/amazon or BOL or whatever other megacorp decided they could kill off the high street. (Of course they'll buy them from other megacorps, but at least they won't be dead set on killing your local shops). Source: about 1 year ago

• Alternatives to bookdepository.com

  With amazon shutting down bookdepository.com in a few weeks, which other good sites that has a big collection/variety of books? (apart from amazon). Source: about 1 year ago