Most potential store merchants in Australia face the challenge of deciding on the right platform and shop system while setting up their ecommerce business. They may take several days, or even months, to make an informed decision through traditional ideas. If you are one of them, you can save both your time and money and set up your e-commerce store in your desired way by using Shopify Australia.
Setting up an ecommerce store can be a game-changer for any business entity in this age of digital technology and superb internet connectivity. However, pulling it off successfully may take a significant amount of money plus a long duration of time. With Shopify, you can get the job done on a moderate budget while saving precious time. Read on to learn about Shopify and how it can help you grow your online business.
What is Shopify?
Currently, Shopify is the buzzword when it comes to online stores. Its rising level of interest and curiosity among both existing and potential online store merchants speaks volumes about its popularity. Keeping its benefits in mind, they do their best to learn more about it. Are you one of the store merchants in Australia who wishes to step into the world of ecommerce? If yes, you should know what Shopify is all about.
To begin with, it is a platform that simplifies online trading. It helps build an excellent ecommerce trading platform. You can launch your platform immediately after creating it with Shopify. Thereafter, you can start pitching for your business offerings and also sell them simultaneously.
Whether it is about improving the design of a platform or adding more features to it, Shopify is a clear winner among the existing platforms. It helps you sell your products or services both in person and online. Secure payment solutions, inclusive promotional features, and useful templates are some of its prominent features.
Different pricing plans of Shopify
The operation of a Shopify store depends on many factors. These may range from supplementary features to Shopify’s specific pricing plans. Considering all these factors is necessary to estimate or calculate the actual cost of operationalizing a Shopify store.
Shopify offers different types of plans for different businesses, depending on their size. For instance, it has dedicated pricing plans for individuals and small business organizations. Likewise, it also has separate packages for medium and large-sized companies.
When determining the cost of your Shopify store, you must remember that Shopify is available in different countries. If you wish to start your business in Australia, you would want to know about the different packages of the platform in Australia.
Depending on the size and type of your business organization, you can go for one of the below-mentioned plans.
1. Basic – For Individuals & Small Businesses
This Shopify plan is available at AUD 56 per month, which makes it the cheapest among all the available plans. You can buy it by either using a credit card or a third-party payment platform. The Shopify transaction fees Australia
for buying the plan using a third-party payment platform is 2.0%, whereas that with a credit card depends on the kind of credit card you use. Here is a list of the different types of credit cards you can use along with the fees for making online transactions.
- Australian credit card – 1.75% +30¢ AUD
- International credit cards – 2.9% + 30¢ AUD
- Credit or debit card transactions (in-person) – 1.95% + 0¢ AUD
Despite being basic in terms of its features and pricing, the package offers good value for money. Alongside two distinct seats or logins, it also allows you to sell as many products as you want without putting any limitations. Plus, it also covers all bases with its added features to help you launch an ecommerce business with success. The additional features of the Basic package include the following:
- Marketing automation features
- Discount codes
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Dedicated 24×7 support
2. Shopify – For Small Businesses
Do you run a successful small business organization and want to take its success to the next level? If yes, the Shopify plan can help you achieve this objective with finesse. This package is available at AUD 149 per month. It has a higher price than the Basic plan which is well-justified by its features. Like the Basic plan, you can buy this one through your credit card online transaction or a third-party provider. The fee for buying it in conjunction with third-party payment providers is 1%. The following Shopify transaction fees in Australia are applicable for buying the Shopify package through online credit card transactions:
- International credit card – 2.8% plus 30¢ AUD
- Australian credit card – 1.6% plus 30¢ AUD
- In-person credit card transactions – 1.85% + 0¢ AUD
The package comes with standard plus added features. In other words, it offers some additional features along with ones in the Basic package. You can expect the following features upon buying this package:
- Marketing automation features
- Discount codes
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Dedicated 24×7 support
- Shopify POS lite
- Standard reporting
3. Advanced – For Medium to Large Businesses
In accordance with its name, this package provides the best features to customers. It is ideal for those who wish to set up their ecommerce store on a high note and take it to the next level as it is primarily tailor-made for medium and large-sized ecommerce businesses. You can buy this monthly plan at AUD 575 using either your credit card or a third-party platform. To use the latter option, you must pay a fee of 0.5%.
Also, you will be required to pay a fee if you decide to buy the Advanced plan by using your credit card. The fee that you must pay will be the following for different types of credit cards:
- Online Australian credit card transactions – 1.4% + 30¢ AUD
- Online international credit card transactions – 2.7% + 30¢ AUD
- In-person credit or debit transactions – 1.75% + 0¢ AUD
The major benefit of Shopify Advanced for your Shopify e-commerce is its additional features. It has some unique features that you will not find with any other packages. These include additional API calls, the power to charge taxes and duties on your products, and advanced reporting.
Alternative solutions for Shopify packages
Sure, the above packages offer value for money in their way. But some additional packages might also interest you. These packages can be excellent alternatives, especially if you are interested in alternative solutions. Here’s what you need to know about such packages
Starter
No doubt, owning an e-commerce store on the Internet makes it easy for you to sell your products. However, you can also reach out to your clients with your business offerings through an existing website or popular social media platforms. If you wish to utilize these options and want a compatible Shopify package for it, the Starter plan, which is available at AUD 7 per month, might interest you. But while choosing this package, you must remember that it works best only when you have an operational business website. You can add the ecommerce functionality to it through the Starter package.
The “buy button” is a hallmark feature of the Starter package. With it, you can embed many products to boost your sales. Apart from that, the Starter pack also has other value-added features. Prominent among them is its blogging features with which you can maintain a blog to keep your target audience engaged with the latest offers and important updates. And with its SSL certificate, which comes free of cost, you can boost the security of your website and prevent unauthorized access to sensitive user data. These features add up to make the Starter pack a cheap yet useful package for those who wish to get the prominent features of Shopify at a low or moderate budget.
Shopify Plus
If your ecommerce business is well established and you wish to get the best enterprise-grade solution for it without worrying about the budget factor, Shopify Plus is the option you might want to consider. The monthly Shopify plus cost of this package is AUD 2,000. It is evident from the pricing of this package that it is meant for large-scale ecommerce stores. What makes Shopify Plus a valuable investment is its additional features on top of Shopify’s Advanced plan. It offers great value for money with the following attributes:
- Easy and effective software integration with several third-party programs
- Support for a wide range of currencies
- Checkout optimisation
- Automation
- Advanced security features
Can you save money on Shopify?
After knowing about the available packages on Shopify, along with Shopify selling fees, the next thing you want to know is if you can save some money by bagging discount deals. Yes, you can do it by opting for a yearly subscription. One of its major advantages is that it fetches a huge discount. Wondering what kind of discount you might get if you chose an annual subscription plan on Shopify? You would be delighted to know that buying a yearly plan will make you eligible for a 25% discount. And the best part about it is that this discount is applicable across the board on all Shopify plans. From the customer’s perspective, it means that you can choose any one of the plans with freedom and the knowledge that you will get quality service for a year without straining your finances.
However, an important thing related to pricing is that it keeps changing from time to time. This is in line with Shopify’s policy to keep the pricing relevant with the changing market dynamics. So, you might want to check the latest information about pricing plans before finalizing your decision. You can find detailed information about it by visiting the official website of Shopify. Upon landing on the website, navigate to the pricing section to get detailed information about pricing plans.
Additional Shopify charges
Apart from the standard charges, you may be required to pay some additional charges. This will depend upon your website and the type of subscription you choose. Here are some aspects that may influence your overall pricing of your Shopify subscription plan.
Email hosting: regardless of the type of Shopify plan you subscribe to, each if its plans are tailor-made for easy exchange of emails. After your subscription, you can exchange up to 10,000 emails free of cost. After using up these many emails, you can get an additional balance of 1000 emails by paying a fee of 1 AUD.
Domain name: all the plans from Shopify are inclusive of domain names, meaning that you don’t need to pay any additional amount of money for a domain. However, it will come into the picture only if you choose to proceed with a custom domain. With that said, you might perhaps not consider going for a new domain if you already have a registered one.
Plugins, apps and premium themes: premium plugins, applications, and themes tell your potential business leads many things about your ecommerce platform even without words. Do you wish to apply them to your ecommerce platform? If yes, you may need to pay an additional amount for it. The charges related to it will depend on the type of plugin, app, or theme you use.
Shopify POS payments: for in-person payments, Shopify has two popular options. One of them is Shopify POS Lite, whereas the other one is Shopify POS Pro. While Shopify provides the former with all the plans, you will be required to pay an additional amount of AUD 89 per month in order to use the pro service.
Transaction fees: after signing up for Shopify, you get the option to use its payment gateway. If you use the payment gateway of a third-party provider, Shopify may charge an extra fee for it.
Final thoughts
To sum up Shopify e comm is beneficial for online merchants, both in terms of its features and pricing. The key to making the most out of Shopify’s plans is to choose a plan according to your needs and budget. Bearing the above pieces of information will help you determine the cost of the different packages. Plus, it will also assist you in choosing the right package to get a competitive edge.
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