Here's an overview of the top 7 Shopify problems and tips for how to solve them effectively. A must-read for every online store owner.
It’s always a dream come true for every business person to own an independent store. Spotify comes second to none when the questions about establishing an online store arise.
It is true that developing and making use of a web store comes with a pleasant experience and at the same time with a range of Shopify issues that cause you a headache. What is the biggest problem with Shopify? Well, the point isn't to search for the biggest Shopify disadvantages but to remember that there are solutions for each one.
On your road to finding answers to these challenging problems, first of all, it’s required of you to know the fundamentals of managing a store with all Shopify challenges that may come up.
In addition, it’s also necessary for you to have a clear knowledge about working around every aspect of selling something online effectively.
Above all, challenging tasks such as importing products to Shopify, maintaining an excellent conversion rate, having to create a solid customer base just to mention a few of them are some of the key things we have carefully provided an answer here for Shopify users aiming to maximize profits with their online stores.
Table of contents
What Are the Common Shopify Problems?
In order to help you ease your understanding and performance while working with Shopify, we have provided for you in this article the common Shopify problems with the right solutions to overcome them.
You can choose to overcome these issues with Shopify yourself, or you can hire an experienced Shopify developer to handle the job for you.
These common Shopify problems include:
- ERP Integration
- Shopify Store Integration with Ruby on Rails Application
- Multi-channel Integration
- Getting products on store
- Finding customers
- No increase in sale
- Managing marketplaces
ERP Integration
A Shopify merchant that constantly deals with high-volume data or complex back-office processes would benefit greatly from the ERP system integration.
If you are consistently having a significant increase in order volume or delays in financial reporting, it’s a good sign that you need a Shopify integration with an ERP system.
That’s not all, other indications that could show that you need this integration include:
- Having lots of suppliers to manage.
- Low employee productivity as a result of doing tasks manually.
- Late shipping of products.
- Wrong shipping of products due to high volume.
- Having to manage more than one B2B customer relationship.
And whatever ERP system you have decided to choose at the end of the day, you must pass it through the right factors in order to make it worthwhile.
Solutions to Shopify-ERP Integration
It’s possible for you to indirectly get your business limited if your preferred ERP system doesn’t integrate well with Shopify.
And on the other end, it’s also not compulsory for you to implement this integration but you would be left with the only choice of moving your data back and forth yourself with your Shopify online store and ERP systems if you decide not to integrate it.
The consequences of doing your tasks manually result in time wastage and most likely human errors causing problems with Shopify.
During your evaluation of an ERP’s integration proficiencies, it would be nice of you to distinguish how your ERP system sends and receives data, or how it tends to communicate with another system. If your system struggles to easily connect with other systems, it would limit what processes you can automate between it and Shopify.
Above all, you should consider a cloud-based ERP system that has an open and well-documented API because it’s very simple to integrate. That’s not the only thing that makes it stand out, it’s generally very easy to access and it’s a more affordable option for small to medium-sized businesses. Cloud-based ERPs offer reduced IT infrastructure costs, pay-per-use pricing models, and lower upfront investment.
Multi-Channel Integration
Having multiple channels linked with your Shopify comes with its own goodies. When you sell on multiple Shopify stores, you are open to seeing your business expand and it also allows you to serve your customers better. This said and put to one side, the actual management of developing many Shopify stores can be so stressful and difficult to do.
When this occurs, you begin to think separately for every account, order, item and inventory data. This is the most convenient way to resolve the Shopify issue you are facing. You will need to provide answers to Shopify questions like maintaining a 360-degree view of customers across each of your stores and also getting the right way of decimating inventory when the same items are sold on two separate stores.
Simple Ways on How to Deal with Shopify Multi-Storefront Challenge
Though it might be tricky managing more than one Shopify shop, don’t give in to the fear of doing it if it’s necessary you have to try it out. Each for each, you must specially optimize all your sites. In order words, it’s highly recommended for you to be conversant with the language of your customers.
Another thing you have to do here is to centralize all your orders into one system. By doing this, you can easily manage every of your site's orders consistently without any mismatch or issues that would leave you confused and frustrated.
Shopify Store Integration with Ruby on Rails Application
It becomes easier and better to develop a Shopify app with the Ruby on Rails framework since Shopify itself is built with it. Why do you need a Shopify app? Shopify apps act as a plugin for Shopify stores in situations merchants are looking to improve their store functionality.
How Is This Done?
It’s quite simple, all you need to do is to follow the provided steps below to create a Shopify app with Ruby on Rails:
- First and foremost, you will need to have a Shopify Partner account.
- Secondly, create a custom Shopify app within the partner dashboard.
- Inside the app, set up URLs.
- Lastly, obtain the API key and API secret key from the app.
Mind you, you will need an SSL certificate if you are making use of your own domain immediately after the deployment on the server is completed (always remember to use https://).
Getting Products on Store
One of the biggest Shopify cons is how to get products on Shopify. It becomes stressful to categorically tell the source of this particular issue because the problem could come from your product listings or other marketplaces.
Indeed, you can simply use CSV files to import products but you need to be super careful with it because it could fail with just a single error. Talking about how it’s sensitive to failing and why do Shopify stores fail? It’s better for it to fail when you are just importing very few products because you can easily perform the uploading one by one.
But the opposite is the case for bulk transfers. For instance, imagine having to upload hundreds or thousands of products in a short limited time.
The Best Way to Solve this Shopify Issue…
Inventory management is the answer to the problem here. As a seller that got the intention of managing more than one marketplace, you will need to implement inventory status in real-time. there is nothing as sweet as having the right data because it makes selling less risky and improves business operation irrespective of how you look at it in the long run.
Finding Customers
Newbies trying out e-commerce for the first time are very likely to have the problem with Shopify of finding customers for their products. First-time Shopify users always find it hard to generate traffic for each of their entities.
Being aware of Shopify pros and cons 2022 will help you resolve this pretty common Shopify problem. Make sure you understand the advantages and disadvantages compared to other eCommerce platforms, so you can come up with a proper strategy to attract customers.
What’s the Easiest Way of Getting the Attention of Customers to Your Products?
One of the ways out of this is by trying out the right advertisement and promotion for your business. Also, never hesitate the chance of joining a high-rated marketplace that pulls numbers. Make use of their customer base to develop your Shopify store. Lastly, undergo optimization on your store for a better engagement that in turn helps in drawing more customers to your business.
No Increase in Sale
Note that a huge amount of traffic is not equal to sales. Getting the right customers to your product is one of the common Shopify issues you can easily encounter when owning your online store and it is not always easy to convert prospects into customers.
The Solution to This Issue…
Create ad campaigns (on any high conversion rate platform of your choice), provide sure shot cash back guarantee, share customers' experiences, and many other common ones not mentioned here.
Managing Marketplaces
Managing multiple marketplaces comes with working under a great lot of pressure and workload. It even becomes worse if you own a store that demands your optimum attention 24/7 every day of the week.
To Get This Solved…
The good Shopify news is that it has apps from their official partners such as CedCommerce that would assist you in sharing the burden of getting Inventory status, SKUs check, Shipping and Order management for all marketplaces.
Conclusion
The most common Shopify problems and their respective Shopify solutions have been provided above for your use and understanding. So it's not a question of why Shopify is bad since it's not, but as any other platform isn't perfect. However, finding a solution is always possible.
Note that the problems are not limited to the ones we have rightly answered in this article. Every seller would have to deal with many of these problems (including the ones we have made time to find solutions to on this page) to overcome these processes.
Related: 4 Shopify Developer Skills and Examples of Their Practical Application
