FAQ: What is Shopify? Your Questions Answered (2025)

As I mentioned, it’s an “all-in-one” e-commerce platform. You pay a monthly fee, and they handle all the technical heavy lifting for you—things like hosting, security, and servers. This frees you up to focus 100% on growing your business.

You can sell two main types of products, and I’ve worked with clients who sell both:

• Digital Products: E-books, online courses, software, music… anything your customer can download instantly.
• Physical Products: Clothing, cosmetics, home goods… anything you need to ship.

Absolutely. I always recommend Shopify for beginners because its interface is incredibly intuitive. Using the ready-made templates and drag-and-drop editor, you can set up a beautiful store in just a few hours with zero coding knowledge.

Shopify dropshipping is an excellent business model that I’ve guided many people through. The process is very simple:

• The Supplier Ships the Product: You forward the order details to your supplier, who then packs and ships the product directly to your customer. You never have to handle inventory yourself.
• Connect to a Supplier: You use an app (like DSers) to find products and add them to your store.
• A Customer Places an Order: A customer buys a product from your website.

From my perspective, Shopify’s 2025 updates are all about helping sellers work smarter and more efficiently. The two biggest updates are:

• Full AI Integration: The “Sidekick” assistant and other AI tools are now deeply integrated. They can help you with everything from brainstorming business ideas and writing product descriptions to running marketing campaigns.
• The World’s Best Checkout: They’ve optimized their checkout process to be faster, smoother, and more reliable than ever. I’ve seen this directly help my clients reduce abandoned carts and increase sales.

Yes. Shopify provides a very strong technical foundation for SEO (custom URLs, meta tags, automatic sitemaps, etc.). However, I always stress that Shopify is just the tool. Ranking high on Google ultimately depends on the content and backlink strategy you build for your store.

Based on my experience setting up dozens of stores, the cost breaks down into three main parts:

• Your Monthly Shopify Plan: This starts at around $25/month for the Basic plan (prices can change).
• Transaction Fees: A small percentage fee on each sale (around 2% for third-party payment gateways).
• App/Theme Costs (Optional): You can start with free themes, but premium apps and themes (from $20 – $200+) offer much more powerful features.

So, you can realistically get started for as little as $25 a month.

You have two primary options:

• Shopify Payments: Shopify’s own built-in payment gateway. It’s integrated and easy to use.
• Third-Party Gateways: You can connect to other popular gateways like PayPal, Stripe, etc.

If you use Shopify Payments, you only pay a standard credit card processing fee. If you use a third-party gateway (like PayPal), you will pay that gateway’s fee PLUS an additional transaction fee to Shopify (0.5% – 2%, depending on your plan).

Absolutely not. And frankly, that’s why I’m such a believer in the platform. Shopify was built for entrepreneurs, not programmers.

To make your store truly effective, I recommend installing three core types of apps:

• AI-Integrated Apps: To automate tasks like SEO, customer support, or product recommendations.
• Page Builders: To customize your store’s design and create professional landing pages without code (e.g., GemPages, PageFly).
• Email Marketing: To capture emails and automate your customer communications (e.g., Klaviyo, Omnisend).

Yes, and I strongly recommend that you do. Using a custom domain (e.g., your-brand-name.com) instead of the default your-brand.myshopify.com is crucial for building a professional brand and earning customer trust.