Shopify and Storenvy are two dedicated e-commerce platforms serving different genres of sellers. Both platforms offer a free plan and are beginner friendly. But which one is better? In this Shopify vs Storenvy comparison, we’ll find out which is better for new sellers.
Table of Contents
Shopify vs Storenvy: Overview
Shopify is a SaaS eCommerce solution that provides everything you need to create a website. It offers hundreds of e-commerce features, advanced reporting, and many payment options. Over 6.4 million stores are hosted on Shopify because it is a complete e-commerce solution with total control.
Storenvy on the other hand is a social marketplace where sellers can create a custom storefront. Buyers can like the store, and items, create wishlists and buy products. Storenvy is one of the most beginner-friendly platforms to build your storefront on, with more control over the design elements compared to some of its marketplace competitors.
Shopify vs Storenvy: Pros and Cons
Shopify
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Suitable for all sizes of businesses. | More expensive than competitors. |
| Multi-Channel selling. | Not intuitive. |
| More than 8000 apps for integration. | Highly reliant on app integrations. |
| Over 100 payment solutions. | Fewer free themes. |
| 140+ well-designed modern themes. | Steep learning curve. |
Storenvy
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Access to a large audience base | Limited customization capabilities |
| Complete control over the store | No free themes except the one you get at the beginning |
| Reasonably priced premium plans | High listing fees for the products |
| Forever free plan | Requires coding knowledge |
| Advanced features for promotions | Can only list up to 5000 |
Shopify vs Storenvy: Ease of Use
Shopify is a self-hosted platform, meaning you don’t have to set up hosting and create a website from scratch. As a result, Shopify has become a trusted choice for millions of businesses around the world.
There’s definitely a learning curve but with its intuitive interface and easy-to-use features, it is possible to get a store up and running on Shopify in a matter of minutes. It also offers an inbuilt Generative AI text tool that helps in creating decent product descriptions.
If you’re curious about the user-friendliness of Shopify, you can try the platform for free and check out the features, themes, and how much customization you can make to gauge if it suits your need. If you’re wondering how to get started with Shopify, read our Shopify Review.
In our testing, we still found Shopify to be a bit frustrating, and making visual changes took time and learning. However, Shopify is undoubtedly leagues better than BigCommerce and Weebly.
Getting started on Storenvy is as simple as creating an account and choosing a plan. We can confidently say it is one of the easiest solutions we have used to get started. For a simple yet attractive storefront, sellers with little technical knowledge will find it helpful.
It is also a self-hosted platform and you’re only required to add a domain name to create a storefront. This browser-based solution has a Merchant Admin Panel where sellers can access all the features like changing themes, adding codes, listing and managing products and orders, analytics, shipping rates, and much more. You won’t ever get lost in finding a feature.
If you’re planning to make customizations to your store layout, you will be disappointed. it is not even near the level of Shopify, which in itself isn’t that great.
You will have to manage a similar-looking store, and if you know CSS, you might be able to make some other tweaks but nothing that would change the look of your store from the rest of the sellers.
Shopify vs Storenvy: Design and Flexibility
On Shopify, the simplest way to improve the appearance of your store is to use a custom theme, which can give your store a professional and polished look.
By investing in a high-quality theme, you can make your store more appealing to customers and increase the chances that they will return to make additional purchases.
Shopify themes are known for their clean, elegant, and attractive designs. They are created by professional designers, so you can trust that they will be functional and easy to use.
To edit a template, you can use Shopify’s dragdropr (drag and drop) to adjust elements and make the template work according to you.
Free themes, such as Sense, Debut, and Dawn, can provide a good starting point for your store and allow you to see how a new theme can improve its appearance. You won’t get as many free themes as Shift4Shop but you’ll get more customization.
Storenvy comes with a store builder, including access to HTML and CSS. People with hands-on experience in coding can make a lot more changes.
Other users with no technical know-how will have to stick to the basic customization, including header, buttons, fonts, banners, background, and more.
There’s a theme library with a decent collection of pre-built templates. We couldn’t find any free themes, though. The cost usually ranges between $15-30.
Even with the paid themes, the design capabilities are limited, and nothing would blow your mind. But whatever features are available, they are very easy to access and use. Certainly easier than Big Cartel or Etsy. You can also use a custom domain with your store. You can read our Big Cartel vs Storenvy comparison.
Shopify vs Storenvy: Marketing Tools
E-commerce features are good to have, but without proper marketing, even the most beautiful stores get unnoticed. To grow your store and be visible to the audience, you may need certain marketing features:
Search Engine Optimization
Shopify includes various marketing and SEO tools to help users promote and grow their online stores. These tools can be handy for small businesses and entrepreneurs looking to establish an online presence and reach a wider audience.
However, Shopify lacks in terms of keyword optimization and support, something that’s offered by Shopify’s closest competitor, Big Commerce. Some of the key marketing and SEO features offered by Shopify include:
- Blogging tools
- Reporting or Analytics tool
- Email Marketing integration
- Multilingual website option
To determine the effectiveness of your SEO efforts, it is important to use reporting tools that provide insights into how visitors are interacting with your website. These tools can help you identify what is working well and what may need improvement.
For SEO, Storenvy automatically optimizes the meta title, descriptions, and tags and also opts for a simpler URL structure. But there are some things that you can do to boost your SEO efforts, like using keywords in the product title and descriptions and using the domain name as your store or vice versa.
You can also leverage features like email marketing to create a customer base, send emails for abandoned carts, new product arrivals, successful checkout, and more. If you want to use a third-party service provider, you can do that via integration. Storenvy has a dedicated article for SEO best practices that might be helpful to you.
Mobile App
Shopify has a dedicated mobile app that allows you to sell on the go and edit your store’s theme. You can adjust the layouts, arrange or rearrange items/elements and even install a new theme. Here are all the things you can do on Shopify Mobile App.
- Manage and track orders: You can easily manage and track your orders, ensuring smooth order fulfillment.
- Process payments: The app allows you to process payments securely, providing a seamless checkout experience for your customers.
- Add new products: You can add new products to your online store directly from the app, making it convenient to expand your product catalog.
- Customize your online store: The app lets you customize your store, updating the store’s appearance and branding.
- Run marketing campaigns: You can run marketing campaigns and promotions to attract and engage customers, helping you boost your sales.
- Check Analytics and Reports: From the app, you can see how your store is performing, including sales data, traffic analytics, and other key metrics.
- Check Store Notifications: Stay informed with push notifications, receiving alerts for new orders, abandoned carts, customer inquiries, and other important updates.
Storenvy doesn’t have a mobile app at the time of writing. So If you want to access your store on the go to manage or track orders and inventory, you’ll have to log in on a mobile browser. It doesn’t work as seamlessly as dedicated mobile would have; it gets the job done as the website is responsive.
Email Marketing
Shopify offers a built-in email marketing feature, however, it requires a bit of coding. If you want to use email marketing but don’t want to code, the easiest way is to use third-party apps.
Some popular options include Seguno, Klaviyo, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, and Privy. These apps provide comprehensive email marketing solutions and integrate seamlessly with your Shopify store.
Storenvy
Storenvy has an inbuilt email marketing tool, Engage. You can locate it on your dashboard under the Email tab. It gives you more than enough options to manage your stores seamlessly, like sending Abandoned Cart emails, promo or discount codes and more.
You can send emails to watchers who view your store and products. You can incentivize customers by sending them discount codes, so they come back to buy more.
Blogging
Shopify does offer blogging functionality and a decent range of tools, but it is not its strongest offering. Shopify blogging is much better than some competitors like Shift4Shop, Volusion, or BigCommerce. And yet not as good as Squarespace or Wix.
Storenvy doesn’t have provision to post blogs, however, sellers can add blog feeds to their store using Storenvy’s Custom Page feature. You must host your blog somewhere else, like WordPress, Tumblr or Medium.
You’ll have to add an HTML code (Plugin Code) to do so. Read this guide if you want to add your blog feed to your store.
Shopify vs Storenvy: Payment Processors
Shopify Payment is Shopify’s in-house payment solution for online credit/debit card transactions. It is also the only payment solution where Shopify doesn’t charge a transaction fee.
Let’s say you want to use other third-party payment options. In that case, Shopify will charge 2%, 1%, and 0.5 transaction fees in Basic, Shopify, and Advanced plans.
There’s also a transaction fee when a customer buys a product using a credit card. The fees are:
- Basic: 2.9% and $0.30 for online, 2.7% for in person
- Shopify: 2.6% and $0.30 for online, 2.5% for in person
- Advanced: 2.4% and $0.30 for online, 2.4% for in person
This transaction fee is nothing to be worried about as it is quite normal. Every time someone buys a product online or offline using a credit card, the processing fee is charged. Similarly, on Shopify, the transaction fee is charged. These fees help Shopify operate your store.
Storenvy lets sellers accept payments using Stripe, AfterPay, and PayPal. There are no charges for listing items in the store. You only pay 15% of the total sales value when you make a sale.
There’s also an option of Managed marketing on Storenvy, which lets you advertise your store on external mediums. You will pay 25% charges for sales resulting from managed marketing.
Shopify vs Storenvy: Pricings
When choosing a plan, you need to be very careful about it. You don’t want to choose a plan in which you require any more features in the future, and you also would not like to waste your money on features or tools you will not use soon. And don’t forget about the monthly subscription fee you will be charged for.
Shopify Offers
- Shopify starter at $5/month: In this plan, sales can be processed through the same website or Facebook. For each transaction, 2.9% is taken by Shopify along with another $0.30.
- Shopify Basic at $29/month: A website of Shopify and the transaction fees same as of Shopify Lite. In this plan, users can also benefit from the provided two employee accounts and can also use the discount codes.
- Shopify a $79/month: There is a drop in the transaction fees in this plan which is 2.6% and $0.30/transaction. Get all the features of basic Shopify and accounts for five employees plus gift cards.
- Advanced Shopify a $299/month: Transaction fees are reduced to 2.4%, along with $0.30 for every transaction. You also get accounts for fifteen employees plus advanced reporting options to level up your sales performance.
- Shopify Plus: This is for sellers with a high volume of sales and a huge amount of transactions in a minute. The fees and all other associated costs are flexible and vary from seller to seller and his needs.
Shopify also offers a 3-days trial and 3 months subscription at $1/month.
Storenvy is a good option if you’re looking for a price-value e-commerce platform. The premium plans are cheaper than some competitors, and a free plan adds a cherry on top. Payment is handled via Stripe, AfterPay, and PayPal in all the plans.
The three premium pan starts from $7.99/month and offers features like 25 super discounts, no storefront ad, and listing up to 100 products.
The 2nd plan costs $17.99/month and offers all the Artisan plan features, 500 products, 100 super discounts, and automated engage emails.
The top-tier plan gives you all the Artisan and growth plan features with listing up to 5000 products, unlimited super discounts and custom engage emails. This plan costs $39.99/month.
Shopify vs Storenvy: Customer Support
Shopify offers comprehensive customer support with help materials available in 21 languages. The support staff is available 24/7 and can be contacted via email, live chat, or phone. Remember, the 24/7 phone support is available in English only.
Shopify’s support offering is superior to some of its competitors, such as Squarespace, Big Cartel, or Etsy, as they do not offer phone support. Connecting with a representative is fast, and efficient on Shopify.
With Shopify support, we found that for more technical inquiries, such as help with CSS or other coding elements, the standard support service may not always provide the desired answers.
If you face technical problems, asking questions in the Shopify community could prove to be more helpful than queuing with support.
Storenvy’s customer support won’t blow your mind. They have a dedicated help center with many helpful articles on almost every topic. But if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can contact customer support via email. It is available Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5 pm (pacific time).
There’s also a contact form, but it works like an email, and you’ll have to wait at least 24 business hours before you expect any response from them. The additional contact form option makes Storenvy better than Big Cartel in Customer support.
The Bottom Line: Shopify vs Storenvy — Which One Is Better For You?
Storenvy has decent features and better price-to-value, while Shopify is a complete e-commerce solution. However, in terms of cost-effectiveness and being beginner-friendly, we found Storenvy to be alright. It has its limitations as you can only sell up to 5000 products on their top tier plan.
Shopify can be ideal for small to medium size businesses looking for an affordable e-commerce solution or wanting to expand. It outshines Storenvy in every aspect, whether design or ease of starting a store. The only drawback we found is it costs way more than Storenvy.
If you’re low on budget or want to try out an e-commerce platform and sell items in small quantities, go for Storenvy. It lets you sell up to 100-5000 products on affordable paid plans. However, if you have an existing store and want to expand or open a store and sell many items, or you simply want a complete e-commerce solution. In that case, Shopify is the way to go.
