Easy eCommerce with Shopify; Hosted Online Store Solution
April 9th, 2007 by Joshua Dorkin | Filed under Web Applications, eCommerce.
Introducing Shopify, A Hosted eCommerce Solution
I just found out about a cool new ecommerce solution called Shopify. The site is a beautifully designed web 2.0, Ruby on Rails hosted ecommerce site. According to the few reviews that I found about the site, setup was extremely quick and easy.
The site is free to use, and you are only charged a 3% commission once a sale is complete. This can drop down to 2% if you sell over $10,000 in goods. Users can use Paypal or a merchant account to handle payment and everything from security to maintenance is handled by the Shopify team.
From what I saw, all of the ecommerce shopping sites created with shopify look incredible. They are attractive and easy to navigate. Other key features that caught my eye were: timeline based order tracking and the ability to track orders through an RSS feed.
The biggest problem I see is that it is a hosted solution. In its current form, I would have no way to set up a shop on my server using Shopify. I’d have to send all my traffic to their site (my subdomain) if I used them. This presents a problem for me.
It looks like I’ll be passing on Shopify, and another hosted solution I found called RightCart, but if you don’t care if you host your own shop, I think it is certainly worth a look.
Here are a few other reviews of the site:
TechCrunch: Shopify was worth the wait
CNet: Shopify makes quick work of setting up shop
Sample Shopify Website:
Conrad’s Coffee Company


I just sign up to the shopify, good and reliable for a beginner and small medium enterprise, anyway nice info Josh.
No problem! Let us know how it goes for you . . . Good luck!
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Very nice looks good, but indeed the hosting on their servers is a no go. You need an own hosting and domainname
Honestly I do not consider it a good practice to limit customers in number of products to sell online. Our company has similar product where the inventory is unlimited – I dont believe in ecommerce you should put the line in free trail and subscription in the number of products.
Hey, If I am honset there are better quick shop installations methods. Try Kezzon you will be suprised how good it is!.
Thanks,
Richard.