If ecommerce was easy, everyone would do it. While it might seem like a great idea to jump on the online boom that exploded over the past few years, it actually takes quite a bit of foresight, meticulous planning and a touch of magic. For established retailers, creating a business that not only survives but thrives is also a daily struggle; new technologies, evolving customer expectations, increasing competition, rising cost of manufacturing … It can be quite overwhelming!
SHOPLINE aims to help retailers in their journey, whatever stage they’re at. It’s no surprise that Shopify is a leading ecommerce platform in Australia, but it might surprise you to know that across Asia, SHOPLINE is the platform of choice. Having recently launched in the land down under, Aussie retailers now have a better option. Read on to see our comparison between SHOPLINE and Shopify.
In this article we discuss comprehensive comparisons of these two platforms, covering pricing plans, payment options, themes, message centre, analytics and reports, sales channels, store management, EDM tools, conversion apps and more. You’ll also find a comparison table highlighting key advantages to help you make an informed decision.
Both platforms currently offer free trials with the option to upgrade for additional features. Despite this similarity, there is a large disparity between the cost of monthly plans. Shopify’s basic plan has received a 34% increase from $29 to $39 USD per month. This difference is even greater with advanced annual plans with Shopify costing almost $200 more than SHOPLINE plans.
SHOPLINE’s plans are affordable across all levels without having to sacrifice features and tools. Starting at just $38 AUD, you’ll be able to use all the essential tools to get your business running. If you’re unsure about the plan level your business requires, book in a demo and our consultants will give you a detailed plan.
For ecommerce stores, transaction fees have a huge impact on their bottom line. Choosing a platform that offers low transaction fees and a streamlined payment process can be the difference between success and failure.
Both SHOPLINE and Shopify offer lower transaction fees on higher monthly plans. SHOPLINE’s pricing starts from as low as 1.2% + $0.2 per transaction compared to 1.4% + $0.2 on Shopify.
SHOPLINE also offers a comprehensive payment options which Shopify doesn’t. SHOPLINE accepts credit card payments and localised payment options including PayPal, AfterPay, Shopline Payments, Eftpos, ZipPay, GooglePay and ApplePay . This ensures that operating your ecommerce store on SHOPLINE can cater to customers’ preferred payment methods to provide convenience and fast check-outs.
SHOPLINE provides low transaction fees and simple payment processes, which can end up saving phenomenal costs for the business and drive sales. Start your free trial today to see the difference.
A theme with function and aesthetics can make all the difference from launch to success. Both sites offer a variety of themes to choose from. All of SHOPLINE’s themes are 100% free, engaging and high quality. Similar themes in Shopify can cost hundreds of dollars for the theme alone. SHOPLINE’s themes are beautiful, responsive and highly customisable; built to the highest coding standards by leading designers, they are SEO-optimised.
SHOPLINE believes in giving all plans the tools they need to create a good ecommerce store instead of gate-keeping their own merchants. You don’t have to choose between free themes with limited components or paying an insane premium price for themes.
Effective communication with customers establishes strong relationships, encourages repeat purchases and builds loyalty. Chat commerce enables the sending of shopping cart links to create orders directly from the Message Center. The popularity of shopping via apps is increasing in popularity and a growing trend in ecommerce.
While Shopify offers basic customer communication through Shopify Inbox, additional channels come with an additional price tag. SHOPLINE provides a free and comprehensive suite of communication tools including Chat Commerce, Whatsapp and Facebook. The Message Center keeps all social channels in a centralised place with an AI-powered chat assistant to help you save time and create better responses.
Benefits of chat commerce:
Chat commerce is revolutionising the way consumers shop and has become an important aspect of the ecommerce industry. With its numerous benefits, it is likely to continue to grow and gain popularity in the coming years.
While both platforms offer reporting and analytics tools to help merchants access insights into marketing and store performance, Shopify has limited types of reports with less user-friendly interfaces. SHOPLINE provides comprehensive reports on every plan with unique customer profiling to enable tracking customer behaviours in detail. Businesses can then make data-driven decisions to optimise their marketing efforts, drive growth and achieve business goals.
SHOPLINE’s solutions enable selling on ecommerce, social commerce, marketplaces and POS systems. It has been designed to revolutionise your retail space and bring a seamless shopping experience to your customers by integrating your retail shop, online store and fulfilment centre into one. Best of all, there are many POS hardware options for you to choose from based on your preferences and needs.
While both platforms offer robust features for store management, there are a few key advantages that set SHOPLINE apart.
Shopify only allows for three types of variations while SHOPLINE offers up to five. This is important when products require a detailed description of variations. Eg, if a shirt comes in two sizes (S and M) and two colours (blue and orange), there are already four variants which would be limited by Shopify which only supports three variants.
When it comes to advanced discounting mechanisms, SHOPLINE offers the greatest flexibility and variety. With options including percentages, fixed amount discounts and free shipping (which Shopify also offers), SHOPLINE goes further with unique mechanisms such as discounts on the lowest priced item in a transaction, maximum discounting amounts and discounting for specific member tiers. This gives a high level of control over discounting margins and works seamlessly with its loyalty system to increase member engagement.
Another advantage of SHOPLINE is its fast checkout page, which allows merchants the flexibility to choose between a one-page or three-page checkout. Shopify only offers this feature through an additional account. The fast checkout page (usually 1 page) on SHOPLINE is designed to match user behaviour and reduce abandoned carts.
Effective checkout pages are characterised by certain key elements such as straightforward displays of order information, the ability to checkout as a guest, multiple delivery options, a variety of payment methods and a transparent policy for shipping and returns.
When it comes to apps, both Shopify and SHOPLINE offer a large selection for customising your store. However, the majority of Shopify’s apps come with a subscription fee that can be costly and risky as the Shopify support team are unable to offer complete support over 3rd party apps.
The majority of SHOPLINE apps are free and developed in-house by their professional R&D team with faster integration and greater compatibility for a smooth and consistent site experience. We also have integrations with all the major ecommerce tools such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Xero and HubSpot, should you wish to use your own tools.
With SHOPLINE you will receive well-rounded and full assistance with any issues you’re experiencing by our local team who will go above and beyond to help their merchants.
SHOPLINE’s variety of conversion apps help to drive sales and improve the overall customer experience. Most importantly, they’re all free and have a full range of features to enhance customer experiences. Shopify offers only paid apps which can be cumbersome and difficult to use.
Currency conversion is currently only offered on Shopify’s advanced plan while SHOPLINE offers it across all plans (no gate-keeping here!). Similarly, Shopify requires Shopify payments for duties and import taxes while SHOPLINE again, includes this feature in all their plans.
Global email subscriber counts are projected to reach 4.6 billion in 2025, making EDM Marketing a powerful tool to create customer loyalty, retention and conversions. SHOPLINE’s in-house SmartPush is available across all plans with all the necessary features free for your business.
A key advantage of SHOPLINE is the comprehensive email and SMS marketing system that won’t break the bank - Smart Push. Its user-friendly interface provides essential features such as automated templates, segmented contacts and insightful metrics and reports.
Smart Push enables tailored marketing messaging to suit your brand. Its automatic membership data synchronisation allows you to target specific customer segments with ease - something Shopify does not offer. Every merchant starts with the basic version of SmartPush with 500 contacts and 1000 monthly emails for free. When your business starts growing and scaling in numbers, you can then consider upgrading for under $15 AUD (2023), which is only a fraction of Shopify’s marketing plug-in.
SHOPLINE offers a complete solution to merchants from ecommerce, POS, to marketplace integrations and even social commerce. It integrates order management, customer management, product management, marketing management, sales channel management, data analysis and shop set-up in an efficient and comprehensive solution for any business model.
SHOPLINE has a strong offering of localised logistics and payments across many different countries and regions.
SHOPLINE has developed our own in-house apps for all the necessary tools needed for retailers to run and grow their business. Out in-house R&D team are consistently refining on and improving, based on merchant feedback. When comparing these to third-party apps, they are usually faster, more compatible, and enables websites to run smoothly and load faster.
SHOPLINE’s professional merchants success team provides you with support in any issues you face - often providing tailored solutions for your strategy and business. SHOPLINE’s R&D team of over 500 engineers supports merchants for greater development efficiency and system stability. Product testing is localised and in-house to avoid security risks.
SHOPLINE’s offerings are efficient, capable and importantly, very affordable. With no hidden costs, multiple platforms and poor localised or online support, SHOPLINE is a great choice. Everything is out of the box and doesn’t require a huge investment before even making sales.
Take advantage of the automatic migration feature and effortlessly switch from your current website to SHOPLINE with just one click. As it expands its presence around the world, the team in Australia is dedicated to supporting our local merchants.
Don’t miss the opportunity to and migrate to SHOPLINE today, or sign up for a free 14-day trial.
Try SHOPLINE with our free 14 day trial. Explore all the features of our omnichannel solution and see where it could take you business.
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