Shopify Lite Review: Is Shopify’s Minimalist Plan All You Need To Run A Business?

Pros

• No setup or application fees
• Suitable for low-volume businesses
• Solid feature set
• Predictable pricing
• Easy to scale
• Supports PayPal payments

Cons

• Account stability issues with Shopify Payments
• The full online store is not included

Shopify Lite Plan Overview: What Is Shopify Lite?

I’ve kept an eye on Shopify Lite for some time because it’s an intriguing concept. An eCommerce giant such as Shopify, offering a low-cost plan, including tools to sell on multiple sales channels (e.g., Amazon and Facebook) and a mobile-friendly POS app chock-full of features? Sounds like a great value. However, I approached the review cautiously. After delving below the surface, would all of that value hold up? Is Shopify Lite a good choice if you’re not ready for a full online store? Could it even be a viable alternative to PayPal or Square? These are the questions I set out to answer with this review.

Before we go any further, know that this review does not cover the Shopify web storefront at all because an online shop isn’t available in the Shopify Lite plan. If you need a full eCommerce presence, go check out our complete Shopify review for that.

Second, Shopify Lite isn’t an option for businesses that need a countertop solution. If you’re interested in Shopify as a full-fledged POS option, particularly in tandem with Shopify’s shopping cart software, you should check out our full Shopify POS review.

Third, we’ll touch on the payment processing features a bit here, but if you want to know more about Shopify’s native payments platform, check out our Shopify Payments review.

After testing out all the software, I can report that Shopify Lite delivers successfully on its promise. You’ll get a comprehensive platform to manage your business (at least on the sales and inventory side), a solid POS app that walks the line between a full-fledged iPad system and mobile, and you get a wide array of free online sales tools.

What about the cost? The price is $9/month plus Shopify Lite’s transaction fees (2.7% for in-person and 2.9% + $0.30 for online), which is absolutely competitive. What’s more, you get Shopify’s round-the-clock support and extensive self-help resources, too. For all of those reasons, I’m happy to award Shopify Lite an excellent 4.5 stars.

Read on for our complete Shopify Lite review. If you’ve used Shopify Lite yourself and have anything to report, or if you have questions about the product, leave us a comment and let us know your thoughts. We always enjoy hearing from merchants.

Shopify Lite Features & Products

A good place to start is to consider what “Lite” means in the context of Shopify. The table below, which compares Shopify Lite with Shopify’s Basic plan, will help give you a sense of what you are and aren’t missing out on if you choose Shopify Lite.

Shopify Lite VS Basic: Comparing Plans

The biggest difference between Shopify Lite vs. Shopify Basic is the access to Shopify’s website creator and hosting services. Essentially, Shopify Lite is a service for businesses that already have their own website. There are a few other differences, such as whether you can get access to customer support over the phone. Otherwise, the services are similar, including the credit card processing costs.

How To Use The Shopify Dashboard

The Shopify Lite features are very similar to those of the Basic plan. In fact, the way you switch to the Lite plan from Basic for your trial run is to find the option to remove your online store. You can do this by navigating to Settings > Account/Plan and Permissions > Compare plans. You’ll see big, graphic advertisements for Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advance Shopify. A hyperlink above them gives you the option to add or remove your online store. If you remove it, congratulations, you’re on the Lite plan (after a confirmation or two).

There’s no unique interface for Shopify Lite — it’s the exact same one you’ll get with Shopify Basic, with the ability to access online store-related features disabled. The dashboard is what makes Shopify so valuable for managing your business. It’s relatively compact and easy to use, allowing you to track products and customers while getting valuable reports.

Sections include:

• Products: This is where you’ll add and manage your product inventory. You can adjust prices, SKUs, add photos, and weights. You’ll also get a bulk editor for managing multiple product variants.
• Customers: This is the CMS section of Shopify. You can add or import/export customers here by way of a CSV file.
• Analytics: You’ll find your reports here as well as an overview dashboard showing sales, average order value, and tops products by units sold.
• Marketing: Here, you’ll find tools and templates for your marketing campaigns.
• Discounts: You can create discount codes and automatic discounts that are applied at checkout.
• Apps: This will link you to the Shopify App Store, where you’ll find over 4,000 integrations you can potentially add.

How To Use The Shopify Lite Mobile POS App

As is the case with the desktop version of Shopify, there is no separate app for the “Lite” version of Shopify POS, which will run on iPhones and iPads with iOS 12.2 or later. Unfortunately, Shopify seems to have focused its efforts on Apple devices. There is still technically Android support, but it’s an older version of the application.

The app is colorful and pretty easy to navigate. Because it’s a POS interface, you’ll be able to conduct in-person transactions.

Feature-wise, here’s what you can expect for Shopify’s POS:

• Access and modify your product library
• Access and modify your customer list
• Take credit/debit card payments
• View analytics and reports
• Add discounts at POS
• Add sales tax

Other noteworthy features include:

• Order Fulfillment: I was surprised to see that you can handle order fulfillment within the Shopify POS, but I like this idea. If you’re running most of your business from an iPad, you probably like the idea of one app to handle in-person sales and fulfillment too.
• Collecting Tips: You can now enable tips in Shopify POS by creating three preset tip percentages, or you can enable custom tips. You can also enable minimum tip amounts.

How To Use Shopify Lite To Sell Online

While the Shopify Lite plan does not include a full website storefront, it does give you some great tools to sell online and keep things organized in the process via sales channels.

• Facebook Selling: With a Facebook sales channel, you’ve got everything you need to organize your inventory and make sales. You’ll need to set up a business Facebook page, of course, but it only takes a moment to sync your Facebook shop to Shopify. You can also add a sales channel for Facebook messenger, allowing you to provide customer support right within the chat. That includes updates when a product is shipped out, the tracking information, and even “order status” updates. Shopify consists of a checkout module within Facebook, so there aren’t any redirects to worry about, either. Get step-by-step instructions and more by visiting our post, Shopify Facebook Stores: The Cheap & Easy Way To Sell Online.
• Sync More Sales Channels: Whether you want to experiment and set up shop on Instagram or Amazon or you already have a flourishing Etsy shop, you can add and sync these sales channels at no extra charge. Shopify automatically syncs sales in all of your channels so that you never have to worry about disjointed inventory numbers.
• Buy Buttons: Much like PayPal, Shopify lets you incorporate “Buy” buttons onto an existing website (such as WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace). If you only have a few items to sell or you’re just testing the waters, this is a great way to go about it. Our article on Shop Pay gives more information about how you can accelerate your checkout flow.

The best part is all of this gets consolidated in the Shopify dashboard. Upon logging in, you’ll be able to get updates on all of your pending orders and mark them as fulfilled as well as manage your mPOS app. Any updates to products made within Shopify are automatically pushed to any of your sales channels and buy buttons, too.

Easy Shopify Sales Channel Setup

It’s fast and straightforward to get started within Shopify’s dashboard. On the left-hand side, you’ll see a list of your sales channels. Click the (+) icon to browse available sales channels and then select the one you want. Shopify will take you to a dashboard page where you can set everything up. As you can see below, connecting an account is as simple as pressing a button.

Setting Up Shopify Buy Buttons

Adding buy buttons is a similar process. Select the “Buy Buttons” sales channel and then select which items you want to create a button and description for. I like that it provides automated tools to customize the look of the buttons too, which is great if you’re not particularly skilled at coding.

I like how easy it is to manage everything with Shopify. It rivals Square for ease of use, which is about the highest praise I can give.

Shopify Lite Card Readers

Shopify offers merchants a choice of two card readers: a Chip & Swipe Reader and a Tap & Chip reader. It’ll take a few days for your reader to arrive, so you should plan to order one at least a full week before you need it. (Though the same goes with any hardware you need, regardless of who’s selling it.)

Shopify’s Chip & Swipe Reader retails for $29, a reasonable price for a Bluetooth-enabled EMV/magstripe reader. The reader looks stylish and is functional, which is the most you can hope for out of any card reader. It’s a great peripheral for the price. The dock holds the reader securely despite the 90-degree angle, and it doesn’t look clunky. Shopify’s Tap & Chip Reader sells for $49. While it has some minor issues, it’s also more than equal to the task.

Those are your only hardware options with the Shopify Lite plan. To get access to other hardware, you’ll need to upgrade to the Shopify Plan or higher. For more on Shopify hardware, check out Everything You Need To Know About Shopify POS Hardware, Cost, Where To Buy, & More.

Shopify Lite Fees & Rates

Shopify Lite’s pricing is fairly straightforward:

• $9/month
• 2.7% per swiped/dipped/tapped transaction (with Shopify Payments)
• 2.9% + $0.30 for keyed entry, eCommerce transactions, and invoices (with Shopify Payments)

We generally prefer not to see monthly fees for mPOS offerings. In this case, we need to consider that Shopify started primarily as an eCommerce provider, and the POS is meant to be an add-on for Shopify merchants. With that in mind, charging $9/month for the mPOS, buy buttons, invoicing, and a Facebook shop (among other sales channels) is a great deal.

As far as the processing charges, 2.7% for in-person transactions and 2.9% + $0.30 for online transactions are standard and competitive with other offerings. I have no complaints there. Manually entered transactions process at the online rate of 2.9% + $0.30, which is slightly different from the usual 3.5% + $0.15. This rate may or may not save you money, depending on the transaction size.

Also, keep in mind that these rates only apply if you use Shopify Payments. If you connect another gateway/payment processor, you’ll pay the $9/month, plus a 2% transaction fee, plus whatever fees you owe to your payment processor. This is probably a bad deal for most merchants, so you probably want to use Shopify Payments if you’re going to use Shopify Lite.

 Using Shopify Payments

Shopify has a native payment system built into its setup called (unsurprisingly) Shopify Payments. Shopify Payments is a white-label version of Stripe. As a third-party processor, there’s some account instability. The same risk applies to Square, PayPal, and most other mPOS systems, and that risk is the potential for account holds or sudden terminations.

The good news is that most business owners won’t need to worry too much about holds, terminations, and freezes, but we strongly recommend that you learn how to protect yourself from some of the main causes of these dreaded issues in the first place. Check out our post on how to avoid merchant account holds, freezes, and terminations for some important information and tips. I also recommend you look over the list of prohibited businesses under Shopify Payments’ terms of service for more details.

Sales & Advertising Transparency

Shopify is, generally speaking, quite transparent about its pricing and plans. I can gripe a little bit about how “hidden” Shopify Lite is relative to the other plans, but you can still get the information you need without enduring a sales sermon.

It can also be a little unclear to know exactly what you are giving up by “removing the online store.”

Contract Length & Early Termination Fee

Shopify works on a month-to-month agreement, and you can cancel any time. If you opt to pay for an entire year’s subscription in advance, you’ll get a slight discount over a month-to-month agreement, but it won’t be as easy to recoup that if you leave before your pre-paid subscription ends.

That’s because Shopify does not offer refunds. So if you are on a month-to-month agreement and you opt to cancel your account three days after your billing cycle starts, you won’t get a pro-rated refund for the rest of the month. The same goes if you are on an annual plan. Don’t expect a refund if you cancel before your subscription is up for renewal. If you’re not sure how you’re going to do overall, I recommend starting with a monthly subscription and checking your billing information regularly, so you know when the billing cycle resets.

Shopify offers a 14-day free trial that allows you to try out its features. As long as you don’t select a plan, you don’t have to worry about being charged anything.

Customer Service & Technical Support

Overall, Shopify has somewhat of a muddied reputation for customer service. Some merchants say it’s great; others complain about it. The available support options are:

I can say with confidence that Shopify offers 24/7 support via email, live chat, and phone. And that’s tremendous. However, if you’re on the Lite plan, you’ll only be able to access email and live chat. Considering that 24/7 support in the mPOS field is exceedingly rare, as is a live chat, this is a step up from what you’ll get with most other providers.

Shopify Lite Plan User Review & Complaints

Negative Shopify Lite Reviews & Complaints

Shopify has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, with 281 complaints closed in the last three years. User reviews on BBB trend negative, however, with Shopify earning an aggregate 1.08 out of 5 stars. Here are the few complaints that come up over and over:

• Trouble With Shopify Payments: Third-party processors such as Stripe can’t offer the same kind of account stability you get with a merchant account, unfortunately. That leads to merchants who find themselves unable to process through Shopify Payments unexpectedly. These difficulties happen for many reasons, including adding a prohibited product to your store, lots of chargebacks, sudden large (and suspicious) transactions, or a sudden and substantial uptick in sales, to name a few. While this is true, having a traditional merchant account doesn’t completely immunize you from these risks, either.
• Complicated Features: A few complaints focus on the poor design of the store credit feature. Others mention that getting inventory set up or managing returns can be more complicated. These complaints are hardly in the majority opinion, but they are there nonetheless.
• Customer Support: These complaints don’t appear to be common, but we have noted them in our other reviews of Shopify products, too. While some merchants rave about customer support, others are less than enthused. Your experience may vary in this regard, but at least you know you can take to the other support channels (such as the forum or the self-help center).

Positive Shopify Lite Reviews & Testimonials

Again, there aren’t a whole lot of Shopify Lite-focused discussions, but there are a few. Between those and broader comments about the POS app and online sales channels, here’s a quick rundown of what merchants seem to enjoy the most:

• Good POS App: Many business owners seem to like the fact that Shopify offers a POS. Once they get over the initial excitement of an integrated POS app, merchants often say they like how functional it is, even if it doesn’t offer all of the features they want.
• Integrated Dashboard & Tools: A big draw is the ability to see and manage online and in-person sales in a single dashboard. The consolidated inventory management is also very much appreciated. Plus, all your payment information is available in Shopify, too.
• Invoicing Support: I see lots of comments from merchants who appreciate the ability to create invoices for custom and wholesale orders. They also say the invoicing feature is easy to use, which is always nice to see.
• Customer Support: A fair number of business owners sing the praises of Shopify’s agents, both for their helpfulness and quick responses. Yes, there are complaints, too, but definitely plenty of happy merchants.

The primary theme to take away here is convenience. Like Square, Shopify’s big draw is the all-in-one platform with a powerful dashboard that can manage your business’s different elements. Everything is condensed into the dashboard, and everything syncs and updates automatically.

Shopify is a fantastic solution that will grow with your business no matter how (or where) you want to sell, and overall, you can trust this solution. Shopify Lite earns a good rating for user reviews, as the positive outweighs the negative overall.

Frequently Asked Questions About Shopify Lite

Final Verdict On The Shopify Lite Plan

Shopify Lite isn’t a perfect standalone mPOS solution, but it is an excellent one. It has everything you need and plenty of features that other entry-level mobile POS apps don’t offer at all, such as discounts and tipping.

If you plan to sell in-person and online but aren’t sure whether you want to build an entirely new web store, Shopify Lite is a great way to test the waters and see if you like it.  You can set up a Facebook shop, sync Etsy or other sales channels, and easily add buy buttons to any existing site. Don’t forget about the mPOS app itself that enables you to sell at pop-up events, conventions, festivals, or wherever else you find yourself. When you’re ready to upgrade, the process will be relatively quick and painless, with great resources to help you along the way.

Shopify Lite gets an excellent 4.5 stars and our general recommendation. If you’re looking for an mPOS that can do a bit more than just the basics, this plan should be on your shortlist. However, keep in mind that Shopify primarily targets online retail and service businesses. If Shopify doesn’t work for you, check out our article on Shopify alternatives for other options.

If you’ve used the Shopify Lite plan before, let us know about your experience. We always love to hear from merchants. And if you still have a question, leave us a comment, and we’ll help you to the best of our ability! As always, thanks for reading!

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Shopify Lite	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Shopify Lite for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Shopify Lite	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Shopify Lite for yourself.

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