It is important to consider carefully the platform you want to use to design and host your eCommerce website. The post will attempt to discuss two eCommerce platforms; OLITT Shop Vs Shopify.
Shopify has been in existence since 2006 and is being used by millions of business owners, there is no doubt Shopify is a good and trustworthy platform but that doesn’t mean there are no other platforms that can be used to gain the same or even better results.
OLITT shop builder is new in the market but has excellent features and services that can be used to design and host an eCommerce website with ease.
We will compare OLITT shop and Shopify some important factors that should be considered when choosing an eCommerce website platform.
Some of the factors we will be comparing in this post are ease of use, payment gateways, advanced search feature, design functionalities, product personalization, pricing, and so on.
But before we compare the above factors, we will do a quick description of OLITT shop and Shopify.
What is an OLITT Shop?
OLITT is a website builder founded in 2021 by David Murimi and William Mwai. It is software with templates and features that helps you to design a website within 3 minutes.
You can use it to design different kinds of eCommerce websites as well, they have about 300 templates for you to pick from and design your website.
It also supports connection to a custom domain, social commerce catalogs, multiple payment gateways, shipping channels, marketing tools, and support tools including Live Chat and helpdesk applications.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is an eCommerce platform that allows businesses and individuals to start and grow a business on their platform.
It focuses only on building eCommerce websites, in 2021, eCommerce has hosted about 1.7 million businesses.
It has advanced features for big businesses that want to scale up.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify
We are now going to consider where each of the platforms stands when compared with the following factors.
1. Ease of Use
Ease of use refers to how easy the platform is to a user, does it require technical skills or not?
OLITT Shop ease of Use
With Olitt shop, your eCommerce website can be live within 3 minutes, however, it will take you more time to customize the website to fit your business brand.
It has over 300 templates that you can pick to design your website with ease. The drag and drop technology used makes the process simple and easy.
You don’t need to have a prior understanding of Web design to find your way around this powerful tool.
Shopify ease of use
You can use free themes, premium, and personal themes on Shopify.
Shopify has just 10 free themes on their platforms for you to use, they have premium themes that you can get for $150 – $300. And finally, the customized themes are the ones made by you or a developer.
The platform is quite easy to customize but it needs you to dedicate your time to be able to get your way around it.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify ease of use
The platforms have both modern and responsive eCommerce themes that are easy to use but the OLITT shop is a lot cheaper.
After paying for the OLITT shop plan, you have access to all their themes and features, there won’t be a need for you to pay for themes again.
3. Payment gateways
A payment gateway is the means customers can use to make payments on the internet. There are lots of payment gateways available for making purchases online.
OLITT Shop payment gateways
Some of the payment gateways on OLITT shop are stripe, PayPal and fluttwerwave. Fluttwerwave wave allows customers to use their visa card, MasterCard, mobile Money, barter and many others to make payments on your shop.
And it also allows country-specific payments.
Shopify Payment gateways
Shopify has its payment gateway and also has integration with over 100 payment gateways.
They have payment gateway integration with many regions of the world.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify payment gateways
Shopify has a lot more integration than OLITT shop builder, however, the payment gateways available on OLITT are also efficient in receiving payments from customers.
4. Advanced Search
Advanced search enables customers to add filters and become more specific when making queries for products on services on an eCommerce website.
This feature increases ROI because it makes it easy for customers to easily locate the products they are searching for.
OLITT Shop Advanced Search
OLITT integration with Elastic search enables customers to make advanced searches on their platform.
Shopify Advanced Search
Shopify project product Search and filter pro app enable users to make an advanced search on their platform also.
The app is free to use on its latest themes.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify Advanced Search
The two platforms have advanced search features for customers to easily find products on their platform.
5. Analytics
It will be difficult for you to measure success and make insightful decisions without analytics.
Google Analytics is a free powerful tool available for website owners to analyse how traffic behaves on their websites.
OLITT Shop Analytics
You can easily integrate Google analytics into your eCommerce website on their platform, additionally, you have a sales report that informs you about your orders’ item total, adjustment total, and sales total for a selected time, for each currency you accept.
And you can also use OLITT with hotjar to understand how users behave on your site, what they need, and how they feel, fast.
Shopify Analytics
Shopify analytics and report tools give you the means to review your store’s recent activity, get insight into your visitors, analyze your online store speed, and analyze your store’s transactions.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify Analytics
They both offer analytics and report tools for you to gain insight into your website but Shopify gives you access to advanced reports If your store is on the Basic Shopify plan or higher.
6. Social media integration
You cannot talk of business on the internet without mentioning social media because they are no longer just a place to catch alone, people use social media for different kinds of business.
Your business will need integration with big social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
OLITT Shop Social media integration
You can easily integrate your WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram into your eCommerce shop. Your Facebook catalog will display your shop products.
Shopify Social media integration
Shopify has a lot of apps that can integrate your website with different social media platforms. Some of the apps are outly, chat desk, WhatsApp chat, and Facebook channels.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify social media integration
Shopify has more integration with Social media for you to use but OLITT shop also has integration with some of the biggest social media platforms in the world.
7. Speed
The speed of your website is an important factor on the internet since most people can’t wait for a slow website to load.
Therefore you have to choose a platform that is fast so your ROI doesn’t reduce because of website speed.
OLITT Shop Speed
The Websites hosted on OLITT shops are fast because they adopt a technology that makes that possible.
They achieve this by reducing the size of your pages and also compressing them. By doing so your website will load fast.
Shopify Speed
If you host your shop on Shopify you will need to practice some techniques to optimise your website speed performance.
Some of the practices are choosing a Lightweight Shopify Theme, reducing Large Image Sizes, compressing Images and replacing GIFs With Static Images.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify Speed
Shopify requires you to optimise your website yourself while OLITT does it automatically for you.
8. Product Personalisation
Product Personalisation means making customers feel connected to the products they are purchasing from you.
OLITT Shop Product Personalization
With OLITT Shop, you can easily allow users to add a personal note, a gift packaging and the recipient’s address.
Secondly, users can personalize their purchases with their names and initials. And you can also personalize the sales on Instagram by pulling the customer’s picture and the product he or she wants to buy.
Shopify Payment Product Personalization
Customly Product Personalizer app on Shopify gives users a lot of options to personalize their products and also enjoy a live preview.
The app has a 9-day free trial after which you will have to pay $49 per month.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify Product Personalization
Shopify offers more product Personalization than OLITT shop but it comes with a price.
It costs $49 per month in addition to the Shopify l
Plan while the personalization of the product on OLITT shop comes as a feature of the plan you bought.
9. Customer support
It’s important that when you encounter difficulties, there are people available to attend to your needs promptly.
OLITT Shop Customer support
The customer support on OLITT shop is excellent, they have a live chat on their website where a customer representative will respond to your needs promptly.
Shopify Customer support
Shopify also has good customer support that attends to the needs of their customers promptly.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify Customer support
They have tools and representatives that help users when they are stuck.
10. Pricing
The pricing is the cost of using the services on the eCommerce platform.
OLITT Shop Pricing
OLITT has a free and premium plan, you can use the free plan to design your website. However, the free plan has a lot of limitations.
If you want to have the complete features to design your website you have to go for the premium plan which costs only $29.99 per year.
This package offers you the following features
- Free hosting
- Unlimited Storage
- 1 Free domain (when paid yearly)
- 1 Shop Template
- Connect Multiple Custom Domains
- Ticket & Live Chat support
- SEO & Marketing tools
- Additional Free Websites (10)
- Remove OLITT branding ads
- Social Media Integrations
- Accept online payments
- Sell unlimited products
Shopify Pricing
Shopify web builder has three packages, namely, basic, Shopify and Advanced.
The basic package cost is $29 per month. 2 members of your staff will be given access to the admin dashboard and you will be charged 2% for purchases on your website.
The Shopify package costs $79 per month. This package gives 5 members of your staff access to the admin dashboard and you will be charged 1% for purchases on your website.
The advanced package costs $299 per month. This is the highest package and is suitable for scaling businesses requiring advanced reporting.
15 members of your staff have access to the admin dashboard, 8 inventory locations and just a 0.5% charge for the purchase.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify Pricing
The price of Shopify supersedes that of OLITT shop by far. The least plan on Shopify costs $29 per month while OLITT shop’s one-year plan cost $29.99.
OLITT Shop Vs Shopify Verdict
Even though OLITT shop is new in the market you can see from the review that it offers most of the features that Shopify offers.
Shopify indeed has more advanced features and coverage but OLITT also has a lot to offer when it comes to e-commerce website design and online store management.
OLITT is suitable for SMBs and individuals that want to take their business online, it offers features that will meet their business needs while Shopify is more suitable for already established businesses.
Conclusion
If you are looking to start your eCommerce website you can save yourself a lot of money by using the OLITT shop.
The value that you will gain from using their services outweighs the price.
Choose OLITT shop to host and design your website today.