Sellvia vs Shopify: Which eCommerce Solution Is Better for You?

When launching an eCommerce store, selecting a platform that aligns with your long-term vision and unique business needs is essential; Sellvia and Shopify are two popular eCommerce platforms, particularly among businesses focused on dropshipping. Here, we’ll unpack the differences between the two platforms. From eCommerce tools and design resources to pricing and support, this guide has what you need to consider when evaluating Sellvia vs Shopify.

Sellvia vs Shopify: A Quick Overview

Well-suited for businesses of all sizes, Shopify remains one of the most well-known and widely used eCommerce platforms globally. The platform is known for its careful balance between ease of use and comprehensive functionality.

Shopify offers extensive tools and features to manage products, inventory, payments, and shipping. Additionally, you can expand the functionality of your store with a wide range of apps and integrations as needed. Shopify supports a range of sales channels and offers POS for in-person sales. With remarkable flexibility and scalability, the platform supports business growth at your pace.

Sellvia has a much shorter history in the eCommerce space. But despite its newness, the platform is making a name for itself as a preferred partner for entrepreneurs in the dropshipping arena.

In addition to setting up your online store, Sellvia focuses on streamlining the dropshipping experience by offering users a curated catalog of products from its US-based fulfillment center. This ensures fast shipping times — a significant advantage in the dropshipping industry, where extended delivery periods can pose a challenge.

With Sellvia, you can easily import products to your online store, automate order fulfillment, and access a suite of tools designed to simplify the complexities of eCommerce.

Pros and Cons of Sellvia

Pros and Cons of Shopify

Sellvia vs Shopify: The Deeper Dive

When comparing Sellvia vs. Shopify, it’s important to assess all aspects of the platforms—not just the price. Customer service, security, feature inclusions, and hidden costs are all critical concerns. Walking into the vetting process with a clear vision for your business will help you identify the best option for your long-term strategy.

When evaluating pricing plans, factor in extra costs beyond your monthly subscription, including transaction fees, custom domain fees, refunds, app integrations, and paid themes. This will help you establish a more realistic idea of attainable profit margins and the budget you’ll need.

Shopify Pricing and Plans

Shopify provides three scalable pricing tiers to accommodate your business growth and budget. Plans range from $19 to $399 monthly, and an annual payment nets you a 25% discount on the standard monthly pricing.

Regardless of the tier, all plans include the website builder, site hosting features, SSL certificates, abandoned cart recovery, and support for ten inventory locations. They also provide unlimited product listings and bandwidth, analytics, gift cards, customer segmentation, and POS features for in-store transactions.

As the tiers progress, you receive increased staff access accounts, more sophisticated sales reports, and advanced features such as third-party calculated shipping rates and increased checkout capacity. However, you will need to purchase your domain name at an additional cost and may incur additional fees for paid themes and app integrations.

Shopify allows integration with many payment gateways but adds a fee of 2% for a fee using them. However, if you opt for Shopify Payments, the platform’s payment processor, you’ll only pay the per-transaction fee and avoid the extra charges associated with third-party processors. Transaction fees with Shopify payments start at 2.9% + $0.30 on the bottom-tier plan and decrease as you upgrade plans.

The platform also offers an enterprise-level plan, Shopify Plus. The comprehensive solution starts at $2,300 monthly (with a three-year minimum subscription) and customizes transaction fees according to sales volumes. The plan includes 200 POS locations with Shopify Payments, a custom app, omnichannel commerce, and B2B eCommerce functions.

Sellvia Pricing and Plans

Sellvia’s business plan aims to manage most aspects of your business for you. The idea is that you handle the sales side — and Sellvia takes care of everything else.

Accordingly, Sellvia offers two primary plans. The first plan targets merchants who already have an existing eCommerce business. For a $39 monthly subscription, you can download and install their WordPress plugin on your current website. This gives you access to many dropshipping products and done-for-you fulfillment and shipping.

The second plan, Sellvia PRO, is an all-in-one solution for those setting up a store from scratch. For an annual subscription of $399 (or $69 monthly), you receive a turnkey store with all the necessary setups and a dedicated account manager.

After completing a brief questionnaire, Sellvia will build and customize your store. From here, you choose the products you want to list and sell from the extensive dropshipping catalog. The plan includes hosting, one branded email address, product reviews, and basic SEO.

Sellvia supports several payment providers, the most popular being PayPal and Stripe. Transaction fees run at a standard 2.9% + 0.30 cents per transaction, though this may differ if you use another payment provider besides Sellvia’s preferred options.

Shopify offers a library of customizable themes from which to build your store. All themes are mobile-optimized, so your site should appear clean and professional no matter what interface your customers use. Although there are a few free options, do note that many of the templates carry a one-off fee.

You can use Shopify’s no-fuss drag-and-drop editor to customize the look of your site, changing colors and fonts to match your brand. For more advanced customization, users familiar with HTML, CSS, and Liquid (Shopify’s templating language) can make more intricate changes for a truly unique online store.

In contrast, Sellvia offers a turnkey solution and design options for your store. While you can make your small adjustments, there are limitations to modifying your store design.

Sellvia also offers an optional paid theme package called Sellebrity. This costly theme is SEO-optimized out of the box with over 180 ranking factors. It includes built-in features proven to optimize conversion and boasts swift loading times. The theme has 400 customization options, allowing you to create a unique look for your brand. However, note that it costs a $199 one-off fee — and extra features, such as a premium branded promo video and logo, can hike up the bill even more.

When comparing Sellvia’s and Shopify’s sales tools, it’s important to recognize that each platform caters to different types of eCommerce businesses. Therefore, each platform offers distinct tools to drive sales in a particular fashion.

Shopify’s standout sales features include automated abandoned cart recovery reminders, cross-selling and upselling tools, and customer accounts. In addition, you can create promotions, coupons, and discounts to entice customers and motivate purchases.

Shopify also enables multichannel selling, allowing direct sales through integration with social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. You can also sell on marketplaces like Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Etsy.

On the other hand, Sellvia’s sales tools are fine-tuned for dropshipping businesses that prioritize ease of use and quick setup. The platform focuses on providing a fast end-to-end process from product listing to delivery. You can purchase an additional Amazon package for $399 or a TikTok Dropshipping Package from $99 to $199. These packages include listing videos, marketing material, and support to help drive sales on these channels.

Shopify’s extensive and varied sales tools support various sales tactics while staying true to your brand. While it requires a little more effort than Sellvia, Shopify lets you maintain a high degree of control over your content and campaigns. Shopify’s sales features are also already included in your monthly subscription fee. If required, you can purchase additional tools in Shopify’s app store.

Sellvia’s sales tools are streamlined so those in the dropshipping business can launch and begin selling ASAP, emphasizing swift product delivery. Although most of the work is done for you, many tools come with a hefty price tag.

Sellvia vs Shopify: eCommerce Features

Unlike many other eCommerce platforms that limit listings and features on bottom-tier subscriptions, Shopify offers all users a robust set of features. Shopify includes the following eCommerce features across plans:

• Unlimited product listings
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Hosting and SSL certificates
• Integrated checkout and payment processing
• International sales
• Standard analytics
• Order and inventory management

Shopify’s inventory tracking feature enables real-time monitoring of product availability, sizes, and colors. Stock alerts can be set up to notify you when it’s time to restock products. The platform’s order management system automatically adjusts inventory levels across all sales channels, providing centralized stock management for both online and in-person sales. Additionally, you can expand Shopify’s inventory tools further with various third-party app integrations.

Since Sellvia is tailored for dropshipping entrepreneurs, its features align with its target audience. Sellvia’s standout eCommerce features include:

• A ready-to-go catalog of products from a US-based warehouse
• Integration services that sync the Sellvia catalog with your online store
• Automated order fulfillment directly from Sellvia’s warehouse
• Integrated checkout and payment processing

As a dropshipping site, you will not carry any stock — eliminating the need for inventory management tools.

Shopify offers built-in SEO and email marketing tools in all its plans. SEO features such as customizable headlines, titles, and meta tags help improve organic search rankings.

The platform’s built-in email tool, Shopify Email, allows you to send up to 10,000 emails monthly. Beyond that, each batch of 1,000 extra emails costs one dollar. While you can personalize and schedule your emails using templates, Shopify Email lacks advanced features like automation and segmentation based on customer behavior. However, Shopify’s App Store is stocked with many marketing apps that cover email marketing, social media marketing, SEO, and more, letting you further automate marketing tasks.

Since Sellvia’s site is set up for you, the PRO plan automatically includes basic SEO metadata. Sellvia provides several marketing packages as add-ons. It also provides an SEO booster package that submits your site to search engines, inserts backlinks, and submits articles to directories — all contributing to increased search engine visibility. However, it’s not cheap. The package can set you back between $399–$999. Other marketing packages (starting at $199) provide pre-designed marketing material for products, social media page setups, and marketing content.

Shopify provides the basics as part of your subscription. The platform gives you complete control over design and content, although this requires more work. Sellvia, on the other hand, does it all for you with pre-designed material — but at a cost.

Fulfillment and delivery are Sellvia’s specialties, so it has the upper hand in simplifying logistics. When customers purchase an item from your store, the price includes storage, picking and packing, shipping, handling, and customer service. The platform also handles returns. The best part is, you don’t have to do anything.

With Shopify, you can handle your fulfillment or integrate with available services for a more hands-off approach. The platform supports a variety of shipping apps and integrations, giving you the flexibility to tailor solutions to your specific needs.

Shopify offers its fulfillment service and the Shopify Shipping suite, which grants you access to discounted rates with major carriers. In addition, Shopify’s advanced plan allows users to take advantage of automatic carrier-calculated shipping rates.

As we’ve discussed, Shopify has third-party apps and integrations for nearly every functionality. The more than 8,000 apps in the App Store touch on everything from accounting, shipping, and loyalty programs to social media, analytics, and customer communication. For instance, you can feature your products on Walmart, streamline sales accounting with QuickBooks, or print custom merchandise with Printify.

On the other hand, Sellvia does not have its app store since it functions as a dropshipping provider, though it can plug into existing eCommerce platforms. This means you can integrate Sellvia with your Shopify store to sell items on your existing site, using the two in tandem.

Sellvia and Shopify both provide 24/7 customer support through chat and email. They offer extensive knowledge bases with webinars, video tutorials, and blog posts. If you sign up for the Sellvia PRO plan, you get a dedicated manager to help with any queries. Shopify users only gain this personalized assistance with the enterprise-level Shopify Plus.

While Shopify Academy covers many eCommerce topics, Sellvia’s Marketing Academy focuses mainly on dropshipping marketing strategies.

Which Is Best for My Business Needs: Shopify or Sellvia?

The best platform for your business — Shopify, Sellvia, or another — will largely depend on your business model and customization needs.

Considering that Sellvia and Shopify cater to somewhat different business models, we recommend considering the following when deciding which platform best meets your needs.

Shopify is an ideal choice for businesses that:

• Want to establish a unique brand presence
• Want to sell their products
• Need a scalable solution that can grow with the business
• Require an extensive set of features and customizations
• Want to maintain complete control of site content and design
• Want to manage the entire sales process themselves

Sellvia is a good choice for businesses that:

• Want to focus mainly on marketing while outsourcing logistics
• Don’t have the technical or design expertise to set up a store from scratch
• Already have an online store and want to expand product offerings without the need to carry inventory
• Are looking to minimize time and effort associated with production, fulfillment, and storage

Shopify Plus is the ideal core platform for enterprise-level businesses, providing comprehensive features to meet the complexities and demands of large-scale operations. It offers robust infrastructure, scalability, advanced security, top-tier support, and extensive integration capabilities crucial for enterprise businesses.

At the corporate level, Sellvia would be a complementary service integrated with Shopify Plus to expand the company’s product line without increasing inventory risks and overhead. This would leverage each service’s strengths to provide a robust, scalable, and flexible business solution.

Sellvia vs Shopify: Tailoring the Perfect Fit

As we stated, running a successful online business comes down to your business vision and unique needs. Shopify is an all-in-one eCommerce solution for companies that value control and scalability. It offers diverse design options, marketing tools, app integrations, and room for growth. On the other hand, Sellvia is ideal for eCommerce ventures prioritizing low inventory costs and logistics outsourcing.

But no matter how remarkable your store or products are, if customers can’t pay you in a way that’s convenient for them, they won’t make a purchase. The right payment processing solution can help boost your sales, reduce fees, and increase profitability.

PaymentCloud provides tailored payment processing services for eCommerce businesses of all sizes, aiming to reduce transaction fees. Our services include a secure, PCI-compliant platform, fast transaction processing, and easy integration with popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, and Volusion. Our team is committed to customizing a solution that fits your needs and grows with your company. Start building your eCommerce business today!

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