What's your experience with Shopify been like?

Wow. Good to know.

My husbands daughter's boyfriend has been using it for two years now.

his product took off and they thought she'd be moving out of our house they were gonna get so much money.

what they forgot is the amount they'd have to put back in to the business to keep it running.

he's struggling man.

where do u suggest i and or he can learn better money making strategies for it?

have you earned anything? have you stuck with it?

thanks for sharing, Kay! I understood this at the beginning when they started their business, and I knew they'd need to pour more money back in to keep going. And I mentioned that, but my husband is kind of devastated and led on. Oh well, such is life.

I gently let my husband know two years ago when his daughter told him she'd
be in the money and moving out within a year and on her own two feet from the shopify venture,
not to quite believe it. That in business if you don't have the proper mindset or
operations, it's possible when suddenly experiencing an initial windfall like they did to make promises you can't
keep.

But hubby didn't believe me. And what I said, has come true, and now I'm hearing from experts who back me up.

Moving ON, though...i'd still love to hear more about Shopify.

The boyfriend has created his own product, which is actually quite cool!! A mockup of different NASA shuttle control panel parts that went like hot cakes at first. I was happy for them.

It's not a business model i like for myself, because it's a lot of physical work.

But

If you use shopify, have you created your own product or where/how did you get your product? Do you stock multiple products?

oh my goodness!!! back to blogging again!!!

yes i need to tell my husband's daughter's boyfriend (who's from Turkey but whose English is Darn good) to BLOG to help his business!!!

I wish they would listen and take this advice, but they don't listen lol

thanks for answering. this is helping me a lot. it really is, even if they won't take the advice

yes that is GREAT advice!!! Blogging does tend to help with almost everything online, and I'd forgotten that since I don't need to blog for my business anymore.

People are content hungry

Wow. So it STILL comes back to driving traffic.

There's only one platform I've found personally, (and there could be more out there, dont know) that doesn't need traffic driven to it to get more buyers, and that's Substack (for publishing and podcasting, not selling items).

I've gained a few subscribers/"buyers"...JUST by being there!!

(Don't know how Substack developed into that kind of platform, but it's great.)

And you answered the question I didn't even know I was asking

Wow, you are opening my eyes.

you're right. when i go shopping online, first i think Amazon, then, ebay. Last is etsy...

I never think...let me go to Shopify.

I may have confused you and others in my original post. I apologize.

I merely mentioned my teacher was looking into it, not that he was going to teach us for sure. He's making money with other methods and knows that shopify is for ecommerce only and that he would have to go into ecommerce himself and test it for a few years. He only mentioned it in passing one day, anyway.

My original post was really to understand what my husband's daugher's boyfriend had gotten himself into (and thus the daughter too, because she refuses to keep her well paying steady job now for the past year, running up bills, staying in our home without paying rent or utilities, not paying her car tolls that are in her father's name, while she's dreaming of spending her days with her "rich" boyfriend making money off Shopify), and so all of you have educated me greatly.

All your posts are also opening my husband's eyes also. He is seeing that his daughter will probably never pay him/us back.

I just read my husband some of your SUPER informative replies. It really helped me see the situation even more realistically, AND i now hope husband understands why I've been asking him to stop lending her our money, etc., and that we will NEVEr see that money again (approx $8000 now).

He particularly seemed to understand when I mentioned the difference between Amazon and Shopify that you've taught me here. Wow! GREAT info and I'm super thankful to all of you.

The other issue I realize that's being brought out, is that the boyfriend is, for a business model, following his personal PASSION (aircraft/space travel/ items) without using proven business models. I could have fallen into that trap, because my first passion is fiction-writing, and when I began to produce readable books two years ago and didn't see many sales, I quickly realized I needed a proven business model to make more active income.

I've given up my passion-model for now, until i can relax a few years on down the line once passive income has begun, and pursue my passion again in my freed up time.

Yes. That's been my tactic so far.

I know enough not to intervene in their relationship for 6 years now.

Thanks for all the education, though, guys. It's helping me gain peace of mind.

Wow. I love the depth you went into here.

Yes. There's at least one handmade product.

Hm. Perhaps the boyfriend is smarter than I'm realizing, because I'm NOT involved, I'm staying quiet and not asking. Perhaps he's on more than one platform, it just occurred to me.
The daughter doesn't communicate/inform her father about these things and I don't wish to speak with her since she's a screamer, and my focus is better spent on my own business endeavors and interests.

Perhaps she just mentioned Shopify and its loan feature to placate us, to make us believe she would pay us back the amount we spent paying off her unpaid tolls to save my husband's driver's license from being suspended, and to pay off the car to get my husband's name and responsibility off it.

It's always been my opinion, due to her past behavior, that she frequently uses her father for little things without paying him back, and because this is a BIG thing, I really see no reason for me or him to get our hopes up that she'll use a Shopify loan to pay it back.

In this situation I'd rather be wrong, than right. I'm erring on the side of caution that we'll never be paid back than sitting around and holding my breath.

I just don't bring up the subject at all now, when my husband and I are by ourselves.

I initially sprang into action to save his license because he was blindsided by it, has special needs that make computers and payment procedures rather difficult for him with today's technology, knowing all along inside my heart this was lost money.

I've educated him a little from all ur responses, as I became educated too, and now it's up to my husband to believe his daughter or not believe her. I'm on the sidelines now again, doing my own thing.

Thanks everyone for chiming in! You have no idea the great support, education about Shopify and peace of mind you've given me through this fiasco.

Regarding dependence. It is good to depend on nobody but yourself. However, depending on platforms like Shopify is not a bad thing, as long as it is only part of your income that's tied to it.


So, once you're set on Shopify, you branch out on all the places Savidged4 mentioned above and, then, you create your own site.


If you're making money from 10 platforms equaly, if one goes sour, you lose only 10% of your income stream.


The ideal is to have many (even if little) streams, if peace of mind is a requirement. Of course, you do not cancel one just because it's grown large... you learn from that and apply to your other streams.


Putting all your income sources in one basket is the issue, not, in my opinion, that you depend on part of your income from a particular platform/ way of making money.


The limited-control part bugs me the most.


They just don't build these platforms to suit my idiosincrasies. Tsk, tsk, tsk. (

Are u making money from you store there?

If so, how long have you been making a profit?

Do you have more than one item for sale?