Shopify is a software as a service (‘SaaS’) tool - this means that you don’t own a copy of the software, but pay a monthly fee to use it instead. Being a web application, it runs in the cloud - so, as long as you have access to a web browser and the internet, you can manage your store from anywhere. (That said, you can customise a Shopify store to meet more bespoke requirements through the addition of apps - more on which later).
So, you don’t need to worry about buying web hosting or installing software anywhere - the idea is that pretty much everything you need to build and run your store happens ‘out of the box.’ However, Shopify also allows you to edit the HTML and CSS of your website, which means that those who do have coding skills will be able to customize their stores more extensively.īecause Shopify is a ‘hosted’ solution, everything runs on Shopify’s servers. One of the key ideas behind Shopify is that users without any technical or design skills can create a store themselves - you don’t have to know how to code in order to use the platform.
