Can You Run A Shopify Store With Wealthy Affiliate?

EDIT: 1 eye-twitch-causing day and almost 4000 words later, Wealthy Affiliate now supports custom A records...which means you can now connect your Shopify store to your WA domain. A big thanks to SiteSupport for their site support.

What is Dropshipping and Shopify?

You have probably heard about dropshipping and Shopify by now. If not, dropshipping is a potentially very lucrative business model that doesn't require much risk and Shopify is one of the most popular platforms for dropshipping.

Watch Those Assumptions

You know what they say when you ass-u-me...I should have done better research before getting started. I mean, I've been researching dropshipping non-stop for weeks now but I assumed that any hosting site could accomodate for changes in DNS settings that would allow me to connect my Shopify site to it. I was excited that I could utilize features at WA, such as email addresses.

The Verdict

In case you haven't picked up on the hints, no, you can't run a normal Shopify store with Wealthy Affiliate.

I spent much time picking out a great domain name that captured the essence of my niche, purchased the domain on WA and hired someone to create a beautiful logo. I then spent hours upon hours on niche research as well as learning how to set-up, run, and scale a dropshipping business. I went to officially open my shop, two days before Black Friday, and I find out that I'm unable to use my domain that I purchased at WA...at least not the way that I wanted to.

According to SiteSupport, the only solution is to create a subdomain and connect your Shopify site to that. That may be an acceptable solution to some but not for me. I purchased a short and sweet .com on purpose; not to have it unneccessarily lengthened by a subdomain. There is also the need to build two sites; a shop as the subdomain and the main domain. Many themes cover the ability to run a shop and a blog on the same site so the need for this duplication of work seemed unnecessary.

Some people might be thinking, "Why not transfer to a different hosting company that is compatible with Shopify?" Yeah, I thought of that and it turns out a domain needs to be 60 days old in order to be transferred. So, my domain is locked at WA where it cannot be connected to Shopify without adding a subdomain.

Yes, I'll be able to use the domain eventually but I'm sure you can unstand how disheartening it is to have your plans turned up-side-down at such a crutial moment.

Conclusion

The thing about obstacles is that they only stop you if you let them. Really, life is a series of obstacles; many of which you learn to overcome so well that it just seems normal (walking and talking, for example). I can't control that my site is locked but I can control what I did next. Pout and wine? Maybe a little...but I got over it and decided to attempt the process again with a different niche.

Anywho...I just thought I'd take a few minutes to pound this out before getting back to it so anyone else who may be wondering if they can run a Shopify store with Wealthy Affiliate can make an informed decision before buying their domain at Wealthy Affiliate.

Like the page if you learned something. Post your comments and questions below and I'll be sure to respond...after Black Friday.