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.
Recent Comments
17
I was thinking about setting up a shop on WA as well instead of going to Bluehost. First I checked the speed of my blog post it it's a A99 which is one of the fastest you will find I do believe.
Then I searched and found your article which I have to agree it is disappointing.
I will not be going with Shopify because they are very expensive.
They gouge you on a lot of little things. For example, if you use PayPal they will charge you a fee (2.9%) for the transaction and an additional fee for not using their pay system plus you still get charged the fee from Paypal.
Everything you add to your store they charge huge fees
Thanks for sharing
Looks like you answered the questions in my mind. I hear great stories about shopify and wondered if i could create just a shop site. Now I know. Thanks.
Awww...I could imagine how disappointed and frustrated you would have been. Love that you moved through the wining and pouting to see the issue for what is was an obstacle. Well done to you for moving forward. Thank you for this information it s invaluable! Keep us informed how you shopify store goes.
This is a very confusing post.
If you purchase your domain name at WA, Go Daddy, Name Cheap or any of the other myraid number of places that you can buy domain names, you point the domain name to the place you that will be hosting your website. This is done changing where the name server is pointed.
The rules about having to wait 60 days before you can transfer apply to all newly purchased domain names regardless of whom you purchase the domain name from.
At this point, I have used GoDaddy to purchase all of the domains I own. I have them pointed to either WA or Hostgator. I used to have one that pointed to a Shopify site.
Shopify only hosts their ecommerce websites. Their websites are not built on the wordpress platform. Thus, the only place you can use a Shopify website is on Shopify. If you no longer want to use Shopify, the website is worthless because it can not be moved else where. In my opinion, that is the single biggest drawback to Shopify. That and the monthly fee.
I am a Shopify affiliate, so I am not trying to knock them. Although they heavily promote dropshipping, many people use Shopify to host their online stores because they are very easy to set up.
So....if you really want a Shopify store, find out what their name servers are they you are supposed to use. If you pass that information on to WA Sitesupport, they should be able to point your domain to Shopify.
Yes, it is confusing.
I have given WA SiteSupport all the required information and they initially said that there is nothing they can do.
Since making this post, my ticket has been escalated but still no complete solution has been presented.
Waiting on a reply from SiteSupport.
Wealthy Affiliate specialises in WordPress hosting if you wanted to start a dropshipping business on the Wealthy Affiliate hosting platform (SiteRubix) your best option would have been to go with WooCommerce.
Shopify stores can only be hosted on their platform, it is not open source software like WordPress where you have tons of hosting options.
You can still run a dropshipping business on WordPress, WooCommerce, the leading eCommerce plugin for WordPress actually has the largest market share for eCommerce websites.
Thanks for the comment. I have been debating using WooCommerce instead but decided on Shopify for reasons such as simplicity, site speed, and SEO....all of which are debatable. The thing is, Shopify stores can be hosted on many platforms; GoDaddy being one. Shopify also does their own hosting but doesn't offer the ability to have an email address for my .com domain.
I think you may be mistaken. You can certainly register a domain name with Godaddy and point the DNS to Shopify but Shopify would still be hosting your site. If you read reviews of Shopify, that is one of its limitations, the fact that you cannot move a Shopify store to another host.
Yes, you are correct; Shopify does do the hosting but GoDaddy's pointing of the DNS to Shopify allows for the domain email service of GoDaddy. The domain email service through WA was one of the main features I was looking for but I should have looked into it further.
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Thanks for your post, although it’s been 4 years, nothing has changed. I wish I had read your post before buying a new web domain from WA for my Shopify store. I didn’t even think it would be a problem and since all my domains are registered here, I thought it would be more convenient. My mistake! I contacted support and it still cannot be done on a domain name (they cannot point to the server). They can only do it with a subdomain but that leads to other issues.
Anyway, we learn everyday!