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Shopify vs Shop Pay: Our Detailed Comparison

August 16, 2023

Written and researched by experts at AvadaLearn more about our methodology

CEO Avada Commerce

This article focuses on how Shop Pay supports Shopify’s payment checkout, tracking orders, and sales conversion rate instead of comparing them.

Key Takeaways

Shop Pay is part of Shopify’s ecosystem, serving as a checkout feature that facilitates secure and swift checkouts for your Shopify stores.
By incorporating Shop Pay in their Shopify stores, Shopify merchants can expect an improved checkout experience, potentially leading to higher customer satisfaction and increased sales.

Shopify vs Shop Pay: What’s Different?

Shop Pay is an integral part of Shopify, acting as an accelerated checkout solution. It allows customers to save their email address, credit card, and shipping and billing information, thus speeding up the checkout process.

How does Shop Pay work?

Shop Pay works as a fast, secure checkout method for your Shopify store. When customers enter their billing details and choose Shop Pay at the Express Checkout section, their details will be remembered.

To use Shop Pay, customers simply enter their email address to use Shop Pay to log in. They can access Shop Pay through their mobile phone number if they don’t have a Shop Pay account.

At the same time, they will receive a 6-digit Shop Pay code via SMS to verify their account. After completing the verification process, they can quickly check out their next purchases.

Benefits of Utilizing Shop Pay in Shopify

Here are the most outstanding benefits of Shop Pay that can boost your sales and improve your checkout experience.

Speed up the Checkout

With Shop Pay, customers can flexibly opt-in to save their shipping and payment information. Whenever they check out at any Shopify store, they just need their email address and receive a verification code via SMS from Shop Pay.

Once they’ve entered their payment information once, Shop Pay will automatically recognize their profile, making their checkout process quicker and easier.

Shop Pay stores all payment information:

Phone number
Credit cards details such as number, expiration date, and CVV code
Shipping address details
Billing address details

Shop Pay allows business owners to store up to five different shipping addresses and five credit card details in the Shop app and the checkout process. All previously provided billing information is securely stored and encrypted.

As a result, customers can simply click the “Buy Now” button to complete their purchase, reducing the number of abandoned shopping carts.

Increase Sales Conversion Rate

According to a 2020 Shopify survey conducted among its 10,000 most prominent merchants, Shop Pay demonstrated a conversion rate that’s 1.72 times higher compared to traditional checkouts.

Shop Pay’s advantage is noticeable on mobile and desktop platforms but significantly enhanced on mobile devices. Shop Pay yields a conversion rate that’s 1.91 x times higher than regular checkouts.

Enhance Security

Shop Pay uses SMS text verification, PCI compliance, and encrypted financial data. The customer’s mobile phone will receive a unique Shop Pay code before any transactions, which prevents hackers from intercepting.

Moreover, Shopify’s PCI-compliant servers use end-to-end encryption to keep personal information private and secure payments. When customers opt out of Shop Pay, their detailed information will be removed from the system.

Manage from multiple devices.

Setting up Shop Pay is a breeze. Much like PayPal or Google Pay, you can easily enable it from your Shopify dashboard. And, it doesn’t stop there. You can manage it from different devices such as your computer or smartphone.

So, no matter where you are, you have the flexibility to use Shop Pay, making it a convenient tool for all users.

Make Marketing Your Shopify Store Easier.

Shop Pay makes marketing simpler. As a business owner, you can use it to automatically send out messages about great deals, special offers after purchase, and gifts to encourage customers to buy again. But that’s not all.

With Shop Pay, you can also set up marketing campaigns that run automatically, reaching your customers before, during, and after they buy something. So, it’s not just a payment tool, but also a powerful way to keep your customers coming back.

Build brand loyalty

Shop Pay helps to grow customer loyalty. How? Well, it has a top-notch order tracking tool. Business owners can see all purchases made in the Shop app, from when customers check out to when their package is delivered.

So, by using Shop Pay and the Shop app, businesses can make shopping easy and smooth. This encourages customers to stick around, which can greatly help a business grow and keep going strong.

Support multiple payments

Shop Pay accepts many cards, making it easy for customers. They can use a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, or any other card the store accepts. But, to use these cards with Shop Pay, customers need to follow four steps.

First, they need to turn on their cards before using them with Shop Pay. Second, the billing info must match the bank account info. Third, the cards need to be set up for buying stuff online. Last but not least, customers should use a debit or credit card.

How to Set Up Shop Pay on Your Shopify Store

You can enable Shop Pay on your Shopify Store by Shopify Payments and third-party payment gateways.

Activating Shop Pay for Shopify Payments

Step 1: Go to “Settings” in your Shopify admin.
Step 2: Click on the “Payments Setting” -> Click on the Manage tab in the Shopify Payments section.

Step 3: Scroll down to click “Shop Pay” section under Payments.

Step 4: Click on the “Save” button to save your settings.

Enabling Shop Pay with Third-Party Payment Gateway

Step 1: From your Shopify admin, click the “Settings” button and choose “Payments.”
Find the “Third-party payment providers” section, then click the “Manage” button.

In the “Shop Pay” section, choose “Enable Shop Pay” and then click the “Save” button.
Click on “Complete set up.”
Fill in all the necessary information regarding your online store and banking details. Once done, click the “Save” button.

Shop Pay & Shopify: Common Challenges & How to Deal With Them

Setting up Shop Pay on Shopify is generally straightforward. However, it still has some potential challenges:

Customer Verification: Customers need to verify their identity via SMS to use Shop Pay. If a customer can’t receive an SMS (for example, if they’re using a landline), they won’t be able to use Shop Pay.
Limited Customization: The checkout process with Shop Pay has limited customization options compared to the standard Shopify checkout. This could be a challenge if you have specific branding or requirements for your checkout process.
Refund Policy Compliance: Shop Pay requires merchants to have a clear and easily accessible refund policy. You’ll need to create it if your store doesn’t have one.

Alternative Methods to Shop Pay on Your Shopify Store?

Here are some Shop Pay alternatives for business owners to improve their checkout experience and increase their sales conversions.

Apple Pay

Apple Pay is a digital payment process by Apple Inc and is available on iOS or macOS devices. Merchants can bypass the long checkout forms and go directly to the order review.

However, a critical difference between Shop Pay and Apple Pay is that while Shop Pay requires a code to confirm your payment, you can simply verify your transaction using TouchID in Apple Pay.

Once the customers tap the Apple Pay button, they need to scan their fingerprints, and then Apple Pay provides the necessary information for the payment. To enable the Apple Pay payment on Shopify stores, business owners should include credit card payment providers:

Shopify Payments
Stripe
First Data Payeezy
Authorize.net
CyberSource
Braintree

Google Pay

Google Pay provides a fast and secure payment for your customers. Like Shop Pay and Apple Pay, customers don’t need to enter their credit card and shipping details when they use Google Pay.

Instead, they only click the “Google Pay button,” and then Google Pay will process. To activate Google Pay in your Shopify Store, you need to use Shopify Payments.

Shopify vs Shop Pay: FAQs

To add Shop Pay to your Shopify store, follow these steps:

From your Shopify admin, click on “Settings” then “Payment Providers.”
In the “Shopify Payments” section, click “Manage.”
In the “Accelerated checkouts” section, check “Shop Pay.”
Click “Save.”

After you enable Shop Pay, customers can check out using their email address. However, Shop Pay is only accessible to stores that have activated Shopify Payments. If you’re not using Shopify Payments, you won’t activate Shop Pay.

No, you can only use Shop Pay with a Shopify store. It streamlines the checkout process for customers of Shopify-based online stores. Therefore, you need a Shopify store and Shopify Payments.

Shop Pay and Afterpay provide customers with installment payments. However, the critical difference is that Shop Pay is a service provided directly by Shopify in partnership with Affirm, while Afterpay is a third-party service.

For assistance with Shop Pay or any other Shopify services, you may visit the Shopify Help Center online or contact Shopify’s general support through email or live chat. If you are still seeking the needed information, you should submit your request or concern to Shop Pay by filling out the contact form.

Final Thoughts

Shop Pay serves as a one-click checkout solution for Shopify online stores. It offers an automated experience that increases customer satisfaction and gives customers a positive impression of your business.

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Sam Nguyen

Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.