ShopyEmpires Review (Zak Elson & Gary Martin Course)

ShopyEmpires steps in to helping you build and sell your e-commerce store. The team of Shopify experts aims to help you design online shops and create strategic branding.

Let’s find out if it’s worth putting your money and time into!

ShopyEmpires Pros & Cons

ShopyEmpires is primarily for budding entrepreneurs who want to start their own e-commerce business but don’t know how to set up a dropshipping store. ShopifyEmpires will help you build your store from scratch and do the tedious and technical work for you.

If you want to save on time and reduce the learning curve of getting started, then this website is for you.

It is also for those who are already into e-commerce; having opened a dropshipping store, but want to improve it further by identifying niche products, making their own brand and improving sales in general.

ShopifyEmpires is a quick and easy approach to all your problems of setting up your store in a jiffy and getting started immediately.

Who Are Zak Elson & Gary Martin, The Founders of ShopyEmpires?

Shopify Empires office is based in New York and was started by Zak Elson and Gary Martin in the year 2016. Though it’s not clear from their website that who actually is behind the whole agency, they have a whole team of members working for them. Nowhere on their website have they revealed anything about themselves. Even in the ‘About Us’ section, there is no mention of the team members or who heads the agency. My search about its team members on Google, their Facebook page, and Instagram page, all brought me to a dead end.

What is Included in ShopyEmpires?

ShopyEmpires boasts of a complete web design package. There are three main services which it offers, namely- ‘Store Redesign and Optimisation’, ‘Store Build from Scratch’, and ‘Premium package’.

Let’s talk about each one of them in detail to get a better perspective.

Store Redesign and Optimisation

It is the least expensive of all the other packages and costs $199. This package works best for those who already have an e-commerce store, but are struggling with success, or maybe, need a few add-ons and plug-ins to be added to their stores to make it successful and easy-to-use. This package includes premium theme implementation, creation or improvement of the brand logo (if you already have one), a mobile version of the store so that it can be viewed easily from any device.

You can also implement a review system quickly, following which you will be able to receive reviews of customer products, with pictures! There is also a provision of Newsletter Integration, after which you can start building a mailing list for advertising and contacting customers about the products which you are offering to sell. I personally liked the fact that this feature has been added even in their cheapest plan.

Other features in this package comprise of SEO optimisation, lifetime support, and 24/7 live chat (which I doubt, ever responds). They also provide faster browsing by compressing and optimising size and quality

Store Built from Scratch

This package is priced at $249 and primarily targets those who have still not got the hang of how to make and search for the perfect niche and build their customers. In this package, they help you to analyze, search, and select a profitable niche. Once this is done you will further be assisted to select, source, and add products in that niche.

Addition of products will be done by installing a third-party app to facilitate it like Aliexpress Dropshipping. These apps vary is price, but will come at some extra cost. They also recommend the best premium theme for your niche. All the other services are the same as the previous package – like the creation of a brand logo, SEO optimization, or unlimited page creations.

Premium Package

This is the most expensive of all packages costing a whopping $497!! It is aimed at novices who have absolutely no experience in dropshipping but want to create their own e-store and start selling immediately. In this, they give you a “Tailored Marketing Plan” that deals with Facebook Ad strategies tailor-made for you, (a business gimmick, I say).

They will help you get Instagram Influencers for your business growth, gain access to courses on Facebook Ads and Instagram marketing, and help you in selecting the source and adding products in your e-store. Apart from these, all other features are the same as the above two packages like lifetime guidance and close follow up, or brand logo creation.

There is this plug-in wherein you can import product reviews. This feature is something which many do not have or, have to pay extra for. Importing of product reviews is generally done from websites through additional apps like Aliexpress and Amazon which do come at an additional price, though there are free-trials available for most of them too.

They even have a plug-in for newsletter integration, something you get in all the plans as a standard.

Personal Experience With ShopyEmpires

ShopyEmpires is a nicely made website with user-friendly interfaces and drop down links that take you to all the relevant topics like services, marketing, and contact page. Its language is simple and no-nonsense. There are no in-the-face and loud ads, reviews, and screenshots of happy customers, which is a real put off for me.

That said, ShopyEmpires has a few flaws, like the high price of their packages. All their packages seem on the higher end, especially the premium package considering the fact that you can get a short course on dropshipping for half the price and set up e-commerce store yourself. It does seem a waste of money.  Even their starter plan priced at $199, is significantly more expensive than starter plans offered by competitors.

Another disadvantage which I noticed was that ‘abandoned cart saving functionality’ is not included even in their premium package. It’s a tool in e-commerce that you just cannot miss out on today. Marketers use it to identify people who have stopped their purchases midway and automatically send them a reminder e-mail encouraging them to complete the purchase.

ShopyEmpires does not allow you to create a large number of product options. So, if you are selling products that come in a lot of different formats, then ShopyEmpires is not a very good option for you.

ShopifyEmpires Scam?

Nope, ShopyEmpires is not a scam however, there are definitely better courses out there you can get like eCom Elites.

Is there a Discount Code?

There is no discount/coupon for Zak Elson & Gary Martin’s ShopyEmpires course.

There are other sites claiming they either have ShopyEmpires Coupon or ShopyEmpires Discount but, this is definitely not true. Also, ShopyEmpires Nulled or ShopyEmpires Free is not a thing.

ShopyEmpires Final Verdict

To sum it up, ShopifyEmpires does make some right noise but needs to lower its prices to stay relevant.

Their prices are pretty steep as compared to their competitors. Also, a lot of functionalities and features are completely missing from their plans, which, considering their high pricing, should have been included. Some of the features missing are- abandoned cart saving functionality, file-uploads and custom fields, and Facebook Ads and Instagram Marketing in their other two less expensive packages.

The 24/7 live chat remains pretty much unresponsive most of the time. Plus, their marketing services like Facebook Ads training, Instagram Ads training, mentorship calls with e-commerce experts are all cool services, but are not free, but come for $299.

Also, personally speaking, outsourcing your e-commerce store is all good in the light of making it faster and easier for you, but in the longer run, if you take up a training course and learn the basics of dropshipping and e-commerce, you will never have to hire an agency to help you out. Also, you will learn the trick of the trades and will never get stuck at any stage of setting up or running of operations.

So, rather than paying for a ‘hosted’ e-commerce solution, I would recommend paying for online training courses on dropshipping and learning the tricks-of-the-trade yourself. That way, you will be armed with much-needed knowledge and save up on cash as well. Also, you will not need hand-holding at each and every step of setting up and running of your store.

In a nutshell, I don’t recommend ShopifyEmpires to you. It has more cons than pros, and at the price point, just doesn’t cut it.

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