Being a Shopify Expert / Shopify Partner, there are questions relates to this role often from my clients and my friends. And I try to share some and welcome feedback.
First of all, Shopify Expert are people who experiences and solid work history on various Shopify projects, across store setup / theme development / marketing and app development. I started my Shopify affiliate journey since 2014, and once reach 5 clients, I applied to be a qualified Shopify Expert. I also wrote a blog shared the reason for seeking Shopify Expert help for Shopify store setup.
For last 6 years, I have managed more than 10 clients, although I cannot work with each clients every moment. Yet I am open for them to connect with when they have questions for their store or even their business, act as a helpful hand if they seek for advices.
Shopify is a listed company, providing the SaaS E-Commerce platform which help store owner setup their store in a handy way. They do have a support team for handling various store owner issues. So they provide well documents to store owner / Shopify partner for theme / app / development etc. They have Shopify Forum for people to raise questions. Official FAQ system so as to shortlist common questions. And ultimately they offer Live Chat / Email / Phone call support. Although with various support channel, it cannot replace the need for Shopify Expert.
A proper Shopify Expert work with you for business, to help your business grows, care your difficulties and provide solution and even implementation. There are Shopify Expert who care dollar sign and initiate various development works, or someone like me treat freelancer as a personal habit for building various stores to help different business, or to learn how to do business by mean of offering my web development skills. Shopify Expert should have skill set in theme development, store configuration to facilitate the business, they work close to the clients and know their store well. Meanwhile, Shopify Support represent Shopify, they provide support which sometime requires investigation from backend, where Shopify Expert cannot access. Shopify Support often not close to your business, if you are unluckily, you may even reached out from a Shopify Support who mis-understood your issue and brought you walk through the garden and keep sharing information that not useful and off the topic.
A good Shopify Expert should be able to communicate well with the client in order to understand their situation better and able to think on behalf of the client so as to work out the things that work right to the client. I am not yet well in communication and time is the most scarcity item which cause me fail to commit some client raised demand, it is the problem of solo proprietor.
If you are a Shopify store owner. I look forward you can find your right Shopify Expert as a partner, they are happy to build a relationship with you especially if you can let them help you setup your store (as we have a little commission scheme as incentive to be active in Shopify community).