If you’re looking to start your own online business, you’ve probably found Shopify – one of the best ecommerce platforms for online store owners. With Shopify, you just need a few hours to set up a Shopify store for as little as $1 for your first month. You can reach customers all over the world, hence why it’s a popular choice for online business owners who want to sell products online.
Some owners can find it hard to define comprehensive steps on how to set up a Shopify store. This article will walk you through a beginner’s tutorial with 11 easy-to-follow steps.
What is Shopify?
Shopify ís an ecommerce platform that allows anyone to sell online. It helps store owners handle all aspects of retail, from website design and product management to finances and shipping.
Shopify also offers its own point-of-sale (POS) software that you can use to sell in person. Even when you want to build a physical presence, you can manage it alongside your online sales without leaving Shopify.
With Shopify, you can sell (almost) anything on your own ecommerce website. But Shopify products don’t have to be physical items like most people assume. You can use Shopify to sell digital products, gift cards, or services.
The main reason to set up a Shopify store
So why Shopify?
To begin with, Shopify is more than just an ecommerce site. Users who sign up for Shopify can create an online store, manage inventory, process payments, fulfill orders, and much more.
1. Easy management
Despite all of the new features in the Shopify wholesale channel, it remains effortless to use.
Having a wholesale online store that doesn’t build obstacles to handle orders and keep your store running with the most relevant features, such as orders, goods, customer information, reports, and more.
2. Scalability
One of the most essential factors to choose a platform is the ability to scale your business. Indeed, Shopify is a highly scalable application that can scale with you regardless of the number of your transactions. The Shopify’ server is designed to control massive amounts of data, especially customer information and payment options. So security is a significant concern that’s important to develop an online store.
3. App integrations
Shopify is well-known for its robust app marketplace and simplicity of integration with other platforms. The marketplace integrates with over 1500 apps, so you can be sure that they make your store running easier.
The applications and integrations are there to help with things like:
- Customer service
- Marketing and promotions
- Inventory control
- Wholesale and B2B customers and orders.
4. Payment options
Shopify Pay is an appealing feature for brands to streamline the customers’ shopping and checkout experience.
With online payment, customers can save their credit card, delivery, and other billing details to make future checkouts.
How to set up a Shopify store for beginners
1. Create your Shopify account
The first step to start your store on Shopify is to create a free account.
Next, you will be presented with a series of questions for Shopify grasp information to optimize customer experience.
Then choose the location your store is based in and create your login credentials
2. Choose a Shopify plan
To power your storefront, Shopify requires a monthly membership. Additionally, there is an additional cost for payments processed through its payment gateway.
Shopify offers multiple payment options, including:
Before choosing the plan, you can get a free 3-day Shopify trial, which is enough time to set up your storefront and decide if it’s the right platform for you.
3. Add sale channel
Shopify is an omnichannel ecommerce platform, which means you can sell from different channels using the same system.
Popular channels include:
- Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, and Tiktok
- Marketplaces like Amazon and Faire
- In-person with Shopify POS
4. Upload products
The Products tab is where you’ll store information about each item you’re selling.
There’s a lot of data you can add to each individual product on Shopify. Here’s a quick checklist you should cover when uploading your first product:
- Product title
What’s your product called? Thinking of something catchy describing your product in compelling ways. A catchy product name could convince someone to click through to the product page when they see it.
- Description
This is your chance to catch customers’ eyes. Talk about its unique selling point, the ways this product can solve the problem, and why customers need it.
- Imagery
Apart from the context, show your product from different angles could be a strong method to attract customers. Consider user-generated content, such as Tiktok videos you’ve made about your product.
- Pricing details
How much is the product selling for? Enter these details on the product page in Shopify.
- Inventory data
Keep track of how many units that are left in your inventory. So you can decide to order products at the right quantity.
- Weight
In the buying process, you need to measure how heavy your product is. Shopify will pull this data to recommend a shipping rate at checkout.
5. Create categories: suit for target audience
Categories make it easy for potential customers to find items they’re looking for. You can make your album most relevant to your target customers.
You can design product collections manually or automatically on Shopify.
With “Automated” collection type, its operation is rule-based, so you don’t need to go back in and assign each new product to a collection manually.
To do this, go to Products in the sidebar, and choose Collections from the dropdown menu. Click Create collection, and choose Automated.
6. Customize your online store
Having successfully uploaded your products to the platform, the next step is to customize your Shopify storefront.
- Theme
Select a Shopify theme, preferably a free option if you are on a budget, to establish a solid foundation for your design. Don’t worry if the theme does not include all the features you desire initially; Shopify simplifies the website design process through its block-based website builder.
On the theme customization page, you can select the elements you want to add, such as an image banner or a call-to-action button by choosing them from the Add block option located in the sidebar of your website structure.
- Page
To add pages to your Shopify online store, navigate to Online Store > Pages.
Next, click the Add page button.
Enter a title and content for the new page. Be descriptive and clear in your title, as it will appear in browser tabs and search engine results. Use the rich text editor to format your content, add links, tables, images and videos.
7. Set up payments
Shopify has its own payment gateway that lets you take digital payments without any third-party software.
To configure ShopifyPayments, go to Settings and find Payments. Submit details about your business, enable two-factor authentication, and add your banking information.
8. Configure shipping,duties, and taxes
Shopify’s app connections make it simple for suppliers to complete your orders, which is why dropshippers love it. Here’s how to configure it:
- Create a Shopify account
- Find a dropshipping supplier and connect it with Shopify. You can consider popular choices include DSers, Spocket, and Zendrop.
- Choose products to dropship
- Upload the products to Shopify
- Customize your storefront
9. Optimize your Shopify store for SEO
On Shopify platform, there are many apps that’s convenient for the process on how to set up a Shopify store. You can use them to improve the efficiency of the order, customer information management.
You can’t neglect Google Search as a marketing channel, especially if you’re looking for a more sustainable way of promoting your store in the long term. Implementing search engine optimization (SEO) enhances the experience of potential customers discovering your eCommerce website while searching for the products you offer.
We recommend some apps that are highly appreciated in SEO services to optimize your store on Shopify.
1.SearchPie SEO & Speed optimize
SearchPie is one of the most powerful and multi-use SEO apps in the Shopify App Store, it offers almost everything merchants need for SEO: speed optimizations, meta tags, image compression, AI features, and remarkably broken links management.
One of the standout features of SearchPie is its use of artificial intelligence technology. This enables the app to automatically generate intelligent meta tags with just a few relevant keywords, simplifying yet optimizing the SEO process for users.
SearchPie also offers personalized services, including the Speed Up package, designed to boost your site speed by up to 50%. Their SEO Map package aims to enhance your local SEO, making your business more visible in local search results.
The app comes with two pricing plans: the Premium Plan at $39/month and the Enterprise Plan at $79/month. The former covers basic SEO needs like AI-generated product descriptions and sitemap updates while the latter offers more advanced features like Keyword Analytics and Accelerated Mobile Pages. Both plans come with a no-charge trial period, allowing you to test features before committing.
Features:
- Smart SEO reporting: keeps you informed of all SEO-related issues through intelligent reports
- AI-powered SEO and traffic boosting: utilizes ai-generated content, as well as bulk meta tags and alt tags, to optimize for search engine rankings
- page speed optimization: features like instant page, AMP, and image compression are available to speed up your website’s load time.
- URL management for credibility: automatically detects and navigates long and 404 URLs
- Rich snippets via JSON-LD: makes your site more readable to search engines
Pricing:
- Premium Plan: $39/month
- Enterprise Plan: $79/month
2. Avada SEO Speed Image Optimize
Avada SEO & Image Optimizer is another comprehensive Shopify SEO app integrated with various SEO features such as meta tags, image optimization, and sitemap generators.
The app also offers smart speed optimization and lazy load features for instant page speed improvement. Additional utilities like broken link detection, 404-page redirection, and Chat GPT integration are also available.
Merchants praise the app for its user-friendly interface, effective image compression, real-time SEO suggestions, dedicated customer support, and regular updates.
About pricing, Avada SEO’s free plan lets you explore basic features including image optimization for up to 50 products per month and unlimited Alt optimization.
For more advanced features like auto-fixed SEO issues and unlimited image optimization, you can opt for the Pro plan at $34.95/month. An Enterprise plan with expert support and one-on-one consulting is available at $79.95/month.
Key Features:
- Instant page speed and score booster: image optimization, smart speed, lazy load
- Optimize SEO ranking: meta tags, local business, Google structured data
- Automated SEO audit: for products, collections, blog posts, and other pages
- Broken link management: broken link detection, page redirection, 404-page handling
- SEO reporting: identification of SEO issues, automated email notifications, image optimization
Pricing:
- Free Plan
- Pro Plan: $34.95/month
- Enterprise Plan: $79.95/month
-
Tiny:SEO Image Optimizer, Speed
One of the top multifunctional Shopify SEO apps using AI and smart automation is TinyIMG. The one-click image optimization and broken link detection are two of the app’s notable features.
TinyIMG’s pricing is flexible, starting with a Pay-As-You-Go option that’s free to install and includes 50 free image optimizations per month. Subscription plans offer additional benefits, ranging from $2.49/month for a 24-month commitment to $19.99/month for the Advanced plan.
This app is highly valued by merchants for its effective SEO tools and responsive customer support. The two-year subscription plan is particularly popular, offering excellent value for long-term optimization.
Key Features:
- SEO rankings boost: AI-powered SEO enhancement, sitemap optimization, automatic page speed optimization
- Site speed boost: lazy loading technology, one-click image SEO
- Image compression: image resizing, automatic file, and alt text generation
- Traffic preservation: broken link detection, 404/301 redirect capabilities,
- Advanced web optimization: JSON-LD support, meta tag generator, lazy load feature, script control
Pricing:
- Free Plan
- 24 Months Plan: $2.49/month, billed every 24 months
- Beginner Plan: $9.99/month
- Advanced Plan: $19.99/month
10. Go live with your new Shopify store
This is the most exciting part of learning how to use Shopify: going live with your new online storefront.
Now’s the perfect time to do one final check for your site. You should check that your links are working, product images display correctly, or spelling mistakes in sight.
Conclusion
You’ve successfully navigated the steps on how to set up a Shopify store. By following these guidelines, you’ve laid a solid foundation for your online business. Remember, setting up a store is just the beginning. To successfully operate a store, consistent effort and dedication are inevitable.