Building an online store to sell physical or digital products is quite challenging, but Shopify provides an excellent platform to solve this issue.

If you are a newcomer or an experienced person and wish to start an online store without investing a lot of time and money, then Shopify is a one-stop solution for you. Irrespective of the size of your business Shopify helps you expand your customer base,  enhance your reach, and grow your business.

Shopify provides many applications, tools, and assistance to turn your entrepreneurial dreams into reality with an online store.

This article will show you how to create a Shopify store from scratch by following straightforward steps.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is the most popular cloud-based eCommerce platform that helps you create an online store and sell products.

It has evolved and is now the best platform to help you customize your online store as per your will and sell whatever products you want. With Shopify, you can even sell products on multiple places such as mobile, web, social media, and online marketplaces.

The diversity of pricing plans, flexibility, and scalability make it suitable for every business, from small to large.

Additionally, Shopify provides a free 14-day trial ( no credit card required ). You can create your first store, customize it, and add products with the free trial and 14 days are more than enough to understand the full potential of the Shopify platform.

Why Should You Use Shopify over other eCommerce platforms?

The time, cost, and effort required to build and maintain an online store can be significantly lower using an e-commerce platform. Integrating third-party services with an eCommerce platform will increase sales.

Suppose you are a newcomer or an experienced person. In that case, Shopify will be the right choice for both types because it does not require coding or prior experience.

Shopify will provide support for the Customization of the store, large apps and plugin support, and theme customization according to your brand identity.

The number of ways provided by Shopify to sell your products online is higher than any other e-commerce platform. The support for payment gateways such as Paypal, Stripe, Bitcoin, and most credit cards make Shopify more popular because it gives so many payment options to customers,

Building your Online Store

Creating an online store with Shopify is a multiple-step process, and in this section, we will start the foundations of creating your online store. Shopify’s tools make building a store easy and manageable without writing a single line of code.

1. Create Account

Open the Shopify website, enter your email at the top of the home page and click the start free trial button to get started.

Now fill in the personal information and click on next. It will then ask about your experience, choose accordingly, and hit the Next button.

Then it will ask where you want to sell, choose as per your requirements and click on the next button. You can change it later (if you’re not sure, you have the option to skip it).

It will ask you to fill in the name of your store. When doing that, you must make sure that you enter a unique store name. If not, you will be asked to add another name, or Shopify will add some random number to make the name unique. If you are not ready with the name, skip this section now.

Afterward, it will ask for additional personal details such as county name, etc. Fill in those details and click on next.

Shopify will take time to set up your online store, so hold tight and be patient. After finishing the setup, it shows the dashboard like the below image:-

Now, your store is live and ready.

2. Choose a theme

Once you have finished the setup and launched the online store,  you can design it according to your needs by selecting a new theme.

Click on the Online Store > Theme, which will show you the current theme and allow you to change it with a new theme.

You can visit the theme store and browse the list of paid and free themes. When you finally choose the theme for your store, you can click on Add theme to insert it into your current theme.

Next, to set up your chosen theme, you should press Actions and Publish to turn it into the default theme for the store.

You can easily customize your theme by clicking on the “Customize” button next to your selected theme.

3.  Add products

After finishing the setup and designing, it’s time to add products to sell.

Open the main dashboard and click the Products > Add product button to add a new product to your online store.

After clicking on Add products, fill in all the essential details related to the product, such as title, description, price, quantity, images, shipping information, and many more. Then hit the save button and go back to the products section, which will show you all the added products.

4. Create necessary pages for your store

Since your store is new and only features the product page. Creating additional pages will be essential to deliver more information about you and your business.

Being a new online store adding the following pages will help you a lot:-

• Contact Us
• About Us
• Returns
• Refunds Policy
• FAQ pages

 

Open the admin dashboard, click on the Online Store > Pages, and hit the Add page button to create a new page.

Creating a page is pretty easy. You just have to fill in the information, such as the title and detailed information about the page.

5. Install Plugins and Apps

Shopify has its own APP store that holds and permits you to install applications that will help you to improve your online store. There are around 6000 apps available on the Shopify app store. These apps allow you to add more functionality, manage your online store seamlessly, and integrate it with external services.

Open the Shopify admin dashboard and click on Apps. Type the name of the app or plugin you want to install, or you can also visit the Shopify app store to install the application.

Many apps and plugins are available to make your work easy. Some popular ones are Seguno, AdNabu, Referral Candy, Kit, Form Builder, Free Shipping Bar, Sales Notification by MPS, and many more.

Feel free to browse and check all these apps and plugins, but most aren’t free.

6. Integrate payment gateways

We have already finished most of the part of building and designing an online store, but the real point is building the store is selling the products. To make sales online, you must provide customers with an easy payment option.

Regarding payment, Shopify provides you with a lot of protection and various alternatives. It supports Shopify Payments, Stripe, Paypal, Bitcoin, and Most Major Credit Cards.

Open the admin dashboard and click on Settings, select the payment providers, choose your preferred payment method, set it up, and last hit the Activate button.

Always consider the transaction fees and payment options supported by your chosen payment gateway.

7 . Add or Purchase a domain name

When you create an online store with Shopify without adding a domain, it will generate a URL like MyStoreName.myshopify.com, where your online store runs on a subdomain with the name of your online store. 

It is ok to learn and practice, but if you plan to publish live your online store, then setting up your domain is essential to represent your brand. 

Shopify provides two ways to add a domain: buying a new domain or connecting an existing domain.

To customize your domain name, you’ll need to do the following:

• Open the admin dashboard and click on the settings option.
• Under the settings, selects the Domains option.
• Connect the existing domain if you have already purchased a domain name.

If you are a newcomer and want to buy a new domain, I strongly suggest you buy a domain with Shopify and set it up.

8. on-page SEO optimization

Building an online store is essential, but the reason to build an online store is to sell products; for this, you have to reach the audience.

Building a store is not just enough; you also have to take care of on-page SEO optimization techniques to reach the maximum audience.

Optimizing URL structure, metadata, headings, body text with primary and secondary keywords, and image alt tags will increase the chances of reaching the audience.

Conclusion

After finishing all the above steps, you are ready to publish your online store online, but you have to buy the paid plan because you can’t publish a store with the free trial. After upgrading your account publishing, your store will be just a click away.

Shopify is the most prominent and well-established eCommerce platform that provides fantastic benefits and customization will building an online store. To grab the most benefit, you have to know the right tools and how to utilize their maximum limits.