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 eCommerce 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 plugins
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
eCommerce platform. The support for the 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.
