Everything You Need To Know About Shopify

Have you heard of Shopify? Maybe you have but have you tried using Shopify? Or perhaps you are considering using Shopify for your business but you don't know how to get started? Then this article is for you, and in a few minutes, you will know everything you need to know about Shopify. You would also get to know if it is great for your business.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows retailers to create online stores or shops. It provides online retailers with various services, which include marketing, payments, shipping, and tools that help small merchants keep their customers engaged.

The good thing about using Shopify to create an online store is that you don't need to know about web development or coding. You do not need to code your online store from scratch.

Shopify offers an e-commerce web builder with numerous templates that you can easily customize to represent your e-commerce business or brand. This way, you can keep all your business organized on a single platform and do what makes you happy; sell, sell, and sell!

Still, it may feel a bit complicated if you are creating an online store for the first time. Setting up your store, products, payment, and shipping methods may not be as "ABC" simple as you thought it would be. However, that shouldn't deter you.

Shopify offers a 14-day free trial so you can test your Shopify store and see how you like it or not. They also offer several helpful articles and chatbots that would assist you with any problem you may encounter while setting up your online store.

Why Should I Use Shopify?  

While Shopify is a well-known brand in the E-commerce industry, others do the job of creating an online store for you as well. Why should you choose Shopify? Firstly, Shopify is the preferred e-commerce software for many e-commerce businesses. Over 600,000 businesses located in 175 countries use Shopify. They are certainly doing something right if more people keep choosing Shopify.

Shopify is also the best cloud-based e-commerce software with low startup costs. It provides an easy-to-use interface where you can promote your online store and products and sell and ship your products to customers all over the world.

When you sign up for an online store with a tight budget you can get access to most features and third-party integrations for as low as $9/month. 

How Much Does Shopify Cost?

Shopify is more affordable when compared to other e-commerce web builders. It offers flexible pricing plans, which allow small businesses and big businesses to benefit from its awesome features, intuitive interface, and third-party applications.

Shopify has four major pricing systems. Each pricing level gives the users increased functionality as well as additional e-commerce features and tools not available in the previous plans. These plans are:

Lite: it costs $9 per month

Basic Shopify: it costs $29 per month

Shopify: it costs $79 per month

Advanced Shopify: it costs $299 per month

Shopify also offers Shopify Plus to large businesses and merchants who sell a high volume of products.

There are no setup fees or transaction fees in Shopify pricing plans. With any plan you choose, you can upload unlimited products with a limit on storage size and constant online and phone support.

Each pricing plan allows you to add website templates and third-party applications from Shopify. You also get a wide range of free and paid options of applications to choose from.

How to Set Up Your Shopify Store

Setting up your Shopify store is quite easy but we are going to walk you through the process so you'll get it done in less time.

Create an account with Shopify

So you have decided to create a Shopify store, get started by searching for shopify.com on Google. Fill in your details in the signup form to create an account. 

Then click the “Create your store now” link. Enter your business email and create a password.  

This is also the point where you will create your store name. Fill in all other relevant details and click "I'm done".

Set Up Your Online Store

After you’ve signed in you’ll get to see your store's 'Admin dashboard'. From the dashboard, you can customize your store, upload products, and set up payment details and shipping.

Choose a Shopify Store Theme

Use Shopify's customized templates to design your storefront and represent your brand. Shopify's theme templates have a full support design team, how-to articles, and Shopify chats to help you get started.

While the premium themes come with more modifications, you can also customize a free theme and make it look awesome for your store. If you can code, it gets better as Shopify places few limits on how you can adjust the HTML and CSS.

If you don't want to code your online store, you can hire Shopify experts on Shopify who will handle the customization of themes for you. Visit the Shopify Theme Store at themes.shopify.com to select a theme from 180+ paid and free themes. 

To test the theme click “View Demo.” This will show you how the theme functions. Once you’ve found a theme you like, click the green button.

After confirming that you want to install the theme, click “Publish as my Shop’s Theme.” When the theme has been installed, Shopify will appear on your published themes.

Next, add your customized business logos, fonts, images, videos, and any other relevant content.

Add Your Products

Once your store looks exactly the way you want it to look, start adding your product images. 

At the bar on the top left of the dashboard, click on “products.” Then, click on the ‘Add a product’ button in the top right corner of the page to upload your product images. Don't forget to add the necessary details as needed about your products.

Include descriptions and other relevant information about each product. Include keywords in your product description to boost your store's search engine optimization (SEO).

Use images that are clear and have high quality. After filling in all details, click the “Save Product” button in the top and bottom right corners.

Payment Set Up

Once your e-commerce store design and products are in place, you can move on to set up your payment details.

Shopify provides various “payment gateways”. This allows your customers to pay for products ordered on your Shopify storefront. Each payment gateway has its own rules, regulations, and charges. Make sure you choose the payment method you are most comfortable with. 

Next, click the “Complete Shopify Payments account setup” button found in "Settings." This will lead you to other important payment information you need to know. 

Payment Information You Need to Know

Transaction Fees

When you receive a payment, Shopify will charge you a small percentage of it for using their service.

Card Types

All payment gateways on Shopify accept VISA and Mastercard. While others accept American Express and PayPal. You need to know the card type accepted by the payment gateway you choose

Launch Your Store

After setting up your storefront, before you launch your online store, you need to complete a few things that are essential to your business.

Taxes

Go to the Products page of your admin panel. Click on the name of a given product. Tick the checkboxes next to “Charge Taxes” and “Requires Shipping” if you pay tax on your products and if you would have to ship your products to customers.

Shipping

Vary your shipping options based on your customers' needs. Shopify will calculate a shipping rate for your customers based on the shipping rules you indicate on the Shipping page of the admin panel. 

Consider Buying a Domain Name

Shopify does not provide a free domain name service, you have to pay for it. You can get a customized domain name from a hosting website or from Shopify itself. 

Shopify's domain typically costs $9-14 per year which is a bit more expensive than buying from a third-party website. However, you would have to redirect the DNS record by yourself if you patronize third parties. This may be a bit complicated for you so buying from Shopify may be a better 

Idea.

What Applications Should I Add?

Shopify has several free third-party applications that you can use to enhance your store. You should select applications based on what you sell and what your business needs to function better.

A great way to start is by selecting applications based on these categories listed by Shopify.

Inventory — It helps you manage your online store's inventory.

Marketing — provides you with marketing insight and boosts your marketing activities.
Sales — it helps you increase sales and enable social proofs and reviews.

Customer Service — this is best for adding contact forms, chat, feedback as well as other customer support features to your online store.

Accounting — add great accounting solutions like Quickbooks to your store to manage your cash flow, balance sheet, financial statement, etc.

Reporting — it's used to get analytics for your store's performance.

Tools — applications under this category vary and can be used to fight fraud, translate languages, handle multiple redirects, etc.

Shipping — these applications make shipping easier as they manage orders and connect you with shipping services of your choice.

Conclusion 

With Shopify, you can sell on your online store and advertise on social media at the same time. Shopify offers widgets and plugins for Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal users. It also allows you to add blog applications to your storefront to boost organic traffic. 

Another thing you could do is to connect your storefront to your Facebook page to increase traffic to your store.

Overall, Shopify is a great platform.