What is Shopify?
Shopify is an eCommerce platform that allows businesses to build an online store. Business owners can create, and grow Shopify online stores of any size in any industry.
According to Burts, Shopify is one of the 5 leading e-commerce platforms in the world. Shopify is popular due to its ease of use, scalability, and a wide range of apps and plugins that enhance its functionality, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes.
In addition, Shopify’s ecosystem includes many software and features such as Shopify POS, Shopify payments, Shopify Shipping,… helping sellers easily expand their scale on the online platform.
How to create a Shopify website?
Decide on the purpose of your website
Before creating a Shopify website, the priority is to determine the purpose the Website wants to aim for.
Determining your website’s goals will help you stay focused and save time setting up your website.
Here are some common goals that businesses want to achieve when creating a Shopify website:
- Selling physical or digital products
- Selling services
- Posting information about your company
- Expressing your brand
- Sharing updates and announcements in a blog
- Highlighting customer reviews
- Turning website visitors into leads
- Growing your audience
Once you have identified your goals, you need to create a plan to achieve those goals.
Create Your Shopify Account
Next, you need to create a Shopify account. You can easily create a Shopify account following the instructions that Shopify has provided on its website.
Access Shopify.com then click on “Start free trial” in the right corner.
Then, answer Shopify’s questions like Where would you like to sell, what do you plan to sell first,…
Then, enter your email and password and click Create Shopify account.
Get Familiar With The Shopify Admin Panel
To easily set up Shopify Website, you need to understand the admin features such as orders, products, customers, analytics, marketing, apps, etc.
- Orders: Manage and view a list of your Shopify store’s orders, including order fulfillment, cancellations, and reviews.
- Products: Add, edit, and manage your inventory of products including uploading images, writing descriptions, and setting prices.
- Customers: Access a list of registered customers and their contact information and handle customer list exports.
- Content: Publish and manage all content on your e-store to improve your store’s visibility and engage with your audience.
- Finances: Keep track of your Shopify store’s finances, including revenue, expenses, and profits, to monitor the financial health of your business.
- Analytics: View sales numbers, revenue, and product performance over periods to track your store’s performance.
- Marketing: Configure multichannel promotions through Shopify Email Marketing, Facebook advertising, social posts, and SMS marketing. Set up automated marketing like abandoned cart emails.
- Discounts: Create and manage discount codes with various rules, such as free shipping for specific order amounts or discounts on certain products.
- Apps: Install and manage apps to extend your Shopify store’s functionalities. Search for apps in categories like store design, conversion, fulfillment, customer service, and more.
Choose Your Shopify Theme
After successfully creating a Shopify account, your Shopify store has been set with a default theme. If you want to change the Shopify template to be unique, following your store’s goals, click on Online Store and select Themes.
Scroll down to the Popular free themes section, here you can choose Popular free themes to add to the Shopify store, or you can click on the Explore more themes box to find more free or paid themes suitable for your store.
You can view your store by clicking View your store in the right corner.
You can see an overview of your Shopify store and make appropriate adjustments after adding the theme.
Edit the Look and Feel
Editing look and feel is critical when you create a Shopify website because this helps your website become unique and different, and attract customers’ attention.
Increase buyers’ website visit time and increase customer experience.
You can adjust it yourself through Shopify’s simple instructions.
To adjust the website, click Customize.
This will open up your online store theme editor in a new window.
You can adjust by dragging and dropping elements to reduce adjustment time.
On the left, you can change text, add buttons, add custom images, and more. On the right-hand side, you have a live view of your store’s appearance as you make those changes.
Add Your Products and Services
Now add products to your store.
On the Shopify backend screen.
Click Products
Select add products
For each product, you must fill in all information such as title, description, product type, price, images, and much more.
Then click save
Continue doing the same for the next products and services.
You can also choose the import products option if you already have the product list.
Click Import, and download a sample CSV to know how to organize information before adding to the site.
After making sure you have filled in the correct information, import the CSV file to the website.
The products will be automatically created.
Add a payment method
This is an important step to help customers’ purchasing process go more smoothly and conveniently.
- Connecting payment methods to your Shopify store.
- At Shopify admin, select Settings
- Select payments in the left column
- Here you can choose payment providers that suit your business needs.
If you’re not using Shopify Payments and you want to accept credit cards, then you can choose from over 100 credit card payment providers for your Shopify store.
Shopify supports two different types of credit card payment providers: direct providers and external providers. If you’re using a direct provider, then your customers can complete their purchases directly on your online store without having to pay at a third-party checkout. If you’re using an external provider, then your customers must complete their purchases on a checkout page that’s hosted outside of your online store.
Connect Your Domain
To connect your domain to your Shopify store, do the following:
- From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Domains
- Click Buy new domain or Connect existing domain.
- If you’re connecting an existing domain, enter your domain name (for example, beeshop.com) and click Next.
- Click Connect automatically and then click Close.
Wait up to 48 hours for your domain to be verified. Once verified, it will be listed in the third-party domains section of the Domains page with a status of Connected.
Preview, test, and publish your Shopify website
You have created a Shopify website for your business.
However, before you start promoting your website, you should test the website to make sure everything is working ok.
For example: Create an order on the website and pay.
Now you can sell on Shopify to millions of thirsty customers.
