Estimated reading time: 3 mins
Are you ready to begin selling your products on the internet? If so, Shopify is a good option to keep in mind.
Shopify is an e-commerce solution that many people utilize for selling their products online.
Any kind of digital product or service, physical product, or dry ship product that is not illegal to be selling online is allowed to be sold on this e-commerce site. From shoes, guitars and homeware to coffee, art and electronic books, you can sell nearly anything – it is more difficult to think of something you can’t sell than thinking of something you can.
Getting Started
Here is a step by step guide on how to get your site started up on Shopify:
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Sign Up on Shopify
It is helpful to find an app for Shopify merchants to help your business along the way, but for starters you should sign up on the site itself. Think of a unique name for your store and create it, along with filling out some personal details for the site before moving on to the next step.
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Set Up Your Shop Online
After signing up, you will be redirected straight to the administration screen for your shop. From here, you can upload products, customize your store, and set up shipping and payments.
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Choose a Layout or Theme
Shopify has a plethora of themes in their official layout and theme store to choose from. Users can rest easy knowing that each of their options have full support from the creators, so they know that their store is well taken care of. There are several levels of themes; premium options, for example, have more modifications available, although you can still achieve an amazing site with a free option. Follow these easy steps to select the perfect theme:
- Browse the layout store
- Check out the reviews for each one
- Preview your selection
- Click the green button to publish it
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Edit Your Shopify Settings
Most themes that are provided by this site offer change options so that you can make the appearance of your shop to your liking. You can customize it to your heart’s content, making sure you aren’t stuck with something that looks just like everyone else’s store. The most common features to change include:
- Color schemes
- Font selections
- Logo uploads
- Adding item functionality to your product pages
- Adding slides to a homepage
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Add Your Products
Once your page looks the way you want it to, you can navigate to the “Products” bar on the left and add your first product. Make sure you add all of the needed details regarding each product when you upload it. For example, carefully taking care of the name of the item, the URL, and the description can really help the SEO. This is also where you upload the images of your items, but don’t worry about uploading them out of order – once they have loaded, you can rearrange them.
You can make shopping easier for your customers by setting up groups of products, or collections. For example, you can help your customers narrow down their search by grouping things for them as they may search for them, like if they are shopping for clothes specifically for women, men, or children, you could group your clothing products as such.
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Make Your Shop “LIVE”
Before your site goes live, you need to make sure all of the taxes, payment, and shipping information is inputted and correct. Once everything is set, you can test the order system you put in place to make sure everything runs smoothly, from purchase to payment to shipping.
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Buy a Domain Name
To make your site go live, you need to buy a domain name. Buying directly from Shopify saves time, but you could also go through a third party. Once everything is set here, you will have a fully functioning, unique, good looking store without needing to be an expert in web design.
