Omotayo Mayowa

How to start an online store Over the years, the typical business model used by business owners revolved around the traditional brick and mortar model where customers had to come to a physical location to make their choice of what they wanted to purchase. In recent years, however, businesses have slowly transitioned from the traditional business model to the eCommerce business model where businesses don’t have to have a physical store. Ecommerce platforms have become the eCommerce solution for different businesses to have control over the running of their businesses from creating their online stores to taking inventory, showcasing their products, and providing customer support. However, with so many eCommerce platforms available, choosing an eCommerce platform for your business and knowing how to start your online store can be quite hectic. Your choice of the eCommerce platform to start your online store should be based on different factors including access to customer support, how fast and easy it is for your customers to check out and purchase your products, web hosting, and how easy it is for you to navigate the tool. Shopify is one of the eCommerce solutions that offer business owners a platform to create and manage their online store. This article will cover what Shopify is, why businesses choose Shopify and how it can help make the process of building a new website or online store much easier for DIYers like you. Plus, we'll also cover how easy the platform is to use and the success stories of other businesses using Shopify right now What is Shopify? Shopify is a hosted eCommerce solution that allows any entrepreneur to set up his or her online store without any previous experience designing or coding websites. The software is available as either a paid subscription service or as an installable software on a server so merchants can host their stores. The company has been around since 2004 and hosts more than 446,000 online stores. In that time, they have won multiple awards, including Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and a WebAward in the category of best eCommerce Service. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of creating your online store and getting it all set up, let’s cover some basics. Shopify is a web-based eCommerce platform designed to help entrepreneurs build their online stores and start selling products online without having programming skills or knowing anything about HTML, and CSS. To put it simply, Shopify lets you put all the basic elements of a website together into one app (meaning that you don't have to spend time learning how to code). You'll be able to set up your online store and choose from thousands of professional templates and themes that are ready to use, customize and launch so you don't need to hire a web designer or spend weeks programming your website. Also, you can use the platform to quickly launch your store and connect your social media accounts so customers can buy right from the sites they visit most often. Shopify is also great for businesses just starting who don't have their product line. Instead of building an online store from scratch with HTML, CSS, or search engine optimization (SEO), you can use Shopify's drag-and-drop interface or select one of the many pre-made themes to create the perfect site quickly and easily. Why Businesses Use Shopify Shopify uses several features that aid in the growth of small businesses when compared to large corporations. One notable feature is its variable pricing options; you can set rates for certain days or seasons and change them whenever you want. For example, you can charge more for a product during Christmas than all the other days of the year. Shopify also offers built-in social media integration and an app store where you can download apps that’ll help your business. Another feature is shipping rates based on location. If you sell something to someone in California and that’s where your business is, you set the shipping rate for California at $5. But if someone living in Texas orders it, you have to charge them double the price. This helps small businesses avoid having to pay for shipping and packaging fees which are usually expensive for some items like shoes, clothes, etc. I like that you can set your prices with no complex calculations or formulas. All in all, Shopify makes it easier for small businesses to grow and become successful. You don’t have to rely on marketing, SEO, etc. you just need a website hosted by Shopify with the features I mentioned above (and some of their other features) and you’re ready to go. For all of the entrepreneurs out there with a great idea, but no clue how to turn it into a profitable business, Shopify may be an answer. However, one important question business owners always have on their mind remains; is it easy to use? Getting your online store up and running is never easy. There's a lot that goes into hosting your site, not to mention the competition you'll face right out of the gate. Shopify aims to make it easy for any entrepreneur to build their store so they can get on with selling their products. Shopify gives you a lot of wonderful features to help you get your store up and running quickly and efficiently. Here are a few of the key benefits of Shopify: The benefits of using Shopify start with the fact that the platform is completely free to use. You don't have to pay a dime to sign up and create an online store—Shopify doesn't charge any fees, but they do offer lots of premium features that can be activated through monthly fees. These features will allow you to customize your store's look and feel, improve SEO and increase traffic to your website. Additionally, if you already have products or sell products through another site, Shopify offers a feature where you can easily transfer all your products into their system so that your customers can order from any device. Also, Shopify is hosted, which means that all you have to do is create your site, manage your store and launch it for the world to see. You don't need to worry about hosting or software because the platform takes care of it for you. You can also opt for an installable option if you plan on hosting your eCommerce site. How to start an online store on Shopify Before creating your online store, there are some primary things you must have sorted out; your products, target audience, business name, brand logo, and photos. Choosing the product that you want to sell may be quite tricky but you must establish a profitable product as your choice of the business idea to start your online store. Equally, of great importance is having a target audience because they help you to understand your market better as well as your buyer persona - who are your customers, what are their ages, what do they like, and what is their education demography. Once you’ve established your products and your target audience, the next thing to make ready is your business name. Before settling on a name, however, ensure to check that the name is still available. You can also try Shopify’s free domain name generator to create your business name. Also, your brand logo is as important as your business name and you can hire a professional designer to create a quality logo for your business or you can learn how to create a logo for your business for free. Finally, ensure you have clean and high-quality photos of your products that will best portray your products in your store. How to design your store Shopify offers a free 14-day trial where you can build your eCommerce store using one of the professionally designed templates. Watch this Shopify tutorial video to get guides to help you customize your store, add products to your store, and other elements to improve your store. At the start of the tutorial, you’ll be asked to choose a store name that will be your default URL (e.g storename.myshopify.com). Although you won’t be able to change your chosen store name, later on, you will still be able to purchase a domain name. (e.g yourstore.com). You’ll be required to answer some questions when creating your store to set you up in your new store. One key point to note is that at the end of this trial period when your store goes live, you can continue to improve, customize and add products to your store. After your store has been created successfully, you can then begin to build your online store by adding your products, fixing the prices of these products, writing your product title and description, and uploading photos. The next thing to do is to move to the shipping section where you’ll enter the details to automatically calculate shipping rates and print the shipping labels for all your orders. Up next is the organization section which is where you’ll manage your products by labeling and grouping them into a catalog based on vendor, type, etc. to make it easier for your customers to shop and purchase your products. You can also set rules such as discounts to apply to specific products on your catalog. On Shopify, you can also customize and design your homepage. Select from different themes, colors, and other features to suit your personal choice. You can also customize how your page should appear on search engine results as well as how your FAQs, about, policy, and contact us page should appear to your customers. Thousands of different businesses have successfully evolved to online stores using Shopify as their eCommerce platform and grown their businesses in revenue and sales. UKIES Shoes is a footwear company that has successfully created and managed its online store on Shopify. They patented nanoGel technology; an innovative design that redistributes body pressure and provides shock absorption for superior comfort. Another successful online store that has successfully grown over the years is Bliss Tulle. In her words; “ I definitely recommend Shopify as there are so many useful tools and apps that make things extremely simple and straightforward when managing your store.” Wild Was Mama on the other hand; owned by Adriane, a parent and “baby wearer” accredits Shopify POS for 75% of sales followed by her online store at 25%. Shopify is a great eCommerce solution for business owners looking to create their online store and showcase their products. Sign Up and start your free trial today!