A Beginner’s Guide to Shopify
Whether you’re selling products or services, Shopify is one of the best ecommerce solutions you can use. We’ll be guiding you through everything you need to know about using the ecommerce tool to build your own retail store online.
What is Shopify?
It’s an online store builder that allows you to start, grow and manage your business.
It’s entirely cloud-based and hosted, so you don’t need to worry about upgrading and maintaining software or web servers.
Users can create and customise their online store and sell in multiple places – like the web, mobile, social media, online market places, brick-and-mortar locations and pop-up shops.
What Can You Sell on Shopify?
You can sell pretty much any product – they don’t have to be tangible.
Beyond physical products, you can sell:
- – Memberships
- – Courses
- – Services
- – Appointments / consultations
- – Digital downloads
From e-books to shoes, the ecommerce platform allows businesses to sell anything they like.
Who Can Use Shopify?
It’s great for small and medium business owners, but it’s not exclusive.
You don’t need to be a designer, developer or tech savvy to sell on Shopify with ease, it’s free from technical issues and virtually worry free.
Installation and configuration are simple, which makes it easy to build your own business online.
What to do Before You Start
Before you begin setting up your business on Shopify, it’s vital you understand your goals.
- – Are you going to sell online or in person?
- – What sales channels are you wanting to use?
- – What do you want to achieve?
- – What are you going to be selling?
This will help you to keep focused when you’re in the setup process.
How Much Does Shopify Cost?
You can try the service free for 14 days with no credit card required! Once your trial has expired, you will need to pick a pricing plan that caters to the size and stage of your business.
You can choose from three tiers:
Basic Shopify – all the basics for starting a new business ($29 a month)
Shopify – everything you need for a growing business ($79 a month)
Advanced Shopify – for scaling your business ($299 a month)
There are no setup fees on any of the plans and you can cancel your account at any time. If the plan you selected isn’t right for you, then upgrade or downgrade at any time.
There are no bandwidth fees, all plans include unlimited bandwidth for free.
You can use your own domain name. Either purchase a domain name within Shopify or use an existing one that you own. There’s also a free myshopify.com domain name to all businesses on signup.
Are You Ready to Start Running Your Business?
The process to selling on Shopify is simple and you’ll be guided through the process. Get started here.
There’s an excellent Help Centre which details a general checklist to get you started. You’ll find it useful to reference the checklist throughout the setup process.
Why not check out our Digital Marketing Terms Glossary?
About the author:
Marie Harwood is a Digital Marketing Assistant at Different Gravy Digital, Hale, Cheshire.
Different Gravy Digital are a full service Digital Marketing Agency operating in the Hospitality & Leisure, Financial Services, Legal & Property sectors. Products and services range from; 3D & 360° Tours, Website Design & Build, Social Media, Video Production, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Content Creation, Email Marketing, Online Feedback / Review Systems and Paid Advertising (Google, Bing and Social Media).
Contact Details:
marie@differentgravydigital.co.uk
0161 706 000
120a Ashley Road, Hale, Altrincham, Cheshire, WA14 2UN