Hi everyone, I'm Latasha from WebsiteSetup.org and today I'm bringing you a
tutorial on creating an online store with Shopify.
So before we hop into that, here's a bit more about us.
WebsiteSetup.org is a free online resource for learning web
development, design, and WordPress. And our goal is to help beginners create their
own websites, blogs, and online stores using the right tools and platforms.To
learn a bit more about our review policies and processes, be sure to click
the link in our description box or you can go ahead and visit WebsiteSetup.org!
So first off, what is Shopify? Shopify is a subscription to a software service
that allows you to create a website and use their shopping cart solution to sell,
ship, and manage your products. Shopify offers a 14-day free trial and for a
monthly subscription you can build a fully functional online store that you
can use to sell digital or physical goods. So to get started, simply head over
to Shopify.com and use the signup form to create an account. After entering your
email address, click the 'start free trial' button and you'll also be asked if you
have products and if so what they are. If you're just trying out Shopify to see if
it works for you, you can select 'I'm just playing around' in the 'do you have
products' field, and after you've signed up you'll be directed straight to your
store admin screen where you'll be able to start customizing your store,
uploading products, and setting up payments and shipping. Now when it comes
to themes, Shopify has its own official theme store.
These themes are all guaranteed to have full support from the designers so you
can rest assured knowing that your store is in good hands. All themes come with a
comprehensive list of modifications you can make without having to touch a line
of code, which is great. So the premium themes come with a bit more
modifications but you can also achieve a great-looking site with a free one. If
you want to make larger changes to a theme, there are very few limitations on
what can be achieved by accessing the HTML and CSS. Shopify also has an
international team of design agencies that they call their
Shopify experts and you can hire them to fully customize your site. To find a
theme that suits your needs, go ahead and browse the theme store over at
themes.shopify.com. There you'll find over 70 variations to choose from including a
good selection of free ones. Now to preview the theme in action, go ahead and
click 'view demo'. Once you find a theme that you like, click the button! Now don't
worry if you're not 100% sure if it's the right fit for you because you can
always go back and change your theme later. After the template has installed,
Shopify will let you know and it'll give you the option to go to your theme
manager to make edits to your theme. Select 'themes' from the left navigation
menu of your admin screen. On this page you'll see your live theme in a box at
the top and in the top right corner of that box will be two buttons. The second
button says 'customize theme'. If you click on that, you'll be taken to a page that
controls all the basic functionality of your store. This is a great time for you
to have a thorough play with the settings and test out all of the
different features so you can find out what your site is capable of. The
most common features generally include: uploading logos, uploading slides to a
homepage carousel, adding related item functionality to product pages, choosing
how many items appear on each line of the collection pages, color schemes, and
fonts. So what is a store without products, right?! Using the left-hand
navigation bar, go ahead and select 'products' and then choose 'add a product'.
Use the following screen to add as much detail as needed about your products. Pay
special attention to elements that will affect SEO or search engine optimization
like name, description, and URL. This is also the screen where you'll upload your
product pictures and once the images are uploaded you can always rearrange them
so don't worry too much about getting them in the right order or uploading them
in any particular way when you first start. Another thing you can do is set up
collections or groups of products. Products can appear in any number of
collections and arranging them this way helps customers find what they're
looking for a little bit easier. And before getting your site live,
you'll need to do just a few additional key things. You'll need to set up your
payment gateways, share tax and shipping details, and enter in a little bit more
information about your company. A payment gateway allows you to take payment from
your customers which is very important! Payment gateway transaction fees are
added on top of Shopify's own transaction fees, so check out the full article that
goes along with this video - we'll link it in the description box. That way you can
see a breakdown of the costs. Next thing, you'll need to make sure that all of
your business information is filled out in the bottom-left section of the
settings area. The Google Analytics feature can also prove to be an
invaluable source for tracking your store visitors, so don't forget to set
that one up. To set up your taxes go to the product section of your main admin
panel, click on the name of a product, scroll down a little bit, and make sure
that the check boxes next to 'charge taxes' and 'requires shipping' are checked
if you need to include these with your products. Now, not all stores will need to
charge for both of these things: digital goods, for example usually don't require
tax or shipping, but a t-shirt company on the other hand, would likely need to
check both boxes. Lastly, you'll want to test your order system. So to test
your system you can simulate a transaction using Shopify's 'bogus
gateway system'. We have a step-by-step tutorial on this in the corresponding
blog post, so go ahead and click over in the description box if you'd like to
check that out in detail. And finally, once you've confirmed everything is
working, you'll need to add a domain name. You can either buy one from Shopify to
have it get added automatically - this is usually pretty affordable. It generally
ranges from about nine to fourteen dollars per year, or you can purchase
from a third-party domain like GoDaddy. Now if you do that you will need to
connect it to your Shopify, site which we also detailed in that blog posts so
detailed instructions for that over on our site. And that's it! If you followed
these steps, you should now have a fully working online store. If you'd like more
details on this process, or to read up on some alternatives, be sure to head over
to our website: WebsiteSetup.org. Thanks so much for watching,
and of course be sure to leave us a comment and let us know how you're
liking Shopify down in the comments below! We'll see you next time.
Bye!
