
You can construct a fully functional online shop that you can use to market physical or digital goods. Shopify also offers a free trial.
Inside this guide, we’ll explain so that you can launch your online store when possible how you can use Shopify.
Ready? Let’s get started…
Shopify is a subscription to a program service which offers you to create a site and use their shopping cart strategy to manage, ship and market your products. You process orders can get access to easy to use admin panel where you can add products and input store info.
You’ve come to the right location if you would like to make an online shop using Shopify.
How to Set up Your Own Online Shop Using Shopify
You have to register for an account to establish your Shopify shop.
1. Sign Up with Shopify
Visit Shopify.com. Use the signup form to create an account.
Enter the required details and click the ‘Start free trial’ button.

Your shop name has to be special or Shopify will request that you pick something different. If you have goods and, in that case, what you intend to market You’ll also be requested.
If you are only looking to see whether it works for you, it is possible to pick ‘I am just playing ‘ from the’?’ Dropdown, and ‘I am not sure’ from the’?’ section. Enter the details and click on the ‘Start trial’ button.
Beginning your shop and Enrolling with Shopify could not be more easy and they offer a free trial to get you moving.
Following this screen, you will be asked for a few more details, such as state, address, your name, and telephone number. The Way to Establish with the Support of Shopify.
2. Start Set Up Your Online Shop
You’ll be guided straight to your store admin screen after you’ve signed up. Now you are ready to get started uploading goods, customizing your store and setting up delivery and payments.

3. Select a “Theme” or a “Layout”
All themes come with a list of modifications that can be made without having to touch a line of code. The premium themes come with modifications, but you can also attain a good looking website with a one. These changes are outlined in another section.
There are limitations to what could be reached by accessing the HTML and CSS if you want to make wholesale changes to a theme. If you have not got any coding experience, do not worry or you can hire me to customize your website.
Shopify has its theme store that is official. So that you know that your store is in great hands these topics are all guaranteed to have complete support from my side.
We recommend the following, to Discover a theme that suits your requirements:
1. Browse the Theme Store
Log into Shopify and visit the Shopify Theme Store at themes.shopify.com. You’ll find over 500 theme variations to choose from, including a good selection of free ones.
You also could find Shopify themes on other Marketplaces, like ThemeForest one.
Just choose, category, features to pick your theme.
You can filter by paid or free, industry, and features. You can also sort themes by price, popularity, and most recent.

2. Check the Functionality and Reviews
Once you’ve found a theme you like, click on the subject’s sample image. You’ll be given more information concerning the theme, such as whether the theme is ready among other features. Scroll down to see some reviews.
3. Preview the Theme
By clicking on them, if the motif comes in a range of styles, you could view demos of the various styles.
To see the theme in action, click on View Demo. You’ll see this below the green ‘Preview Theme in your Shop’ button.
4. Get the Theme
If you are not 100% convinced, do not be worried it is the subject for you. You could always change your mind afterward.
Shopify will request that you confirm that you would like to set up the subject.
Click on the button When you’ve discovered a theme you want.
Your theme manager reveals the printed theme (the one which you set up or triggered most lately ) and unpublished theme below (formerly installed theme ).
Following the motif has set up, Shopify will enable you to know and will provide you the choice to Visit ‘Go to your Theme Manager’.

4. Edit Shopify Settings
In your own admin screen, pick ‘Themes’ in the left navigation menu. You will see your motif that is live at the upper right corner of, in a box on the very top. The very first one is of 3 dots, which provides you a few settings adjustments. One of them lets you create a replica of this theme. We advise that you do so in the event you begin again and can delete the copy.
You’ll be taken to a page that controls the functionality of your shop if you click on it. This is a time to get a play with the settings so that you may figure out what your website is really capable of and check of the features out.
Nearly all Shopify theme permits you to make which means that you may rest assured knowing that you won’t end up with a site that looks like a replica of tens of thousands of shops.

The most common features will include:
- color schemes
- uploading logo
- 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
- font choices
5. Add Products to The Store
Navigating the bar on the left pick ‘Products’. Then you’ll see a blue ‘Add a product’ button at the center of the webpage. Use these displays to include as much detail as necessary about your goods. Look at those that will help with SEO such as description, title, and URL. Include as many details as possible to help inform the customers about your own items.


Product images highlight any special or special attributes with close up photographs and are able to create a sale so make sure you display off your merchandise to their best. We recommend you keep all images the same dimensions to maintain your store looking tidy. If you don’t intend to make your collection pages seem like a Pinterest board.
Once everything is filled out, always remember to click the ‘Save product’ button in the top and bottom right corners.
Set Up Collections (Groups of Products)
A collection is any group of products that have some features in common that customers might look for when visiting your store. For example, your customers might be shopping for:
- clothes specifically for men, women, or children
- items of a certain type, such as lamps, cushions, or rugs
- items on sale
- items in certain sizes or colors
- seasonal products, such as holiday cards and decorations.
Products can appear in any number of collections. Usually, you would display your collections on your homepage and in the navigation bar. This helps customers find what they’re looking for without having to click through your whole catalog.
Manual and Automatic Collections
When you add a new collection, you can select how products should be added to it. These are the two options:
- Manually – You add and remove products in a manual collection individually.
- Automatically – You can set up selection conditions to automatically include products that meet certain criteria.
Payment Gateways
A payment gateway allows you to take payment from your customers via your website. The price and commission rate is important, but it’s also important to see what features they offer. Not all payment gateways are created equal.
You need to look at the following when choosing the right payment gateway for you.
- Transaction Fees
When you make a payment, some gateways will keep a small percentage or flat fee (or sometimes both) for letting you use their service. Compare these based on what your anticipated sales are.
- Card Types
You need to know what types of cards are accepted by your chosen Payment Gateway. All accept VISA and Mastercard, while most accept American Express. Paypal is also becoming more popular for online payments.
- Offsite Checkout
Some gateways will take the payment on their own servers via their own form. This means that the customer is taken away from your checkout and they pay on the form provided by your payment gateway. They are then redirected to your confirmation page once the customer successfully pays. This allows you to have a bit more control over the checkout process.
You can circumvent Shopify’s limitations – they don’t let you customize the checkout other than with CSS.
Payment gateway transaction fees are added on top of Shopify’s own transaction fees. As of November stores based in the US and UK can use Shopify Payments. Depending upon your Shopify plan, you can save on these extra costs. Depending on your plan, you will receive these highly appealing rates.
- Basic 2.4% + 20p
- Professional 2.1% + 20p
- Unlimited 1.8% + 20p
Depending on how many transactions you make every month, it could be worth upgrading to take advantage of these savings.
6. Get Your Shop “LIVE”
Before your site can go live, you need to add a few more details about your company and how you plan to make deliveries and pay tax.
General
Make sure all your business information is filled out in the bottom left settings area. Make sure to use the Google Analytics feature. This can prove to be an invaluable source for tracking your store visitors.

Taxes
- Go to the Products page of your admin panel.
- Click on the name of a given product.
- Scroll down to the section called “Variants”.
- Make sure the checkboxes next to Charge taxes and Requires shipping are checked if you need to include these with your products.
- Some stores won’t need to charge taxes or shipping on products like digital goods. On the other hand, a T-shirt store will likely need to charge both.
- If you are planning to ship your product to customers, make sure to enter the product’s weight in the appropriate field.
Shipping
If your shipping prices are too narrow, or you do not give enough possibilities, you might miss out on a few sales. Shopify will just compute a shipping rate for the customers depending on the principles that you specify from the delivery page of this admin. To Be Sure You will not lose any revenue:
- From your store admin, go to the Settings > Shipping page.
- In the “Shipping rates” section, see if you have set a weight-based shipping rate and adjust it according to your product’s specifications.
Test Your Order System
To test your system, you can simulate a transaction using Shopify’s Bogus Gateway.
Using the Bogus Gateway:
- From your store Admin, click Settings, then Payments to go to your Payments settings
- If you have a credit card gateway enabled, deactivate it before continuing. (Click Edit, then Deactivate, then confirm your deactivation.)
- In the Accept credit cards section, click Select a Credit Card Gateway to open the drop-down menu.
- Scroll down the list to Other, then click (for testing) Bogus Gateway.
- Click Activate (or Reactivate, if you’ve used the Bogus Gateway before).
- Go to your storefront and place an order as a customer would. At checkout, enter the following credit card details instead of genuine numbers:
Testing a real payment gateway with a genuine transaction:
- Make sure you’ve set up the payment gateway you want to test.
- Make a purchase from your store as a customer would, and complete checkout using genuine credit card details.
- Cancel the order immediately, to refund yourself and avoid paying transaction fees.
- Log in to your payment gateway to make sure the funds went through.
7. Add a Domain Name
To get your site live you’ll need a domain name. You have two choices.
Firstly you can buy a domain from Shopify and it will be added to your store automatically. This saves you time, especially if you have no knowledge about hosting a website. These domains typically cost $9-$14 USD per year. Your second option is to purchase a domain from a third party such as GoDaddy. These domains start from $10.00 USD a year. The downside is that you’ll have to redirect the DNS records yourself which can seem daunting at first.
Here are the steps to put your new Shopify store live on a third party domain name.
- Add the new domain in Shopify
In the Shopify admin, on the left navigation go to Settings and then Domains and add your domain name using the ‘Add an existing domain’ button.
- Update DNS records
Login to your domain registrar and make the following changes to the DNS records:
- Replace the @ or main A record with the following IP address: 23.227.38.32
- Add or replace the www CNAME with storename.myshopify.com (i.e. your store Shopify link without the HTTP, which you can see on the domains settings page)
- Remove any storefront passwords
Otherwise, no one will be able to access your site even when it’s live.
- Set as primary if relevant
Whilst in Online Store > Domains, you can choose your main domain by using the drop-down at the top of the screen
Ensure that you also check the ‘Redirect all traffic to this domain’. This means that traffic to all other domains will be directed to your primary domain. This is crucial for good SEO.
Congratulations, Your New Shopify Store is Ready!
If you have managed that way — congratulations. You should now have a fully working online shop. If You Would like to explore alternatives, see below:
Alternatives for Shopify?
You might even utilize WooCommerce to begin your online shop. It is somewhat more economical but requires a steeper learning curve. In any event, it can be a great option.