How to sell on Shopify? | A detailed guide – Getecom

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How to sell on Shopify? | A detailed guide

16 Mins read

Having a flexible work routine and contributing to your country’s economy at the same time is bliss. Though most jobs today are relaxing and allow people to work from places they are comfortable at, people love to have their own brand just to add to their financial security. In this regard, platforms like Shopify, which are open and flexible, allow people to become independent sellers. Shopify provides a fixed trial period to the sellers which is very helpful for them to try the platform and decide for their own. Though selling on Shopify is easy, this blog has been designed to guide you in finding answers to How to sell on Shopify.

If you were to describe the virtues of your friend, could you go writing them in bullets? Uh, I suggest you not to do so and go descriptive to speak your heart out. Thus, in the subsequent paragraph, we describe the eminent qualities of your online business’s best friend, “Shopify.”

As per the Hosting Tribunal126% is the average year-over-year average growth percentage for the Shopify Plus merchants. This exuberant percentage is appropriate to know as to how Shopify can add to your joy that you derive when you build a community of happy customers.

Some More Shopify Statistics:

  1. Last year Shopify made over $1.5 billion sales during Black Friday.
  2. 87% of the Shopify merchants use the app store and they have 6 apps installed on an average.
  3. Shopify supports more than 6,00,000 businesses in about 175 countries.

The aforementioned statistics help the online sellers identify, “Shopify” as a perfect platform to begin their online store. The platform is constructed to assist the sellers in making their selling process comfortable. Before diving into the aspects of How to sell on Shopify, it is important to know the eminent features of the platform.

Salient Features of Shopify:

  1. It is a SaaS-Based platform, hence, does not require much technical knowledge to sell products.
  2. Feasible pricing plans.
  3. Interactive store layouts and themes.
  4. Pre-built audience base.
  5. Excellent 24*7 community support.
  6. Compatibility with various apps and tools.

Having witnessed Shopify’s important statistics and salient features, you must be wondering as to how you can easily open an online store on Shopify. Isn’t it?

Relax, and let’s dive in deeper into the blog.

“If you already have a Shopify store, then, we suggest you to check out our content piece on Shopify Store Optimization”. Since “optimization” is a search engine’s favourite process, you certainly, cannot miss out on this one.”

We have constructed this blog with the following aspects of selling on Shopify so that the bigger question, that is, How to sell on Shopify gets sequentially answered.

How to Sell on Shopify:

Since you have landed upon this blog, it is our duty to guide you through each and every step to sell easily on Shopify. Thus, this is a compilation to introduce and take you into the essential steps of selling on Shopify.

1- Steps to sell on Shopify

2- Shopify store optimization

3- Shopify store marketing

If you want to sell on Shopify in a structured way, first and foremost, it is very important to follow the steps to set up a Shopify store accurately. Here is how to go about it:

Steps for Shopify store set up

Step 1: Onboarding-

This involves filling up a basic registration form and then filling up the important details such as your email address, contact number and store name. It also includes starting up the shop with initial product addition.

i) Register on Shopify:

Go to Shopify.com, create an account by filling up the sign up form. Enter your email id and apply for the 14-days free trial. Then choose a “Store Name”. The store name chosen by you must be unique as it will play a huge role in the success of your brand awareness.Shopify store set up

Recently, Shopify has extended its trial period to 90 days so that merchants can try and test their stores for audit, updates and more. This has been done to help more eCommerce sellers try selling independently amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns.

After assigning a proper name to your store, you can proceed towards the next step which involves filling the details shown in the image below:

Fill your details

Next step is to fill in details like address, contact details, etc, as depicted in the screenshot below.

Fill your contact details
ii) Start setting up your online shop:

Once you have successfully completed the “Registration Step”, you will be redirected to the Shopify store’s backend(store’s dashboard) from where you can choose options to stock up your store by creating products (manually) or by importing them via CSV (in bulk). You can also bring products to your store with the help of several apps that are compatible with your store (a section has been dedicated for you to better understand as to how to add products with the help of the app in the blog further).

Step-2: Adding products to the Shopify store:

You can choose a suitable method for adding the products to your Shopify store, be it manually, through CSV or with the help of an app.

i) Adding products manually-

This is the very basic way of adding products to your Shopify store. It is generally recommended if you want to experiment the selling process with one or two products on Shopify.

Steps to add products manually:

  • Go to Products>All Products
  • Click on “Add Products”

add products to Shopify

Enter Title, Description, Images and other details of your products.

ii)Adding products via. CSV-

This is helpful when someone wants to upload products to Shopify in a bulk.

Steps to add products to Shopify via. CSV:

  • Go to products> All products.
  • Tap on “import.”

Import via.CSV

  • Add “CSV” or drop files.

upload products via CSV

  • Click on “Upload and continue”.

Shopify store development

iii) Adding Products with the help of apps:

In case you are heading out to sell the products available on any other platform to Shopify, then you can use certain apps and tools. The basic principle behind any of these tools is that they connect the platform you have been selling on to your Shopify store for easy transfer of the product’s details. 

In this regard, you can consider the following cases:

a) Importing products from a marketplace:

If you are selling out on marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, Walmart, etc and want to experience the taste of independent selling, then you can employ Importer apps. The apps not only import your product details to Shopify, but also, they help you manage orders centrally.

For eg: Multichannel importer

b) Importing products from a dropShipping platform:

If your inventory handling is done by a 3P platform such as AliExpress, then you can put dropshipping apps to use. These apps transport the order details received on Shopify to your dropshipping platform so that effective fulfillment can be carried out. You can also directly fetch AliExpress products from Oberlo’s Official site, if initially, you do not want to use the extension.

For eg:Oberlo-DropShipping App

c) Importing Products from print-on-demand (POD) platforms:

Certain platforms like Printify & Printful allow the merchants to easily execute on-demand fulfillments. If a merchant receives a demand for custom order (with a custom print or design), then POD apps helps them to fulfill the same from Printify, Printful & other such apps.

For eg: Printify: Print on Demand

d) Migrating from any other framework:

If earlier, you had your online store on frameworks like Magento, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc., and now you are planning to sell on Shopify. Then, it is easy to do so with Migrator apps that transfer your product, customer and order data to Shopify.

For eg: Multichannel Migrator.

General steps to integrate apps with your Shopify store:

In your Shopify Store, tap on the “Apps” option in the sidebar.

add products via. apps

Click on “Visit the Shopify App Store” button.

Visit Shopify store

Step 3: Adding Products to Collections:

Collection refers to the group of products belonging to the same category. It can help the customers to view similar products together with easy navigation. After the Shopify store set-up and product addition to the store, this step further simplifies the listing of products on the Shopify store.

Collections can be based on:

  • Clothes for men, women, and children
  • Items of a certain type such as lamps, cushions or rugs
  • Products on sale
  • Items in a certain size or color
  • Seasonal products such as holiday cards or decorations

The products in a collection are shown as a webpage from where a buyer can choose the products of his/her choice.

One can view, create and edit collections from the “Collections” option of the Shopify store.

Create collections

The following two types of collections can be created:

1) Automated Collection:

Such collections automatically include the products belonging to the matching collection. The sellers have a choice of whether to add a product in a particular collection, it needs to meet all or any of the conditions. If one wants to remove products from an automated collection then either the collection’s condition or the product details need to be changed. It is essential to know that in the creation of automated collections, “tags” play a very important role. Tags are assigned to the products while they are added to the Shopify store. The tags can also be added later after the products are added. Also they can be created on the basis on vendor, type and title. When you are finding answers to how to sell on Shopify, this is an eminent aspect.

add automated collections

2) Manual Collection:

Such collections hold the products that you add one-by-one by browsing the products on your Shopify store.

Manual Collections are very useful if one wants to maintain a specialized collection. This can indeed be very helpful if one wants to hold a sale for just a few products, once the Shopify store set up is done.

Click to know how to add products to Manual collections.

Step 4: Creating or Customizing Navigation Menu:

The navigation menu in a Shopify store refers to a section that helps you reach collections, webpages, store policies, or blog posts.

How the navigation menu looks and where it is located on your Shopify store depends on the Store’s theme. One can view and change the navigation menu from the Navigation Page in the Shopify admin.

navigation menu

Step 5: Theme Installation and Customization:

Shopify Theme Development is an eminent process to define the look and feel of your Shopify store. “Visit Theme Store” button. This is an important component of the answer to the query to how to sell on Shopify.

The button will redirect you to https://themes.shopify.com/.

Themes decide how users interact with your store. You can select a suitable theme for your Shopify store from the “Theme” section available in the “Online Store” option from the sidebar.

select Shopify themes

Once you tap the “Themes” section, you can view the free Shopify themes by clicking on the “Explore free themes” button.

Shopify theme development

After selecting the theme that enhances the look and feel of your Shopify store, tap on the “Upload” button.

This section also provides for performing different actions on the theme such as “Preview, Rename, Duplicate, Download theme file, Edit code & Edit languages.”

Shopify themes

You can also customize your theme as per your needs.

Select Shopify themes

If you want to hire a professional expert to work on your store’s themes to make it look more attractive, then, Click Here.

Step 6: Creating Pages:

Sellers can create pages on their Shopify store in the Shopify admin. The webpages on a Shopify store of a merchant may be the “About Us” page, “Contact Us” page and more (return and refund, shipping policy, T & C and Privacy Policy). One can also include an informative blog page on the Shopify store.

The pages on the Shopify store depict the information that the buyers consider before placing their trust. These pages can include:

i) About Us Page:

These days there is a worldwide awakening to serve the community. Consequently if people are purchasing from you, they would want to know about your company’s mission. About Us page serves as a great arena where you can articulate your expectation about your company and put it out there.

ii) Contact Page:

The page can have email ids of your professionals who can provide 24*7 support to your customers. The page must have links to your social media accounts so that the buyers can choose their preferred platform of communication.

Likewise, you can create pages concerning Return Policy, Refund Policy and other important aspects.

Pro tip:

You can use certain tools such as privacy policy generator and terms & conditions generator to make your store more pronounced and legally authorised.

You can also use tools like Hatchfulthat help you generate attractive logos to increase your brand awareness.

To add a new webpage on the Shopify store, one may follow the steps given below:

  • Go to Online Store> Pages.
  • Click Add Page.
  • Enter a Title and Content for the page.
  • Select if you want to publish your store now or later. This can be done from the visibility section. You can select the date of your choice.
  • Click on Save and your page shall be created
  • If you desire to make your page visible in the navigation, add a link to it on the menu.

shipping and payment settings

Step 7: Configure the Shopify Shipping and Payment Settings:

Shipping and payments are the two very important aspects for a buyer, so proper care must be taken while you configure these for your Shopify store.

shipping and payments

a) Shipping Settings:

A Shopify merchant can set up flat, free or calculated shipping rates that appear in the checkout for your customers. Before setting up a shipping rate, you can create different shipping zones based on different locations you sell your products in. This is one of the most important part if you are learning about how to sell on Shopify.

The zones will help you to create shipping rates according to these locations. The Shipping settings can be of the following two types-

i) Standard Shipping-

This refers to adding a shipping rate on your own based on the prices of your products and the profit margin that you want to earn. The shipping rates, so setup are known as flat shipping rates.

Tips to earn higher profit margins in the case of standard shipping, you can provide free shipping on:

a) a Fixed Cart Value or above it-

For example- If the fixed cart value for free shipping is set to $50 or above, then the profile will show, “free shipping”.

b) a Fixed Weight or above it-

If the cart weight for free shipping is set at 5 kg or above it, then the shipping profile will show, “free shipping”.

Steps to create standard shipping rates:

  • In your Shopify admin, go to Settings>Shipping.
  • Tap Manage rates, next to the profile, you want to add a shipping rate to.
  • Tap Add rate, next to the zone, you want to add a rate to.
  • Enter the Name and Amount for the rate.
  • Optional: Add weight-based or price-based conditions.
  • Click add conditions

Select whether to base the condition on order weight or price. Enter the minimum and maximum value for the condition.

  • Tap done and then Save.

ii) Shipping through a Carrier Provider-

The merchants can choose a shipping carrier provider who automatically sets up feasible shipping rates and discounts as and when required, in the shipping rates. These shipping rates are known as calculated shipping rates.

The calculated shipping rates can be adjusted (Marked up or discounted) for the customers at the time of checkout.

Shipping carriers that integrate with Shopify by default:

Steps to set up calculated shipping rate:

  • In Shopify admin, go to Settings>Shipping
  • Click Manage rate, next to the profile where you want to add a shipping rate
  • Click Add rate, where you want to add a rate
  • Select Use Carrier or app to Calculate rates
  • In the drop-down menu, choose the shipping service that you want to add calculated rates for.
  • Select shipping methods from that shipping service that you want to provide as options for your customers as checkout.

Optional: Select whether to automatically offer any new services that the shipping service makes available. Optional: Any handling fee that you would like to be added to the calculated rate.

  • Click Save

This is how to set shipping in Shopify and send your products to the desired locations at feasible prices.

b) Payment Settings:

Setting up Shopify payments is very important to ensure that your customers can make the credit card payments.

You can activate the Shopify Payments from the Payments Provider Page in the Shopify Settings.

Note: shopify payments is not available for all the countries: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/shopify-payments/shopify-payments-requirements this is the link for eligible countries for “shopify payments”

This is the guide to check which payment methods are available to which countries: https://www.shopify.com/payment-gateways

Steps to set up the Shopify Payments-

  • From the Shopify admin, go to Settings>Payment Providers
  • Activate Shopify Payments in one of the following ways:

→ If you haven’t set up a credit card payment provider, on your account, then Click complete account setup in the Shopify Payments section.

→ If you have a different credit card payment provider enabled on your account, then Click Activate Shopify Payments in the Shopify Payments box and then activate Shopify Payments in the dialog. This removes any other Payment Provider from your account.

→ Enter the required details about your store and your banking information, then click Save. After you have set up the Shopify payments, you can configure your settings or make a test transaction on your store.

Pro Tip:-

It is recommended that a seller must have multiple payment options activated. Relying only one mode of payment can lead to an increased number of abandoned carts. This is so because it is observed that different buyers prefer different payment methods.

Step 8: Install recommended apps from the Shopify App Store-

The Shopify app store has more than 2400 useful apps that caters to various concerns of the Shopify merchants.

The Apps on the Shopify App store are enough to serve one of the following purposes:

i) Multi-Channel Selling:

These apps ensure that merchants can sell across Shopify and other platforms simultaneously. These include Marketplace Integration Apps.

For eg: Etsy Integration, eBay Integration, etc.

ii) Marketing & Sales:

These apps aim at increasing the visibility of your products. Thereby, fetching you more leads.

For eg: Seguno: Email Marketing, Klaviyo: Marketing Automation, etc.

iii) Fulfillment:

Connecting your store with fulfillment apps ensures that you are able to easily deliver the store’s orders to their destinations.

For eg: Auto Fulfill, ShipHero Fulfillment, etc.

iv) Customer Support:

Such apps help the merchants to reach out to their customers instantly by means of notifications, chats and more.For eg: Gorgias: Support & Live chat, Messenger channel, etc.

v) Language converter & Currency converter:

The language converter apps help your store visitors to view your store in the desired language.

For eg: Uplinkly Language Translate

The currency converter apps allow your store users to view the prices of the products in their native/preferred currency.

For eg: BEST Currency Converter

You can view all of the aforementioned apps at www.apps.shopify.com.

Step 9- Set up a domain-

You can either buy a domain through Shopify or use a third-party domain such as Godaddy or Namecheap, Bluehost. In the case of a third-party domain, you can either connect or transfer it to Shopify.

set up a domain

Shopify uses SSL encryption, thus, providing high security to the merchant’s data.

a) Transfer your domain to Shopify:

Transfer of domain means movement of your domain management to Shopify. This means that you adjust, pay and renew your domain from Shopify.

click to know more:

b) Connect your domain to Shopify:

This is the way through which you point your existing domain to Shopify. Thus when someone enters your custom URL, it points them to your Shopify store.

Click to know more: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/domains/add-a-domain/using-existing-domains/connecting-domains

Step 10: Store Preferences:

This section allows you to edit the title and meta description of your online store, add google analytics & facebook pixel codes.

Enable a password page or checkout protection on the preference page.

Steps to Edit Title and Meta Description:

  • From your Shopify store, go to Online Store>Preferences
  • Enter a title and meta description for your Shopify store with the best SEO practices
  • Tap Save

add store preferences

Step 11: Pay for your store and make it live:

After having followed the aforementioned 10 steps, you can choose any one of the feasible Shopify plans.

choose from the payment plans

Shopify provides 14 days’ free trial to help you explore all the features of the Shopify store.

So this is how easy it is to set up a Shopify store. In case of any inconvenience, you can reach out to us at-

https://apps.cedcommerce.com/shopify-store-development/

Optimize your Store for better Performance:

After setting up a high-quality Shopify store, it is important to make it adaptive for every user who visits it. So there are some very basic steps to enhance the quality of your Shopify store. Here we go:

1) SEO:

Optimizing the pages of your Shopify store such as Product Page, About Us Page, Contact Page, is very necessary. By optimizing a page we mean that the content on the page and the meta details of the page must include the keywords belonging to your niche. The Product information must also be embedded with the keywords for greater visibility.

The Content and the meta details must be under proper character limit. This also includes finding and submitting the sitemap.

2) Discounts:

Discounts are important to help the customers purchase your products at a price which doesn’t hamper their budget. Codes can be created for a dollar value discount, a percentage discount or a free shipping discount.

Click to know how to create discount codescreate automatic discount codes and manage discount codes.

3) Setting up Sales Channels:

This refers to connecting your Shopify store with marketplaces, social media, mobile devices, and Facebook messenger app.

Shopify supports the following sales channels:

add sales channels

4) Setting Up Product Recommendations:

You can set up the product recommendations to suggest the products based on the data retrieved on the basis of products purchased together or products with similar descriptions.

This has a specific algorithm, which uses the collection in the URL from which request to the API endpoint is originated and pulls other products from that collection.

Click to explore about UI best practices for recommended products and more.

5) Dynamic Checkouts:

To ensure that the customers can buy the product of his/her choice within a short span of time, you can enable the Dynamic Checkout button. This button skips the cart and takes the customer to their preferred checkout method. The button is so called as it changes dynamically to reflect the customer’s preferred accelerated checkout method.

[Source: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/sell-online/online-store/dynamic-checkout]

The checkout method that is displayed on the button is based on the following factors:

  • Payment Settings
  • Customer’s browser
  • The customer’s device
  • Customer’s payment history

Click to know more about the Dynamic Checkouts.

Market your Shopify store:

A store that hasn’t been marketed well is like a book written by you, stored in your treasure box. You would want to share the book (your store) to the audience that has been waiting for the products you offer, the quality you bring in them and of course their budget friendly prices. Right?

So once you have set up or optimized your store, it’s important to promote it so that it reaches the audience that can be benefitted from your products.

Want to know more about Marketing & Sales with the Shopify Experts?, Click Here

How do Shopify Experts help in the creation of value-driven stores?

Shopify Experts know about the significance of a well structured store that can help the customers to view and buy products of their choice. Having years of experience in serving the Shopify community, they exactly know which themes, shipping logistics and payment methods work the best to simplify your store.

Having served the Shopify community since 2015, you can consider hiring us to serve the best of your interests.

Final Thoughts:

Opening up a Shopify store and then nurturing it to serve the needs of the buyers is a very beautiful process. The need of the hour is that the merchants must realize how important it is to conduct each step of the process organically with ease. If at any step of the store set up and customization, one faces undeniable efforts and hurried emotions, then there is a need to pause, relax and hold the hand of an expert who helps you transform yourself from a caterpillar into a butterfly.

The post How to sell on Shopify? | A detailed guide appeared first on CedCommerce Blog.

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