If you're thinking of setting up a Shopify store, here's your guide with everything you need to know for getting started.
Can I buy a domain name from Shopify?
How much does it cost to host on Shopify?
How much does it cost to build a website, set up and sell on Shopify?
Choosing a design for your store
How much do Shopify experts cost?
Shopify offers a 14 day free trial which gives you time to set up your store before launching it. Find out how the free trial works here.
There are some important things you’ll need to set up your store, including:
Products to sell - these might be physical goods you’ll be stocking, services you’ll be providing, digital goods, or products you’ll be dropshipping. Either way, you’ll need something to sell!
A business name - check what domains are available and choose a name for your store. Shopify wrote an article full of ideas to help you come up with a good brand name.
A logo - you can commission a designer to create one, create one in a tool like Canva, or check out this ‘creating a logo’ guide to help you on your way!
Product photos - good product photography is key. We’ve written a guide to help you with product photography for your Shopify store. It’s possible to capture decent images on a smartphone now, or stock imagery at a push, but really, the better the photo, the more it will differentiate your store and increase the chance of sales.
When you start your free trial, you’ll need to enter a store name, which will become your default URL (storename.myshopify.com). You won’t be able to change this, but can buy a custom domain (yourstore.com) later on, so don't worry about picking the perfect name right now.
Yes - go to the Shopify domain name generator to search for domain name ideas and check domain availability.
You enter terms and words you’d like the domain to include, and you’ll be presented with a list of potential domains and their associated prices. Select the one you’d like, and follow the steps.
Shopify hosting and a free SSL certificate is included in the monthly subscription fees of all Shopify plans. To see details of the pricing options and plans, check our Shopify pricing guide.
You can set your store up via your 14 day free trial, then the ongoing cost depends on the pricing plan you choose, which will be dependent on the size of your business and current needs. You can learn about the different Shopify price plans here.
Your customers can choose to pay using any of the methods you've enabled in the ‘Payment providers’ area of your Shopify admin. You can enable a variety of payment methods using Shopify.
If you want to allow your customers to pay via credit card, then you can use Shopify Payments or a third-party provider.
There are also methods for customers to pay online without using a credit card, eg. PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay. You may also want to accept other methods of payment like cryptocurrency.
If you use Shopify Payments, you can enable Shop Pay so customers can save their shipping and payment information to check out faster. Other payment providers, like Paypal, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, also offer accelerated checkout buttons that you can enable on your Shopify store.
When choosing a payment provider, consider the countries where your business is located and where your customers live. Shopify's list of payment gateways by country can help you find out which payment gateways are available in different regions and what currency they support. We've also written a blog listing details of some of the most popular Shopify payment gateways.
You may want to consider a Shopify Theme - themes are layouts that change how your Shopify store looks and feels.
You can also hire freelancers or a Shopify Expert to design your store for you.
Shopify has an Experts Directory which enables you to find trusted designers and developers (like Eastside Co!) to work with for all your Shopify needs.
You can request a quote, or create a job to match with Shopify experts. When you find one, you can agree timeframes and a price, and they will do the job.
Price-wise - they are very different. For example, if you search ‘email marketing’ the first result is an agency with a starting price of £74, and the second result gives a starting price of £1,260. You’ll need to browse the directory and find an expert that matches your needs and budget.
From the Settings page, you can manage your billing cycle, billing information, Shopify subscription plan, store type, and store status.
Head to Products > Add product to start creating your product listings.
You need to add 4 key elements:
Don’t worry about your store being perfect before you set it free upon the ecommerce world! The key thing is that it has products that customers can buy. Remember that your store will evolve and improve over time.
Simply remove the password page under Settings > Preferences and get the word out that your store is live!
We’ve included this one, because during our research it seemed to be a common question in Google. There is no way to avoid Shopify fees - if you want to use the platform and take advantage of its features to allow you to grow your business on it, that needs to be paid for. It’s only fair! What we would say is that the fees are very reasonable - the monthly fees are not prohibitive, and other fees are based on a percentage of sales etc.