pagefly.ioIt’s true that getting acquainted with Shopify is really simple for a new user. Despite the fact that Shopify is built to be extremely user-friendly, having a better understanding of what it is all about will help you optimize this great platform.
In this chapter 1 of our Shopify 101 series, we’ll go over how to use Shopify to create a fully functional store by looking at different aspects of its settings.
01. Shopify Dashboard Explained
Using the Shopify admin dashboard, you can set up your store, modify your settings, and administer your business after login in to Shopify.
Shopify admin dashboard at first glance
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Home
When you log in to your Shopify admin, the first thing that you see is the Home page.
Shopify Home displays information about daily activities, current activity in your store, and the next steps you can take to grow your business.
Within your Shopify admin, you may utilize the search box to access products, pages, and other information.
Shopify Home shows you blocks of information depending on the most recent activity in your store and what you’ve been up to in Shopify. You’ll get updates on new Shopify features, tips on how to get the most out of Shopify, and suggested reading on how to build your business, among other things.
Orders
When a consumer places an order (via any of your active sales channels), it shows up in Shopify’s Orders section. You may also manually generate orders in your Shopify admin to keep track of orders you’ve placed outside of Shopify or to issue invoices to your clients.
You manage all of your store’s orders from the Orders page of Shopify.
Products
The Products page in the Shopify admin allows you to see, add, change, and manage all of your products and variants.
Customers
Every time a new customer places an order with your store, their name and other details are added to your customer list. You can review all your customers and manage your customer information from the Customers area of your Shopify admin and the Shopify app.
If your customers create an account with your store, then they can add their address information to their account so that it autofills during checkout. They can also view their order history with your store, and see the current order status for any purchases they make.
Analytics
Shopify’s analytics and statistics can help you learn a lot about your sales and customers. The sorts of analytics and insights available to you are determined by your Shopify subscription package.
To acquire additional insights and grow your business, you may also use third-party analytics services like Google Analytics.
Marketing
There are numerous tools available to assist you in promoting your Shopify store. From the Marketing page in Shopify, you can get marketing recommendations and build marketing activities and automations. If you sell your products online, you should aim to improve your SEO so that clients may find your store through search engines or social media. Customers can also utilize discount codes in your online store or in your physical location.
You can also run promotions in your store, such as seasonal sales and flash sales, to boost traffic and revenue.
Discounts
The Discount tab in Shopify allows you to manage and adjust existing discounts. Check to see whether another member of staff is making modifications to the same discount before updating it.
Apps
You can use Shopify applications to help you grow your business, integrate with third-party services, and customize your admin. You can find apps on the Shopify App Store.
You can also utilize custom apps to add functionality to your Shopify admin, leverage Shopify’s APIs to directly access your store’s data, or use custom storefronts to expand your online store to other platforms.
Sales channels
You may use Shopify to sell your products through a variety of online marketplaces. The many venues via which you offer your items are referred to as sales channels. You can keep track of your products, orders, and customers in one spot by integrating each sales channel to Shopify.
When you create a sales channel to Shopify, it will appear under Sales Channels.
No, we’ll go over Shopify store setup step-by-step, just simple steps to get your store started and go live immediately.
02. How To Add A Domain
Adding a custom domain to your online store helps you create your brand and develop trust. When you first sign up for Shopify, your principal domain will be in the format examplestore.myshopify.com. You’ll need to add a custom domain, such as www.example.com, if you wish to change the domain that customers see while browsing your online store. The following methods can be used to add a custom domain to Shopify:
- Buy a domain through Shopify – You can purchase a custom domain through Shopify if you don’t already have one. When you purchase a custom domain through Shopify, it is automatically established as your store’s principal domain, and you can control all of your domain settings from the Shopify admin.
- Connect your domain to Shopify – You can connect your custom domain to your online store if you already have one from a third-party supplier. To manage your domain settings, pay for your domain, and renew it, you still utilize a third-party domain provider.
- Transfer your domain to Shopify – You can transfer domain administration to Shopify if you currently have a custom domain from a third-party supplier and wish to control all of your domain settings from your Shopify admin. You won’t need to use the third-party domain provider where you initially purchased the domain once you’ve transferred it to Shopify.
You can add up to 10 domains or subdomains to your Shopify store, in addition to your .myshopify.com URL. If your store is on the Shopify Plus plan, then you can add up to 1,000 domains or subdomains. When you add your custom domain to Shopify, a new SSL certificate is created automatically.
03. How To Set Up Payments
Customers can make credit card payments in your store when you set up Shopify Payments. Shopify Payments can be turned on from the Payments page in the Shopify settings.
You’ll need your Employer Identification Number (EIN) and banking details to set up Shopify Payments.
You should choose your store currency before you set up Shopify Payments. The currency used in your Shopify admin is your store currency. Before you make your first sale, you should choose a store currency. If you need to alter your store currency after you’ve made your first sale, you can do so by contacting Shopify Support.
The only person who can change the payment source is the store owner.
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments.
- Activate Shopify Payments:
- If you haven’t yet added a credit card payment provider to your Shopify account, go to the Shopify Payments section and select Complete account setup.
- If you want to use a different credit card payment provider, go to the Shopify Payments box and click Activate Shopify Payments, then Activate Shopify Payments in the dialog. Any other credit card payment provider will be removed from your account as a result of this action.
- Enter the required details about your store and your banking information, then click Save.
(*) Note 1: Within 21 days of your first transaction, you must complete the establishment of your Shopify Payments account, including all of your business details and financial information. All funds are immediately reimbursed to the buyer if your account is not set up within 21 days.
For merchants in the European Union and Hong Kong, before you can receive payments from clients, you must complete the setup of your Shopify Payments.
(*) Note 2: If your store is located in Europe, then you need to either provide a Value-Added Tax (VAT) number or indicate that you don’t have one. If you provide a VAT number, then Shopify verifies it through VAT Information Exchange System (VIES).
04. How To Set Up Shipping Rates
You can set up free, flat, or calculated shipping rates that appear in the checkout for your customers.
Create flat shipping rates
At checkout, flat shipping rates charge a set sum for shipment. You can set flat shipping prices for all orders within a delivery zone, or just for orders that fall within a specified weight or price range. For instance, in a shipping zone for Europe, you may charge a flat cost of $10 for sales under $50 and a flat rate of $5 for goods exceeding $50.
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.
- Next to the shipping profile that you want to add a shipping rate to, click Manage rates.
- Next to the zone that you want to add a rate to, click Add rate.
- 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.
- Click Done, and then click Save.
Create calculated shipping rates
A third-party shipping service calculates shipping prices depending on the details of the order during checkout. This allows you to charge your clients the exact price that a shipping provider, such as UPS or FedEx, will charge you for a mailing label when you order one.
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.
- Next to the shipping profile where you want to add a shipping rate, click Manage rates.
- Next to the zone where you want to add a rate, click Add 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 the shipping methods from that shipping service that you want to provide as options for your customers at checkout.
Optional: Select whether to automatically offer any new services that the shipping service makes available.
Optional: Add any handling fee that you’d like to be added to the calculated rate.
- Click Save.
Create markup or discount calculated rates
You can change the calculated shipping costs to raise or lower the prices your customers see at checkout. You can add an additional flat fee or a percentage of the total shipment rate to estimated shipping rates. A $5.00 rate with a 50% markup and a $1.00 flat fee, for example, costs the consumer $8.50, not $9.00.
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Shipping and delivery.
- Next to the profile that contains the rate, click Manage rates.
- Next to the rate that you want to adjust, click the drop-down menu and then Edit rate.
- In the Handling fee section, set the rate adjustments.
- Click Done, then click Save.
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05. How To Add Products To Shopify
Let’s talk about definitions first!
In Shopify space products, products are understood as the goods, digital downloads, services, and gift cards that can be sold.
Retailers use SKUs, or stock keeping units, to identify and track their inventory, or stock. A SKU is a one-of-a-kind code made up of letters and digits that identifies the manufacturer, brand, style, color, and size of a product.
When you add or update a product, you have the option of making it available through one or more of your sales channels.
Add Products to Shopify
In Shopify, you create a product by filling in product data and adding product images. If your product has multiple options, such as size or color, you can create a variant for each option combination.
Steps:
- From your Shopify admin, go to Products > All products.
- From the Products page, click Add product.
- Enter a title for your product, along with additional details.
- Click Save.
Add Product Variants and Pricing Details
Add variants while you’re creating a product
- In the Variants section of the Add Product page, click Add variant.
- Enter a name for the option, such as Size, in Option name. Customers will see this name.
- In Option values, enter each option value followed by a comma, such as Small, Medium, Large. When customers select a variant, these option values will be displayed. The option values appear as tags when you insert a comma.
- If your variants differ in more than one way, then click Add another option.
- As you add the product options, a list of variants appears with the heading Modify the variants to be created. Uncheck the boxes next to any option combinations you don’t want to sell. Individual variants can have their own pricing, SKUs, and barcodes, or you can utilize the defaults based on the product details.
- Click Save.
Add variants to an existing product
- From your Shopify admin, go to Products > All products.
- Click the name of the product.
- In the Variants section, click Add variant.
- Enter the variant information in the fields. If you enter a new option value in the Options section, then it will be created as an option value for that product.
- Click Save.
Add a variant by duplicating an existing variant
- From your Shopify admin, go to Products > All products.
- Click the name of the product that requires another variant.
- In the Variants section, click the name of the variant to duplicate, and then click Duplicate.
- Edit at least one option value to create a unique variant. You can add a new option value, or add one that is already in use for the product variants.
- Click Save.
How To Edit Product Page SEO?
You need to go to the specific product and adjust the Website SEO settings to optimize the Title Tags, Meta Descriptions, and H1 tags for a product on a Shopify website.
- Select Products on the left-hand menu.
- Select the product you would like to optimize.
- Scroll to the bottom of the product page to find the Search engine listing preview and click the Edit website SEO text link.
- Add your Title Tag under Page title.
- Add Your Meta Description under Description.
- Edit the H1 tag by changing the Title.
- Finally, click Save.
Edit Products in Shopify Fast (Bulk Editing)
- From your Shopify admin, click Products.
- Using the check boxes, select each of the products that you want to modify. If you want to edit variants of just one product, then select only that product. You can bulk select all list items on a page as well as every product in your store.
- Click Edit products.
To improve the navigation of your online store, you can add menu items to the menus. Links to products, collections, webpages, blog posts, policies, and other websites can be found in the menu items.
Menu items can also be removed or edited.
- From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Navigation.
- On the Navigation page, click the title of the menu that you want to edit.
- Click Add menu item.
- Enter a name for the menu item. This name displays in the menu, and can include special characters or emoji.
- Click the Link field, and then enter a website address for an external website or select a link type (Home, Collections, Products, etc.)
- To create an email link, use the format mailto:youremail@example.com.
- If you selected a collection or all collections, then you can filter the collection with tags to display only the products that match all of the tags that you enter.
- If you selected a link type, then select a specific destination. When you select Home, the destination is automatically set to your online store’s home page.
- Click Add to save your menu item.
- Click the Save menu.
07. How To Design Your Shopify Store
Shopify default settings
The most straightforward way to design your Shopify store is to start with Shopify itself.
The Shopify Theme Store has more than 100 free and premium themes for your online store that are professionally designed.
The designs can fit a variety of stores from different industries.
Up to 20 themes can be stored in a Shopify account. If your plan’s theme limit is reached, you must remove an existing theme before adding a new one.
A Shopify free theme comes with irreplaceable basic principles that serve as the foundation of an online store.
Menu, header & footer, product listings on the product page/collection page, and so on are all essential elements of a theme.
Yet, here come some shortcomings.
An online store would be nothing more than a collection of text and photos if it didn’t have a Shopify theme. Building a store from the ground up would be a difficult task for any business owner.
Furthermore, Shopify’s free themes don’t offer much in the way of optimization, such as fear-of-missing-out effects. Paid themes require a significant financial investment and come with a higher level of risk. Who knows whether retailers won’t want to change their storefront in a few days after acquiring the precise layout from a trendy premium theme? Meanwhile, the cost of engaging a freelance developer and updating a theme is becoming increasingly expensive.
Page builder apps, such as PageFly, come into play at this point.
Page Builders (PageFly)
PageFly is the Shopify App Store’s most popular page builder in the Store Design app.
PageFly was designed to solve exactly the issue addressed earlier, where merchants had too few options for customization of Shopify pages. This app gives full control over every Shopify page and integrates with Shopify seamlessly.
With drag-and-drop, PageFly allows you to customize the look of your store by organizing your page as you like.
You can include product information, videos, Q&A, forms, and icons, among other things.
Product elements
Contact form and call to action buttons
FOMO effects
Don’t forget that PageFly also offers a wide range of beautiful, fully responsive, and simple-to-use Shopify page templates. Check them out HERE.
08. How To Set Up Sales Channel
You may use Shopify to sell your products through a variety of online marketplaces. The platforms via which you offer your items are referred to as sales channels. You can keep track of your products, orders, and customers in one spot by integrating each sales channel to Shopify.
- From your Shopify admin, click the + button beside the Sales channels heading.
- On the Add sales channel dialog, click the name of the sales channel that you want to add.
- Click Add channel.
Shopify supports several sales channels including Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and many more!
Conclusion
Overall, Shopify is one of the best hosted solutions for those wishing to create an online store. Now that you’ve come to understand more about Shopify, it’s time to get your skin in the game!
To begin using Shopify, register for a free trial and follow the setup guide. After that, you should spend more time exploring all the elements of the platform with our checklist above. If you’re already selling on another platform and want to move your store to Shopify, get started with Migration to Shopify.
