Selling on Shopify: A Step-by-Step Free Shopify Selling Guide

In 2024, entrepreneurial expectations and customer needs are expected to meet wider audience necessities. It is an exciting time for new enterprises on eCommerce platforms and for existing ventures to expand further.

Transforming a business vision into reality and boosting your marketing efforts is the need of the hour.

Shopify is a complete eCommerce platform to help you start an online store and establish a presence. They allow businesses with low capital a chance to grow and evolve in the competitive market.

You can explore the user-friendly platform and use themes to personalize your brand. Shopify encourages sustainability and helps businesses evolve with several environmental-friendly initiatives.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is a leading platform for eCommerce businesses that helps eCommerce companies start their journey, grow, and scale. The platform allows businesses to create an online store and boost their presence.

Moreover, you can market customers and enable payment options through multiple channels. It is an all-in-one platform for business owners to customize their online store and operate flexibly.

Shopify can be easily integrated to return management apps for performing returns and exchanges seamlessly. Enterprises can offer a great shopping experience to their customers through three user plans and a Point of Sale app for all their users.

10 Simple Steps to Selling on Shopify in 2024

Selling on the platform can be daunting without professional guidance. Here are 10 simple steps to start an online store on Shopify.

1) Sign up for a Shopify account

To set up your account, visit Shopify.com, type your email address, and select the “Free trial” option. After which you can either skip or answer a few questions and create your Shopify ID. Your trial will begin, and you can start setting up your store.

2) Select a domain name 

Shopify offers options while you are setting a domain name. It is the name that you want for your brand. The platform allows you to keep the same, connect an existing domain name you own.

You can also buy a new domain from the platform, and make Shopify the host of your current domain registrar.

3) Make payment and complete the account setup

The third step is to establish payment modes. Go to the homepage, and “Set up Shopify Payments''. You will see multiple payment options from which you can select one and then click “Activate Shopify Payments".

4) Sales tax collection registration

For businesses abroad, there can be mandatory sales tax liability. To proceed with the sales tax collection option, one must register your business with the state you are running your business. They can connect with a professional to create a sales Tax ID.

5) Configure logistics settings

The logistics setting is about offering the best shipping options to your customers. In settings, click “Shipping and Delivery” and enter the address.

You can select the rates, carriers, and parcel delivery speed. Also, shopify lets you fulfill orders using 3PL logistics partners.

6) Design your Store

After logistics configuration, it is time to design your store that you can customize and implement. Click on the “Customize theme” option on the homepage to proceed.

The default Shopify theme is called “Dawn”. Customers can buy premium themes or use free themes for designing their store.

7) Start adding products to the Shopify store

Next, look for “Products” on the homepage and click on “Add Product”. From there you can add product information for each product on the product builder page.

You can include descriptions, images, pricing, variations, size, and color and click “Save” on the top. Also, Amazon listing optimization can be very useful for your business.

8) Fulfill orders

When an order is placed at your store, it will go to the “Orders” section and be marked unfulfilled. The list of orders and the recipient’s shipping information is available. You can buy and print the shipping label on Shopify.

After purchasing the shipping label, the order can be marked ”Fulfilled” and shipped. Thereafter, the order tracking info can be sent to the customer.

9) Use Shopify apps to expand your business

Businesses can find several useful apps on Shopify to grow their business platform. There are specific apps to help you optimize and upscale your business.

Few features that come handy are dropping tools, SEO optimization, Email marketing applications, Facebook Ad Manager, and many more.

10) Advertise your store and keep your eye on the analytics

Advertise your products and services to receive traffic. Shopify apps can help you drive traffic to your store through social media channels, ads, and email marketing. Analytics offer you relevant metrics to make important decisions.

6 benefits of selling on Shopify

Shopify is highly beneficial for experienced marketers and beginners alike. You can start customizing an online store your way and get started with its several features. Here are the six benefits of selling on Shopify.

1) Shopify Marketplace

Shopify’s marketplace has more than 3500 add-ons. It allows you to add shipping integrations, email marketing software, and payment gateways to it. A Shopify store owner can access several integrations through several interfaces.

Online retailers can use several Shopify apps to design their store and offer a complete solution to their customers.

Upgrading your store to a marketplace can help drive more sales, lower commission rates, and increase scalability.

It quickly develops trust among audiences when you have a marketplace. You can select the right vendors according to your business goals.

2) Low Costs

What makes Shopify more accessible to businesses is its affordability factor. The low monthly fees to set up stores helps brands of all sizes to confidently rely on the platform.

They allow you to sign up with a starter 14-day trial plan, after which users pay monthly fees. This plan costs $29, the next one is at $79 and the top retailing plan is at $299.

The entry-level plan offers two users in a single account and unlimited store space. Also, customers can safeguard sensitive information on Shopify for free.

3) Easy to use for E-commerce businesses

Shopify is popular among eCommerce merchants and business owners for its user-friendliness. The platform gets a maximum of average users and unskilled developers because of its simplicity. Adding products, creating discounts, and processing them is a piece of cake on Shopify.

Moreover, the website design is easily operable using the drag-and-drop tool on the platform. Shopify offers its software and hosting to businesses. Launching your store takes only a few minutes.

4) Excellent Customer Support

You can expect excellent customer support for your Shopify stores. They are experts at handling tricky and challenging customer issues and situations.

The platform helps you get outsourced customer support from multiple channels for your Shopify Plus store.

By outsourcing your customer support, you can increase customer retention and reach. Also, businesses can save their time and money and achieve faster results.

5) Safe & Reliable

E-commerce merchants work with large volumes of data and security is the foremost priority. Shopify protects your data at all costs by maintaining an impenetrable network and providing regular updates.

Their robust technical infrastructure prevents servers from timing out. 

The platform performs well during peak sale hours of the online store. There is no extra payment for the security offered. Overall, hosting your store on Shopify is safe and reliable for all businesses.

6) Customizable themes 

This is one of the main features that attract users and businesses worldwide. Once you have a Shopify account, you can access 70+ free themes to customize your online store. The paid themes need to be purchased if you are planning to personalize your store.

Shopify has mobile-friendly themes through which users can manage their mobile devices. It is crucial to have mobile-friendly themes to help customers shop online from your store.

Protip💡

If you are a Shopify business owner just starting out, you need more customers and require a solid customer retention plan. Gaining customer satisfaction and building a good reputation is not easy.

ClickPost offers returns solutions for Shopify users to provide a seamless return experience to their customers.

This can help them reduce return costs and keep track of their parcels through email notifications. Businesses can smoothly integrate with the ClickPost returns app and perform multiple return operations.

Final Word

In conclusion, Shopify is a profitable platform for small and medium-sized businesses. It helps them take a step forward with several applications, themes, and interfaces for operations seamlessly.

Precisely, enterprises can scale up by outsourcing shipping and storage processes on the platform. 

Shopify is safe and reliable, with end-to-end security, and allows painless selling and shopping. It is also mobile-friendly to help you gain more customers using mobile phones to shop. You can learn how to sell on Shopify from the steps before getting started.

FAQs 

1) What type of products can businesses sell on Shopify?

Merchants can sell a wide range of products on Shopify. They can include physical goods, wholesale items, Dropshipping products, print-on-demand products, tickets, and membership on the platform. It is a suitable eCommerce platform for businesses of all sizes.

2) Is Shopify suitable for international businesses?

Shopify offers features and facilities ideal for international businesses to scale globally. These features include multi-currency support, global payment options, multi-language support, and international shipping operations. International businesses can fulfill overseas orders through Shopify seamlessly.