Shopify is one of the most significant eCommerce platforms, boasting nearly 2.2 million stores. Almost every day, approximately fifty people desire to open a Shopify store but fail due to a lack of guidance. Starting and growing a Shopify store doesn’t have to be as challenging as it appears.
Once you understand how to start a Shopify store as a beginner, you will likely start and grow your business to greater heights. Even better, you can seek support from an established Shopify fulfillment service for more productive outcomes.
This guide will discuss starting a Shopify store from scratch to become one of the most excellent merchants.
Shopify Fulfillment Services
Before you learn the actual steps of starting a Shopify store, it would be essential to understand how Shopify fulfillment services work and could impact your business. Shopify fulfillment services refer to receiving, picking, packing, labeling, and shipping customer orders as soon as possible.
There are three main Shopify fulfillment options for store owners, including in-house fulfillment (fulfilling orders by yourself), dropshipping (Shopify fulfillment by the manufacturer), and third-party logistics (fulfilling orders with a 3PL company).
Whichever option you select, Shopify fulfillment services can benefit your business with low operation costs, better management, increased shopping speed, and high customer satisfaction. However, dropshipping and 3PL Shopify fulfillment are the best options as they let businesses focus on other priorities while handling orders.
Decide the Business Niche
The first step of opening a Shopify store is determining which area of business you wish to major in. Business niche refers to the type of products you’ll sell in your store. At this phase, you choose your most favorable products from various ideas. When you find your best, you can now neglect the rest and focus on this specific one by researching it further.
Research Your Preferred Niche
Now that you have your preferred products, you can learn more about them through research. During your research, the main factors are market demand, capital, target audience, customer needs and preferences, and potential Return on Investment (ROI). Your findings for these factors will determine whether you’ll proceed with your ideal products as the primary business idea or return to the previous step.
Draft a Business Plan
Planning for Shopify business is nearly similar to any other. If your findings regarding the above research are positive, you can set clear business goals, a reasonable budget, pricing, and marketing strategies. Besides the general business plan, Shopify offers several plans for interested merchants, depending on their needs and budget. You can select one that aligns with you.
Choose a Domain and Register the Store
A domain is the leading web address customers use to visit your Shopify store website. With a well-designed business plan, you can choose a reliable domain for your Shopify store or use your existing domain name. When you use an existing domain name, you should link it to your Shopify store upon registration.
Shopify and other third-party domain providers also offer commercial domains affordably. Registering a Shopify store is choosing a business structure (partnership or sole proprietorship), unique name, logo, and content.
Design and Add Products
Your Shopify store is here but doesn’t have much content to match your style and preferences. Therefore, it’s time to design it with your business logo and reasonable colors and select a theme that aligns with your brand. Shopify offers some free-trial themes, although you can still acquire commercial ones from third-party designers.
Designing a Shopify store also involves adding user features that are mobile or computer-responsive. With that, you can add well-captured and high-quality photos of your products accompanied by pricing, descriptions, categories, and payment methods.
Other essentials to be added at this stage are various applications (social media platforms, email marketers, and SEO tools), shipping rates and zones, and any other meaningful information.
Test and Launch
You can test your store’s performance after exhaustively loading your Shopify store with enough products. This step involves posing as a buyer in your store and following the purchasing process (from order placed to order received) to identify any challenges.
Testing helps you review your store to eliminate errors and improve customer shopping experience. If there are no challenges or after undertaking the necessary renovations, you can launch the store to the customers.
Market and Manage
Once you’ve launched your Shopify store, you should start its operations immediately by marketing your products to the customers. Shopify allows various marketing strategies, including email, social media, paid ads, and content creation for Shopify store owners.
Whichever strategy you choose, you should plan effectively to attract a large audience. Shopify store management involves understanding the customers’ changing needs, undertaking regular research, upgrading your store after reviews, and controlling sales.
