How does Shopify work – All About Shopify – For Beginners

Last updated on June 1st, 2023 at 03:31 pm.

How to Create a Shopify account

How does Shopify work – All About Shopify – Beginners’ Questions Answered

If you are new to Shopify, this post will answer some questions you may have. Shopify is an e-commerce website builder. That is to say, if you want to build any type of online store, you can use it.

As a beginner you may not know where to start. I’ve therefore put this post together to answer some questions you may have.

If you still have other questions just leave a comment and I will reply.

Related: Why I recommend Shopify

You can read the entire post, or use the content section links below to go to the question that is of interest to you.

Free Shopify Tutorial for beginners

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What exactly does Shopify do?

Shopify is an online platform that allows you to create an online store . An online store is a website where you can sell products directly to your customer via the internet.

On Shopfy you can create a store for physical products, digital products or for drop-shipping. If you manufacture or resell physical products such as shoes, computer gadgets e.t.c. you can setup your store and sell directly to your customers. They won’t have to come to your store to buy and pick the products. You’ll have to ship them the products once they make a purchase.

You can also sell digital/ downloadable products using Shopify.

You can also setup a dropshipping store. Dropshipping is where, once a customer makes a purchase, you have to place the order with another supplier. The supplier is the one who will ship the product directly to the customer.

Shopify.com is just a Website that enables you to create your Store. It will be up to you to do the marketing, designing and branding of your ecommerce website.

Currently the biggest alternative to Shopify is, Woocommerce. Woocommerce is a WordPress plugin. Others include, Bicommerce and Squarespace.

How does Shopify work?

With Shopify you never have to worry about hosting. Once you create your account you can add as many products as you have. Leave the back-end stuff to them. Just handle your website’s design. Marketing and order fulfillment.

How Shopify works:

  1. Step 1: Signup for a Shopify Free Trial
  2. Step 2: Choose a theme and design your Shopify website. It’s a very user friendly platform and easy to learn. You can design your store however you want; add your logo and custom branding to match your business.
  3. Step 3: Add your products, prices and inventory. Basically add all the info about your products.
  4. Add your shipping details.
  5. Choose payment methods / payment gateways.
  6. Select a Shopify plan.
  7. Connect your domain if you want to use a personal domain that clearly brands your business.
  8. When you are sure everything is correct and tested, publish your website to make it live and ready for orders.
  9. Market your products online using content marketing , digital marketing and any other push or pull marketing tactics that you know of. Shopify has a blogging feature as well.
  10. Once someone purchases your product, you have to fulfill it and ship it to them using the means available in your website. There are options provided by Shopify for order fulfillment. Just choose the one that would apply to your business.

Please note that you can get help from experts and freelancers . If you need help, there are lots of experts and freelancers who are ready to get you online. You can learn and build your online store using resources on YouTube and the knowledge base.

Is it available in my country.

Shopify is global and supports almost all countries. Chances are that your country is supported. If Visa and MasterCard are available in your country, then you can use Shopify. Of course there are other payment gateways too. However, do a quick Google search to confirm the payment gateways supported for your country.

If you are selling goods locally, then you can setup manual payments such as cash on delivery (COD).

Shopify Pricing / fees / Plans

To check the current prices and offers, ensure you have a look at the official Shopify pricing page.

All Shopify plans offer unlimited hosting and unlimited products. Sell as many items as you can.

The current plans offered are :

Basic Shopify Plan – $29

At $29 Per Month this plan comes with a lot that is sufficient for any online business. Always start with this plan. It is enough.

Shopify Plan – $79

Not a lot of difference from the basic plan. Not a lot of selling propositions here, so just choose the basic plan.

Advanced Shopify Plan – $299

Comes with a little more than the other two. Intended for high scalability businesses. You don’t need it. Stick with basic plan.

Please note that you may subscribe to other Apps which charge you monthly. That is a personal decision and the price is different from the Shopify plans.

It may increase your monthly subscription cost. Therefore, only get Apps that are absolutely needed for your business to succeed. If you can do without an App, do not get it. Shopify Apps are a way for you to add functionality to your store.

Is there a free Plan?

Shopify has no free plans. However, there is a Free Trial or a 1$ for 3 months trial.

Shopify does not have a Free Plan, You can however, try the platform for a 14 day period. You can also create a trial development store via the partners’ dashboard. Watch this Shopify partner tutorial video to learn about development stores.

How much does it cost to have a Shopfy store?

The cost of owning a Shopfy store depends on your monthly plan and the Apps you have subscribed to. There are certain Apps that attract a monthly charge. If you install such an App, you will increase the cost of running your store.

Good news however, you do not have to pay for hosting separately. And, you will get unlimited product listing with each plan.

Shopify login

To login into your store:

Go to Shopify.com/login , this will redirect you to your store login page.

To login, enter the name of your store as it was when you signed up. If you can’t remember it, click on forgot store, enter your email and the details will be sent to you.

Then enter your email address. Click next.

Then enter your password. Then click next.

An easier way to log in is to bookmark your stores myshopify admin link. If your store is called zubastorex, your myshopify admin link will be zubastorex.myshopify.com/admin.

With the myshopify admin link, you only need to remember your email and password to log in.

Can you make money from Shopify?

Yes. There are multiple ways in which you can make money from Shopify. You need to come up with a business idea for yourself, market the idea and eventually earn from it.

Some of the ways in which you can make money include:

Dropshipping

With dropshipping, you don’t need to keep product in stock. When people purchase a product from you, you will in turn place an order with a manufacturer or a supplier. The manufacturer is the one who will ship the product to the buyer. With this method of online store, you are simply a marketer.

There are lots of dropshipping courses available for beginners.

– Stores for physical products

If you already have physical products that you are selling, you can create an online store and start selling on the internet.

These physical products could be products you’ve bought from manufacturers or products you have made yourself.

Once your customers make a purchase, you will need to ship the products to your buyers.

– Digital Products

You can also sell downloadable products on Shopify.com . You can sell ebooks/pdfs, audios and so much more. Set the price for your downloadable product, add its download link and market it to your potential audience.

This is an easy way of selling small downloadable files.

Shopify provides you with all the tools you need to run a print on demand business. You can print t-shirts, mugs and a whole lot of other house or office items. Here is a quick guide on Shopfy.com for a print-on-demand business.

Shopify login

To login into your store:

Go to Shopify.com/login , this will redirect you to your store login page.

To login, enter the name of your store as it was when you signed up. If you can’t remember it, click on forgot store, enter your email and the details will be sent to you.

Then enter your email address. Click next.

Then enter your password. Then click next.

An easier way to log in is to bookmark your stores myshopify admin link. If your store is called zubastorex, your myshopify admin link will be zubastorex.myshopify.com/admin.

With the myshopify admin link, you only need to remember your email and password to log in.

What are shopify themes?

Shopfy Themes are templates you can use to design your website. There are free and paid themes. These templates will enable you to design and brand your website so that it can be unique and different from other stores.

Browse all available themes here .

What are shopify apps?

Shopify apps enable you to extend the functionality of your store. Let’s say you want to add a subscriber popup on your store, you can go to the app store and install a popup app.

Another example, maybe you want to integrate your website with an Email Marketing platform, you would need to go and browse the App Store to check if there is an app for doing just that.

In brief, Apps allow you to add or extend your online shop.

Browse all the available Shopfy Apps here.

Watch this fully Free Shopify Tutorial on YouTube >>

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