Do you want your own Shopify online store? You might think it’s hard to get started, but trust us, it’s not as hard as it sounds if you know what to focus on. Let’s look at what it takes to run a successful online shop.
We try to give you a great guide that can help you get your Shopify store up and running, from the first steps to marketing. This article is also for you if you already have an online store and want to know how to make it more successful. You have to keep learning new things.
Carefully read the whole thing from beginning to end. In the second half, you can read about suggestions that are even more creative.
There are a lot of online shopping sites, and each one has its own deals. Choose the one that fits your needs the best, whether it’s Shopify, Big Commerce, Ecwid by Lightspeed, or something else. If you are new to ecommerce, try to find solutions that include everything you need.
There’s never been a better time to start an online store.
Find a good idea that will work.
Depending on where they are on the ladder when they start their business, the way they get there is different. Whether all they know is that they want an online store or if they know exactly what they want to sell and how they want to do it. Let’s focus on the first one for now. Before you can start making decisions and coming up with ideas, you need to think about some basic things. Do you know what it takes to start an online store? Well, I know that if you have a store that uses the drop-shipping model (you can learn more about the newer and more reliable version of this model, called remote warehousing, by clicking here), you still have to deal with money. You need money, and you need to think about hosting, apps, the law, and other things. Taking this into account will get you ready for the next steps.
If you want to be successful, you have to believe in yourself and focus on being successful. When you run into problems, don’t give up. You can do it! The other thing I always say is that people won’t buy from your online store if they don’t feel safe there. You really need to understand that you are a seller and that your job is to help customers. Because they buy things from you, they have to trust you. Make sure your shop is clean and that your message is easy to understand.
Find the best thing to buy.
Anything can be sold online. It’s a list that never ends. There are some basic product ideas, like clothes, electronics, bags, and jewelry. You can also think about more specific markets. Finding a niche is the most important thing. So even if you sell products in a common field, you can find a unique niche because everything depends on location, customers, quality, exclusivity, etc. But don’t sell things that are no longer cool or trendy. And stand out from the crowd.
Find your spot!
Sell things that people want or need. Since everyone sells things on sites like eBay and Amazon, it’s best not to get them there. People can get these products anywhere, they are not special in any way. You won’t stand out, and you won’t make much money. People will also know that those are from markets, so they will go to the markets and buy what they want for less. They are right, too.
How can you get ideas for products, or how can you get the best ideas for products? Well, there are many ways to do it. Maybe it won’t be the best way to come up with ideas if you just sit in a quiet room, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. A lot of good ideas come to people when they are out and about, doing things that make them think.
We talked to some of our customers at dropship-empire for an interview, and they told us how they decided what to sell. So, check out the stories of a sex store and a clothing store.
Pinpoint your target audience
Finding your target audience is one of the most important parts of setting up an online store. You should always think about who you’re selling to. You have to show them the best products on the main page, do good marketing, and choose products based on what they need. When you set up Facebook ads, for example, you have to get the location, age, and other details right, and your products have to match.
So, once you know what you want to sell, you need to find the right people to sell to through your online store. Think about the person’s gender, where they live, how old they are, and what they are interested in.
Name your online store
When setting up an online shop, the name of your store is one of the most important things. It is very important to look good. Most of the time, the title of a book tells people what they can find inside.
- The name needs to be easy to remember so that everyone can use it. When something is unique and cool, that’s the best.
- It needs to talk about your online store. It’s better if it has something to do with your products.
- The word must be easy to spell and say.
- Maybe it would be cooler if there were no numbers in the name.
- Find keywords that describe your online store that will help you choose the final name.
- Think about the online social networks. Your name has to look good on a page and on your profile.
Shopify Name Generator for a Business
Shopify Company Name Shopify has a free tool that lets you come up with business names and see if a domain name is available right away. It’s useful and tells you unique store names. You just need to think of a keyword that fits your store, type it into the search field, and click the Generate names button. It’s as simple as it gets. The system will give you a long list of names to choose from.
You can always change the name of your Shopify store, even if you already have one. All you need to do is point the old site to the new one. It has to do with your store’s domain. I’ll talk more about it in a bit. Go down to find it.
Install Shopify
Time to start building your store! You can do it on Shopify’s official website. Click the blue button that says “Start” in the top right corner. There, all you have to do is fill out a short form and sign up for the 14-day free trial. When you want to sign up for a plan, you can choose between 3+2 plans: Basic Shopify, Shopify, Advanced, Shopify Plus, and Shopify Lite.
How do you set the
After you sign up for Shopify, there are a few settings you need to make. For example, you need to set up how payments will be made and how taxes will be taken out.
There is a section in Shopify’s Help Center that lists the most important things you need to do to get your business up and running. It goes into detail about the process, so if you are about to set up your store, I suggest you read that section.
It’s important to set up everything correctly—if you need help, you can ask Shopify’s customer support team—so that you don’t run into problems in the future that could ruin your business.
Make yourself look good.
Make your website look great. You can do it with a Shopify theme. You can add a free one from the admin interface or a paid one from the Theme Store. The ones from the second group are made by other people, and you have to pay for them.
Pay attention to the design, because it’s not just about the theme. It also has to do with pictures and words. The look has to be stylish, pretty, clean, and beautiful. Make sure the design doesn’t bother you. Also, make sure that the navigation works well and that it’s easy for people to find what they want. Set it up to work on all sizes and devices. Before you release the store’s website, you need to test it and see what other people think.
It’s also important to use colors that go together, brand elements that go together, and catchy headlines and slogans. These must be easy to understand. Use images that are high-quality, impressive, and challenging. When it comes to the menus, everything must work with touchscreens, and the font size and style must be easy to read. Getting rid of things can help you.
If your website doesn’t look good, people won’t feel comfortable and maybe won’t want to buy anything. With a nice design, they might think you are more reliable. Every purchase is about emotions.
People will judge a book by how it looks.
Add the important pages
If you want your site visitors and customers to be able to see everything clearly, you need to make some pages. Don’t forget about the About us, Contact us, Shipping, Payment, Returns, Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions pages. What you do next depends on what you sell. For example, if you sell clothes, you should also have a Size Chart page.
Domain
People will use your URL or website address, which is your domain, to find your online store. So, you need to set up a domain for your shop. The domain name must be the same as or very close to the name of your online store, which you show at the top of your website, page, and on social media.
You will get a domain like example.myshopify.com when you sign up for Shopify. But even though Shopify is a valuable platform, customers are more likely to buy from you if they only see the.com at the end of your store’s name or the ending that goes with your location and not the myshopify part. You need to set up a new domain with a domain registrar, which is a third-party service, and then point it to your Shopify store. You have to do one more thing when you have that new domain. You have to go to your store’s management interface and click one button to set it to “redirected.”
Shopify’s Help Center has more information about these steps. There’s a full guide there, so you won’t have any problems.
Choose the business plan.
What does it mean? Well, you have to decide if you want to use the standard wholesale model or drop shipping. A lot of people in the e-commerce business jump into drop shipping without realizing that just because they don’t have to spend money on the products, it doesn’t mean it’s completely free and they’ll be successful in one or two days.
We suggest that you use a method called “remote warehousing retail fulfillment.” It is a mix of “drop shipping” and “standard wholesale,” and it is the best way to be successful in the long run.
The process is the following:
The customer places an order and pays for the product in the online store. The retailer gives the wholesaler the order and pays for the items. The wholesaler sends the product to the retailer or to the fulfillment center. The product is sent to the customer by the store.
One of the main differences between remote warehousing and drop shipping is that the supplier doesn’t ship the product directly to the customer. Instead, it ships to you, so you can check the quality of the product. Also, if a customer orders more items from your store that come from different suppliers, the customer won’t get more packages because the items are waiting for each other at your place, which can be your garage at first or a fulfillment center later.
When you use the remote warehousing model, you work with local suppliers instead of small sellers on AliExpress or eBay. So you don’t have to worry about things like warranties or lost packages. The delivery time will also be short, so customers won’t have to wait weeks to get the products they ordered. You can also sell unique items, so you won’t be selling the same things as everyone else who buys from Chinese markets.
Find the best vendor for what you need.
You could already read a little bit about the suppliers we think you should work with above, under the headings Products and Decide on the business model.
We suggest that you work with suppliers in your area.
What are the good things about this? Your customers don’t have to wait weeks to get the products because shipping is quick and cheap. In this case, the prices of the products are also lower than in other ways. Getting things from places like eBay, AliExpress, etc. is something we don’t recommend as much.
Don’t buy cheap, bad things.
If you sell things on Chinese markets, you’re doing the same thing as everyone else. You need to find a company that can meet your specific needs. If you do business with local suppliers, you’ll feel safer and your packages won’t get lost. Banks won’t turn you down, and there won’t be any problems with the warranty, customs duty (maybe, it depends on the country, not the supplier, but it’s safer to work with local suppliers), or VAT. Also, the quality of the products will probably be better.
Where can you find new places to buy from? You can do searches on Google using the important keywords (the name of the product category plus any of the supplier/wholesaler/drop shipping/shipping/feed) tags, order from a competitor and see who it works with if the name is on the package, go to trade shows or exhibitions, use directories, check forums, or use online product sourcing tools.
Dropship-empire Marketplace is the best place to find the best suppliers for your business. There are hundreds of suppliers and millions of products listed.
Check applications
If you want to make things easier, you should look at some of the apps in Shopify’s App Store. What you will really need is an app for managing products, an app for billing, and an app for marketing.
Product pages
After you have products, we need to talk about how your website looks and how your product pages look. Make it neat. Try to find a supplier who can give you more pictures of their products so that your customers can look at them from more angles before they buy. Also, it’s good if you can upload pictures of all the different options, though this depends on the supplier. It’s very important that the things look as real as possible.
Make sure that these pages have all the necessary product information and that people know everything there is to know about the items.
If the page for a product has nothing but the name and price, it won’t make people want to buy it. Show as much information as you can, including the exact name, size, color, use, features, delivery time, and warranty. It would also be helpful if you could upload pictures of the items you bought from other people. If you can, also put a short description of the company that made it. The whole product page needs to be easy to read. Use headlines in the product description to make it easy for people to read, and don’t forget to use good grammar, which is very important. You can also make menus within menus. It’s also a good idea to give buyers the chance to write a review. Also, submenus like “Description,” “Details,” “Reviews,” and anything else useful. Add small logos to the product pages that link to social media so that people can share with their friends what they like about your store. I’d also suggest putting a rating scale on the product page. This gives customers more confidence to buy and helps them.
Put the most important info at the top of the page so people can read it without having to scroll. The page needs to show that the product is of high quality. Try to get people to shop, but don’t be dull. Have the name, price, Buy/Add to Cart button, and pictures at the top of the page for each product.
It’s a good idea to put your best-selling items front and center in your online store. You can do this on the main page or in any submenu you like.
Now, if you’ve finished everything, you’re not quite ready. You should ask your friends or family to help you check if everything is okay with your online store. It’s time once all the problems have been fixed and everything looks nice.
Start your online store right away!
Don’t waste money on bad marketing.
You can’t just sit back and wait for money to come in after setting up your online store. Because you have to make sales in some way, the worst days are just around the corner. You need to tell people about your store and what you sell. Do marketing. But you have to be careful because bad marketing can easily destroy your business. You can get people to buy from your store in a lot of creative ways. You have to look for ways to do it or hire someone to do it for you. I think you should hire someone to do this because running an online store is not easy. It takes a lot of time to manage, and you also need a lot of help. But be careful about who you give the job to. It’s best to choose someone you can meet in person instead of a virtual assistant.
What kinds of advertising you can do and where you should do it. Here is what we think.
- YouTube
- Facebook Ads
- Google AdWords
- Newsletter, Unique E-mails
- Blog
You should always keep your eyes open and keep your website up to date. Do marketing in the best way, send small a gift and postcard to every purchase, make the packaging neat if you have the opportunity, tell your story in a creative way on your website in a submenu, target well, have cool social media content, don’t create posts in every hour, and don’t sell newsletters more than two times a week. Your lines have to be easy to read, your images have to be of good quality and aesthetic. Also, post at least once a week to your blog.
Offer sales often, and people will feel like they’re getting a good deal when they buy something, especially if they know when the sale will end. If you want to learn more about how to price products in general, we have an article you can read.
Use software to track down carts that have been left behind.
For Shopify stores, there are a lot of tools for managing abandoned carts. The Shopify App Store is where you can find them. By the way, what is this? In short, this can help you get more money. In the long run, these apps and toolboxes help you get back customers who put something in their carts but then left your shop without buying it. The app lets those people know by email or through Messenger. You’d be surprised at how many potential customers leave online stores this way, and you’d also be surprised at how much these apps can help.
Well, it’s a little different, but you can set up a pop-up window to appear when a visitor’s cursor moves out of the website’s field. Probably, you’ve already seen this happen. Most of the time, a store will give a customer a coupon code for, say, a 10% discount.
Focus on customer service
Add a live chat feature to your online store. Taking care of your customers is a very important thing to do. People always have questions about everything, even if you’ve already talked about the information on your website. But you might get questions that you haven’t thought about. Having a live chat software, opportunity, or real-time customer service can help you keep your visitors and turn them into real buyers. Note that if you have this kind of chat or give people your email address, phone number, or the chance to ask you a question on Facebook, you must always respond quickly. You must always be ready to help, both before and after the sale.
You can also learn about the
There, you can find a lot of useful ideas, and some of them can be used year after year. I think you should read that blog post right away!
If I told you everything you needed to know to make your store successful, this room would be too full. Still, you can learn more in one of our other articles. Here are the subheadings, and you can read about the topics with just a few clicks.