Super Simple: How to Set Up Shopify Store in 8 Easy Steps

Step 1: Have a Shopify account

The answer for the question of how to set up Shopify store can be straightforward if you have the right guidelines. The initial step involves registering your account with detailed information. 

You need to fill in an email address, create a password for security and select a name for your store. It is highly recommended that your brand name is easy to remember and impressive for customers.

Step 2: Complete the Shopify store basics

Upon accessing your Shopify store, you will find a detailed menu on the left side of the screen. This menu of how to set up Shopify store provides all the essential links to access different tools and features like orders, products and customers.

In addition, at the corner of the page on the left hand side, it’s easy to see a button “Settings”. This button can help you access a myriad of options, enabling you to modify your store name, adjust the time zone, and opt for your currency, among other customization features.

Step 3: Choose the Shopify theme & Customize your store's look

To know how to set up Shopify store, Shopify themes are the key point. They can be seen as pre-designed templates dictating the overall aesthetics of your online store. They can help you control the way your store appears to customers, regarding several aspects such as its layout, typography, color theme as well as  navigation. 

Choose the Shopify Theme

#1 From the “Online Store” segment, select “Themes”, click on “Visit Theme Store”.

#2 From here, you can filter options to find the best match for your needs. After selecting your desired theme, apply it to your Shopify store by clicking “Try Theme”.

By considering these factors on how to set up Shopify store, you can select a theme that not only looks impressive  but also aligns with your business requirements and elevates the overall customer experience.

Customize the store’s look

Once you’ve selected the ideal theme for your store, you’ll begin customizing its appearance to align with your brand.

#1 In your Shopify store dashboard, click on “Customize”.

#2 The editing interface will appear, allowing you to make adjustments to content or design within the sections on the left hand side.

#3 Save and publish your changes by clicking on “Save” button located in the top right corner of your page.

Step 4: Create products and collections

The subsequent step of how to set up Shopify store is to add products to your store and gather them into collections.

Add products to Shopify store

#1 To add product on Shopify, from Shopify Dashboards, go to “Products”, and click on “Add Product”.

#2 You can add all the necessary information for your product, such as the title (product’s name), product description, product category, product type, vendor (if needed), inventory, and category (color, size, material,…).

#3 After that, check the product status carefully to make sure it’s in “Active” mode and then hit “Save” to make it available to your customers.

Make product collections in Shopify

Absolutely, organizing your products into collections is essential for enhancing the shopping experience during the process of how to set up Shopify store. You can group them into various collections such as special collections, seasonal collections. This makes it easier for customers to search, browse and review products that align with their preference.

Step 5: Install fundamental Shopify apps

Shopify offers merchants a robust app ecosystem, consisting of third-party integrations that seamlessly  provide advanced features and functionalities. These extensions on how to set up Shopify store can level up Shopify capabilities, assisting you to streamline operations, enhance customer experience and ultimately drive more sales.

While there are thousands of apps available on Shopify Store, it is also a challenging task to opt for the one which is suitable for your business concept. Therefore, based on your specific needs, you can decide what additional plugins are more important to integrate, making your Shopify mobile app development more efficient and profitable.

Step 6: Set up your payment method

To create a Shopify store, payment gateway is a paramount component for transaction processing. 

#1 First, navigate to the “Settings” section of the Shopify admin. There, it will guide you to the account setup process, where you need to enter required information such as a statement description, transaction fees, accepted card types.

#2 Customize your checkout process, shipping and account settings to foster a smooth and intuitive buying journey.

#3 Clicking the “Completing” button.

Step 7: Add the store’s domain name

When it comes to how to set up Shopify store, you will be provided with a default domain, resembling “your-store-name.myshopify.com”. However, for a more distinctive brand recognition, you should have a custom domain name, like “yourstorename.com”. You can do this by purchasing a domain from Shopify or researching hosting websites.

On the other hand, if you want to connect your existing domain with Shopify store, you can follow these steps:

#1 Go to “Settings” from Shopify dashboard.

#2 Next, scroll down to find the “Domain” category, choosing “Connect existing domain”.

#3 From here, type your existing domain and hit “Next”.

#4 Finally, to complete the connecting process, you select “Verify connection”. Though the domain might connect right after that, it may last for 48 hours to custom.

If you are not clear about this instruction, watch this video to have a deeper look.

Step 8: Go live

Once you have followed the meticulous setup steps for your online store, don’t forget to double-check minor details such as general information, business location, customer notification preferences, shipping and delivery configurations.

Here, the process of how to set up Shopify store is done. Your website is ready to launch.

Know who your ideal customer is

Achieving a successful Shopify store greatly depends on defining the right target audience. This involves knowing their demographics, preferences and requirements. By understanding every aspect affecting customer’s buying decisions, you are able to tailor your business strategies to resonate effectively with this specific customer segment.

For instance, in the process of how to set up Shopify store, in case your target customer is a busy entrepreneur, your offering products should be solutions that streamline their daily lives such as organization tools that focus on productivity, time-saving appliances.

Invest in great website design

Website design serves as a cornerstone of business success. Research indicates that nearly half of all consumers assume that the very first thing to impress a brand legitimacy is a website structure. Furthermore, with the rise in mobile shopping, ensuring a user-friendly mobile experience has become more and more imperative.  There are reasons for this:

• Your website is the very first thing which can impress your customers at first sight. A poorly designed website results in a significant loss of potential customers, with a study indicating a 42% abandonment rate.
• A user-friendly website plays a critical role in boosting conversion rate optimization by allowing users to seamlessly navigate through desired product pages or services. This enhances user experience, leading to greater sales and business growth after the process on how to set up Shopify store.

Optimize your product pages

Your customers cannot know how your product exactly looks like shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. Therefore, a product page should provide detailed information about every corner of the product with its functionalities to persuade customers to make a purchase.

It should be clean, well-structured design and it is a plus point if you incorporate social proof or testimonials in your product pages.

Invest in search engine optimization (SEO)

At the beginning, organic search engine optimization (SEO) requires an investment of time and effort, but in the long run, it presents a unique avenue for generating predictable and sustainable website traffic growth. 

A SEO strategy involves several steps such as keyword research, optimizing website architecture, linking building to strengthen website authority.

Offer excellent customer support

How to set Shopify store effectively hinges on exceptional customer support because using an ecommerce platform can be challenging for some. Store owners can further elevate customer experience by providing comprehensive services such as informative product guides, detailed size charts for FAQ section. 

By getting deep assistance from your store, they tend to come back and convert into loyal patrons.

Hiut Denim Co.

Established in Cardigan, Wales, Hiut Denim, created after how to set up Shopify store process, is the leading jeans manufacturer in the United Kingdom.

Founded in 2011, the company took advantage of the existing jean-making skills from local craftspeople to cover necessary techniques. Their focus is not the mass production, but on meticulous attention to detail to provide excellent quality for customers.

MR MARVIS

MP MARVIS is an international menswear brand in multiple countries around the world. Once expanding its business scope to global, MR MARVIS understood that they need a store which has a certain flexibility to support different customers from various regions.

This brand leverages headless commerce from Shopify Plus to build a global digital flagship store. This architecture offers exceptional flexibility, high-performance storefront and higher conversion rates. Along with a CMS, the store customizes back-end structure to easily adjust content, ensuring a fresh website and engagement for customers. 

By using this strategy of how to set up Shopify store, MARVIS can manage all front-end customization without depending on high-skill developers while also remaining the online presence.

Nike x Corteiz

The collaboration of Nike and Corteiz is a prime example of managing a large product  by utilizing a Shopify store and Shopify in-house system.

Alongside this, they use Shopify Flow, Shopify Script and Shopify Emails to streamline their specific sales. This consists of orchestrating access to particular groups such as friends, family or loyal customers. 

Moreover Shopify built-in analytics provides them valuable insights of the business’s health such as customer traffic real-time. All these approaches have facilitated the basic functionality of Shopify basic, leading to a smooth and high-demand product release after how to set up Shopify store process.