If you are considering starting a webshop then you have probably already thought about, and maybe even looked into, various eCommerce software options. There are a variety of things you must consider if you want to start selling something online, whether that is a physical product that needs to be shipped or a digital product or maybe even a specialised service to your clients. In this little (and by no means comprehensive) tutorial we will assume that you already have a product you want to sell or are in the process of finding that special niche. Setting up a Shopify eCommerce store takes a little bit of technical skill but mainly it just takes time and patience.
Setting up your Shopify business
There are a lot of fancy words surrounding the eCommerce business and it can be hard to sort through the information to find out what is useful and what is not. Shopify is basically a complete eCommerce online service provider that allows you to set up a shop where you can sell your products and services to customers directly. It offers a solution to the issue of building a website with marketing, pricing, taxes, and even shipping included. It supports most of the important features you want a webshop to have and it is surprisingly easy to use.
Shopify offers a comprehensive start-up guide that will take you through the first steps of setting up your shop. Once you have chosen a plan (the prices vary depending on the needs of your shop, but in most cases, the basic plan for $9 a month is good enough to get started on) it is time to start designing what you want your shop to look like and import products that will go in your shop. Most people browse and shop on their smartphone and it is important to pay special attention to how your shop presents on a mobile device. This is something Shopify is quite attentive to and they aim to help their clients grow their business through smartphones.
Shopify lets you sell everything under the sun – as long as it is legal. You can sell your own products, or use the platform for dropshipping, or selling digital items or services that you provide. Basically, you can use it for whatever you like and for whatever business you want to promote. There are a lot of different storefronts, templates, and designs available, which makes it easy for you to set up a really good looking webshop in a matter of minutes.
After you set up your webshop, Shopify will guide you through how to add your products to your store. It is a simple procedure, but it can be time consuming so make sure that you follow the instructions and learn how to make multiple versions of the same product (if applicable). That will save you a lot of time.
Setting up the payment solutions
Caption: Choosing and setting up various payment options for your customers are important – but it’s easy with Shopify!
There are a lot of things to consider when you are setting up the payment options for your webshop. You have to think about which options you want to offer and which currencies you want to accept. If you are a US-based company then perhaps US dollars will be sufficient; however, most companies will aim to offer the customer several choices for payment. This is true for websites such as Etsy, which sells handmade and vintage items, big companies such as Amazon and Ebay, of course, and also gaming platforms like PokerStars which offers multiple currencies for their customers to use. This makes it easier for customers to gauge the price and that makes them more likely to complete the purchase. This is all supported by Shopify so you can give your customers the best range of choices; let us take a closer look at this feature.
First, you need to set up a payment gateway. A payment gateway is essentially a merchant service provided by an eCommerce application that handles the acceptance and processing of all your customer payments. There are a multitude of providers and it is important to spend some time sorting through the different ones to find one that suits your needs. Examples of these payment gateways are Stripe, PayPal, and Amazon payments. You need to pick one that has a low transaction fee and supports many different credit cards and payment options as well as multiple currencies. Shopify has its own payment gateway called Shopify Payments, which is great because it is already a part of the package and doesn’t charge any additional transaction fees.
These are the main things you need to consider when setting up your webshop. There are, of course, a lot of other aspects to be wary of, but choosing Shopify as your main platform will get you started on the right foot.
