Using Shopify as your online store builder
Overview
The very first thing and the most important thing to build n online store is to choose a secure, easy to use and popular eCommerce platform. That is why most of the well known review and rating platforms list Shopify on the top of other platforms.
Shopify is a software as a service that allows you to create a website and use their shopping cart solution to sell, ship and manage your products easily with more security standards.
Shopify is an eCommerce platform, where you can pay a monthly fee to use the company’s web design, eCommerce, and product management tools.
Shopify is a good tool for beginners and people who don’t want to spend too much time developing an online store website from scratch. you don’t even need to hire a developer to get your online store up and running.
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Signing up with Shopify
Signing up with Shopify and starting your online store couldn’t be any easier, it will only takes just few minutes to get started with Shopify, but if you are not sure whether it is a good platform or not you can try their 14 Days No Questions Asked Free trial to test the platforms features and then decide if you want to stay with them or not.Â
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Get 14 days trial account on shopify.com
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They will ask you some simple questions all you need to do is choosing a name for your online store an giving some details like your name, email address, physical address, country, and a contact number.
You will also be asked if you have products and if you want to sell them in your test account.
After you’ve signed up you will be directed straight to your store’s admin screen. now you are ready to customize your store by uploading products and setting up payments and shipping.
And your home wizard will guide you on all steps.
One of the main ideas behind Shopify is their simplicity to use in which users without any technical or design skills can create a store without involving a design agency or web developer. But if you are a developer and want to edit your online store it allows you to edit HTML and CSS your way.
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Payment gateways
A payment gateway allows you to take payments from your customers through your website. Their price and commission rate is very important, but it’s also important to see what features they offer. When you take a payment, some gateways will keep a small percentage for letting you use their services.
Card types
You will also need to know what types of card are accepted by your chosen payment Gateway. MasterCard and VISA are always accepted. Most of them also accepts American express.
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Benefits of Shopify as a Platform for your business needs:
- Full customizable and compliance with professional webstores
- Best in organization for product display
- Excellent shipping options
- Payment gateways
- 3rd party theme integration for E-business
- Excellent business services & solutions
- Data security with backup and reliability
- Search engine friendly with google product display
And many more that you can find on their own website.
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Shopify pricing
You can choose from five different Shopify pricing plan
- Shopify lite: $9 per month
- Basic Shopify: $29 per month. (All the basics for starting a new business)
- Shopify: $79 per month. (everything you need for a growing business)
- Advanced Shopify: $299 per month. (advanced features for scaling your business)
- Shopify plus: fees are negotiable in the region of $2000 per month
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Shopify’s Web hosting
Shopify is known as a cloud-hosted E-commerce platform because it also takes cares of hosting your store for you. This means that you don’t need to sign up for any external web hosting service everything is handled in just one place. Shopify uses an optimized server structure, built specifically for eCommerce, so have the best performance available at a very low cost.
Shopify is extremely easy to set up and get going, so it can be used by anyone even if it is there first time in E-commerce. Shopify offers many templates designs/structure for you to choose, so you don’t have to hire someone to help you, you can build, style and launch your store all on your own.
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Shopify’s themes
Shopify has its own official theme store. All these themes comes up with a list of modification you can make without having to touch a line of code. And the premium themes comes with more modification, but you can also get a great looking site with a free one. There are over 70 theme variations to choose from, which includes a good selection of free ones.
And you can also find shopify themes on other Marketplaces, like TemplateMonster, ThemeForest and other popular theme sellers.
You can sort themes by price, popularity, and most recent themes in order to get the best theme available for your business.
Once you find a theme you like, click one the theme’s sample image.it will show you more information about the theme, such as whether the theme is responsive/mobile ready and other features.
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Shopify Settings
Shopify themes allows you make simple changes that can massively change the appearance of your store, so you can rest assured knowing you won’t end up with a website that looks like a clone of hundreds of other stores.
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Get a Free Trial of Shopify and Review it your self or read Shopify Review to find out more about this amazing online store builder.