How to make money on Shopify? that's the question too many people are still asking themselves. How to create your own online store via Shopify? This is what we will try to know through this guide!
With the new trend of the digital world, the e-commerce is now sunny. Increasingly, the old trading methods are giving way to a new dynamic pushed forward by the e-commerce business. Thanks to this new economy, everything changes and everything goes fast. It is now easier to order products and have them delivered without having to travel. However, to make such a business model, you need e-commerce platforms. We invite you to discover in this article a complete guide to master Shopify, one of the best e commerce solutions platform.
Historical background
Shopify is an e-commerce platform that allows individuals and companies to create their own online stores. It was created in 2004 by three co-founders namely, Daniel Weinand, Tobias Lütke and Scott Lake. Its appearance follows the creation of Snowdevil, an online store that offers services in the sale of snowboard equipment. One of the co-founders Lütke decided to create a website builder software project because he could not find a transactional site building software to create ecommerce website that met his needs.
Since he felt a certain repulsion for some online store software, he designed a custom store from what was then an open source platform called Ruby on Rails. A few months later, the online store was operational and Snowdevil knew its first days.
Two years later, the team decided to extend its source code to allow more people to sell online. From then on, Lütke, who is also a programmer, will again create a new platform model from which future sellers would not have much to do other than inserting descriptions and photos of their products so as to have their own online store. Thus, in 2006, Shopify was born.
To this end, Lütke will later say the following: "What took months in 2004 can now be done in about 20 minutes".
How Does Shopify Work
Shopify includes features from which sellers can manage inventory, edit CSS and HTML on their pages, processing online payments, create shopify discount code. Adding online payments can be done with credit cards, Bitcoin, PayPal, etc.
In short, Shopify allows you to organize all your sales activity, including e-commerce, which is obviously the biggest part of its use. shopify is the best ecommerce solutions which is leader in its market and has the distinction of being able to be used by a person who only sells few products, or a large company that sells tens of thousands. Shopify is evolutionary (its designers make it more and more complete and powerful, since its creation in 2006) and modular, since it is possible to customize all the basic functions.
Set up
In 2009, Shopify launched an API platform that allows developers to create apps for Shopify stores online. The shopify applications are offered in different ways. The features offered by these applications are increased.
How much does it cost Shopify ?
One of the great strengths of Shopify is to have understood that a fixed price offer would slow down the commercial development of its members... and therefore it's own expansion.
That's why the company has decided to put in place a pricing model that fits every audience, from the smallest entrepreneur to the largest international firm.
Shopify Pricing
Specifically, 3 monthly rates are proposed ($ 29, $ 79 and $ 299), the tools included in each offer are being more or less numerous.
Shopify's pricing model is based on a monthly plan. The 3 packages offered by the platform are: Basic Shopify, Shopify, and Advanced Shopify.
Thus, rates start from $29 for Basic Shopify, $79 for Shopify, and $299 for Advanced Shopify. It should be noted that from the Advanced Package you have the possibility to get up to 5 GB of data storage depending on the activity you do.
Add to that a small percentage taken by Shopify on each sale made, in order to follow a win-win strategy: when you sell a little, your store costs you almost nothing. This percentage is becoming smaller, when rising to a more expensive monthly plan. Thus, the allocation between fixed and variable costs is adjusted to the actual results of your activity.
This same logic is often followed by the paid shopify app store that you can add to the basic offer: their designers (who are independent creators approved by Shopify) offer smaller prices to small shops that are on a basic plan with few customers, to help them grow.
This means that Shopify's greatest strength lies in a real understanding of the difficulties of any new salesperson: building reputation, finding buyers, and growing revenue.
In summary, for less than 29$ per month, you have a functional online store at your fingertips, in which you can then invest a little more money (customized theme, additional applications, etc.) to follow the evolution of your business.
For those who want to just test an idea of e-commerce on Facebook only, there is even a formula "Lite" less than 10$ per month, with ultra simplified functions designed for this model of sales.
And, best of all, is the loyalty program designed by Shopify: any member subscribed with a commitment (by paying at once 1 or 2 years of subscription, rather than for monthly plans) is given the right to a pretty reductions on total, of 10% or 20%.
Finally, the real-time pricing, is depending on your plan and the apps you use which is accessible at any time, directly through the shopify dashboard of your store: no hidden costs and unpleasant surprises at the time of payment.
Shopify configuration
We will detail here all the necessary steps to allow you to configure an e-commerce store on Shopify.
Shopify registration
Less complicated than many people might think, Shopify registration requires only your email address which will serve as a reference address to connect to the platform that will allow you to edit your site. From that moment, the work begins.
The personal information
At this level, Shopify asks you to list information about yourself after you have set your email address. You will have to fill out a standard form including your references. Afterwards, it will be a question of talking about your project starting from two informations to know: if you already sell products or not and how much your turnover amounts during the previous year.
Start of configuration
Once the first step is over, you will get into the home page of the dashboard area and it is from this space that you will set up your shopify online store.
The choice of shopify theme store
At this level of setup, you need to understand that choosing the theme is an important step because it is the theme that defines the identity of your brand and your online store. So it is better to make sure that the chosen theme is in agreement with the project and the store.
Shopify, for this purpose, offers premium shopify themes certified by quality designers via its interface. On Shopify, the proposed themes are accompanied by lists of modifications that you can use without entering the source code of the latter. One thing is certain, you can fully satisfy yourself with free themes.
Regarding theme changes, before you can edit the theme, it will change the CSS and HTML code of your site. Obviously, there is no reason to panic, because even if you do not have enough knowledge in the mastery of programming languages, there is for you, a network of design agencies on Shopify that you can contact to afford you shopify theme customization.
Shopify theme support
You can access the shopify themes browser from shopify.com themes or directly from your admin dashboard. There is a large number of different themes that we do not have the exact number of, but in terms of small information, you will find an average of 150 themes.
Some of these themes are paying and some are free. But we can filter all of them according to the price criteria and even according to the activities carried out.
Shopify theme and features
You can get more details on the chosen theme from the platform for more details.
Shopify: finalizing the initial configuration
Once the first step of the configuration of your shopify ecommerce store is over, a page is displayed with the button "go To your Theme Manager" which will allow you to access the page from which you can make changes .
Creation of the store under Shopify
There can be no e commerce business without having products. This part will be dedicated to explain how to put products on your e-shop with Shopify.
Listing products in your shopify store
Here's how to list products on your store with Shopify. You must go to the dashboard with the "products" option of your site located in the menu on the left. Once landed on this page, you will find a blue button that will appear and carry the note "Add a product". Click on it to enter the interface.
Once done, it will be up to you to fill in the fields containing the product information. You can choose for yourself whether the product will be on the site at a pre-established date or immediately.
However, you can also see from the "Organization" section in which category to affect your product. Then you can proceed to save the information from the "Save Product" button once all the features of your product have been fulfilled.
The configuration of products
Of course, you need to think about which product collections your store should have. The collection is necessary because it serves as a reference for more than one product on your online store. It may be a collection of shoes for men or women.
Types of collections
Once you have added a collection of products to your Shopify website, you have the option of choosing the type of collection that you think are best. So you have the choice between the manual type collection and the automatic type collection.
Configuring shopify payment gateways
The Shopify payment platform allows you to receive payments made by customers when they purchase services or goods. At this level you will need to consider two things: commission rate and price.
With respect to the fees charged during transactions, there are payment systems that will take percentages on the transaction. Before opting for this system, it would be better to take into account the estimated sales that will be made.
Items to configure before launching to the store website
Nothing is done yet because you still have some elements to complete. Especially information on certain details such as shipping services, tax system and general information about your company.
Configuring general information about your company
At the level of your shopify dashboard, it is very important that you think about adding information described in details about the company you represent online from a topic called "General Setting". This section has 3 sub-sections that must be filled in. These are the "store address", "store details" and "Standard and formats" sections.
Setup taxes on your online store
In the same section "Settings", you will find a sub-heading "Taxes" from which you can choose how taxes will be applied to your products. One thing is certain, all the conditions are right for you to get out of it.
Configuring the shipping method and rates
The "setting" section has another heading called "Shipping" that will allow you to define the shipping method and rates. However, remember that this sub-heading was already pre-filled when you registered, but for reasons of detail, it is better to take a tour before launching your store.
What can you sell on your Shopify Store?
Shopify is an all-in-one solution for your e-commerce business. As I have just started to explain, almost everything is possible.
Websites powered by shopify include apparel, jewelery, accessories, personal services, events, books, online music, fresh goods, etc.
Shopify can adapt to each sales area, both in terms of design (thanks to the many shopify themes available), sales funnel and objectives of each business.
Unlike many online platforms that allow you to build an activity limited to fairly specific areas, because of their intrinsic functions, Shopify app store meets your needs.
The best features of Shopify: simplicity, clarity, ease
For a person who wants to start on e-commerce business and is afraid of technical aspects, Shopify is disarming of simplicity: no need to master the coding, the installation of complicated tools, the management of a platform or of hosting, software updates, etc.
A person who knows how to surf the Internet is able to use Shopify, quite simply ... and it's even a fun experience, so easy!
Because the platform, even when you use it without additional applications, contains everything you need to work:
- Integrated accommodation
- The possibility of using one's own domain name
- Unlimited bandwidth
- Unlimited number of products, with stock and variant management
- A blog (on which you can write articles and design landing pages, which will save you from having another website as a complement)
- 70 payment gateways included
- Daily backup and instant updates
- Multilingual system
- Flexible management of shipping costs
- Easier tax management, depending on the country of sales.
- The ability to "sort" your customers into groups, view their purchase history, or refund them in a few clicks
- The ability to customize all the automatic emails that your shop sends to your prospects or customers.
- Multiple and very practical tools such as: the management of discount coupons, an integrated SSL certificate, the recovery of abandoned baskets, the possibility of linking the store to MailChimp (for sending your newsletters) and to Google Analytics (to study the behavior of your visitors and customers), linking to social media, intelligent management of SEO technic, easy import of data from another sales system, etc.
The interface is easy to use, clear, with easy-to-understand headings, even if they are only in English.
People with other languages, can use some simple tutorials to get them started, so their store can be operational in a very short time, as Shopify is easy to handle.
Unlike other platforms that often require discouraging learning, it only takes a few hours to learn how to:
- Listing products.
- Customization of shopify store
- Configure payment and shipping methods.
- Accept and validate orders
- Analyze the results
A beginner can become experienced in Shopify in record time, see becoming a an expert of the platform in a few weeks, once he has taken full control of its potential.
Of course, the earlier you learn the basics of computer, the faster this learning will be, but the platform is truly accessible to all those who are afraid to get started because they are not comfortable with computers.
But simplicity of shopify does not mean weakness or laziness!
Because of its technical background, Shopify is also ultra-robust and capable of loading dozens of additional applications, in order to transform itself into a powerful system adapted to very heavy demands.
Which means that your store will evolve with e-commerce market by always showing the same performance: even if you have in one day (what I wish you!) ten thousand customers who visit you every day, you will not have to change the shopify platform for another, because the website is no longer responding!
By choosing Shopify, you also choose longevity and you know that everything you put in place today will not be lost or useless tomorrow.
That goes even further: your simple online store can also be enriched by a retail outlet, if one day you decide to open a store, or a new sales funnels that you had not planned at the beginning (like Facebook).
No need to recreate everything every time you take a new step in your development, and no need to worry about the respondent of your online store: 24 hours a day, it is accessible and efficient.
In fact, if we had to summarize all Shopify in one word, we might say "accessibility".
No, e-commerce is not just for insiders who have spent months training in complicated techniques and tool management.
Shopify has understood the interest that exists to facilitate the implementation of the projects of any person who has the desire to sell, but does not know how to get started.
In other words, this solution sends you back to what should be your main goals (what will I sell and to whom, how do I advertise my products?, Etc.) to relieve you of all the technical problems of the implementation. on the way.
It is quite disturbing to see how much we start using shopify thinking that we are unable to do anything, then to turn around 3 days later, i say, "It's me who built this successful shopify websites from scratch? "
In addition, Shopify offers a fairly impressive customer support and document base.
The company has provided guides and tutorials for a majority of functions, responds in a few hours to any question and all its information systems (blog, forum, etc.) planned for users teeming with ideas and advice.
It's impossible for me, in a single article, to cover 100% of the tools included in Shopify.
But most importantly, anything that will allow you to take the plunge and tell you "it's good, I can really get started" is usable by anyone.
I hope, however, to have allowed you to measure the potential of the whole and provided you with some good reasons to test this all-in-one online store solution.
Oh yes, because I forgot something that is still very important: the first 14 days of using Shopify are free.
This means that you will definitely be selling your products when you have not even started paying for the tool yet.
So you have no reason to wait, your future successful store simply depends on your next clicks.
The E-commerce Business: concept
Before we get to the bottom of the subject, to make you discover Shopify and help you to be successful with your e-commerce platform, you must first have a little idea about this new form of business model.
Definition
According to Wikipedia, e-commerce, also known as online business, is a model of exchanging money for goods, services and information via computer networks. Remember that the term e-commerce is only an English name for this economic sector.
E-commerce also refers to the modern marketing approach, a set of commercial transactions that operate remotely via electronic and digital interfaces.
It is therefore a sector of activity that takes into account mainly commercial transactions operated on the Internet from media devices such as: computers, smartphones, connected TVs, tablets, etc. According to recent statistical data, in 2016 the e-commerce business has a turnover of around $2.7 trillion.
The concepts
Several different concepts are applied in e-commerce market. Let's see what some of the most popular are.
The concept of Black Friday
The Black Friday concept (Black Friday or Crazy Friday) is a concept of e-commerce stores used for many years by Americans. This marketing model was introduced in many countries allover the world to offer customers a commercial event for much consumption.
This concept was used for the first time in the 1960s due to the large number of vehicles and pedestrians observed during the shopping season. Nowadays, this concept, which is generally used for a 24-hour period, mainly takes place on the internet and under a few brands like Apple, Amazon and walmart. But this online marketing concept has become such a popular model that other countries have adopted on various online stores to explode the volume of purchases.
Remember that according to Wikipedia, more than 50.9 billion dollars were spent in 2014 during Black Friday weekends in the US despite the fact that it was perceived as a decrease of 11% compared to 2013.
The concept Online Store
The concept of online store is a retail concept that can sometimes involve integration with a place and its theme. This concept proposes the sale of a product from a well defined range.
It exists in e-commerce, all kinds of concept store, regardless of the commercial principle that dominates. Term widely used in this business, it shows the effect of fashion without corresponding to it. For example, there are online stores with the name of Store, but which only offer products of a single range or a single brand.
The concept uses a selection of creation in relation to a product belonging to a luxurious and discreet universe that differs according to the shop. Thus, to succeed in holding its bet, the e-commerce sector through the existence of online stores does not fail to show certain aspects and design effects.
What is ecommerce business
There are several ideas around e-commerce. Here are 3 predominant models:
Cost effective online stores
Of course when it comes to e-commerce, it is selling and the one who decides to sell is in the perspective of being able to make a profit. Today, competition is a real challenge to the point that in everything, we always look for ways to make money. Being able to live on the web is a reality and represents one of the best ideas to become profitable, so you need a website or an online store.
Thanks to the websites and the various possibilities they offer, it is no longer necessary to look very far for a great idea. To succeed and make money online, it is enough to be pragmatic to set up a sustainable online business.
However, it is necessary to succeed in a market such as e-commerce, to get ahead and go faster to occupy the field and increase sales.
Profitable e-commerce idea
The idea of profitability is identified with all activities, whatever they are and especially when it comes to a commercial activity. Being profitable is good to know and it would be complex to consider selling without expecting profitability. E-commerce is part of the dynamic economy, where supply and demand are key. We must satisfy an existing demand and especially with more and more demanding consumers, the e-commerce market has all the assets to be profitable.
Note that the benefits and the idea of profitability have made a market that, until one point, was totally unknown, but very flourishing, so much so that sales are valued in billions of dollars. Many concepts such as Black Friday are the proof. E-commerce makes good use of the notion of profitability.
Idea of original business model
Being able to find a business model to launch it on the internet is a real sacrifice for any entrepreneur. Suddenly, the e-commerce stores market is taking off and brings new business concepts and new trends that are very promising. Originality is a factor of success in any business to the point that, for many, e-commerce stores is seen as a way to bring the best ideas and concepts to build and take off their business.
Shopify: conclusion
In the end, the e-commerce business is a very promising market whose achievements have had the merit of certain concepts, ideas, forms, etc. However, e-commerce would not have been so successful if there were no platforms from which online store could be created. One of this excellent platforms is Shopify which according to the completed study report on the number of physical companies using Shopify, the US is leading with more than 274,469 companies.
Shopify has 500,000 merchants in 175 countries selling through its platform, and the e-commerce platform provider had $151.7 million in sales in Q2 2017. Russ Jones, CFO of Shopify, said “We expect the number of merchants on Shopify to continue expanding rapidly and their collective sales volumes to continue to grow at a rate several times that of overall retail”..