There are many options for creating online stores for businesses, but “Shopify” stands out among them.

Shopify is a great platform for businesses of all sizes. A few major companies, like “Red Bull”, “Gymshark” and many more, use Shopify. But this is also a perfect choice for a startup or small business.

Shopify is easy compared to other online store-creating platforms, but it is quite tough for beginners. There are many things one needs to deal with while creating a Shopify store, like setting up an account, designing your store, dealing with taxes, etc. All these can overwhelm a beginner while setting up their Shopify store.

Setting up a Shopify store is easy if you follow one step at a time. By following the simple plan listed below, you can easily set up your online store and start selling.

Before starting the guide, let’s understand the benefits of choosing Shopify as an online website builder.

Setting Up Legal Webpages for Your Online Shopify Store

Legal webpages are important for better user experience and security of your website and user data. Here’s a breakdown of what you need to know.:

Refund Policy

• Clearly outline your return or refund policies.
• Which items can be returned or exchanged.
• Condition of returned and worn-out items.
• The time period for returning items. ( specify the days like,” in between 7 days after delivery”)
• Write clear instructions for initiating returns for customers (i.e., mail, online form)
• Items that are final sale (Non-returnable items).

Privacy Policy

• It explains how you handle and use customer information. Information such as contact details and shipping address how can be used by you.
• It’s a legal requirement and shows you respect the user’s privacy.

Terms of Service

• It outlines the rules the customers need to follow while using your store.
• It prevents misuse of your content and protects it from hackers.

Shipping Policy (It is Optional but Recommended)

• In this policy, information about shipping costs, delivery times, and product shipping regions.
• It tells customers about shipping charges and estimated delivery times.
• It tells about the shipping regions of your item.
• Information about customs duties and taxes.

You can set up these pages easily via the admin panel of your online Shopify store.

Test the Speed of Your Online Shopify Store

Every shopper likes a fast and smooth online Shopify store. Customers are more likely to stay and shop from your website if it loads quickly.

Here’s how you can check the speed of your online Shopify store.:

• Go to the Shopify Admin Panel.
• Click on “online store” then “theme.”
• Scroll down to the end and view page speed in analytics.

This will show how fast your online Shopify store is loading.

What Makes a Shopify Store Slow?

• Consisting of too many apps. Each app adds weight to your store and, as a result, slows it down.
• Bigger sizes of images take longer time to reload.
• Complex and a lot of coding can make your store slow.

Tips to Speed up Your Online Store

• Choose only major utility apps. Don’t use unnecessary apps.
• Optimise your images. Resize your product images without losing their quality.
• Take help from a professional developer. A professional web development agency in India can help you clean the code and make the website run seamlessly.

Tip:- Place the heavy elements at the bottom of your website. Testimonials and product videos can slow down the speed of your online store. Placing them below the online store will help load the top part faster.

Create Your Own Blog on Shopify

Shopify makes it super easy to add a blog to your online Shopify store. Following are the steps to create your own blog in the Shopify store.

• Go to your Admin Panel.
• Click on Blog Posts in your Online Store.
• Create a new blog post. Create a blog title and add further content.
• You can also add pictures and videos to your Shopify store blog.
• Write a short summary of your blog. Keep it attractive and short. This will encourage users to read your blog further.
• Customised blog name. You can create a customised blog name or start it with a News title.
• You can decide to publish or blog now or to schedule it for later.

Why Blogging is Good for Your Online Shopify Store

• It increases traffic on your online store.
• It encourages people to buy products from your website.
• Blogging is a great tool for building a loyal customer base.

What to Blog about?

Many online store owners have trouble finding topics to blog about on their Shopify store. Follow are a few topics for the Shopify online store.

• Write about new products, their utilities, and why people need to buy those products. It is a great way to announce that new products have been added to your store.
• Write reviews about products in your online store. It is better if you can encourage your online store customers to share their reviews after using the product after buying it from your online store.
• Behind-the-scenes articles. Give your customers a peek into the journey of your business. It builds trust and credibility.
• How-to-guides. It is a useful and high-traffic idea. Identify the product that people find hard to utilise and provide a guide on how to use that product.
• Share the latest trends running in your industry.
• Write about special offers. Promote the products that have high discounts.
• Conduct interviews and talk with people who inspire you the most.

Encourage people to comment on your posts, and you need to reply to them. It increases the engagement between the shop owner and customers. Best for building trust and business credibility.

Update Your Store Infoz

What is Metadata?

It’s like writing a short description of your store that will show up in your Google search results.

How to update it in Shopify?

• Go to Admin Panel.
• Click on “online store” and “preferences” to start editing.
• Include a catchy “title” and “description” for every product in your listing.

Why is Metadata Important?

A good quality & engaging meta description encourages viewers to click on your website and explore your online store.

How long does it take to see changes?

It may take a few weeks to see the results by updating your metadata.

Note: Along with metadata, there are many other factors that influence the ranking of your website.

Create Your Shopify Email Address

To keep your customers informed and your team organised, you can set up email notifications in your Shopify store.

Here’s how you can do this.:

• Go to the Shopify online store admin panel.
• Go to the setting and choose general. Click on this to access your store details.
• Update your email address. Set up this email as primary mail, where you’ll receive all your important mail.

What kind of Emails Can You Send

• Order Confirmation. It lets the customer know whether their order is placed or not.
• Shipping confirmation. Let customers know that their order is shipped.
• Reminder emails to customers to let them know that items are left in the cart.
• Marketing emails. Send promotional and discount-related emails to your customers.

Who got these Emails

• Customers — Customers will receive updates about their orders, discounts, promotions, and other things.
• Team members. You can add your team members to receive notifications of orders booked.

Email Customisation

Email customisation requires little coding knowledge. If you aren’t a coder, then connect with a Shopify website developer in India for customisation.

Manage Payments & Taxes on your Shopify Store

• Choose a payment provider. You can choose a reliable payment-accepting gateway, either Paypal, Shopify payment gateway or any other.
• Choose payment types. Decide which payments you’ll accept (Credit card, PayPal, etc).
• Consider multiple currencies. If you sell your items worldwide, then accepting multiple currencies will boost your sales.
• Set up fraud prevention. Prevent your store from fraudulent transactions.
• Enable faster checkout. Make it easier for customers to buy from you by saving their payment and shipping information.

Dealing with Chargebacks

• Have transparent return and refund policies.
• Respond to customer inquiries promptly.
• Ensure the right product description and image.

Setting up Taxes

• Shopify handles taxes. Shopify automatically calculates and collects taxes.
• Check local text laws. Understand the tax laws of the region you’re selling products.

By implementing these changes, you can ensure a secure and smooth payment process for your shopify online store.

Streamline Your Shipping Process

Choose a Shipping Method:

• Decide whether you want to pay for delivery or charge it from customers.
• Pick a reliable career that fits your needs. Shopify works with many shipping companies, such as FedEx, UPS, USPS and more.
• Do your research. Compare prices of similar products in the market sold by other online sellers.
• If you consider dropshipping, then you don’t have to pay for any charges.

Setting up Shipping Rates

• Shopify applies general shipping rates for all products.
• You can create custom rates for fragile items, which require more protection while transporting.
• Group regions and countries which have similar shipping charges.

If you use Shopify Shipping

• It simplifies the shipping process. Shopify’s built-in calculation rate tools, print labels, and track packages.
• Pick the best carrier for shipping by comparing their shipping prices and facilities.

Create Shipping Labels

• While creating shipping labels, include order number, tracking number, shipping date, shipping carrier & service details.
• By understanding these steps, you can create a smooth delivery experience.

Generate your Discount Codes on Shopify Online Store

• Shopify lets you create millions of discount codes. Follow the steps for creating discount codes.
• Go to the Shopify Admin panel.
• Create a new discount code and name it, which customers can use during checkout.
• Choose a suitable discount type like a fixed discount ( like $20 off), percentage type discount (like 20% off), Free shipping (it is also a discount), and lastly, buy one get one free type discount.
• Set the rules, such as whether the discount is applicable to every item or just for a certain type or range of items.
• Set when the discount code will expire and how many times it can be used.
• You can require a minimum purchase amount or other conditions.
• Create discounts that will automatically added to the final price while checking out.

You can create special discount codes for special occasions, such as discounts for festivals, national days and more.

Discount codes are great for limited-time sales, holiday promotions, customer rewards and more. By using discount codes strategically, you can boost sales and attract more clients.