You’ve already gotten a leg up on the competition by selecting an e-commerce platform that is:
- More than 800,000 merchants trust Shopify
- Over $100 billion in sales were processed — yes, BILLION with a “b” (March 2021)
- Over 175 countries use it.
Shopify is a robust platform that can handle almost any task you throw at it, from side hustle to build a brand big enough to compete with the big boys. Shopify is home to the e-stores of some of the world’s most well-known brands, including:
- Budweiser
- The Economist
- New York Times
- Penguin Books
- Tesla Motors
- Red Bull
- Rebecca Minkoff
So you’re already aware that you’re in capable hands. What comes next?
Of course, you’re going to be expanding your store!
You’ll need to get started with a few key admin areas, each with its own set of subsections:
Orders, Products, and Inventory Orders
Orders appear in the Orders section of your Shopify Admin menu after a customer places an order through your store. To keep track of orders you’ve taken outside of Shopify, you can manually create orders for a specific customer.
Abandoned Checkouts Draft Orders
Not everyone who adds an item to their cart goes through the checkout process. This is a fantastic opportunity to use email marketing to persuade them to finish their order.
Products
This is where you can add items to your store. Then 11 major sections require your attention:
- Product Title
- Description
- Images
- Organization
- Collections
- Tags
- Pricing
- Inventory
- Shipping
- Variants
- Search Engine Listing Preview
Inventory
You can use this section of the Products menu to set up inventory tracking, view your current inventory, and adjust your inventory counts. You can also look up the inventory history for a specific product or variant and export or import inventory data using a CSV file.
Transfers
This section allows you to track, receive, and record incoming purchase orders and inventory from vendors.
Collections are a useful Shopify feature that groups products by type and displays them in your store as a category.
Gift Certificates
This is the perfect gift when you don’t know what else to get from someone! In this section, you can add, update, and manage gift cards for your store.
Customers
When customers place an order, their information will be automatically added to this list. You may need to manually create a new customer profile if you want to place an order outside your store (for example, in-person with you).
Marketing
A good marketing strategy will drive more traffic to your store and convert more visitors into paying customers. You don’t have to go it alone with Shopify. On this page, you’ll find some massive built-in marketing campaigns at your fingertips.
Discounts
When you first launch or unveil new products, offering a discount is a great way to entice people to your website.
Apps for Appearance and Content
Shopify apps can help you fine-tune your business operations, integrate with third-party services, and expand the functionality of your Shopify admin.
Themes: The digital layout of your store and website is called a theme, and it determines a lot of the brand’s appearance. Themes for your store can be uploaded, imported, customized, previewed, and edited here.
Pages: You can manage all of your store’s pages here, as well as create new ones.
Articles: Also known as blog posts, are an excellent way to create a community around your products and brand.
Menus: You can customize the menus on your website, including the two default menus that appear on every page: the main menu and the footer menu.
Preferences: This section allows you to enter important search engine details such as a Facebook pixel and your Google Analytics account. Follow the on-screen instructions to link the appropriate accounts.
Settings: This section contains a wealth of helpful information, such as:
General: The “General” section of your website is one of the most important pages, and it contains important information such as your address, timezone, currency, and other details.
Domains: You’ll want to ensure your store is linked to your domain! People will type www.example.com into their browsers to find you; for example, www.example.com. You can buy a domain from various places online.
Taxes: This is where you set up your store’s tax settings. Ensure you know if you have to collect sales tax in your state or country.
Files: Here, you can manage any files that have been uploaded to your site, such as images, fonts, zip files, and so on.
Payment Service Providers: It’s time to GET YOUR MONEY! You can manage and enable payment providers for your store in this section.
Locations: A location is a physical location or an app where you can sell products, ship or fulfill orders, and stock inventory, among other things. Oberlo, for example, will be a location if your store is a dropshipping site that uses Oberlo.
Channels of Distribution: Because it has built-in capability for other online sales channels like Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, and others, Shopify is a wonderfully versatile e-commerce platform. You’ll be able to sell more in more places now! This is where you’ll find a list of all the sales channels you’ve created.
Checkout: The technical aspects of your checkout page, such as customer accounts and order processing details, are covered in this section of your settings.
Are you the account owner, team member, or collaborator? This is where you make your decision.
Shipping: Here you can manage all of your store’s shipping options, such as shipping rates and options, shipping labels, packing slips, and more.
Notifications: Maintaining a consistent brand identity across the entire website is simple with Shopify. The ” Notifications ” panel covers all of your communications with customers, suppliers, and employees.
Legal: There are a few legal issues that must be addressed within your store.
You should also think about your data centers, which provide you with valuable information:
Analytics: Dashboard: The Dashboard is precisely what it sounds like: a one-page overview of sales, orders, and other visitor information.
View in Real-Time: This page gives you a real-time view of what’s going on with your website. There’s a map that shows where the action is coming from and some key metrics that show what’s going on right now.
Reports: This page categorizes data. Depending on your Shopify plan, you’ll be able to access different types of reports.
Conclusion
Starting your own ecommerce company is both exciting and difficult. You’ll learn a lot about selecting a product, evaluating its viability, determining how to get it manufactured, setting up an online store, and quickly marketing and selling to new customers. It may feel like you’re putting together a puzzle, but the end result is still satisfying. You can avoid all of the hard work, from logo creation to online store post-launch, with the help of a Shopify web development company. Everything will be taken care of by them.
We hope that this resource roundup will assist you in better understanding your destination. The best advice anyone can give is to get started and have fun along the way, as is always the case.
