How To Start an Online Store in 2023 (Step-by-Step Guide)

Starting an Online Store: A Guide to Success

Starting an online store can seem like a daunting task, but fear not! With the right tools and guidance, this venture can be both rewarding and profitable. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or a fresh face in the business world, creating an online store will open up new possibilities and allow you to reach a broader audience for your products or services.

Step 1: Finding the Perfect Ecommerce Platform - Your Store's Backbone!

So, you're all set to kickstart your online store adventure in 2023? Exciting times ahead! The very first step on this thrilling journey is choosing the ideal ecommerce platform. Think of it as the backbone of your virtual store, powering your sales, and making order fulfillment a breeze. But hey, it's not just a run-of-the-mill website builder; oh no, it's so much more!

Picture this: you'll not only be able to showcase your amazing products and accept payments online, but you'll also get access to a treasure trove of features. These nifty tools will help you wow your customers with a seamless shopping experience, keep tabs on your inventory like a pro, crunch sales data like a boss, and get your marketing game on point!

Now, here's the deal - take your time and explore the various options out there. Don't rush into things; after all, you're building the foundation for your online success. Look for scalability, top-notch security, user-friendliness, and a good match with your business needs. Get this part right, and you'll be all set to rock the ecommerce world in 2023! Let's do this! ??

Crafting Your Online Selling Space: Understanding the Ecommerce Platform's Vital Role

As you set out to create a website for selling online, envision your ecommerce platform as the heart and soul of your entire business operation. It's your ultimate control center, orchestrating everything from inventory management to marketing strategies, providing you with all the essential tools to sell online seamlessly and deliver top-notch customer support.

Now, let's dive into the key features that you should keep an eye out for when selecting your ideal ecommerce platform:

1. User-Friendly Interface: Especially if you're starting as a DIY enthusiast, simplicity is the key. Look for an ecommerce software that's intuitive and offers a drag-and-drop online store builder. This way, you can effortlessly bring your online store to life without any coding headaches. If you're unsure, scheduling a demo or trying out a free trial can give you hands-on experience.
2. Accessible Customer Support: Support matters! Choose a platform that offers comprehensive assistance throughout your journey. Take Shopify, for instance; they not only help you launch your site and even migrate from another platform but also provide ongoing support. Their support teams are available 24/7 via live chat, email, or phone in 19 different languages - ensuring you're never alone in tackling challenges.
3. Smooth Checkout Experience: The checkout process can make or break a sale. Seek an ecommerce platform that streamlines the checkout process, making it a breeze for customers to complete their purchase. Shopify's Shop Pay, for example, speeds up online checkout by a whopping four times. Additionally, with over 100 payment gateways , you can cater to various payment methods and currencies.
4. Web Hosting: Your ecommerce website needs a cozy home - a web host! This is where your site's information and content reside on a server database, allowing people to access your online store. Some ecommerce software includes built-in web hosting, while others may require a third-party solution.

As you deliberate over the best fit for your ecommerce software, think not only about your current needs but also your future ambitions. While certain platforms may serve you well for now, a robust choice like Shopify can jumpstart your journey quickly and support your growth down the road.

Starting a free trial with Shopify gives you access to professionally designed templates, helping you build an ecommerce store that's ready to launch. Plus, remember that you can always continue refining your store and adding products even after it goes live.

2.Understanding Your Target Audience for Ecommerce Success

Introduction:

In the ever-evolving world of ecommerce, identifying and understanding your target audience is a pivotal factor in the success of your online business. Your marketing efforts should be directed towards a specific group of people who are most likely to be interested in your products or services. By knowing your ideal audience, you can effectively tailor your strategies to attract the right customers, boost conversion rates, and ultimately drive more sales. Let's explore the key aspects of defining your target audience as a new ecommerce entrepreneur.

The Three Main Categories of Target Audience:

1. Demographics:

Demographics encompass essential characteristics of your potential customers, such as age, gender, occupation, education, and income. Understanding these factors helps you create targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with the specific demographics you aim to reach.

2. Location:

Grouping your target audience based on geographic location enables you to serve a particular area more efficiently. Localizing your marketing efforts can be especially beneficial if your products or services cater to specific regional preferences or needs.

3. Interests:

This category revolves around psychographics, which delve into attitudes, personality traits, opinions, and the lifestyle of your audience. Knowing your audience's interests allows you to connect with them on a deeper level and craft marketing messages that align with their values.

Identifying Your Target Audience:

If you already have a product, defining your target audience becomes more straightforward. Start by asking yourself the following questions:

• Who buys my product?
• What are they like?
• What's their age group?
• What are their interests and preferences?

Compiling this information into a buyer persona will provide you with a clear picture of your ideal customers. This buyer persona should be included in your business plan and will serve as a valuable reference when crafting website copy and developing marketing campaigns.

On the other hand, if you're yet to finalize your product, consider focusing on the types of people you understand best. For instance, if you have a profound love for pets and have a good understanding of pet owners in their 40s and 50s, you might consider making them your target audience. Your familiarity with their likes, dislikes, needs, and fears will be a great asset in tailoring your offerings to meet their expectations.

The Importance of Knowing Your Audience:

To succeed in selling online, it is crucial to genuinely know and appreciate your target audience. By understanding their needs, preferences, and pain points, you can develop products and services that truly resonate with them. This customer-centric approach fosters loyalty and encourages word-of-mouth referrals, which can be invaluable for growing your ecommerce business.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, determining your target audience is a fundamental step towards achieving ecommerce success. By segmenting your potential customers based on demographics, location, and interests, you can create focused marketing strategies that yield higher conversion rates and increased sales.

Remember, understanding your target audience goes beyond merely identifying them – it involves empathizing with their desires and challenges. When you genuinely connect with your audience and offer them valuable solutions, your ecommerce venture is bound to thrive in the competitive digital landscape.

Discovering Profitable Products: Unraveling the Challenge

Entrepreneurs often encounter the daunting task of identifying lucrative products for their ventures. Generating product ideas can be perplexing, but targeting a specific audience puts you ahead in the game. Fortunately, several avenues open doors to profitable products, whether through manufacturing, reselling, or dropshipping.

Exploring the Possibilities:

1. Appeal to Enthusiastic Hobbyists: Tap into niche markets that boast passionate hobbyists. These dedicated enthusiasts present untapped potential for your products' success.
2. Follow Your Personal Passion: Align your offerings with your genuine interests. Passion fuels dedication and authenticity, resonating with like-minded customers.
3. Capitalize on Trends: Early recognition of emerging trends paves the way for substantial growth. Stay vigilant and adapt swiftly to evolving consumer demands.
4. Monitor Online Marketplaces: Online platforms provide valuable insights into trending products. Keep an eye on these marketplaces to identify lucrative opportunities.

By embracing an analytical approach, you can uncover the most promising products and steer your business towards lasting prosperity.

Setting Up Your Shopify Account

1. Start the Free Trial: Begin your journey by initiating a free trial on Shopify. During the signup process, you'll be prompted to choose a store name, which will serve as your default URL (e.g., storename.myshopify.com). Don't fret too much about the name now, as you can always purchase a custom domain (e.g., yourstore.com) later on.
2. Get Inside Your Shopify Account: After completing the necessary information, you'll find yourself inside your very own Shopify account, where the magic of designing your store unfolds.

Preparing for the Design Process

Before diving into the design, make sure you have the following essentials ready:

1. Business Idea: If you already have a business idea, fantastic! For illustration purposes, let's consider the example of a store named "Kinda Hot Sauce." This virtual store caters to the semi-adventurous, offering a delectable range of mild hot sauces. If you're still exploring ideas, you can explore our list of small business ideas for inspiration.
2. Business Name and Domain: I used https://namechk.com Or https://namelix.com to verify the availability of my business name on social media and as a domain I Would Recommended https://www.namecheap.com . To maintain consistency, I selected "kindahotsauce.shop" as the domain. If you're unsure about naming your store, Shopify's free domain name generator or our domain name selection guide can be incredibly helpful.

1. Logo: A striking logo is essential for branding. For the "Kinda Hot Sauce" store, I collaborated with a designer to craft a clever, mischievous, bold, and spicy logo, with a touch of humor suitable for a mild hot sauce brand. Make sure you have your logo in a .png format with a transparent background for easy resizing without compromising quality. You can create your own logo following our guide or employ a designer for assistance.
2. Product Photos: High-quality product photography is crucial for showcasing your offerings effectively. Utilize mockups of your hot sauce bottles against a clean white background, and include lifestyle imagery with stock photos to complement your brand. If budget is a concern, you can take product photos using a smartphone camera or access free stock photos temporarily until you can arrange custom lifestyle photos.

With these essentials in hand, you are now well-prepared to embark on the exciting journey of designing your online store. Utilize Shopify's user-friendly interface and powerful tools to create an impressive, customer-centric ecommerce platform that will leave a lasting impact on your visitors.

Step-by-Step Guide to Adding Products

1. Access Your Shopify Store: As you launch your new Shopify store, navigate to "Products" and then select "Add product" to initiate the process of creating your first product listing.
2. Product Details and Decisions: On this page, you'll encounter several important decisions to make. Let's break them down into manageable steps:
3. a. Product Name: Enter the name of your product. Ensure it is descriptive and attention-grabbing, resonating with your target audience.
4. b. Description: Provide a compelling and informative description of your product. Highlight its key features, benefits, and any unique selling points that set it apart.
5. c. Images: Upload high-quality images of your product that showcase it from various angles. Clear, appealing visuals will attract customers and encourage them to make a purchase.
6. d. Pricing: Determine the appropriate price for your product. Consider factors such as production costs, competitor pricing, and your desired profit margin.
7. e. Inventory: Set the stock quantity of the product. This helps you manage your inventory effectively and prevents overselling.
8. f. Shipping: Specify the product's weight and dimensions for accurate shipping calculations. Decide on the shipping options and rates you will offer to customers.
9. g. Variants (if applicable): If your product comes in different options, such as sizes or colors, create variants for each option. This allows customers to select their preferred choice.
10. h. Tags: Assign relevant tags to your product, making it easier for customers to find it through search filters.
11. i. Visibility: Choose whether to make the product visible on your online store or keep it hidden until you are ready for its launch.
12. Save and Preview: Once you have filled in all the necessary details, click "Save product" to add it to your store. Before finalizing, take advantage of the "Preview" option to see how your product listing will appear to customers.
13. Continue Adding Products: Repeat the process for each product you wish to sell. Ensure consistency in product presentation and descriptions to maintain a cohesive shopping experience for your customers.

UPLOAD PRODUCT PHOTOS OR OTHER MEDIA

In the?Media?section of your product page, you can upload any visual media that helps you share richer details about your products: photos, GIFs,?videos , or even 3D models.?

Presentation makes all the difference. Help customers imagine owning your product. Help them see it in action or proudly displayed in their space. Here are a few points to remember:

• Use high-quality photos that put your products in the best light. Avoid blurry or low-resolution images.
• Try to maintain the same aspect ratio (i.e., the ratio between the width and height) across your product photos so that all your photos appear the same size. This consistency creates a cleaner, more professional appearance when you create your online store.

• If you’re on a budget, most modern smartphones are capable of shooting high-quality product photos and you can use?free photo editing tools ?to touch them up (like?removebg , which lets you remove the background for free).?
• After uploading an image, you can click on it to perform basic edits, such as cropping and resizing. You can also edit the Alt Text for accessibility to describe your photos to people who cannot see them. For example, I’ve written “a 150 ml bottle of Hot Enough Habanero by Kinda Hot Sauce” to help anyone with a visual impairment shop with me.

SET YOUR PRICE

Now it's time to set the listing price for your product. This is what customers will pay to buy your product.

Optionally, you can use the?Compare at price?field to communicate what the product would typically cost, especially in the case of a sale. For example, if we wanted to show savings on buying our hot sauce three-pack, we could enter the original price of three bottles here. However, I caution against using this without good reason, especially if you’re selling premium products, as it could cheapen their perceived quality.

The?Cost per item?field is also optional. If you like, you can use it to track your profit margin for an individual product. On the?Shopify plan ?or higher, this lets you track profit in your?profit report .

While there are some exceptions, businesses that sell goods and services have to collect taxes each time someone orders from them, so we’ll check that box and configure our tax settings later.?

To keep it simple, we’ll assume that my per-product cost, or the cost to produce and package one bottle, is $5. If I sell each bottle for $15, I’ll be making a healthy margin that leaves some room for discounts and marketing.

In reality, pricing is rarely so straightforward. Several variables can influence?how you price your products , such as shipping costs, raw materials, overhead like rent or employees, the cost of your time, and, perhaps most important, the perceived quality of your products.

INVENTORY

If we were?dropshipping ?or using a?print-on-demand service , we wouldn’t need to track inventory. But since Kinda Hot Sauces makes, sells, and ships its own hot sauce, we want to keep track of inventory in Shopify to know how much we have left of each sauce and how much more we need to produce as orders start coming in.

If it’s your first time selling online, you might see a few unfamiliar terms here, so we’ll quickly run through them.

• SKU.?A stock keeping unit is used to track and manage your inventory for specific products and variants. Create a consistent system using numbers or letters that makes it easy for you to identify what the exact item is at a glance (e.g., MHS-HEH tells me it’s the medium hot sauce, Hot Enough Habanero).?
• Barcode.?Barcodes (UPC, GTIN, etc.) are typically used if you’re reselling products or eventually want to add scannable barcodes to your items for easier?inventory management . We can leave this blank for now since we’re making and selling our own products.
• Quantity.?This is how much of a specific product you have on hand. If you have multiple locations holding inventory and have them set up in Shopify, they’ll display here. In the case of my example, I’m starting out with a small batch of 10 bottles for each hot sauce and using my own space to hold inventory.

Since it doesn’t take long to make more of my product, I can turn on “Continue selling when out of stock.” But you can turn this option off and mark items as “Sold out” if your inventory is limited or it takes longer to replenish your supply.

SHIPPING

In the shipping section, you’ll enter details that will automatically calculate shipping rates and print the appropriate shipping labels for each order.

For my Kinda Hot Sauce store, we’ll check “This a physical product” and enter the following information:

• Weight.?The weight of one bottle on its own. I'm going to enter 0.5 pounds.
• Customs information.?This is important if you plan to sell internationally. We’ll put “Canada,” since Kinda Hot Sauce is made in and shipped from Canada, and use the search bar to find the Harmonized System code for condiments, which is 21309.

Setting the actual shipping costs and options that you’ll offer to your customers will come later on in this tutorial.

OPTIONS

I’m not going to be setting up options for my products, but I still want to cover how to use Shopify to do this—since many Shopify store owners do.

If your product comes with different variants, like sizes or colors, instead of adding each one as its own product, you can simply add them as variants of the same product. Each option can have its own image, price, tracked inventory, and individual settings associated with it.

You can even drill down further on your options, for example, offering multiple colors that each come in different sizes.

When you add variants to your product and hit Save to refresh the page, the?Media,?Pricing,?Inventory, and?Shipping?sections we covered above will need to be set for each specific variant.?

Since our product comes in one size and doesn’t have any variants, we’ll leave this section alone. If you’re selling distinct variants of the same product, however, be sure to edit each variant with the appropriate product page information.?

ORGANIZATION AND PRODUCT AVAILABILITY

In the Organization section, you can label your products to help group them together and make it easier to manage your store’s product catalog, curate products for customers to shop, and apply rules or discounts to specific products. Here’s what each label means:

• Product availability:?You can choose from a multitude of sales channels, like Facebook Shops or Amazon, to list your products on, which we’ll go into later. For now, just make sure your product is available in the Online store or it will be hidden.
• Product type:?This is a product category that you can use to identify certain products (e.g., a t-shirt). Each product can have only one product type. We’ll just use “hot sauce.”?
• Vendor:?This is the manufacturer, wholesaler, or third-party vendor for the product. You can filter your product list by vendor, which can speed up ordering inventory. Kinda Hot Sauce is the manufacturer, so we’ll list it as the vendor.
• Tags:?Tags are keywords that you can associate with your product. You can add multiple tags to a product to help customers find it through your online store’s search bar. You can also use tags to automate actions in your store, like adding a product with a specific tag to a specific collection. I’m going to leave this blank since I don’t have any reason to use tags yet.
• Collections:?Collections are important. They let you organize and curate your products for specific purposes and audiences. For example, an apparel brand could create a collection based on products for women, products for men, a summer sale, or new arrivals. The same product can be included in multiple collections. We’ll be setting up our collections after we’ve added more products.

SEARCH ENGINE LISTING PREVIEW

The search engine listing preview is where you can customize how a page appears in search engine results. It’s also where you can improve the discoverability of your products through search engines like Google.?

If you know what keywords your target customer is using to search for products like yours, you can work them into this section to increase your odds of showing up in search engine results over time.?

I used?Ubersuggest , a free keyword research tool, to gauge how often people search for keywords related to my products. I spotted “habanero sauce” (5,400 searches a month) and “mild hot sauce” (590 searches a month) and “medium hot sauce” (50 searches a month) as keywords I may want to work into my product page.

We’ll go into more depth about SEO later, but here are some quick tips for optimizing this section in the meantime:

• Page title.?Write your page title so it includes your target keywords while still being short and descriptive enough to click on. I’m going to focus on “medium hot sauce,” since it’s the most relevant to this product. Aim for under 60 characters if you can so your title doesn’t get cut off in search results. I’ll be using “Hot Enough Habanero | Medium Hot Sauce” as my page title.
• Description.?Use this space to surface any compelling information that might persuade searchers to click through when they see a link to your product in search results or on social media. I try to keep it short and sweet while expanding on the information presented in my page title.
• URL and handle.?Keep this simple, unique, and meaningful for people who are using search engines to find your product. I’ll be using “/hot-enough-habanero,”

Once we’re done, we can hit Save and preview our product page to see what it looks like. We can change the little details, like colors and fonts, later on when we start customizing our store.?

You can repeat this for each product you want to add to your store, while keeping in mind that you don’t need to add all your products in order to launch.

ORGANIZING YOUR PRODUCTS INTO COLLECTIONS

Now that we have at least a few individual products listed, we can start organizing them into collections under?Product > Collections ?in Shopify.

Collections can be created to curate products to target a specific audience (e.g., products for children), a theme (e.g., bestsellers), or product category (e.g., accessories). You can decide if you want to manually add products to certain collections or automate what gets included/excluded based on price, tags, or other conditions.

Collections serve a variety of purposes, such as:?

• Pulling certain products that you want to display in a section on your homepage?
• Linking to collections of products in your navigation or on your homepage to help different audiences quickly navigate your catalog
• Curating items you want to put on sale (you can apply discounts to specific collections of products)

For now, I’ll be creating a collection for our medium hot sauces. That’s because I want to only include my three individual hot sauce products, while excluding the three-pack bundle. This way, I can show off the individual flavors and highlight the bundle separately.?

I’m going to fill out the collection title and description based on how I want to greet visitors when they land on this collection page. The search engine preview can be filled out using the same best practices we followed for the product pages. You can also set a collection image, which will be pulled to represent your collection when we get into customizing the look-and-feel step of making an online store.

Create online shopping key pages for your store

So far, we’ve focused on products. But you need more than just products when you create your own online shopping website. It needs to help shoppers understand your business, give them reasons to trust you, and make other essential details available to customers who are looking for them.

You can create most of these pages under?Online Store > Pages .

You don’t need to have all your pages ready for launch, but some of the most helpful ones to create include:

• Contact page . This page gives customers clear ways to reach you if they have questions or points them to a place to find answers, such as an FAQ page.
• About page . An About page connects personally with customers, explains your business model, and/or shares the reason you started your business. A persuasive About page can go a long way in earning trust for new brands—keep this in mind when you create your online store.
• FAQ page . A frequently asked questions page helps alleviate some of the more common customer support inquiries.?
• Policy pages.?There are certain legal pages customers expect and that can help protect you in case of disputes, such as your?return policy ?and privacy policy, that you can set up under?Settings > Legal .

To create our online shop, and for the purposes of this tutorial, we’ll go over how to create an About page (called “Our Story”), a Contact page, and essential policy pages (Privacy Policy, Shipping Policy, and Terms of Service), but you can create whatever pages you think will help you earn your customers’ trust.

ABOUT PAGE

About pages ?are a great way to embrace the “small” in small business and earn trust as a new merchant as you create your online shop.

You can have a video introducing yourself as a founder, links to awards and press mentions, images that explain your supply chain, or anything that helps this page tell your customers who you are and what you’re about.

For Kinda Hot Sauce, we’ll make an online store with a simple About page, written like a letter to the customer that explains our philosophy and our reason for starting the business.?

When someone visits my store and they’re not quite sold on making a purchase, I want them to be met with an endearing and heartfelt message if they choose to visit my About page to learn more.

Since we’ll be relying mostly on text, I’ll use the formatting options available in the toolbar to make the copy more eye-catching.

Just like you did for your products, you should also customize the?Search engine listing preview?section of your pages based on what you want the URL to be and how you want the page to appear in search engine results.

CONTACT PAGE

Your?Contact page ?is what customers will look for to ask a question or get support.

Most Shopify themes let you create one easily. Simply create a new page, go to the?Template?section on the right side, and choose the Contact template. This should add a form to your page. You can then write some instructions to help customers get in touch or even link out to other pages, like an FAQ, to help shoppers troubleshoot their own problems first.

There are also?live chat apps ?you can install to make support even more accessible to shoppers.

POLICY PAGES

Policy pages are standard practice for online businesses. They give your customers a place to understand how you conduct your business and what to expect from you. They also help protect you in case of a customer dispute.

Under?Settings > Legal ?in Shopify, you’ll be able to generate templates that you can customize according to your business and local laws:

• Return policy.?What’s your policy regarding?returns and exchanges ? How long do customers have to initiate a return? What condition does the product need to be in? A generous return policy can help customers buy from you with confidence.
• Privacy policy.?A privacy policy describes how you collect information about your customers.
• Terms of service.?Your terms of service policy is an agreement between you and your customers outlining how you will operate and what rights you reserve.
• Shipping policy.?A shipping policy helps you set customer expectations around shipping costs, manufacturing times, and delivery speeds for the regions you ship to.

3. Make an online store that’s completely customized

Now that we’ve got some products in our store and some pages ready to go, it’s time to head over to?Online Store > Themes ?in Shopify and start thinking about what we want our website to look like.

CHOOSE A THEME

The first step is to choose a theme: a template we install in our store that we can use as a starting point for design as you build your own online store. The?Shopify Theme Store ?is home to both free and paid themes, each with its own set of styles and features.?

Some themes were made for larger product catalogs, while others are for single-product businesses. Others are made for certain industries or types of businesses, such as the?Express theme ?for restaurants.

Here are some key points to consider when?choosing the perfect theme ?for building your own store:

• Each theme comes with multiple styles, so be sure to shop around for a theme and style based on how large your product catalog will be and the kind of aesthetic you want for your store. You want to create the online shopping you’ve envisioned.
• Consider whether the theme you’re looking at has any built-in features you need, like a search bar that auto-completes queries or a section that displays press mentions. Keep in mind that you can also find free and paid?Shopify apps ?that add additional functionality when you create your store website.
• Don’t pick a theme based on colors or fonts. These are all things you can customize later. You can even make your theme truly unique by hiring a Shopify Expert to customize it for you.
• You can try out a paid theme before you purchase it for a one-time fee.
• Above all, keep in mind that you are not stuck with the theme you pick. If you change your mind later, you can preview other themes, install them in your current store, and customize them without having to recreate your product pages.?

After playing around with a few free themes like?Debut ?and?Narrative , I narrowed it down to?Brooklyn (Playful style) , because Kinda Hot Sauce has a small product line and doesn’t require many features to launch on the right foot. I like the modern layout of the product grid, the simplicity of the navigation menu, and the emphasis Brooklyn puts on visual branding.

DESIGN YOUR HOMEPAGE

Each theme is made up of sections that you can rearrange, add, remove, or temporarily hide. Sections can help you decide on the presentation of your store’s homepage and try out different layouts.

When?determining your homepage design , think about the goals a homepage needs to accomplish and determine how they apply to your specific business:

• Prioritize first-time visitors and help them quickly understand what your business is and what you sell.
• Accommodate returning visitors and make it easy for them to navigate to the products and pages they’re looking for.
• Try to build interest in your products and trust in your business with every scroll.
• Create clear paths for your visitors to take based on their intent to purchase. You might highlight an About Us page for people who want to learn more about your business, or your various collections to let visitors self-select the products they’re interested in.
• Design your homepage with the assumption that many of your visitors will be browsing it on their mobile devices.?

You will revisit and rework your homepage over time. Don’t let the pursuit of perfection keep you from moving forward with your launch.

For Kinda Hot Sauce, I’m going to use these sections to do the following:

1. Slideshow?(with a single slide) to capture interest immediately with clever copy that explains why this isn’t your typical hot sauce brand. “Not the World’s Hottest Hot Sauce” breaks expectations while communicating what my brand is about with the tagline, “Spice that’s nice.” I’ve also added an overlay and increased the overlay opacity to ensure my text is legible when it displays over my image.
2. Featured collection?to showcase the three different hot sauces in the Medium Hot Sauce collection I made earlier. I’ll expand on the impression made in the slideshow with a bold statement about my products: “Delicious hot sauce doesn’t have to be deadly.”
3. Image with text?to sum up my brand’s positioning and surface my store’s reason for being with a link to its About page. I’m going to use my logo as my image for now, but you could use a photo of you, the founder, or an image that represents your brand well.
4. Newsletter?to entice people to join my?email list . Not everyone who visits my store will be ready to buy. By offering them a reason to opt in to my email list (mildly spicy recipes, in this case) I can build my email list when I start driving traffic to my store.
5. Featured product?to highlight my three-pack hot sauce bundle (and the savings they’ll get) to uncertain customers. I put this last to offer one final path to purchase for customers who scroll to the end of my homepage without clicking anything.?

In the future, however, I could expand my homepage to include a section that explains exactly how hot “hot enough” is, or a blog post gallery sharing recipes that involve my hot sauces. I won’t know for sure if the decisions I make on my homepage are the right ones until I start marketing, but I feel good about this layout.

As you design your own homepage, prioritize information ruthlessly. Less is usually more. Instead of trying to cram as much as you can onto your homepage, direct visitors to supporting pages that help sell them further on your business or explain non-essential information.

CUSTOMIZE YOUR NAVIGATION MENUS

The?Header?section is where you’ll make changes to the topmost area of your online store, which includes your navigation menu, cart, and logo.

We’ll focus mostly on creating a clear navigation menu, as this is how people will find their way around your website.

There are three main forms of navigation you can set up in the header section:?

• Main navigation.?This is the top menu where you can prioritize the main navigation paths you want to offer customers.?
• Footer navigation.?This is where you keep links to non-essential pages that might distract new visitors but still need to be available for those who need to find them. Most online shoppers will know to look here for information like your return policy or Contact page.?
• Search.?You can enable the search bar in the header to help visitors directly navigate to what they’re looking for. This is especially useful if you have a large catalog of products and many pages on your website.

You don’t want to overwhelm people with too many options from the get-go. Instead, you can organize your navigation to prioritize the actions you?want?visitors to take—with a focus on shopping, of course.

For Kinda Hot Sauce, I’m going to create a simple navigation structure where I:

• Surface my medium hot sauce Collection and three-pack bundle under the homepage with a?Featured Collection?section.
• Nestle my Our Story page with an?Image with text?section.
• Include a bestselling product using a?Featured product?section.

I’ll also be creating another menu for my?Footer?to surface my non-essential policy pages at the bottom section of my website.

SET YOUR COLORS, TYPOGRAPHY, AND OTHER THEME SETTINGS

Colors and typography play a big role in your brand’s visual identity and should be a top consideration when you build your own online store. Under the Theme Settings tab in the online store editor, you’ll be able to customize the look and feel of your overall online store, including colors and typography.

Even if you’re not a designer, you can still build your own store and pick font and color pairings you feel good about using the following tips:

For colors

• Consider the?psychology of color ?and how different colors make people feel (e.g., red makes people feel hungry, yellow suggests safety, and purple can have a royal quality to it).
• Use contrast to highlight important features of your homepage, such as buttons.
• Use a tool like?Coolors ?to cycle through different color palettes to find colors you like and their associated hex code.
• Don’t be afraid to go with your gut or just keep it simple if you’re in doubt (even if it’s just a basic black and white color scheme).

I came up with the following color palette for Kinda Hot Sauce because I want it to look bold and colorful. I probably won’t end up using all of them, but I have enough to mix and match to find a combination I like:

• #392B58
• #FF0035
• #F7EE7F
• #654597
• #574AE2

Typography

• Try to pick two fonts (a maximum of three) to use across your store.?
• Choose a body font that is easy to read (sans serif fonts like Helvetica are generally easier to scan on a screen).
• Use a tool like?FontJoy ?to experiment with different font pairings.?

For our store, we’ll be keeping it simple with two fonts:

• Headings: Lora
• Accent text: Roboto
• Body text: Roboto

Tip ??:?While you’re in your Theme Settings, you can set a?Favicon?(usually your logomark), which is the icon that will display in browser tabs, bookmarks, and other locations. If you look at the tab of this page, you’ll see the Shopify logo. That’s our favicon.

CUSTOMIZE YOUR CHECKOUT?

Under?Theme Settings, you can also customize the look of your checkout. At the very least, it’s a good idea to add your logo to your checkout to give it a branded feel.

If you need to, you can also customize how your checkout works by clicking through to your checkout settings (or going to?Settings > Checkout ).

Here’s a quick rundown of the choices you can make regarding your checkout:

• Customer accounts.?You can choose whether you want customers to create an account at checkout. This can be useful if you’re running a wholesale or members-only store. We’ll be disabling it for our store since we don’t want to introduce unnecessary friction to our checkout experience.
• Customer contact.?You can let customers choose how they want to be contacted by you after placing an order (email or SMS text messages). I’ll select “Customers can only check out with email” for now to keep it simple and focus on building an email list I can market to.
• Form options.?Here you can decide whether extra information like a first name or company name is hidden, optional, or required at checkout. Since we don’t need all this information to fulfill every order for Kinda Hot Sauce, I’m going to make most of them optional.?
• Order processing.?You can find options to streamline the ordering process or add an additional confirmation step. To save customers some time, we’ll use the customer’s shipping address as the billing address by default and enable autocomplete for addresses.
• Marketing consent.?Let customers subscribe to your marketing emails and SMS at checkout. Since we want to connect with customers after they purchase, it’s a good idea to toggle these on.?
• Tipping.?You can let customers add a tip to their online purchase to show support for your business.
• Abandoned checkouts.?When a customer reaches your checkout and decides not to complete their purchase (this can happen for any number of reasons), you can set up an automated reminder email for these shoppers. We’ll set up our automated email to go out 10 hours after someone abandons their checkout, while our store is still fresh in their minds and they may have more time to reconsider their purchase.?

When in doubt, prioritize choices that reduce the friction of checking out for the majority of your customers.

ASK FOR FEEDBACK

Feedback is a gift, especially when you’ve been spending so much time working to create your own online shopping website. Fresh eyes can often spot areas to improve that you don’t and provide invaluable insights you can use to make tweaks to your store.

By default, your store is password protected, but you can give people the password to check it out. You can find your password (or change it) under?Online Store > Preferences .

Some other great places to go for feedback include:

• People close to you who you can rely on to give honest, constructive feedback
• Subreddits that your target customers may subscribe to
• Facebook groups
• The Shopify Community’s?Feedback on my store forum

When I shared Kinda Hot Sauce for feedback, the following areas were mentioned to focus on for improvement:?

• The copywriting on my product pages could be more focused on who my brand is for (responsible hot sauce lovers).
• A few people mentioned how “charming” the About page was and how it made them want to buy from this business. I could carry that charisma into the rest of my copywriting and campaigns when I start marketing.

Take both the good and the bad with a grain of salt as you incorporate feedback into your store. The best form of feedback you’ll get is when you start actively marketing your business.

4. Set up shipping

Shipping can be one of the most complex considerations involved in running an?ecommerce business . Between product weights, packaging costs, shipping destinations, carrier rates, and your potential profit per order, there are a lot of variables to juggle.

Luckily, we can boil it down to a few main approaches, which you can even blend together, depending on the unique needs of your business, to find a shipping strategy that works for you:

1. Offer free shipping.?Free shipping can be an effective incentive for customers to shop with you, whether it’s applied to certain products, order amounts (e.g., if they spend over $50), or regions of the world. Keep in mind that you will need to factor this into the retail price of your products if you plan on absorbing the cost of shipping on behalf of your customers.
2. Charge real-time carrier rates.?Shopify integrates in real time with various carriers like USPS and Canada Post to generate shipping options and live pricing. This allows your customers to choose the exact service and price they want. You can take advantage of discounted rates through?Shopify Shipping .
3. Charge a flat rate.?Flat-rate shipping works best when your products have similar sizes and weights, making actual shipping expenses easier to predict.
4. Offer local pickup/delivery.?You can also give local customers the option to pick up their online order at one of your locations, setting specific notification settings, pickup instructions, and other details for each location.

For more advice on creating a shipping strategy, you can read our?Beginner’s Guide to Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment . Remember that, like most of what we’ve done so far, this is something you can revisit and adjust over time.

For Kinda Hot Sauce, since it’s located in Canada, we’re going to set up our shipping in the following way to illustrate some of the various approaches you can take:

• An $8 flat rate to ship to Canada and the US
• Free shipping to Canada/the US when you spend $30 or more
• Real-time carrier rates for the rest of the world

About Shopify Shipping:?With?Shopify Shipping , you can get discounted rates, print shipping labels in Shopify, and manage order fulfillment, all in one place.

Setting up our shipping zones

You can implement your shipping strategy under?Settings > Shipping and delivery ?in Shopify. Here, you’ll be able to create shipping zones where you can set your rates for shipping to customers in certain countries.

Setting conditional shipping rates

Within the shipping zone we just created, we can use the?Add rate?button to create specific rates based on certain conditions. For example, we can offer free shipping based on the condition that an order reaches a certain value threshold. Or we can increase the shipping rate if the order exceeds a certain weight.?

Generally, you can save time and money on shipping while making more per sale by encouraging customers to add more items to their order. So we’ll use free shipping on orders over $30 (two bottles of hot sauce or the three-pack bundle) as an incentive for customers to spend more.

Setting up real-time calculated shipping rates

Real-time shipping rates are based on the shipping details you entered when adding your products and package dimensions on the?Settings > Shipping?page. Customers can then choose their preferred service and rate at checkout.?

You can also adjust these rates to include a handling fee to account for extra costs, like packaging or your time, on top of the courier service’s rates.?

5. Set up taxes

As a business that sells goods or services, you have to collect taxes to send to the government each time someone orders from your store (some exceptions apply, such as for digital goods in many jurisdictions).

Shopify will help you automatically handle most tax calculations using default sales tax rates around the world. Even so, it’s a good idea to conduct some research or ask a tax professional to ensure you’re charging the correct amount of sales tax.?

You can override the default tax settings if there are specific requirements for your region, such as taxes for specific products or for shipping.?

Go to?Settings > Taxes and Duties ?in Shopify to set up your tax regions. Here, you can edit the default rates, if you like, or apply overrides if specific conditions are applicable in your region or to your products.?

Since Kinda Hot Sauce operates in Canada, we’ll set up our default tax rates for Canada. If you have a tax number, you can enter it here or you can do so later. You’ll be able to see how much tax you’ve collected under?Analytics > Reports .

None of this should be taken as tax advice and you should consult with a tax professional if you’re uncertain about your tax situation. Shopify doesn’t file or remit your sales taxes for you.?

5. Connect a payment gateway

We’re in the final stretch! Next up is deciding your store’s payment methods and how you, as a store owner, will get paid.

Go to?Settings > Payments ?to set up your payment provider. Shopify has made it easy to start accepting all major forms of payment with Shopify Payments.

As long as you operate your business in one of the?supported countries ?and aren’t considered a?prohibited business , you can activate Shopify Payments in just one click and pay 0% in extra transaction fees. You can also choose from over 100 third-party payment providers here or offer your customers additional payment options, such as PayPal.

In my case, I’ll?Complete Account Setup?for Shopify Payments by entering my business and banking information. I can also?Manage?my settings for Shopify Payments and do things like:

• Choose the payment options I want to offer, like different credit cards (e.g., Visa), and accelerated one-click payment options like Apple Pay and?Shop Pay . Shop Pay is Shopify's one-click payment option that lets any customer of any store with Shop Pay enabled save their payment information for future purchases.
• Sell in multiple currencies, which will automatically convert your prices into the customer’s currency if you enable it. Since we’re selling mostly in Canada and the US, we’ll add the US dollar and the Canadian dollar to our enabled currencies.
• Set your payout schedule. You can receive your payout daily, weekly, or monthly—it all depends on your preferences when it comes to your cash flow.
• Toggle extra fraud prevention measures such as CVV and postal/ZIP code verification to add an extra layer of security.
• Customize how you appear on your customer’s bank statements. We’ll use KINDAHOTSAUCE to make our brand recognizable to customers.

The currency you sell your products in can be set under?Settings > General . I'm going to be selling in US dollars since it will be familiar for both US and Canadian customers.

6. Choose a business structure

Now you’ve finished all the fun parts of starting an online store: choosing your name, building your site, finding products, writing product descriptions. But before you launch, you want to make your new business legal.?

While it’s not the most fun part, incorporating your business is a must. A legal entity recognized by the government also protects your personal assets if something goes wrong. It also helps you:

• Potentially receive a lower tax bill
• Secure business funding more easily
• Create retirement plans
• Separate credit rating from your personal score

Common business structures for new business owners include:

• Sole proprietorship.?An unincorporated business without legal distinction between the company and the individual running it. It qualifies as a non-employer business and is the most straightforward to set up and manage. About?40% of small business owners ?have a non-employer business as their main source of income.
• Partnership.?A partnership is a single business with two or more owners. Each owner contributes to the business via funding, property, labor, or skill. Partners share responsibility and profits.?
• Limited liability corporation (LLC).?An LLC is a hybrid business structure that combines partnership with the liability protection found in corporations.

To learn more about the best business structure for you, read?Types of Businesses: Which Legal Structure Is Right for Your New Venture?

7. Get your store ready for launch

With all the work we’ve done so far, we could actually launch our store now if we wanted to. We would just?disable the password protection ?under?Online Store > Preferences, which is the final step to flip the open sign and let people in to start buying our products.?

In fact, if you’re in a rush to go live, you could skip some or all the following steps and revisit them later when you have time.?

But in this tutorial, I’m going to ensure that my store not only makes a strong first impression and offers a smooth customer experience at launch, but is also in a good place for me to start marketing.

That said, here are the final steps we’ll be going over:?

1. Adding a custom domain
2. Installing relevant sales channels
3. Customizing your email/SMS notifications (Optional)?
4. Setting up your store for marketing (tracking and analytics)

Adding a custom domain

Buying a domain is like claiming land on the web. That’s why it’s called a “web address.”

A custom domain is a fully branded URL that replaces the default URL that was created based on the store name you chose at setup (e.g., you could buy yourstore.com to replace yourstore.myshopify.com as your public URL).

Under?Settings > Domains?you can buy your domain directly through Shopify in a matter of seconds, or you can transfer your domain from another registrar and?connect it to your store .?

Since the .com is taken, I’ll be buying the .shop extension for KindaHotSauce through Shopify.?KindaHotSauce.shop ?is now my store's URL.

Installing relevant sales channels

One of the advantages of learning how to use Shopify to power your business is that your online store is just one of many?sales channels ?you can use to sell your products. You can create online shopping in a variety of places, selling your products to additional sales channels to meet your customers where they are, all while keeping track of your products, inventory, and reporting in the same Shopify account so you always know what’s going on in your business.

While you don’t need to connect all of them right away to create your online store, it’s good to have them in mind when you’re ready to explore new ways to get your products in front of the right shoppers.

Not every sales channel will be relevant for your unique business, but here are some that are worth highlighting:

• Shopify POS.?Our?point-of-sale solution ?for accepting in-person payments and easily syncing physical retail sales with your online Shopify store and inventory.
• Social networks.?You can sell your products through a?Facebook Shop ?on your Facebook page,?product tags in your Instagram posts , Pinterest, and more.
• Marketplaces.?Many shoppers start their purchasing journey on marketplaces like Rakuten or?eBay .
• Google & YouTube app.?Google is the most popular search engine in the world. With the?Google & YouTube app , you can run Google Shopping campaigns and list your products for free in the?Shopping tab in Google ?search results.?
• Buy Button.?If you have an existing website or blog where you want to sell your products, you can?install the Buy Button ?sales channel to embed your products onto another webpage, allowing customers to purchase them and check out there. You can even create checkout links to send directly to a customer and have them jump straight to checkout.

You can quickly add sales channels by clicking the arrow button next to Sales channels and typing the channel you'd like to add. You can also view our?full list of sales channels ?in the Shopify App Store. Then, on your Product pages under?Product Availability, you can choose which products are available on which sales channels.

I’ll be considering the Facebook and Instagram channels for sure, since a brand like Kinda Hot Sauce will rely heavily on social media marketing.

Customizing your email notifications (optional)

Shopify comes with a series of ready-to-use automated email and SMS notifications to let customers know about order confirmations, status updates, and more.?

I’ll be leaving them alone for now, but if you need to customize these for any reason—to communicate specific information or simply reflect your brand better—you can edit these notifications under?Settings > Notifications .

?? TIP: If you get stuck while building your own Shopify store, you can skip ahead and revisit a section later, look for answers in our?Help Center , ask the?Shopify Community , follow our?Getting Started with Shopify course ,?hire a Shopify store setup expert , or reach out to our?award-winning 24/7 support team .

It’s OK to figure things out as you go, and Shopify offers many resources to help.

8. Launch your store ??

I’m finally ready to launch! Is my store perfect? No. But I feel good enough about it to bet time and money marketing it and learning from the feedback I get to make it even better over time.

I can remove my password page (under?Settings > Preferences ) and start telling the world I’m open for business.

The journey to create an online shop ends here for this demo store. But it’s just beginning for you. Here are some next steps and resources to help you ramp up your business after launching:

• Attract customers to online store
• Drive traffic to get your first sales
• Learn from your traffic
• Optimize your store

9. Market your store

Marketing is different for every business, but regardless of your strategy, it’s important to set up the right foundation as soon as you can so you can get the most out of your efforts as you drive traffic to your store.?

In particular, I want to cover the fundamentals of nearly every ecommerce marketing strategy that are important to know for new store owners.

Analytics

Shopify Reports (under?Analytics > Reports ) not only helps you monitor traffic and sales generated by your store across all your sales channels but also serves as a treasure trove of great insight for improving your business over time.?

You can learn where your traffic and sales are coming from, your overall online store conversion rate, traffic and sales over time, and more.

For more granular analytics and flexible reporting, you can?set up Google Analytics for free .

Facebook pixel

Have you ever visited an online store, considered a product, but left without buying it, only to see an ad for it a few days later? Or have you ever seen an ad for a product from a business you’d never heard of that seemed like it was made for you??

That’s made possible through something called the Facebook pixel, an intelligent code that learns from how people interact with your brand and your website—from liking your social media posts to making a purchase—and makes it possible to personalize how you advertise to them over time.

The Facebook pixel learns from all the traffic you send to your online store, so if you plan on advertising on Facebook or Instagram at any point in the future, it’s important to have your Facebook pixel set up.

You can get clear instructions on how to set it up for your Shopify store by using our free?Facebook marketing app ?(note that this process will require you to also set up a Facebook page and ad account for your business).

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Many shoppers turn to Google and other search engines as part of their purchasing journey, whether it’s to find a product they saw or heard about through a friend or they’re conducting some comparison shopping for a purchase.

Helping your online store’s pages and your products appear in these search results can create passive streams of relevant traffic for free. However, it takes time to grow this source of traffic, especially if you’ve only just created your store website.

You can lay the right foundation through a practice called search engine optimization, which we were first introduced to when we set up our Products and Pages in our store.?

Other areas of your store where you’ll want to keep SEO in mind are the title and meta description fields, which can be found under?Online Store > Preferences . For Kinda Hot Sauce, I want to make sure I include my brand name and a description of what my business is about, based on the keywords people might search for to find my business.?

You can use a free keyword research tool like?Ubersuggest ?or?Keyword Surfer ?(Chrome extension) to estimate how many times people search a specific query in a month and what types of searches happen around that keyword. Estimated monthly search volumes aren’t always 100% accurate, and the more popular a search is, the more competitive it usually is.

Always remember that the job of a search engine is to show the most relevant results to the user, so you should try to prioritize keywords that are directly relevant to your business.?

Let’s take Kinda Hot Sauce as an example to illustrate some of the key findings that can come out of even the simplest keyword research:?

• “Medium hot sauce“ and “mild hot sauce” come up with 480 and 40 estimated monthly searches, respectively. Since they relate closely to what my business is about, I can prioritize them in my homepage title and description.
• Many people also search for a variety of recipes for spicy foods (e.g., “how to make crispy hot wings”), meaning I could introduce a blog later to create content around searches related to recipes that involve hot sauce.

While I’m here, I’m also going to add a?Social sharing image?to make sure that I create a strong first impression whenever a link to my store is shared on social media or in direct messages.

Recommended:?Check out our SEO checklist ?for other steps you can take to help your store show up in relevant search engine results.?

• Shopify App store
• 26 Free Shopify Apps to Help You Build, Manage, and Grow Your Store

Create a successful online store today

You can?sell anything ?online these days, including handmade products, courses, graphic design services,?custom printed t-shirts ?and other apparel, home-baked items, and more. As you can see, creating an online storefront is easy when you follow the simple steps above. It’s low cost upfront and can help you start your own business in no time.