How to sell on Shopify for beginners

Building an online store can seem overwhelming if you don’t have prior experience. Some beginners worry about hidden fees, while others aren’t sure they’ll be able to set up a functional website that can accept payments, let alone make a sale.

That’s what makes Shopify a good choice – it gives you customizable themes, which remove the complexity of designing a website, and takes care of hosting so you can focus on selling.

We’ve worked with thousands of merchants who were just starting out, so we know exactly what beginners should expect. In this guide, we’ll break down how to choose a Shopify plan, set up your store from scratch, and promote your store to get sales.

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1. Choose a plan and set up an account

To begin selling on Shopify, you first need to choose a plan that suits your needs and configure your account’s general settings.

Pick a plan

To start selling on Shopify, you first need to create an account and choose a plan. There are three standard plans that all come with unlimited products, unlimited hosting, and access to analytics.

Here’s who we’d recommend each plan to:

• Basic ($29/month) – best for merchants who are just starting out.
• Grow ($79/month) – best for stores with a small team or stores that make at least $25,000/month.
• Advanced ($299/month) – best for medium to large businesses that make at least $110,000/month.

We recommend choosing the plan based on how much you make per month in sales so it can offset the monthly costs due to lower transaction fees.

Set up essential store settings

Once your account is created, you need to configure your store settings so that it can run smoothly. Here are the main tasks you should do:

• Fill in general store information. Go to Settings > General and insert your store’s name, address, and contact email. You can also set the currency and backup region.
• Configure your billing details. In Shopify Settings, go to Billing and set up your billing currency. Here, you can manage subscriptions.
• Customize your checkout settings. Go to Settings > Checkout and choose how to contact users about order and shipping notifications, what customer information is required, and where to display marketing opt-in.
• Specify shipping details. In Settings > Shipping and delivery, add shipping zones and rates. Since, according to Baymard, extra costs (39%) and slow delivery (21%) are among the top reasons for cart abandonment, make sure you provide clear and transparent information.
• Set up tax management. Head to Settings > Taxes and duties and set up how to collect your taxes. We’d recommend using Shopify tax services (if available in your region) to save time on upkeep. You can also set up taxes and duties collection at checkout.

2. Create products on your store

Once your account is set up, you can start creating products. Here are the practices we recommend following to create high-quality product pages:

• Write engaging product descriptions that prioritize customer benefits instead of listing technical features. It helps potential buyers understand why they need the product and how it will improve their life.
• Use high-quality images that portray the product both in a white background and in use. While white background images provide a clear view of the product, lifestyle images help visualize how the product would fit into their own life.
• Create product variants when the product has different sizes or colors. This lets customers see different options from a single product page, helping with organization.
• Set up competitive pricing by conducting research based on your target audience, market trends, and what your competitors are charging. Factor in costs like shipping and production so that you’re left with a good profit margin.
• Set up inventory so that you don’t sell products that you don’t already have in stock. 
• Add customer reviews to product pages – Shopify doesn’t offer a native review function, but many stores we’ve audited use a review app like Judge.me, which offers unlimited reviews for free.

How to add a product on Shopify

You can upload products to Shopify one by one or in bulk. Here’s a simple guide on how to add a product to your store:

1. Open Shopify Admin and go to Products.
2. Click Add product.
3. Insert the product title, description, images, and set inventory and pricing.
4. Once you’re done, click Save. Make sure the Status is set to Active if you want the product to be visible immediately upon publishing your store.

For stores with dozens or hundreds of products, we’d recommend bulk importing. This means going to Shopify Admin > Products > Import and downloading a sample CSV file.

Once you fill it with product information, like titles, descriptions, and prices, you can import them to Shopify in seconds.

Organize products to collections

Creating collections to organize products makes it easier for potential customers to find what they’re looking for.

Collection pages also target additional keywords, helping your SEO efforts and increasing the chances that people find your products through search engines.

You can create a collection by going to Products > Collections > Add collection.

There are two types of collections Shopify allows creating:

• Manual collection – you add products to a collection manually.
• Smart collection – any products you created or will create will be added to a smart collection if they meet the conditions you set.

We highly recommend using smart collections if you have hundreds of products. It will help you save time on selecting categories for each product that you want to create.

3. Customize your website

When you create products, you need to design your whole store. This includes installing a Shopify theme, buying a custom domain for your store, and adding the main pages.

Choose a Shopify theme

The Shopify Theme Store offers over 1,100 themes that you can choose depending on the industry, available features, or catalog size. There are also more than 20 themes that are free.

When choosing the theme, consider more than just the design. Think of what features you’d like to have, since not all options will have all of them. For example, one of our clients who is selling alcoholic beverages bought a theme that didn’t have an age verifier feature, so they had to spend extra on a Shopify app for age verification.

To install a theme on Shopify, follow these steps:

1. In Shopify Admin, go to Online Store.
2. Scroll down and click Visit Theme Store.
3. Open the theme you want to install and click Try theme.
4. Go back to the Online Store section and click Buy by the theme you installed.

Buy a custom domain

When you create a Shopify account, you will get a free .myshopify.com subdomain. It’s good to have while you’re setting up the site and aren’t sure about your store name.

However, once your site is ready for launch, you should get a custom domain. It makes your site look more professional and trustworthy than using a Shopify subdomain.

You can buy a domain from the Shopify domain registrar, or you can look for one in other registrars. For beginners, we highly recommend buying a domain from Shopify so you don’t have to go through additional steps of connecting it to Shopify.

Here’s a quick guide on how to set up a domain:

1. Go to Shopify Settings > Domains > Buy new domain.
2. Enter the domain you’d like to buy.
3. Review which Top-Level Domains (TLDs) are available and their first-year and renewal prices.
4. When you choose the domain that you want, click Buy.
5. Toggle “Auto-renew this domain every year” to enable or disable automatic renewal.
6. Make sure your Contact information is correct.
7. Choose a payment method and click Buy.

Create all necessary pages

Legal policies and information about your brand should be available on every page, like in the Main menu or Footer. You can add pages into menus by going to Shopify Admin > Content > Menus.

Here are the pages you should consider including:

• About us. An about us page tells site visitors what your brand is and what it stands for, which can be a deciding factor when choosing whether to buy from your brand. You can create an about us page by going to Shopify > Online Store > Pages > Add page.
• Contact us. You can add the Contact us page through Shopify Settings > Policies > Contact information. It’s especially important for businesses that sell in the EU because it’s a legal requirement. Make sure you include your trade name, phone number, email, physical address, VAT number, and trade number.
• Create legal store policy pages. Add pages that protect your business legally through Settings > Policies. Here, you can find Shopify templates for the refund policy, privacy policy, and terms of service. You should also create a shipping and return policy, explaining the cost, delivery times, and other important information.
• FAQ. A Frequently Asked Questions page gives you a chance to answer common questions that influence the buying decision. The less friction a person feels when deciding whether to buy a product, the more likely they are to complete a purchase.

4. Set up payments

Beginners may find setting up payments on Shopify initially confusing, but it’s very straightforward if you have the right information. Let’s review the three main payment methods and when to use which.

Shopify Payments

Shopify Payments is a payment provider built by Shopify that automatically sets up all major payment methods. We always recommend setting up Shopify Payments for beginner users for two reasons – it’s easier to set up, and it helps you save money on Shopify fees.

• Shopify Payments automatically sets up all major payment methods, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Shop Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
• It eliminates third-party transaction fees, letting you save up to 2% per order, depending on your plan.

To set up Shopify Payments, go to Shopify Settings > Payments > Activate Shopify Payments and follow the instructions.

Third-party payment gateways

If your store is not eligible for Shopify Payments, you can use third-party payment gateways. However, they come with additional transaction fees, depending on the Shopify plan.

We suggest you only use third-party gateways if Shopify Payments isn’t available, since the additional fees can quickly lower your profit margins.

Shopify POS

Shopify POS (Point of Sale) is a system that lets you accept payments in person, which is useful for merchants with physical stores or market stalls. It’s available for free in every plan; you just need to install the Shopify POS app from the App Store.

It’s great for merchants who sell both online and in physical locations because it helps sync inventory and sales automatically.

Shopify recommends using Shopify Payments and Shopify POS hardware, which are available in select locations. You can review the supported country list in the Shopify Help Center.

5. Launch and promote your Shopify store

When your store is set up, it’s time to launch it for the public. This can be done by removing the store’s password.

Here’s how to do it:

1. In Shopify Admin, go to Online Store > Preferences.
2. Toggle the Password protection tab to remove the password.
3. Click Save.

Your website is now live – you can start promoting it using various channels.

How to promote your Shopify store to get sales

You can try different marketing strategies to see what works best for your store. While paid advertising, like Google Ads or Meta Ads, can get you faster results, it can eat into your profit margins, especially if you’re starting out with a low budget, and may not guarantee long-term success.

Here are the marketing strategies you could adopt from day one:

• SEO optimization. Optimizing your store for higher rankings in search engines can take a long time to pay off, but once it does, it tends to get you higher traffic and potentially sales for longer.
• Email marketing. You can build an email list to share special promotions or helpful content to foster loyalty. For example, simply adding a pop-up with a small discount in exchange for emails can help you get more users to subscribe.
• Social media marketing. Think of which one or two social media platforms your target audience would use the most and focus on promoting your business there. For example, if your products are quite technical, you may run a YouTube channel with tutorials.
• Influencer marketing. Collaborate with creators whose follower base is similar to your target audience. Consumers usually trust their favorite creator’s recommendations, so you can spread the word about your brand.

6. Analyze and optimize

When your store starts getting traffic, you should regularly review its performance in terms of sales, which marketing strategies work best, and which products sell the most. For this, you can use free tools like Shopify Analytics, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console.

Use Shopify Analytics

You can monitor your store using Shopify Analytics, which gives you in-depth reports and doesn’t require any setup. You can find reports by going to Shopify Admin > Analytics.

Here, you can set a custom date range to compare how your traffic, top products, and sales change over time.

For example, you can review how many sales you made in one month compared to the previous month and break them down by sales channels.

You can also go to the Reports section and find more specific reports, like returning customers, customer behaviour, or sessions by device type.

Use Google Analytics

Shopify’s built-in reports are great for starting out, but Google Analytics (GA4) gives a more detailed look into customer behavior. You can find out how users navigate your site or where people drop off in your checkout.

Set up Google Search Console

If you’re focusing on SEO optimization, you should set up Google Search Console. It gives you detailed data about how your store is performing in Google Search. This includes which queries bring the most visitors to your site or whether there’s anything blocking your store from showing up in search engines.

You can read our guide to find detailed explanations on how to set up and use Google Search Console for SEO.

Other ways to sell on Shopify

When you’re just starting out, you may opt for selling products that don’t require inventory, shipping, or warehouses. This can be digital products, services, dropshipping, or Print on Demand (POD).

Digital products

If you’re planning to sell digital products, you’ll have to set up your products a little bit differently. Here’s a quick guide on how to sell digital products:

• Create digital products. When creating products in the Products > Add product section, you’ll need to toggle off the “Physical product” tab.
• Disable inventory tracking. When you create products, you should also toggle off the “Inventory tracked” tab.
• Set up digital downloads. Shopify doesn’t natively support digital downloads, but it offers the free Digital Downloads app that you can use.

Services

You can use Shopify to sell services, like consulting, coaching, or classes. For this, you’ll still need to create product pages and disable the “Physical product” setting.

The difference from digital products is that you’ll need to use a booking app, like the Appointment Booking App Apntly or Appointment Booking Cowlendar. Such apps can help manage booking availability, deposits, and scheduling. 

Selling without inventory

If you prefer not to have any inventory at all, you can sell without inventory through dropshipping or POD. Here’s what each method is and how to use it to sell on Shopify:

• Dropshipping – when a customer orders a product from your store, a third-party supplier stores and sends it directly to them. For dropshipping, you can use apps like DSers or EPROLO, which helps find retailers and manage orders more easily.
• Print on Demand – works similarly to dropshipping, but products like shirts or mugs are designed by you and only printed when a customer orders.

Is Shopify good for beginners?

Shopify makes the technical side of starting an online business easy, making it suitable for beginners. It takes care of hosting and doesn’t require any coding to set up a full-fledged store. Plus, there’s an extensive market of Shopify apps that help extend the platform’s functionality.

When auditing Shopify stores, we’ve seen plenty of merchants with zero experience grow established brands. However, it’s important to know that setting up a store isn’t enough.

Getting sales requires trying different marketing strategies, and some of them may not bring immediate results. So, although launching a store with Shopify isn’t difficult, the business side will still take work.

Final thoughts

If you don’t have experience with selling or building websites, Shopify is a great option for beginner merchants. The technical aspects, like hosting, payment processing, and inventory management, are taken care of, so you can focus on building a high-converting brand.

To start selling on Shopify, you need to choose a plan, create products, install a theme, purchase a domain, and set up payments.

However, launching a store is the easy part. Long-term success depends on a well-developed marketing strategy. Whether you focus on SEO, email marketing, or social media, you need to regularly analyze your results and optimize your strategy accordingly.

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About the author

Kristina Jaruseviciute

Kristina is a Content Lead at TinyIMG responsible for informing and educating readers on all things Shopify-related. She covers a broad range of topics around SEO, AI visibility, website performance, and conversion rates to help merchants stand out in a competitive landscape.