How To Set Up My Shopify Store – Success Aspects To Consider

Your Shopify theme store will serve as the foundation of your Shopify store. Your Shopify will not look professional or attractive to customers without a good theme. To ensure you're starting with a solid foundation, do your homework and research Shopify themes that are well made, up to date, and have plenty of features.

Start browsing through various Shopify Theme Store to find one that fits your style/look. Shopify has a great selection of hundreds of pre-made themes.

Once you've found a suitable theme for you, go ahead and set it up on Shopify so that your theme is ready to go once the store is live.

Setting up the products you'll sell on Shopify is the next step in setting up your Shopify store.

Understanding the general category of products you will sell on your Shopify store is essential.

For example, if you're planning to sell kitchen utensils online, it makes sense to source products related to this theme.

Conversely, it wouldn't make sense to opt for unrelated items (such as makeup when you're selling utensils) if you're not a makeup expert or have no experience selling cosmetics online. Instead, it's better to focus on an area you know and have experience in.

Once you have a general idea of what kind of products you'll sell, go ahead and add them to your Shopify store. This process is relatively painless and can be done in a matter of minutes:

When opening a new Shopify store, ensuring that you make Shopify product listings easy to browse through is highly critical.

While having your own online store design is critical, you should also consider grouping products into collections that help shoppers quickly identify specific types of products without searching for them.

When selling online on Shopify, a collection is a great way to organize your products and make it easier for customers to find what they're looking for.

You can also use collections as a basic version of an online store category page. While categorizing products is integral, having product collections is another critical step in correctly setting up your Shopify store.

To set up a collection, do the following:

This makes the collection available on the set channel.

You also have to choose whether products will be made part of a collection manually or whether it's to be done automatically.

Finally, ensure you save your collection.

An automatic collection will ensure that any products that match a particular description will automatically be added to the collection. This will save you time when adding products to your Shopify store.

For example, you can create an automatic collection that populates with all 'home decor' type products when you enter in your description as "Home Decor."

That way, if someone searched for home decor items, they would automatically see the products in the appropriate collection when visiting your online shop.

Pages such as "About Us," "Contact Us," "Privacy Policy," etc . are critical to the success of your online store.

They not only help you connect with customers but also allow potential buyers to get a better idea about who you are and what your shop is all about.

Having these pages on your store will also save you from having potential customers going to competitors, where you could potentially lose out on a sale.

Setting up these pages is easy:

A new webpage editor will then appear where you can make the appropriate changes.

Once you're done making the changes, you can then save it and publish the page, or else, you could also keep the page in drafts for later publishing.

When building out these pages, you should put a lot of thought into your company's unique selling proposition (USP).

The USP is what sets your store apart from the competition and can come in many different forms - however, it should always be evident and apparent to customers.

This will help customers trust that you are an expert in your field who you can trust to provide high-quality products.

These pages will also help with your SEO efforts, helping customers locate you across search engines when they search for specific keywords.

Keeping these points in mind when creating the appropriate Shopify store pages will ensure that you're providing potential buyers with all of the information they need to make a purchase.

Having your Shopify online store set up with the correct links is essential.

If you aren't careful, it's possible that customers won't find critical pages or products on your store, which would lead them to abandon the site and shop elsewhere.

Some crucial links to have on your pages include:

The links you include should always be relevant to what your customers are looking for.

Avoid including links that seem unrelated or distracting, as this can frustrate customers and potentially drive them away.

That being said, you must use the correct anchor text when adding links to your pages. Anchor text can be defined as the clickable words in a hyperlink.

Choosing the right anchor text for your links is essential, as it can help guide customers to other pages on your site that may be relevant to what they're looking for.

To ensure you're using the right anchor text when creating these links, there are two main tips you should keep in mind:

While you don't have to create your Shopify store using a custom domain name, it is highly recommended that you do so.

Customizing your domain will help build customer trust since they can know that this is a legitimate online store and not just a poorly made landing page.

Using a custom domain for your eCommerce site's URL also allows customers to use many other services in addition to shopping on your sites, such as Google My Business, Facebook Messenger chatbots, Pinterest business accounts, and more.

When you have a custom domain, customers can type in yourdomainname.com to find themselves on your site - which is much easier and pleasing to the eye.

This is a much more user-friendly experience that helps promote sales and build customer trust.

Using a custom domain also makes it easier to search for your company on Google, which could bring additional sales through the door. Plus, it just looks more professional and trustworthy.

This is another feature that isn't necessarily required but is worth doing to build customer trust.

Having an online store blog can be very helpful for new store owners, as it allows them to share updates on their business and its products with visitors.

It also provides a place to add more context and content about your company, which helps search engines index your store better. This leads to increased search results when people are looking for information about your brand or what you have to offer.

Your store's blog is also a good place for sharing valuable guides and tips that help customers shop with confidence on your site.  

These types of posts show potential buyers that there's a natural person behind the brand who cares enough about their customers to put this sort of helpful content on their site.

Blog posts can also help you establish yourself as a thought leader in the industry, which will make customers trust you more. This is a nice touch to have that will increase the chances of your target audience buying from you.

In addition to all these benefits, having an eCommerce store blog is also great for getting new links to your online store. These links provide search engine ranking benefits and would likely bring additional traffic through your door if they're coming from high-quality sites.

There are many different types of content that you could create for your website's blog, including how-to guides, reviews, recommendations, and more. Each one provides the potential for increasing sales with its unique benefits.

For example, a meat shop blog could publish an incredibly detailed guide for grilling the perfect steak. Additionally, that same website could use their blog to write about all of the different cuts of meat that they offer.

Or, perhaps, you're running an eCommerce store that sells custom t-shirts and other apparel. In this case, you might want to create content aimed at helping customers learn how to choose the right size and fit for them based on their body type.

This content is beneficial and can go a long way towards building trust between your business and potential customers.

To set up a blog for your store online, do the following:

A Shopify Inbox creates a mailbox for all your online customer interactions. This means that when a customer messages your business, they can do so in one place regardless of which method they used to contact you.

The Shopify Inbox is an excellent way for new store owners to stay updated with their customers. It also allows you to ensure that each interaction with your online business receives the attention it needs. 

Here are some examples of when you might need to use Shopify Inbox: helping a customer find an item or add it to their cart, checking if someone is having issues with making a purchase, thanking them for their order, etc.

The possibilities here are nearly endless because almost anything that has the potential of being replied to by email can be added as a task in Shopify Inbox.

This feature is beneficial because it notifies you of anything that requires your attention. All the information about the customer interaction is available to you right within this email, so there's no need to go digging around your online store looking for details.

You can also access Shopify Inbox on the go with mobile apps that ship with the Shopify package. This means that you can manage your online store from pretty much anywhere.

Ensuring your store accepts payments as seamlessly as possible is a big deal for eCommerce store owners. If your online store cannot accept specific payment methods from its customers, you will lose potential sales that will never be seen.

Ensuring that this is set up correctly will make it easier to help you manage your customers' payments. This way, they can easily purchase the products they desire without having any problems or issues.

One of the best ways for an eCommerce store owner to ensure sales is by selling items online with free shipping. By making this an option in your online store, you'll likely see more customers willing to make their purchases through your shop.

Many factors go into setting up accurate shipping rates for your business including weight, size, and destination address. 

For many online stores, Shopify's default settings work just fine. However, sometimes as a store owner, you may run into a situation where you'll have to tweak those settings.

Shipping costs also depend on where your online store is located. This means that you will need to factor in the costs of shipping through your business location, as well as the destination of where your customers are ordering from.