Shopify is the most popular e-commerce platform because of its ubiquitous features, user-friendly interface, and vast third-party app network. It’s the go-to solution for entrepreneurs looking to sell products and receive money from customers online.
But what can you sell on Shopify, and how can you set up a store with this platform? This guide answers these questions and explores how to sell products on Shopify.
Shopify is an e-commerce platform that simplifies selling products online. It provides a ready-made infrastructure for listing products and receiving money for them. After a transaction, you’ll ship the products to customers and handle post-sale support.
Many entrepreneurs choose Shopify because of its user-friendliness and advanced features. It provides numerous functionalities that help you convert visitors into customers and receive money from global users. Any feature not available directly on Shopify will likely be found on its third-party app store.
Shopify lets you list unlimited products and organize them into collections. You can sell physical and digital products at your desired price, and visitors can add these products to their shopping cart. When a visitor is done shopping, they can proceed to cart checkout and pay for the product.
You can use Shopify’s native payments processor or external processors like Stripe, PayPal, and Braintree. Each payment processor has their own fees, e.g., Shopify charges 2.4% to 2.9% of every transaction.
Shopify provides tools to promote products and interact with customers via email. For instance, you can send automated reminder emails to visitors who added items to their cart but didn’t proceed to checkout. This email nudges them to complete the purchase, increasing your revenue.
You can manage a mailing list directly from Shopify, eliminating the need to pay for a separate email marketing platform. You can also create custom email templates and reuse them as often as you want.
Shopify lets you list products on third-party marketplaces outside your main store. These include eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Amazon, and TikTok Shop. For instance, you can open a TikTok Shop store, and customers can pay for items without visiting your main Shopify store.
Thanks to seamless integration with third-party platforms, any product you list on Shopify can automatically be added to other marketplaces. Any changes to existing products will also be reflected in third-party marketplaces.
Shopify provides detailed analytical reports so you can evaluate your store’s performance and make the right decisions. An interactive dashboard shows every relevant store metric, including the number of orders, items added to carts, visitors’ location, total sales, profit, and live traffic.
You can generate custom reports to monitor your store’s performance over specific periods and compare them to others. If you need to view the data in other ways, you can download it in CSV format and export it to third-party apps.
Online sellers often need to pay sales tax in multiple countries, and Shopify makes this process easy. You can use it to automate sales tax collection and remit them to the respective authorities. If Shopify doesn’t support tax collection for a specific country, third-party apps can fill in the gap.
Shopify has the largest third-party app collection of any e-commerce platform. Many developers have built apps to add extra functionality to Shopify stores.
Think of any useful online store feature, and you’ll likely find it on the Shopify App Store. Examples include apps for print-on-demand, social media marketing, customer reviews, loyalty programs, gift card programs, etc.
Shopify offers different pricing plans, and understanding these plans is crucial to learning how to sell on Shopify. It offers four main plans: Basic, Shopify, Advanced, and Plus.
For $32 monthly, the Basic plan offers all you need to set up a simple online store. You can choose a Shopify theme and customize it to fit your needs. Then, you can list products, set prices, and receive payments from customers. This plan lets you add a custom domain to your store.
For $92 monthly, the Shopify plan lets you add up to 5 staff accounts, and transaction fees are reduced from 2% to 1%, which is a significant cost savings for high-volume sellers.
At $399 per month, the Advanced plan lets you add up to 15 staff accounts and cut transaction fees to 0.6%. It has a 10x checkout capacity, which translates to 40,000 checkouts per minute compared to 4,000 on the other plans.
The Plus plan is noticeably expensive at $2,300 monthly. It includes unlimited staff accounts, lower transaction fees, and 40x checkout capacity (160,000 checkouts per minute). It’s perfect for large retailers with a global customer base.
Shopify offers a 25% discount on the monthly price if you pay for 12 months upfront. The Basic, Shopify, and Advanced plans have 3-day free trials.
Shopify is a versatile e-commerce platform that works well for all types of online sellers, from small businesses to big brands catering to millions of customers. Its versatility and broad features make Shopify a top choice despite being more expensive than most e-commerce platforms.
Creating an account is the first step in knowing how to sell on Shopify. Head to Shopify.com and click the “Start free trial” button.
You’ll be redirected to a page with different registration options. You can sign up via email or an existing Google, Facebook, or Apple ID account. Choose a convenient option and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the registration.
After registering, Shopify asks basic questions to help set up your online store. You can answer them or skip this part and go directly to your store.
By default, Shopify stores are hosted on a URL like [storename.myshopify.com]. Most stores look unprofessional on this subdomain, so it's advisable to get a custom domain to stand out.
Open Settings at the bottom of your store’s left menu.
Click Domains on the Settings page.
Shopify lets you buy a new domain or connect an existing domain. New buyers can search for an available domain and pay directly on Shopify.
If you’re connecting an existing domain, Shopify will provide unique credentials to add to the domain’s DNS settings on its registrar dashboard. Add these credentials and click Verify connection.
If the credentials have been added, Shopify will confirm it, and the domain will be immediately connected to your store.
Setting up a payment gateway is the next step in learning how to sell on Shopify. This payment gateway will let you receive money from customers and pay for your store’s operations. You can use Shopify Payments or an external payment gateway.
Click on Payments on the settings page.
Click on the Choose a provider button and select your desired payment processor.
Install the payment processor and follow the setup instructions. Every payment provider has a unique process. You’ll be required to provide valid identification and business details to set up a merchant account and receive money from customers.
With your payments processing infrastructure set, the next step is setting shipping rates for your customers. This step is crucial to your store’s success, as customers often seek the best shipping rates when buying products.
Open Shipping and Delivery on the settings page.
Shopify lets you create different shipping profiles. For example, you can have different shipping prices for orders above $50, $100, $200, $500, and so on. Many retailers provide free shipping above a specific threshold, so you can simply put $0 in the relevant threshold.
Different shipping rates can be set for different cities and countries. Shopify lets you control shipping rates extensively to give every customer the best choice.
With payment processing and shipping rates ready, it’s time to focus on your store’s front end. Your store needs a visually appealing design to entice customers.
Exit the Settings page and head to Online Store > Themes.
Then, click the Customize button.
The customization menu lets you change many visual elements, such as headers, images, buttons, link colors, text fonts and sizes, etc. Shopify is a highly customizable platform that lets you modify every nook and cranny to stand out.
To demonstrate, let’s change the header images of our sample store. We clicked on the header image, and Shopify showed the option to upload new ones.
We’ve decided to change the two header images to a blue background.
Below is the result. This is just an example of how you can visually customize your store. Shopify lets you do much more.
If designing a store is too difficult, Zendrop offers custom-built Shopify stores for different use cases. You can also use our AI Storebuilder to create a visually appealing store via text prompts.
Adding products is the core step in knowing how to sell on Shopify. With your design ready, it’s time to list the items you’ll sell to customers.
Exit the design customization menu and open the Products menu. Then, click on the +Add product button.
You’ll be redirected to a page where you can add your first product. Shopify lets you choose a product title, description, images, videos, and price.
To illustrate, we’ll add a product titled “The Zendrop guide to selling on Shopify” and list it for $10. We used the Shopify logo as the product image.
After filling out the product details, click the Save button. Congratulations, you’ve added your first Shopify product.
Below is how the product looks to visitors.
Shopify lets you organize products into categories. Suppose you run an online bookstore. You can have separate areas for “guides,” “business,” “technology,” “politics,” and “stories,” making it easier for visitors to find their desired products.
If you’re dropshipping products, you can import them from the supplier’s app into your Shopify store at the click of a button. Zendrop lets you seamlessly add products to your store and set pricing rules, such as listing each product 50% above the supplier’s price. You don’t need to add every product detail from scratch when dropshipping.
Zendrop gives dropshippers access to a diverse range of best-selling products. We provide industry-leading shipping and customer service, helping dropshippers deliver items quickly and satisfactorily. By joining our platform, you can connect with the best product suppliers.
Review all store details, including product descriptions, images, categories, prices, shipping rates, and themes, before going live. You can seek third-party, unbiased opinions before launching your store to the public and test the checkout process to understand how it works for customers.
If you’re comfortable with the store’s characteristics, you can publish it. By default, new Shopify stores are password-protected, so remove this password by heading to Online Store > Preferences and unchecking the password protection checkbox.
Viola! Your store is open for anyone to visit.
With your store ready, it’s time to promote it to get customers. The best ways to promote an online store include:
You can run ads on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to find the right customers. These platforms let you target a specific demographic, including gender, age, occupation, and interests. This detailed targeting enables you to show ads to the perfect customer profile.
Suppose you’re selling history books. Your ideal target audience is people interested in political and economic history. You can target this precise audience on Facebook and Instagram to get high conversion rates.
You can partner with influencers, i.e., popular social media accounts with authority in specific niches. A recommendation from the right influencer can significantly boost your customer base. Influencers charge money to promote products, either upfront or commission-based.
You can run ads on search engines like Google and Bing. You’ll bid for specific keywords, and your ad will show when users search for these keywords. For example, a jewelry seller can bid for their ads to appear when people search for “beautiful jewelry” and “best jewelry to buy.” The people searching for these keywords will be more likely to buy jewelry products from your store.
SEO involves tweaking your website to rank high on search engines and attract organic traffic. It includes adding relevant keywords that people search for, precise product descriptions, alternative text for images, blog posts related to your product niche, and optimizing your site for mobile displays.
A little investment in search engine optimization can entice many website visitors, some of whom will place orders after searching your site’s catalog.
Use Shopify’s built-in analytics to monitor your store’s metrics. You can access real-time or historical sales data to monitor the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. Don’t hesitate to change things when you’re not getting the desired results.
Online retail is not a one-and-done thing. It requires constant monitoring to stay ahead of competitors and keep up with industry trends.
Shopify has integrations with popular social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, enabling users to sell products directly on these platforms. Let’s explore how to sell Shopify-listed products on these social platforms.
2. Click the Install button and follow the on-screen instructions.
3. Connect your Facebook account by signing in.
4. Provide your business details according to the on-screen instructions.
5. Wait for Facebook’s approval.
After approval, you can seamlessly upload products from your Shopify catalog to Facebook Shops. Facebook users can order these products without leaving the app, and every order will immediately reflect on your Shopify dashboard.
Shopify sellers can use the same app to sell products on Facebook and Instagram. Hence, you can follow the above instructions to install the Facebook & Instagram app from the Shopify App Store.
After installing the app, open the Instagram Shop section and follow the on-screen instructions to connect your store. Meta approves products within 24 to 48 hours, and you can start selling immediately after approval.
Alongside selling products, the Facebook & Instagram app lets you run ads directly on Facebook and Instagram and monitor the results from your Shopify dashboard.
After installing the app, your Shopify product feed will be connected to Pinterest. Products from your Shopify inventory can be converted to Product Pins, which Pinterest users can click on to get directed to your store. Every change you make to a product will immediately reflect on the Pinterest Product Pin.
You can sell physical and digital products on Shopify. Examples include clothing, electronics, jewelry, e-books, cosmetics, phone accessories, sports apparel, and more. Shopify makes it easy to sell regardless of your niche and product volume.
You can start by signing up for Shopify. After signing up, you can connect a custom domain, design your store, and add products. You’ll need to integrate a payment gateway to receive money from customers. Then, you can start selling products immediately.
Shopify's commission on each sale ranges from 0.6% to 2%, depending on your plan. The costlier plans have lower transaction fees.
Yes, Shopify has apps that integrate your store with social media platforms. After integrating your store, you can sell its inventory on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Use high-quality images and write precise descriptions of each product. Include relevant keywords in product descriptions to boost your store's search engine rankings. Use social media ads to promote your product to the perfect target audience.
