Best Shopify Tutorial and Ultimate Step by Step Guide for Beginners to Set up your Shopify store

hi everyone Julia here in this video I'm going to guide you through the entire process of setting up your Shopify store we'll cover everything step by step breaking down all the different features and configurations so that by the end of this video you'll have a fully functional online store to begin selling your products if you haven't signed up for Shopify yet I'm also going to go ahead and leave the best current Shopify deal Linked In the description so going ahead to create your account and I'm also going to leave a link to a free resource pack I've prepared to help you get started I will be telling you more about that in the end of the video so make sure you stick around for that and without further Ado let's get started alright once you've created your account you'll be taken to your Shopify dashboard we're gonna go ahead and get started by choosing a theme go to online store now we're going to scroll down and click on visit theme store now choosing the right theme is very important as this will play a critical role in the overall look and feel of your Shopify store regardless of which theme you choose though you will still be able to customize most features to your liking but if you don't want to spend so much time web designing it's smart to go for a theme that already offers the kind of layout you were looking for so what you can do here is go through all these different themes and then you can also click on view demo store to see a preview of what that theme is actually like you'll also notice that Shopify offers both free and paid themes you can filter to see only the free themes by clicking right here on this box so let's check that and here we have all the free themes so now we're going to go ahead and choose Dawn for this video so let's click on it and click on try theme now it's being added to our store and your theme is going to load right here on the theme library now let's right click on customize and open the theme editor on a new tab that way we can easily switch between our dashboard and our theme editor when you first Open the theme editor you're going to see a sidebar here on the left side of the screen so everything that we're going to edit is going to be done here on the sidebar and you'll then be able to preview those changes in this other area right now our theme editor is set to be customized on desktop view you can also choose to customize the mobile view by clicking right up here and choosing mobile in this tutorial we're just going to focus on desktop mobile is usually very well adapted by Shopify automatically as all the themes are mobile responsive so now let's have a closer look at our sidebar now no matter which page of your website you're in whether it's the home page a product page or any other page the sidebar is always going to have the same structure it's going to start with the header section and end with the footer section and in between that is where we're going to add all of the page content you'll also see that whatever theme you choose it's going to come with a few sections already added by default so here for example we have an image banner and a featured collection so let's get started by adding a new section to your store what we're going to do is hover kind of in between sections like this and you'll see an ad section button appear where you can then choose between many of these different options you could also do the exact same thing by going here to the sidebar and clicking on ADD section so these are the two different ways to add new parts to your store once again this is a drag and drop side menu which means that whatever section you add you can then reorder by clicking on it and dragging it around like this so you can choose where to place each of these sections across your page what you will also notice is that each of these sections contain different blocks within it for example if we go up here to our image Banner we will see it comes with a title block and a button so we have the sections and then the blocks within the sections now to make edits to your content you can just click the blocks either in the preview or in the sidebar and you will see the block settings open up here if you click on this little arrow up here it will take you back to the main sidebar view so this is the main theme editor area where we'll be spending most of our time customizing the store here on the upper left corner you will find additional settings where you can change the fonts colors and a couple of other things for now let's choose a font so click on typography and here you can choose fonts for your headings and body text click on change select your font click on select down here and you can also change the text sizes here on the font size scale so you can just drag this that way if you want it bigger or the other way if you want it smaller and you will also find your color settings right up here so let's open that up and you will see Shopify gives you a few different options now as we go ahead and edit the background colors of our website these are going to be the options you will have available so let's go back to our main sections area up here and let's go ahead and click on header here on color scheme we can now change the background color of this section so as I just mentioned we are going to have a few different options we have accent 1 accent 2 background one background two and inverse I'm going to go ahead and leave this on background one then let's go ahead and add a logo we're going to click right here click on select image and select our logo file [Music] if you haven't created a logo yet I highly recommend using canva to create one I'm going to leave a link to canva down in the description now let's go back and the next thing we're going to do is add a banner image to our store think about your banner almost like a book cover it's going to be the first time impression visitors will get from your store so it's very important that you find something great looking ideally very professional high resolution photos that you've shot of your products or possibly also well selected stock photos that still manage to be unique and fit your brand I definitely recommend you spend some extra time Gathering the best looking images you can find as a visual appeal is one of the most important things when it comes to selling so let's click on the banner and here you'll see the banner settings open up on the sidebar and now we can go ahead and select our image now something very interesting about this theme is that you can actually split your banner into two different images so if you want to do that you can add a second image right here on this section I'm going to skip that for now and let's have a look at these other settings here you can also adapt to your banner height between small medium and large I'm going to leave that on medium right now now let's have a look at the title in our description [Music] let's click on our title and here's where you'll be typing it in just keep it simple catchy and again remember this is the first impressions users will get from your store so make it relevant you can also just type in your Brand's name and if you click on the button same thing the settings are going to appear here on the sidebar so we can edit the text and the button link so let's enter a title for this button here we're going to link to all of our products so we're going to name it shop and down here you can choose the link this button will lead to right now we're going to leave it linked to all products as it is if we did want to change that we could just click on it like this and here you'll see all the different pages of your store you could link this button to alright so let's go back and here again you'll see that Dawn theme comes with a featured collection section so what we need to do now is actually create those Collections and the products that go into each collection we're going to go back to the Shopify dashboard tab and then we're gonna head over to products right here on the left menu if you happen to be Drop Shipping and your store is synced with your supplier you will likely be able to add your products directly from their store and then just make all the necessary edits here inside Shopify either way let me show you how to go about this so let's click on add products and now we're going to go ahead and fill out all of this information first we're going to set a product title this is going to be my example today then in your description you're going to want to highlight your product features benefits and unique selling points you could either write this yourself or you can also use AI to help you out Shopify comes with an auto write feature that generates descriptions for you so you can go ahead and see if that's helpful obviously read it make sure that it's good now let's add some product photos let's click on add files and upload our product photos now again keep in mind that high quality product photos are essential for attracting customers and showcasing your products in the best light possible so make sure to include multiple images that show your products from different angles and make sure your images convey a realistic idea of what your product is actually like you can then drag them around like this to choose which one will be the main one now let's add the product price let's say this product will cost twelve dollars and then here you'll see we also have a compare at Price option so what you can do here is actually display a more expensive number that is then going to appear with a strikethrough so for example I can say this product cost 18 but now it's for sale only for twelve dollars so the 18 will have a strike through it here if you want to you can also add your cost per item this is just for you to manage your profit margins and will not be displayed on your storefront then we scroll down here to inventory and now we're going to select how many products we have available in stock I'm going to add 50 that's how many I have available at the moment and keep in mind that if this number goes down to zero your products will appear as sold out on your website and if you wanted to overwrite the setting you can tick this box right here and the product will continue selling even if it goes to zero so you don't need to worry about this number and once again if you are Dropship shipping you don't need to worry about these settings they will be synced automatically with your suppliers platform same for the next section here we come to shipping here you can add the weight of your product if you wish to charge shipping based on weight and of course if you are selling digital products or a service you can just go ahead and click this instead now moving on to the variants this is where you're going to add any product options such as size color or material for example if you are selling a t-shirt you might have options for different sizes or colors to add a variant simply click on ADD options like size or color and then choose which kind of option you are going to be using I'm going to use size and then we're going to enter our option values so I'm going to create a small medium and a large let's click done and here we have our variants now we're actually going to hit save up here now if we scroll down again we will see the option to add images to each variant so I'm going to go ahead and click on this icon and add my small image and then the same for the medium and large now if you're selling clothes and these are just different t-shirt sizes for example you can keep the variant images all the same if you want to edit all the images at once you can select all of them like this go here to the three dots and click on ADD images now if you select an image here it will be applied to all of your variants and once again if you are syncing with a Drop Shipping platform and your products can be added from their store the variant options will likely also be added automatically if you wish to disable any variants you can just click on edit right here and delete them like this if your variants are like mine and they have different sizes that require different prices like for example my clay plant pot then I'm gonna need to change the variant prices individually I want to sell the smaller plant pot for a cheaper price so in that case I can go right here to price and change to the dollars for example here you're also going to see individual inventory settings for each variant so how many you have available I'm going to go ahead and set my numbers and down here we have our search engine listing settings let's go ahead and click on edit and here you will edit how this product page is going to be previewed on platforms like Google so let's type in a title a description throw in a couple of keywords obviously your Brand's name and again at this stage we just want to get a general structure down we'll be working on our SEO performance at a later stage then let's scroll back up and make sure our product status is set to active now let's click on manage then on manage sales channels and make sure your online store is selected so that your product is visible on your website alright then let's press save and go back to create more products click on add products once again and repeat the exact same process so I'm going to go ahead and add a few products to my store now [Music] okay so now that we have multiple products ready it's time to sort them into collections in my example I could create a gardening tools collection a decorations collection and a gardening clothes collection if you're running a store with a larger catalog like a clothing store you could create tons of different collections you could start with men's women's and kids Collections and then for each of those you could create other groups like men's tops men's bottoms men's shoes then women stops women's bottoms and women's shoes and then you can go a level deeper into that and create men's sweatshirts men's t-shirts and so on so have a look at your products and try to come up with something logical to organize your catalog we're going to get started with one collection and then repeat the process so let's head over to collections right here on the side menu and here you'll see a default homepage collection by Shopify We're not gonna need this today so just go ahead and take it click on the three dots and click on delete collection all right now click on create collection and let's go ahead and create the first one let's add the title a description if you want I'm going to leave mine blank for now as this is going to be more of a visual thing in my store then let's scroll down to collection type here we're going to go ahead and select manual as we will be adding the products manually in a moment and now let's add a Collection image this is going to be the cover for this collection showing on your store so make sure to choose something that represents all of your collections products so just click on ADD image and upload your file now let's scroll down and once again here we're going to see the search engine listing so let's click on edit and quickly fill out our information once again we're going to come back to this later when we're working on our SEO strategy for now just include your brand name your collection name and a short description now let's hit save and now we're going to go ahead and add the products to our collection right here just click on browse and tick all the products you wish to add to this collection click on ADD and once you have them all here you can choose to reorder which ones will appear first on your store to do that click on sort and you can choose between one of these criterias you could also choose to sort them manually so let's go ahead and select that and then to reorder them you can just drag and drop like this and now let's go back and create more collections click on create collection and repeats the same process okay so now that we have a few collections ready we're going to go back to the theme editors Tab and add them to our store as you can see Dawn theme comes with a featured collection section which is meant to show all the products within a particular collection just like this so that's great we already have the section added what we can also do now is add another section called a collection list so instead of showing the products of the collection directly this is actually going to show a list of collection covers so people can choose which collection to view so go ahead and hover right here and click on ADD section now let's choose collection list and I'm going to click here on the first box and select my first collection same thing for the next one and the third one [Music] now let's go back and as you can see here on the sections there are now three collection blocks showing inside our section if you want to reorder which one comes first you could drag and drop like this now if someone clicks on one of these options they will be taken to the collection page where they can then view all the products in it so let's go back to the home page let's click up here and choose which page to view so click on home page and now we can also rename this to sound a bit more interesting so let's click on the text and enter a new title right up here let's say find your gardening Essentials here you can also change the text size if you want to or if you have your collection list right below the banner just like I have it here you could also just go ahead and delete the title and go for a more visual approach I think that works quite well in this example and if you have more than three collections that you want to display right here you can also increase the number of columns on desktop like this and that will let you show up to five of these collection covers in a row you can also turn on the view all button and that will then take your visitors to another page where all your collections will be listed I'm going to leave this off for now what you could also do is duplicate the section and add three different collections maybe at a lower section of your website once again there are many ways to design your home page so I'm just going to throw in a couple of additional ideas in case you want to try that alright so let's go back and add another section to the home page let's hover in between these sections and click on ADD section now we're going to select multi-column this is a great way to communicate the benefits of your brand and products so let's go ahead and click on the first column now if you look at this from top to bottom you'll see we have the option to add an image change the title description and add a link so let's go ahead and add an image if you click right here on browse free images that will take you to a free stock image library from Shopify I'm going to choose something from the nature section as I'm creating a gardening store and then let's add some of the benefits of our brand my first benefits will be a green lifestyle then let's add the description and now we can click to add the next benefit let's find a good image for this column [Music] then type in the title let's say grow your garden and for the description this is a great example of a formula that you can maybe adapt to your own products and benefits here's what it says as you can see we're mentioning all of the best things about our products presenting it as the perfect solution for any problem our ideal customer might be facing when gardening so that's the idea when communicating your benefits really try to break down what are the pain points of your customers and come up with a smart way to communicate your product as the solution then I'm going to go ahead and repeat the process for the next benefit [Music] thank you all right there we have it you could also click the title right here to change that if you'd like or just delete it if you prefer here you can change the image size [Music] and if you scroll down to button label you'll see that here you can change the text of this button and also which page is going to link to a great example of how to use this button is maybe linking it to an about us page so let's go ahead and change the text to learn more and then here on the button link we are then going to add our about us page however we haven't created that page just yet so we'll be coming back to this link later now if you scroll all the way down here you will see something called section padding this is referring to the blank space that you have in the ending and the beginning of a section so let me demonstrate this if you scroll up to the beginning of the section and increase the top padding you'll see a larger space here on the top likewise if you increase the bottom padding there is going to be more space visible on the bottom and again this is a setting that you will find on every section you create on your theme so depending on the aesthetic that you're going for that may be a useful setting for now I'm going to leave it as it is now here you can see we still have the featured product sections that Dawn theme came with built in so let's click on this section to open up the settings and here you can change which collection is being shown now let's go ahead and change the title we're going to enter gardening clothes for every season let's skip the description and here you can choose how many products you want to show and in how many columns you want them to appear in so if you lower this to two it'll look something like this what you could also do is enable for example four products per column [Music] click on enable Carousel to create a sort of swiping browsing effect and if you have more products that are being shown here you can enable a view all button so your visitors can go to your collection page if you want to change the style of the button you can do that right here then if you want to change the background color of the section you can do that right here changing the color of background sections can be a great way to add a bit of contrast in the design and break repetition to the eye especially if you have a lot of text happening and then down here comes actually one of my favorite settings in this theme it's the show second image on Hover so if you have more than one image in your product this is going to create an amazing effect when you hover it which is very engaging and makes the whole experience more enjoyable it's also very useful for your customers to see more of the products while still having an overview of the other products now what we can do is go up here on the three dots and click on duplicate then what we can do is change the section to do the same thing but with another collection so let's click on our new featured collection here on the sidebar and then scroll down to change the collection now I'm going to show my decoration collection let's change the title we're going to enter find the perfect decoration for your garden let's go back and create the next section click on ADD section right here on the sidebar and let's choose image with text here you can add a little something about your brand story so let's click on the image and add the photo right here then we're going to click on the title so we can type it and the same thing for the description let's click on it [Music] and write the description right here on the sidebar okay now we're going to click on the button and here I'm going to link to a special collection I've created showcasing the most unique items in the store click on button link and select your collection or page all right so we are almost there now let's go back and if we scroll down to the footer section you'll see that Dawn comes with an email signup form in the footer which is a really great way for you to start collecting leads so we're going to go ahead and leave this on but we can change the title so let's click on it and switch it to stay up to date then let's go back to the sidebar main View and on the footer section let's click on ADD block so here you'll see a couple of options show up one of them being menu which brings our attention to the next important step creating a navigation menu for the footer and also for the main menu on top of our store now before we dive into the menu it's also important that we create a couple of pages like the about us page and the shipping and returns policy page once those have been created we can then link them in our home page buttons and also in the navigation menus so let's go ahead and create these Pages head back to the dashboard tab and click on online store now click on pages and then on ADD page first let's go to the title and type in about us now hit save and let's click on view page so we can customize this on a new theme editor Tab and now you can go for the exact same process we have been doing on the home page but for the about us page a great way to talk about your brand is using the image with text section so let's go ahead and create one of those [Music] and then you could also duplicate this section by clicking up here on duplicate [Music] and then go to the desktop image placement here on the sidebar and choose image second that's going to flip the image to the other side so it creates this nice bit of contrast as you scroll and read then you can change the text and repeat that a few more times if you have more information to share now let's go back to our pages what we can do now is repeat the exact same process to create the shipping and returns policy page so let's go ahead and do that [Music] and when that is ready let's head over to navigation and create the menus first we're going to click on main menu so here you should see a couple of things by default if you don't need those you can go ahead and delete that right here and then click on ADD menu item to create a new category you'll see this little window pop up here on the side so here under name we're going to enter about us and then click on pages and link to our new about us page that we just created hit add and let's add a couple of more menu items next we could add our gardening clothes collection and then down here click on Collections and choose gardening clothes click on add to save and now I'm going to go ahead and repeat the process for my other collections I'm going to quickly add gardening tools decoration [Music] and all products you could also create a best sellers collection and Link it on your menu and if you have a lot of different collections you can add them first as I just did and then drag and drop them into subcategories like this oh alright so let's save our menu and go back to edit to the footer menu which is going to show in the bottom of our store click on footer menu and just like we did for the main menu let's add a few important pages to the footer click on ADD menu item and let's add our shipping and returns pages [Music] then let's also go ahead and add the about us page and a few of our collections alright's perfect let's save and go back to the theme editor tab now the main menu will already be added here by default so we don't need to do anything so let's scroll down and check our footer section your footer menu block is going to be called quick links so if you already see that added perfect here are our new links otherwise click on ADD block and add the menu block what we can do then is click here on our mission and add some basic store information like an email address for contact phone number and things like that now let's save and let's have a look at how our store is actually looking live go right up here to the three dots and click View and here we can see how things are looking so far [Music] if you click on one of your products you'll see the product information will already be set up based on what we entered earlier in the dashboard so there's nothing we need to do here so what we're going to do now is head back to our Shopify dashboard and we're going to go over some of the management settings like shipping payments checkout and so on let's click on settings down here on the left and first let's go ahead and edit the store details make sure your profile settings are correct if not you can go ahead and click edit and change your information then here you can also go ahead and change your billing address if you need to and then down here we get to the store currency setting obviously have a look this is matching your selling location and if you are selling internationally I'm going to link a couple of apps down in the description that you can use to convert your store currency based on location so if someone is shopping in Germany for example they will see Euros instead of dollars I'm going to link a few options for that down in the description now let's head to payments and here's where we're going to set up the payment options for our customers the first thing you'll see here is Shopify payments this is a very nice option to go with it's super easy to set up as it's obviously done by Shopify you can also allow customers to save their shipping and payment information for a faster checkout in the future however it does require that your business has a registration number and is based in one of the supported countries so if you do have a registration number and you are based in one of these supported countries you can go ahead and click on complete account setup and easily submit your business details I can imagine that many of you probably have not registered your business yet so we're going to go ahead and scroll down here so we can use another payment option you're going to see PayPal and Amazon pay added by default if for any reason you want to deactivate those you can just click on it and turn it off though I definitely recommend that you create a PayPal business accounts and enable this as an option you can have more than one payment option in your store so PayPal is most definitely a worthy addition now we're going to click on ADD payment methods and choose a provider these are overall pretty good options so go ahead choose one of them create your account and obviously make sure that the one you choose allows for visa and MasterCard payments once that's ready let's head to the checkout settings here we're going to have a look at what information your customers will need to enter during checkout so here we have the customer contact method you can choose between email or phone or just email we're going to go ahead and choose just email I think that's definitely a better and easier option to go with here and then let's have a look at this setting right here require the customer to log into their account before checkout I recommend you leave this unchecked just because that creates extra Hassle and friction to the checkout process and requiring accounts is actually one of the main reasons for cart abandonment so definitely leave this unchecked then here in the customer information you can choose to require the first and last name or just the last name depending on what you're selling Gathering first names can be useful for your future marketing strategies for example email marketing if you gather first names you can then create emails on a more first name personalized basis so let's go with that option then we have the company name option should you require a company name if you are a b2c business model then I definitely recommend leaving this as not required however if you are doing B2B or business to business and your customers are other companies then it might be a good idea to require their company name address line 2 we're going to leave as optional shipping address and phone number we will take as required as most email services will need a phone number for delivery by law so definitely check this one then the order processing we will leave as it is set by default if you are Drop Shipping you don't need to worry about this part and the marketing options let's select email and then scroll back up and hit save now let's go to markets and here we're going to add our selling regions so which countries we're going to be selling to if you are only selling nationally you'll need to add your country right here on primary Market by default this should be set to your account location so if this is correct you can just leave it as it is and if you are selling internationally then we're going to have a look at this section right here called other markets right now Shopify has created an international market for us where we can include a list of countries so let's click on manage and if you click on see all you will see which countries have already been added to change this let's go to edit and here we can enter all of our countries obviously make sure to exclude any places you will not be able to deliver to and if you are syncing with a Drop Shipping supplier have a look in their platform to see if there are any products that are limited to a certain location then let's go back and set the market status to active now let's go to shipping and delivery so here once again this will be different depending on your business model if you are Drop Shipping you might be able to sync all of this directly from your supplier's platform but I'm also going to go ahead and show you the basics so you understand how this works I think that's definitely important so if you are selling different kinds of products the weight of your products will alter the shipping price so a smart thing to do is to create shipping profiles for items that are around a similar weight for example if you're selling clothes you could group all of your hoodies and sweatpants which have a similar weight into a single profile and all of your accessories for example into another profile that way you can customize the shipping price depending on the weight if you don't want to separate this then you'll just use the general profile that is already set up by default right here I'm going to go over the general one for now but if you do decide to create more profiles you can click right here and follow the exact same set herbs alright so let's click on manage and here you can see which products are a part of the profile then here under shipping zones you will see the prices for your primary markets and your International markets which we just created in the previous step if you want to edit the shipping prices click right here on edit rate and enter your value and by the way even if you do want to offer free shipping I recommend you set this up and then create a free shipping discount on top of it to increase the perceived value of your sales I'm going to leave a video talking about discount codes down in the description for the international you can then click on ADD rate and then enter the international shipping rate that you wish to charge thank you all right now let's head over to Brent and add our logo you can also add your brand colors and your social media links down here this is going to be added to your automated emails so make sure to include your links then let's go to policies and down here we will need to add our privacy policy in our terms of service you can just press create from template and then edit any parts if necessary Shopify is going to then automatically add this to your footer menu since these are more policy related sorts of pages we won't be spending any more time to customize the looks of these pages so just go ahead and click save and now let's go to domains now if you don't have a domain your website is going to be set to dot my shopify.com which is not very professional so now is the time to purchase a domain if you want to keep this as simple as possible without any complicated configurations like setting up your DNS settings and things like that you can just go ahead and purchase a domain right here from Shopify and you are good to go and if you have already purchased a domain in another platform you can click on connect existing domain and enter your settings all right now let's close the settings and let's have a look at our store looks like everything is ready now before we actually go live it's important that we test and make sure that our checkout is actually working so let's add one of our products to the cart go to checkout and it looks like we are ready to start selling now let's head back to the dashboard and under online store we're going to now remove the password and make our website public great now we also want to go to preferences down here and add our store name and description to appear on Google if you go to the analytics section right here on the side menu you will be able to track your website visitors what their sessions look like if anything has been added to cards Etc so now I definitely recommend you start looking into different marketing strategies to start bringing some traffic to your store and to get your first sale you're also going to need to have a great offer so to help you succeed I've actually made a whole video on how to create and set up discount codes I'm going to leave a link to that video down in the description and if by any chance you haven't signed up for Shopify yet you'll also find a link taking you to the best current deal to get started now before you go I also want to let you know that I've prepared a super valuable free resource to help you out in your e-commerce Journey it's a digital magazine bundle featuring a marketing guide and a branding guide I've chosen some of the coolest and most successful Shopify stores that I've come across and have broken them down into segments of what they're doing right so you can follow their footsteps to create your own success story it's loaded with top knowledge marketing tips and tons of inspiring creative ideas for your store in The Branding guides you'll find pretty much everything you need to know to create a thriving brand from scratch you'll find tons of tips and definitions on how to create a solid brand identity Basics on brand voice visuals intelligent color use for sales and other top knowledge Insider stuff you can find both of those resources in a free bundle pack in the description and that is all everyone I hope this guide was helpful to you if you have any questions at all feel free to drop them down in the comments thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video foreign

Channel: Shopify Success

Views: 829,419

Keywords: best shopify tutorial, shopify, shopify tutorial, shopify tutorial for beginners, how to start shopify, shopify training, complete shopify tutorial, learn with shopify, how to use shopify, shopify tutorials, shopify app tutorial, shopify beginner tutorial, shopify guide, shopify beginners guide, shopify guide for beginners, ultimate guide to shopify, ultimate shopify guide, set up shopify store, how to set up a shopify store, shopify store, shopify store setup

Id: 6Da36Z9gNuU

Length: 45min 55sec (2755 seconds)

Published: Wed May 10 2023