If you’ve been wanting to build your own store in Shopify but don’t know how, this blog post is for you. I will tell you how I build my store – a walkthrough – step-by-step from A-Z.

It’s easy to understand and follow, even a 12-year old can do it… so keep reading, follow each step and finally have your own store.

Step 1: Sign Up for Shopify

This is the first thing you have to do (obviously). You simply need to go to the Shopify website, click on the “Get Started” button and fill in your details.

After that, Shopify will load for a bit while creating your store. When that’s done, Shopify will then ask you a few more questions to get started:

• Are you already selling?
• What is your current revenue?
• Your personal information.

After that, you’ll finally have access to your Shopify store’s admin page where you get to do everything from adding a product, to setting things up to success and etc. Let’s go over what you have to do next…

Step 2: Add a Product to Your Shopify Store

There are 2 ways you can go about this and it depends on what you’re doing.

Own Product

If you already have a product of your own (physical) and you want to bring it online, this is what you can do…

1. From your Shopify store’s admin page, go to Products.
2. From the Products page, click Add product.
3. Add the details of your product.
4. Create a killer product description
5. Click Save.

Dropshipping

If you’re dropshipping and you simply want to look for cheap products you can sell for a higher price, here’s what you can do…

1. Download the Oberlo app in Shopify
2. Download the Oberlo Chrome Extension
3. Go to Aliexpress and shop
4. Find the products you’d like to add on your store
5. Use the Chrome Extension to select the product and import it in your store
6. Go to Oberlo and check the products section
7. Import it to Shopify
8. From your Shopify store’s admin page, go to Products.
9. From the Products page, you’ll see the products from Aliexpress
10. Edit it and add the details of the product.
11. Create a killer product description
12. Click

That’s it.

You’re dropshipping and you want to know how you can find a good product? Read this blog post. It’s a FREE, detailed guide on how you can find products – even without investing cash on a software to do so!

Step 3: Customize the Look of Your Site – Choosing a Theme/Layout

Shopify has hundreds of themes. Some paid and some free.

In your store’s admin page, simply click “Online Store” on the right then click “Themes”. Once you’re on the theme setup page, scroll down and visit the theme store. Click “Visit Theme Store” and voila, hundreds of themes to choose from.

Still starting out and don’t know which theme would be good enough? I suggest you use Brooklyn. It’s simple, it’s clean and it looks fresh – something people are used to seeing already.

Once you’ve done that, go back to the theme page and click “Customize” and tinker it to how you want your site to look like in the front-end.

Make your site look trustworthy, credible and NOT spammy, okay? Okay!

Step 4: Setup Your Domain

Go back to the store’s admin page and add a Domain.

This is very important.

You can’t have website URL with “.shopify” on it. It’ unprofessional, it doesn’t look trustworthy and credible and your store would look like a scam.

Shopify will ask you whether you want to transfer a domain or register a new one. Choose the domain that suits your situation/preference and go through the steps Shopify want you to take.

If you don’t have a domain yet, I suggest you buy from NameCheap. Their customer service is really good and I’ve never had a problem with them since.

Once you’re done, you can look that domain up and see the website you made.

Step 5: Going Through Shopify Settings

To finally get your store up running, this is what you got to do next. You need to go through settings and create the necessary items you need to run a non-problematic store. Here’s what you gotta do…

Have Your Standard Pages Ready

Before anything else, have these pages ready: About Us, Terms & Conditions, Privacy & Returns Policy, Shipping & Delivery Information, and Contact Us. They’re essential if you want to run an online store smoothly.

About Us 

This page is where people can go to learn more about your store.

If you want to succeed with dropshipping, then you need to make this with purpose and conviction. You can’t just write a generic About Us page anymore. People won’t trust your site. When they’re still contemplating to buy from you or not, this is where they’ll go. Make them want to buy from you.

Shipping & Delivery Information

 If you’re selling products from Aliexpress, you know their delivery is long.

Don’t lie about it. Be honest, tell them how long the shipping is. Most people would even trust you more for pointing out even the “bad” stuff in your business. If you’re just starting out with making money online, this is literally how you’ll learn to handle a real business.

Contact Us 

This page is very powerful. It creates a sense of relationship with your customers because you’re someone worth their trust. I mean, they can contact you anytime they want, can’t they? If you’re someone buying from another store, wouldn’t you want that as well? Yes? Then apply that knowledge to your own store.

Make sure this page is visible in your site.

Policies

To create basic policy pages for your store, simply go to Settings → Checkout and scroll down to the Refund, Privacy, and TOS statements section. Shopify has a pre-made sample you can use but make sure you edit them to the business you have!

Add A Payment Gateway

Simply go to Settings → Payments.

In this section, Shopify will show you dozens of payment processors you can use (e.g. Stripe) so you can finally accept payments from customers. Those payments then go to an account – the payment processor.

Shopify has steps, or walkthroughs, on how you can activate any payment processor you want.

It’s made really well so there’s no point in making one here as well. If you don’t know already, Shopify also has its own payment processor and it’s something you should definitely take a look at.

Setup Your Billing Information

Before you can launch your store and sell anything, you’ll need to enter your Shopify billing information. The best part about this is you won’t be charged until your trial ends. Simply navigate to Settings → Account then enter your billing information and that’s it.

These are all the things you need to create your store from start to finish… Still unsure if you got everything right?

Want to know the fool-proof Shopify apps, necessary external account and the systems you need to have in place to start a successful store? Then grab your very own store setup checklist here!

Enjoyed this article about how you can start your own Shopify store in less than 24 hours? Click HERE to receive daily emails about how to make money with dropshipping from James Holt, the founder of Start Selling Stuff.