---
title: 'Shopify Tutorial for Beginners (2026) | Build Your Online Store Step-by-Step'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=UKs338dQzbY'
video_id: 'UKs338dQzbY'
date: 2026-08-12
duration_sec: 1474
---

# Shopify Tutorial for Beginners (2026) | Build Your Online Store Step-by-Step

> Source: [Shopify Tutorial for Beginners (2026) | Build Your Online Store Step-by-Step](https://youtube.com/watch?v=UKs338dQzbY)

## Summary

This video is a comprehensive Shopify tutorial for beginners, guiding viewers through the process of creating an online store from scratch. The host, Elizabeth, demonstrates step-by-step how to set up a Shopify account, add products, customize the storefront, configure shipping and payments, and prepare the store for launch.

### Key Points

- **Creating a Shopify Account** [00:15] — Start by creating a Shopify account using the link in the video description or pin comment to begin a free trial. Shopify will ask questions about your business; you can choose options like 'other' or 'just starting' or skip if unsure.
- **Understanding the Admin Dashboard** [00:46] — The Shopify admin dashboard is the control center for your store, where you manage products, orders, customers, marketing, and everything else related to your business.
- **Adding Products** [01:04] — There are two ways to add products: import them via spreadsheet or from another platform, or add them manually. For manual entry, you'll add a product title, description, images, price, and inventory details.
- **Using Shopify's AI Assistant** [01:35] — Shopify's AI assistant can help generate product descriptions. It quickly creates persuasive language explaining why customers should purchase the product.
- **Setting Prices and Compare at Price** [02:43] — Enter the selling price for your product. Use the 'compare at price' feature to show a higher original price, automatically displaying savings to customers (e.g., compare at $22.99).
- **Inventory Settings** [03:00] — Tracking inventory is optional. If enabled, enter the quantity available. The number changes only when a purchase is made or manually adjusted. You can also add SKU or barcode and decide whether to continue selling when out of stock.
- **Adding Variants** [04:04] — For products with multiple sizes, colors, or options, add variants. For example, a bandana can have small, medium, and large sizes, each with its own inventory count.
- **Meta Fields for SEO** [05:12] — Meta fields help Shopify understand your products better, improving filtering and SEO. Shopify pre-populates many fields, but you should review and correct them (e.g., color from white to blue).
- **Creating Collections** [06:35] — Organize products into collections. You can add products manually or set up a 'smart' collection with parameters (e.g., any product with 'bandana' in the title is automatically added).
- **Customizing the Storefront Theme** [07:06] — After adding products, customize your theme. Shopify suggests themes based on your product images and words. You can use the suggestion or explore free themes in the theme store.
- **Editing the Theme** [08:48] — Use the visual website editor to customize sections like the announcement bar, logo, header menu, hero image, and featured collections. Changes to products reflect across the site automatically.
- **Theme Settings: Colors and Typography** [12:48] — Adjust color schemes and typography in theme settings. Changes apply automatically to the storefront. You can also preview and edit the mobile view.
- **Editing Pages** [14:06] — Update pages like 'About Us' by adding sections, images, and text. Use the duplicate feature to copy sections and adjust placement with padding.
- **Account Settings and Notifications** [17:15] — Configure notifications for customer emails. Note that without a custom domain, emails come from a generic Shopify address. Customize email templates if desired.
- **Setting Up Payments** [18:30] — Shopify Payments is the easiest option, built directly into Shopify. Follow prompts to connect business and banking details so payments go directly to your account.
- **Shipping and Delivery** [18:57] — Define shipping costs and regions. Common options: free shipping, flat rate, or carrier calculated rates. Set up package sizes and test shipping rates with sample data.
- **Taxes** [21:29] — Shopify automatically handles much of the tax calculation, but review settings for your region. Consult a tax professional if unsure about registrations or permits.
- **Domains** [22:00] — Change your myshopify.com domain or purchase a custom domain (e.g., scoutandstitch.com) to increase credibility and drive more traffic.
- **Policies** [22:27] — Set up shipping, privacy, and return/refund policies. Define return window, shipping costs, restocking fees, and final sale items. Publish policies after editing.
- **Marketing and Analytics** [23:08] — Track website traffic and sales under marketing. Create campaigns and connect third-party apps for advertising. Use data to attribute sales to specific initiatives.
- **Pricing Plans** [23:49] — Shopify offers several plans. The Basic plan is popular for new store owners, including everything needed to build and sell. Note monthly/yearly subscription fees and payment processing fees.

### Conclusion

By following this tutorial, you can build a fully functional Shopify store, from adding products and customizing the theme to configuring payments, shipping, and policies. The key is to take advantage of Shopify's built-in tools and free trial to test and refine your store before launch.

## Transcript

If you've ever wanted to start your own online  store or build a business that works for you 247,   Shopify is one of the easiest ways  to make that happen. I'm Elizabeth   and in this video I'll show you step by step how  to create your own Shopify store from scratch.  
To get started, the first thing you'll  need to do is create a Shopify account.   Use the link in the video description below  or the pin comment to start your free trial.   Shopify will then ask you a few questions about  your business. If you're just getting started,  
don't worry if you don't have everything figured  out yet. You can choose options like other,   just starting, or press the skip button. Once you  create your account, you'll arrive at the Shopify   admin dashboard. Think of this dashboard as the  control center for your entire online store.  
This is where you'll manage products, orders,  customers, marketing, and everything else related   to your business. We'll be working through most  of these sections throughout this tutorial. Today   I'm going to be creating an online store called  Scout and Stitch that sells dog accessories.  
Before we customize our storefront, let's begin  adding our products. There's two ways to do this.   And the first option is to import your products.  Either by uploading a spreadsheet, and Shopify   has a template that you can use, or you can  import your products from another platform.  
This is a great option if you're  already selling your products elsewhere   or if you have a large inventory and you don't  want to add your products individually. Today,   I'm going to be adding my products manually. At  the top, I'll start by adding my product title.  
Below that, you'll see the product description  area. This is where you'll explain the benefits   and features of your product. One of the new AI  features in Shopify helps you with your writing.   Although I've already added some text to my  description, I want to add even more language  
speaking as to why someone should purchase this  product. So, I'll ask the AI assistant for some   help in adding language that explains why someone  should purchase this product. Perfect. And that  
just took seconds for the AI assistant to create.  Next, I can add my product images. Highquality   images are one of the biggest factors in online  sales. So try to upload multiple images showing  
different angles. You can upload videos as well  and also you can resort your images to display   however you like. You'll see that Shopify use the  information that we've already provided to select  
the product category. But if this is incorrect,  you can always manually select a new one.   Now scrolling down, we're going to enter our  selling price. I'll enter the price that I   want customers to see that the item is listed for.  [snorts] There's a bunch of other settings here,  
and we're not going to go into all of the detail,  but one thing I want to call out is the compare   at price. If you want to show customers that  they're receiving a discount, you can enter a   higher compare at price. For example, I'll  add that the compare at price is $22.99.  
Shopify will automatically display the  savings to the customer. Scrolling down,   we now have our inventory settings. Tracking  inventory is completely optional. So, if you   don't want to keep track of inventory, just go  ahead and toggle this off. But if you want to,  
then make sure that the toggle is on. Then put  in your quantity for this product. So, if I have   50 of these bandanas available, I'll put in 50.  And the only way that this number would change   is if someone makes a purchase from your shop, or  you go back in and adjust the quantity manually.  
If you want, you can add a specific  skew or barcode to this product as well.   And if you're going to be selling a product that  perhaps you can produce more of quickly, you can   continue to sell when the product is out of stock.  But if it's not something you can produce quickly,  
I suggest making sure that this is toggled  to off. I suggest creating as many different   packages as possible early in the process and  then naming them based on your product type.   This will help save you a lot of time  as you continue to build out your store.  
Now, let's talk about variance. If you're selling  a product that has multiple sizes or colors or   other options, this would be where you add them.  If you don't, then just ignore this category.  
In my particular case, I do offer  multiple sizes for this bandana.   So, let's go ahead and add those  here. I have a small, a medium,   and a large size depending on the size of the dog.  That's all I need to do. And then I click on done.  
Now, you'll notice here that they've added  50 as the available inventory for size small.   However, even though I have 50 total available,  they're spread out across these three sizes. So,  
this is where I would adjust my inventory based  on that variant. I have 25 available in small,   I have 15 available in medium, and I have 10  available in large. If I was selling a product  
that perhaps had different colors, you could add  particular images assigned to each one of these   variants as well. Next, we have our category meta  fields. Meta fields help Shopify better understand  
your products and can be used for things like  improving product filtering on your storefront   and creating more structured product  data for search engine optimization.   Shopify is going to prepopulate a lot of these  fields based on the information you've already  
added to your product listing, but it's always  a good idea to go back and check. For example,   they're showing that the color of this bandana  is white when in actuality the color is blue. So,   I'm going to go ahead and add that. I could also  add flowers as one of the colors or pattern types  
by adding that here as well. Likewise, you can  add additional information like hair instructions,   fabric type, or any specific features that you  want to be used for your metadata. We'll talk  
more about marketing later on, but you will be  able to see a brief preview of what your search   engine listing for this particular product may  look like. And you can choose to make edits now,   but again, we'll touch base more on this  later. And then, when everything looks  
good for your product, make sure to click on save.  Congratulations on setting up your first product.   Once you've done that, you can preview what your  product listing will look like in your store,   even though we haven't officially set up the theme  for our storefront. I've now added additional  
products to my inventory. Remember that you can  add products both manually or you can import more   products at any time to your catalog. As your  store grows, you may want to organize products  
into categories. Shopify calls these collections.  Here, I created a collection called bandanas.   And once you add a collection type, you can either  add future products manually or set it to smart.  
Smart then provides parameters that you can  give to Shopify for adding products to this   collection in the future. In this case, I chose  that anytime the title contains the word bandana   that those products should be listed within  this collection. Now that we've begun to add  
some products and collections to our store, let's  build out our storefront by going back home. Start   by selecting customize theme on your dashboard.  One of the reasons I like to add products and   collections to Shopify before customizing my  online store is because Shopify will identify  
potential themes based off of the images and  words that were used in my product catalog.   In this case, they got the idea that I have kind  of a more foresty nature feel for my products  
and they suggested this horizon theme,  which is a bit more wilderness and outdoors   as my default store theme. Now, I can choose to  use their suggestion or I can discover additional  
themes that I might want to use for my store. You  can also explore more themes in the theme store.   In the theme store, you can filter by themes. You  could see here that there's 33 different templates  
under the category of pets, but all of these  require me to pay in order to use the theme.   So, another option is to not filter by theme  and instead just filter based off of the price.   In this case, I can view all of the different free  themes that are offered to me. Now, if you skipped  
ahead and moved on to designing your online store  without first adding any products or collections,   that's fine. But in order for Shopify to  provide a customized template for you,   they'll need some more information. But the good  news is you can easily add that at any point  
down here in the prompt to describe in more  detail the type of storefront that you have.   Once you're happy with the template, you can begin  to customize it even more by selecting edit theme.   We've now entered Shopify's visual website  editor. And one of my favorite things about  
Shopify is they make the process of customizing  your storefront relatively intuitive. So,   we're going to walk through all of these different  sections on the lefth hand side, starting with   our announcement bar. The announcement bar is a  great place to welcome customers to your store  
or to advertise specific features. For instance,  I'm going to update welcome to our store   to free shipping on orders over $50. And if you  decide that you don't want an announcement at the   top of your page, that's fine. You can just delete  this section. You can also update the font type,  
whether it's bold, adjust the weight of it, letter  spacing, etc. And that's the same for each one of   these subsections. The next thing Shopify is going  to recommend is updating our logo. And again,   completely optional. I'm going to edit my logo in  the theme settings, which will then bring me right  
back to this page. Now that I've updated my logo,  it's time to adjust our header. This is where you   can find your menu or your navigation bar. This  is how viewers when they come to your website are  
able to navigate between pages. Now, one of the  funny things about Shopify is you can't actually   make edits to this menu within the website editor.  Instead, you'll need to go back to your dashboard  
and click on content. And then once you're  in menus, you can make those changes.   So, I'll select main menu. And instead of  contact, I want to instead call this about us.  
Then I can save it. And I can also reorder this  if I want. So I can drag about us right there.   And then once I click save, you'll see that  the header bar has automatically updated   to remove contact and replace it with about  us. Next, we have what's called the hero,  
which is really the main focal point that  a viewer will see when they come to your   store. [snorts] It's suggested that you have an  image here, but of course, you don't have to.   You can either explore free images or  video from Shopify or you can add your own.  
Once you've uploaded your image, you can make  additional edits to it within the design tool.   Now, in this case, I don't want any other text to  be on my image. So, I'm just going to remove this.   Likewise, I don't want this button here, so I'm  going to remove that as well. But again, if you  
want to keep those things there, you're able to  make adjustments within the text editor. Next,   the template has included our featured collection  of products. But let's say that this is not what   I want a viewer to see. Let's [snorts] go ahead  and see what other sections are available to me.  
Now, here you have a lot of different options.  I'm going to scroll through, and I would actually   really love to see a collection list here since  we took the time to add products to a collection   earlier in this tutorial. So, I went ahead and  selected that. And now it's going to give me  
the opportunity to select which collections I want  added. So I want to actually go ahead and add all   of these here. So I've clicked into that. And now  you can see here that it has added this carousel  
that viewers can scroll through of the  different product categories that I have.   Now you'll notice here that one of these images  looks a little off compared to the other ones.   And that's not a problem. I can go back into this  product, make updates to that image, and then as  
soon as I come back to the editor, you'll be able  to preview the resized image. And that goes for   all of your products. If you ever need to make a  change, whether it's to the text, the price, the   image, etc. Update that in your product catalog  and then the changes will be made across your  
entire site. Next, I have the products. I kind of  like having all of the products on the main page,   so I'm going to leave this as is. But again, if  you want to make any changes to it, simply click  
in and on the lefth hand side, it will walk you  through everything. Now, let's talk a little bit   about the page settings before we move on because  you'll notice that this template had a plain white   background and a standard font that they used,  but maybe you want to make changes to that.  
So, here on the lefth hand side, you're going to  click on theme settings. And here, you're going   to be given some additional options. The first one  is colors. Here you can change your color scheme   to be applied through specific sections  or throughout your entire online store.  
Likewise, typography. You can adjust the different  type of font and size used across your store.   And this is also where you can make changes  to things like buttons on your page.   So again, if you have a very specific type of  style that you want used on your page, you can  
change all of that here under settings and then it  will be applied automatically to your storefront.   Likewise, you can see how your store views  on a mobile device as well and make changes  
accordingly. So here I can see that I have a very  similar setup on the mobile device as I do on   a computer and I think I like the look of  that. But again, if I wanted to make changes,   I would click into each one of these sections. And  you'll see that there's an area for mobile media.  
Here is when where you can make edits specifically  for a mobile device. So now, let's take a look   at what I've built so far. In just a few  minutes, I've been able to put together a   really good-looking store. And if someone were to  come to my website, they would be able to easily  
navigate through what I've built. But there's  one problem. When I click here on about us,   it's taking us to the old contact form. If you  remember, we updated this navigation bar to about  
us instead of contact. So now we need to go back  and actually make an edit to that page. You'll   see the template for the contact us form that  Shopify provided as part of the default template.   Your first step could be to delete all of this,  but in my case, I want to keep the contact form  
and just add some additional information about  my company above the contact us form. So,   I'm going to add a section to the template. You  could preview what some of the different design   options are here. In my case, I want to add an  image before I enter some information underneath,  
which will be text. First thing here, I'm  going to change new arrivals to be about us. And as far as the text here, I don't need  this, so I'm just going to remove it.  
Likewise, I don't need this button,  so I'll remove this as well.   Now, one thing about Shopify is you can't  easily move things like text around the page.   But what you can do is adjust the placement. So,  in this case, I want to actually move this text  
up on the image. So, I can do this here by adding  some padding to it, which will bring the text up   slightly. And now, I can double click into the  image and select what I want for my computer. But   now that I have my image, I actually don't like  the text over it. So, I'm going to remove this  
and instead I want to create a header  similar to this contact section. So,   instead of adding a new section, I just want to  copy this. So, I'll rightclick, press duplicate,  
and now I can change the text of this to about us. Now that I have this new section in, I'm going to  want to create some text. So once again, in here,  
I'll select a new section and I'm going to add  text. I'm going to remove the text here and add   my own. Remember, you can also use Shopify's  AI assistant to help you generate text. Now,  
I have all of this text here, but I really don't  like the layout. So, similar to everything else,   you can go ahead and make changes to that. I'm  going to set the width at fill and then I am  
going to remove the max width and I'm going to  adjust the alignment. This makes it a lot more   pleasing to the eye. And I still have the contact  us form below. Now I would like to add a little   section break in here in order to make it a bit  more stylistically pleasing. So to add a divider,  
I'll click here to generate a new block. And  all I need to do here is search for the divider.
Perfect. And now when I click on about us, I'm  able to see the new page with my graphics, all   of the text, and I still have the contact us form  down below. Now, where does this contact form go?  
Let's explore some of the additional features of  your Shopify store. Your account settings can be   found in the bottom lefth hand corner and that's  what we're going to explore next. Let's start with   notifications. When a customer fills out a contact  us form, it's going to be sent to the email  
address that you have on file under settings. Now,  you'll note here that Shopify is letting us know   that when a customer receives an email, it's not  going to be from this address because it's not  
a custom domain. We'll talk about domains in a  little bit, but this is important to recognize.   If I were to continue without connecting a custom  domain, customers instead of seeing my Scout and   Stitch email will instead see the generic Shopify  email that's listed here in the announcement.  
Now, let's talk about the types of  emails that customers are going to get.   Let's click into customer notifications. You  can customize all of these email templates,   but let's take a look at what the default is for  order confirmation. Here's the preview of what the  
default order confirmation email will look like  when a customer places an order on your site. If   this all looks good to you, then don't worry about  customizing the emails. But again, if you want to   create any sort of customization, you can do that  on the previous screen. Now, let's talk about  
something very important, and that's payments.  Shopify payments is usually the easiest option   because it's built directly into Shopify.  You'll just need to follow the prompts to  
connect your business information and all  of your banking details. And this way,   clients can purchase directly on your shop and all  of your payments go directly to the bank account   that you enter into your account information.  Now, let's talk about shipping and delivery.  
Here, under the shipping tab, you'll define how  much customers pay for shipping and where you're   willing to ship your products. Most stores choose  from one of three common options: free shipping,   flat rate shipping, or carrier calculated rates.  So, let's walk through all of this together.  
The first thing that you're going  to want to decide is what carriers   you want to utilize for your shipping needs. And  you can manage that here under preferred carriers.   The next thing you're going to want to do is  ensure that all of the different size packages  
are set up in here under settings. Now, I  created all of my different package sizes   when I set up my product catalog, but if you  skip that, this is where you would add all of   that package information. And don't forget to add  packing materials to the weight of those packages.  
Next, you're going to determine what  some of those shipping costs look like.   Now, it's important to note that Shopify  does provide discounting shipping labels.   In order to find out how much a shipping label may  cost, you can go here and put in some test data  
to determine what that might look like. For  example, I could use one of these packages as   a sample and see what the rate would be using  Shopify's discounted rates to ship a dog leash  
from Seattle, Washington to New York City. The  default settings that Shopify is giving us is   a flat rate of $15 for express delivery and  free standard delivery for orders $70 and up.  
Now, let's go ahead and make some changes to this  because I advertised on the main page that I will   offer free shipping for all orders over $50. So,  I can make that edit here. Now, when I looked at  
some of those rates for the discounted shipping  labels, shipping is actually more expensive than   what Shopify is giving us here as a default. So,  I'm going to go ahead and adjust this flat rate  
for ground shipping to be $10. Shipping is going  to default to domestic shipping. But, if you want   to ship international, you can always add that  as a market. Here, you can create international   markets. And then you can create shipping zones  to charge different rates for different regions,  
such as domestic versus international  orders. Once you've configurated your rates,   be sure to test the checkout process in order  to verify that customers are seeing the correct   shipping charges before launching your store.  And now, a topic that's not so much fun, taxes.  
Shopify will automatically handle much  of the tax calculation process for you,   but it is a good idea to review all of the  settings for your particular country or region.   Depending on where you operate, you may  need additional tax registration or permits.  
And it's always a good idea to consult a tax  professional if you're unsure. Right now,   if someone wanted to visit my store, they  would need to go to this website address, which   isn't probably going to drive that much traffic.  So, you have a few options. The first thing I'm  
going to do is change my myshopify.com domain.  Another option is to connect an existing domain   or to purchase a new one from Shopify. This way,  instead of having scoutandstitch.mmyshopify.com,
I could purchase a domain if it's available called  scoutandstitch.com, driving more traffic to my   website. and a custom domain often increases  credibility and makes your business easier  
to remember. Before we check out a preview of  our finished store, let's talk about policies.   These can include shipping policies, privacy  policies, and your return and refund policy.  
The first thing you'll want to do is click on  manage and select what your return window is   and what your return shipping cost is. You'll  also need to mark whether you're going to charge   a restocking fee or if any items are final sale.  You can also adjust the language of your return  
and refund policy as well as any other policy.  So, you could use just the default template and   the return rule summary or you can enter your own  legal language here. And once you've done that,  
you can click on publish. So, now I've built out  this great store and I can begin driving traffic   to my website. I don't have any data yet since  I just built this website, but under marketing,  
you can begin to track the website traffic that  you're receiving and attribute those to sales.   You can also create specific campaigns to  determine how specific marketing initiatives are  
driving your business goals. You can also connect  your Shopify account to popular third party apps   that can assist you in the advertising and  marketing of your new Shopify store. Before   launching your store, let's take a quick look at  Shopify's pricing plans. Shopify offers several  
plans designed for businesses at different stages  of growth and definitely take advantage of the   free trial to test things out. The link to sign  up is in the video description and pin comment.   The basic plan is the most popular option for  new store owners. It includes everything you need  
to build an online store, process payments,  manage inventory, and start selling online.   And as your business grows, you can always  upgrade. Now, one thing to keep in mind is that   Shopify charges both a monthly subscription fee  or a yearly subscription fee, as well as payment  
processing fees on each sale. The exact amount  depends on your plan and payment provider. Thanks   for watching, and don't forget to sign up for  our weekly newsletter for more videos like this.