The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Shopify

[00:00] And in this video, I'm gonna show you to a fully published store that looks like this, I've broken this into 10 simple steps.

[00:15] Then we'll go deep on the parts that actually matter. adding products, and making everything The first few steps are quick,

[00:31] because that's when your store goes from looking like a template to looking like a real brand. or even if you've never built a website before, no worries.

[00:45] and I won't skip anything so you can follow along. your own online store. like Amazon, Etsy, or eBay,

[00:58] buy from you, and you control the entire experience. Think of it like renting a storefront, except it's online,

[01:10] Right now, Shopify offers a free trial And if you use my link in the description below, for just a dollar a month after your trial ends.

[01:26] so this saves you over $100. So to get that deal, use the link on screen in the description below.

[01:38] Go ahead and add your email to get started. then click to create your account. On the left side, you can see it says

[01:53] you'll be charged $1 for your first month. or enter your card information to get started. and the cool thing is, for your first three months,

[02:07] I recommend clicking the View plan details button you can get started with the Basic Plan, Next, Shopify's going to ask you

[02:20] the setup checklist on your dashboard. however makes the most sense for your business. Go ahead and enter your store name,

[02:33] Then click Finish. Step two, let me give you a quick overview All right, this is your Shopify admin,

[02:46] and run your store lives here. Home, that's where we are now. Orders, that's where customer purchases show up.

[03:00] Customers, a list of everyone who buys from you. Just look here for the broad category first, A little further down, we have online store.

[03:14] We'll spend a lot of time in here, and the gear icon with Settings is at the very bottom. and your domain name later on.

[03:27] this setup guide in the centre of the screen, but the good news is we're going to cover so you don't need to pay too much attention to this.

[03:40] If you click that, that's Sidekick, Shopify's AI assistant. you can ask it questions right here.

[03:53] You can close it with a little X in the top right. you can click Sidekick Conversations in the lower left. Now step three.

[04:06] A theme is basically a template the layout, the fonts, and the style. for your storefront.

[04:19] but the theme gives you a starting point In your left side navigation, click Online Store, into the sub menu themes.

[04:34] is Horizon version 3.5.0. It's built with a block-based system and it loads faster than older themes.

[04:48] On the right side here, you can see the Edit theme button. If you scroll down, you will see this And if you type a prompt in here,

[05:01] However, each theme has different features, I don't recommend doing this. It is a very cool feature.

[05:16] but Horizon is a great choice Now, Shopify sometimes runs split tests So if you don't see Horizon as your current theme,

[05:29] Scroll down to this popular free theme section, find Horizon, click Add. click the Publish button to make it your active theme.

[05:42] so it's worth the 30 seconds to switch if you need to. and try other ones out later. and organise them into collections.

[05:57] products first, then collections. "Where do I actually get products to sell?" Some people make their own products like handmade goods,

[06:12] Some people buy wholesale and resell. where a company prints your designs on t-shirts, and some people drop ship

[06:24] Shopify works with all of these. so we have something to work with. regardless of where your products actually come from.

[06:36] On the left side menu, click Products, Give your product a name. In my case, I'm selling an Alpine Hiking Backpack, 45 litre.

[06:50] You have a text editor here that has all the normal features to generate text automatically. Click it, give the AI Sidekick a prompt, and submit it.

[07:04] and then you can click in to edit, Next, upload your product images under the media section Here I have a folder of photos for this particular product,

[07:20] so I'll select them all and then click open to upload. you could also just drag and drop them Next, scroll down and set a price for your product.

[07:34] including Compare-at. For example, right now I'm selling this backpack for 89.99,

[07:46] The compare-at price will show up on the product page with a strike through it, and 89.99 as the current price. to enable inventory tracking.

[07:59] Under the inventory section, and sell when out of stock. The SKU is a unique product code for your records,

[08:11] I'll enter mine here. And by default, the Physical product toggle is switched on. you could toggle this off.

[08:25] To do this, click the dropdown under Package, and then enter the dimensions and weight and give your packaging a name.

[08:39] to make it your default package. In the next section, you can add variants, in different colours or sizes.

[08:51] a preview of how your product will show up we can enter some additional information Let's give this product a type.

[09:04] For vendor, we can use the store name, you could use the brand name here. and then I recommend adding tags.

[09:18] that help to categorise your product. In my case, I'll put hiking, outdoor, and backpack. There are three options, Active, Draught, and Unlisted.

[09:33] as a purchasable product on the store. click Save in the top. and here we can see the Alpine Hiking Backpack.

[09:48] you can click Add product in the upper right. Here I'm adding a Waterproof Trail Running Jacket for both men's and women's options.

[10:03] and then select Target gender, You could also add Unisex or Other from this list.

[10:15] When I click Done, now we have two options. which I'll select from my photo gallery, I'll say that they are 50 of each

[10:29] Okay, fast forward, You don't need dozens of products to launch your store. because you can always add more products later.

[10:42] let's organise these into collections. Think of them like aisles in a store, When a customer visits your store

[10:55] they'll browse by collection. Setting these up now means our store To view and create collections,

[11:08] under your Products menu. This is your Homepage collection, You can add or remove products from here

[11:21] You can come back to this later when we decide the homepage. To create a new collection, Give your collection a name.

[11:33] Then write a brief description of your collection. Next, you'll need to select a collection type. A Manual collection is one that you can select

[11:48] whereas a Smart collection using rules like tags. It has just the first product you add to your store,

[12:03] and you can go in and add other products to it manually. and then select products from your list, and click Add. by clicking the X next to them in the list.

[12:18] We'll change the collection type to Smart, that have the tag hiking. this Waterproof Trail Running Jacket

[12:33] Smart collections are great That way, you don't have to manually go in It just automatically gets pulled in

[12:45] Finally, scroll to the upper right You can add a file, drag or drop one, select one from your library or even generate an image.

[12:59] The Sidekick says describe your image. I'll say hiking gear and click Send, and here it comes back with a beautiful generated image.

[13:11] It'll get added to our library, When you're done creating or updating your collection, Collections appear as categories on your store

[13:25] Once you have more products, You don't need a tonne of collections to start. You can always add more as your store grows.

[13:38] Now step five, and this is where it gets fun. your homepage and your product page. is where they actually buy your product.

[13:53] On the left side navigation, click Online Store, On the left is the section list The top bar's centre dropdown lets you switch between pages,

[14:10] and open up the AI Sidekick if you need help. Your store is made up of pages, Each page is built from sections.

[14:25] like a hero banner or a featured collection, And inside each section, you've got individual blocks, like headings, images, buttons and products.

[14:39] and blocks are the smallest part. everything in this editor makes sense. Convince someone who just landed here to keep browsing,

[14:54] a strong first impression at the top, that's your hero. that's your featured collection. anything that says this is a real business.

[15:09] but you can always come back and tweak other pages later. That's this intro section right at the top of your homepage. so we want it to be really engaging.

[15:23] Click on the banner, with settings that appear for this hero. and on the right side for bigger screens.

[15:36] And then to upload your own image, click Select, you can click explore free images. so I'll click Select, then click Add files

[15:52] Let it upload. Now let's change the header text to something relevant. Click it and then you get a text box in the settings.

[16:06] Next, further down the menu in the Typography section, Let's change this to Heading 1. The main header for each page

[16:21] This is good for your SEO It helps search engines understand Now let's adjust the button text, link, and style.

[16:36] and then button settings appear. Let's say View Products. Where does the button go when you click it?

[16:49] you'll get a list of places you can send your customers. which is fine for the moment. Right now it's set to a secondary button style.

[17:04] let's make it a Primary style button. Next, let's adjust the size and layout of our hero section.

[17:16] then scroll down the settings to the Layout section. which we can change from Medium to let's say Full screen. After expanding it, you notice that the text and button

[17:30] I'd rather have it be in the centre of the image, so let's change the position setting from bottom to centre. Next, if you wanted to change the alignment of the text

[17:43] you could do that here too. between left, centre, and right. Next, let me show you one other setting I think

[17:57] Scroll down a little further to the appearance section, you can turn on. that any image you have in this hero banner

[18:12] will be reflected and blurred in the section below. This reflection opacity of 75% so let's drag the slider to the left

[18:25] Something around the 30% mark looks pretty good. we have a nice gradual transition into that white colour. heading, image, buttons.

[18:40] Now let's edit our featured collection. is your all products collection. To change this, click on the section.

[18:55] Click the dropdown, click Replace, Remember, Shopify created and right now it just has the one product in it,

[19:08] so I wanna feature that collection Next, you can choose the type of display. You can also do Carousel,

[19:22] or editorial, which gives it more of a spaced out feel. and other layout characteristics here.

[19:34] To do that, first, click out of whatever sub menu you're in. by clicking add section in the left-side panel, hover between them, and a plus button will appear.

[19:51] you'll see an Add section button, click that. all the different section types you can add to your page. In my case, I want to add a testimonials section,

[20:07] so I'll scroll to the text section here, and use this poll quote format. and we can edit it quickly

[20:19] I'll click this text. paste in a quote I have from a customer. change the text size by changing the preset typography.

[20:33] That's looking better. And then under appearance in the menu, Here we have Scheme 1 set.

[20:46] multiple other colour scheme options will appear. This colour scheme gives us a dark background and light text. by going back out to the main panel,

[21:00] clicking and dragging the six dots to the left of it, Let's put it here at the bottom of the page. Now, one of my new favourite features in the Horizon's theme

[21:15] that lets you describe what you want Let me show you how this works. and then click Generate.

[21:28] I'll say create a section with an outdoor adventure theme, You can see this Shopify Sidekicks start to write code

[21:43] you'll see the new section that it created. if it didn't do exactly what you had in mind. add a button that links to the catalogue

[21:58] Then click send, revising the section. Now the cool thing about the AI sections

[22:11] It's custom coded, Think of it as a starting point, not the final design. that you can adjust until you're happy with it.

[22:26] We can choose to hide this icon, So let's add one. and then choose this promo banner image.

[22:40] It loads the image in, and then we can adjust the image opacity slider between the text and the foreground

[22:53] somewhere around .3 looks pretty nice. or block feels a bit cramped, like this here, sits right next to this black section here.

[23:07] between these two sections. Padding is essentially the space between elements on a page, In this left-side menu.

[23:22] but they're already set up a little higher, These sliders seem to be but I wanna adjust the padding

[23:35] so let's try to find that. but we actually want to click on the whole section itself, for top and bottom padding,

[23:51] so let's add 40 pixels of padding to the top There we go. and bottom of this custom element,

[24:03] Next, let's link this button somewhere. Let's add a link to our all products collection.

[24:17] for the button in our quote section. We'll change the style from Link to Secondary button, Now, I know this theme editor looks like

[24:32] but just focus on one section at a time You can always come back and refine things later. But now our homepage is looking great,

[24:44] That's what customers see In the top bar, click the Homepage dropdown and then switch to Product and Default product.

[24:57] and the key word here is template. You design this once uses the same layout automatically.

[25:09] So if you add a You may also like section here, It shows up on every product page. Now this is the page where people actually decide to buy.

[25:23] and now the product page needs to close the deal. an obvious Add to cart button, This default layout here has images, our title,

[25:38] some buttons and our description. First of all, on the left side, under the Template section, and then show or hide any elements you want

[25:53] One thing I like to do is adjust the image gallery layout, Personally, I'm a huge fan of the Carousel view

[26:05] and then people can toggle through them. to something like Thumbnails. your customers can click to see.

[26:19] that indicate that people can toggle left and right Let's try Large Arrows. but there are arrows on the left and right.

[26:32] This will allow your customers to toggle between the images. you may or may not want the quantity selector to be enabled, and then click the eye icon in the floating toolbar

[26:45] in case people wanna buy a multiple backpacks. to the top of this product information section. between this image and the next section up.

[26:59] on our last page, so let's do that here. you can change the colour scheme of the product section. but I've got a trick for making this section

[27:14] and I'll show you how to do that later. You may also like section that it loads in by default, Do you wanna recommend Related products

[27:29] For example, do they need a water bottle Complimentary products or Related products, Similar to the feature collection section on your homepage,

[27:42] I don't have a lot of products right now, All right, that's our product page. that tie your whole store together,

[27:56] the navigation menu that connects everything, Let's build all three starting with pages. but most real stores have a few extra pages,

[28:11] They aren't required but they build trust. they want to know who you are and how to reach you. so they're ready when we set up the navigation menu.

[28:25] Click Save in the upper right, Next, on the left side, under Online Store click Pages.

[28:37] It builds trust with customers, so let's create one. Click Add page in the upper right, title it "About Us," and then write a brief description or use AI to do it.

[28:52] change the visibility in the upper right from Hidden to Visible, then click Save. Now click Pages under Online Store again on the left side

[29:05] and you can see now About Us is in the list here. about shipping, returns, sizing. I'll create an FAQ page real quick.

[29:19] but they won't show up on your store The navigation menu is what customers see It's how they move between pages.

[29:32] so we need to connect everything. click Content, then Menus. main menu, footer menu, and customer account main menu.

[29:50] with the Footer menu and Customer account main menu today. so we're gonna work with that. we have Home, Catalogue, and Contact

[30:03] where you can see your all products collection. that returns you to home, So I think having the home item here is redundant,

[30:16] and click the trashcan icon to remove it. Next, let's change the name of Catalogue to Shop, That'll make it a little bit clearer about what it's for.

[30:31] Let's link the two pages we just created. and let's add the About Us page first. is each link has just a one-word title,

[30:43] so let's make our label just About, by clicking in the link, going to Pages, Then clicking the check mark to lock it in.

[30:56] Next, you can rearrange the items in your menu to the left of any name. but let's drag contact down to the last position.

[31:09] Now you can also add dropdowns and sub menus where you can have Shop go to your main shop

[31:21] for different collections. and we'll link to the hiking collection. and then make the link go to the collection, Hiking Gear.

[31:38] Here you could also use tags to filter it down even more, so we'll just go ahead and lock this in. by clicking and dragging Hiking Gear under Shop,

[31:54] and it appears as an indented item. our menu's been updated, and we now have Hiking Gear as a sub item under Shop.

[32:07] to about five to seven main items at the absolute max. and they end up leaving as a result of it. We'll go to Online Store on the left side,

[32:22] And you can see in that top header bar, And if we turn off, so that these little blue boxes

[32:35] this makes it so it functions more like And if we hover over Shop, appear as a sub item.

[32:48] let's finalise the header and footer. It's where your logo, menu, and cart icon live. it's one of the first things customers see,

[33:02] The footer is the opposite end. contact info, and social media links. We deactivated our inspector earlier,

[33:18] click to activate your inspector again. and your header menu appears in the left side. On the left side, scroll down until you see Colours,

[33:33] to something that looks better. that works well for this particular brand. Next, let's replace this generic text with our logo.

[33:46] you'll see it says edit logo in Theme settings, Now, here you can add a default logo and an inverse logo.

[33:58] when transparent header background is set to inverse, to look good on your bar here But then depending on your header settings,

[34:11] and you wanna make sure that your logo looks good So I'm gonna upload a default logo Click Select, Add file.

[34:24] with a dark background and light foreground, a transparent background. Here you can set the height of your logo on desktop.

[34:39] both height and width, proportionally. That looks nice, 58 pixels or so. To do that, toggle into the mobile view in the upper right,

[34:55] Again, let's try 58, see what that looks like. maybe 50 or so. Now I'm going to add the inverse logo,

[35:12] which actually in my file naming here is just regular logo. and Done to add it. A favicon is the little icon that appears

[35:27] Shopify logo appearing on this tab. and then upload a small square version of your logo,

[35:40] kind of like this one that I have here. but when we open up the live public version of our site, you'll see our favicon show up in the browser tab.

[35:52] the position of the items in your header. And here you can see the first item here is your logo. You can change the position from Left to Centre to Right,

[36:07] You can do the same thing for your menu position, change it from Left to Centre to Right. the way it looks with the logo on the left

[36:20] Let's scroll down the header settings to see more options. Now what does that mean? that sticks to the top of your page

[36:33] we can start to see what this behaviour looks like. As you scroll, it stays at the top of the page This is the Always mode.

[36:47] So, basically, as you scroll down the page, presumably to look for the menu, it appears again,

[36:59] and then the header only appears I like to keep the header accessible, so I'm gonna set my sticky header to On scroll up.

[37:13] and look at these other options that are available to us. Transparent background toggle. and you've got the inverse and default logo set,

[37:27] it gets this cool effect where the header itself but then you hover over it and it becomes dark, and then you scroll back up.

[37:42] I think this is a really cool modern effect, It especially looks good with this full-page hero image. adapt to wherever your viewer is on the page.

[37:57] look for policies and support links. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page Here there's a footer section,

[38:11] In the utility section, This links to your shipping policy, privacy policy, and I'll show you how to update these policy pages later.

[38:25] and then add your actual social media links simply on the link, And you can see the TikTok link has been removed

[38:40] Next, you can update and I'm gonna toggle off Powered by Shopify. So then I'll just say copyright, current year,

[38:53] You can add or remove sections to this footer Just keep in mind your utility section of the footer One change I wanna make is to update the colour scheme

[39:07] change colour scheme to the dark format, and we'll do the same thing for the utilities. at the bottom of our page that matches the top.

[39:20] Throughout this tutorial, and text styles for different sections. and this is where you control them.

[39:33] across your entire store. you set your brand colours and fonts once, In the theme editor, go to Theme settings.

[39:47] Scroll down to Colours, To customise, you can either add a brand new scheme Let's edit Scheme 1.

[40:02] so it has a little bit more of a natural feel So let's scroll up, and I wanna grab this greenish tanish grey colour here

[40:16] So I'll click Background, and then grab this sort of greenish grey colour here.

[40:28] so it actually works better as a background, Now you can see, as you scroll through the site, that background has been updated to this new colour.

[40:42] Now, the header section here we can see that the hero's colour scheme is this scheme six

[40:54] which makes sense if you're using an image. we'll exit Scheme 1, click Scheme 6, We'll grab the background for the primary button,

[41:11] and then let's select this orange colour from the ampersand. but the black text on the orange button so let's change the text for the button to a white colour.

[41:26] Now that you know how to update colours, Let's click the X to exit this colour scheme editor. Open that, and here you can set your fonts

[41:43] for your Body, Subheading, Heading, and Accent. and looking at the various styles. or if you know which font you wanna use,

[41:56] For example, I know that I like Montserrat. at least for my brand. We'll also set it to be Extra Bold,

[42:11] I'll do the same thing with subheading and accent. You can use the same font for your header and your body, to have different looks for each type.

[42:26] and capture attention, For example, I know that Source Sans Pro but, again, play around and find fonts

[42:41] Here in your Typography settings, for each different level of heading don't forget to click Save in the upper right.

[42:56] Now, step eight, the business side, These are straightforward, let's add store policies.

[43:09] what happens if they wanna return, and what the rules are for using your store. but they matter for two reasons.

[43:22] especially a new store. actually require them. Click exit in the upper left

[43:36] Then click Settings in the lower left. and the last item is policies. You can see that the privacy policy is automated,

[43:50] Shopify automatically generates a privacy policy things like email addresses, payment info, Now, for return and refund policy, let's click into it.

[44:03] how long they have to return it, to generate one. Just read through it and update anything in brackets

[44:16] When you're done, click Publish. You'll wanna do the same thing for terms of service, Next, let's set up how you actually get paid.

[44:31] and this is where you tell Shopify where that is. that handles credit cards, digital wallets, and then Shopify routes the money to your bank account.

[44:44] select Payments. It handles credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Shop Pay all in one.

[44:56] You'll need to verify your account, grab that code from your email, paste it in. Select whether you're running your store as an individual,

[45:08] I'll select an individual in my case. Enter your name, date of birth, email, phone number, Once you've got this all completed, click Next.

[45:22] on your customer's bank statements, Review your account details Once you've done all that,

[45:34] and this usually takes a few minutes. because Shopify payments might not be available so set up whatever payment method is available to you

[45:50] I recommend leaving this set to automatically at checkout. Next, let's set up shipping Shipping is one of the first things

[46:04] They wanna know how much it costs and how long it'll take. based on order, size, weight, or destination. You're just telling Shopify what to display at checkout.

[46:20] Next, click into your General profile. so we're just offering You can change your shop location by clicking up here,

[46:36] but let's focus on domestic for now. This shop, by default, has two types of shipping, and then Express for a higher price.

[46:51] on orders that are $75 and up, not 70 and up. and click the three dots to the right We'll change the minimum from 70 to 75,

[47:05] Click done in the upper right, so that the maximum this is available for is 74.99, to whatever shipping price makes sense in your situation,

[47:22] by clicking the Add shipping option button. but you can also change it to be We had our other standard based on order amount.

[47:39] You can also add carrier or app calculated. For example, let's say you want to use FedEx. and then pick which FedEx services you wanna use.

[47:52] Let's say 2Day, Ground, Overnight, and Priority Overnight. Now Shopify will calculate the shipping rate based on your packaging dimensions and weight.

[48:10] as a percentage or a dollar amount in case the shipping rate isn't calculated exactly right I generally recommend doing at least $5 for handling.

[48:27] and then here's a sample below of what that looks like. the different handlers here, and print shipping labels at discounted rates.

[48:41] set to automated 'cause this tells customers make sure you add your additional shipping options here.

[48:54] be sure to click Save in the top bar. that can supercharge your marketing. Now, the checkout settings are mostly good by default,

[49:09] If you scroll down to Marketing opt-in, setting email to Checkout and sign-in page This adds a small checkbox at checkout

[49:23] You can't legally send marketing emails or texts but when a customer opts in, If you have a new product launch or a sale,

[49:39] and that's one of the most valuable things Everything else here, you can pretty much just leave as is. Now we're almost done with settings.

[49:51] Again, on the left side, navigate to Taxes and duties. based on your location and your customer's location. You can see that Shopify tax services are active by default,

[50:06] So if you're selling in the United States, is this Tax liability insights dialogue. to hit tax collection thresholds,

[50:20] and then you can register wherever you need to register. all of your management changes and decisions for taxes. so check with the tax professional if you need help here.

[50:34] Right now, your store's web address It works, but it doesn't exactly scream A custom domain like yourstore.com

[50:46] share on social media, or tell someone in conversation, On the left side settings menu, Right now you can see that your store

[51:01] has this temporary domain at myshopify.com. You can either buy a new domain. and it's the simplest option if you don't have a domain yet,

[51:15] like GoDaddy, Namecheap, or some other domain registrar, and then Shopify will walk you through the steps For us though, we're going to buy a new domain.

[51:29] that Shopify searches automatically In my case, it's searched for openclothes.com, Now, .com is the most widely used domain,

[51:44] There are other options available here, but I wanna see if I can lock down a .com. So let's add OpenClothesOutdoor and search for that.

[52:00] Open openclothesoutdoor.com is available for $16 a year. Next, you'll land on the checkout page. that's automatically turned on.

[52:14] renewing your domain every year. Next, you've got your contact information your payment information that you used

[52:28] If you wanted to use But if you're happy with this, And then when you're ready, click Buy domain.

[52:41] and you can go ahead and click the See domain status button. And right at the top of the page, and the status associated with it.

[52:56] It can take up to 24 to 48 hours And basically what that means is and that can take some time for that domain

[53:10] If I click the view button here, so don't worry if you see errors like this right away, The nice thing is that Shopify connects

[53:25] so you don't need to do any manual DNS configuration All you have to do is wait for it to finish. the status needs verification,

[53:38] to your email address. So go to the inbox that's listed here It should look something like this

[53:52] and all you really have to do is click that link. your contact information looks correct, You'll get a confirmation saying

[54:06] And if you refresh your domain page, This is just like propagation. so don't worry if you still see this.

[54:19] you'll see the status change to this green tag here, Everything is built, your products, your design, but right now nobody can actually see your store.

[54:34] so only you have access. and putting your store on the internet for the world to see. if you click View,

[54:47] Nobody can access your store yet. Click the X in the upper right to exit your settings. then click Preferences.

[55:00] you'll see store access and password protection. on how to make your store accessible to everyone. that's what you'll need to do first.

[55:14] add your business address, Next, simply disable the toggle Now if you click to view your store,

[55:28] is live on the internet, ready to make sales, built from scratch, ready for real customers. or click the link in the description

[55:43] It's the absolute cheapest way to start your Shopify store. Good luck and thanks for watching.