What is Shopify? A Complete Beginner's Guide

If you clicked on this video, you're probably wondering what Shopify actually is and whether it's something you should be using. So, in this video, I'm going to break down everything you need to know about Shopify. What it is, how it works, who it's for, how much it costs, and I'm even going to walk you through the platform live, so you can see exactly what it looks like on the inside. Whether you guys are thinking about starting

an online store, selling a product, or even just selling a service, Shopify is one of those platforms that pretty much everyone talks about, but most people don't actually understand. Now, I've personally used Shopify across multiple businesses for over 10 years, and I've seen what it can do when it's set up the right way. So, yeah, watch this video from the beginning to the end. You're going to walk away knowing exactly what Shopify is, how to decide

if it's right for you, and how to get started. So, let's get into it. Okay, so first let's talk about what Shopify actually is. I would say Shopify at its core is a platform that lets you build an online store and sell stuff on the internet. Think of it as like a website builder plus a cash register plus a shipping center. So, you don't need to know how to code, you don't need to be a tech

person at all. It's going to handle all that stuff for you. There's a reason why a majority of e-commerce businesses out there use Shopify. I think they have like over 4 million stores worldwide in like 175 plus different countries. The range of businesses and things sold from Shopify stores is insane. I've seen stores selling handmade candles out of their apartment all the way to massive, massive brands all using Shopify. Gymshark, uh Cosmetics, Allbirds, Skims, all of

these run on Shopify. So, it's really cool platform because you can start small on one of their cheaper plans and just upgrade when needed. By the way, if you want a 3-day free trial, I have a link down below. This is going to take you to the best Shopify trial available. You'll also get 3 months for a dollar per month, and so I highly recommend taking advantage of that. Again, that link is going to be down

below, or you can scan this QR code on the screen to sign up. Now, let's talk about how it works and the pricing model. So, Shopify is a subscription service. You pay a monthly fee, and then you get access to the whole platform. You then choose a template, so they call them themes, for how your store looks. You then add your products and any photos and any descriptions, prices, all that stuff. You then connect a payment

method, so you can actually get paid. Then you hit publish, and your store is live on the internet. And that's pretty much it at the basic level. If you use their themes properly, you can have a store live in under 1 hour. And then Shopify's going to handle all the behind-the-scenes stuff, so hosting the website, keeping it secure, processing payments, uh calculating taxes, a bunch of stuff like that. So, now I'm going to show you what

it actually looks like once you sign up for your account. Okay, so I know a lot of you are watching this and thinking, "I don't even know what product to sell yet, or building a store is going to be super hard." And honestly, that used to be one of the biggest barriers for people getting started. So, I want to tell you guys about StoreBuild AI and Zendrop. StoreBuild is a completely free AI store builder that will

literally build you a custom Shopify store in just a few minutes. I've used it a bunch, and it's absolutely amazing. You give it some direction, and then the AI builds your entire store for you. So, we're talking the theme, uh the product pages, the copy, everything. And what used to take probably like one or two weeks now takes about 5 minutes. And I want to add, it doesn't just give you an empty store. It comes preloaded

with trending products from Zendrop that are already winning in your niche. So, that way you're not starting from scratch trying to figure out what to sell. They also have a ton of great resources and videos teaching you how to actually get sales, which for a beginner or intermediate e-commerce entrepreneur is a must. Plus, since it's powered by Zendrop, all the products ship in under 10 days, which is a big deal if you've ever dealt with slow

shipping times from other suppliers. Okay, so if you want to check it out, I'll leave a link for StoreBuild AI down below in the description. Again, it's completely free to use, and it is the best way for beginners to get a pre-built store. I appreciate you guys. Now, back to the video. So, this is the main dashboard of your Shopify account. You'll be able to see any analytics right here. You'll be able to see some of

your products, your theme, as well as different tasks to complete. Now, over here on the left, you're going to have your orders right here. So, whenever someone makes an order, it's going to come up and show right here. Obviously, this is a blank store for this video, but if you were to make a sale, it would show up here. So, over here is going to be your product section. You'll be able to add a product by

clicking this button right here. It's very simple to add a product. You just have your title, description, any photos, any photos here, your price, and then you can set your inventory, shipping, and variants. The different customers that you have for your store are going to be over here. You can also import customers if you already have a store, and you can also manually add customers as well. Under marketing, you're going to be able to see your

top marketing channels. You can connect different marketing apps right here. You'll also be able to look at your campaigns, attribution, and automations. You can also set discounts for your store that apply to different products, that apply to different times. Super easy to do right here. Here are some examples of the discount types that you guys can create. You'll also be able to set your markets in which you want to sell. So, if you do want to

sell internationally, you can absolutely do that. Finance is where you're going to be able to set up your taxes, right? You're going to see your payout balance for your store. And you can also activate the different payment methods. So, for example, Shopify Payments. Under analytics, this is where you're going to see all of your sales, your returning customer rates, sales over time, average order value over time, and a bunch of other cool metrics. And then here's

going to be your online store. So, if I were to click on this, you can choose different themes. One of the best parts about Shopify is that there are tons of free themes that you guys can use. For example, this one is a free theme that is built by Shopify. We review a demo, we can see how it looks. And as you can see, this is a pretty cool and simple shop or a clothing company. As

of right now, there are 24 free themes that you can choose from, and there's over a thousand different paid themes as well. So, pretty much there's going to be something that fits your exact store and design. The Shopify store builder is also extremely easy to use. It's basically just drag and drop with different sections. Anything you want to choose, you can easily change. If you want to add a section, for example, we'll click this button, and

you can choose from all of these pre-made sections. So, that's what it looks like on the inside. Now, let's actually talk about who Shopify is actually for. So, I've briefly mentioned this already, but Shopify isn't for just one type of person or business. It works for tons of different use cases. For example, if you want to sell physical products like clothing, skin care, accessories, home goods, whatever it is, you can ship it, you can handle that,

you can sell that. That'll be completely possible through Shopify. You can also sell digital products, so things that you don't need to ship. Ebooks, courses, templates, stuff like that. I actually have a ton of videos on my channel showing you how to build a drop shipping business. So, I'll actually link those down below. And then you can also even use Shopify to sell services like consulting or coaching. Now, yes, Shopify is used by huge, huge companies.

So, it's not just for small businesses, but those businesses are usually on their enterprise plans, which are very, very expensive. But they also have very cheap and affordable plans as well for smaller businesses. Right? Like their basic plan is $29 per month. This is a perfect way to start with Shopify. I think this is probably going to be the one that most of you guys choose. It's certainly the one that I started with. And then if

you want a little bit lower rates, you know, some better shipping, and a bunch of other more advanced features, the plans go to a couple thousand dollars or more per month. But again, most of you guys will be totally good with the basic or grow plans. The best thing is that you don't need to pay for like 3 months. If you use that link down below, it's going to take you to this exact page. You just

enter in your email, and you'll get that 3-day free trial plus 3 months for $1 per month. As you can see, if we change to paying monthly, the basic plan goes up a bit to $39 per month, and the grow plan goes to $105 per month. So, you guys can see whichever makes sense. What I would probably just do is the basic monthly plan for maybe 1 or 2 months. And once you start gaining some traction

with your store, that's when you can upgrade to an annual plan to save some money. Yeah, it's really cool because with every single plan, you get uh the Shopify checkout page, which works really well. Uh really great designs and themes. You have a built-in assistant named Sidekick, which I think is really cool. It can actually do stuff for you. You can take on in-person sales easily as well, and you can also sell on tons of different

platforms with your Shopify store. Now, let's talk about some of the pros and cons. And this is coming from over a decade of using Shopify. So, pros, super easy to use, right? You can build a Shopify store, anyone can figure it out. It's also an all-in-one platform. So, for me, I don't like juggling a bunch of different tools. I prefer to have all of them in one place, and Shopify allows that. I also really like their

themes and apps. You can basically customize anything you want. It's also great for beginners, and it's also really good for scaling. So, you choose a cheaper plan at the beginning, and as your company grows, that's when you can change plans. Built-in payment processing makes that super easy. The customer support is also really good. Also, blogging on Shopify is pretty basic if you compare it to something like WordPress. So, that's something to consider if a blog is

going to be a big portion of your site. If you're not technical, it's going to save you a ton of time using Shopify. Now, in terms of the cons, the first one is going to be that the monthly cost can add up. It's not the cheapest platform out there. If you want something cheaper, just use something like Hostinger website builder. It does have e-commerce functions. It's going to be quite a bit cheaper, and I'll have a

link to a tutorial down below. But of course, most real e-commerce businesses are going to go with the standard, which is Shopify. Customization also has its limits unless you know code. That's okay for most people. Some of the advanced features also require paid apps that cost extra each month, which I don't like. Also, if you want to switch platforms later on, migrating your store can be kind of a headache. Of course, uh like all platforms, there

are the pros and cons. And for me, I'd say for most people starting an online store, Shopify is honestly one of the easiest and most reliable options out there. There's a reason why almost every big e-commerce company uses Shopify. Yeah, I just recommend taking advantage of that trial. It costs you basically nothing for the first 3 months. Start learning the platform, start building your store. I really wish you guys the best of luck. This is the

exact thing I would do right now if you're watching this video and you're realizing, "Okay, Shopify is the one I want to use." So, get that free trial. I'll have that link down below again. Play around with it, uh add some test products, pick a theme, build your store really quickly. Just use a free theme for now. It's going to be totally good enough. Then you're going to want to set up Shopify payments. And then what

I would do is watch some more detailed YouTube tutorials teaching you how to set up specific things up. Now, I will say do not spend that much time building your store. One of the biggest mistakes I see and that I made myself uh early on was spending months and months building my store, making it perfect, and not focusing on marketing. Marketing is the most important thing. All you need is any functional store that looks decent, which

is totally possible with Shopify very, very quickly. The bulk of your efforts should actually just go into marketing. That's what's going to make your business grow. So, there you have it. That is what Shopify is. If you've been thinking about starting your online store or selling something online, honestly, just go for it. The barrier to entry has never been lower. Making a site is super, super easy. It's a great way to get into entrepreneurship. You guys

got any value from the video, make sure to hit that like button and subscribe if you want to see more videos just like this. I make a ton of videos about business, entrepreneurship, personal finance. And my whole goal is to help you guys live a financially successful life. Thank you so much for your time and I'll see you in the next video. Peace. >> [music]