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Do you still follow the traditional way of selling goods, where you would purchase the stock and ship it to your customer from the warehouse? You are definitely facing difficulties in a hold on to any stock whatsoever, with the maximum amount of risk and difficulty in making money online.

How to build an e-commerce store using Shopify? Shopify is one of the biggest e-commerce websites on the internet today that primarily works on the principles of dropshipping.

What is dropshipping?

Dropshipping is a method by which you as a retailer/ seller can sell products to your customers without actually holding on any stock or product. When you get an order for a product, you send the order directly to your chosen supplier. They take the entire responsibility of shipping, payment process, delivery; etc, then send you the payment based on the difference between the charge they make for the product and the price you charge.

You do not even need to see the product, you never handle it, and don’t need to handle the payment process also. It is the sole responsibility of the supplier.

However, you may come across suppliers who do not process payments nor provide any shipping facilities; as per their choices, which you have to take care of.

Now, all that you have got a brief idea about dropshipping, hence Shopify becomes the best online platform to execute this process.

Then, how to start an e-commerce business on Shopify?

Follow the instructions below to get a complete idea.

Choose a Product

In order to set up an e-commerce business, you need to choose the products you want to sell. This might be a challenging task for you at least a new online business. You need to choose products keeping in view of suppliers; and most importantly, the public’s demand.

Once you have a product in mind based on public demand, your next step to figure out where and how you are going to obtain your products.

Search for a domestic supplier nearby or you may search online

Websites like Warehouse115.com,Rosewholesale.com,Ssactivewear.com,Ioffer.com; etc, to search for the right supplier to your chosen product. You may also search for international suppliers like worldwidebrands.com, Salehoo, global Sources; etc.

Register with Shopify

  • Log on to Shopify clicking on the link www.shopify.in
  • By clicking on the “Start Free Trial” option, fill in your details as per asked.
  • In the subsequent step, you will be asked to mention the items you intend to sell and other details related to it.
  • Once complete, click, “I’m done”.

Create a logo

Once you have registered, its time for creating a logo. Shopify provides several options for creating a great logo for your new business.

Begin Setting up Your Online Store

After you have successfully chosen a logo that gives a rough idea about your product, you are required to customize the store screen.

You will be asked to choose the website template. You can access “Theme Store”, to get hundreds of website templates. These can be modified in size, color, shape as per your choice. You can also choose various fonts to make your online store appealing.

If you know how to code then you have options for HTML and CSS coding to a wholesome change in your theme.

Don’t know to code? Shopify has an international team of design experts, they call “Shopify experts”, whom you can hire and fully customize your website.

Design your store

As discussed above, I recommend some of the best themes you can apply:

  • Log on to Shopify and visit Shopify Theme Store. You will find over 70 premium and free eCommerce templates.
  • Choose the category, feature as per your product specifications to pick your theme.
  • The Theme Store includes professional looking templates for clothing & fashion, jewelry, electronics, art & photography, and other types of e-commerce sites.
  • You have options for free and paid templates by industry and features. I advise you to start with free templates.
  • You can also get other information about theme reviews and attributes.
  • Once you are ready with the theme, click on “View Demo” to preview it on screen.
  • If everything is fine then click on the green button, then click “Publish as my Shop’s Theme”.
  • You may anytime change your theme by clicking on the option “Go to your Theme Manager”.

Add Products To Store

Product Description

  • On the left bar, click on “Products”.
  • In the top right corner, you will see “Add a product” option. Use the following screen to add a detailed description of your product, such that the customers get complete information about the product you intend to sell.

Add product images

  • Upload your product images.
  • Ensure that all images should be of the same dimensions and describes a single product with clear images from different angles so that the customer gets a detailed idea of the product you intend to sell.
  • Once done, click on “Save Product” on the top and bottom right corners.

Online Payment System

  • Shopify provides you a wide range of reliable, secure shopping cart solutions for your e-commerce website.
  • The shopping cart allows credit card and PayPal, payments that provide you hundreds of gateways using 256-bit SSL certificates to keep order details secure.
  • If you get a high payment volume, then you can easily upgrade to another payment gateway like Authorize.net or Stripe.

Language, Currency and Tax Rates

Your local currency is by default set up for your shopping cart software. It automatically calculates tax rates based on where your business and buyers are located.

You have 50+ language options like Spanish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Swedish, to customize your check out options.

Shipping Rates

You can specify your shipping rates based on product weight, distance considerations for national and international customers; etc. For premium members, shipping rates are automatically calculated by UPS, USPS or FedEx in real-time.

Shipment facilities

Shopify connects you to Amazon Services, Shipwire, and Rakuten Super Logistics, which provides shipment from the warehouse to the customer’s doorstep.

Mobile Shopping

Shopify detects the customer’s devices like mobiles, tablets or computers and optimizes website and shopping card checkout as per the adaptive web design parameters that select the best page layout as per your screen size.

Following the above steps, you have only filled in the blanks wherever asked. The real challenge comes to selling the product and that needs……

Marketing Your Store

Now, it’s time to get serious. The following methods will help you to know the marketing tricks that will drive traffic and convert them into your sales.

Email Marketing

Go to your inbox, you will find emails to purchase any service or product by clicking on the link provided. This exactly what many small businesses adopt to advertise their products through emails

It is the best way to reach the customer’s personalized messages at any time, without requiring permission from the customer’s side.

Emails have also been consistently growing globally with no signs of decline. A 2018 study from the DMA found that for every dollar spent on email marketing, businesses can expect an average return of $32.

How to Start?

Choose an email service provider. Klaviyo, Conversio, Jilt, and Omnisend are some of the email marketing tools that integrate with Shopify.

Start creating your email list by meeting people and publicizing your product. You can also collect emails from sales and customer accounts. Here, customers share their relevant information, especially email addresses.

Newsletter” option on your website has a compelling effect on the customer to provide their email address to get regular updates.

Once a customer subscribes any of your services, send him a “Welcome Email” which gives a subscription confirmation and most importantly, the foundation relationship with the customer for the rest of your communication mails.

Social Media Marketing

Social media can enable you to assemble the audience where they spend their time.

Try to create multiple links; do not forget to publish images, that attracts a large number of viewers to click and explore your items, and simultaneously grow your business by converting these viewers into your customers.

Social media marketing can serve a wide range of capacities for your business, from driving traffic and sales to building brand awareness, associating with clients or customers, providing support and much more.

In any case, beginning without any preparation can be an intimidating task, particularly competing with a large number of other channels that have already been established in social media marketing.

So, I have come up with some strategies to make your task easier.

How to start Social Media Marketing?

Your website has a pivotal role in your social media marketing. Research and target audience that would be interested in exploring your products and services by reposting, shares and notifications.

Choose the best of the available social networks you want to dedicate your time such as facebook or twitter.

Everything you post should be tied to the main theme of your product specification, and do not forget to like, share and repost your publications.

  • This increases your audience circle and a way to entice your current viewers.
  • Get people interested in your product with relevant inspirational quotes, creative images, that can drive traffic to an increasing number of clicks.
  • Get your audience to convert them to email subscribers to your post/channel, so that you are regularly accessible to them by email or by personal notifications.
  • Engage in partnerships with other similar brands for co-marketing campaigns.
  • Try to establish social proof among the audience that acts as a trust factor to prefer your products without hesitation.
  • Provide regular solutions to the queries, customer questions, complaints, just like customer service. Your prompt response enables the trust factor and connects you to a larger public, which boosts your sales as well.
  • Social media gives you a voice that you can use to take an interest in discussions, but shift them in the direction you think to build credibility around your products or services.

Analyzing Traffic

This is a technical concept that includes analysis of the reports and statistics based on your traffic volume, total sales, repeat customer rate; etc.

You need to have knowledge about sites referring traffic to your store, where in the world are your visitors? , what products are people searching for most?

How to Conduct an Analysis

  • Open up your Shopify analytics tool and note down some of the key metrics like your traffic over a week. If you find a 2-3% decrease then you should be concerned to find out reasons.
  • But, any progress or downfall, simply not to be overlooked. It needs an in-depth analysis to understand the reason behind it.
  • So, all you need to have insight knowledge about your progress or decline in sales. Search for the problem areas of your site and try to find something that’s not working as expected.
  • Note down the problem areas, concerns, questions, etc. that you identify during the check.
  • Refer your analytics to confirm the problem areas and concerns, and answer the questions.
  • Is there anything that distracts your customer, like a new product catalog you recently introduced, or anything else maybe, changes the motive of your customer?
    Is there any other product to your competition that motivates your customers to prefer the other one?
  • Do your products lack clarity either in description or images; anything might be, that rates your product poor in terms of reliability and trust?

After the walkthrough, you’ll definitely have a big list of meaningful questions to ask of your information.

Understanding Visitors

  • First and foremost, you need to understand the traffic. It’s important to monitor the number of visitors you get to your shop as your traffic. There are key measurements covered up inside your total traffic that can be increasingly helpful for tracing opportunities to growth.
  • When you have a strong understanding of how many visitors discover your store today, and where they are coming from, you can make better choices about everything from which channels appear to work.
  • Your store’s “Conversion Rate” is important to monitor because it shows you whether or not your visitors are converting to customers.
  • You couldn’t know about your core metrics without monitoring “Total Sales”. You need to understand what influences your sales. This includes how each of your sales sources is performing, and how your sales are trending over time.
  • You should keep an eye over “Average order value” which depends upon your variety of sales, your discounts; etc.
  • Another important parameter is “New vs. returning customers”. It is important to measure your store performance based on those customers who come for second or further purchases. The volume of new customer changes over time but second time or further purchase of existing customers add a positive value to your growing business.

Related Questions

What is web hosting? Web hosting is a method that allows an individual or an organization to gain a presence on the internet to make their websites accessible to the public by means of the World Wide Web.

What is the different e-commerce business? The different e-commerce business models are Business to Business (B2B), Business to Consumer (B2C), Consumer to Consumer (C2C), Consumer to Business (C2B), Business to Government (B2G), Government to Business (G2B) and Government to Citizen (G2C).

What is an e-marketplace? An electronic market place, also known as e-marketplace is a website or a set of links based on the common interest of the public. Some examples like Rover, Etsy.

What is EDI(Electronic Data Interchange)? It is the interchange of business information electronically such as online payment, invoice, money receipts; etc, that were previously handled manually.

What is a responsive website? A website that is capable to optimize itself in terms of display size and clarity for different types of screen sizes.

What is an adaptive website? An adaptive website is different from a responsive website. It has several pre-built designs that fit all types of display sizes without self-optimization.

What is keyword streaming? It is all about analyzing the keywords and choose the best among them for your website to target the audience of common interests.

How can you impress buyers?

  • Make the site fast
  • Use effective graphics for the smooth running of the website
  • Make the checkout process easy

It is challenging to build an e-commerce website; however, at a rapid pace, you will learn a lot about choosing a product, evaluating its demand and accessibility, building an online store to a marketing professional which is no less than a puzzle, but rewarding simultaneously.

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