What is Shopify?

Shopify Inc. is a Canadian multinational e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It is also the name of its proprietary e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Shopify is a subscription to a software service that offers you to create a website and use their shopping cart solution to sell, ship, and manage your product line. Using their service, you can get access to an easy to use admin panel where you can add products, process orders and enter store data.

Shopify offers a free limited trial. Then paying a monthly subscription fee, you can build a fully functional online store in order to conveniently sell your goods. Shopify has gained immense popularity since its inception and has some of the most premium international brands in its starry client list. No doubt it has become one of the most valued E-commerce platforms in a very short span of time.

You could be a ‘small business’ owner selling handmade artifacts and tit-bits or an established big  E-commerce Brand, selling designer furniture, Shopify is an excellent way for entrepreneurs to set their foot into the ever booming world of E-commerce.

The Shopify platform offers you all the essential features you require to run a profitable online business. One can conveniently organize their products, customize their e-store, accept credit card payments and track orders, all with simple mouse clicks.

If you are looking for launching an online store, Shopify is one of the best choices conveniently available to you.

How to use Shopify on your own to create your online store:

You can create your own Shopify E-store following these simple steps:

1. Sign Up with Shopify:

• The first step is to fill the sign up form available on Shopify.com. Once you are through filling all the required details, click on ‘Start Free Trial’ button.
• Then you will be asked to choose your store name which has to be unique in order to get accepted by Shopify.
• Post this step, you need to enter further details including your email address, name, address, country and contact number.
• Now you will be asked if you have products and, if yes, what you wish to sell in the ‘What will you sell?’ section.
• Once done with this, you need to click ‘I’m done’.

2. Start Setting Up Your Own E-Store:

Once you have signed up, you will be directed to your ‘Store Admin’ screen. Now you are all set to begin customizing your store, uploading your products and setting up accepted payment methods, shipping charges etc.

3. Choose a theme or a layout:

Shopify has its own official theme store. All themes are guaranteed to have full support from the designers to ensure credibility.

All themes come with a comprehensive list of modifications you can make without having to touch a line of code. The premium themes come with a more elaborate list of modifications. Though a nice looking site can be made using the free ones as well. These changes are outlined in the next section.

In case you wish to make wholesale changes to a given theme, there are certain limitations on what can be achieved by accessing the HTML and CSS. Relax even if you have no coding experience yet, Shopify owns an international team of design agencies known as ‘Shopify Experts’ who can be hired to customize your website further as per your needs and requirements.

In order to find an appropriate theme to suit your needs and requirements, we recommend you to follow these simple steps:

4. Go browse the theme store

Once you log into Shopify and open Shopify Theme Store, you will find over 75+ theme variations to make selection from, including a wide range of free ones as well. You can find Shopify themes on other marketplaces as well.

5. Check the functionality and reviews of the theme of your choice:

Once you find the theme of your choice, click on the theme’s sample image and go through the more detailed information about the given theme like whether the theme is responsive and mobile ready among many other important features.

Also, you can go through the reviews posted by various e-tailers about the given theme already used by them.

6. Preview the Theme:

Click the ‘View Demo’ button found below the green ‘Preview’ theme in your ‘Store Button’ in order to see a given theme in action. By clicking on various themes, their demos can be easily viewed for a better clarity and understandability.

7. Get the theme of your choice:

Click the green button once you have finalized the theme of your choice. Now Shopify will ask for you to confirm that you actually wish to install the given theme. Now click ‘publish as my shop’s theme’.

Also, if later you feel you didn’t like the theme as much and wish to choose another theme for your store, you can always do that at any point of time.

Once you have got the theme installed, Shopify will notify you and will offer you the option to visit your Theme Manager which has a list of all the themes installed by you with the latest one showing on top of the list.

8. Shopify-Edit Settings:

One of the best things about Shopify is that it allows you to make several simple changes here & there and enhance the appearance of your website tremendously.

Select Themes from your admin screen from the left navigation menu. Here you will see your live theme in a box located at the top, which has two buttons in the top right corner. These three buttons help you:

• To make some basic setting changes
• To create a duplicate of the theme which is a must try. In case you don’t like the changes you made, you can delete it and restart.
• To customize the given theme and it takes you to a page that controls all the basic functionalities of your store. Here you can check out all the features you have got and analyze the competence of your website.

9. Add your products to your E-store/website:

Select ‘Products’ navigating the bar on the left. Then add products with the help of the ‘Add a product’ button in the middle of the page.

This is the screen where you upload product images. Rearrange the images in the desired order once you are done uploading.

The quality of the product images you choose to display on your website tend to highly impact your sales thus making sure you don’t lag anywhere, be it aesthetics, product features, or more.

Now click the ‘Save Product’ button in the top and bottom right corners and you are ready to move ahead.

Also, set up your product collections in order to make shopping from your website a convenient and pleasant experience for the buyers. This simply means grouping products in various categories according to their commonalities like Women’s Wear, Men’s Wear & Kid’s Wear or Items on sale & new arrivals and so on and so forth.

You can choose to add a new collection either manually or automatically depending upon your own choice.

10. Choose Payment Gateways

A payment gateway is the section which allows you to collect payment from your buyers/users via your e-store. You can select your preferred payment gateways as per your choice going through the pricing, the commission rate they charge as well as the features like card types, offsite checkout etc. that they offer.

11. Get your E-store live:

Before making your website finally live, decide on shipment and tax payment. Test your order system using the Shopify’s Bogus Gateway.

12. Add Domain Name:

You need a domain name in order to get your site live. You can buy a domain from Shopify and it will be added to your store automatically. This will save you time, especially if you have no knowledge about hosting a website or you can buy it from any third party as well depending upon your individual needs and preferences.

And TADA!! You are good to start selling through your own E-store. Congratulations!!

Although these steps look easy to follow, some of these steps are intricately technical and are highly vulnerable to mistakes if you are not a very technically sound human. This may leave one, two or several loopholes in your website which can easily lead to loads of mess at later stages. Also, it demands a lot of time, effort and patience to develop such websites along with a high level technical deftness.

Thus if you are a businessman or a budding entrepreneur having several other tasks already in hand and unsure about your own technical finesse, and do not want your website to look like an average & undistinguished one, we suggest you to better hire a Shopify Developer and save your time, efforts and get a highly impressive Shopify website.

A professionally qualified Shopify Developer is an expert who can acclimatize to Shopify development trends and implement industry best practices without compromising even a single bit on quality. The demand of Shopify Developers is continuously on rise due to so many reasons. Some are discussed below:

Propagate Your Business With Shopify:

The demand of Shopify Developers is continuously on rise due to the development services they offer. You can hire them for short term work, or full time Shopify project needs, they can help you considerably boost your business and multiply your profits as well.

Shopify Developers possess immense skills to aid your company or brand, no matter big or small, grow significantly. They can help you in creating and maintaining highly user-friendly E-stores.

Following is an outline of their skills and proficiencies:

1. Shopify E-store Development or Redesigning:

If you are on a run to get your own Shopify E-store, hire a qualified Shopify Developer. A skilled and dedicated Shopify Developer can help you build a fully functional and interactive E-store irrespective of your business size. He can help you with everything basic to custom development & design.

2. Shopify Applications Development

People using the internet and shopping through their phones has become a new normal and thus no wonder mobile accounts for almost 74% of the total visits on Shopify E-stores. A Shopify Developer can help you build an excellent app for your online store thereby fetching you more visibility and leading to considerable boost in your sales.

3. Shopify Theme Development:

A well-qualified and experienced Shopify Developer are proficient in building various up-to-date and feature packed web themes catering various business verticals. Once you hire a Shopify Developer, you can be rest assured that you will get the desired results well in time.

4. Shopify Plugin Development:

A skilled Shopify Developer can help you build economical and scalable plugins which in turn can determine your sales and business growth.

5. Shopify Inventory Modules:

An adept Shopify Developer possesses professional level expertise in Shopify’s inventory management thereby helping you stay organized and track your inventory any time, all the time.

6. Shopify API Integration:

An expert Shopify Developer helps you with API Integration which allows you to connect Shopify data with other business applications.

7. Shopify Testing Services:

A learned Shopify Developer can offer you quality testing services assuring the excellent functionality of your website and that your E-store is running smoothly across multiple platforms as well as devices.

8. Shopify Support Services:

Hiring an experienced Shopify Developer ensures full service support by making sure all your Shopify E-stores/ websites or applications are always up and functional.

How to hire a Shopify Developer:

Hiring a Shopify Developer can be a really exhausting and time consuming task. There are hundreds of sites and thousands of candidates fighting for a single job undercutting one another’s prices just to secure the given post first. But we promise you, in the end it will all be worthwhile.

This requires a systematic approach wherein first comes the Job Description. A relevant description is mandatory in order to target the right candidates. The Job Description of a Shopify Developer calls for a complete summary of the role, a descriptive list of responsibilities involved, preferred qualification and skill set required for the given job. Also, you need to have a one on one conversation with them regarding the clear description of your Company Website’s major needs and requirements.

1. A few suggested keywords are:

• ‘Shopify Developer’
• ‘Freelance Shopify Developer’
• ‘Hire Shopify Developer’

Using appropriate keywords not only enhances your visibility and clarity of requirement but also helps you fetch more qualified & eligible candidates.

Another major concern is that most of these fighters pitching for the job are nowhere close to the actual eligibility criteria.

This automatically results in one ending up fetching a wrong candidate for the job and losing their faith in the entire development process due to the negative experience they transpire through. This can be quite frustrating and time consuming as well as heavy on one’s pocket as they might have to go through several Shopify Developers and their work before they find their right candidate.

But no need to lose heart as there are several dependable platforms who verify the eligibility of professionals before getting them officially onboard. They attract talented professionals and ensure taking every possible measure to make your journey of finding a professional and talented Shopify Developer a successful and satisfying one.

The most important aspects to be kept in mind while hiring a Shopify Developer are discussed below:

2. Scope of the Job:

The first and foremost important part is the consensus on the scope of the job in question. This means all parties involved – you, the Shopify Developer and any other third party (if involved) should know, understand and mutually agree upon the scope of the given job. Write in a clear & concise manner whatever it is that you expect from your potential hire. What exactly do you want to get done? What exactly is the full extent of the scope of work? What are the given timelines? By putting everything in black & white, you’re helping the developer to map his work right before he gets the job from you and you protect your store’s interests by communicating everything you need from them very well in advance.

In case this significant aspect is overlooked or taken for granted initially, it might result in several misunderstandings, wrong actions, poor results and disappointments in later stages. Also this severely impacts the quality of the project. This leads to wastage of resources - time, money and efforts. So we advise you to better be safe than sorry.

3. Mandate Timely & Effective Communication:

This is not too much to ask for in any relationship, be it personal or professional. Make sure to have a word regarding the importance of genuine in-time communication with your concerned Shopify Developer post getting hired. Make sure they agree to be happily available whenever you need their assistance in the given project. Also, make sure your ‘Whenever’ doesn’t mean round-the-clock availability as it is inhuman to expect so.

4. Insist on having a look at the previous work:

Ask them to share with you some samples off their work to ensure credibility. Checking their work portfolio is highly significant. A good portfolio demonstrates that the Shopify Developer is actually skilled and has previous records of high-quality performance and timely deliveries. You can check ratings and reviews of various Shopify Developers, if there is an option to do so.

Don’t fall victim to lowball pricing: Hiring Beware of ‘Cheap Pricing’ strategy used widely by not so skilled Shopify Developers in order to just cut the prices quoted by other skilled developers to snatch their share of work and mislead the seekers. This might prove to be costlier in the long run as you might end up having to scrape the entire project and restart it from scratch sooner or later, sometime in future.

Lower rates doesn’t signify quality work. Make sure you know the average fee charged by a qualified and skilled Shopify Developer in the market and seal the deal accordingly.

Keeping all these facets in mind, not only can you hire a skilled and proficient Shopify Developer, but also ensure a smooth completion of your project within the given time frame.