This post is also available in: 日本語
Open an online shop with Shopify
An online shop, also known as an e-commerce site, is becoming increasingly popular as a way to do business online without having to have a store.
In recent years, there have been an increasing number of platforms that allow you to easily set up an online shop. All you have to do is register the necessary information and products, choose a design from a template, prepare it, and then you can open it as a store. There are various online shop platforms available, and this article will focus on Shopify to show you how it works and how to open it. By understanding the basic information, you will be able to choose the right platform when you open an online store.
What is Shopify?
Founded in 2004, Shopify is the world’s largest e-commerce platform with over 1 million stores in 175 countries, and has been dubbed the “Amazon Killer”. We’re a company that has been growing in share in the e-commerce market. You may not be used to hearing about it in Japan yet, but it’s a service and company that’s aggressively expanding its share of the e-commerce market.
With the establishment of Shopify’s Japanese subsidiary in November 2017, the company is finally gaining market share in Japan.
You can check out the Shopify website at this link.
What you can do with Shopify
So what can you do with Shopify?
Opening an online shop
The first step is to set up an online shop. Whether you want to take your physical store online or start with an online shop to bring your idea to life, it’s easy to create an online shop with Shopify.
Selling products through various sales channels
Shopify also allows you to sell your products through a variety of sales channels. You can use a wide range of sales channels to extend your reach, not to mention your online shop. For example, social networking sites are one of them: you can get people to buy directly from Instagram, or you can get new customers on your Facebook shop. You can promote and sell on your sales channels and Shopify will automatically track orders and inventory, allowing you to reach a wider range of customers while consolidating them in one place.
Design Customization
Shopify also allows you to customize your shop design. You can find the perfect template for your shop in the theme store, either free or premium templates. You can then use it as a foundation to combine simple settings and customize it to your own. The design settings editor allows you to see the changes as soon as you make them, so you can tweak them one by one to create the kind of shop you’re aiming for.
Also, using Shopify’s own easy-to-learn template language, Liquid, you can customize any part of your website’s theme at will, making it easy to tweak it.
Embedding into other sites
Shopify also allows you to embed it on other websites. When you create a buy button in the admin page, you can embed it on your website or blog, so that you can showcase the products that Shopify offers on your own blog and encourage people to buy them. This is a great way to communicate the appeal of your products to more customers.
Why use Shopify?
Next, let’s take a closer look at the benefits of using Shopify. Support for content and downloadable products
Shopify can also handle content merchandise and downloadable merchandise.
When you think of an online store, you probably think of producing and selling goods. However, Shopify also allows you to book services, consultancy, digital products and courses on the shop. Some stores actually sell yoga class bookings on Shopify.
It’s also available for international customers.
Another advantage of this service is that it is also available for international customers. One of the major advantages of this service from Canada is that it is easy to transition to international specifications. It supports a variety of languages, currencies, and international shipping by default, so you can open an e-commerce site for international destinations more smoothly than other online shopping platforms. In fact, many e-commerce sites built on Shopify have been successful in challenging cross-border e-commerce.
It has a lot of extended features.
Another advantage is that it has a wide range of extensions to enhance your shop.
Since Shopify exposes its APIs to the outside world, there is a wealth of proprietary apps developed by many companies. There are now a whopping 3,000+ apps available, and Shopify users can enhance their shop by using the app from the APP store within the service.
You can create a highly original shop.
Shopify is a great way to create a highly original shop. It’s easy to build and update your website, but you can also customize it in any way you want. You will be able to create a shop that is particular about the world and convincing.
Disadvantages of Shopify
There are many advantages to Shopify, but of course there are also disadvantages.
Expertise required.
The hardest part about Shopif for beginners is that there are parts of it that require specialized knowledge. While it’s easy to get started and easy to manage, if you want to go beyond templates and really focus on design, you’ll need specialized knowledge of HTML and CSS.
（Next）
Then we’ll go over how to open a Shopify account!
How to get started and open Shopify
Let’s take a look at how to open Shopify.
Step 1: Create an account
From the home page, click on the Start Free Trial button and fill out the required information to open the store.
All you need to open a store is the following four things
- Email address.
- password
- Store Name
- Store URL
Once you have completed the entry, you are done with the first step of opening your store. You cannot use a duplicate store name and store URL, so just keep that in mind. It is possible that the wording you want to use is already in use.
Step 2: Answer the current situation.
Then answer the question about your current situation. Once you have already sold products or answered the category of your products, about your current annual sales, move on to the next.
Once you set up your store address, which is necessary to run your e-commerce site, you are ready to complete the preparation phase. The first 14 days is the trial period. Decide on a plan and make a payment before the end of the trial.
How to use Shopify
Then we’ll show you how to use Shopify.
Step 1: Adding an item
First of all, add the product.
The following items must be entered in order to register the product.
- Title.
- Description.
- Media (Image)
- price
- inventory
- delivery
- variation
- sales channel
- classification
You need to fill in the above items one by one. Stick to the description to make it look attractive.
Step 2. Customize your theme
Once you’ve finished registering your products, it’s time to customize your theme.
The free templates have a simple and sophisticated feel to them. You can start by choosing from the free templates with the colors and placement of your choice, and then customize it to your own from there.
Once you’ve chosen a theme, click on “Customize” and adjust the details of the design.
At the top center, you can switch between computer and smartphone views. We recommend that you make sure to check the view from either side.
Step 3. Edit your store’s basic information
From the Administration screen, click on Settings and select General Settings. In the General Settings, you can set up your initial email address, store address, store time zone, unit system, order number prefix and suffix, and store currency.
Step 4: Setting up your payment method
Click on “Complete Account Setup” in Shopify Payments and complete the setup by entering your company information, personal information, product details, statement notation and bank information.
Step 5. Set up shipping to the store.
Shipping costs are also an important part of running an online store. Since you can deliver your products to customers around the world, it is recommended that you set your shipping rates with a lot of thought.
You should set your shipping rates based on the total weight of the order or based on the price of the order.
Step 6. Disabling password protection and making it public
The store cannot be published with password protection in place. Disabling the password will expose the store to the public.
Shopify Pricing Plans
Shopify has no upfront costs. Instead of paying in bulk at the beginning, they have a monthly subscription system. You pay a fixed amount each month to keep your online shop running.
There is no initial fee, and the monthly fee is low, so the initial cost and monthly usage fees are relatively low compared to similar e-commerce platform services. In addition, the payment fees are also the lowest, so if you’re looking to sell a large number of products in the long term, Shopify is the way to go, and you’ll end up saving money as a result. If your shop is experiencing rapid growth, you can move on to the Shopify Plus plan, which is better suited to running a large e-commerce site. There are three basic plans available. The features available are different, so choose the plan that suits your shop best during the trial period.
If you want to take on the world with your e-commerce site, Shopify is the way to go.
With a variety of online shop platforms on the market, you may be wondering which service is best for you when you’re ready to get started.Shopify not only has a strong design and a wide range of extended apps, but also has a strong international presence, as the platform originated in Canada. If you’re looking to eventually cross the border, you may want to give Shopify a shot.