Shopify’s emergence as the Number #1 ecommerce platform has energized entrepreneurship and leveled the playing field for small businesses looking to ride the global digital commerce wave.
Back in the day setting up an online store meant complex coding, expensive servers and payment gateways costing thousands of dollars. Cut to today – armed with Shopify anyone can turn their passion project or innovative business idea into a full-fledged store selling to customers worldwide within minutes!
Let’s start from the beginning and see how these Ottawa-based founders built one of the most empowering tech companies of this decade.
The Shopify Origin Story
In 2004, founders Tobias Lütke, Daniel Weinand and Scott Lake wanted to sell snowboards online. Faced with the complexity of existing solutions they built their own ecommerce platform having the ease-of-use and flexibility they required.
As other merchants saw value in their internal tool and wanted to use it, the trio officially launched Shopify in 2006. They focused on continual simplification so even tech non-savvy owners could painlessly set up beautiful stores.
Word of mouth among entrepreneurs combined with seasoned execution led to Shopify raising over $122 million from investors like Bessemer Venture Partners over multiple rounds. They also built a thriving app ecosystem allowing customizations through technology partner leverage.
Fast forward to today, Shopify powers over 2 million businesses with a registered merchant joining every 8 seconds! The platform contributes to a majority of the $10 billion+ transaction volume happening across stores.
With a current market valuation of over $75 billion, Shopify sits among the top 100 most valuable publicly traded companies globally. Their All-in-one commerce engine has effectively removed technology roadblocks enabling independent brands and complex enterprises alike to thrive digitally.
Now having set the context, let me walk you through the step-by-step process of getting your own online store powered by this commerce juggernaut.
Shopify in Numbers
- 200,000+ businesses joined Shopify in 2021 alone
- Number 1 Ecommerce Platform with 26.4% market share
- 67% of shopping cart orders happen via mobile devices
- Shopify stores saw 46% increase in sales post COVID vs 15% overall ecommerce growth
Types of Businesses Leveraging Shopify
The versatility of Shopify allows it to power stores across sizes, industries and revenue models.
Product Businesses – Online native brands selling own physical/digital goods like wearables, electronics, cosmetics etc completely depend on Shopify to handle end-to-end requirements.
Offline Retailers – Traditional neighborhood stores use Shopify to launch paralle online stores to augment in-person sales
Subscription Services – Coaches, trainers and creators offer virtual classes, communities and subscription content leveraging native capabilities
Distributors and Wholesalers – Larger B2B sellers use Shopify Plus with customizations to manage bulk orders, pricing tiers and sales negotiations
Low Barrier Individuals – Creators, home bakers, artists who earlier faced technology and operational barriers now use Shopify to turn passions into livelihoods
Multi-channel Sellers – Established merchants use Shopify to sell across own sites, Instagram, POS kiosks along with ecommerce marketplaces seamlessly
As you can see almost any business model finds a home with this versatile platform!
Real Stories From Shopify Store Owners
“I was able to set up my jewelry store in a weekend without needing to understand website code. Shopify made adding new collections and promotions effortless during the holiday season leading to 5X sales”
Tina, Founder of Adornments Jewelry Boutique, San Francisco
“As gym instructors, my wife and I faced uncertainty during lockdowns. Launching our health coaching subscription service using Shopify allowed us to reach customers across the globe. The video call integration has been invaluable.”
Rio, Co-Founder of ActiveHealth+
"We have a chain of retail stores in Mumbai but wanted to expand our reach online. Using Shopify POS and online store together we have seen a 21% increase in overall annual revenue."
Reema, Owning 5 furniture design outlets.
There are millions of such examples of store owners who have leveraged Shopify to transform their business growth trajectories through the online channel.
Now that you’ve seen the possibilities, let me guide you through the step-by-step process of launching your own multi-channel store powered by Shopify!
Getting Started with Shopify – Step-by-Step
The simplicity of Shopify allows you to launch a full-featured online store ready to drive sales and handle all operational needs in no time. Just follow these steps:
Step 1. Sign Up and Choose Your Plan
Head to Shopify.com and sign up using your email. You can start with the forever free plan or easily upgrade to paid ones later.
After signing up, follow the step-by-step wizard to configure your store details, payment information and account credentials.
Tip: If you plan to run Facebook/Google ads to your store or need gift cards for promotions, opt for a paid starter plan upfront.
Step 2. Select a Visual Theme
Shopify offers 70+ gorgeous themes allowing you to visually stand out. Browse through categories like fashion, cosmetics, electronics etc to find relevant templates.
You can always customize the look and feel further as you grow. But starting with a professional template ensures your store looks world-class from Day 1.
Step 3. Setup Your Inventory & Products
Start adding your actual product catalog into the store‘s admin dashboard.
Provide all the necessary information for each product like price, cost, inventory count, images, variants and descriptions. These details power your product listings and allow accurate orders.
Shopify allows bulk upload of product catalogs if you already have them listed out in files saving effort.
Step 4. Configure Payments, Taxes and Shipping
Shopify offers built-in integration with 100+ payment gateways like Stripe, PayPal, Square etc to accept payments instantly.
You can also activate Shopify Payments to start accepting credit cards quickly instead of integrating an external provider.
Shipping rates can be automatically set up with leading couriers based on your package weights and delivery timelines.
Tax calculations get auto-configured by integrating services like Avalara tax depending on the regions you sell to.
Pro Tip: Offer multiple payment options to boost buyer trust. Allow easy guest checkouts to minimize cart abandonment.
Step 5. Install Apps and Extra Features
Want advanced capabilities like email/SMS marketing? How about building an engaged community via forums or offering virtual classes to your audience?
The Shopify app store gives access to over 5,000+ apps covering every functionality you can imagine!
Search or browse relevant apps and integrate them to your store seamlessly within minutes. Shopify apps integrate securely without affecting site performance.
As your business needs grow over time continue adding the required apps and capabilities to take your brand to new heights!
Step 6. Preview and Launch Your Store!
On your store’s admin dashboard access the preview mode to see how your shop looks and functions before launch. Check the buying experience from product listings to checkout.
Once everything looks good, congratulations! You can officially launch your store and open doors to the world.
Drive traffic through marketing campaigns, social media and SEO to bring potential buyers to the store. Soon the orders will start pouring in!
Expert Tips to Set Up a Conversion-Focused Store
Now that you have set up your store, here are some pro tips to maximize your sales potential:
➔ Enable trust symbols like Norton and McAfee to indicate security of payments and data privacy boosting visitor confidence.
➔ Highlight positive customer reviews via premium apps like YotPo Social Reviews driving trust and word-of-mouth referrals.
➔ Limit navigation menus to most important links minimizing distractions. Ensure clear CTAs across to guide visitors into desired actions.
➔ Make default product images lifestyle-based connecting visually with buyers rather than sterile product shots only.
➔ Create urgency via limited quantity flash sales or expiring countdown offers nudging buying decisions.
➔ Offer free shipping thresholds and highlight them across the site. It remains a top incentive customers look for before adding to cart.
➔ Make checkouts frictionless via saved payment methods, easy guest flows removing unnecessary fields to provide express one page flows.
➔ Send post-purchase emails with order statuses along with personalized thank you messages making buyers feel valued while building loyalty.
That covers top conversion optimization tips – do them all correctly and see your sales take off swiftly!
Next let me give you a peek under the hood to see why Shopify is the commerce engine powering millions of stores…
What Makes Shopify a Commerce Leader
While the simplicity of launching a store via Shopify is impressive, customization capabilities and reliability at scale are what make it an industry leader.
Shopify Payments – Instead of complex payment gateway integrations, Shopify offers direct integration allowing you to accept credit cards quickly. The built-in capabilities also offer the lowest transaction fee of 2.4% with no monthly fee making it very cost-efficient.
For those needing advanced payment features, 100+ PG integrations are still available with Shopify. But for most simple businesses Shopify Payments itself is sufficient.
App Ecosystem – Shopify powers an entire app economy. Developers can build apps offering extended functionalities across operations, marketing, fulfillment etc. which store owners can then discover and integrate easily to enhance their stores.
With over 5,000 apps already this allows specific customizations for every industry and business need imaginable making the platform extremely versatile. Apps also don’t affect site performance due to secure integration mechanisms.
Shopify Flow – This powerful workflow builder allows you to create flexible processes and automations for your business without coding. Build custom backends connecting data across apps and trigger actions via easy drag and drop interfaces.
As your business complexity increases keeping things in sync and processes error-proof becomes challenging. Shopify Flow solves this elegantly without expensive developers.
Shopify Scripts – For advanced users, Shopify offers a Javascript-based scripting environment allowing intricate store customizations and complex logic additions not possible via simpler app capabilities.
You can use scripts to listen to events, modify data or take actions via code providing extreme flexibility to mold Shopify exactly to your business needs.
Shopify Plus – For enterprise brands seeing very high volume transactions, Shopify Plus offers additional capabilities like dedicated enterprise support, custom reporting and integrations tailored for complex operational needs.
Specialized pricing plans and add-on services ensure the platform scales up easily for brands selling globally across multiple channels.
That provides a glimpse into why industry experts vote Shopify as the most powerful and versatile commerce engine suitable for retail businesses of today.
Next let’s burst some common myths you may encounter regarding Shopify.
Top Shopify Myths Busted
Given its meteoric rise, Shopify also attracts plenty of misconceptions. Let the experts clear up the top ones for you:
Myth: Shopify is only for small businesses
Reality: From ambitious startups to multi-billion giants like Gymshark, Tesla and Kylie Cosmetics depend on Shopify currently to power their global sales. The platform scales up seamlessly.
Shopify Plus plans are designed ground up targeting complex needs of large brands like custom integrations and dedicated enterprise support services.
Myth: Shopify stores offer limited design flexibility
Reality: While starter friendly, Shopify still provides advanced customization capabilities for seasoned users. Editing code, adding custom Javascript etc along with thousands of themes/app combinations allow intricate design changes.
Even editing core templates and adding new templates from scratch is possible. There are hardly any limits to customizations on Shopify.
Myth: Shopify is expensive compared to self-hosted carts
Reality: Shopify‘s starter plans begin from as low as $29 per month which includes hosting, security, updates and dedicated support. Compared to managing servers, themes and apps yourself, this is incredible value.
Also transaction fees on Shopify Payments start from just 2.4% which is lower than even Stripe in many cases. So overall TCO is quite affordable.
Myth: Lack of support for physical retail stores
Reality: Shopify POS allows store owners to easily manage brick-and-mortar retail outlets along with online stores from a unified dashboard. You can accept payments, track inventory across locations in real-time and offer omni-channel shopping journeys.
So you can run a fully integrated digital and physical retail business smoothly via Shopify.
That clears up some of the common misbeliefs floating around. Shopify is extremely versatile for all types of retail brands.
Now that you are convinced let’s round things off with what the future looks like…
The Road Ahead for Shopify
Shopify has ambitious plans to keep pushing the barriers in enabling entrepreneurship globally.
Shopify Fulfilment Network – Currently in Beta, Shopify plans to offer plug-and-play warehousing and logistics for store owners to simplify inventory and shipping. The integrated network aims to provide Prime-like fast deliveries at affordable pricing even for smaller brands.
International Expansion – Shopify is rapidly enabling support for local languages, payment methods, taxes and policies across emerging markets like Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Middle East & Africa where ecommerce is still nascent. This will unleash entrepreneurship globally.
Brick & Mortar Retail – Shopify plans to go beyond just software to also offer embedded POS hardware along with business loans enabling entrepreneurs to launch physical retail stores effortlessly. The company has already started rolling out its Tap & Chip Card Reader as the first step.
Sustainability Push – Shopify aims to provide tools for brands to able to quantify and highlight their sustainability efforts clearly to consumers allowing ethical commerce to prevail. Features like carbon offset shipping, local production mapping etc. will help brands showcase compliance efforts.
Shopify Fulfilment Network – Currently in Beta, Shopify plans to offer plug-and-play warehousing and logistics for store owners to simplify inventory and shipping. The integrated network aims to provide Prime-like fast deliveries at affordable pricing even for smaller brands.
Clearly, the company is focused on democratizing commerce for the next billion entrepreneurs globally through technology.
And that brings us to the end of our guided tour of the wonderful world of Shopify!
I hope you now have clarity on the incredible value Shopify provides across capabilities, security, support and scalability making it the undisputed leader in the ecommerce platform space.
Whether you are looking to turn your side hustle into a full-fledged business or want to take your existing retail operation online, Shopify is the best springboard available.
Here‘s wishing you wild success with your own online store journey. Go knock it out of the park! 🥳
