Today, I'm gonna show you the easiest way to start a Shopify store from scratch.
From products.
Finding winning items to sell and profit from.
To designing, customizing your store's look and branding to convert customers to payments, configuring the right settings so you can ship out your products and get paid.
I'll even hook you up with a free domain name.
As an entrepreneur that has made over a million dollars in sales, I can assure you that by the end of this video, you'll have a fully optimized Shopify store that's ready to make you money.
Step one, set up.
To start a Shopify store, we first need to set one up to work with.
We'll be using a free AI tool called Build Your Store to make it easy.
It sets up fully functional Shopify stores in minutes, optimized for sales and preloaded with winning products to sell.
Head to the link in the description to their website and click build my free store.
Then enter your full name, email, and a password and hit sign up to create an account.
Once you're in, you'll be asked to pick a niche for your store.
Your store will be designed around your selection.
There's fashion and apparel, pets, electronics, gadgets, home and garden, and sports and fitness.
If you can't decide, you can hit I'm not sure.
For this video, I'm thinking of selling an electronic gadget.
So I'm going to hit electronic and gadgets and press done.
You'll now choose banners for your homepage.
Pick two that best match the look and vibe you want your store brand to have.
Don't worry if your banners don't match your brand perfectly.
You'll be able to customize every part of your store's design later on.
Once that's done, the next step is create a Shopify account.
Click access Shopify.
And I'll bring you to a free trial where you can use Shopify completely free for three days.
Then just 1 a month for the first three months.
It's pretty far.
So head there, enter your email address and press start free trial.
Shopify will then ask you for a password for your account.
Enter one in and press create Shopify account.
After that, you'll be met with some setup questions which you can just skip by clicking skip customize setup.
And now i'll ask you which plan you want for when the free trial ends.
I recommend the basic plan.
It's all you need as a solo entrepreneur and it's the most popular.
So hit try basic and enter your payment details.
Here again, you get to use shopify completely free for the first three days, so you won't be charged right now.
Once you're done, hit subscribe and voila, We're in.
With your Shopify account made, return to this page and click done.
Now to link your Shopify store.
Here, you'll want to press access Shopify to open up your Shopify store admin and copy its URL.
Paste it in the store URL text box here, hit save and press done.
Next, you'll be asked to grab your Shopify free trial, which you already did.
So just press access Shopify and return to this page to click done.
You'll now install the Build Your Store app, which gives the AI permission to do its magic.
Hit the install button to open up your Shopify store admin and press install.
Easy peasy.
You'll then be asked to pick a store type which you can press free beginner store.
Continue and skip.
And with that, It's time to have AI customize your store.
Click the button and AI will start cooking it up in the background.
The final step before your store is ready is to add top selling products.
Instead of needing to figure out what products to sell on your own, build your stores integrated with an app called AutoDS that preloads top selling products for you to sell, based on your niche that you picked for your store.
Not only that, it imports product details like photos and descriptions to your store, sources the products from suppliers and automatically ships them out to your customers when they order.
It's an essential e-commerce tool to run your store and fulfill orders.
Basically, your own personal store assistant.
Click register to AutoDS here and sign up for an account.
Press join now once you're done and choose Shopify for your selling channel.
You'll then choose a plan.
I recommend Starter 500.
It gives you all the features that you need and is the most popular.
By registering through build your store, you'll get the first 30 days for just 99 cents, which is a steal.
So press start now, then enter your payment details and the Boom, our store is ready.
I'm going to press access my store and woo, it's looking fresh.
We've got a nice homepage with a navigation bar and banner, a great layout with a product section, a mailing list, signup and testimonials.
Looking at the product page design, I like that there's customer reviews, bundle deals and even FAQ.
I think this is a great foundation to build on and customize to our liking, which leads us into step two products.
We're now ready to customize our store, starting off with our products.
On our website we can see the top selling products auto ds has pre-loaded for us to sell okay.
Okay, it's picked a bluetooth headband to listen to audio while you sleep or work up.
That's handy.
We've got a moon lamp that looks pretty cool for the home, a drone and a bunch more products.
If you want to add other products, simply head to AutoDS, then Marketplace.
You'll see all kinds of products that you can add to your store.
You can also visit trending products to research top selling products that are trending on social media.
You can filter by niche sell, price range, profit range and more and click into products to view more data like its potential profit and general sales over time.
There's a product score too that makes it easier for you to decide if you should sell it or not.
I suggest choosing products you can sell for at least three times their cost.
For example, if a product costs $10, I'd price it at $30 or more.
This gives enough margin to cover item costs, advertising and other business expenses, while still leaving room for profit.
I'm taking this electric dumpling maker.
And now that I think about it, I might just focus my entire store around Asian kitchen gadgets.
The best Shopify stores target a specific niche or type of product.
So try to pick one early and don't go too random with your products.
To add this to my store, I'm going to click import draft, view in drafts, then import on its row.
It'll then show up on my store.
Looking at the product page right now, it's not bad.
Though its product details can use some optimizing.
The product title is a bit of a mess.
I want to bump up the price and the description can be improved.
To edit the product details, head to your Shopify store admin.
Click on products, then the product you want to edit.
Here you can edit all its details.
For your title.
Use a unique name that stands out while also being descriptive enough to help with search engine optimization.
I'm going to go with Dumpli, Electric Dumpling Maker.
For your media.
Make sure you have high quality photos and video of your product from different angles and in use.
Many people don't read descriptions, so it's important you visually highlight your features and benefits as well.
For pricing, you can change it to what you want here.
And for your description.
We're actually going to delete everything and leave it blank, because we'll be adding it directly on the page itself to make it look better.
Let me show you.
Hit save, then press online store and customize to open up the theme editor.
Click the top drop down menu, press products, then create template.
Call it your product name, then press create template again.
Once it's loaded, click change on the left to make sure you've selected your product.
Then add section under template to add a multi row.
Now this is where you're going to add your product description.
For each row you'll wanna add a header, short paragraph and photo that highlights one value of your product.
For example, if I wanna highlight that this product has different speeds, I'm gonna mention that in the header.
Add a short paragraph and select a photo from my library of the mode button.
And boom, this looks so much better than a typical wall of text.
Repeat this for the remaining rows, focusing on the features and benefits that customers care about.
Once you're done, click back, then drag multi-row to under product description.
Press save and go back to your Shopify store admin.
Hit products, then the product you're working on.
Scroll down and, under theme template on the right, select the new template you just created.
Then save.
And with that... you have a much more optimized product page.
While we're on the topic of editing pages, it's time we properly dive into step three layout, editing all the sections of your store.
Let's start on the homepage.
Now AI has already laid out most of the store for us, with the many different sections that you see here.
All we need to do is review and customize them.
On the left, you'll see these sections on your page under your header, template, and footer.
You can edit a section by clicking on it on the sidebar or on the page itself and heading to its settings.
To remove a section, you can click the button down here, and to add a section, you can click the button here.
There are many different sections to choose from, though I recommend keeping things simple and not adding too many, as your store's preloaded sections are already optimized for conversions.
You can switch to other pages with the dropdown menu above.
They're edited in the exact same way.
I recommend reviewing each one and editing them to your liking.
You'll also want to review what they look like on mobile by hitting the mobile view button.
Half, if not the majority of people shop online using their phones.
So don't skip this step to edit the menu items in your header at the top of your website.
Go back to your Shopify admin, click content menus, then main menu here.
You can edit existing menu items and add new ones for myself.
I like to add in about page.
I'm going to confirm it and reorder it to be in front of contact by dragging and dropping it on the list.
You can also consider putting about under contact as a sub menu item to make it more clean.
Another thing I'd do is rename catalog, which is the menu item that takes you to a page that shows all your products.
I'd go with something more clear, like products or the category of your product, like kitchen gadgets.
To edit the menu items of your footer.
Back out to menus and click footer menu, where you can edit the exact same way as your main menu.
You'll want to add your store policies and terms and conditions here.
Once your sections and pages are in place, the next step is to customize how your store looks and feels.
That brings us to step four, branding.
Having a strong brand is a must if you want your store to stand out.
I'm talking about a proper name logo, visual identity and messaging, all catered around your customer.
A brand helps present your store as a real business that can be trusted and not a sketchy site that someone made in their bedroom.
Build Your Store's AI has already picked out some initial branding elements for us.
You can customize them further in the theme editor by clicking theme settings.
To upload a logo, hit logo, change, select, and simply drag and drop yours in.
Here's a logo I made using ChatGPT.
And just like that, the store looks so much more professional.
Umami Kitchen, best Asian kitchen gadgets in the game, you know it.
Next up, colors.
You can edit all the different colors of your store as you wish.
You'll want to sprinkle your brand's colors throughout your site while maintaining legibility.
After that, let's go to typography.
You can change up the various fonts on your store.
Pick one that fits the personality of your brand while again, maintaining legibility.
I suggest going through all the theme settings one by one and aligning them with the brand you have in mind.
Once you're done, click on the banner and here you can edit it.
Imagery is critical for your brand.
It conveys its essence, its vibe.
So make sure you show photos that truly represent your brand's values.
It all starts with the first image people will see, your banner.
I'm going to press change and upload a fancy photo of dumplings in a kitchen to communicate that this is an Asian kitchen store and that our gadgets will help you make yummy food like that.
To edit the heading, click on the text on the left.
I'm going to go with a sentence that encapsulates what my brand offers and speaks to my customer's needs.
How about tools for the modern Asian kitchen?
I like that.
It's clear and on brand.
The rest of your store should be too.
Make sure your imagery and messaging is consistent in tone across your website.
Once you're finished, the front end of your store should all be done.
Let's now edit the backend beginning with step five payments.
Let's get paid, baby.
To let customers check out and pay on our store, we'll need to edit our payment processors.
To do that, go to the Shopify store admin.
Click settings on the bottom left, then payments.
Click activate Shopify payments and go through the account setup.
Once you're done, you'll be able to set payments from customers on your store.
They'll be able to pay through credit card, debit card, PayPal, and more.
To get customers to pay for shipping.
You can set up your own shipping rates by going to shipping and delivery.
You'll want to manually set up your own rates for different countries and regions based on your product and strategy.
Don't forget to also set up taxes and duties under taxes and duties, where you can charge different rates for different countries and regions.
The last thing you want is a surprise visit from the tax man.
Finally, head to general to edit your store details and currency.
Unless you're selling to a specific country or region outside the US, I recommend using USD as your default currency.
With payments ready to go, let's make our store official with step six, domain name.
Before we go live, if you remember, I said I'd be hooking you up with a free domain name.
I didn't forget about it.
Head back to build your store's website and you should see the step secure your free domain.
Here, you can get a .store domain name for one year completely free.
That's crazy.
Store domain names work perfectly with Shopify stores and have actually been shown to bring in 87 more website traffic and rank two times higher on Google.
Can't go wrong with that.
First, enter your desired domain name here to see if it's available.
I'm gonna go with umamikitchen.store and it's available.
Next, enter your password for your .store account and press create your account.
Once that's done, connect your domain name by clicking connect now.
It'll open up your Shopify store admin where you'll select connect existing domain.
Enter your domain name here, hit next and wait for a bit to connect on its own once it does.
Do one last review of all your store settings and pages.
Head to your shopify store admin, press remove password, view store and boom your website is live.
Congratulations on starting your shopify store.
Now, this is just the beginning.
Your job now is to promote and advertise your store so people actually visit it and buy from you.
Check out this video here to learn more on how to do that.
Otherwise, a big thanks to Build Your Store for sponsoring this video.
Be sure to like it, subscribe if you haven't already, and peace out.
