How to Start a Shopify Store Step by Step
Before You Start
Before you touch Shopify, have three things ready: a product or product idea that you know people want, a business name that works as a brand (check domain availability at your registrar before committing), and a business bank account or at least a personal account you can use temporarily for receiving payouts. Having product photos, descriptions, and pricing decided before you sit down to build the store cuts your setup time in half.
You do not need a business license to start a Shopify store, but you will need one before you start collecting sales tax. Requirements vary by state and country. Most US-based sole proprietors can get a business license from their city or county clerk's office for $25 to $100. If you are testing a product idea and are not sure if this will become a real business, you can set up everything on Shopify during the trial period without any legal filings and only formalize when you are ready to accept real orders.
Step 1: Sign Up and Start Your Free Trial
Go to shopify.com and click "Start free trial." Enter your email address, create a password, and choose a store name. The store name becomes your default Shopify URL (yourstore.myshopify.com), but customers will see your custom domain once you connect one, so the myshopify.com name does not matter much. Pick something close to your brand name for easy identification in your admin.
Shopify asks a few questions during onboarding about your business stage, revenue, and industry. These questions help Shopify customize your dashboard and recommendations, but they do not affect your pricing or features. Answer honestly or skip them.
The free trial gives you three days to explore the platform, followed by an offer of $1/month for the first three months on the Basic plan. This promotional pricing means your total cost to test Shopify for three months is $3 plus any domain or app costs. There is no credit card required to start the trial.
Step 2: Choose Your Plan
Go to Settings, then Plan, and select Basic ($39/month after the promotional period). Unless you are already processing significant volume or need professional reports, Basic has everything a new store needs: unlimited products, two staff accounts, Shopify Payments at 2.9% + 30 cents, and discount code support.
The difference between Basic ($39) and Shopify ($105) comes down to three things: lower transaction fees (2.6% vs 2.9%), professional reports (sales by product, by traffic source, by customer segment), and five staff accounts instead of two. At $10,000/month in sales, the transaction fee difference saves you $30/month, which does not offset the $66/month plan price increase. The Shopify plan becomes cost-effective at roughly $22,000/month in sales volume. You can upgrade seamlessly at any time, so start on Basic and move up when your revenue justifies it.
For a detailed comparison of every plan's features and real costs, see Shopify Pricing Plans Explained.
Step 3: Pick and Customize Your Theme
Go to Online Store, then Themes. Click "Visit Theme Store" to browse options, or start with Dawn, Shopify's free default theme. Dawn is clean, fast, and well-maintained. For stores selling fashion, beauty, or lifestyle products, a visually richer paid theme like Prestige or Impulse ($250 to $350) can justify its cost through better product presentation.
Once your theme is installed, click "Customize" to open the visual editor. Start with these essential customizations:
Logo and brand colors: Upload your logo in the Header section. Set your brand's primary and secondary colors in Theme Settings, then Colors. Consistent brand colors across your header, buttons, and accent elements make your store look professional and intentional.
Homepage layout: Arrange your homepage sections in order of importance. A typical high-converting homepage layout includes a hero banner with your strongest product image and a clear call to action, a featured collection (your best sellers or newest arrivals), a value proposition section (free shipping, quality guarantee, fast delivery), social proof (reviews or press mentions), and a secondary collection or category grid.
Navigation: Set up your main menu under Online Store, then Navigation. Keep your top-level navigation to 5 to 7 items maximum. Typical structure: Shop (linking to collections), About, Contact, and one or two additional pages like FAQ or Size Guide. Use dropdown menus for subcategories within Shop.
For a deep dive into theme selection and performance, see Best Shopify Themes for Conversions.
Step 4: Add Your Products
Go to Products and click "Add product." For each product, fill in the title, description, images, price, compare-at price (for showing sale pricing), SKU, barcode (if applicable), weight, and inventory quantity. Add variants (size, color, material) under the Variants section.
Product titles: Use clear, descriptive titles that include the key search terms a customer would use. "Women's Merino Wool Crew Neck Sweater" is better than "The Cozy One" for search visibility. You can use creative names in your branding, but the product title is what Google indexes.
Product descriptions: Write for the customer, not for search engines. Lead with the primary benefit (what problem does this product solve or what experience does it create), follow with specific features (materials, dimensions, care instructions), and close with a reason to buy now. A product description of 150 to 300 words performs well for both conversions and SEO. Avoid copying manufacturer descriptions, as duplicate content hurts your search rankings.
Product images: Upload at least 4 to 6 images per product: a clean front shot on a white or light background, a lifestyle shot showing the product in use, close-up detail shots, and size reference images. Images should be at least 2048 x 2048 pixels for Shopify's zoom feature. Keep file sizes under 500KB per image by saving as JPEG at 80% quality. Large images slow your store down significantly.
Organize with collections: Group products into collections (Shopify's term for categories). Create both manual collections (you choose which products belong) and automated collections (products are added automatically based on rules like product type, tag, or price). Automated collections save ongoing management time as you add new products.
For detailed guidance on making your product pages convert, see How to Optimize Shopify Product Pages.
Step 5: Set Up Payments
Go to Settings, then Payments. Click "Activate Shopify Payments" and enter your business information, tax ID (EIN or SSN), and bank account details. Shopify Payments is powered by Stripe, charges 2.9% + 30 cents per transaction on the Basic plan, and eliminates the 2% surcharge Shopify charges on third-party gateways.
Shopify Payments automatically enables credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover), Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Shop Pay. You do not need to configure these individually. Shop Pay is particularly valuable because it stores customer shipping and payment details for one-tap checkout across all Shopify stores, and it converts at 1.72 times the rate of standard checkout.
Consider adding PayPal as a secondary payment option. Some customers, particularly older demographics and international buyers, strongly prefer PayPal. Adding PayPal alongside Shopify Payments does not incur the third-party gateway surcharge because PayPal is classified as an additional payment method, not a replacement gateway. PayPal charges its own processing fee (3.49% + 49 cents for PayPal Checkout), which is higher than Shopify Payments, but the incremental sales from customers who would not have bought otherwise more than offset the difference.
Shopify Payments is available in 23 countries including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and most of the EU. If you are in a country where Shopify Payments is not available, you will need to use a third-party gateway like Stripe, PayPal, or a local processor, and you will pay the additional per-transaction surcharge.
Step 6: Configure Shipping
Go to Settings, then Shipping and delivery. Create shipping zones for the regions you serve (domestic, international) and set rates for each zone. Enable Shopify Shipping to access discounted carrier rates from USPS, UPS, and DHL directly in your order fulfillment workflow.
For a new store, the simplest approach is to offer two or three shipping options: a free standard shipping option (funded by building shipping costs into your product margins), a paid expedited option at a flat rate, and free shipping above a specific order threshold (typically $50 to $75 for US-based stores). Free shipping is the single most effective conversion incentive in ecommerce, and 66% of online shoppers expect it.
Shopify Shipping discounts are significant: up to 88% off retail USPS rates, up to 55% off UPS rates, and competitive DHL Express rates for international shipments. You buy and print labels directly from your Shopify admin when fulfilling orders, and tracking numbers are automatically emailed to customers. For a complete setup walkthrough, see How to Set Up Shipping on Shopify.
Step 7: Connect Your Domain
Go to Settings, then Domains. Either buy a domain through Shopify ($14/year for .com) or click "Connect existing domain" and follow the instructions to point your DNS records to Shopify's servers. The connection propagates within 24 to 48 hours, and Shopify automatically provisions a free SSL certificate.
If you already own a domain, the DNS setup involves changing two records at your registrar: an A record pointed to Shopify's IP address (23.227.38.65) and a CNAME record for the www subdomain pointed to shops.myshopify.com. The exact steps vary by registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains, Cloudflare), but Shopify's help documentation has specific instructions for each major provider.
For step-by-step instructions with screenshots for every major registrar, see How to Connect a Custom Domain to Shopify.
Step 8: Set Up Taxes and Legal Pages
Go to Settings, then Taxes and duties. Turn on "Automatically calculate tax" and add the states or countries where you have sales tax nexus. Then go to Settings, then Policies, and use Shopify's built-in generators to create your refund policy, privacy policy, shipping policy, and terms of service.
Shopify Tax (included on all plans) uses a product-tax-code system to determine the correct tax rate for each item in each jurisdiction. Most physical products are taxable at the standard rate, but categories like clothing (exempt in some states), food, and digital products have special rules. Assign the correct product tax code when adding products to ensure accurate tax collection.
The policy generator creates legally functional templates based on your store's information. Review and customize these templates, particularly the refund policy, because your refund terms affect customer trust, conversion rates, and chargeback disputes. A clear 30-day return policy with free return shipping (if you can afford it) increases buyer confidence and reduces support inquiries. For detailed tax setup, see How to Set Up Sales Tax on Shopify.
Step 9: Test and Launch
Enable the Bogus Gateway in Settings, then Payments, then "Choose a third-party provider" and search for "Bogus Gateway." Place a test order using the test card details to verify your checkout, order confirmation emails, and fulfillment workflow all function correctly. After testing, go to Online Store, then Preferences, and uncheck "Restrict access to visitors with the password" to make your store live.
Before removing the password, walk through your store as a customer. Check every page on both desktop and mobile. Click every link in your navigation. Add products to your cart and go through the full checkout. Read your order confirmation and shipping confirmation emails. Check your product images for consistency. Make sure your favicon is set (Settings, then Brand). Verify your Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel are tracking correctly if you plan to run ads.
Launch day does not need to be a big event. Your store is live and functional, but nobody knows about it yet. The next step is driving traffic. Start by sharing your store with friends and family, posting on your social media accounts, and setting up your core email marketing flows (welcome email, abandoned cart recovery). For strategies to get your first sale, see the How to Get Your First Online Sale guide.
What to Do in Your First 30 Days
Week 1: Monitor your first few orders closely. Ship quickly, respond to customer questions within hours, and fix any issues with your checkout or product listings that real customers reveal. Install a reviews app (Judge.me or Loox) and start collecting product reviews from your earliest buyers.
Week 2: Set up your email marketing flows. At minimum, create a welcome email for new subscribers, an abandoned cart email sequence (3 emails over 72 hours), and a post-purchase thank you email. Klaviyo and Omnisend both offer pre-built Shopify flow templates that you can customize and activate in under an hour.
Week 3: Optimize your product pages based on the data you are seeing. If a product gets viewed but not purchased, improve the description, add more images, or adjust the price. If a product sells well, consider expanding the variant options or creating bundles.
Week 4: Review your Shopify analytics. Look at your conversion rate (2% to 3% is average for a new store), your top traffic sources, your best-selling products, and your cart abandonment rate. Use this data to decide where to invest your marketing budget for month two.