How to set up your first Shopify store

Shopify removes the technical excuses - you can have a working store with checkout in an afternoon. What it does not remove is the need for a product people want.

Pick the right plan

The Starter plan at 5 dollars per month gives you product pages and checkout links to share on social - enough to validate an idea. The Basic plan at 39 dollars per month adds the full storefront. Start small and upgrade when traffic justifies it.

Set up payments first

Activate Shopify Payments (or a local gateway where it is unavailable) before anything else, and complete the identity verification early - payout holds on a store that is already selling are painful. Connect your bank account and set your payout schedule.

Add products properly

Write your own titles and descriptions rather than pasting supplier text, photograph on clean backgrounds, and set shipping rates honestly. Three polished products beat thirty rough ones at launch.

No inventory - connect print on demand

If you sell designs rather than stocked goods, install a print-on-demand app like Printful, Printify, or Gelato. Your designs go on shirts and mugs, the network prints and ships each order, and the gap between their base cost and your retail price is your profit.

Launch and measure

Buy a real domain, set up the free email capture, and send your first traffic from wherever your audience already is - social, communities, or ads once margins support them. Watch the built-in analytics for what people actually view and abandon, and iterate on that instead of guessing.