Shopify eCommerce Store Masterclass - Start a Business! | Free Udemy Course

Welcome to the Course.  This video is an introduction to the course content and the instructor.

Shopify is a leading eCommerce website solution that is easy to use and value for money. In addition, it supports a large ecosystem of apps, so it can be used to run your entire business. 

This lecture outlines all the steps needed to launch your business on Shopify.  This includes creating a brand, uploading products, configuring the site, and taking payment.

Whilst many sellers choose to sell under a generic brand (e.g., TPG Trading, 247 Top Seller), developing your own brand will help customer to identify you and build loyalty. This video lecture gives guidelines for developing your brand and using this to create a cross-platform identity.

With millions of products available, it can be difficult to know what to sell.  This lecture provides sources of data for investigating hot products and tools for finding product opportunities.

A URL is the address users type into their browser to visit your store.  It should be easy to remember and should reflect your brand.  This lecture covered best practise for choosing a URL and how to assign it to your store.

Shopify has two pricing tiers 'Shopify' (up to medium-sized companies) and Shopify Plus (enterprise customers).  Within 'Shopify' there are three pricing levels - Basic, Shopify and Advanced.  In this lecture, we examine the differences between the levels and ask which is right for you.

Your first step towards launching your Shopify storefront is to create an account.  A Shopify account can be created without a credit card on a 14-day free trial.  All that is required is an email address and your address details.

Apps extend the Shopify system and turn Shopify into a complete eCommerce management system. Apps exist for all aspects of eCommerce, including marketing, fulfilment and customer service.

In this lecture, we look at the various parts of the Shopify storefront, including pages, navigation, product and checkout.

A theme determines the look and feel of a Shopify storefront. Shopify provides a range of free themes, or if you require something different, there is also a paid-for theme option.

Shopify themes can be edited without the need for any technical knowledge. From the Online Store option in the LHS menu, click theme, then customise theme.

A Shopify theme has many options which enable it to be configured to a brand's looked and feel.  Elements such as font, page width and favicon are customisable.

To complete a transaction on a Shopify website will require the setup of one of more customer payment options.

Shopify allows sellers to set shipping rates based on their location and the service they select for delivery.

One of the benefits of using Shopify is that the platform has a standard checkout that customers are familiar with from the many other Shopify stores from which they will have purchased.

A blog is a great way to publish news and communicate with customers. They also allow fresh content to be created that gets picked up by search engines.

Adding pages to your Shopify store, e.g. About us and contact us, will provide customers with more information about your company, reassuring them that you are a reputable business. 

Creating helpful site navigation is vital for building a user-friendly, high converting online store. You should construct it to enable customers to find your product quickly. In addition, filters will allow customers to refine their searches.

Collections in Shopify are used to group together products. These collections can then be used to populate the navigation or in featured sections of the website.

In this lecture, we step through the process of creating single and variant products on Shopify.

If you have many products to upload to your store, then it will be very time consuming to do this manually. You can use the export and import functionality to amend products or create new listings.

Customers on Shopify are created automatically when an order is placed on a connected sales channel. Alternatively, they can be created manually.

Orders are automatically added from connected sales channels or can be manually created.  This lecture shows how to create and fulfil orders.

Learn how to create a return and refund orders

From the Marketing page in Shopify, you can create and manage marketing campaigns for promotions. The Marketing page also includes recommendations to improve your marketing strategy.  In this lecture, we look at how the marketing section of Shopify, focusing on email marketing.

Discounts are a great way to boost sales on your Shopify store. There are two sorts of discounts available voucher codes and automatic discounts.

Shopify Analytics enables sellers to understand the behaviour of their customers and make adjustments to their store to increase sales.

Congratulations for finishing the course (shame on you if you have skipped straight to the end!) If you have any questions, please ask them next to the relevant lecture and we will answer them shortly. Please also check out our consulting business Vendlab and also our other Udemy courses.