Paul Waddy - Shopify for Dummies

Shopify For Dummies

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ISBN: 978-0-730-39445-7

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1. Chapter 8

1. Chapter 2
2. Chapter 3
3. Chapter 4
4. Chapter 5
5. Chapter 6
6. Chapter 7
7. Chapter 8
8. Chapter 9
9. Chapter 10
10. Chapter 11
11. Chapter 12
12. Chapter 13
13. Chapter 14
14. Chapter 15
15. Chapter 16

Theres never been a better time to sell online. Ive lost count of the number of people Ive met in ecommerce who have become self-made millionaires, let alone the millions of people around the world whove decided to make their living trading over the world wide web.

You may have something in common with just about all of them they come from diverse professional backgrounds, and hardly any of them have studied how to sell online, and theres two good reasons for that:

• Ecommerce is such a young concept; Shopify itself was only founded in 2006, so the chances are youve had a prior career and are looking for something new.
• Hardly any courses teach end-to-end ecommerce, so there are very few ecommerce graduates.

Before you picked up this book, theres a pretty good chance you had already heard about Shopify. Shopify is certainly a buzzword around ecommerce, and it has been generating huge amounts of global interest in recent years a simple search on Google Trends will show as much! Now, just because people are searching in droves for Shopify online, it doesnt mean you have to try it for your online store but I definitely recommend you do.

Ive used Shopify to sell clothes, shoes, pet accessories, furniture, beverages, beds, beauty products you name it, Ive probably helped sell it. I decided to write Shopify For Dummies because Im passionate about online retail and I want to be a part of growing the ecommerce ecosystem. In my career, Ive founded online businesses, advised online businesses and co-founded a digital marketing agency that focuses on online retail. Ive decided to share my experience and knowledge, plus the odd trick or two, with a wider audience thats ready to pick up this book, grab their laptop and a cup of coffee, and start their own Shopify store.

Ive written this book as a practical guide to starting a Shopify store. With each chapter that goes by, youll be developing a different aspect of your online store, with the end game being that by the time you finish reading the book, your online store will be ready to go live.

This book is a little different to what you might find on YouTube, or in other books, in that I use my experience to also teach you about the business fundamentals of ecommerce, like how to choose trending products, where to source them and how to price them. You wont just be learning about the ecommerce platform that is Shopify; youll be learning how to grow a business, as well as create a digital shop front.

Throughout this book, I explain why I rate Shopify so highly and share how you can use Shopify to run a successful ecommerce business. I look at all the steps sequentially, in an easy-to-follow manner, so that anyone can pick up the book and develop their store as they go. I also include sidebars (boxes containing examples or some extra background information) and some technical information that you may or may not feel you need to know (look out for the Technical Stuff icons that occasionally appear), but dont worry if theyre giving too much information and you want to stay focused on your end goal, you can skip those and keep on reading (you can always come back to them later). And because the book is organized in a logical way, you can always jump back to key topics if you need to refresh your memory.

This book doesnt require you to have any prior knowledge of how to use Shopify thats my job. However, I do make a few assumptions about you I assume youve got some sort of interest in selling online, and you have an inkling that Shopify may be the platform that can enable you to create a successful online store. Perhaps youve read a few blogs or watched a few YouTube videos, or even read other books that piece together various aspects of ecommerce, and youre looking for something to help you get started.

I also assume you dont have a product lined up ready to sell (although you might have if so, good for you!). Whether you have a product stockpiled in the garage or youre tinkering with your first few product ideas, I show you how to look for products that have the potential to be bestsellers.