How to Set Up an Online Shop UK Using Shopify Ecommerce Platform

How to Set Up an Online Shop UK Using Shopify

With all the massive potential that eCommerce holds, it’s not shocking that people seem to be confused about choosing the right eCommerce platform. The confusion is also justifiable because choosing the right platform is the first and foremost aspect that can help businesses unlock the massive potential of the eCommerce marketplace.

Now, just to give you a little glimpse about the potential of the online market industry let’s share some intriguing numbers from the UK’s eCommerce industry.

The UK’s eCommerce industry has shown year-on-year increment since 2008. Today, the eCommerce market in the UK accounts for almost 82% of all the individual purchases in the country.

The industry size also swelled to reach over £100 billion from 2017 to 2018. All of these figures are only growing and we can safely assume these numbers to swell even more in the coming years.

So, with such a massive potential market, it’s only rational for businesses to jump-start their online stores. However, the first step in this direction would be to choose the right eCommerce platform, from where they can launch their stores.

Previously, websites were considered the aptest and reliable platform to create online stores. However, more recently there are various third-party eCommerce web development platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and others that have eased up the process of setting up an online store with loads and loads of functionalities.

Now, out of the various eCommerce web development platform that can be used to create an online store, we will exclusively be talking about Shopify.

Why Exclusively be Talking about Shopify?

Well because it’s one of the biggest and most interactive eCommerce web development platforms that is powering hundreds of thousands of online stores across the globe. So, cutting the chase, let’s see how and why you should choose Shopify as the preferred eCommerce platform to start your online store in the UK.

How to start an online shop UK using the Shopify E-commerce website?

What makes Shopify different from various other similar platforms is that it brings a remarkably easy, and streamlined approach to set up and launch an online store.

Honestly, the process of starting an online shop using Shopify is so simple that even a newbie with little to no knowledge of coding can also do it.

But if you are still intimidated by the process of setting up a whole online store yourself, you can always pay someone to set up Shopify store for you. You would need to discuss the essential details with them in order to get what you want.

Read Also Print on demand UK Shopify

To make things even more interesting for interested vendors in the UK, Shopify also offers a 14-day free trial period. This means that you don’t have to put any upfront cost to try out the amazing features and functionalities of the platform. Nonetheless, let’s see how you can start an online shop in the UK using Shopify in detail:

1. Sign Up with Shopify

The first step in opening up a Shopify store is to get registered with the platform. For this, you can visit Shopify.com to create an account. Once on the page, you can enter all the relevant information required in the form and click the “start free trial” button, to get things started.

Once you have created the account, you will need to choose a unique name of the business (make sure it’s interesting and can be easily memorized). Next up, you will be required to enter some more details like your name, country, and contact number.

Next, you will be asked for your purpose of using the platform. Interestingly, there’s an option to select, “I am just playing around”, which you can choose if you are just there to test the platform features and functionalities.

Once you are done with all the requisite information, you can click “I am done”.

2. Setting Up Your Online Shop

Once you have passed through the initial screening and registration, you will be directed to the admin screen (consider it your dashboard). Here, you will find all the relevant tools, features, and functionalities that you need to create, manage, and administer your online store.

Here are few things you will be doing from the dashboard to set up the store;

Choosing a “Layout” or “Theme” Shopify comes with its very personalized and dedicated theme store. All of the themes offered in the Shopify Store are professionally developed by designers for quality, and mobile responsiveness, so you can be sure of dealing in professional hands.

Now, Shopify offers two types of themes; paid and free. Each theme comes with its exclusive list of possible modifications that you can make (without having to write a single line of code). Nonetheless, as can be expected, the paid themes come with more detailed and robust modification options, along with other perks, as opposed to free themes.

All premium themes offered at Shopify Store are priced between $100 to $180. And while this may seem a large upfront cost, it’s an intelligent investment that pays off greatly at the later stages of the business, especially if you are working with specific industries or products.

Alternatively, if you are looking to make some wholesale changes to a theme, that’s also possible. Companies like Folio3 Shopify store design agency can help you come up with a completely customized theme with all the features and functionalities you wanted. You can easily hire these professional Shopify expert design agencies to do the work for you.

Nevertheless, if you are unwilling to pay any cost at this point, you can always choose a free theme and customized it to the full extent possible to meet your unique store requirements.

3. Edit Shopify Settings

The majority of the Shopify themes available with Shopify Store enable store owners to highly modify the appearance of the store. This ensures that you end up with a unique-looking store and not like a clone of hundreds of other online stores.

To modify the Shopify settings, you can click on the “Themes” to view your live theme at the top. From there you can make customized changes to your theme. However, before you start modifying the theme, it is highly recommended to duplicate the theme. This is because just in case you don’t like the modification, you can always revert to the initial theme and start again.

Now, once you are done duplicating the theme, you can start customizing the theme by clicking the “Customize Theme” button. There you will have all the tools and functionalities to control and manage your store. From this screen, you can play as you will and experiment with all the different features, layouts, and functionalities you want in your store.

Some common modifications you can make from this screen includes;

• Uploading logos
• Choosing color schemes
• Choosing fonts
• Adding relevant functionalities to product pages
• Uploading slides to the carousel
• Many more

4. Add products to the store

Ok, now that you are done customizing your theme and adding all the relevant features & functionalities, the next step is to start uploading products to the store. You can click on the “Products” tab on the left and then “add a product” to start uploading.

You can continue using the same features as many times as you want to update all your products. Also, make sure to add relevant details about each product in the description. This is important because the description should be written with respect to the SEO considerations.

Also, try to be as detailed as possible to help customers get the whole knowledge about the product features.

You can also upload the product images from this screen. Once you are done uploading all the product images with descriptions, you can then rearrange the products in any order you may want.

Just as an important consideration, make sure to only choose high-quality product images that highlight all the unique features of the product. This is important because the quality and details of the products are two important factors that can make or break the conversion rate for your store.

Once you are done with uploading the products, click, “save product” button to apply the changes.

5. Pick Payment Gateways

Next up, you will need to select the payment gateway for your store. Payment gateways refer to the functionality that allows users to make transactions from your store, which is why it’s a very important step to consider.

Some of the features to consider when choosing a payment gateway includes; transaction fee, card types accepted by the payment gateway, offsite checkout, taxes, native payment selection option is also viable as it allows users to pay in cash or online without currency conversion.

For example, UAE Payment gateway in Shopify offers customers to pay in Durham which is totally an ideal situation and others.

Shopify also offers its payment gateway “Shopify Payments”, however, you are not bound to choose it. Rather, you can select from a wide range of accepted payment gateways. Just make sure you know the ins and outs of each payment gateway.

7. Get the online shop LIVE

Well, congratulations, you are now ready to launch your website. Once you are done with all the changes and updates, you can now launch your online store by making it “LIVE”.

How Shopify is the best eCommerce platform in the UK?

Shopify is the absolute leader when it comes to third-party eCommerce web development platforms in the world. It offers unrivaled customer service, and advanced features to help online stores get the most buck out of their stores.

Just like everywhere else in the world, Shopify dominates the eCommerce web development platforms in the UK. The platform powers hundreds of thousands of UK-based businesses; equipping them with the features, and functionalities they need to dominate the market.

What’s even better about Shopify is that the platform can be used for multiple purposes. For instance, you can create your online store in the UK to sell products, or you can also choose Shopify to start your dropshipping business.

Here’s a brief review of the positive and negatives of the platform:

POSITIVES Reviews About Shopify

• • Ease of Use

As mentioned earlier, Shopify is probably the easiest and most streamlined platform for businesses to launch online stores. The platform comes with an incredibly smooth and seamless interface that allows businesses to easily set up, and manage their stores.

• • Integrations

For any eCommerce store to become successful in today’s competitive market, it’s important to add advanced functionalities and features, which enhance customer’s shopping experience. Shopify is a leading eCommerce platform that brings hundreds of thousands of third-party tools, and applications that can easily be integrated to enhance the functionalities, and appeal of the online store.

• • Reporting

Detailed analytics reports can greatly help businesses to understand the unique shopping patterns of customers and modify stores accordingly. With Shopify, online store owners get access to highly insightful, and detailed reports reflecting the performance of the store, as well as, other key parameters which need to be optimized to achieve even better results.

NEGATIVES Reviews About Shopify

• • Support

Well, while Shopify may be lauded for its meticulous and extreme level customer support, this isn’t true for all the plans. As the leading eCommerce web development platform, Shopify does fall behind when it comes to offering support for initial packages.

• • Additional Costs:

While Shopify is one of the most transparent web development platforms, there are some additional costs that can be forced upon users for additional purchases. For instance, apart from the monthly plan price, you will be paying for additional themes, marketing features, integrations, domain purchases, and others. Not to forget the high transaction fee that everyone not using Shopify Payments (payment gateway) would have to pay.

• • Limited Free Themes

There is little doubt about the exquisiteness of the themes offered by Shopify. However, very few of those themes are actually free. As of writing this, there are a total of 72 themes available at the Shopify Store. Out of these 64 are premium themes, which leave only 8 free themes to choose from. Not to forget, the free themes come with limited customization options.

REVIEWS

Overall Shopify has amassed high review ratings on the G2 platform, where they maintain a rating of 4.3/5. The platform is overall praised for its efficiency, ease of use, affordable plans, and powerful features.

PRICING

Shopify offers multiple pricing plans with the basic plan starting at just $29/month (we will be discussing the plans in more detail in the later section).

FEATURES

• Highly secure shopping cart with 256-bit SSL
• Shopify mobile
• Use your own domain name
• 70 payment gateways
• Full blogging platform
• 100+ professional themes
• Translate in 50+ languages
• Abandoned checkout recovery
• Mobile commerce ready
• Product reviews, Discount codes, and coupons
• Sell on Facebook
• Sell in-store (POS)
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Social Media Integration
• Unlimited products
• Integrate with Fulfillment Centers
• Shopify Mobile – update your store or inventory
• Gift Cards

How much does it cost to set up an online shop with Shopify in the UK?

Well, the overall cost of opening an online shop with Shopify will differ depending on the size, features, customization, and other stuff. However, in general, Shopify offers three individual plans for setting up online stores. Below we will be looking at some more details about each of the pricing plan offered by Shopify:

1. Basic Shopify

Cost: $29 per month

As the name implies, this is the cheapest plan on offer. However, it does include all the features and tools you would need to set up and start an online store. Now, before we start looking at some of the features that are offered with the Basic Shopify plan, it’s important to note that $29/month is the fee of the platform and that you will be paying extra for any third-party integration (which are often required to enhance the functionality of the store).

Also, you will be paying 2.9% + 30 cents for each transaction made at the store through an online credit card, whereas, 2.7% fee is charged for all transactions made with an in-person credit card. Also, if you are using any payment gateway other than “Shopify Payments”, you will be paying 2% of the sale in the fee.

Now let’s look at some of the features you get with the Basic Shopify Plan:

• 24/7 support
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certification
• Discount codes
• Unlimited product uploads
• Shipping discount
• Automatic abandoned cart recovery emails
• Shopify POS Lite
• Multiple Sales channels (sell on social media or online market places)
• Customized gift cards
• Printing shipping labels
• Staff accounts

2. Shopify

Cost: $79 per month

So, if you are looking to know precisely how much does Shopify cost, here’s the second plan (mid-tier) offered by the platform. You will be paying $79 for the plan, in return for some advanced features, and functionalities. The biggest difference between the Shopify and Shopify Basic plans is that the Shopify Plan is for small & medium companies, whereas, the Shopify Basic is more suited for individuals.

Nonetheless, apart from $79/month, you will be paying 2.6% +30 cents for every transaction made through online credit cards. Alternatively, 2.5% will be charged for all transactions using an in-person credit card. Also, you will be paying a 1% fee for all payments made using payment gateways other than Shopify Payment.

The Shopify plan will include all the features of Shopify Basic plus some additional features including;

• 24/7 support
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certification
• Discount codes
• Unlimited product uploads
• Automatic abandoned cart recovery emails
• Shopify POS Lite
• Multiple Sales Channels (sell on social media or online marketplaces)
• Customized gift cards
• Printing shipping labels
• Staff account (Up to 5)
• Shipping discount (up to 72%)
• USPS Priority Mail Cubic Pricing
• Professional reports

3. Advanced Shopify

Cost: $299 per month

The Advance Shopify plan is meant for large companies with a huge product range and offerings. Besides being the most expensive of all the plans, Advance Shopify also brings in some robust features and tools that enable businesses to grow and scale rapidly.

Now, as for how much the Shopify cost for the Advance Shopify plan, you will be paying upfront of $299 for the platform, plus 2.4% + 30 cents for all transactions made through an online credit card, whereas, 2.4% fee will be charged for every transaction made through in-person credit card. Also, you will be charged a 0.5% fee for all transactions made using any gateway other than Shopify Payments.

Apart from all the features included in the Basic Shopify, and Shopify plans, here you will get additional features including;

• 24/7 support
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certification
• Discount codes
• Unlimited product uploads
• Automatic abandoned cart recovery emails
• Shopify POS Lite
• Multiple Sales Channels (sell on social media or online marketplaces)
• Customized gift cards
• Printing shipping labels
• Shipping discount (up to 72%)
• USPS Priority Mail Cubic Pricing
• Staff accounts (up to 15)
• Advance report builder
• Third-party calculated (updated for the shipping rates)

Dropshipping business model

If you aren’t already aware, dropshipping is likely a fulfillment method, where online stores are able to sell products from other stores directly to customers. This means that with a dropshipping store, you don’t actually have to stock any inventory. Whenever you receive an order for a product, it is simply fulfilled by the supplier, relieving you of any responsibility to maintain stocks or manage shipping. Now, the customer pays directly to you for the order at retail cost, whereas, you pay onwards to the supplier at a wholesale price; thereby keeping the rest as a profit. Since there is no need to inventory stocking, managing, or shipping involved in the business, you don’t need much money to start a store.

However, there are some important considerations that you should be aware of when starting a dropshipping business in the UK. For instance, you would have to choose the right products that are trending and offer better profit margins, and choose and register with the right suppliers that are willing to work with you.

What should be the best business to start with £10k UK by Shopify website?

Well, if you got £10k, you can probably start your own eCommerce Shopify website and start selling products. As we have already mentioned in great detail, starting an online Shopify website isn’t that hard or expensive, and you will be able to easily cover the setup and launch cost while leaving adequate cash out of the £10k to stock some inventory.

However, the key to success with the eCommerce Shopify store is to choose the right products to sell. That’s where you would have to invest time and effort to identify market trends and look out for products with high demand and large profits.

Some products ideas to sell in the UK includes;

• Sneakers
• Boutique
• Travel accessories
• Smart electronics
• Bikini and lingerie
• Fitness wear and accessories
• Healthcare supplies
• Functional home décor
• Beauty makeup tools and accessories
• Baby care supplies
• Baby safety products

FAQs

How much does it cost to run an online store per month by Shopify?

The cost of running an online store per month on Shopify varies greatly depending upon the business model, size, products, target market, and other factors. Shopify however offers 3 monthly pricing plans starting at $29 for Basic Shopify, $79 for Shopify, and $299 for Advance Shopify.

However, you will have to pay additional costs of development, customization, integration, domain, and, marketing to successfully run an online Shopify store.

Are online boutiques profitable in the UK?

Yes, online boutiques are a highly profitable business in the UK. The online boutique industry in the UK is worth billions of pounds, which makes it one of the most profitable online businesses in the country.

Do I need to register a company to sell the online UK with the Shopify store?

Yes, you will need to register your online Shopify store in the UK, once your earning goes over £1,000 during a tax year.

How do I start a small online business UK using Shopify online store?

To start an online Shopify store in the UK you need to:

• Choose a Shopify plan (Basic Shopify will suffice)
• Choose your business name
• Choose the theme
• Upload your logo
• Have the services/products pages ready
• Adjust shipping settings
• Setup billing information; and
• Get ready to sell

What’s the Folio3 Shopify website development cost?

The average cost of Shopify website development in the UK will vary depending upon various factors. On average, a small to medium online Shopify website may cost you between $5000 to %20,000.

Does Folio3 offer Shopify migration?

Yes, as a leading Shopify development agency, Folio3 offers complete Shopify migration services to stores with streamlined and proven processes to minimize delays.

Does Folio3 offer Shopify custom plugin development services?

Yes. Folio3 offers custom plugin development services for Shopify websites and stores. Custom plugin development services can be hired to either increase the efficiency and functionality of the store or to sell the plugin over the Shopify App Store.

How much to charge for the Shopify website?

Shopify website development charges vary as per the unique needs and requirements of the store. However, on average a Shopify website development may cost you anywhere between $5000 to $20,000 for a small to medium store.