During the Coronavirus / Covid-19 situation there are many businesses in a very unsteady situation. Some have products, staff to pay but no way to get their products paid for and easily into their hands. You may have a website but its not setup for sales. You may think that would take up to 3 months to be completed. Actually with a Shopify addon to your website it could be completed in just a few days. If you’re a restaurant, clothing store, children’s store, home store, etc. some sales could help offset some of the losses you may be seeing right now. Plus it could be a step towards future growth that could help you way after the Coronavirus / Covid-19 is long gone.

Here are some items to get ready before you commence getting your Shopify site created:

Products

What are you selling? In Shopify, a collection allows you to organize products into structured groups. This is beneficial for your customers and helps the buying process. For example, a clothing online store wants to include Men’s Fashion. You can create a collection and put in Men’s clothing and when a customer clicks on your Men’s Fashion menu, they are taken to a gallery of products for men. You have to think about navigation menus and add links to help guide your customers to your collections. There are two types of Collections: Manually and Automated. A manual collection always contains the same products unless you add or remove them. An automated collection automatically puts products into the collection using rules, like tags. When you add a product to your online store with a particular tag, the collection is automatically updated with that product.

Pictures and Descriptions

Having a good list of products is great. Now you will need some good pictures of those products. Sometimes with the right lighting, some minor box equipment and a good camera and decent skills you can do it yourself. Other times you may need models, food designers, etc. to make it all work and look tantalizing on screen Its best to provide at least 2-3 shots per item (not more than 5) for variation for the web designer you work with. You’ll also need descriptions per each item you sell. Make it keyword rich to help people find your product within their own google searches. That will help people easily get at look a your items.

Shipping

Knowing your shipping sizes and weights are crucial as well. This will determine the shipping cost per item someone purchases. You can offer free shipping but then that should be factored into the sales prices. If you’re a restaurant and doing local deliveries this won’t matter much. If you’re a clothing designer or electronics store it will mean a lot more.  There are several selections in Shopify for shippers. Do your research to determine the best, cost effective shipper out there. In Shopify once the choice of shipper is provided and the dimensions per product are stated the system does all the rest of the calculations for shipping.

Domain:

For those without a domain make sure to determine that first. The cost is minimal per domain but reserving the name is the most important thing to do. Fore a few you may have to shorten your name because its too long to type into a browser and remember. Maybe an acronym is better. If this is a new business check keywords that are searched that could be worked into your name. That way you could get some really easy traffic to your store once its up.

Shopify fees

Lastly keep in mind Shopify is not free. It has fees. It ranges from $29.00 to $299 per month. The differences in costs deal with selling gift cards or not, reporting and special shipping calculations with third-party apps at checkout or not. You have to choose an option to get started. Maybe you start at the lowest end and work your way up sales increase. Its up to you.

Once you have all this ready you’re good to go to have your Shopify website designed, or if you’re adventurous and knowledgeable enough, do it on your own.

Todd Sayles, Principal of Creative Mind Consulting Group, has built a successful organization that services real estate, retail, hospital and wellness clients among others.   His team’s expertise includes problem solving/market strategy, design and marketing consulting, creative design, online website development, content and design creation for digital media and print collateral, public relations, search engine optimization and collaboration with outside designers and writers.

Creative Mind Design Group teams up with clients to strategize on marketing challenges and design goals. We come alongside companies to ultimately create inspired design alongside brilliant results.