A simple guide to using Shopify that we recommend for everyone who is just starting out [2020 edition]

"I'm thinking of opening an e-commerce website."
"I heard that Shopify is recommended if you want to open an e-commerce site now."
"Therefore, I would like to learn how to use Shopify before deciding to introduce it."

This article is for such people. Shopify is an EC site creation platform that is currently attracting attention worldwide and has the largest market share in the world. In Japan, the number of EC sites using Shopify is increasing year by year.
I wrote this article for those who are just starting to use Shopify.
We are certified Shopify Experts and will provide you with detailed instructions.

Key points of this article

• Learn how to set up an online store with Shopify
• How to choose a Shopify plan becomes clearer
• Understand the general market price for building an EC site using Shopify

How to set up an online store with Shopify?

In this section, we'll look at how to use Shopify by taking a step-by-step guide on how to set up an online store with Shopify.

Sign up now for 14 days free

At Shopify, you can create an account and try it for free for 14 days. No credit card registration is required. All you need to do is fill in a simple questionnaire with your email address, and you can easily create an account in just 1-2 minutes.

Adding products via the admin page

Once you have created your Shopify account, you will have access to your Shopify admin screen.

To "add a product," log in to the administration screen and go to the "Product Management" page from "Product Management" on the left sidebar, as shown above.

Click the Add Product button.

On the product editing screen, you can register the following product information.

1. Product name
2. Product Description
3. Product image
4. Product Price
5. Inventory (code and number of items in stock)
6. Shipping settings (item weight and customs information)
7. Product Variations
8. SEO settings for product pages

Regarding "8. SEO settings for product pages", you can set the page title, description, URL, etc. in "Search result preview". By default, the product name will be entered as the URL, so you should change it here.

This kind of detailed SEO setting is difficult to find on other EC platforms, so this is another strength of Shopify.

Once you've entered your product information, don't forget to click "Save" at the end.

We will provide more details about "7. Product Variations" later.

Enhancing product information

If your product has different sizes, colors, etc., you should register the product as "variations."

In the Variations section, check the box that says "This item is available in multiple options, including different sizes and colors."

This will allow you to set variations for your product.

Add variations such as "Size," "Color," and "Material" to "Options."

You will then be able to set the "price," "quantity," "inventory code," etc. for each variation in "Preview."

Don't forget to click "Save" at the end.

Use collections to categorize your products

In Shopify, you can create product groups (categories) called "collections." By creating "collections," you can create various categories such as genre, brand, color, etc.

There are two types of collections: manual collections, which you create by selecting products yourself, and automatic collections, which you create by specifying conditions.

Select "Collections" under "Product Management" on the Shopify admin screen. On the Collections page, click "Create Collection."

Under "Collection Type", you can select "Manual" or "Automated".

"Manual" is a setting where you create a collection by selecting products one by one yourself.

"Automation" is a setting that automatically categorizes products based on conditions you specify, such as tags, categories, and prices.

Once you've completed the settings, click "Save" to complete your collection.

Create pages for inquiries, special commercial law, etc.

As you know, in addition to product pages, online shops also need pages such as "Contact Us" and "Specified Commercial Transactions Act."

Shopify also allows you to create these pages.

Select "Pages" under "Online Store" in the Shopify admin panel. Click "Add Page."

Enter the page details, such as Title and Content.
Click "Save" and you're done.

If you want to create a contact page, you should select "page.contact" from the template as shown above.

Brush up your store design by introducing themes

Shopify offers a variety of free and paid "themes" (store design templates), and themes can also be customized.

Click "Themes" from the left sidebar of the Shopify admin screen. On the "Themes" screen, you can select and customize themes.

The following article covers the basics and advanced aspects of Shopify customization. Please refer to it if you would like to know more about theme customization.

[Reference] Customizing Shopify. How to change the design to create a successful e-commerce site

Improve business efficiency by linking with domestic malls such as Amazon and Rakuten

Some of you reading this article may be using not only Shopify, but also domestic shopping malls such as Amazon, Rakuten, and Yahoo! Shopping.

By selling on more e-commerce sites, you can increase your sales by increasing your sales channels. However, at the same time, you may have to manage multiple sites, which may increase the burden on your employees.

In such a case, it is a good idea to introduce an order/inventory integration system that will support your EC site operations. Introducing a system has the following benefits:

• One-stop service for handling orders from multiple EC sites to shipping
• Prevents excess inventory and missed sales, resulting in lost opportunities
• Reduces human errors such as missed shipments

On the other hand, if you don't implement a system, you will have to manage multiple sites one by one, which will put a lot of strain on your employees and may lead to inventory management errors or missed shipments.

To make your work more convenient, please consider introducing an order/inventory integration system. For more details, please see the related article " Order/inventory integration between Shopify and domestic malls (Rakuten, Yahoo!, Amazon) ".

Setting up shipping and payment methods for your online store

Shopify allows you to set different shipping rates for your products both domestically and internationally. You can set shipping rates based on the total weight of the order or based on the order value.

Let's take a look at shipping settings and payment methods.

From the admin screen, select "Settings" and then "Shipping".

Click "Manage shipping rates" in the "Shipping Profile" section.

The default setting for "Domestic Shipping" is a flat rate of ¥1,000 nationwide.
You can specify the region by clicking "Edit Zone".

Click Edit shipping rates.

Enter the "rate name" and "rate" that will be displayed to customers, as well as the weight range of the items to be shipped, and click "Done."

You can set your payment method from the "Payment Service" section on the "Settings" screen.

Please note that "Payment Services" can only be registered or settings changed with the owner account. Staff accounts cannot perform this operation.

The following article compares payment services that can be used with Shopify and explains how to set them up. If you would like to know more about "payments", please refer to this article.

[Reference] Comparison of payment services available on Shopify and how to set them up [Explanation by a company certified by Shopify Experts]

The first two payment services you should introduce are "Stripe" and "Paypal"

If you know how to set up payments but are having trouble choosing which payment service to use, start by using "Stripe" and "Paypal."

Stripe and Paypal are payment processing services. If you register your credit card number, name, address, etc. in advance, you can make payments by simply logging in to Stripe or Paypal when purchasing products on an e-commerce site.

For users, it saves them the trouble of having to enter their personal information, making shopping smoother and more likely to lead to increased purchasing motivation.

Each system has its own advantages and disadvantages, and there are also slight differences in fees. For more information, please see " Comparing the payment systems you should first introduce to Shopify: Stripe and PayPal ."

How to Choose a Shopify Plan

So far, we have been explaining how to use Shopify. When you actually start using Shopify, you will need to choose a plan from the following three plans.

Shopify pricing chart

	Basic Plan	Standard Plan	Premium Plan
Monthly fee	29 US dollars	$79	$299
Domestically issued cards	3.4%	3.3%	3.25%
Overseas issued cards/AMEX	3.9%	3.85%	3.8%
Additional charges if you use a payment provider other than Shopify Payments	2.0%	1.0%	0.5%
Number of staff accounts	2	5	15
Number of products that can be registered	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
24-hour support	◯	◯	◯
Free SSL Certificate	◯	◯	◯
Abandoned cart prevention	◯	◯	◯
Gift Cards	×	◯	◯
Professional Report	×	◯	◯
Advanced Report Builder	×	×	◯
External service automatically calculated shipping	×	×	◯

Basic Plan

The Basic Plan is a light plan with a monthly fee of US$29. It is a plan for beginners who are just starting out with their e-commerce website.
This plan is recommended for those with monthly sales of up to 5 million yen. You can create up to two accounts, so if your site is small enough that one or two site managers can manage it, choose the basic plan.

Standard Plan

The Standard Plan costs $79 per month and has lower credit card and transaction fees than the Basic Plan.
The target monthly sales is around 5 to 50 million yen. If you are running an EC site as a team, you should choose the Standard Plan.
In addition, as mentioned in the Shopify pricing table above, the Basic plan will include the "Gift Card Feature" and "Professional Report Feature."

Gift card function : A function that allows you to issue and sell gift cards.
Professional Report Function : This function allows you to collect the following data:

• Change in number of customers over time
• Comparison of sales to first-time customers and repeat customers
• Customers by Country
• Repeater
• One-time visitors

Premium Plan

The Premium plan costs $299 per month and includes all the features included in Shopify's plans.
This plan is for those with monthly sales of 50 million yen or more and 6 or more people running an e-commerce site. With the premium plan, you can create more advanced reports than with the standard plan.
For example, you can analyze traffic from Google Ads and other sources, and it is also possible to report on "royal customers" and "at-risk customers."
This plan is ideal for those who want to work with a larger group and put more effort into marketing.
In addition, credit card and transaction fees are set at the lowest possible rates.

(For those who do not need their own EC site) Shopify Lite

In fact, there is also a Shopify Lite plan that is cheaper than the three regular plans, so I'll briefly introduce it to you.
The "Shopify Lite Plan" is a plan for selling products by embedding Shopify's cart function into an existing website, blog, or social media site, without building an e-commerce site.
The fee is US$9 per month.
The big difference with other Shopify plans is that it does not have an e-commerce site itself, and only the admin screen can be used. The functions on the admin screen are the same as other plans, and all of Shopify's standard functions are available.
Small business owners who want to sell products on social media etc. using only Shopify's cart function may want to consider this option.

[Related] What is ShopifyLite? A thorough explanation of the recommended plan for opening an online store with Shopify that suits you

Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus is a plan for stores with high transaction volume and large businesses that goes beyond the three regular Shopify plans mentioned above.
Shopify has a wider range of capabilities than most shopping cart systems, but there are some things that the standard plan cannot do, and this is the highest-level plan that covers that.
Monthly fees start from 2,000 US dollars.

Below are some of the things you can only do with Shopify Plus:

1. Checkout screen and function customization
2. Site time limit setting (reflecting reservations)
3. Workflow automation
4. Automatic display of personalized promotions
5. Up to 10 websites can be opened per contract

In addition to the above, there are many other things you can only do with Shopify Plus compared to the regular plan. For more details, please see the article below, so if you run a store with a large transaction volume, please also take a look.

[Related] What you can do with Shopify Plus, comparison of regular plans and prices

3 Ways to Choose a Shopify Plan

We've explained each plan so far, but what criteria should you use to choose a Shopify plan?
Here are some tips on how to choose. Specifically, we suggest the following three ways to choose.

1. Decide on a plan based on e-commerce transaction amount
2. Decide on a plan based on the management system
3. Decide on a plan with POS features in mind

First, when deciding on a plan based on your e-commerce transaction volume, consider the following figures as reference:

• Basic: Monthly sales of 5 million yen or less
• Standard: Monthly sales of 50 million yen or less
• Premium: Monthly sales of 50 million yen or more

(Calculated assuming all payments were made by domestic credit card)

Also, the number of accounts that can be used varies depending on the Shopify plan, as shown below. When designing the operating system for your EC site, it may be a good idea to determine the Shopify plan based on the number of accounts you need.

• Basic: 2 accounts
• Standard: 5 accounts
• Premium: 15 accounts

And if you have a physical store or are planning to open one in the future, you may want to decide on a plan that focuses on POS functions.

Differences in features between Shopify POS plans

	Basic Plan	Standard Plan	Premium Plan
Shopify POS app	◯	◯	◯
Register Shift	×	◯	◯
Hardware Peripheral Support	×	◯	◯
Staff POS PIN	×	Unlimited	Unlimited
Third-party POS apps	◯	◯	◯
Number of stores	×	1-5	Up to 8

For more information on Shopify pricing and how to choose a plan, please refer to the article below.

General market price for building an EC site using Shopify

After reading this article, have you got an idea of ​​how to use Shopify? If you actually want to use Shopify to create an original, high-quality website, you will probably have to outsource it. What would be the going rate for that?

Here I'll summarise the general rates.

Price range 1: Approximately 500,000 to 1,000,000 yen

This is a typical price range for creating a basic Shopify site.
This is just for reference, but at this price, the following work is often included:

• Get an account
• Domain Settings
• Site design using official theme
• Customization (editing provided materials)
• Product Registration
• Payment Settings
• Shipping fee setting
• Support for launching your Shopify store

Price range 2: Approximately 1 million to 3 million yen

If you want to build a Shopify store with an original design and customized functions, or if you want to migrate an existing site to Shopify, this is often the going rate.

Price range 3: Approximately 3 million to 10 million yen

This is the average price for building a large site.
Shopify is highly scalable, so if you outsource it in order to create a more comprehensive website, depending on the level of customization, it could end up costing anywhere from several million to 10 million yen to build.
It is necessary to consider the outsourcing costs according to the purpose.

Price range 4: Over 10 million yen

If integration with ERP or accounting systems is involved, the average price is over 10 million yen.

The average price when requesting Shopify construction at our commerce media company

You can assume that the average price when requesting Shopify construction from our company, which is certified as Shopify Experts, is roughly the same as above.
Let me give you one specific example.

Go Go Curry (Sales up 300% in one month since renewal!)

https://jp.gogocurry.com/

This is GoGoCurry's official online shopping site.
After launch, we expanded the payment function and added content to create the site we know today. We also have a B2B window to handle large orders that cannot be handled through the official mall.
Although some features were implemented later, I would say that the cost should be around 2 to 4 million yen.

[Summary] For those considering introducing Shopify

In this article, we have introduced how to use Shopify.

Summary of this article

• Create an account with Shopify and enjoy a free 14-day trial.
• The admin screen allows you to freely register products, set themes, customize, and more.
• Shopify offers three main plans (as well as a Lite plan and a top-tier plan):
• The plan you choose should depend on the current status, scale, and management structure of your EC site/business.
• The price range for outsourcing Shopify varies widely depending on the level of customization required.

Shopify, which is popular all over the world, is expanding its influence in Japan as well. The market share for e-commerce site creation in Japan is changing dramatically.
You can try Shopify for free for the first two weeks, so use this article as a reference to get started.
Also, if you are considering outsourcing the creation of a Shopify website, please feel free to contact us as we are the third company in Japan to be certified as Shopify Experts.

[Related] Creating your own EC site with Shopify

*This article is current as of November 2020. Due to future updates or changes to Shopify specifications, it may not be possible to set up exactly as described in this article.