How To Add A Custom Background Image In Shopify

TechRadar Verdict

Shopify represents an easier mode to build and manage your web shop, but there are more than powerful platforms around.

Pros

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No product/bandwidth/disk space limits
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No revenue-per-year limits
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Huge number of apps and extensions
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Excellent mobile app

Cons

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Less features than BigCommerce
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Transaction fees apply unless you apply Shopify Payments
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Maximum two staff accounts on the basic plan

Shopify is a one-end eastward-commerce platform which provides just about everything you lot demand to build and grow your spider web store: a template-based site builder, comprehensive product catalog, easy payment processing, automated fulfilment via shipping apps and other integrations, inventory management, powerful analytics and more.

Beginners can get-go gently past focusing on their storefront. Shopify has 72 meridian-quality templates available, although only eight of these are free. An excellent theme browser enables filtering the designs by industry or layout type. Most themes are bachelor in multiple styles, and you can preview whatever of these with a click.

Professional store features include support for customer accounts, production reviews, automatic tax and shipping rates, abandoned checkout recovery, numerous payment gateways and more.

Store management tools cover like shooting fish in a barrel gild fulfilment, inventory management and refund tools. Marketing options such as gift cards, discounts and e-mail marketing help you lot pulsate up more business, and detailed reports and Google Analytics support provide essential feedback on your efforts so far. There'southward even a custom mobile app then that yous tin view and command what'southward happening, wherever you are.

Desire to try out Shopify? Check out the website here

Shopify doesn't have most as many of the annoying limits or catches that you'll sometimes get with other platforms. You can sell as many products as you like, be they virtual or physical, there's no bandwidth or disk space limit, and you don't have to factor in the cost of SSL as there's a gratis certificate thrown in.

Despite all this functionality, the Bones Shopify programme is available for a very reasonable $29 (around £22.70) a month. This doesn't include gift cards or Shopify's more advanced reports, merely otherwise includes all the features we've described so far.

The only significant penalty comes in the transaction fees. Online orders are charged at 2.2% + 20p, whereas in-person payments accept a lower rate of one.7% + 0p.

At that place's also a minor hassle in that you only become support for two staff accounts. Some competitors don't impose any user limits at all. You have have the power to rail inventory and fulfill orders in 4 divide locations.

Upgrading to the $79 (around £61.80) Shopify account cuts online credit card charges to ane.9% + 20p, and in-person ones to one.vi%. You also become gift cards, professional person reports, and an selection for up to v staff members to access and manage your accounts, and increment your location to 5.

The most expensive tier is the 'Advanced Shopify' at $299 per month (around £234). This cuts the online credit card charges downwards to ane.vi% + 20p, in-person charges to 1.5%, gives you up to xv staff accounts, and can handle 8 locations.

Whatever attracts your attention, Shopify offers a gratuitous fourteen-solar day trial to help you explore it farther, with no credit card details required.

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Getting started

Signing upward with Shopify works much as you would expect: hand over your email accost, proper name, concrete address and phone number, and the service logs you into Shopify'southward web admin console within a few seconds.

The Shopify interface does its best to continue options to a minimum. A left-mitt sidebar organises features into straightforward categories - Orders, Products, Customers, Analytics, Marketing, Discounts, Apps - while the Dashboard highlights how you should get started (add products, then customise your store). Information technology'due south all very clean and uncomplicated.

One trouble with this minimalist approach is information technology's not immediately obvious where y'all should await to carry out a particular chore. Fortunately, a well-designed search system is on hand to point you lot in the right management.

Search Bar — Can't find what yous're looking for? Start typing in the search field, and you volition (Paradigm credit: Shopify)

Commencement typing in the box and matching interface options are displayed and updated every bit yous go. We began typing PayPal, for instance, only past the fourth dimension we reached 'PayP' the search box was displaying just one match, Payment Provider Settings. Tapping this took united states to the relevant page in the Settings screen and we were able to check out our various options.

Shopify'southward dashboard design won't be for everyone. Competitors such every bit UltraCart and Volusion make arguably ameliorate employ of their dwelling pages, for example displaying reports on store functioning and then they're always visible at a glance. Those sites tin likewise look cluttered and be more intimidating to e-commerce newbies, though, and overall, Shopify'due south dashboard provides a comfortable and straightforward place to work.

Adding Products — Adding products can exist done manually, or by importing a CSV file (Image credit: Shopify)

Creating your store

The Shopify dashboard suggests that calculation a product is the 'first step to launching your shop', then we clicked the Add together button to get started.

The website displayed a unproblematic Add together Product course where we were able to manually enter production details. This covers all the essentials you would look - clarification, images, linked videos, product classifications (blazon, vendor, collections, tags), variants, pricing, inventory details, shipping - but fiddling more.

Shopify production descriptions can include basic tables, for case, while an Insert Video box enables entering uncomplicated embed codes. By contrast, BigCommerce offers near equally many table settings and options as Microsoft Word, and its Embed Media box offers fine-tuned command over HTML5 video and audio, Flash, generic IFrame and other objects.

Import features are minimal. Shopify only supports CSV files, the maximum file size is simply 15MB, and in that location'southward no control over the import process and no option to link custom fields in the CSV to specific Shopify product attributes. This won't exist an issue if the file is in the correct format, though, and Shopify does at to the lowest degree provide a sample file to help, as well as previewing the results of the import process earlier request you to have it.

Shipping support is better, at to the lowest degree once you've realised where it is (cached in Settings rather than highlighted on the Dashboard as a must-do task if you're selling physical products).

The system gets yous off to a quick start with some reasonable default settings: you're shipping from the address yous specified during setup, you're charging domestic shipping rates for your domicile country and have a single shipping zone to comprehend the residue of the world. Even if this isn't accurate, it gives you some sample values to explore.

If you need more, you lot're able to add equally many other aircraft zones equally necessary. Each one can include your selection of countries, and your shipping rates can exist calculated based on the toll or weight of an order, or calculated from the rates taken from a specific shipping provider or app.

Although Shopify doesn't permit for specifying the dimensions of a production, you can enter weight, and a Packages organization enables setting up different prices for the various package sizes and types you'll use to ship your products.

Setting up your payment providers is every bit straightforward. PayPal Limited Checkout and Shopify Payments are enabled past default. The Stripe-powered Shopify Payments system enables taking payments via credit cards one time you've provided a few more personal and financial details.

There'due south directly support for Amazon Pay and you can as well choose to accept alternative payments, equally well equally manual and other options (bank deposit, cash on delivery, money order, more.) You tin set upwardly whatsoever you demand with minimal hassle and be taking orders almost immediately.

Themes — You have a wide range of themes to choose from, although simply a handful are free (Epitome credit: Shopify)

Running your business

Designing your site is a skillful kickoff, but the real piece of work comes in running the store over the long term, so it'southward of import that your chosen platform has all the necessary tools to help.

One major Shopify highlight is its mobile app (iOS and Android are supported.)

Along with its general site management and inventory tasks (adding and editing products, browsing reports), the app enables processing orders, issuing refunds, connecting with staff or contacting customers directly. This means at that place'south no waiting around for customers if you happen to be out of the office - you can requite them the speedy service they expect, nearly wherever you are.

Built-in analytics give you lot an at-a-glance view of many of import concern stats: total orders and sales; top products; online store sessions by location, device type and traffic source; sales by social and traffic source; and tiptop referrers and landing pages. Individual reports requite you more detail, and a capable written report generator gives you multiple report templates and allows y'all to edit columns and add together custom filters.

App Store — Add apps to your store to increase your capabilities (Epitome credit: Shopify)

As nosotros've seen, in that location's a lot of functionality here, only it doesn't simply cease with the standard Shopify features. An exceptionally busy App Store enables expanding its powers by integrating with an assortment of third-party services covering every aspect of your business organization: marketing, sales, social media, aircraft, inventory, customer service, accounting, reporting and more than.

We don't have the infinite here to exercise justice to what's on offer, but to give yous an thought, here are merely some of the things you tin can practice with Shopify'south free social media apps: enable signing up and logging in with multiple social network accounts; embed Instagram feeds in your store; automatically post custom messages to social networks when you lot add new products; collect reviews from Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and use them in your store; integrate messaging via Skype, Messenger, SMS and email; promote best-selling products on your favourite sites, and the list goes on…

Many of these apps are free or include free options, and overall they greatly expand what the service can do. If y'all're browsing Shopify's website to find out more near the service, be sure to check out the App Store, likewise.

Final verdict

An splendid east-commerce platform, relatively easy to apply and with a huge library of apps for integrating with other services. Beware the transaction fees if you don't utilise Shopify Payments, though.