In this post we discuss, how to create a dropshipping store with Shopify & Aliexpress. We’ve rounded up a few resources that will expedite your learning process.
Create a Dropshipping Store with Shopify & Aliexpress
[Video Transcript]
– Hey, everybody, it’s me, Sarah, here, from Wholesale Ted.
Today, I’m gonna be giving you an updater for 2019,
step-by-step tutorial on how to build
a semi-automated AliExpress dropshipping store
using Shopify and Oberlo.
I know that in my New Zealand accent,
it sounds like I’m staying stip by stip,
but really, I mean S-T-E-P by S-T-E-P.
Since my last tutorial on the subject, a lot has changed,
and I mean a lot.
So, even if you’ve watched my previous tutorial videos,
I’m sure that you will learn a lot
by watching this one, as well.
I’ll also be giving lots of bonus tips along the way
for how you can optimize your store
for sales and conversions.
Now, this tutorial is gonna be a 20-step process.
I’ve added in some new steps for this year’s tutorial.
For each step, I’ll be switching over to my computer screen
and showing you exactly how to do it
so that you can follow along, even if you’re a beginner
and you’ve had no technical or design experience.
If you want to skip ahead to a particular step,
then I’ll have timestamps in the video description
so you can jump straight to that section.
Now I’m gonna switch over to my computer right now
to give you a quick preview of the store
that we are going to build.
All right, so, here is the store that we’re gonna build.
You can see that we’ve got a nice-looking homepage
with an image slider.
If we scroll down, you’ll be able to see
we’ve got our different products featured here
for a nice, simple, professional, clean-looking design.
We’ve got a simple, yet effective, footer with trust icons.
We’ve got a live chat messenger app installed
so that customers can easily contact you.
Check this out.
We’ve got a working menu with a sub-menu.
If we open up the coffee mug collection page,
and we click on the self stir mug,
you can see that we’ve got a simple, yet clean,
professional product page.
We’ve got trust icons installed on the product pages
to add authority.
We’ve got recommended items down here
from the same collection.
If we come back up,
you can see we’ve got multiple product variations
for this mug with different colors available.
If we add this item to our cart,
you’ll see that our store is working.
I’ve got a surprise for the checkout page
for this year’s tutorial, so let’s go open that up.
Here you go.
On the checkout page, we’re also gonna be adding
our logo here to increase brand trust and authority.
This is what we’re gonna build,
so let’s get started.
(upbeat music)
Step one, sign up for the free Shopify 14-day trial.
The first thing that you need to do
is sign up for an account with Shopify.
They have a free 14-day trial that you can use.
I’ll have a link to how you can get Shopify
in the video description below.
Please note that video description
does contain affiliate links.
Here at Wholesale Ted, all of our YouTube videos are free,
and affiliate links help us keep our videos free.
All right, let me switch over to my tutorial clip
to show you how to do this.
All right, so, come and click the ‘Get Started’ button
at the top of the page.
Now just enter in the email address, password,
and store name that you want to use for your store.
For your email, I recommend setting up a new email account,
like, say, a new Gmail account with your store name,
since all store emails, including customer emails,
are going to be sent to whatever email address
that you use here.
Of course, once you’re done,
just click the ‘Create store’ button.
Just let your Shopify load up for a new store.
Sitting tight here.
Woo, success!
All right, so, now Shopify will ask you
to fill out this little survey.
It does not matter at all what you put.
You can put anything that you like.
This is just data that Shopify is collecting.
It has no legal impact on you.
Now, you’ll see here that our store currency
is set to pesos.
That’s because I actually didn’t film this clip.
My lovely virtual assistant,
who is located in the Philippines, April,
filmed this clip for me.
We both worked together on this video project together,
and so, about half the clips I filmed,
and half the clips that she filmed.
And so, thank you, April, for helping me with this video.
I very much appreciated it.
You’ll have noticed that I blurred out all
the information here.
This is obviously very private.
Just make sure you fill out all the details.
April forgot to fill out the phone number here.
Then just click ‘Enter my store’,
and then that’s it.
Shopify will load your new settings into your store,
and create your new account.
It might take a few moments to happen, but here we go.
And that is it, we are done.
On to step two.
Step two, install the free Shopify theme minimal.
Now, as part of this step,
we’re only gonna be installing it.
In the future, we are going
to make modifications to the design.
Let me switch over to my computer
and show you how easy it is to install a new custom theme.
Okay, so on the left sidebar menu,
click ‘Online Store’.
This will automatically take you to the Themes page.
When it loads, scroll down the page
and find the ‘Explore free themes’ button.
Now, there are a lot of themes to choose from.
I think that minimal is a nice, clean theme.
So, we’re gonna go and select it down here.
Now, minimal has three different versions.
It has modern, vintage, and fashion.
I think modern looks the best, though,
so we’re gonna select it,
and then click the ‘Add Minimal’ button.
Then we’re just gonna let it load.
We’re going to let this page load, as well.
Excellent.
Okay, so now come down to the ‘Actions’ button
and click ‘Publish’.
You’ll get this little popup box here.
Just click the ‘Publish’ button.
Then, of course, just let it load.
And that’s it.
We’ve successfully installed our free minimal theme.
It’s time to move on to the next step.
Step three, install the Oberlo Shopify app
and update its settings.
Oberlo is a Shopify app, and it’s pretty cool.
It semi-automates your dropshipping store for you,
not only by making it way easier and faster
to add products to your store,
but down the line when it comes to fulfilling orders
and buying them from your dropshipper
and getting them shipped out to your customer,
it is going to semi-automate this process for you.
Making your store as passive as possible,
making it as easy to manage as possible
is very important to scaling it to huge profits.
This is something that we teach in our free ebook.
The six steps at six-figure dropshipping stores
followed to make over $10,000 a month.
If you would like to get that ebook for yourself,
you can find a download link in the video description below.
Oberlo is free to use when you’re just starting out.
You only have to start paying any fees
once you are making sales and doing transactions.
By that point, you’re not going to mind.
So, for beginners, the app is essentially free.
I’m gonna switch back and show you how easy
it is to do this.
All right.
This time, on the left side menu, click ‘Apps’.
Now come and click the ‘Visit Shopify App’ button.
This will take you to the apps page.
On here, come to the search bar and type in “Oberlo”.
Then come and click on Oberlo from the results.
Then just click the ‘Add app’ button.
And let it load.
All right, so on this page, just scroll down
and then click the ‘Install app’ button.
Then just let Shopify load it up.
Once it’s loaded, we can then update
the settings inside Oberlo.
All right, so now we can click
the ‘Settings’ button down here.
In the ‘Store Name’ box, just enter the name of your store,
like I’ve done here.
Then what you wanna do is,
you will want to come down and check this little box,
and change this to be pounds
if it’s set to kg’s like mine was.
Then scroll down and make sure that this box is checked
so that customers can know when your item has been shipped.
Then come down to auto updates.
When a product isn’t available,
set the quantity to zero and click ‘Notify Me’.
When a variant vanishes,
set the quantity to zero and click ‘Notify Me’.
When a cost changes, select do nothing,
but notify me and have it set
so that when inventory changes, to update automatically.
Now we want to save these settings.
So, of course, click ‘Save’.
Excellent.
All right, now come and click on ‘Suppliers’.
You wanna make sure that ePacket is selected from the list.
You want to make sure that you’ve got your phone number
in the little box here.
Don’t worry, customers won’t be able to see this.
In the custom note section,
put something like what I’ve put here.
This will mean that the customer won’t get
any invoices or marketing materials letting
them know the original price.
We also need to click the ‘Add Payment Card’ button
so that we can add in the credit card or debit card
that’s gonna be used to pay for the AliExpress items
that our customers order.
Remember, you won’t be paid immediately
by Shopify or PayPal for the items the customers order.
You’ll need to have money to cover this cost
for yourself in the meantime.
Cool, and then just click ‘Add card’.
Then that’s that.
Oberlo will save the settings on this page,
and we can move on to step four.
Step four, install the free Oberlo Chrome extension.
If you want Oberlo to semi-automate your dropshipping store
and to help you fulfill orders,
then you are going to need to add products directly
from AliExpress into your store using the app.
The easiest way to do this, in my personal opinion,
is to install the Oberlo Chrome extension
and to use that to add products directly
from AliExpress.com.
Yes, this therefore means that to complete this step,
you are going to need to download the Chrome browser.
If you don’t have it already, I will have a link to how
you can get it in the video description below.
As part of this process, you will also need to go to
the Chrome Web Store so that you can download
the free Oberlo extension.
And yes, I will have a link to that
in the video description.
All right, so let’s do this.
All right, so once you’ve come to the Chrome Web Store,
do a search in the search bar for Oberlo.
Next to the search results,
click the ‘Add to Chrome’ button.
On the popup box, click ‘Add extension’.
Once it’s successfully installed,
you’ll get a little popup box.
Plus, you’ll see the Oberlo icon in the top right
of your browser.
Step five, add products
into your Shopify store using Oberlo.
All right, so now we’re gonna go to AliExpress.com
and import products directly from there into our store,
using the Chrome extension that we just installed.
Before you follow along with my tutorial clip,
you’re going to need to do three things.
Firstly, open up your Chrome browser.
Next, open up your Shopify store in one tab.
Then, open up AliExpress.com in a second tab.
Once you’ve done that, you can follow along with me.
All right, so on AliExpress,
come to the search bar and type in the product
that you want to add to your store.
The first product I added was the camera lens travel mug.
Once the results load up,
come and sort them by orders so that you can see
the products with the most orders first.
Then click on a listing that you like the look of,
and if you check out the listing
and you like the look of it,
click this button in your browser,
and then click the ‘Add to import list’.
When you get that little success box with the green check,
it means that you’ve successfully added it
to your import list.
Now, as part of this tutorial,
I used two different products.
I used the camera lens travel mug and the self stir mug.
I wanted to add both of these products to my import list,
so I went and did a search for the self stir mug
and sorted the results by orders again.
Then clicked on a listing I liked the look of.
This one over here.
Again, if you like the listing,
click the ‘Oberlo Chrome extension’ button
and then click the ‘Add to Import List’.
When you’ve added all the items you want to add,
click the ‘Open Import List’ button.
You’ll come to a page like this here, the import list.
Click on the ‘Images’ tab and select the images you like,
and deselect the images you don’t like.
It’s much better to do this now rather than later.
Once you’ve done that, click ‘Import to Store’.
When you do that, the item will now appear under
the ‘Products’ tab in your Shopify admin area.
You can edit the product page
and sell the item in your store.
Go ahead and do what I did here,
which was, go to the ‘Image’ tab for each of the products
in my import list.
Selecting and deselecting the photos that you want to add,
and to go onto the product page.
Then actually clicking the ‘Import’ button.
Once you’ve done that for all of
the products you want to add,
you can move on to the next step.
Step six, add product collections.
The word ‘collections’ is basically just Shopify’s phrase
for product categories.
That’s pretty much what you’re going to do here.
You’re gonna be creating different product categories,
i.e. different product collections,
for the different items that you’re selling.
Luckily, it is very easy to do.
On the left side menu, click ‘Products’,
and then under the products sub-menu,
click ‘Collections’.
When the page loads, come and click
the ‘Create collection’ button.
To create your first collection,
just type in the name of your first product category.
Mine is going to be coffee mugs.
Then under collection type, click ‘Manual’.
You can leave everything else as,
and then click ‘Save’.
Then that’s it.
A collection, of course, is just Shopify’s name
for product category.
What we’re gonna be doing
is creating different product categories.
This example store is going to be one
that sells three types of products.
It’s gonna sell coffee mugs, travel mugs, and coffee spoons,
which is why we’re going to head and create
the categories for each of these.
When you’re doing this step, yourself,
think about how you would like to group the products
that you’re selling into different categories.
Then create a collection for each of them.
We’re gonna be using these different product categories
or collections throughout the rest
of the store creation process.
As you’ll see during the steps when we edit our homepage,
you will probably want to have
at least two product collections,
ideally at least three.
I don’t recommend creating too many.
Don’t create a collection unless you have
at least three items to assign to it.
Otherwise, it’ll look very empty.
There we go, we’ve added all of our product categories.
It’s time to move on to the next step.
Step seven, edit your product pages.
All right, so back in step five,
I actually showed you how
to add two different types of products.
The first product that I added
was this camera lens travel mug here,
and the other was the self-stirring mug.
Now, these weren’t randomly selected.
I chose these for specific reasons.
Now, the reason why I chose this camera lens travel mug here
is because it only came in one size and one color,
this black version here.
In other words, this one here has no product variations.
On the other hand, this self-stirring mug here,
this came in six different types of colors,
which means that when we imported this item with Oberlo,
we imported six different product variations.
As you will see when I switch over to my tutorial clip,
it makes a big difference when you’re editing
the different product pages.
I recommend that you watch me edit both.
While I’m editing both,
I will also show you how to put items on sale
and how to not put items on sale.
This item here is not going to go on sale,
but this one here is.
All right, let’s do this.
On the left side menu,
come and click ‘Products’.
When I loads, find the product page that you want to edit,
and then click on it.
For this first example product,
I’m going to edit this camera lens travel mug.
First things first, delete the title and add in your own.
This title looks strange,
and the reason for that is because it was just a copy
of the AliExpress product title.
Of course, delete the product description which, again,
is just a copy of the AliExpress product description,
and add your own.
I just copied and pasted a product description
that I had already created in advance as I filmed the step.
As you can see, I am formatting the description now.
Usually, for members inside The Dropship Club,
which is our premium step-by-step AliExpress
dropshipping training course,
we teach them to write short product descriptions,
since we also teach how to make sales with Facebook traffic.
For that, you only need short product descriptions.
But I decided to do something a bit different for this video
and made a product description that was longer
and optimized for Google easier traffic.
The Google algorithm likes to see plenty
of words on the page rather than just a few short lines,
which is why this one is a bit longer.
Cool.
Once you’ve finished editing your product description,
be sure to select which collection that the item belongs in.
Now, if you come down to images, you’ll see the images
we selected earlier have been added,
and we can drag and drop them.
I did notice that I’d accidentally uploaded a copy of one,
so I just came and clicked this little ‘Delete’ button here,
and I got rid of it.
For this item, I’m not going to put it on sale.
What I’ll do is I’ll set the price
and put nothing in the ‘Compare at price’ box,
and so there will be no sale icon
on the product page for this one.
You can keep the rest of it as is.
Then all you’ve got to do is come and click ‘Save’.
Perfect.
This product is a simple product
because it’s got no product variations.
There is just one version of it, the black travel mug.
However, I’m now going to show you how to edit
a more complicated product that comes
in six different colors.
It is this mug here.
First, we need to go in and delete the product title,
and again I’m going to put my own one in,
well, I did put my own one in.
We also need to delete the product description
and put our own description in.
Again, I had one copied and pasted in advance.
This description was also optimized
for the Google search engine.
Now, I usually recommend focusing on paid traffic
like Facebook ads, to drive sales and customers
to your store, because it’s easier and more reliable.
However, if you want some easier tips,
I’m happy to give them to you.
First of all, try to make your description
at least 400 words long.
Pick a keyword to target and try to include
it four to five times in a natural way.
Again, do not forget that shipping disclaimer.
I bold mine so that the customer has no excuse
to not have seen it.
Of course, go in and select the product collection
that it should be in.
If we come down here to the images,
you’ll see that this does come in six colors.
I’m gonna show you how you can delete variations
that you don’t want.
Next to the variation you don’t want,
click the little ‘Edit’ button,
and then scroll down this page
and find the ‘Delete variant’ button.
Then, of course, click ‘Delete variant’.
Gone, all right.
Let’s go and delete another variant.
This light blue mug here.
Again, I’ll come and I’ll click ‘Edit’ next to it.
Then come and click ‘Delete’, and ‘Delete’ again.
All right, so now I’m gonna show you how to edit
the price and name for the product variants
you have chosen to keep.
Click ‘Edit’ next to the first one.
Under the pricing box, type in the price you want.
I’ll show you how to put it on sale, as well.
Type the real price under product price.
Then the ‘Compare at price’ box,
type in the price that is higher.
For these mugs, I’m gonna place them on sale
at $14.95 on sale from the usual price of $19.95.
Then I’ll click ‘Save’,
and then I’ll select the next variation
which is this red mug here.
What you’ll see is that the price hasn’t updated
for the red mug.
That’s because you can control the price
for each product variation.
What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go
into each product variation and I’m going to set
the prices to be the same,
which is $14.95 on sale from its original price of $19.95.
But you don’t have to do that,
it’s entirely up to you.
Now, for the dark blue mug,
I’m also going to update its name
so that when people see the name of this mug,
that it says it’s blue, not dark blue,
by doing that right here.
Then I’m gonna come and click ‘Save’.
Excellent.
Now we just need to go back and delete all
the pictures of the product variants that we removed.
We’re gonna remove the photo of the light blue mug
and remove the photo of the green mug.
Now for the green one.
Then, that’s it.
We’ve successfully updated this product page
and updated the variants within it.
Now you need to just go through and do this
for all of your product pages,
and then you can move on to the next step.
Step eight, add free trust badges to your product pages.
This is a new edition to our 2019 tutorial.
What we’re gonna do is install a free app
that will let us add these nifty trust badges
to our product pages.
The reason why we recommend that you do this
is because of the fact that when customer see icons
and images that they trust,
a little bit of the authority translates over to you,
which will increase your sales and conversions,
which of course means that you will make more money.
Here is how you install them.
Come to the left side menu and click ‘Apps’.
Then on this page,
click the ‘Visit Shopify App Store’ button.
Once again, this will take you
to the Shopify’s official app store,
once it loads, of course.
Come to the search bar and type in “free trust badge”,
and do a search for that.
Then, click on the one
that’s literally titled Free Trust Badge,
and then click the ‘Add app’ button.
Now, this is completely free,
at least still filming this video,
so you won’t be charged anything.
Then click the ‘Install app’ button.
When you do that, Shopify will take a few moments
to install it and update your store.
Loading.
Awesome.
Now we’re here.
As you can see on the left,
you can change which badges are showing.
But what we want to do is,
we want to align these badges to be on the left of the page,
so under Design Settings,
click the ‘left alignment’ button,
and then click the ‘Activate badge’ button
to add this to all your product pages.
Then just come and click ‘Save’, and that’s it.
We’re done.
Step nine, add free shipping to your orders.
Of course, setting up shipping options
is a necessary part of selling online, right?
But it’s also one of the more complicated elements
of selling online.
Trying to figure out
what your different shipping options should be
and how much you should charge for each specific item
is definitely frustrating.
That’s why I recommend that
if you are new to selling online,
that you have one shipping option for all of your items,
and that is free shipping.
Of course, the shipping isn’t actually free.
Instead, you just slightly raise your product price.
The product has free shipping,
but it costs a little bit more.
Not only is this way easier for you to manage,
but it also means, then,
that you get to promote your items as having free shipping,
which is a great sales pitch
and should increase your conversions.
Let me show you how to do this.
This time, on the left menu, click ‘Settings’.
Then come and click the ‘Shipping’ icon.
Now, Shopify will automatically populate this
with a local shipping option
and a rest of the world shipping option,
and we want to delete both of these.
Click ‘Edit’ next to one,
and then scroll down and click ‘Delete zone’.
Then confirm that you want to delete it.
Then go back to the shipping page and delete the other one.
There we go.
Now I’m only gonna be showing you one type
of shipping option here, which is free shipping.
Click ‘Add shipping zone’.
Then, under shipping zone name, type in “free shipping”.
You can type in whatever you truly want here.
Now you can select which countries that you want to ship to.
Keep in mind that Shopify will only allow customers
to purchase items from your store
if the country has a shipping option.
Then come down to weight based rates and click ‘Add rates’.
Then come and select the ‘Free shipping’ check box.
Then you just need to come and click ‘Done’.
Then all you need to do is click ‘Save’, and then that’s it.
You’ve set up a free shipping option for all of your items.
Just a quick note.
I do recommend that if you’re a beginner to dropshipping,
that you are very careful about
what countries that you ship to in the beginning.
Only select countries like the U.S.A.
that have cheap, fast, efficient shipping options,
with AliExpress items, sorry.
I don’t recommend having a worldwide shipping option.
For a bit more information on which countries
you should dropship to and which ones you shouldn’t,
I recommend checking out my video,
10 Things to Do BEFORE Dropshipping.
I will have a link to that free video
in the video description below.
Step 10, set up Shopify payments and PayPal.
Okay, so, this is one of the biggest changes
that Shopify made in 2018.
Guess what?
It’s an amazing one! (cheering)
They finally made it so that people living outside
the United States can have their currency set
to USD while having Shopify payments turned on.
Oh, my goodness!
You see, I normally recommend that new dropshippers set
their store currency to USD
because I usually recommend that,
even if they live outside the United States,
that they target the U.S.A. market.
Why?
Well, because of the fact that it’s got cheap,
low-cost, efficient shipping options.
It’s got lots of low-cost advertising opportunities,
and customers in the United States
are used to purchasing items online,
which increases your conversions.
Which means, as you’re about to see me do in this tutorial,
you need to go into your Shopify settings
and make sure that your currency is set to be in USD.
However, in the past, if you did this,
but you lived outside the U.S.A,
you could not use Shopify’s internal payment gateway,
Shopify payments.
Instead, you could only accept payments with PayPal.
But that, of course, has now changed.
Unfortunately, this feature isn’t available
to all countries, but the number that
it is available to is growing.
If it’s not available in your country,
just sit back and wait tight for it to come out.
In the meantime, use PayPal exclusively.
All right, so let’s do this.
All right, so on the left menu, click ‘Settings’,
and then come and click ‘General’.
Now, what you’re gonna wanna do is scroll down,
and next to Standards and Formats,
make sure that you’re using the Imperial system
and have pounds as your weight unit.
Then you wanna come down to Store Currency
and change it to be USD if it’s not USD from the menu.
Then select ‘Save’.
Then we are just gonna head back to Settings
and select ‘Payment providers’.
Then click ‘Add a provider button’, sorry.
Make sure that ‘Shopify payments’ is checked,
and then click ‘Continue’.
Now, for some of you, Shopify payments may already
be turned on, so you won’t need to have done that step.
It’s going to look like this when you first arrive.
Come and click ‘Complete account setup’.
You will want to fill in all of these details.
It is very important that all of this is accurate,
as this is a legal requirement.
Now, as I’ve said before, for some of you,
you won’t need to add Shopify payments as a provider
because it’ll already be set as default.
All you need to do is to click
the ‘Complete account setup’ button.
Now, under ‘Product details’, you can just type in
a simple line explaining what you’re selling,
like I’ve done here.
Very basic.
Under the ‘Customer billing statement’,
you’re going to see that you’re going to need
to add in a phone number.
Make sure that it’s accurate.
You’ll also want to make sure that
the bank account number is accurate, as well,
because it’s how you’re going to get paid.
Now, the payout currency will be set to your local currency,
and you can’t change this.
But you don’t want to change this, anyway.
Then you can just click ‘Complete account setup’.
All right, so now we’re going
to set up PayPal’s express gateway.
Now, for some of you, you may not have to do this,
as it might already be turned on by default.
But if it’s not, click ‘Select PayPal method’,
and click the ‘PayPal express checkout’ button like I did,
and then scroll down on this page
and click the ‘Activate’ button.
You’ll be redirected to PayPal to complete your setup.
Enter in the email address of your PayPal account,
and then click ‘Next’.
Then just give your login details to that PayPal account,
and then click the ‘I give permission’ button.
Then that’s it.
You can click on ‘Go Back to Shopify’,
and you will have successfully added both PayPal
and Shopify payments through Stripe
as a payment method for your store.
Step 11, add branding to your store checkout.
What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna add theming
and branding to our store’s checkout page
to increase conversions and encourage customers
to complete their purchases.
To do this, you’re going to need two things.
Firstly, you will need a store logo.
You can either make one, yourself, or you can get
a cheap, but good one made off of Fiverr.com.
Secondly, you are going to need to pick
a custom brand color for your store.
This color should reflect the types of items
that you are selling in it.
For me, my store is selling coffee items and accessories,
so I have chosen a coffee brown color.
We’re actually gonna be using this color throughout
this tutorial to increase your store’s branding and theming,
and to make your store not look generic.
Go ahead, get your store logo, and pick a color,
and then you can follow along with me.
On the left menu, come and click the ‘Online Store’ button.
Then this will take you directly to the themes page.
Then on this page, click the ‘Customize’ button.
This is going to take you to the theme settings.
All right, so here, you wanna click on the ‘Cart’ button.
Cool.
This has now taken us to the cart,
so come and click the ‘Checkout’ button.
Excellent.
Now come and click on ‘Theme settings’,
and then we wanna come and click on ‘Checkout’ there.
Then we want to come and we want to add a logo.
Once it’s loaded, come and select it.
Excellent.
You can see that it’s now been added to the checkout page,
which will strengthen your store’s brand
and make your store look even more professional.
Now we’re gonna change the ‘Shipping method’ button
to be your store’s custom branding color.
For this store, of course, I’ve chosen a coffee brown,
since I’m selling coffee accessories.
Cool, awesome.
With that, you are now done.
If you follow these instructions,
you’ll have a custom checkout page
that should increase conversions for your store.
Just click ‘Save’, and then it’s time
to move on to the next step.
Step 12, create an About Us page.
I’m gonna show you how to create an About Us page,
but keep in mind, you can use this to create
a page about anything that you like.
Some other pages that you will probably want to create
are a refund policy page, a terms of service page,
and a privacy policy page.
Now, I don’t have time to go over each
of these different pages and show you how to create
an individual one for them all,
but if you just follow the steps in this tutorial
and replicate the process for all of those,
it should be easy.
All right, so let’s do this.
On the left side menu, click the ‘Online Store’ button.
Then, from the sub-menu, select the ‘Pages’ button,
and then come and click the ‘Add page’ button.
Then come to the title and type in “About us”.
Then come to the content box and write whatever your want
for your About Us page.
Shameless plug, inside our premium AliExpress
dropshipping course, The Dropship Club,
we give members a template that they can use here.
I also recommend uploading an image for it,
like I’m doing here.
There we go.
Then you just click it, and click ‘Insert image’.
Now, once you’ve uploaded your image,
you can click to align it and change it to the right,
and then click the ‘Edit image’ button to do that.
Now, another thing, too, is that you could have increased
the text spacing so that there was more space
in between the text and the image.
Now I’m just going through and editing,
formatting the text here
so that there’s no empty white space.
Cool.
Once you’ve finished editing it, click ‘Save’.
Nice.
Once you’ve done that,
it’s time to move on to the next step.
And yes, just to add to my shameless plug,
we do indeed have an over-the-shoulder premium
video training course for AliExpress dropshipping
called The Dropship Club.
These videos are step-by-step, just like this one.
You can follow along with me on-screen.
But we don’t just build a store, no.
Inside The Dropship Club,
we also show you over-the-shoulder videos
about how to select a store niche,
how to pick the right products,
how to create your Facebook ads, and more.
To find out how you can join and get access
to our premium video training library,
you’ll find a link to The Dropship Club
in the video description below.
But for now, back to the video.
Step 13, create a Contact Us page.
For this step, we’re gonna create a simple contact form.
It’s really easy to do.
Just head back to the Pages section inside
your Shopify admin dashboard,
and follow along with me.
Come to the Pages page,
and then click the ‘Add page’ button again.
This time, in the title, type “Contact Us”.
Then come to the little dropdown menu under Template
and select this button here.
Then come and click ‘Save’, and boom, super easy.
You now have your own contact page with a contact form.
All messages submitted to it will be sent
to the email address that you signed up for
with your Shopify account.
Step 14, add menus to your store.
We’re gonna be editing two different types of menus here.
The first menu that we’re gonna edit is the header menu.
We’re gonna add all of those pages
and this little dropdown menu which will list
all the product collections.
Plus, we’re also gonna be modifying
this footer menu down here, too.
Adding menus actually used to be one of
the downsides to using Shopify.
They made it really annoying.
But they have since made tweaks and modifications,
and now it’s really easy.
Let me show you how to do this.
On the left side menu, come and click ‘Online Store’.
Then, from the sub-menu, come and click ‘Navigation’.
Now you’re gonna be on the menu page.
First, let’s get at the main menu by clicking it.
Now I’m going to recommend
that you click ‘Edit’ next to Catalog
and change the name of it to Products.
This is a personal choice,
but I think products sounds much better than catalog.
Fantastic, all right.
Now come and click the ‘Add menu’ button
and type in the name of one of your product categories
or collections.
I’m gonna type in “coffee mugs”.
Now, under Link, come and click ‘Collections’,
and then select the collection from the list
and then click the ‘Add’ button.
Then, of course, come and drag and drop it
so that it’s indented below Products.
That’s what you want to do.
You just want to repeat this for all of your collections.
What we’re doing here is you’re creating something called
a sub-menu, so when a customer enters your store
and puts their mouse over the products tab in the main menu
at the top of the website, a dropdown menu will appear,
showing off all of your different product categories
or collections that they can then browse.
Now, it used to be really annoying to add sub-menus.
If you look at my 2017 tutorial,
you’ll see that Shopify really listened to feedback
and improved that.
Let’s come and click ‘Add menu item’ again.
This time, type in “About Us”,
and then under Link, click ‘Pages’.
Then find the About Us page and select it.
Then just click ‘Add’.
Perfect, all right.
Now we’re just gonna do the same thing
for the Contact Us page.
Make sure that these menu items are not indented below
the Products one.
Cool.
Now just come and click ‘Save’.
With that, we’ve created our main top menu
with a sub-menu featuring our different product collections.
Now let’s come back to the Navigation page,
and this time, we’re gonna click on ‘Footer menu’.
Come and click ‘Add menu item’ and type in “homepage”.
Then come to Link and select homepage from the list.
There we go.
Then just click ‘Add’.
Now we’re gonna add two new product pages to it.
First the account login.
For this, what you’ll want to do is,
you will want to type in your store URL.
You’ll want to then, at the end of it,
put slash account slash login.
You’ll see that I’m going to do that here,
gonna paste this link in.
Great.
Then come and click ‘Add’.
Then, after creating that menu item,
we’ll create one for the Cart page,
and your store cart URL will be your store’s URL followed
by slash cart.
Don’t worry, these .myshopify URLs will work even after
we’ve added in a new custom domain name.
When you’ve done that, you can reorder them if you like,
and then just click ‘Save’,
and then we can move on to the next step.
Step 15, create your store design and homepage.
Awesome.
This is kind of a fun step,
because we’re gonna be making our store look nice
and professional by updating the design
and creating a homepage.
Now, a lot of people overthink the homepage design,
and you do not need to.
It is not as important as you would expect.
Do not get hung up on it.
Just like when we edited our store checkout page,
for this step, you’re going to need to have your store logo,
and you’re going to want to have your store’s
custom branded color.
If you missed earlier what I said about this,
as part of this tutorial,
we are choosing one custom brand color
that matches or reflects the types of products
that you are selling in your store.
For me, as part of the store tutorial,
I have chosen one custom brand color,
and that is a coffee bean brown,
since, well, I am selling coffee items and accessories.
What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna take this color
and we’re gonna add splashes of it
throughout our store design
so that it will make your store look unique, original,
and so that it will not feel generic.
This will strengthen your brand,
which will also increase the amount of trust
that customers have in you,
which will result in more sales and more money.
Let’s do this.
Head to the left menu and click the ‘Online Store’ button.
Then this will by default take you to the Theme page.
Just come and click the ‘Customize’ button.
Now, the first thing that we’re gonna be doing
is we’re gonna be adding a nice store logo.
Come and click the ‘Header’ button,
and then click the ‘Select Image’ button
and upload your logo.
I had already uploaded mine, so I just clicked it,
and then click the ‘Select’ button.
Change your custom logo was to be 250 pixels,
since 60 is tiny.
Then uncheck the Announcement box.
Then just come and head back.
Now we’re gonna be adding in images to the slideshow,
so select it and follow along on-screen
with what I’m doing to add images to the slideshow.
Now, by default, there are four slide images.
If you don’t have four images,
you can just upload however many you have.
For me, I uploaded two, and then you’ll be able to see
that I deleted the rest.
If you don’t have any images,
a good idea is to see if your supplier
has any high-quality photos of products that you’re selling.
You can look for images
with creative common licenses, as well.
You can see here that I’m deleted the extra slides
that I don’t want to use.
Once you’ve finished that, just go and head back.
Now what we’re gonna do is,
we’re gonna delete all of the other widgets in the homepage
because we’re gonna be replacing them we different widgets
that are gonna show off the items
that we’re selling in our store,
which is a really simple and easy way
to design a professional-looking homepage.
Now just come and click ‘Add section’,
and then click ‘Featured collection’.
Then click ‘Add’.
Now come to Heading and type in the name
of your first product collection that you want to show off.
I’m gonna show off my coffee mugs.
Then come and click the ‘Change’ button.
Then you wanna select the collection from the list.
Then you just wanna come and click the ‘Select’ button.
That’s how you just add
these different featured collections.
Now, what I recommend that you do is,
you go ahead and you do this two more times,
like I’m doing here on-screen.
Because, as I said, showing off products
is an easy way to design a simple, clean homepage,
even if you’ve got no experience with design
or with development.
Now, if you don’t have three product collections,
and you’ve only got, say, two,
then you can just add two featured collections here,
instead of three.
It’s not that big of a deal.
Now, you may have noticed that collapsible coffee mug
and that horn mug.
Those images have logos on them.
That is a big no-no.
Do not use images that have your supplier’s logo on it.
That was just me being lazy for this tutorial
when I imported those products.
But I would have never used those images
if I was building this store for real.
Now I’m just finishing up with this final collection.
Cool.
Now we’re gonna head back and we’re gonna go to the footer.
We want to remove the blog widgets.
That’s because we don’t have a blog.
But they are featured in Shopify,
so if you’ve add one, you can bring this back.
I’m gonna remove the social media icons
because I don’t actually have any to put down here
because this is just an example store.
But if you did have them, I’d recommend keeping this.
Now come back and click the ‘Theme settings’.
Now we are going to be updating the colors.
Remember your store’s chosen color.
We’re now gonna be using it.
Just follow along with my tutorial here
and insert your color into each of these themes,
into each of these little color boxes
like I’m doing here.
This is gonna give branding to your store
and make it feel more professional and personable.
Now, for the top bar text, I’m gonna choose white
because I’ve chosen a very dark store color,
this coffee brown.
But depending on your chosen color,
black might be a better text color choice there.
Cool.
We’ve updated the colors, so let’s head back.
This time, we’re gonna pick the typography, I think,
basically the font button.
Here, you can change the font for your store.
I recommend going through all the different options
and seeing which one you like best.
It’s usually best to not use the default font if you can,
because that font is very generic.
By selecting a non-default store font,
it will set your store design apart
and make it look more original,
which is, of course, good for your store branding.
Keep in mind that each font has a different level
of boldness that you can select for it.
For my store headings,
I’ve chosen a medium bold font for it.
Then, once you’ve gone through
and changed all your store fonts,
you can then just click ‘Save’,
and then check out your awesome creation.
It looks a lot better than it did at the start.
Now it is time to move on to the next step.
Step 16, add a store favicon.
Another new addition to our 2019 store tutorial.
This is kind of an optional one,
but it’s nice to do to increase your store’s branding.
A favicon is a little icon image that pops up
on a website’s browser tab.
A favicon image should be 32 pixels by 32 pixels,
and the image should be on a transparent background.
Here is the favicon that I chose to install for the store.
As you can see, it’s the Brewed Treats icon,
and it was on a transparent background.
Let’s head back into our theme settings
and install our favicon.
Come to the left menu again and click ‘Online Store’.
We’re gonna be going back into our theme settings.
Once your theme settings has loaded up,
click ‘Theme settings’, and then click the ‘Favicon’ button,
and you can upload an image.
Now, I’ve already got mine uploaded, so I just selected it.
Yeah, once you’ve selected, all you need to do
is click ‘Save’, and you’re done.
You’ve now added a favicon to your store.
Step 17, add Facebook Messenger live chat.
Hey, look, another new addition to our updated 2019 version
of this tutorial.
What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna add a free live chat app
that will let customers interact directly with you
with Facebook Messenger.
Now, not only is it more convenient for you to use
the Facebook Messenger app, rather than have to use
a whole separate other live chat app,
but it’s also been shown that customers prefer it
because of the fact that they already recognize it
and they trust it.
Just a note, though, to complete this step,
you are going to need to have a Facebook page set up
for your new store, and you will need to be an admin for it.
Now, if you don’t have that,
you can skip over this step and come back to it later.
But for now, let me show you how to do it.
Come back to the Facebook app store,
like we did in previous steps,
and type in “Facebook chat”.
Now, from the search results,
you want to find the Beeketing app.
On the app page, click the app button,
or the ‘Add app’ button, sorry.
Then come down and click ‘Install app’.
Now, these guys make some of the best marketing apps
for Shopify, by the way.
I do highly recommend them.
A lot of their apps are either free or low-cost,
which is really cool.
On this page,
click the big ‘Start connecting with your customers’ button.
Then click ‘Continue’ with your Facebook account.
Then select your store’s Facebook page,
and then come and click the ‘Customize your widget’ button.
Now what we’re going to do is,
we’re gonna customize the look of it very slightly
before we turn the Messenger app on.
Come down here and click this little button here
so that the app will look like that.
Now this makes it look more like
the classic Facebook Messenger icon,
and you can leave everything as is.
Then just come click on to the next step,
and then just go and click through on to the next step.
And boom, all you need to do is come and click
the ‘Save and Activate’ button at the bottom of the page,
and that’s it.
Step 18, select a payment plan for Shopify.
The Shopify free 14-day trial is fantastic
for trying it out and seeing if it’s right for you,
and to use during this little creation process.
But if you want to actually sell to customers,
then you do need to purchase a paid plan.
Luckily, the lowest cost plan is perfect for most people.
Let me show you how to do this.
On the left menu, come and click the ‘Setting’ button.
On the Settings page, click the ‘Account’ button.
Then come and click ‘Compare plans’.
You got three options,
and almost everybody should select the $29 a month plan.
Don’t worry about the others.
Now, you can choose to pay monthly or upfront yearly.
Obviously, you’ll save money with the yearly plans,
but for most people, I would recommend
that they just stick to paying monthly.
Once you’ve filled out your payment details,
click the ‘Start plan’ button.
A big part of the reason why I recommend paying monthly
is cash flow.
I recommend saving your startup money
and putting it to other things like Facebook ads.
Then, that’s it.
You are now ready to sell.
Congratulations.
We’ve just got a couple more steps to go.
Step 19, choose a domain name.
Now it’s time to get rid of that Shopify URL
and to replace it with our store’s custom URL.
When choosing a domain name, I have some tips for you.
Firstly, always choose a .com domain name.
The only exception is if you plan to sell exclusively
to, say, the United Kingdom,
in which case you would pick the .co.uk domain name.
But if you are selling to either the United States
or you are selling internationally to multiple countries,
then select the .com domain name.
Not only is that considered the domain name
for the United States, but it’s actually considered
the universal domain name, as well.
Secondly, do not pick another universal domain name
like .org or .net.
Stick exclusively to .com domain names.
Finally, to keep your store looking professional,
I recommend picking a domain name
that is no more than three words,
as if you go over that, you risk looking spammy.
Let’s go get a domain name.
On the left side menu, click ‘Online Store’,
and on the sub-menu, click ‘Domains’.
On the Domains page, click the ‘Buy new domain’ button.
When this loads, just type in the domain name
that you want to use.
Shopify will tell you if it’s available or not.
Again, I strongly recommend that you only use
a .com domain name.
If it’s available, you’ll get this ‘Buy’ button,
so just click on it.
Now, if you don’t want your domain name to auto-renew,
uncheck this box like I’m doing here.
Then all you’ve got to do is click ‘Buy domain’.
For most people, they probably shouldn’t auto-renew.
I recommend seeing how your store goes first
and seeing if you enjoy running it.
WHOIS privacy is included with each order,
which is great because I strongly recommend
that you get that.
Then, that’s it.
Just make sure that you go to your email account connected
to the domain name
and follow the verification process,
including the verification email.
This is a legal requirement.
With that, it’s time to move on to the next step.
Step 20, send your store live.
We are so close.
We’ve got one final step to go.
We now need to just remove the password
that’s stopping customers from entering our store,
and to send it live.
All right, so on the left side menu,
click ‘Online Store’.
Then come and click ‘Disable password’.
On this page, which is the Preference page,
scroll down, uncheck that box,
and then click ‘Save’.
Then, that’s it.
Your store is now live and ready for customers
to come in, spend money, and buy your items.
Congratulations on taking action
and finishing creating your new store.
I hope this video tutorial helped you,
and if it did and you’re not a subscriber here
at Wholesale Ted,
you should totally become one
because we are constantly putting out new videos
with actionable advice on how you can build
your own money-making online business.
Be sure to click that little ‘Subscribe’ button
and click the notification bell next to it
so that you don’t miss out on any of our videos.