Setting Up A Shopify Store | A Good Alternative To Amazon?

In my opinion anyone that wants to sell online should consider setting up a shopify store.

I say it A LOT but diversification is KEY.

I learnt this the hard way early on but that’s a story for another time.

If you haven’t been here before, Hey my name is Nick (That’s me above) and I’ve been selling online, full time for over two years now.

My life as an online seller started with Amazon.

Amazon is still a huge part of what i do today, i mean it’s where most of my sales come from.

A year into the journey i was reminded of the power Amazon holds over my general well-being.

They can do what they want, when they want…

It’s their platform.

For the hungry entrepreneur Amazon is a huge opportunity.

BUT i really think you could consider using Shopify as a solid amazon alternative, if you wanted to that is.

I actually use the two together…

I sell on Amazon AND i have a separate Shopify store they are both linked to the same inventory.

Today i’m going to run you through the process of setting up a Shopify store…

I really hope you’ll follow these instructions and start making money for yourself!

If you haven’t got an amazon business, don’t worry! I’ll cover this for both sides

I’m going to talk you through the set-up process for amazon sellers AND people that just want to set up a new shopify store.

Before i jump into it, let me give you three reasons why i think all amazon sellers should consider setting up a store.

3 Reasons Why Amazon Sellers Need Their Own Shopify Store

As mentioned i like using both Amazon and Shopify…

But i know some people prefer to use one or the other.

I’ve written another article weighing up the pros and cons of the two platforms, here’s the link for anyone interested: Amazon Vs Shopify – Who Wins?

Anyway let’s look at my top three reasons why i think every amazon seller should start a shopify store.

1. You are in control – If you sell on Amazon things can change on a daily basis, it’s up to you keep up with the ever changing Amazon algorithm. Getting onto page #1 is great but you are going to have to work hard to stay there. On a daily basis Amazon’s algo decides who sees your product, with your own store this is up to you.

 

1. Customer Data – Understandably Amazon are fiercely protective over their customer data. You can communicate with past customers on their messaging service but their emails are protected. It’s impossible to re-target previous customers without using shady tactics. With your own store you can build an email list, this is a hugely important tool for any eCommerce business.

 

1. Keep More Of The Profit – With your own store you won’t be paying Amazon a 15% referral fee, if you are happy to take care of your own fulfillment you’ll save even more. So basically you’ll make more money and you’ll be able to build a real audience that you can sell to when you want.

If you are an Amazon seller it’s really easy to set up your own shopify store, take up a 14 day free trial and follow the checklist below!

How To Set Up A Shopify Store – Follow These Steps

The process really is straight forward and as the months roll on, you’ll be glad you put in the work.

1. Register Your Domain Name

When launching your own brand you should do everything you can to protect it.

I either use Godaddy or Namecheap to do this…

The most obvious choice for your domain name is probably brandname.com 

But you can get creative with it…

If your brand name isn’t available you can always use something like brand-name.com or brandname-store.com

Go with something that makes sense and looks professional.

2. Setting Up Your Shopify Store

This is really easy to do.

Register Your Shopify Account Here

Make sure you take full advantage of the 14 day free trial, after that you’ll need to decide on the pricing plan which best suits you.

 

As you’ll see the main difference here is the amount of staff accounts you get, that and you’ll pay a higher transaction fee on the lower priced plans.

As you move up the plans you’ll save one the transaction fees.

The “Shopify” plan includes a really cool feature called the abandoned cart recovery tool, this has proved highly profitable for us.

3. Connect The Shopify Store With Your Domain

As standard shopify will use brandname.myshopify.com as the URL – You need to switch this over so you have your own domain name.

On the left hand side of the shopify dashboard you’ll see “Domains” under the “Sales Channels” section.

Next you’ll need to click on “Connect existing domain”

This is where we need to enter our unique domain name…

From here we need to login to our domain name provider (Godaddy, Namecheap which ever you’ve used)

We need to change the following:

• A record should point to the IP address of Shopify which is 23.227.38.32
• The CNAME record should point to shops.myshopify.com

If you’ve got any issues here Shopify support will guide you through the process, you the link below as a guide…

This article will literally walk you through the process.

This this process may differ slightly depending on your domain provider, if you are struggling your provider will also be able to guide you through it.

Congrats! The initial set up of your Shopify store should now be complete!

We now need to fill the store with useful, relevant content and customize the design to suit our brand.

The next two sections are only going to be relevant for Amazon sellers, if you don’t currently have an amazon business skip to section 6.

4. Connecting Shopify and Amazon FBA

If you currently ship your products through Amazon FBA you can do exactly the same with your shopify store.

I’m a huge fan of Amazon FBA, without it i’d find it quite difficult to reach the markets i currently do.

Connecting your shopify store to Amazon FBA will allow Amazon to ship out the shopify orders on your behalf.

*Please note, if you are based within the Europe or outside of the US you may well need a third party application to connect the shopify orders to Amazon FBA, i currently use Orderdesk.

Here is how you set up the Amazon FBA to shopify integration.

If you’ve got any questions about this leave me a comment below.

5. Import Your Amazon Products Into Shopify

You can manually add each of the products in one by one, but there is an easier way to do it.

You can create a .CSV file from your Amazon inventory page and then import into your shopify store…

Or you can use a 3rd party app like the one below and they’ll do it for you.

6. Build Out Your Shopify Store

Now you need to customize the look of your store, first you’ll need to choose a theme to fit your brand…

Then you’ll need to start fill your store with useful, relevant content.

I have written another article called “Shopify for dummies”, you can read it by clicking here.

It’s important to make sure your website looks as professional as possible, take the time to write up good content that genuinely helps your customers.

I’d always recommend including a blog section…

If you are struggling for content ideas try to put yourself in your customers shoes…

Try to write articles that help customers solve a problem that relates to your product/niche.

Content is king.

When you’ve completed this you’re ready to move onto the next step.

7. Promote Your Shopify Store

Once your shopify store is looking good we need to move our focus to promotion.

You need to go out and actively find your customers…

If you are an amazon seller be warned, Amazon have strict rules about you trying to direct their customers to your own site.

You are allowed to add your shopify URL to your product packaging, this way you have a chance of amazon customers returning to your store directly.

This is a key part of our amazon product packaging strategy.

So… how else could you promote your shopify store?

Paid Advertising

You can look to the likes of google Adwords or other types of paid adverts on social media.

This is a competitive space so make sure you understand what you can afford to spend in order to bring in enough profit.

Here are a few of my favorite paid advertising platforms:

• Google Adwords
• Facebook
• Instagram Story Ads
• YouTube Ads (Managed through Adwords)

These are a few of the platforms I’ve had a good experience with!

SEO

SEO stands for Search engine optimization…

With effective SEO you can bring in good levels of organic traffic.

As we all know the main source of organic traffic comes from google.

If you don’t have experience in this field it’s worth speaking to a professional…

I’ve been learning SEO myself over the last few years so i do a little bit but a lot of the work is outsourced to a professional.

Here is a few useful SEO tips I’ve picked up over the years…

• Content is key – You can literally force google rank you if you set out your content in a strategic way. I’ll give you an example, let’s say you want to rank for a dog related product or service – You could head over to answerthepublic (free tool) enter your keyword and the tool will show you popular search terms and questions relating to this keyword. It’s then your job to fill your blog with useful content that helps the reader answer these questions.

 

• Link Building – I think of link building as relationship building, an easy way to build links is to speak to people you already know… Maybe you could write a useful blog post on one of your suppliers websites? The aim here is to have niche related websites linking back to your website. Again you have a lot of options here and it is a complicated subject. My advice: don’t buy spammy, cheap links from dodgy sellers on fiverr, it will only damage your site. I use a few trusted link building experts, if you’d like details leave a comment below and i’ll send them over.

 

• Social Signals – When your website is ready you should go ahead and set up as many social media accounts as you can manage, social signals should come before any form of link building. I’ve found great results from setting up Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest profiles – If you want to outsource this you can find people to drip feed social signals for you, i’ve used a couple of different people in the past again, again if you’d like a recommendation let me know below and i’ll send you over some details.

Now please remember i’m not an SEO specialist, but i have learnt a fair bit from going out there and doing it myself, i’d advise you to do the same if you have the time.

Once you have a grasp of it you can always consider outsourcing SEO to professionals, it really is a industry that moves forward every single day.

8. Get Started!

You now have all the information you need to start setting up a Shopify store.

To show you how easy it is watch me build a shopify store from scratch in 10 minutes….

Set yourself objectives and get to work, you’ll thank yourself for it later on.

Use this 14 day free trial from Shopify and get to work.

If you’ve got any questions ask away in the comments below!

Good luck!

Nick

eBusiness Boss