Shopify Tutorial for Beginners 2026 - Full Store Setup Guide

If you want to build your first online store using Shopify, but you don't know where or how to start, then you clicked on the right video. My name is Simon, and in this Shopify tutorial for beginners, I'm going to walk you through the entire process of setting up a professional Shopify store step by step. We're going to start from complete scratch and we'll make sure not to skip anything along the way so you can simply follow along and have your own Shopify store up and running by the end of this video. Don't worry if you've never done this before. This tutorial is for complete beginners. And I promise you that setting up your own Shopify store is easier than you might think. Now, the first thing we're going to do is claim our extended Shopify trial, which gives you 3 days free, followed by an additional three months for just $1 per month. This gives you plenty of time to build your entire store and make your first sales before committing to the full monthly subscription. To claim that offer, simply go to the link on screen or scroll down to the video description and click on the first link you find there. This link will take you to the correct signup page where you can claim that offer. All right. So once you're on this page, simply sign up by typing in your email right here and continue. Then choose your password and click on create Shopify account. And here on the next step, Shopify asks us for our payment details. Now, you could actually just click on skip here at the bottom and enter those later if you want to. However, keep in mind that you want to add your payment details and choose a plan within the first 3 days of using Shopify to make sure you get access to the extended trial for 3 months for just $1 per month. To make sure I don't miss out on that extended trial, I'm going to enter my payment details right now and click on subscribe for $1. And here we can go ahead and choose our Shopify plan. Now, the main difference between these three plans is that the higher the plan, the lower the transaction fees that you'll have to pay for every sale that you make on your store. So, if you're just starting out, you should definitely just go with the basic plan right here. And then once you make more sales, you can always upgrade to one of the higher plans. So, let's click on try basic. And here, you want to simply enter your business address. Or if you don't have a business just yet, you can also enter your personal address and then click on continue. And then here, Shopify wants to ask you some questions about what you want to sell and your business. However, it doesn't really make any changes to what we're going to get in Shopify. So, let's save some time and click on skip right here at the bottom. And this takes us into the Shopify dashboard, which is basically the back end of your store. Here on the right side, we have an AI assistant that you can ask questions at any time. However, for now, I recommend just following along with the tutorial because we're going to cover everything that you need. So, for now, we're just going to close this AI assistant right here. Now, the first thing we're going to do is choose a theme for our store. So, to do that, let's come over here and click on online store and go to themes. And here we can see that the default theme that is currently installed is the Horizon theme. However, we could also choose other themes for our store. And to find those, we're going to scroll all the way down and click on visit theme store. This will open up a new tab with all of the available themes for Shopify. To just see the free themes, let's take the free filter right here, and then it displays just all of the free themes that you can choose from. Now, if you like any of these designs, just click on this theme right here and then you can click on view demo. Here you can just browse through this demo store. You can also click on links or go to product pages. You can also check out how it looks on mobile devices. And if you like this theme, for example, you can just click on try theme right here. And then this theme will be installed on your Shopify store. As you can see, we are now back in our Shopify dashboard and we get the message that the trade theme has been successfully added. Now, to activate this new theme for our store, we're going to have to scroll down under theme library, we're going to have to click on publish and then confirm. And now our theme for our store has been switched from the default horizon theme to the new trade theme we have chosen before. Now, if you didn't find any theme that you liked, what you can do is simply scroll down here and try Shopify's new AI tool to create a custom theme for your store. So, here just enter a keyword or a phrase what your store is about or what you're selling and then click on generate themes. And after just a few moments, you'll get three different custommade themes based on the prompt that you have typed in. Now, personally, I like the pre-made themes a bit more from the theme library. So, I'm not going to choose any of these. What I'm going to do is actually switch back to the Horizon theme, which was the default one, because I think this one works for pretty much any store, and it's also one of the most used ones on Shopify. And you get all of the latest features as well, like for example, the ability to create custom sections using AI. So to revert back to the horizon theme, let's click on publish right here and confirm. All right. So now that we have chosen our theme for the store, let's go ahead and look at how to customize our store. To do that, let's click on edit theme right here. And this will open up the Shopify store editor. So here on the right side of our store editor, we can basically see a preview of our online store. Currently, we can see a lot of placeholder content, but in a bit I'm going to show you exactly how to replace all that with your own products and your own images. Now, currently, we are on the homepage, and we can also navigate to other pages by coming up here and then clicking on any of the other pages of our store. When we come up here to the top right, we can also switch the view. So currently we are on desktop view and we can also go to mobile view right here to see what our store looks like on mobile devices. Now it's very important that your store is optimized for mobile as well because most shoppers nowadays actually shop on their mobile phone as opposed to on their computer. However, we're going to make sure to design everything here on desktop. And Shopify does a great job optimizing everything for mobile automatically. But we can make sure to check the mobile view at any time by coming up here. Then here on the left side, we can see a structure overview for the page we are currently on. So every page on your store basically starts with the header which is all the way here at the top. So this would be our header, the announcement bar, the menu, and uh the shopping cart icon and stuff like that. Then we have the content of that specific page. So this would be the top banner right here. And then we have some feature products here on the homepage. And then all the way at the bottom we have the footer. So right now we have an email signup section here. And then some terms and policy links, social media icons, and some text down here. So now let's look at how to customize all the content on our store and really make it our own. We're going to start all the way at the top here on the homepage and replace the background for our hero section. So to do that, we can either just click on this background and then the menu to change it will open up here on the left or we can also just come over here and click on hero because this is the exact same section that we just clicked on before. Now, to add an image to this section, what I'm going to do is simply drag and drop my hero image that I want to use into this field right here. And just like that, the background will be automatically replaced with the image that you've added. Now, I also want to add a second image to my hero section. So, I'm going to drag in my second image to this field here. And now, it displays here on the right side of the hero section. Now, let's look at some of the customization options. So, here on the left side, I'm going to simply scroll down and look at some of the options. I can simply click on any of them and play around to see what changes and what I like the best. For example, I'm going to change the height from medium to large. And this will simply increase the size of this hero section. Another thing I want to do is place this text and button into the center of this section. So to do that, I'm going to simply go to position and change it from bottom to center. Next, I want to change the text right here. So again, I can simply click on the text and then the menu for changing it will open up here on the left side. And then I'm going to change it by pasting in the text that I want to replace it with. And it's exactly the same for the button here below the text. We can simply click on it and then make any changes that we want here on the left side. Now, the next thing I want to do is add my logo to the top left of my store. So, to do that, I'm going to click on this little gear icon here at the top left and then go to logo and favicon. Then, I can simply drag and drop my logo into the default logo section. Now, I want to decrease the size of this logo just a bit. So, I'm going to decrease the height from 36 to 30 pixels. And while I'm here, one more thing I can do just now is add the favicon as well, which is basically a square version of your logo. And once you've added your favicon, you're going to see it all the way at the top of your browser when you go to your store. So, let's click on save. And then we're going to go to the three dots and click on view to see a preview of our store. And then we can see our favicon right here at the top of the browser. So let's go back to our editor. Now the next thing I want to do is change the layout of my header. So the logo will be displayed here in the center instead of all the way here on the left. To do that, I'm going to go back to the overview for our sections and click on header. And then here under logo position, I'm going to change it from left to center. And I like the way that looks a lot better. And let's not forget to save our changes once in a while by clicking on save here at the top right. Now, when we scroll down to the next section of our homepage, we can see this featured collection with a few placeholder products. Now, we actually want our own products to be displayed here. But before we can do that, we have to add them to our Shopify store. So, that's what we're going to do next. So to add our products, we have to go back to our Shopify dashboard. To get back to our dashboard, let's come over here to the top left and click on exit. And make sure you have saved your changes before you do that. And this will take us back to our Shopify dashboard. And from here, let's head over to products here on the left side. And then to add our first product, let's click add product. And here we can enter all the details for the product that we want to add. Starting with the title here at the top and then below we can also add a description for the product and if you don't know how to describe your product you can make use of the AI feature from Shopify that helps you with creating a good description. Now below that we want to add some images for our product. So I'm just going to drag and drop a few images in here. And you want to make sure to have high quality images that show your product in the best light. You can also rearrange the order here and decide which image should be shown first. And then below here, we want to set the price for this product. Now, I want to sell this product at $49. Something else we can do here is add a compare ad price, which will be shown as a strike through price, saying that this product used to be more expensive and is now discounted to $49. And down here under inventory, we can enter how many of these shirts we currently have in stock. Now, whenever we sell one of these products, this number will automatically go down. And when it hits zero, then this product will be shown as sold out on our store. If you want to continue selling when out of stock, you want to make sure to turn continue selling when out of stock on. However, you can also manually adjust that number when you get new products back in stock. So that's up to you. Then down here under shipping, you can add the weight for the product, the volume for the box that you ship this product in to kind of charge shipping rates based on weight or volume. I'm going to charge a flat rate for shipping. So I'm not going to enter any of these details here. Then here under variance, you can add different sizes or different colors for the products that you want to sell. And you can also set different prices for like larger sizes or for different colors for your products. For now, I'm going to just leave this as is. Then down here, you have some more options. And you can also change how this product will be found in search engines. Now, I'm going to leave everything as it is and click on save. Now, our first product has been added to our store. And when we go over to products, we should be able to see our product right here. Now, I've just added a few more products here to our demo store. And the next step is to organize these products into different collections. So, to create our first collection, let's come over here and click on collections. Then, we already have a homepage collection. Now, I don't need this one. So, I'm going to just select it and then go to the three dots and click on delete collection and confirm. Then, let's click on add collection. And the first collection I'm going to create is called shirts. And I'm going to add all of my shirts to this collection. So, the title will be shirts. I'm also going to add an image here. So, let's drag and drop in my collection image to this field. And then once it's uploaded, let's click on done. Now the collection type I'm going to keep at manual. So I can manually add my products into this collection. Now to add my products, I'll just further scroll down and click on browse here under products. And then I'm going to simply choose all of the shirts that I've added before. So let's just select them and then click on add. And that's it. Let's click on save. And then when we go back to collections, we can see our first collection right here called shirts. And we have four products in this collection. And to add the next one, I can simply come over here and click on add collection once again. And then go through the exact same steps. All right. So I just went ahead and added a few more collections for all of my categories. And I've also added a new arrivals collection with all of my new products that I want to feature directly on the homepage. So now let's look at how to display those products on our online store. So let's head over to online store and then click on edit theme to get back to the store editor. And here when we scroll down we can see that the placeholder products that were here before have been replaced with our products that we have added before. Now what I want to do is instead of have these random products on the homepage, I want to actually display my collections that I have just set up. So, what I'm going to do is delete this section for now by hovering over the featured collection section and then clicking the trash icon here. And now I'm going to add a collection list. So to add the new section, let's click on add section right here. And then here we can choose from different types of sections. I'm going to scroll down to the collections and I'm going to choose the collection list grid. And this will insert this collection list where we can display our different categories. So first let's choose the collections we want to display here by clicking on this collection list and then under collections let's click select and then choose the collections we want to display. So I'm going to display the shirts, the sweaters and the jackets. And this will add our collection images and also display the collection name here on the top left. Visitors can now just click into any of these collections to get to the collection page that they have clicked on. So now it has redirected us to the default collection page here. So let's go back to the homepage. And to be honest, I don't really like this header shop by collection, but I can simply remove it by hovering over it right here and then clicking on the trash icon. Next, I would like to feature a few special products directly here on the homepage. I've already added my new arrivals collection. So, what I'm going to do now is add a featured collection just below this section here. So, let's click on add section again right here on the left. And this time, let's scroll down to products. And here we have some different options. What I'm going to do is choose the featured collection carousel. Then let's go ahead and choose our featured collection. So let's head over to this featured collection and then select and then choose the new arrivals collection. So now all of the products that are in this collection will be displayed right here on the homepage. And people can also scroll through by clicking on this arrow right here to see more products. Let's go ahead and save our changes and then go back to the section overview. So, I'm pretty happy with how my homepage looks. We have this hero section at the top. We have our different collections and then we have some feature products below. Now, obviously, we could go ahead and add even more sections to our homepage. We could just click on add section here and then check out all the different ways that we can display our products, display our collections, or even just add some text to our homepage or FAQs. Basically, whatever you want. So, take some time to go through these and maybe you'll find something that you want to have on your homepage. Now, if for some reason you can't find the layout you're looking for, you can actually create it yourself using Shopify's new AI block generator. Let's click on add section. And then all the way at the top, let's click on generate right here. Then we would type in a prompt describing what type of layout we want Shopify to create. So I'm just going to copy and paste the prompt in here. And then click on this arrow. And then we have to give Shopify some time to code this new section. And there we go. After just a few seconds, Shopify has created a custom section based on the prompt that we have typed in here. So here we have this image I asked for on the left and then the text I asked for on the right. And we also get the options to customize this section here on the right side just as we would any other sections on our store. So let me first add a picture by dragging it in here and then it will be displayed here once it's uploaded. Now, this looks okay, but I actually want to be able to have the image fill the frame based on that initial layout. And I don't have the option here right now. So, what I'm going to do is go back to this prompts box here at the top and tell Shopify to add a feature that lets me change the image style to fill frame. And then let's see if Shopify is able to handle that request. Okay. So now after about 30 seconds we get the new option here under image style. We can actually change from fit image to fill frame. So now when I upload this image here I can actually go ahead and click on fill frame. And I think that looks a lot better. So far we have just spent time customizing our homepage. But we could also go to other pages and customize them as well. For example, let's head over to our default product page by coming up here and then clicking products, default product. So, this is the layout that we have for all of our products right now. It's the same way we can see the layout here on the left side. We have the product information section right here and below we have some recommended products. If you want to, you can make changes by simply clicking on the section you want to customize and then change all the options here. You can also add new sections by clicking add section and then add anything you want to your product pages. However, I usually like the way Shopify has set up all the other pages automatically. So, I'm not spending too much time here on customizing every single page on the store. Usually, everything is already optimized, which is the great thing about using Shopify. So, let's go ahead and navigate back to our homepage. And now let's take a look at how to change the colors on your store. And we can actually do that for each individual section. So let's say we want to change the colors for this section right here. What we can do is simply click into this section. And then on the left side here under options, we can scroll down and look for color scheme. Currently we are on color scheme one which makes the background white and the text black. But we can also change it to this scheme five for example which would make the background dark or we could choose theme scheme 4 which would make the background to this light blue. Now usually I think the default scheme looks the best. So I'm going to go back to scheme one right here. And we can actually individually change the colors of these schemes by going up here and clicking on the gear icon to go to the theme settings. Here is where before we have set up our logo here at the top, but we can also go here to colors and then we can see the pallet for all of these different color schemes. So, for example, let's say we want to change that blue uh in the background for the scheme 4. We can just click into it and then here for background, we can just choose another color if we want to. So, if you already have some branded colors that you want to use on your store, this is where you would change those colors or even add a completely new color scheme with all of your branded colors. And if you want to change the font on your store, you can also do that here under theme settings by going to typography. And then here you can see the font for the body text, the subheadings, headings, and so on. And you can easily change those by just choosing the font you want right here. Something else we can do is go ahead and look at all the other options here. Now, most of the things I wouldn't even touch because again, it's usually optimized already, but something I like to go to sometimes is animations. And then here, there's some cool things like for example, you can add a card hover effect. So, for example, we can set that to zoom. And then when we save our changes and go to view our store, we can see that when we hover over these collection images, it zooms in just a little bit. The same way with our product pages like here. So, there's some subtle small things you can do and add to your store to make everything look a bit cooler. Next, we're going to cover how to customize our navigation menu, which we can see right here at the top. So to do that, let's click on it right here. And then under menu, click on main menu and then click edit. And this will take us back to the Shopify dashboard to content and then menus. And here we can make changes to our menu items. Now I want to just add my collections in the top navigation. So, first I'm going to delete all of these default menu items. And then I'm going to add all of the collections that I want to have in the navigation. So, I'm just going to click on add menu item and then I'll click in the link box here, go to collections, and then I'll start with the shirts and click check. And then I'll add the second collection until all of my collections I want to add are in the navigation. And once all our menu items are added, we can simply save our changes. And then to check out how this looks, we can hover over online store and then click on this eye icon to preview our store. And now we can see that the menu has changed to our collections. And we can also click on any of these links and it will go directly to the collection page. Let's go back to the dashboard. Now, if your store has subcategories, then it might make sense to structure your navigation menu in a way where you also have submen items. So, for example, I've just set up a men and women's collection. And what I can do now is drag the shirts collection under the men's category or the men's menu item like this. And then once I save this new structure, we can see that on the store when we reload it, we have a different setup. We have the main navigation items. And then when we hover over it, these submen items will show up. And this is a very cool way to keep your menu organized. All right, so let's close these pages for now and go back to our store editor. Now, let's finish up the front end of our Shopify store by taking a look at the header and footer. Now, again, the header is always here at the top on every page, and the footer is always here at the bottom. Now, we've already made some changes here to this section of the header, but we also see this announcement bar here at the top. So, this is where you can add any promo coupon codes or any message that you want people to see first when they land on your store. If you want, you can also just delete the entire announcement bar if you want to by clicking on this trash icon. Or you can just change the text by coming here and then changing the text like this, like give a discount code or something like that. If you want to delete it again, just click on the trash icon here and then this announcement bar will be disabled. So, that's pretty much it for the header. Let's scroll down to the footer area. Here we currently have an email signup section. We have this text here on the bottom left and then we have a link to all of our policies and then some social media icons. The first thing I want to do here is remove this powered by Shopify text. I think that looks a bit unprofessional. So, let's just click on this text and then turn off show powered by Shopify here. Then let's also add our social media links by clicking on these icons here on the bottom right. And then here on the left side, simply enter your own social media links. And once that's done, then these links should go directly to your own social media pages. If you don't have any of these, simply click on this X right here to delete them. And then these icons will also disappear here on the bottom right. And now the last thing we want to do in the footer is replace this text here that says my store with your store name. And we're going to have to do that in the dashboard. So let's save our changes and go to our Shopify dashboard. And then here, let's go to settings. And then here in the general tab under store details, we can click this pen icon and then enter our store name right here. Then click save, close out of this, and go back to our store editor. And now when we scroll all the way down to the footer, we can see our store name here in the bottom. And the next thing we're going to do is set up all of your store policies. So this would be your shipping policy, privacy policy, terms of service, and so on. And all of these policies will be displayed here in the footer as well. So, when we go to the preview store page and hover over this part of the footer, you can see that the policy pages will be displayed right here. Currently, we only have the privacy policy, but now I'm going to show you how to set up all of the other policies as well. To do that, let's go back to this tab right here and then go back to the dashboard. From here, let's go to settings and then scroll down and click on policies all the way here at the bottom. And then right here, we can set up all of the policies. Let's start with the return and refund policy. Let's click into this. And then the cool thing with Shopify is that they already have a template for all of these kind of policies. So, we can simply click on insert template right here. And then all of these standard things that you would add to a return and refund policy are already in this document. The only thing you have to do is read through this and make sure everything applies to your store as well. And also replace any of these bracket items where you have to enter your own information. Once you've done that, click on publish. And then this page has already been set up. The privacy policy has already been set up for us. So, let's go to terms of service. And here, the same thing. We can just click insert template and then just replace all of the information with our own and click publish. Then for the shipping policy, there's actually no template, so I'm going to have to write that on your own. Or you can just use something like Chad GPT to write that for you. Something like this. And then click publish. And then lastly, we have contact information. here. Again, you can just use their template or enter all of your own information manually and then click publish. And that's pretty much it. So, to see if this worked, we can go to our store preview, reload the page, and then here under terms and policies, when we hover over it, we can see all of our policy pages right here, and we can click on these links, and then the policy will open up like this. Okay, so let's close this and then go back to our Shopify dashboard. Now, we're almost ready to publish our store, but there's a few very important back-end store settings that we have to look at and set up so that everything works correctly and we can actually get paid when somebody buys something on our store. Let's go to settings here at the bottom left. And then here, the first thing you want to do is go to general and make sure all of the information here is correct. Check your store name, your billing address, your currency, and also your default units. Next, we want to go to payments. And here, what you want to do is click on activate Shopify payments. And this will enable you to connect your bank account so that you can actually get paid when somebody buys something on your store. Customers will be able to check out with all of the common options like credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and so on. Make sure when you do this, you have some kind of ID document ready, like a driver's license or a passport to verify your identity. Now, if you want to give customers some additional payment options that are not included with Shopify payments, you can add an additional payment method by clicking on add payment method right here. So, let's say you want your customers to be able to pay with cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin. You can simply type in Bitcoin right here and then click on it. And here you get all of the different options on how you would be able to accept Bitcoin as payment on your store. Also, keep in mind that not all payment options are available in every region. So, depending on where you are located, the options here might look a bit different. Now, the next very important thing we have to look at is our shipping and delivery settings. So, let's go to shipping and delivery here. And this is basically where you can set up your shipping rates, which is what you're going to charge your customer for shipping the products to their home. Now, this can get a bit complicated depending on how you want to set up your shipping, but just bear with me. I'm going to try to explain this in an easy to understand way. So right here we can see that we have a profile for all products right now, which means you can set up different profiles for different types of products. We're going to keep things simple and just keep one profile for all products. So let's click on this profile right here. And then right here, we can see all the products that apply to this profile. And when we scroll down, we can see our shipping zones. So the places where we ship to and the rates that we charge to ship to these places. So currently we just have domestic shipping to the United States. And these are the prices that we charge based on the weight of the product. And here we also have one rate that says $50 and up is going to be free shipping. So these were set up by default, but now I'm going to show you how you can set up your shipping rates manually. So to do that, we're going to first delete the shipping zone by clicking on the three dots right here and then clicking on delete. And then to add a new shipping zone, you would simply click on add shipping zone right here. And then choose the regions you want to set up your rates for. So currently, let's say we're going to set it up for the United States. So I'm just going to type in US right here. And then here, I'm just going to choose the entire United States with 62 states. So let's click on done. And now I have my shipping zone here at the bottom. The next thing I want to do is set up my rates for this shipping zone. So let's click on add rate. And then I have some different options. We can set a flat rate or we can set a dynamic rate based on different things like the weight, the volume, or also based on different carriers. I'm going to keep things simple and just use the flat rate. Then here under shipping rate, we can set up the type of shipping we want to offer like express, standard, economy, and so on. I'm going to choose standard. And then I'm going to set the price to let's say $6 and click done. And then we can set up another shipping rate by clicking add rate again. And this time I'm going to set up an express rate, which is one to two business days for let's say $15. And click done. And now when people from the US order from our store, they can choose between standard and express shipping. And these are the prices right here. All right, let's go ahead and save our changes. And then the next important thing we quickly have to talk about is taxes and duties. So here under taxes and duties is basically where we can set up the sales tax that we charge on our products. Now, the sales tax that you have to charge depends on a lot of different factors, including where you are located and where you are selling to. So, it's a good idea to consult with a tax professional in your region to figure out what laws apply to your specific situation. Now, one thing that comes in really handy is the Shopify tax services that automatically calculates the tax that you're going to have to charge for every product and for every customer that shops on your website. So, I highly recommend to make use of this feature right here. Next, let's go ahead and click on domains. So currently our domain, the website address that people have to type in to get to our store is this one right here, which obviously is not ideal. So what we want to do is set up our own custom branded domain, something like rogueapparel.com to make everything look professional. Now, if you already have your domain, you can simply click on connect existing up here. Or if you don't have a domain yet, simply click on buy new domain. Then right here, type in the domain that you want to use for your store and click search. Now, if the domain is available, you can click on buy right here. And this domain will basically cost you $16 per year. And once you buy this domain, it will automatically be connected to your store so that you don't have to do anything else. And that's it for the most important settings before we launch our store. So, let's close out of this and go back to our dashboard. So, now let's go ahead and publish our store and make it available for our customers. Let's go to online store right here. And then here, you can see that our store is currently password protected, which means we're going to have to remove the password to make this store available. All we have to do is click on remove password right here. And now, as we can see, our online store is open to everyone. We can click on view store right here to get to our Shopify store. Don't forget to use the first link down below in the description to get an extended 3 month Shopify trial for just $1 per month. If this video helped you setting up your first Shopify store, make sure to give it a like and subscribe for more videos like this. I'll see you in the next