How to Create a Shopify Store in 2026 - Shopify Tutorial for Beginners

in this Shopify tutorial for beginners I'm going to show you step by step how to build a professional Shopify store from complete scratch so let's not waste any time and get started first thing we're going to do is get us an extended trial for Shopify so go to the description of this video and click on the first link you'll find there this will take you to my Commerce code signup page where you'll get an additional three months of using Shopify for only one dollar per month simply type in your email and click on start free trial then here we're just going to skip all these questions and then if you already know the name of your store you can just type it in here and click on next or if you're not sure yet just click on skip then choose your country and click on next here we want to create our Shopify ID so choose one of these four options to create your account I'm simply going to continue with my email then choose a password and create your Shopify ID that will take us into the dashboard of our new Shopify store so let's start by choosing a store theme on the left side menu click on online store and then on themes currently the default theme of Shopify is the dawn theme which is not bad but for this store I'm actually going to choose a different one so let's scroll down and click on visit theme store here you can check out different themes that you can install on your Shopify store in this video I'm going to build my store using a free theme and the one I'm going to choose is the refresh theme so let's click on it and then click on try theme which will add it to our theme Library to activate it for our store we need to click on publish and confirm and now we can see that the current theme has changed from the default one to the new one we have just added now we can go ahead and click on customize to start designing our store here is where we can edit all of our store Pages like our home page product pages collection pages and so on you can also look at how your store looks like on different devices and screen sizes by clicking on the desktop icon on the top right and choosing mobile phone for example however we're going to edit our store on the desktop view on the left side you can see the structure of your current home page it always starts with the header at the top and ends with the footer at the bottom and in between is the content of the page which consists of multiple sections as we can see Shopify has already added some sections for us acting as placeholder content we can also rearrange these sections by dragging them up or down and we can delete sections by simply selecting them and then clicking on the trash icon here or at the bottom of the section menu if we want to add something new we can simply click on ADD section and choose what kind of content we would like to add now before customizing our home page let's delete all the preloaded sections to just get a better overview of what we actually have on our home page for some reason we're not able to delete the email signup section so let's click on the I icon which will make it invisible so that we're just left with the header and the footer which will be displayed on every page on your store so now let's start adding contents to our home page we're going to start by adding a logo to our header so we're going to select our header and then on the right side menu under logo let's click on theme settings this will take us into the theme settings where by the way we can also get to by just clicking on the paintbrush icon here on the left let's click on select image and then upload our logo click on select and then here we can also adjust the size of our logo now let's go back to the sections overview and then hover over and click on the announcement bar here we can change the announcement text for the top of the website this is a good place to put promotional messages like giving a discount code or simply putting something like free shipping worldwide of course you can also remove the announcement bar altogether by just deleting the entire text now we can move on to the hero section of the home page which is the first thing that people will see when they visit our store so let's click on ADD section and then we have a couple of options for creating the first part of the home page I recommend you either start with an image with text section an image Banner or a slideshow depending on what type and how many images you have that you can use as content as I don't really have many images for this example store I'm going to keep things simple and go with an image with text section then here we're just gonna go from top to bottom to customize the content first let's click on select image and then here you can upload your main as I don't really have any custom images made for this store I'm just going to click on free images and then choose one that would be appropriate for the store that I'm building for the image height I'm going to choose medium I'm going to change the desktop image width to large then I'm going to switch the place of the text and the image by selecting image second put the desktop content position to Middle I leave the desktop content alignment on left change the content layout to overlap and change the color scheme to background 2. then let's click on the text and add a title I'm simply going to put the name of the store and change the heading size to small then let's also click on the paragraph below and add a short description now if you need more space for the text you can change the desktop image width to medium and you can also go into the theme settings go to typography and reduce the font size scale to 100 percent now I'm also going to select a button and change the text to Sharp now and then we need to add a button link which determines where people will get to when they click on this button I'm going to send them to collections all awesome the first part of our home page is now finished now would be a good time to save what we've done so far so let's click on Save on the top right the next section I'm going to add to my home page is a collection list so I'm going to click on ADD section and choose collection list this will be an overview of the different product collections that we have on our store but as we haven't added any products or collections to our store so far this section currently doesn't show anything so what we're going to do now is add a few products to our store so we're going to right click on the exit button on the top left and then click on open link in a new tab this will take us back to the Shopify dashboard here we want to go to the left side menu and click on products now if you don't know yet what kind of products you want to sell on your Shopify store then I recommend to watch my Shopify Drop Shipping tutorial which includes a guide on how to find products to sell for those of you who already have a product let's click on add your products and then here we're going to add our first product by giving it a name and also a short description then under media we're going to add our product photos and choose the one we want as the main image then enter the price of the product and also the available quantity we have in stock under the inventory section now if you want you can also go through the rest of these options here and put in more information about your product also if you have variants like different sizes or colors make sure to set them up here under variants then let's click on Save and Go back to our product list if you want to add more products then just click on ADD product at the top right and go through the same process again once we've added all of our products we can now also create collections to organize the different types of products that we sell so on the left side menu let's click on collections here we're first going to delete the homepage collection that was already set up by default just select it go to the three dots and click on delete collection then let's click on create collection now as my example store in this video is selling different types of headphones I'm going to create a collection for earbuds under collection type I'm going to choose manual because I'm going to be manually adding the products later then on the right side we also want to add a cover image for this collection and then we can hit save now we can repeat the same process until we've set up all of our different collections once that's done we can go back to the products and assign them to the collections that we have just created so to do that efficiently we just take the ones that we want to add to a specific collection then go to the three dots click on ADD Collections and then choose the collections we want to add to these products to and do that for all of your products when that's done let's go back to our editor that we still have open in the other tab and now here for the collection list we can select the collection that we want to show on our home page so I'm going to choose earbuds for the first one headphones for the second one and then for the third one I'm going to choose sport then I'm also going to change the collection list title and change the heading size to small and that's it for our collection list now we can add a couple more sections to build out our home page even further for example we could add a rich text section and then just add some text talking about our brand or we could add a featured collection and then maybe choose the best sellers collection to feature the best selling products directly on the home page we could also just feature one specific product by choosing the featured product section and then selecting the product that we want to show feel free to play around with all these different sections that you have available and see for yourself which works the best for the type of online store that you want to create we're now going to move on to the footer of our website here we want to add some links of our store policies like our refund policy terms of service and so on so first we're gonna go back to our Shopify dashboard then click on settings on the bottom left and then go to policies here we can simply generate our policies using the Shopify templates all we need to do is click on create from template for each policy that we need however keep in mind that these are just templates so you should go through them and edit them according to your own information then we also want to add our shipping policy and our contact information and then click save great so now we're done setting up our policies the next step is to add them to our footer menu so let's close this window and then go to online store navigation footer menu here we can add and remove links on our footer menu so I'm going to first delete the search function and then I'm going to click on ADD menu item go to policies and here we can add each of the policies that we have just created then click on Save menu now we can go back to our editor scroll all the way down and we should be able to see our policies in the footer menu then I'm just going to delete the about section and for the text block I'm going to change this to contact us and add the contact information then here I'm going to Simply add the brand logo once again and that's it for the website footer now we're almost done with our home page the only thing that we haven't looked at yet is the main menu on the top which is the main way customers will navigate through the online store so to edit this menu we're going to have to go back to the Shopify dashboard go to online store navigation and then click on main menu and just like we've edited our footer menu before here we can add and delete links on our main menu I'm going to first lead to the home and the catalog link then for this store I'm going to add some links to different collections that we've created before like bestsellers earbuds headphones and so on once that's saved we can go back to our editor save and reload the page and now we can see our new main menu on the top awesome what we're going to look at next are the theme settings which control the overall style of the website so let's click on the brush icon to get to the theme settings here is where we can match the design of our new store with our brand colors and fonts so under colors we can adjust the primary and the secondary colors and these changes will be applied across the entire website same thing with typography here we can just play around with different fonts for our website then here under logo we also want to add our browser icon also called favicon so for the favicon I'm going to upload a square version of my logo this will then be visible at the top of the browser window for anyone who visits the store then let's go to social media and add all of our social media links these will then be visible in the footer at the bottom of the website and that's all we're gonna do for the theme settings now we want to take a look at the product page of the store so let's go up here and switch to our product page just like we've seen on the home page Shopify has already added multiple sections to this page as well so what we want to do here is just go through these sections and fill them with our own content just like we've done on the home page or if you want to get rid of a specific part we just hit the trash icon and we want to go through the same process for the collection page The Collection list page and the contact now specifically for the contact page we want to go back to the Shopify dashboard go to online store pages click on the contact page and here we can add some text asking people to fill in the form for any questions then hit save and now when we go back to the editor we can see the text right here and we can also adjust the padding on the right side menu if you want to add more pages to your store simply go to your Shopify dashboard go to online store pages and then click on ADD page on the top right here we can name the page and add the content and then hit save we can now also add this page to the main menu by going to navigation add menu item and then go to the pages and choose the new page great now let's go back to the editor and also take a look at the mobile version of our store so go to the top right and change from desktop view to mobile view everything should be already optimized for mobile so we don't really need to adjust anything here but for some sections and blocks you have the option to edit the mobile layout specifically so go through all of the pages on mobile and see if there's something you want to change perfect we're getting closer to finishing our new store we just need to go over a couple more settings and then we'll be ready to Launch so let's go back to our Shopify dashboard then go to online store and then preferences here we want to add our store name and also a short description so that people can easily find our store on Google then we're going to scroll down to password protection this is where we need to disable the password protection so that people can actually visit our new store however we can only disable our password once we've chosen a Shopify plan so let's click on pick a plan I'm gonna go with the basic plan allowing me to use Shopify for an additional three months for only one dollar per month so just go through these steps here add an address add a payment method and then click on Start Plan so now that our plan is active we can go back to online store preferences then scroll down and untick the password protection then once we click save our store will be live and people can actually visit our website however there are still a few things we need to do in the backend Store settings so let's go to the bottom left and click on settings under restore details we want to make sure to enter our store name and also make sure the store currency and the units are displayed correctly next we're going to set up payments so that our customers can actually check out using different payment methods so to set up Shopify payments just click on complete account setup and fill out the forms truthfully so that you can actually get paid once that's done customers will be able to check out using their credit card or through other options like Apple pay or Google pay by default customers will also be able to check out using PayPal if you don't want to have PayPal checkout on your store make sure to deactivate PayPal Express checkout here now let's go to shipping and delivery then under shipping let's click on manage here is where we can decide on how much we want to charge for shipping our products we can Define different shipping rates for different shipping zones currently there are two shipping zones already set up by default domestic shipping which is inside of the US and then international shipping to other countries I'm gonna make it easier for this store and just set up one shipping Zone only for the United States and it will be free shipping so let's delete the existing shipping zones and then create a new shipping Zone I'm going to name it United States and then choose United States here and click done then click add rate choose the shipping time and then I'm going to leave the shipping price at a zero and click done of course you can also add more raids and more shipping zones for your store depending on how you want to charge for shipping next let's go to domains currently the URL of our store is still a myshopify.com domain which looks pretty unprofessional so we want to make sure to get this store on our own branded domain we can either connect our existing domain or we can simply buy a new domain through Shopify which will then be automatically connected to our store great now we have gone through the most important settings before we send people to our store we want to make sure everything works perfectly so let's go back to our dashboard and then click on the little eye icon next to online store this will open up a preview of our website where we can test the customer experience all the way to the checkout page to make sure everything works and if it does congratulations your new store is ready to Launch watch this video next if you want to learn how to use tick tock ads to get your first sales on your new Shopify store don't forget to subscribe like and comment thanks for watching