What is Shopify?
Shopify is the ecommerce platform which allows anyone to start hassle free online business providing set of features to manage, build and grow online ecommerce store. Shopify is a good choice for businesses that want an all-in-one e-commerce solution. The company provides payment processing, shipping discounts, inventory management, banking services and even loans to some sellers.
The platform also provides a range of marketing tools to help drive traffic and boost sales, including SEO optimization, email marketing, and social media integration. Additionally, Shopify offers a variety of themes and templates to create visually appealing and mobile-responsive websites. With its reliable infrastructure and extensive ecosystem of apps and plugins, Shopify empowers entrepreneurs to build and grow successful online businesses.
One of the key features of Shopify is its user-friendly interface, which allows merchants to choose from a variety of customizable templates and themes to design a visually appealing and professional-looking website. Whether a business is just starting out or looking to scale, Shopify offers flexible solutions that cater to businesses of all sizes and industries.
How does Shopify work?
Shopify can help a small business start an online store fairly quickly. Then, you can use the platform to run your e-commerce business. Here’s how:
1. Launch your Shopify store
You’ll need to do the following to get a Shopify store up an running:
- Build your store. Shopify has more than 70 store themes to choose from, and there are drag-and-drop capabilities to make things easier. You customize the colors, images and fonts. The site you build also automatically works on mobile. You can list an unlimited number of products.
- Set up your payments. You can accept credit cards using Shopify Payments, which is a separate service that allows you to take customer payments. You can also choose your own payment processor, though Shopify will charge you an additional fee for that.
- Add a Buy button to other websites. You can embed click-to-buy links for your products on social media platforms or other websites.
- Set up a point-of-sale system if you have a brick-and-mortar business. Here’s more information about Shopify POS.
2. Sell products with Shopify
Once your e-commerce website is live, you can use Shopify to:
- Ship orders. Shopify offers shipping label printing, discounted shipping rates and shipping insurance. You can track orders from your dashboard as they travel.
- Manage your inventory. Shopify’s dashboard tracks stock levels, including details like incoming and committed stock, and allows you to move inventory among stores and warehouses. You can sort orders by fulfillment method or delivery location and make edits as you need to.
- Sell through multiple sales channels. You don’t have to sell your products solely through your own website. You can use Shopify to list products on Google, eBay, Walmart , Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and other sites.
3. Run your business with Shopify
Shopify offers extra tools for understanding and growing your business. You can use the platform to:
- Track your orders. Shopify users can see all orders — whether they were placed on the seller’s website, a third-party website or in person — on a dashboard that displays reports, analytics and other information. You can manage things from the Shopify Mobile app as well, including uploading product photos, setting prices, dealing with refunds, seeing sales and visitor traffic, getting order notifications, and communicating with your staff.
- Communicate with your customers. You can use various Shopify programs to set up a chat app on your website, launch email campaigns and create ads on Facebook and Instagram.
- Borrow money. Shopify Capital is a merchant financing program that offers loans to some Shopify sellers. Be careful to understand the costs of these loans and have a plan for their use before taking one out.
- Bank. Shopify Balance is a business checking account available to Shopify sellers. It comes with discounts on Shopify services and faster payouts from Shopify Payments.
Integrate Shopify With Google Sheets.
Set Up Google Sheets: Create a new Google Sheets document where you want to sync your Shopify data.
Enable Shopify API Access: Go to your Shopify admin dashboard and enable API access. You’ll need to generate API credentials (API key and password) that will allow your Google Sheets script to communicate with your Shopify store.
Authorize Access: If you’re using OAuth to access the Shopify API, you’ll need to authorize access to your Shopify store within your Google Apps Script. This typically involves creating an OAuth2 service account in the Google Cloud Platform Console and configuring it with the appropriate scopes and permissions.
Write Google Apps Script: In your Google Sheets document, go to “Extensions” > “Apps Script” to open the Google Apps Script editor. Write a script that uses the Shopify API to fetch data from your store and then writes it to your Google Sheets document.
Retrieve Data from Shopify: Write functions in your Google Apps Script to make API requests to Shopify and retrieve the data you want to sync with Google Sheets. This could include orders, products, customers, etc.
Choose Triggers and Actions: Determine the triggers and actions that will initiate the data transfer between Shopify and Google Sheets. For example, you may want new Shopify orders to be automatically added to your Google Sheets document.
Test and Debug: Before deploying your script, test it thoroughly to ensure that it retrieves and writes data correctly. Use the debugging tools provided in the Google Apps Script editor to troubleshoot any issues.
Review and Analyse Data: After importing the Shopify data into Google Sheets, review it to ensure accuracy and completeness. You can then use Google Sheets’ powerful features for data analysis, visualization, and reporting.