How to Register and Set Up Your Shopify Store from Scratch

Go to shopify.com and click "Start free trial". You only need an email address — no credit card required at this stage.

Shopify will then ask you to create a password and choose a store name. This name becomes your default address: yourstore.myshopify.com. Don't stress too much about this — you'll connect a custom domain later (article CB-07). But note: the myshopify.com subdomain cannot be changed after creation.

Shopify will ask a few questions to understand your situation: what type of products you're selling, where you are in your business journey (just starting, already selling elsewhere, migrating from another platform), and expected scale.

Answer honestly — there are no wrong answers here. Shopify uses this to customize your Admin layout and surface relevant features. Answering "incorrectly" doesn't lock you out of any features.

When you first enter Admin, Shopify displays a Setup Guide — a list of recommended next steps. This is your compass. But first, spend 5 minutes getting familiar with the 8 items in the left sidebar:

• Orders — View, confirm, fulfill, and refund orders
• Products — Add and edit products and collections
• Customers — Customer list and purchase history
• Content — Write blog posts, manage static pages (About, Contact, etc.)
• Analytics — Revenue reports, traffic, and customer behavior
• Marketing — Promotions and basic email marketing tools
• Discounts — Create discount codes and sale campaigns
• Apps — Browse and install apps to extend your store's features

Go to Settings → General and fill in the following — these are the most fundamental settings for your store:

• Store name — Displayed in emails, invoices, and the page title
• Store address — Your actual business address (used for tax and billing purposes)
• Store email — Receives order notifications and system alerts
• Customer email — Visible to customers (use a branded email, not a personal Gmail)
• Store currency — The default currency for pricing and transactions
• Timezone — Set this correctly so your analytics and reports reflect your local time
• Unit system & Weight unit — Metric (kg, cm) for most markets outside the US

⚠️ Important: Once you've received your first order, your store currency cannot be changed. Make sure you've selected the correct one before you start selling.

Before your store goes live, you need three legal pages. Shopify provides built-in templates — go to Settings → Policies and fill in the details specific to your store.

The 3 pages you need:

• Refund policy — How many days? What condition must the item be in? Full refund or exchange? Who covers return shipping?
• Privacy policy — What data you collect and how you use it. Shopify can auto-generate a template based on your store configuration.
• Terms of service — The legal terms governing the relationship between your store and customers.

After creating these pages, add them to your store's footer navigation menu so customers can find them (covered in article CB-04 when we set up your theme).

Go to Online Store → Pages → Add page to create two important pages:

• About Us — Your brand story, core values, and the reason customers should trust you. This page builds credibility — don't skip it.
• Contact — Shopify has a built-in "contact" page template with a contact form, email, and phone number. When creating this page, select the "contact" template from the Template dropdown.

Both pages should be added to your store's navigation menu. We'll walk through adding pages to menus in article CB-04 when we install and configure your theme.