Success With Shopify by lhywantk - HTML preview

Chapter 18:

Take advantage of Shopify's learning

tools

One of the greatest tools that Shopify offers is something that you may not necessarily consider part of the value package that you get when you sign up for this store, but it is something that you would definitely miss if it were not included. Of course, we’re discussing the Shopify help tools that come with the program. Because Shopify is so comprehensive and because there are so many third-party applications that can be integrated natively into Shopify, there is no way that all of the information needed to run a Shopify store could be included in a book – even a book this size. Luckily, Shopify has one of the best help sections of any ecommerce platform out there.

Accessing Shopify’s Help System

Let’s talk about how you navigate to Shopify’s help system and how you get around there once you are in. If you are in your Shopify admin area, it is very difficult to navigate to the help section unless you stumble upon a link that takes you to a specific area. What makes that even more confusing is that there are several different help areas that you will encounter and you might be directed to a different URL. Here are the major help areas that Shopify provides.

https://ecommerce.shopify.com/

This is what is known as ‘Ecommerce University’ and it is a comprehensive help section that will take you through all of the different things that you’ll need to know to become a successful ecommerce store owner. This isn’t the same area as the main Shopify help area, although it does encompass some of the same or related information. What makes this area quite unique and very useful is that it actually gives you information and advice in making your store better and increasing your income in ways that will help you no matter if you are using the Shopify platform or not.

Shopify’s Ecommerce University is divided up into four distinct sections.

Guides: The Guides are the first thing that you’ll encounter on Shopify’s Ecommerce University. The guides are comprehensive step-by-step instructions that will advise you on a number of topics from making your first sale to using dropshipping services.

You can also find the guides at www.shopify.com/guides.

Blog: The blog is pretty standard but still extremely informative and has the advantage of featuring the latest information possible because it is updated regularly. On average, Shopify creates around four blog posts per week and the topics are all over the board, from using your Shopify platform better to some of the ecommerce topics that you’ll want to learn to run a successful store like integrating with social media or starting your own blog to rank for keywords. The alternative URL for the blog is

https://www.shopify.com/blog.

Forums: The forums are one of your most useful resources because you will be able to communicate directly with other Shopify users and this can help you solve problems, improve your store or educate yourself on ecommerce. The forums do not seem that large at first glance, with only about two dozen discussion boards but in fact, there are thousands of threads that you can browse and of course, the real strength of the forum is that you can create your own discussions and ask for advice specific to the problems you are having or even ask people to look at your store and give you suggestions for improvement. You can either access the forums from the link at Ecommerce University

or you can go to https://ecommerce.shopify.com/forums.

Stories: One of the best places to visit before you even start setting up your store or make a commitment to join Shopify is the success stories page. This will not only give you motivation to start your own store, it will also give you ideas on how to make your store better or to find a niche that no one else is currently filling and become successful at it like the people in these success stories. Of course, for every success there are probably a thousand failures but it all comes down to how hard a person is willing to work. The link to this page is available from Ecommerce University or is

located at: https://www.shopify.com/success-stories.

Shopify Documentation: The next help section that we’ll cover is the documentation for the Shopify platform; there are four basic areas that are covered by the documentation: Using Shopify Online, Using Shopify POS (Point-of-Sale), Designing Shopify Apps and Designing Shopify Themes. Two of them are useful for store owners and the other two are intended for those designing programs or themes to work with Shopify. You can use the search function to search within these topics and find documentation on these particular topics. The documentation page is located at

https://docs.shopify.com/.

Shopify Manual: The last part of the documentation is the most important part for store owners. It is a comprehensive guide on how to use Shopify, from top to bottom, with screenshots and animations to explain how to do just about everything, including how to set up Shopify features on Amazon and Paypal. The section of the documentation called “Using Shopify Online” pulls almost exclusively from the manual and there are several sections within that topic that are broken down by the manual. They include: orders, discounts, customers, collections, reports, gift cards and more.

You can access the manual by going to https://docs.shopify.com/manual.