Congratulations on your decision to upgrade your online store to Shopify. To help make the process as fast and painless as possible, we’ve put together this resource to get you started.
Below you’ll find a tool to help you import your existing store, important information about using Shopify as well as some of the differences you can expect to find between our platform and some of the other ecommerce providers.
Shopify Import Tool
To help get you up and running quickly on Shopify, we’ve developed a convenient import tool that allows you to transfer your existing product catalogue over to our platform.
Whether you’re coming from Volusion, Wordpress, Magento, Bigcommerce, eBay, Etsy, or others, this tool is a convenient way to assist with the migration process.
Get Started Now
Some Things To Look Out For
Shopify offers a lot of power and flexibility, but we do do some things differently than other ecommerce platforms. Here are some things to look out for:
Collections
Here at Shopify we use ‘collections’ in place of what other ecommerce companies call categories. Based on our testing, we find that grouping your products in high level collections and then using ‘tags’ to specify sub categories provides a better user experience for the customer when navigating and searching for products on your website.
In addition to regular collections, we also have ‘smart collections’ that let you set simple rules that automatically place products in them based on factors like price and inventory. For example you could create a ‘Stocking Stuffer’ smart collection with a rule that adds any items in your store that are under $20.00.
Variants
A product variant (or variant for short) is a different version of a product, such as a size or a color. Without variants, you would have to treat the small, medium and large versions of a t-shirt as three separate products. Variants let you treat the small, medium and large versions of a t-shirt as variations of the same product.
Learn more about product variants.
Linklists
In Shopify, a linklist is (as the name suggests) a collection of links. The main purpose of linklists is to create menus and submenus in your store’s navigation. A brand new shop has one linklist for the Main Menu, and another for the Footer, both of which cannot be deleted. You edit your linklists, and create new ones, on the Navigation page in your shop admin.
Automatic Tax Calculations for U.S. Shops
One thing many U.S. based shop owners switching to Shopify aren’t aware is our automatic tax calculation feature. All the customer needs to do is enter their Zip code and Shopify takes care of the necessary tax calculations automatically.
Learn more about tax calculation by Zip code.
Shopify Apps
The Shopify App Store is a collection of free and premium plugins that extend the functionality of your online store and is a great way to add more specialized features to Shopify. From displaying customer reviews, upsells, advanced shipping and fulfillment and more, there's an app for almost anything.
Still have questions? Contact a Shopify Guru now.
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13 comments
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October 09 2013, 11:43AMAs long as stores are setup as Canadian stores, we do automatic tax calculations. Hope that answers your question! :)
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January 25 2014, 03:31AMI want to join SHOPIFY in order to sell my artworks that are currently being hosted on www.fineartamerica.com and their other sister sites…How do I go about that?
Also, I want to sell hand-drawn T-shirts before they go into mass production..How do I protect the images from copyright violations..?
Thanks -
February 20 2014, 10:25PMWould love to see more help or “how to” guidelines on importing catalog csv files from other e-commerce platforms, not just ebay and magento.
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March 25 2014, 07:05AMI have customers who buy around the world. My shop will be in USD, even though I live in Canada. How do I manage tax for the countries outside the country of my chosen shop?
What is the best way to display a library of Poature Videos without a video theme?
Thank you for your help.
http://www.posturevideos.com
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April 11 2014, 07:46PMI use square. What are the advantages if I change to shoplify?
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April 26 2014, 01:53PMMy company is based in Spain where the VAT rate is 21% for services.
The automatic on-line rate on Shopify is showing as 18%..how do I change it to 21% ? -
May 04 2014, 08:37PMhow do i retain my domain name , on wix , while switching from wix to shopify
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May 13 2014, 04:30PMI am a fine art painter…I DON’T think that your site will help me..i deal in small amounts….I would like to disengage from Shopify thanks glc
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May 28 2014, 06:55AMMy shop is currently at Etsy. They are running some beta test and we have NO control over our shops. I don’t want to get into another situation like THAT. I am going to read more about your site and consider using it. Do you have an art page that someone is successfully using that I can view??
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June 02 2014, 01:25AMi am in used furniture business and would like to sell online but i am based in UAE how my customers will contact me thre facebook i would like to be amazon of middle easr
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June 15 2014, 04:46PMwas told this was completely FREE
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July 26 2017, 03:04AMSuch a great article and a great tool. You are looking for a Magento developer then you can contact us at https://goo.gl/pgkY7p.
Thanks for the share.
Automatic tax calculations for Canadian stores too please!