Starting a Shopify store for the first time is such a fun experience. It can also be a bit nerve-wracking if you don't know all the Shopify tricks that allow you to create a better online store. One of the biggest mistakes new store owners make involves over-optimizing the wrong things while forgetting a few of the essentials. In this article, we'll break down the Shopify tips that'll help you master the basics while making sure you're focusing on the right stuff.
8 Shopify Tips All New Store Owners Need to Know
1. Price Your Products with Whole Numbers to Build Trust
Most online retailers who are looking to seem affordable add cents to all their prices. Walmart tends to end their prices with .97, while the average online retailer prices their products with .99 at the end. If you're trying to position your brand as a bargain, adding cents might help make your brand seem more affordable.
However, not all dropshipping brands need to play the budget game. You can position your brand to appear more reputable by adding solid prices like Nike does.
Fortunately, you don't need to manually create the ending of prices for your products on Shopify. If you want all your prices to end in .97 like Walmart, .99 like the average budget brand, or a solid number to seem more professional, you can use a Shopify setting to make it happen automatically.
You can do this in Settings > General > Store defaults > Change currency formatting.
2. Add All Your Policies to the Footer
One of the biggest things new store owners forget to do is add policies to their website. Often, when customers browse websites, they want to look at the return policies to ensure that they can get a refund in case products are defective. Policies also add an element of legitimacy to your website and make your store more trustworthy.
Fortunately, you don't need to manually create your own policies from scratch. You can take or modify the ones in your Shopify dashboard. However, keep in mind that you'll be required to follow the policies on your website. If you accept refunds in your policies, then you also need to accept refunds when a customer asks for it.
From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Policies. You can add or generate the following policies for your Shopify store:
- Return policy
- Privacy policy
- Terms of service
- Shipping policy
- Legal notice
- Subscription policy
3. Update Your Product Inventory Monthly
With DSer's one-click product import, people often get a bit eager and add hundreds of products in one go. But fight the urge to fill your product page with hundreds of listings.
Focus on adding less than 25 products to your online store on your first day. It’s tempting to add them all but you'll be more likely to succeed if you focus on a smaller batch first.
Then, every week or every month, depending on how much time you have to work on your store, add a bunch of new products.
What you want to signal to Google (powerhouse of organic traffic) is that you update your website regularly. If you post all your products on day one and never post another product again, Google sees that you get traffic but they don't see the need to crawl your website. When you add new products, blog posts, or pages regularly, Google's crawlers are aware of it.
The more you update your website, the more active your website appears and so the more organic traffic you'll get back to your website.
So as an online retailer, create a schedule for how often you can manage adding new products. If you can do one new product a day—great. If you can only do 25 products a month—also great. But try to maintain a schedule that you can keep over the long-term to benefit from organic search traffic.
4. Promote on Free Channels if You Don’t Have a Big Marketing Budget
For immediate, high-impact visibility without a marketing budget, you should prioritize short-form video and treat your content platforms as search engines. Focus your efforts on creating authentic and entertaining content for TikTok and Instagram Reels. These platforms currently offer the largest organic reach, allowing you to showcase your products and build an audience from zero followers.
At the same time, treat Pinterest as a powerful visual search engine: use strong, specific keywords in your Pin titles and descriptions, and utilize Idea Pins to tell a story about your products, linking directly back to your site to capture free, purchase-ready traffic.
For a long-term, sustainable traffic stream, develop a strategic outreach and content plan. Instead of paying high rates to large personalities, find micro-influencers (1k–10k followers) and offer them free products in exchange for honest reviews or posts, which is highly cost-effective and generates genuine engagement. Complement this with SEO-focused content marketing by creating helpful guides or blog posts that naturally incorporate and link to your products, establishing your site as an authority and ensuring a steady flow of high-quality, free traffic from Google searches.
This can be a bit of a long-term slow play. But by doing this, you'll be less likely to break-even on your acquisition costs and you could actually build a profitable online store.
5. Always Test Your Store's Mobile Friendliness
Before you run your first ad campaign, you need to double check to see what your website looks like on mobile. That’s because most people are shopping on their cell phones.
Sometimes, when looking over your website on a different device you might notice that images aren't resized properly. By knowing that the model's face in the picture is cut off, you might choose to crop the picture differently so that it appears in the same format as the desktop version.
Mobile testing is especially important if your main sources of traffic are from ads, influencer marketing or if traffic comes from an app like Instagram or Pinterest.
To test on mobile, all you need to do is visit your website on your phone or tablet. Browse every page of your website and look for cut-off pictures, hidden calls to action, and monitor how much scrolling you need to do on each page.
You can also use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to analyze your website's performance on mobile devices, providing a score and specific, actionable recommendations to improve loading speed, fix usability issues, and enhance the overall user experience.
6. Use Dropshipping to Sell Ready-Made Products on Your Store
If you've just signed up for Shopify or are thinking of signing up for Shopify, you might not know what to sell. Some Shopify store owners sell unique products that they create themselves. Other online retailers purchase bulk inventory at wholesale prices. You can also create print on demand products which allow you to customize your own products. And with dropshipping platforms, you can browse millions of products that you can start selling the same day without having to buy inventory.
The fastest way to start an online store is to sell proven products. Using AliExpress, you can browse products by viewing order volume to determine the product's popularity. You can also view trending products to find the best-selling products right now. By selling proven products instead of trying to create your own, you give yourself a head start to success.
The cool thing about dropshipping products is that you don't need to buy inventory up front. You only pay for the product once the product is sold to a real, paying customer. This helps keep your startup costs low making it a bit more affordable for the average person to start a business.
7. Customize the Theme as Little as Possible
Shopify allows you to customize your theme anyway you want. Amazing! But just because you can customize in any way, doesn't always mean you should. So, if you're a new entrepreneur one of the best Shopify tips is to customize your store as little as possible.
A professional designer created the theme you installed on your store. If it worked well enough for you to install it, it can work great at converting customers too.
When it comes to theme design, focus on changing the images so they're relevant to your brand. If your theme works best for up to a certain number of products, optimize your store for that number or change your theme.
Companies hire professional designers to modify the look of their website. If it's not broken, don't fix it. Save your energy for promoting your business.
8. Create a Text Logo
Use a logo maker to create a logo for you. It helps you design a logo without needing design skills.
However, one of the biggest mistakes is when people have a colored store background and they've downloaded their logo as a .jpg instead of .png you end up with this awkward white box around your logo. And this makes you a dead giveaway for being a total newb.
Brands like Lulus or MVMT Watches have very minimalist logos. They may add a small graphic beside their name but overall the emphasis is on the name rather than on the design.
As a store owner, you'll be wearing a lot of hats. And if you're building a print on demand store, design skills are one of those hats. However, if you're dropshipping with Shopify, you don't necessarily need to be a great graphic designer. Keep it simple.
You also want to watch out for image resolution. Many stores will have pixelated logos because they didn't create a logo of the right size for the platform. Each theme will have its own dimensions that you'll need to optimize your logo for. You can contact your theme creator so you can get the logo dimensions right.
Use These Shopify Tips to Increase Your Sales
These Shopify tips will help you simplify the process of running your online store. By trying out some of these tips on your Shopify store, you'll be able to build the right foundation to help set you up for success. Your online store doesn't need to be as big as your competitors on day one. You can build up to become a bigger brand over time.
It's okay to keep your store simple in the beginning with fewer products, ready-made templates, and text-based logos. Remember that support is available when you need it, whether through applications, professional services, or community resources. Ultimately, your success will boil down to your determination to succeed. So get your products in front of as many eyeballs as you can to help your online store's sales grow.
Shopify Tips FAQ
What Are the Most Important Shopify Tips for New Store Owners to Quickly Build Customer Trust?
Make sure you add all essential legal policies (Return, Privacy, Terms of Service) to your website’s footer so potential customers can review them easily, which adds an element of legitimacy and professionalism to your brand, encouraging them to complete a purchase.
How Can I Drive Free Traffic to My New Shopify Store With a Small Marketing Budget?
Focus your promotional efforts on free organic channels, especially short-form video on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels for immediate reach. Additionally, schedule regular updates to your product inventory or blog to signal activity to Google, which is key for earning long-term organic search traffic.
As a New Store Owner, What Is the Best Shopify Tip for Logo Design?
The best advice is to keep it simple and opt for a text-based logo. Many beginners struggle with graphic design, and using a text-based logo prevents common mistakes like pixelation or awkward white boxes from incorrect file types, ensuring a professional look.