You seek to know how to create a shopify store ? You want to get started in ecommerce and you want to know the steps to create your Shopify store? Or are you looking for a specialist to create your own Shopify store for you? You've come to the right place to learn all about building a Shopify store!
Shopify is an e-commerce solution that has been on the rise for several years now and which is gradually establishing itself as the essential solution for creating an online store.
But creating an e-commerce site is not always easy, let's see together how to succeed in this challenge.
Summary
- Pikka, Shopify store builder
- Create your Shopify store with an agency
- Create your Shopify store with a freelancer
- Create your own Shopify store
Before going any further, let's do the presentations with our agency, at the origin of this article.
Pikka, Shopify store builder
At Pikka, our job is to create e-commerce sites and this for many years now. We have tried many solutions and methods to always optimize the creation of an online store.
Today we exclusively use Shopify to create e-shops in order to offer our customers the best on the e-commerce market.
But if you are here, it is certainly that you are already convinced of the Shopify solution so let's see together how to create your store
Create your Shopify store with an agency
It is certainly the No. 1 solution chosen by e-merchants for one main reason: to obtain a professional and serious online store that will build customer confidence.
To create a Shopify store with an agency, you can contact Pikka at 01 84 25 92 21 or by email at contact@pikka.fr, specifying several points for the most qualitative treatment of your request:
- Your contact details (last name, first name, email, professional telephone)
- A presentation of your project (design, logo, description or any other document)
- An order of magnitude of your planned budget for the construction of the store
- Some examples of products you plan to sell
Note that this obviously also works in the context of a redesign of a merchant site or a migration vers Shopify.
Create an online store in partnership with a agence e-commerce certified Shopify Partners allows you to give your project every chance of success from the start.
The advantages of creating your shopify store with an agency.
It is undeniable that going through an e-commerce agency is the number reflex for merchants to have the best site, but are there other advantages? Yes of course.
There is always someone to manage your project
An agency, unlike a freelancer, will always have someone to answer the phone or email in order to move your project forward. A Shopify consultant or a project manager is sick? Someone can take over within the agency.
A more framed methodology
Going through an agency to build your Shopify store also means benefiting from a more structured methodology and process. It is the guarantee of having a site of better technical quality very often and tests. And yes, there are more people who will work on the project and therefore we have to organize ourselves.
A clearer project view
Another advantage, better organization can allow you to benefit from a much more precise view of the project and the deadlines. You can benefit from a schedule, weekly points, a dedicated project manager who is, for example, a specialist in the V method or the agile project method, for example.
Delegate the project
Go through an agency to create your merchant site allows you to delegate many time-consuming and/or very technical tasks that you or your team might not have been able to handle on your own. If you're short on time, this is the perfect solution so you don't overload your schedule even more.
And even if some e-commerce solutions, including Shopify, are sometimes mistakenly called "No Code" may suggest that the creation will be less technical, this is rarely the case when discussing subjects such as the creation of a personalized graphic charter or developments specific to your brand.
Are there any disadvantages?
But going through an agency may not be for you, there are indeed some less interesting points to go through an agency, let's see which ones.
This requires larger budgets.
Creating your Shopify store with an agency requires a larger budget than if you do it with a freelancer or yourself.
An agency is more structured and therefore has higher fixed costs.
It is essential to know that on projects exceeding 10,000 €, the intervention of an agency is almost mandatory, no other solution being able to allow you to achieve your objectives. A freelancer will be too slow or too small to manage this type of mission and carrying it out alone will be too uncertain.
You have to find the right agency
Essential point for a successful Shopify store creation project with an agency: Choose the right one. This is the whole purpose of the guide we have created for choose your e-commerce agency.
If this is the agency's first Shopify project, beware the potential danger. If the agency is poorly organized or has accepted too many projects at the same time, you may also have problems with resources or planning.
An agency that is not suited to the size of your company, too young, too old, too small, too big, etc. can also cause you problems.
Create your Shopify store with a freelancer
It is also possible to create your Shopify store with a freelancer, this has advantages and disadvantages like all the other solutions. You should know that there are few free Shopify "dev" freelancers, they are often underwater with many projects. Not always easy to find.
Create your Shopify store with a freelancer: The advantages
A tighter budget
Going through a freelancer to create your Shopify store often means having a tighter budget for the same amount of work than an agency, but it can also be to the detriment of the project or the freelancer. Estimating a project is a daunting task and many freelancers underestimate the time needed to complete projects due to lack of knowledge or fear of charging more.
Sometimes this is to the advantage of the client when the project comes out on time for a tight budget, sometimes it is to the detriment of the client with extended deadlines or less motivated freelancers after a few months.
A definite passion for Shopify
It must be recognized that very often, freelancers are passionate about their tools and the web and this can be felt in the projects. Knowledge of the platform is often their strong point and they do not count the time to spend spreading "the good word" to evangelize a market. For a client, it is an opportunity to train throughout the project. Please note that this point is not systematic for all freelancers and depends a lot on the freelance / client relationship, but it does exist regularly.
Create your Shopify store with a freelancer: The cons
Poor time management
The big flaw in having your shop developed Shopify by a freelancer is the risk it represents in terms of time and follow-up. It is not uncommon for Pikka clients to contact us following the abandonment of their project by a freelancer who has found a job or who has changed paths.
It's not systematic either, but it does happen. The Shopify freelancer accepts a big project or a newer one and your unfinished one will drag on for months. It is a risk to take into account, the more time will pass, the more the motivation of the freelancer for your project will decrease.
Variable skills
Declare yourself as a Shopify expert or Shopify partners is not very complicated for anyone. And some freelancers abuse it by pretending to be experts when they have never coded a single line of theme on Shopify for example.
If your project is a basic store with a theme then no worries, it can do it. But if it comes down to adding applications on top of each other without thinking or thinking, this can cause you serious maintenance and sustainability concerns for the e-commerce platform!
Create your own Shopify store
Another possibility to create your shopify store is to do it alone. Again this solution is not made for everyone, but who knows, it may be the one that suits you?
Create your shopify site independently, why?
You will master your platform from A to Z
The main advantage of creating your shopify store on your own is that you can learn by doing it, so you will have a clear and clear knowledge of what you have created, added or modified in your store. If you are a little rigorous and you have written down all this in Notion, for example, you will be able to find your way around much more easily.
The necessary budget is almost nil
Another non-negligible advantage for many merchants, creating their shop on their own saves on development costs. There are of course other disadvantages in return that we will see a little later but on the budget side, you will not find anything more economical at first, even if you have to pay attention to the hidden costs.
You will learn new skills
Learning is always a very stimulating activity! Creating your own shopify store is an adventure that deserves to be experienced at least once if you like challenges. Well, you'll have to cram a little documentation, but no need to go through Shopify's 4,000 pages of technical documentation in detail either! A good Shopify book can do the trick.
But there are downsides!
But creating your shopify store alone has some disadvantages all the same, some of which are quite penalizing.
Creating your own store is difficult
On the technical side, Shopify has done things well and it is not too hard to have a functional back office and to install a theme. It's done quite well. But the rest is a bit more complicated and can represent real sticking points when you haven't studied the solution in detail.
How to create such a feature? Where is such information? Why does this app not work with this one? Why is this piece of code found on the Shopify forum not working? In short, it is possible to block long hours and become discouraged.
Stopping the creation of your Shopify store along the way would be the worst thing to do, but unfortunately it sometimes happens.
You risk getting an unprofessional result
This point is for me the most risky when you build your own shop without going through a expert Shopify, whether a freelancer or an agency. Building your store alone is the risk of missing out on what makes a good merchant site and what allows you to sell.
It's taking the risk of making SEO mistakes on your site that could cost much more than the project itself or even disrupt any sales growth without even understanding the origin of the problem.
Very often, the technical recovery of this kind of site is extremely complicated and does not allow the existing one to be reused. It is therefore a hidden cost and a technical debt that you maintain by creating your shopify store without help.
So how should you create your Shopify store?
As you have seen, there is no ideal solution for creating your Shopify store, but several ways to do it that greatly depend on your site creation budget.
The higher this budget, the more you will be able to surround yourself with experts to gain speed and quality in the creation of your e-shop. In any case, do not hesitate to contact our Shopify team to obtain a personalized quote and support on your project!
