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Chances are, you’re looking forward to selling on Shopify but are not ready to commit to a monthly paid subscription, or cannot afford to try the platform! Here’s where a free trial usually comes into place. So, does Shopify have a free trial? This is what I’m about to share with you!
Shopify offers a 14-day free trial that gives you access to the entire platform without paying any money yet! It allows you to set up your store, customize it, add products, and integrate a payment gateway! However, in order to receive orders and capture real payments, you should pay for a monthly subscription plan!
In this article, we will discuss what’s actually included in the Shopify free trial, what happens after the trial expires, and how can you take advantage of this period to build a store that you’re proud to own and promote!
So, if you’re considering starting a Shopify store, this article can help you get the most out of your time, your budget, and your 2-week free trial!
If you find this post inspiring and useful, share it with your friends, please! (Virtual high fives and awkward hugs to all my sharers out there)
What Is Shopify Free Trial?
Shopify free trial is a 2-week period that allows you to get familiar with the innovative Shopify drag-and-drop page builder, without paying any money! The free trial usually determines whether you will continue using the service or drop it entirely!
At the time of writing this blog post, Shopify offers a 14-day free trial which I believe is totally enough to set up your store, customize it, add products, make some test orders, and other sales preparations before even paying a single dime.
You are not asked to provide any credit card details in the trial period, and you have full access to all of the platform’s features. However, you can’t receive orders and start selling online unless you subscribe to a paid plan.
Find more information about Shopify’s different plans and features in this ultimate Shopify pricing guide.
Your store should look good, have a great and inviting look, and most importantly you have to make sure that every piece of the puzzle is in its place, that’s why a trial period is crucial.
Shopify Free Trial Benefits
- You get to surf behind the scenes and see how it works.
- Explore the themes available, the free and the paid ones.
- You can create an actual store.
- Add products and collections.
- Add your policies and pages.
- Create a unique logo for your store.
- Run test sales.
- Get access to the Shopify admin’s panel, and experience selling online.
Related: Want to learn how to start a Shopify store for free? You will love this article!
What Is The Current Shopify Free Trial Period?
The current Shopify free trial runs for 14 days, and it starts after you register your free account, not when you start working on your store! After this period you need to pick up a paid plan to be able to receive orders and issue transactions.
Even if you choose a payment plan upon your free trial registration, Shopify won’t charge you during this period, they will bill you once the trial period runs down.
Wondering what happens after the Shopify free trial expires? Check out my other article here.
What Are The Shopify Payment Plans?
There are 3 main subscription plans for Shopify; Basic, Shopify, and Advanced. Although the basic package comes with limited and basic features, it’s ideal for beginners who are just starting out with the platform, and you can always upgrade as your business grows.
| Features | Basic | Shopify | Advanced |
| Price | $29/month | $79/month | $299/month |
| Staff accounts | 2 | 5 | 15 |
| Online credit card rates | 2.9% + 30¢ USD | 2.6% + 30¢ USD | 2.4% + 30¢ USD |
In fact, Shopify’s subscription plans determine not only your store’s features and functions but your business cost as well! Generally speaking, you should be prepared to invest a minimum of $29 a month (for a Shopify subscription only!)
If you want to learn in-depth about how much Shopify costs in 2023, consider reading this quick pricing guide that discusses exactly that!
What Does Shopify Provide?
- Professional support
- App store and tools that extend the functionality of your store
- In-built tools
- Simple drag-and-drop layout (No coding needed)
- and many more
How To Manage Your FREE TRIAL?
Shopify’s free trial is designed to make you familiar with the platform and the different tabs inside of your dashboard, and if you know exactly what you’re doing, you could technically start, customize and edit your store for free. You may even be ready for orders before the trial ends!
The faster you finish setting up and customizing your store, the earlier you start getting profitable before paying for the subscription plan.
To help you get the most out of your free trial, I’m sharing with you some steps that allow you to spend your 2 weeks on things that matter only, and by the time you finish the trial be completely ready for real orders.
1. Research & Choose a Niche
While you can sell anything on Shopify, you can’t sell everything, because you simply can’t compete with big guys like Amazon, Aliexpress, and eBay, and secondly, a niche makes you able to know exactly who your target audience is!
This step is crucial for your Shopify business because a niche will determine the type of products you’re going to sell, and would also determine the name of your store, which will also affect the name of your domain name and your site’s branding in general!
Therefore, it’s always advisable to pick a certain niche and then go find an available domain name. Although Shopify doesn’t give a free domain upon registration, it allows you to purchase one through the Shopify platform itself without leaving the site, and integrating it with a peaceful mind.
Alternatively, if you’re a tech person and want to save a couple of dollars, you can always purchase a domain name from an external registrar like NameCheap, and go integrate it manually through your Shopify store by going to your dashboard – Online store – Domains.
In short, this research is very useful to decide what products to sell, get familiar with your competitors, and see how you are going to position yourself in the market.
2. Pick Some Products For Your Store
Through the research phase, you will be able to create a “wish list”, which is a list of products you wish to sell.
If, for example, you are planning to use Shopify for dropshipping, you can also use supplier platforms to discover the highest-selling products in your target niche.
When it comes to finding products and suppliers, you need to pick up only quality suppliers with a next-to-zero default rate.
Although Shopify is a great eCommerce page builder that’s supportive of dropshipping, it’s not only limited to that business model and you can use it to sell anything online, anywhere!
You can use Shopify to sell physical goods, digital products, and services, books, or even start your own blog. If you want a wider. Click to learn what is Shopify used for & how to use it as a beginner.
3. Choose a Trustworthy Supplier
There are various dropshipping suppliers that let you list their products on your Shopify store. Some of them include Oberlo, Chinabrands, SaleHoo, and Worldwide Brands among others.
Oberlo is a useful app, you connect it to Shopify and download its extension on Chrome, you can import any product to your Shopify store with a click, edit its description and price and simply publish it!
Oberlo is a fulfillment app on the first level, besides that, they have a marketplace for products and suppliers.
Many think that Oberlo is totally a free app, it’s basically free for a limit. It’s a free app until you start getting 50 orders a month or more. Don’t panic, at that point, you’ll actually be making money.
In the free version, it allows you to import up to 500 items on your store, so if you want to import more products with too many variants, especially if you are willing to sell apparel, you need to upgrade your account, but it’s fine, you can start with the free version of it, and it’s very useful.
Now if you want a strong suppliers platform, I always recommend SaleHoo. It’s a product-research tool that connects you with trustworthy and solid brands such as Lego Adidas, Nike, Disney, and more!
Here’s what you can expect from this strong platform
In SaleHoo, you can assess the reliability of a supplier using various factors:
- The cost of goods
- The number of suppliers on the platform
- The number of products the dropshipping supplier offers
- Do they fulfill orders automatically?
- What is the product’s quality?
- Shipping times
- Will the supplier let you brand the products in your store’s name?
- Do they ship globally?
4. Start With Marketing Influencers
Influencers are people with a wide follower base on social media platforms. You basically pay them to talk with their followers about your brand, and it’s the fastest way to get instant exposure and awareness.
They will post and recommend your products, and you will receive high-potential leads that are highly interested in your business.
Pro Tip: A good plan is to start with influencers before you even launch your store, they will offer pre-order options, and once your store is up and running you will receive a lot of traffic which will be converted into sales.
When choosing an influencer, you need to make sure that they’re trusted with a good record, you don’t want fake numbers.
When it comes to influencer marketing, everything matters, the click-through rate (CTR), the engagement rate, the number of posts, and the follower base itself.
That’s why you need a trusted platform like ShoutCart.
I always recommend this platform because it connects you with popular influencers to get your brand in front of its audience! A 600M+ follower and subscriber network, simple setup, guaranteed, and secure process.
Click to learn more about ShoutCart.
5. Create Your Pages And Policies
Your customers won’t get the chance to physically touch your products, so your images should deliver high experience expectations.
It’s important to have a good description of every single product as well, indicating all benefits, features, and problems that the product solves.
Your website should contain the needed pages that will take responsibility to educate people about what is your business all about.
Some pages take place in the header of the homepage, like collections, about us, and contact us, while other pages take place in the footer. A good example of these pages is a privacy policy, terms of service, and others.
Conclusion
The way that Shopify works is that it hosts eCommerce websites and allows people to start a digital storefront in a matter of minutes, without any coding or technical skills!
It makes it easy for you to try the platform, completely for free, with a 14-day trial that requires no money or credit card authorization.
In this article, we have discussed what’s included in the Shopify free trial along with the best tips and practices for getting the most out of this 2-week period.
If you’re hesitant about what Shopify plan to choose or whether Shopify is worth the cost or not, the ultimate way to figure this out is by testing it yourself.
I would recommend you grab the free trial, surf the platform, test its water, and see if it’s right for you and your business. Want to kickstart your Shopify business? Leave your info below to get instant access to our 8-video free mini-course!
Feel free to reach out to me via email if you need anything, and if you find this post inspiring and useful, share it with your friends, please! (Virtual high fives and awkward hugs to all my sharers out there)
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Cheers,
Odeh Ahwal
