Shopify Nigeria – How does Shopify works in Nigeria? 2024 special guide.

I have heard many Nigerians asking questions like how does Shopify works in Nigeria, what is Shopify Nigeria?, Does Shopify really works in Nigeria? Well if you are one of such person then you  are at the right place.

In this article, I am going to be covering all frequently Asked Questions usually asked by all Shopify users and by the end of this article you will know how Shopify works in Nigeria.

So if you are a Nigerian and don’t have any idea of how Shopify works in Nigeria but you really want to set up an online store and start dropshipping business then this article is for you. Keep reading!

What is Shopify ?

Shopify is  a visual marketplace and an all in one global e-commerce solution platform that has found its fret and has keep on growing effortlessly over the years, housing millions of online stores.

The platform was found by three friends and business partners Tobias Lütke, Scott Lake and Daniel Weinand in the year 2006, having it’s headquarters at Ottawa, Canada.

In 2008, Tobias Lütke was appointed the CEO (and has remained in that position till date) Amy E. Shapero the  CFO. And Harley Finkelstein the president.

With Shopify, you can start up, run and grow a successful e-commerce business online.

If you are into selling products like mobile phones, phone accessories, furniture, electronics gadget, jewelries, perfumes, logistics, fashion wears, cars, or anything at all.

building a Shopify store will help you reach a wider and right audience for your products, help you sell better, and also assist you with receiving payments for fulfilled orders.

But as a beginner who is just starting out with dropshipping with zero knowledge, how do you set up a Shopify store?

Setting up a Shopify store in Nigeria is not hard, all you just need is to follow the right step.

But not too worry, we will show you the step by step guide on how you can create a beautiful, attractive and engaging Shopify store that will leave your customers coming back to your store all the time.

But before then, let’s talk about Shopify Nigeria.

What is Shopify Nigeria?

Shopify Nigeria is an e-commerce platform that gives you the privilege of selling products to people around the world, with it’s powerful and advanced  technology and expertise.

Apart from selling and buying purpose, Shopify also has a graduate program tagged Shopify Nigeria Graduate Programs & Internships. It’s a program that brings Nigerians into the Shopify boards as employees.

Technically, Shopify has more than a thousand live stores spread across 15 locations in Nigeria and that is why having staffs representing them in the country is very necessary.

How To Create A Shopify Store

Follow me as I show you the step by step guide on how to create a Shopify store;

To start with, first go to  shopify.com.ng, you will be directed to the Shopify Nigeria home page.

Proceed to the registration portal, as a beginner, it’s advisable to start with the free trial.

So click on “Start Free Trial”  (Shopify offers every new user a 14-day free trial).

After clicking on the ‘free trial”, you will be directed to another page where you will be required to enter your store details.

Fill in your business address
Create a Password
Create your Store Name.

After creating the store name, your store will be automatically created for you and your URL generated. The URL ( store address) comes this way – storename.myshopify.com
Create.

After creating, another page will pop up. This page is where you will fill in all other necessary information about your store, such like your products, the industry, theme, plugins (app)  and all other useful details. But if you are not sure of what to fill in, then you can choose to skip this part and come back to it later .

After that, you can add your existing website (i.e if you have any), then add your contact address and your phone details.

Enter your Store!

After all set and done, you can now start designing your store to your taste.

Start by choosing a light weight beautiful theme, Shopify has thousands of themes that you can choose  from.

Note: while choosing a theme, choose something that aligns with your brand (niche)  i.e a flexible theme that can attract your customer and engage them.

Although, this is where the work lies especially if you have never designed a website before, you might find it hard choosing the right theme color and fonts, although you can hire a Shopify expert to do this for you or head over to YouTube to watch some videos .

But this shouldn’t be a hard nut. If you put your mind to it you will be able to come up with a beautiful  store.

The good thing about this is that even if you have zero knowledge about website design, you can still design a beautiful store with the help of the Shopify themes.

You don’t even have to Know how coding works before you can be able to  set up a store on Shopify. And you might not even need a website designer too so, it’s more like a “done for you” e-commerce store.

Furthermore, you can sell anything online with Shopify, ranging from physical products, digital products, and imported products (mini Importation business).

You can also build a dropshipping e-commerce store where you don’t have to uphold any inventory or even use Shopify to promote your mini importation business and make huge sales.

Shopify Review Overview in Nigeria

We have talked about what Shopify is all about, and I believe we now know what it is.

Simply, we can say Shopify is a platform that helps us create any form of e-commerce store with ease.

With Shopify, you can create a beautiful, attractive and engaging store  in just few minutes and display your product beautifully to boost sales it allows you to create your website within few minutes and sell whatsoever it is you want to sell.

It gives you total control of your store,  freedom to arrange and customize your products including the looks of your store.

With Shopify you can also accept online payments with credit card, debit card, or other payment gateway like PayPal. You can also track, respond and fulfill orders from your store.

However, the cost of running a Shopify store is based on the plan you have chosen because Shopify comes with different billing packages which comes in a monthly basis.

What this means is that,

After the 14 days free trial plan that Shopify gives to every first timer to test and see how Shopify works, you will be required to pay a little Money to keep the site alive.

Fair enough, Shopify is kind enough to give a 10% discount on any plan you choose and decided to pay straight for a year and a 20% discount if you pay straight up for two years.

Shopify Payment Plans – How much does it cost to use Shopify in Nigeria?

Here are the list of Shopify plans their fees and features.

First, once you sign up for Shopify, you will be given the grace to explore Shopify for 14 days free. This is so you can know the features of Shopify and decide if you would really like to create a store with them.

After the 14 days free trial, you will be required to choose either of the three plans below:

Shopify Starter plan: if it’s your first time using Shopify, after the 14 days free trial, it is advisable to go for this plan first before upgrading. With this package, you are only expected to pay $1 per month.

Features: 1 staff member
– 1 to 2 locations
– 1-2% transaction fees for all payments gateways.

Shopify Basic: the second one is the Shopify basic plan this is way cheaper with lots of amazing features.The package comes with $29 per month.

Features: – 2 staff members
– Up to 4 locations
– 2% transaction fees for all payment gateways providers.

Shopify Plan : with this third package, Shopify requires that you pay $79 every month and it comes with amazing features also.

Features: Up to 5 staff members
– Up to 5 locations
– Fraud analysis
– Professional reports
– 1% transaction fees for all payment providers

Advanced Shopify: This is the last package, and just as the name suggest, it comes with advanced features and highly recommended for those who are already making money with Shopify. The plan costs $299 per month.

Features: – Up to 15 staff members
– 8 locations
– Fraud analysis
– Professional reports
-Advanced report builder
– 0.5% transaction fees for all payment providers.

For a start, I will recommend that you go for the Shopify Starter or  Basic plan, as the features will serve you, yet you are not expected to pay so much.

How does Shopify work in Nigeria?

Shopify is particularly good for newbies, those that are just getting started with  eCommerce business. With Shopify, You don’t have to know so much about ecommerce to get started.

All you just have to do is to Sign up for a Free Account – and then Shopify will take you by hand and walk you through out the whole process of creating and designing your store.

The good thing about Shopify is that you get to use the free account to get to know what the platform is all about and get to know your way around it.

How do I get started

Having talked about the registration processes, Let’s now talk about how to get started already.

First, after creating your store, the next step is to upload your product images, set the shipping order and also the product quantity.

Note: upload a quality product image preferable an image from the Supplier along with other informations about the product such as product description and image alt.

No need to panic!

Doing this is much more easier than it might sound, just like i said before, the platform is a ” do it for you” platform, they already have tools to make your journey easier. And for every step you take in setting up your store, there is a software to help automate it without stress.

Quick note: Shopify has  two popular ways of selling online. The first which is – having your product inventory yourself. Which supports promoting your imported products And the second is through Shopify dropshipping.

With Shopify, you can also create a marketplace account just like Jumia and Konga. What these means is that other vendors can register with your website, upload and sell their own products.

After uploading your product image and other necessary information, the next thing to do is to choose a marketing strategy to promote your products.

The way you chose to market your products will determine your success in the business.

Who Can Use Shopify in Nigeria?

Everyone can use Shopify, for as long as you have a  pc, smart phone, strong internet connection, can be patient, consistent and have the marketing skills to promote your business.

The thing is Shopify has a broad range of industries (niche) you can choose from. They include:

• Yoga products
• Fashion and Clothing products
• Health and Fitness products
• Art and Photography
• Electronics Gadgets
• Jewellery and Accessories
• Furniture and Household equipments
• Phone and Phone Accessories
• Sport and Recreation tools
• Food and Beverages
• Home and Garden
• Toys and Games
• Baby products
• Pet products
• Craft and Books
• Home decors
• Solar products
• Digital Products etc

Basically, any thing can be sold on Shopify, the platform is a multipurpose platform making it easy to sell anything at all which is why they stands out among other e-commerce platforms.

The thing is Shopify is just for anyone at all, regardless of your age, status, race etc. Even if you are a beginner with zero knowledge about Shopify you can actually use Shopify with ease.

Even as a small business owner that is just starting out, you can actually start up and run a Shopify store to minimize the stress of starting out a brand new eCommerce site.

As someone with zero skills in website design and or web development, Shopify is the best platform to start with.

With their tons of beautifully designed templates which you can take advantage of to design a beautiful store, you don’t even need to pay an extra money hiring a website designer to build your store for you.

Furthermore, Shopify also offers offline solutions. It allows you to integrate your brick and mortar traditional store with Shopify.

Finally, just any one can use Shopify and without stress including beginners who just got introduced to e-commerce business and has zero or little knowledge about e-commerce business.

Shopify Payment Gateway in Nigeria

With Shopify, you don’t have to worry about making payments, Shopify got you covered with their tons of payment gateways and payment processing softwares.

Shopify has two different ways of receiving payment or processing payments. They include:

First you can either use the Shopify payment or an external payment gateway like PayPal, paystack, or cashenvoy.

Apart from the above mentioned payment methods, Shopify has several other payment gateways.

As a Nigerian, if you are selling to people abroad, let’s say USA for instance. That means, you will be expecting your money in dollar instead of naira.

So in other to receive payment for your products you either use  the company payment processor I.e Shopify payment or PayPal.

Don’t worry!

The Shopify payment charges isn’t much, it only charges credit card fees which is just for accepting Money for you from your customer

And moreover, the charges rate is similar to that of Paypal the charges rate are from  2.9% + $0.30 per transaction and fair enough, the charges goes down as your sales go up.

Also, if you are selling to Nigerians, you are most likely to receive payment in Naira, this means that you will not be using Shopify payment.

But you will be using a third party payment processor like paystack and CashEnvoy to receive payment.

What is paystack?

Paystack is a Nigeria based Fintech company that makes online payments process easy for both the sender and the receiver. Same thing goes with CashEnvoy.

They both make it easier to accept payment through credit and debit card online from customers.

Paystack charges- payment charges 1.5% + N100 per transaction on Naira cards (card issued by Nigeria banks). However, the N100 is waved on every transaction below N2500.

The best way to deal with and over come these charges is to pass it along to your customer. The 1.5% +N100 on a N10000 transaction are N250.

Passing the charges to your customer simply means – making your price N10250 instead of the N10000 actual price. With this, you will receive your N10000 and Paystack will collect their own share of N250.

Is Web hosting Included in the Shopify plan?

No! With Shopify, You won’t have to pay extra charges for web hosting, Shopify is a cloud-hosted e-commerce platform. As part of your monthly plan, Shopify will host your website with unlimited bandwidth at no extra cost.

This means that even if you are receiving millions of visitors every month, you won’t be charged aside your monthly plan.

The good thing about Shopify is that they handle the entire process of the web hosting for you. While you focus on the most important things, like promoting your products.

Shopify also backs up your data for you automatically every day. So you don’t need to be afraid of loosing your data in case of any glitch.

They also take care of security upgrades of their servers and also make sure that your website is up and running and safe from cyber frauds. And they also make sure that your customer data is secured.

With Shopify, your online shop will be level 1 PCI compliant. While your shopping cart also includes an SSL certificate of industry-standard 128-bit encryption technology.

This is the same level of encryption used by the top banks.  Having all these in your store make it easy and safe to buy products from your online store.

How to Add Product Inventory in Shopify

Having a clear and standard product image makes your store stands out among others and beautifies it.

A quality image of your products helps your customer to see what your products looks like, usually a ‘jpg’ image file type is more worthy or fit for a Shopify store homepage than ‘png’

So how do I add  a product image? Very simple! to add a product image, all you just need to do is to login to your Shopify dashboard, and then click on the product tag.

A page will pop up, from this page you will be able to set all the related details to your products.

From the editor page, you can easily fill in the Shopify product image details. Like the title and description, this helps to show your store visitors or customers what your products is all about.

After filling out the form, the next is the Shopify product description. On the editors page, you will see an icon at the top right corner , this is where you can upload your ‘jpg’ image file . which can also be done through drag and drop.

After uploading, the next thing is to add the price details of the product. There are many ways of adding the product price details.

After updating the product price details, then Shopify would ask you if you want your product to be published immediately. From there, you can set your product to be published immediately so that your customers would see or you can decide to leave it on your draft.

If you want to publish your image immediately and make your product visible for your customers to see just click on the save button and your product will be published immediately.

Advantages of using Shopify E-commerce platform

Let’s talk about the advantages of using Shopify for your E-commerce business:

1.Over 100 beautiful and professional themes

Shopify has over a hundred (100+) both paid and free beautiful and professional templates, that you can use to awe your visitors. The platform is all about beauty, professionalism and simplicity.

2. App Store (plugins)

Shopify offers a large App Store or plugins where you can choose from over 1200 different Apps to plug into your store. These plugins helps to automate lots of your business processes. Making things easy for you.

3. Site Speed

Your site speed is the amount of time your website or store takes to load, when it comes to websites or stores, your site Speed matters a lot, and this is  a ranking factor for as long as Google is concerned.

Of course you wouldn’t keep your customers waiting for ages for your site to load before they can access your store or make a purchase. Of course they will end up getting frustrated and ends up checking the next available store.

But with Shopify in place, you don’t need to be worried about all this as Shopify stores load in a matter of 2-6 seconds.

4. Security

With Shopify, you can be sure of your safety, as Shopify takes their security very serious so your store sensitive data, payment processe are save from bugs and cyber thugs.

5. 24/7 Shopify support

Shopify customer care support is top notch, it has a 24/7 customer support so you can be sure to reach out to them through phone, live chat, or email any day and anytime you are having issues.

Disadvantages of using Shopify E-commerce Platform

Just like the saying goes, anything that has an advantage also has a disadvantage. Here are some issues you are likely to encounter while using Shopify.

1. Payment gateways:

When it comes to processing payment, Shopify needs to provide more payment gateways for some of this developing countries. While Nigerians can use Paystack or Cashenvoy, Merchant in Ghana can use Ravepay but other countries like togo, Zimbabwe etc are still lagging behind.

Again, when it comes to the cost per month and the cost of the transaction using a third payment gateway, Shopify payments doesn’t work in Nigeria and Ghana expect the third party payment processors.

Shopify Review Conclusion

Shopify Nigeria is very easy to use and beginner friendly, and when it comes to how Shopify works in Nigeria, both beginners and professional can use Shopify with ease.

Moreover, setting up a beautiful professional store with Shopify can be done in few minutes, without hiring a freelancer.

they also have a full 24/7 customer support team irrespective of your plan.  To add to it, Shopify offers everything you will be needing to run a successful online store.

And with Shopify your e-commerce store will be completely optimized for search engines.

If you are not really sure about Shopify, at least try the 14days free trial to see how the platform works.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here are most of the frequently asked questions about the Shopify platform in Nigeria:

1. What is Shopify payment gateway in Nigeria or how do I receive payment after selling my products on Shopify?

Shopify uses this third party payment gateway to receive money. For Nigerians you can use this payment gateways to receive money.

Paystack
CashEnvoy-ESL
Rave by Flutterwave
Coinbase Commerce
Bitpay
GoCoin
Bitpay
PayPal

PayPal is the most flexible it allows you to receive payment Worldwide. Irrespective of your location.

2. Does Shopify work in Nigeria or Ghana?

Answer: Shopify works perfectly  for both Nigerians and Ghanaians

3. Can I sell from Nigeria to international countries using Shopify?

Yes! As a merchant in Nigeria, you can sell to any country using Shopify store. But then, Payment gateway for US dollar should be PayPal or any other that works in your location. But PayPal is much more recommended.

4. Will I pay a commission fee on my sold products to Shopify?

No ! No commissions is paid to Shopify. Traders are in full control of their store. However, payment processing varies by processor and this is where Shopify might require you to pay money. Not to them though but to the payment gateway company.

Let me hear your thought or  suggestion on this Shopify review in Nigeria. If you have anything to add also, we are at the comment section.

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