Brick-and-Mortar Store Work with Shopify Tutorial

Suppose you already operate a brick-and-mortar store and are considering opening an online store with Shopify. In that case, you might be wondering how the process flow will be or if doing this works.

Don’t fret because business owners in different parts of the world are doing this as well. It is undeniable that company owners are struggling as a result of the economy.

Many of them adopt their e-commerce website in the hope of reviving their company. Let the following points guide you if you already have a brick-and-mortar place.

Inform Customers Of Your Physical Shop

You certainly want to inform customers who visit your shop that you have an e-commerce website where they can purchase your items. This means that if they're at home and considering visiting your shop, they can simply check online to see if you have the product they're looking for.

That is a far simpler job than driving to your store or even calling to inquire about the availability of the product they are seeking. What you're essentially doing is providing your customers with an instant way to look up a product they're interested in. This then requires you to list certain items on your website.

Offer Complimentary In-Store Pickup

Another way that this will benefit your brick-and-mortar shop is to encourage customers to purchase online and then pick it up in your store.

This has become a very common trend among Walmart customers, who have embraced the alternative so enthusiastically that the retailer has had to create a new department in their stores to deal with customers who purchased products online and came in to pick them up. Your customers may find the ability to purchase merchandise online and pick it up at their convenient time.

Never Miss an Advertising Opportunity

You never know whether an online customer would be able to affect a physical customer or vice versa. Ensure that you are not only sharing your website address with in-person customers and promoting your website via other outlets in your local area but also advertising your brick-and-mortar store to your online customers.

This strategy works well, for example, when an online customer has a relative or acquaintance within your vicinity.

How Does Shopify's Tax System Work?

You are now a proud owner of a new Shopify store, and you might be concerned about dealing with taxes. When anyone sells goods online, they must consider sales tax. However, not everyone pays the sales tax, and you might not be required to collect tax on all of the orders you fulfill.

Additionally, you must consider income tax. Suppose you've had experience working as a freelance. In that case, you're aware that as an independent contractor or self-employed person, you're responsible for your own taxes, which requires tracking expenditures, wages, and other factors.

Sales Tax

How does the sales tax system work? It varies depending on the state in the United States you are in. If you are not a resident of the United States, you would be subject to an entirely different set of tax rules.

However, a good rule of thumb is that if you sell a commodity in the state or province where you currently reside and the consumer is also a resident of that state or province, you will be required to pay taxes per transaction.

The state sales tax rate in effect in your state would apply. One thing to bear in mind is that you should immediately set aside your sales tax, as the state would require payment every three months or so.

If you don't have it when it's due, you risk being hit with some hefty fines and having your company shut down for repeated violations.

Personal Income Tax

Apart from paying sales tax on goods sold within your jurisdiction, you would still have to pay your income tax. This is a one-time payment because you would usually file your taxes if you worked a regular job.

If you've never experienced being self-employed, it's both a blessing and a curse. Although you might be able to pay less tax than you otherwise would due to your expenditures, you must still set aside a sizable portion of your income to ensure that you can cover your tax since you won't realize how much it would be until the end of the year.

Naturally, once you determine your tax liability and write the check, you'll have an immediate tax return.

Configuring Product Variants in Shopify

If you have a Shopify store that sells physical goods, one of the issues you can encounter is product variants. Fortunately, you can be at ease as Shopify is reliable when it comes to this aspect compared to some other e-commerce platforms available.

This chapter will explain how to use Shopify to create product variants, but let's define a product variant first. Product variants refer to the various types and characteristics of products available in your shop. Consider a shirt: it comes in a variety of sizes, including small, medium, big, and XL.

Then you can have a variety of different colors. For instance, this shirt can be available in blue, red, green, black, or gray. You may also have a third option; this shirt is available in a standard T-shirt style with a rounded collar as well as a V-neck collar.

To sell this item in your shop, you'll want to create these product variants on the same listing.

You don't want to create separate listings for each of these items because not only will the number of listings for one item reach hundreds, which is a lot of extra work, but also because you don't want your customers to have to go through too much trouble checking your entire site for the specific size or design they desire.

How To Build Product Variations

The following are the steps you'll take if you're attempting to build product variants through the Shopify admin panel. To begin, navigate to your admin area's pricing, inventory, and shipping section.

A link is provided to allow you to add variants to the product you are preparing to go live on sale. Two items will be created in order to build your versions. The first field is the option's name; in our example, that would be color, size, and style. You're going to set the choice values for each of these, which are the various sizes and colors mentioned previously.

You may customize the listing by assigning a different price to each variant and creating a unique barcode for each variant. Once you've added variations to your goods, you'll want to customize them as much as possible to do well in search engines. When anyone searches for a product that you sell in a particular color, assure that search engines will display your product.