Shopify Guide — Here’s How to Become an Expert
You may have already known about the Shopify marketplace and how it is one of the best platforms to make money by selling your products and services online.
Whether you are a Shopify designer, developer, industry authority, or someone who wants to start a Dropshipping business, to become an expert, you will have to learn all the crucial aspects of the marketplace.
Unarguably, Shopify has many difficult aspects in growing in the development industry and web design. However, one aspect that is often overlooked is building connections within the Shopify Ecosystem.
Whether it’s marketing yourself as an expert, writing Shopify-specific content, or partnering with other Shopify Partners, fitting into the Shopify Partners and Ecosystem is one of the crucial steps.
Though doing it all at once might be overwhelming; thereby, we have outlined every crucial piece of information about being a Shopify expert.
What’s a Shopify Expert?
Shopify is an ecommerce platform where you can sell products and services to customers and store owners. Shopify users often require contract work for tasks such as web development, marketing, web design, business development, and writing.
In order to build a successful Shopify store, many users may choose to hire someone with expertise in these areas. Shopify has curated a marketplace for digital marketers, agencies, developers, and freelancers where they can connect with online merchants and provide their services for those looking to hire someone to build their Shopify store.
So, Shopify has curated a marketplace for digital marketers, agencies, developers, and freelancers where they can connect with online merchants and provide their services.
The marketplace is known as Shopify Experts.
The Shopify Experts marketplace operates with the Shopify Partner program — the actual site and community management system. It also gives endless access to development stores to pass over to clients, and it is often useful while selling your services on Shopify Experts.
Conclusively, a Shopify Expert is:
- An agency or freelancer who sells services to customers or merchants.
- Skilled with Shopify and willing to learn more every day. Some experts, such as writers and marketers, don’t have a strong grip on advanced programming knowledge of the platform, but they should know enough to know their way around the interface.
- Shopify Partners Program participants with a proven track record of clients.
Types of Shopify Experts
The Shopify Experts marketplace has a diverse list of Shopify Experts, giving you many options to pick the right service and start selling.
You have the following categories and subcategories to become the Shopify Expert:
Marketing and Sales:
- Search engine optimization
- Email marketing
- Content marketing
- Search engine marketing & advertising
- Conversion rate optimization
- Analytics and tracking
- Sales channel expert
- Sales and marketing guide
Online Shop Design:
- Store design or redesign
- Collection, products, and services setup
- Theme personalization
- Migration of store
- Setups and design guidance
- Visual elements customization
- POS migration
- Website configuration
- Etsy or Amazon integration
- Customization of checkout
Troubleshooting and Development:
- API integrations
- Customized app developments
- App installation
- Personalized template development
- Customized domain setup
- Troubleshooting
- Site functioning and speed
Content Writing, Branding and Visual Content:
- Marketing and website content
- Product descriptions
Expert Guidance:
- Sales tax guidance
- Online business strategy
- Store design and setup guidance
- Product Sourcing
- Marketing and sales materials
- Services to merchants to help with site speed and performance.
It is also worth noting that you are not bound to pick one category. Shopify Experts often select more than one category based on their expertise.
Basic Requirements of Becoming a Shopify Expert
One thing is certain, your earning potential as an expert in the field of Shopify development will greatly increase. You can adjust your prices accordingly as long as they meet Shopify’s regulations. You can also invoice buyers and collect payment through Shopify as a Shopify development company.
The first step is to apply for becoming a Shopify expert and participating in the Shopify Expert Marketplace after successfully satisfying the given requirements:
- Become a partner of the Shopify Partner Program
- Experience working with at least five Shopify stores
- The landing page of your business site should have a Shopify logo or banner with an affiliate link
To have access to the Shopify Expert Marketplace, you will have to fill out the Experts Marketplace request form.
Though if you don’t get notified from the Experts Marketplace team, they might have denied your request due to a lack of demand for your services or your application failing to match the legal demand.
However, if your application is approved, the Shopify Experts Marketplace team will notify you and connect with you to discuss the subsequent steps to take the process further.
Steps to Become a Shopify Expert
Step 1. Become a Shopify Partner
Joining the Shopify Partners program is the first step towards obtaining a Shopify Experts profile and selling your services.
The Shopify Partners form requires you to fill in this information:
- Business name and primary email address
- Site link
- Address
- Your primary plan to earn through the program
- Past experiences with ecommerce platforms
Shopify Partners program is easy to join for everyone, even if you want to test it out. The program will provide you with a dashboard for managing and building client sites.
Step 2. Run at Least 5 Client Stores
Running and managing at least five stores in Shopify Partners means you can bring clients to yourself, complete the development, and pass the ownership to your client.
Of course, it starts with adding stores with clients. The main goal is to move clients to the Managed category from the Development category since you will require to show managed stores in your Shopify Experts application.
Step 3. A Strong Portfolio of Your Previous Work
After getting accepted in the Shopify Experts Marketplace, you will have a page to list your portfolio items, experiences, locations, and rates. Yet, you won’t have something like this if you haven’t been accepted.
Therefore, you should have your site on WIX, Weebly, or WordPress to build your portfolio. You can present your experience working with Shopify — hence, a stronger chance of getting accepted. The portfolio should have a gallery of past projects, a description of the projects, and contact information.
Step 4: Request Access
According to Shopify, Shopify Partners with good reputations often get invited to be a part of the Shopify Experts marketplace. So, Shopify is already keeping an eye on its community and reaching out to those who might improve its Expert marketplace.
But instead of sitting idle and waiting for a Shopify email, you could contact Shopify and request to access the Shopify Experts marketplace.
Step 5. Create Shopify Experts Marketplace Page
Once you are accepted to the Shopify marketplace, you will have several tabs on your Shopify Partners dashboard. There is much work in managing your Expert marketplace account, but the first step is to fill your profile with contact information, your services, and their rates, and more.
Shopify offers a detailed Getting Started Guide for you to set up your Shopify Expert profile.
Final words
Shopify’s constant growth has opened many possibilities for entrepreneurs and merchants who want to expand their freelancing business by offering Shopify development services. After becoming a Shopify Expert, you will get many advantages: access to resourceful tools, outstanding Shopify features, attractive rates, etc.
However, if you want your journey of becoming a Shopify expert to be smooth and seamless, you should follow the strategic guidelines. We have listed down useful tips for you.
Featured Image Credit: Provided by the Author; Thank you!
