How to Create a Shopify Store Step by Step (Arabic or English)

Creating a Shopify store follows ten clear steps: create the account, configure general settings, choose the theme, add products, build collections, connect payments, set up shipping, configure taxes, connect the domain, then install tracking and launch. This guide explains each step in the order we actually follow when building stores for clients in the Gulf and Jordan, in Arabic, English or both, and flags the mistakes that cost merchants time and sales.

Step 1: create the account and start the trial

Start on Shopify’s official website by creating an account with your email and choosing a provisional store name that you can change later. You get a short free trial followed by an introductory period at a reduced price according to the platform’s current offer. Use this window to set everything up before full billing begins. If you have trouble logging in or want to add staff and give a partner access, see Shopify login and free trial setup.

Step 2: general settings before anything else

Many merchants jump straight to adding products and later discover the currency is wrong or weights are in pounds. Configure these first in Settings:

Setting	What to configure
Store details	Legal name, address, customer contact email
Currency	SAR, AED, KWD, JOD or whichever fits your primary market
Time zone and units	Your country’s time zone, kilograms and centimetres
Languages	Arabic as primary and English as second if the store is bilingual, or the reverse
Markets	The countries you sell to and the currency for each market

These settings affect every later product and order, and changing them after thousands of products are added is expensive.

Step 3: choose and localise the theme

The theme is your storefront. The free Dawn theme is enough to start, but for Arabic stores we recommend a theme with proven right-to-left quality. We used Hyper on stores such as Poshy and Cliqat, and Kalles on Fragrance Hub. After installing, set Arabic and English fonts, the logo, colours and the order of home page sections. Full localisation details are in the Shopify Arabic RTL theme guide, and the options are compared in the best Shopify themes for Arabic and Gulf stores.

Step 4: add products in a way that sells

For every product: a clear title containing the words customers search for, a description that answers buying questions, high-quality images on a consistent background, price and compare-at price where needed, SKU, weight for shipping, and variants (colour, size, volume). For large stores use CSV import instead of manual entry. For Cliqat we imported and organised more than 15,000 products before launch, something that cannot be done by hand.

Do not forget the SEO fields for every product: page title, meta description and URL handle, because these are what appear in Google results.

Step 5: build collections and the main menu

Collections are how customers browse your store, and they are also what catalog campaigns on Meta and Google are built on. Design a structure that mirrors how the customer thinks: by category (skincare, men’s fragrances), by brand, and by occasion or offer. Use automated collections with conditions (tag, vendor, price) so new products are added automatically. Then build the main menu and footer menu from these collections together with the policy pages.

Step 6: connect the payment gateway

This step needs official paperwork in most Gulf countries. Choose a gateway licensed in your country that offers cards, mada, Apple Pay and instalments if they suit your product, and enable cash on delivery as a manual method if it is common in your market. Test a complete purchase before launch. We cover the options country by country in Shopify payment gateways in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the Gulf.

Step 7: set up shipping and delivery zones

Create shipping zones per country or group of cities and define rates: flat, weight-based, or free above a threshold. Connect your local courier through its app where available to print labels and track shipments automatically. Test addresses from different cities to confirm every zone gets the right rate; the common mistake is a customer in a remote city seeing free shipping you cannot afford.

Step 8: taxes and legal policies

Enable VAT according to your country and decide whether prices include tax, which is the norm in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Then create the policy pages: privacy, returns and exchanges, shipping, and terms and conditions, and add contact details and your commercial registration in the footer. These pages are not a formality; payment gateways and ad platforms review them, and customers look for them before buying.

Step 9: connect your custom domain

Buy the domain from Shopify or an external registrar and connect it from the domain settings. Make it the primary domain, confirm the SSL certificate is active and that the non-www version redirects to the primary one. Do this early so settings are not still propagating on launch day.

Step 10: tracking, then launch

Before removing the store password, install Meta Pixel with the Conversions API, GA4 with complete ecommerce events, and add the store to Google Search Console and Merchant Center. Every day you sell without tracking is lost data that never returns. Then go through the Shopify store launch checklist item by item, and ask two people outside your team to complete a test order from a phone.

After launch, add what helps you sell and communicate: a WhatsApp button and automatic order confirmations with WhatsApp Pilot (whatsapppilot.esafqa.com), and schedule your first offers safely with Sale Scheduler by SalePilot (salepilot.esafqa.com).

From our experience: the Poshy Korean skincare brand was selling only through Instagram, with no store and no tracking. We built the store on the Hyper theme, migrated the old catalog, and ran a CRO audit and a pricing study before launch. The store was complete in three weeks and the first order arrived in launch week. The right order of steps is what shortens the timeline, and it is the core of our Shopify store development service.

Conclusion

Creating a Shopify store is not hard, but the order matters: settings before products, collections before menus, payments and shipping before the domain, and tracking before launch. Follow the ten steps above and you will arrive at a store ready to sell and advertise, not just a pretty website. If you want us to review your store before launch or build it from scratch, message us on WhatsApp and we will start with a free audit.