Solved

Why isn't my purchased domain showing on Shopify?

Giulia3
Visitor
3 0 1

Hi there, 

I am a total newbie and just joined the community so hello there! I have two questions I need help with. 

1. I have bought a domain with Shopify and paid for it but it does not appear in my browser tab it still has the 'myshopify' in it. Is this because the store is not published? Surely even if I am working on it in the backend it should still have the correct domain name that I have purchased? 

2. I am in SA but I want to set up my store to sell in the US with products from the US. How do I set this up as I don't have an address in the US and when I go to general settings I placed my SA address which is now determining all the formatting? How do I get around this one? 

 

Accepted Solution (1)

Moira
Shopify Staff
2040 223 323

This is an accepted solution.

Hey, @Giulia3!

This is Moira from the Social Care team at Shopify.

Thanks for posting, and a very warm welcome to the Community! It’s great to hear that you have purchased a custom domain as it adds a level of trust and sends a strong signal that you’re an established business to your customers.

I'd be more than happy to help you out with your queries today! Firstly, I understand your custom domain is not appearing in your address bar when you are in your Shopify admin. This is totally normal, your myshopify URL will always show up when logged into the admin as this is the URL you created when you initially signed up to the platform. It’s important to note that this is only visible to you, customers cannot see this address if you have a custom domain set as your Primary domain.

Primary Domain

Your primary domain is the domain name that's displayed in the address bar while customers browse your online store. You assign your primary domain from the Domains page of your Shopify admin. By default, your primary domain uses the format your-store-name.myshopify.com when you sign up for Shopify. After you purchase a custom domain to Shopify, then you can set your custom domain as the primary domain by following these steps:

1) From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Domains.

2) In the Primary domain section, click Change primary domain.

3) Select the domain that you want to set as your primary domain.

4) Click Save.

The primary domain that you set is now displayed to customers who visit your online store. If you would prefer a visual aid, feel free to watch this video tutorial which takes you through the purchasing and connecting of your new domain.

Selling products in the USA

Secondly, let's address selling products in the US with having your store based in South Africa. To be based in the USA and sell via Shopify Payments there you would need to have a USA social security number and bank account to set it up. However, other payment gateways might not have such strict rules. You can check out all the payment gateways for the United States here. Definitely reach out to them to see what requirements they have and go from there!

There are some app solutions that can also achieve this. I've rounded up two examples below, the Multi-Country Pricing application automatically detects the country of the website visitor and displays the pricing which you have set for the product for that respective country in the respective currency. You can find this app in the link below as well as the Pricing By Country & Currency app which operates in a similar fashion:

If the above apps are not suitable, feel free to take a look at our variety of currency converter apps from our app store.

You mentioned wanting to set up your store to sell in the US with products from the US, were you referring to a drop shipping or print-on-demand service? Print on demand (POD) is an eCommerce business model whereby you team up with a supplier to sell customized products such as shirts, hats, mugs, calendars, and more. Once an order is placed in your store, it will then be fulfilled through your supplier who will create and ship the product to your customer. Running a print-on-demand business means you don’t need to buy or store any inventory, keeping your overhead costs nice and low! If this is of interest to you, I highly suggest checking out this blog for a more in-depth explanation. I also found a course that will provide you step by step instructions on setting up a “Print on Demand Empire”.

Let us know how you get on with the steps above, I’m happy to answer any questions you think of as you work on your business.

Moira | Social Care @ Shopify
- Was my reply helpful? Click Like to let me know!
- Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
- To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

View solution in original post

Replies 3 (3)

Moira
Shopify Staff
2040 223 323

This is an accepted solution.

Hey, @Giulia3!

This is Moira from the Social Care team at Shopify.

Thanks for posting, and a very warm welcome to the Community! It’s great to hear that you have purchased a custom domain as it adds a level of trust and sends a strong signal that you’re an established business to your customers.

I'd be more than happy to help you out with your queries today! Firstly, I understand your custom domain is not appearing in your address bar when you are in your Shopify admin. This is totally normal, your myshopify URL will always show up when logged into the admin as this is the URL you created when you initially signed up to the platform. It’s important to note that this is only visible to you, customers cannot see this address if you have a custom domain set as your Primary domain.

Primary Domain

Your primary domain is the domain name that's displayed in the address bar while customers browse your online store. You assign your primary domain from the Domains page of your Shopify admin. By default, your primary domain uses the format your-store-name.myshopify.com when you sign up for Shopify. After you purchase a custom domain to Shopify, then you can set your custom domain as the primary domain by following these steps:

1) From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Domains.

2) In the Primary domain section, click Change primary domain.

3) Select the domain that you want to set as your primary domain.

4) Click Save.

The primary domain that you set is now displayed to customers who visit your online store. If you would prefer a visual aid, feel free to watch this video tutorial which takes you through the purchasing and connecting of your new domain.

Selling products in the USA

Secondly, let's address selling products in the US with having your store based in South Africa. To be based in the USA and sell via Shopify Payments there you would need to have a USA social security number and bank account to set it up. However, other payment gateways might not have such strict rules. You can check out all the payment gateways for the United States here. Definitely reach out to them to see what requirements they have and go from there!

There are some app solutions that can also achieve this. I've rounded up two examples below, the Multi-Country Pricing application automatically detects the country of the website visitor and displays the pricing which you have set for the product for that respective country in the respective currency. You can find this app in the link below as well as the Pricing By Country & Currency app which operates in a similar fashion:

If the above apps are not suitable, feel free to take a look at our variety of currency converter apps from our app store.

You mentioned wanting to set up your store to sell in the US with products from the US, were you referring to a drop shipping or print-on-demand service? Print on demand (POD) is an eCommerce business model whereby you team up with a supplier to sell customized products such as shirts, hats, mugs, calendars, and more. Once an order is placed in your store, it will then be fulfilled through your supplier who will create and ship the product to your customer. Running a print-on-demand business means you don’t need to buy or store any inventory, keeping your overhead costs nice and low! If this is of interest to you, I highly suggest checking out this blog for a more in-depth explanation. I also found a course that will provide you step by step instructions on setting up a “Print on Demand Empire”.

Let us know how you get on with the steps above, I’m happy to answer any questions you think of as you work on your business.

Moira | Social Care @ Shopify
- Was my reply helpful? Click Like to let me know!
- Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
- To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog

Steffany65
Visitor
1 0 0

Moira...

I have read the solution but it's not letting me have access to continue to set up my stores. I have place my payment plan information for the store and it's not going to the home page for me to click on the other steps that I need to take to completely set up the stores. I am receiving a message telling me I don't have access to the stores. it's going straight to the error message that what's puzzling to me. The information is there but I cannot move forward to place the rest of the information to the platform to completely set them up correctly. I am a beginner and I have read over everything a few times and watched lots of video with folloeing all of the step and it's still not working with doing each steps as being shown. 

Moira
Shopify Staff
2040 223 323

Hey @Steffany65,

 

We want to resolve this as efficiently as possible for you. We will need to access your account and take a closer look at what's going on. I suggest contacting our support team through live chat via the Help Center.

Please visit https://bit.ly/3qqfpfZ to be connected with a member of our support team.

Moira | Social Care @ Shopify
- Was my reply helpful? Click Like to let me know!
- Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
- To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog