The first step to launching a store on Shopify, is to buy your Domain name. Since shopify includes hosting and SSL in its monthly plan, your initial set up is complete once you buy the domain and link it to your shopify account.
Next, you need to set up the base layout of your store by installing a theme – it could be a Free Theme or a Premium One based on your budget and your affinity for better UX.
After that, comes the major task of optimising your site for your visitors, like
– improving SEO on the site
– monitoring many instrumental site metrics
– collecting user data
– showing them offers
– interacting with them via live chat
– stopping cart abandonment
– directing marketing campaigns to them outside of the store as well
While Shopify offers very few freebies, especially in the themes department, it does have a few good free plugins that can help you optimise your site to a great extent. The freebase is again limited compared to Woocommerce, but the one thing with Shopify is, the quality of plugins is quite good, and there are very few that slow your site down, or have adverse affects.
However, that being said, you must keep in mind that More does not mean Better, and that using any more than a maximum of 10 plugins, can slow your site down a lot leading to higher Bounce Rate and lower Conversions