The Best Way to Create an Online Course on Shopify

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Identifying Your High-Value Course Concept
3. Structuring Your Curriculum with Backward Design
4. The Strategic Advantage of Native Shopify Integration
5. Pricing Models and Financial Sustainability
6. The Content Creation Workflow
7. Engagement and Community: Building a Learning Powerhouse
8. Marketing Your Course within Shopify
9. Transparency in Costs and Scalability
10. Practical Scenarios: The Power of Knowledge
11. Common Pitfalls to Avoid
12. Conclusion
13. Frequently Asked Questions

Introduction

The global e-learning market is projected to reach an eye-watering $460 billion by 2026. This isn't just a statistic for massive universities or tech giants; it is a signal for every e-commerce merchant that the value of information has never been higher. If you are currently selling physical products, you are sitting on a goldmine of expertise. For a merchant selling organic tea, a course on the "Art of the Tea Ceremony" isn't just content—it is a high-margin digital product that requires no shipping, no warehouse space, and no inventory management.

The purpose of this guide is to move beyond the technical hurdles and provide you with a strategic roadmap for building a digital education empire. We will cover everything from identifying your high-value niche and the pedagogical principles of "Backward Design" to the technical advantages of keeping your students on your own website. We will explore how to structure your curriculum, engage your community, and maximize your revenue without succumbing to the "success fees" common in the industry.

Our central thesis is simple: the best way to create an online course is to build it as a native extension of your existing brand. By keeping your learning experience under your own Shopify URL, you maintain control of your customer data, provide a seamless checkout experience, and build long-term brand loyalty. At Tevello, our mission is to turn any Shopify store into a digital learning powerhouse, ensuring that your expertise stays exactly where it belongs—within your own ecosystem.

Identifying Your High-Value Course Concept

Before you record a single minute of video, you must pause and reflect on the unique value you offer. The most successful courses solve a specific problem or fulfill a deep-seated desire for a particular audience. For an e-commerce merchant, the easiest way to identify a course topic is to look at your existing product line.

Consider a merchant who sells professional-grade cameras. While the camera is the tool, the student's actual desire is to capture breathtaking landscapes. The "best way to create an online course" for this merchant is to build a curriculum that bridges the gap between owning the tool and achieving the result. By reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from, you can see how other experts have packaged their knowledge into digital offerings that complement their physical stock.

Ask yourself these critical questions:

• What questions does my customer support team receive most often?
• What is the "Next Logical Step" for a customer who has already purchased my primary product?
• Where does my audience struggle when using the products I sell?
• What proprietary methods or unique perspectives do I bring to my industry?

By answering these, you move away from generic information and toward a specialized offering. This specialization is what allows you to command higher price points and build a dedicated community of learners.

Structuring Your Curriculum with Backward Design

Many first-time creators make the mistake of "Forward Design"—they start with the content they have and try to organize it into lessons. However, the most effective educational experiences utilize "Backward Design." This means starting with the end goal in mind: What exactly should the student be able to do after completing the course?

Step 1: Define the Desired Results

Identify the core transformation. For a fitness equipment brand, the result isn't "knowing how to use a kettlebell," it’s "mastering the kettlebell swing to improve functional strength." Every piece of content you create must serve this specific outcome.

Step 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence

How will you and the student know they have achieved the goal? In a digital environment, this often takes the form of quizzes, self-assessments, or the completion of specific project milestones. Within our platform, all the key features for courses and communities are designed to support these checkpoints, allowing you to track student progress and ensure they aren't falling behind.

Step 3: Plan the Learning Experience

Only after the goals and assessments are set do you begin building the lessons. This ensures your course is lean, efficient, and highly effective. You avoid the "fluff" that leads to high drop-out rates and instead deliver a streamlined path to mastery.

The Strategic Advantage of Native Shopify Integration

One of the most significant decisions you will make is where your course "lives." For years, merchants were forced to redirect their customers to third-party platforms. This fragmentation often leads to a disjointed brand experience, login confusion, and a loss of control over customer data.

At Tevello, we believe in a different approach. Our "Native Shopify Integration" ensures that your courses, digital products, and community engagement live side-by-side with your physical goods. This means your customers use the same login they used to buy their physical products, creating a frictionless experience that reduces support tickets.

When you keep customers on your own URL, you aren't just selling a course; you are increasing your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). You are seeing how the app natively integrates with Shopify to turn a one-time buyer into a long-term student and community member. This continuity is vital for building a brand that stands the test of time.

Key Takeaway: A native integration means 100% brand ownership. You don't have to worry about a third-party platform's branding overshadowing your own, or their algorithm changing how your students access your content.

Pricing Models and Financial Sustainability

Pricing an online course is both an art and a science. Because digital products have near-zero marginal costs, every sale after you've covered your initial production time is almost pure profit. However, your pricing strategy should reflect the value of the transformation you provide, not just the hours of video included.

Consider these common models:

1. The One-Time Purchase: Ideal for specialized workshops or "masterclasses" that solve a specific problem.
2. The Subscription/Membership: Perfect for ongoing communities, monthly coaching, or libraries of content that are updated regularly.
3. The Hybrid Bundle: Selling a physical product (e.g., a set of oil paints) alongside a digital course (e.g., a 10-week landscape painting workshop).

We have seen how powerful bundling can be for Shopify merchants. For example, look at how one brand sold $112K+ by bundling courses with their existing physical products. This approach doesn't just increase the average order value; it creates a more comprehensive solution for the customer.

Furthermore, we should talk about the economics of the platforms themselves. Many course platforms charge "success fees" or take a percentage of every transaction. We find this counter-intuitive to your growth. If unifying your stack is a priority, start by a simple, all-in-one price for unlimited courses.

The Content Creation Workflow

You don't need a Hollywood studio to create a high-quality online course. In the modern creator economy, authenticity often trumps high-production polish. The goal is clarity and engagement.

Audio is Paramount

If a student can't hear you clearly, they will stop watching. Invest in a decent USB microphone. Even a mid-range microphone will provide a significantly better experience than your laptop's built-in mic.

Video and Screen Recording

For tutorials, screen-sharing software is essential. For "talking head" videos, use natural lighting and ensure your background is tidy. You don't need a professional camera; most modern smartphones are more than capable of recording 4K video that looks excellent on any screen.

Diversify Your Content

Don't rely solely on video. The best courses include:

• PDF Checklists and Worksheets: For quick reference and action.
• Quizzes: To reinforce learning and provide a sense of achievement.
• Drip Content: To prevent students from being overwhelmed and to keep them coming back week after week.

By leveraging generating over €243,000 by upselling existing customers, you can see how strategically released content keeps the momentum high and encourages repeat engagement within your store.

Engagement and Community: Building a Learning Powerhouse

The biggest challenge in online education is completion rates. Students who feel isolated are far more likely to quit. This is why "Community" is a core pillar of our philosophy.

Creating a space where students can interact, share their progress, and ask questions transforms a static course into a living ecosystem. With features like member directories, social feeds, and student profiles, your Shopify store becomes a destination rather than just a checkout page.

Community features drive recurring revenue stability. When a student feels they belong to a group of like-minded individuals, the value of their membership extends far beyond the instructional videos. They are paying for the access, the network, and the support. This is how you move away from the "get rich quick" mentality and toward a sustainable, long-term business model that builds brand loyalty.

Marketing Your Course within Shopify

The beauty of selling a course on Shopify is that you already have a powerful marketing engine at your fingertips. You don't need to build a new audience from scratch; you need to engage the one you already have.

Post-Purchase Upsells

Imagine a customer buys a DIY furniture kit. On the "Thank You" page or in their order confirmation email, you can offer them an "Advanced Joinery Masterclass" for a special price. This is a low-friction way to increase revenue while providing immediate value to the customer.

Email Marketing Flows

Use your Shopify customer segments to send targeted invitations. You can create a flow for customers who haven't made a purchase in 90 days, offering them a free "Introductory Course" to bring them back into your brand's orbit. We’ve seen merchants use strategies for selling over 4,000 digital courses natively by simply refining their existing email automation to include digital products.

Retention and LTV

Digital products are the ultimate retention tool. While a customer might only need to buy a physical product once every few months, a community-based course keeps them logging into your site daily or weekly. This increased "surface area" with your brand means they are much more likely to think of you when they need their next physical purchase. Many merchants use retention strategies that drive repeat digital purchases to maintain a steady baseline of monthly revenue that isn't dependent on seasonal physical sales.

Transparency in Costs and Scalability

As your course grows, your costs shouldn't spiral out of control. Many platforms operate on a "per-user" or "per-course" pricing model, which effectively punishes you for being successful. We believe that your technology should be a partner in your growth, not a tax on your success.

Our approach is built on predictable pricing without hidden transaction fees. We offer 0% transaction fees, meaning you keep 100% of what you earn. Whether you have 10 students or 10,000, your software costs remain stable. This transparency allows you to reinvest your profits into better content, more advertising, or new physical product lines.

The Unlimited Plan we offer is $29.99 per month and includes:

• Unlimited courses and students.
• Unlimited video hosting and bandwidth (so you never have to worry about video bills).
• Full community features (profiles, feeds, and directories).
• Drip scheduling and interactive quizzes.

By providing digital products that live directly alongside physical stock, we ensure that you can scale your digital empire as fast as your ambition allows without hitting a technical or financial ceiling.

Practical Scenarios: The Power of Knowledge

To understand how this looks in the real world, let's look at a few practical scenarios of how Shopify merchants can leverage Tevello.

Scenario A: The Coffee Roaster A merchant selling premium coffee beans creates a "Barista Basics" course. This course covers everything from grind size to milk steaming techniques. They bundle this course for free with their "Starter Espresso Kit" and sell it as a standalone digital product for $49. This requires no extra shipping, and the "Expert" status the merchant gains through teaching leads to higher trust and more recurring bean subscriptions.

Scenario B: The Art Supply Store A merchant selling watercolors notices that beginners are often intimidated by the medium. They create a 4-week "Watercolor Foundations" course. By using a flat-rate plan that supports unlimited members, they can host thousands of students without their overhead increasing. They use a community feed within the course for students to post their paintings, creating a vibrant, social environment that drives repeat purchases of paper and brushes.

Scenario C: The Fitness Apparel Brand Instead of just selling leggings, this brand creates an "8-Week Transformation Challenge." The challenge includes workout videos, meal plans (as digital downloads), and a private community forum. By keeping the community on their own Shopify store, they ensure that every time a student logs in to see their workout, they are also seeing the latest apparel drops.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Even with the best tools, there are a few traps that can hinder your progress.

1. Perfectionism Paralysis Do not wait for the perfect lighting or the perfect script. Your first version of the course will likely be your "Beta." The most important thing is to get your knowledge into the hands of your students so you can collect feedback and improve.

2. Ignoring the "Learning" in E-Learning It is not enough to just "dump" information. Ensure you are using the pedagogical tools at your disposal—quizzes, assignments, and community interaction—to make sure the information sticks.

3. Fragmenting Your Brand Avoid the temptation to use "easy" third-party platforms that take your customers away from your store. Every time a customer leaves your site to learn, you are missing an opportunity to strengthen your brand and drive further sales.

Conclusion

Creating an online course is one of the most effective ways to diversify your revenue, increase your brand authority, and build a stable, recurring income stream. By leveraging your existing Shopify store and the knowledge you already possess, you can create a digital learning powerhouse that scales without the traditional headaches of physical inventory and shipping.

At Tevello, we are dedicated to providing the infrastructure you need to succeed. Our mission is to empower you to own your brand and your data completely. With our Unlimited Plan at just $29.99 per month, you get a robust ecosystem with 0% transaction fees, unlimited video hosting, and built-in community features. You can build your entire curriculum during our 14-day free trial, ensuring the platform is the right fit for your vision before you pay a cent.

Don't let your expertise sit idle. Use it to build a community, serve your customers at a deeper level, and secure the financial future of your business. To build your community without leaving Shopify, start by reviewing the Shopify App Store listing merchants install from.

Now is the time to take the leap. Whether you are selling your first lesson or migrating a massive community, we are here to support your journey. You can install Tevello from the Shopify App Store today and start your 14-day free trial and build your first course now.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I sell both physical products and online courses on the same Shopify store?

Yes, absolutely. This is one of the primary advantages of using our platform. Your digital courses and memberships live directly alongside your physical stock in your Shopify admin. This allows you to create seamless bundles (e.g., a physical yoga mat bundled with a digital "Yoga for Beginners" course) and use the same Shopify checkout your customers already trust.

Do I need to pay for separate video hosting?

No. Our Unlimited Plan includes unlimited video hosting and bandwidth. This means you don't need to pay for external video hosting services or worry about getting a surprise bill if your course becomes incredibly popular. We handle the technical infrastructure so you can focus on creating high-quality content for your students.

How do "0% transaction fees" work?

Unlike many other course platforms that take a percentage (often 3% to 10%) of every sale you make, we charge a flat monthly fee. Whether you sell $100 or $100,000 worth of courses in a month, you keep 100% of your earnings (minus your standard Shopify credit card processing fees). This makes your business much more profitable as you scale.

Is it difficult to migrate my courses from another platform to Shopify?

The migration process is straightforward. Because you are moving to a native Shopify environment, you will find the interface familiar. Our support team is experienced in helping merchants move their content and student data over. By unifying your systems, you'll find that you actually reduce your technical overhead and solve common issues like login friction and fragmented customer data.