Running a business online can be as easy or as hard as you want to make it – there are business ideas that more or less only require you to have a webcam and a Zoom login, while others require you to have a great deal of programming and coding knowledge. Somewhere in the middle of the pack is where you will find eCommerce and online stores – it’s not purely simple to run an eCommerce business, but it is getting easier as time passes.
If you’ve ever considered running an online store, then you may be wondering whether it is time to “go for it”, and in that spirit, be looking into what it takes to start an online store. So, here, let’s go through the essentials for your own project.
A product to sell
Obvious, yes, but it’s essential to cover this – because what you’re selling will have implications for everything else, including what you name the store, and which domain you choose. Don’t pick too broad a range of items; it’s better to specialize initially and then expand.
Get your site going
Once you have product lines figured out, there’s no better time to start working on getting your site up and running. You’ll need to start creating pages and uploading items on Shopify and arrange hosting for your domain. It’s common sense to get managed hosting from the likes of nestify.io/wordpress-hosting/, so that the technical side of things is in capable hands while you focus on all the rest – because you’re not even nearly done!
Make the site yours
You want your eCommerce store to stand out from what can be a very crowded pack, so now is the time to figure out what your store will look like. There’s a good guide to creating your own theme from scratch at https://dinarys.com/blog/custom-shopify-theme-tutorial, or you can get someone to build one for you. You also need to be creating content – product descriptions, page introductions, a “Who we are page” and a bunch of other doorway pages which will help the customer find their way around, and help the site rank, too,
Figure out where you’ll ship to
Modern eCommerce software makes it simple to set up arrangements for shipping, payment and even different storefronts for customers in different countries. You need to consider whether you’ll ship anywhere and everywhere, only within your home country or somewhere in between – check out shipping costs and regulations to potential markets before you start.
Get a payment gateway in place
If you’re setting up a store, then it stands to reason that you’ll want to be able to take payments. Most eCommerce software systems allow you to add a Paypal account, which you should absolutely do, and you’ll also presumably want people to be able to pay by card. There is no shortage of guides online to help add a payment gateway, and this too will usually be enabled by the ecommerce SaaS you’re using.
Decide your pricing plan and launch
Fortunately, eCommerce software makes it easy to set prices for your items and to add costs for postage and shipping. It also allows you to create special offers – having added your products, you can include some set items in a group where, for example, if the customer buys three linked items they’ll only pay for the two highest-value.
It’s a good idea to have some specific offers for your launch day (or week), because once all of the steps above are in place, you’ll be ready to launch your store! Good luck!
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