How to Build an Online Store
Nowadays it is not that hard to build an online store as it was before, practically you can have an online store in less than 5 minutes!
There are 2 possibilities to create an online store:
1. Choose a web hosting plan (the space and the tools you need to create your online store - your online store cannot exist without a web host). You have to choose a hosting provider that offers a built-in shopping cart so that you can receive orders.
Also, make sure you choose a web hosting plan that offers lots of disk space and bandwidth. If you plan to build an online store business, you don't want to see yourself out of bandwidth...so that your customers won't be able to access your products :)
My Web Hosting Recommendations:
I would recommend you one of these web hosting providers, depending on how much you afford to pay for your online store:
1.SBI! - it's a web host especially created for online businesses. They have a very easy to use site builder with lots of templates, so you only have to choose a template and add your products. They provide unlimited disk space and bandwidth, shopping cart, the possibility to monetize your website, search engine submission and, the most important part is that they offer lots of tools to help you rank high in search engines and bring traffic to your website. Their all-in-one plan costs $299/ year.
SBI! has a no-risk, 30-day money back guarantee. If you aren't satisfied with SBI!, not only will you get your money back, but you can keep your domain name!
2. WebHostingPad - their plan costs from $1.99/month and offers an OsCommerce shopping cart, unlimited bandwidth and disk space. They have a 30-day money back guarantee and 99.9% network uptime guarantee.
2. Customize the name, template and welcome text of your website so that it looks “different”, not like a copy of another online store (from the control panel in your web hosting account)
3. Add products to database (from your control panel again)
4. Promote your online store
When it comes to building an online store, I definitely recommend BigCommerce, world's no. 1 rated eCommerce platform.
It’s very easy to setup (you’ll have a professional-looking online store in less then 5 minutes!), your store will be SEO optimized by SEO experts and they offer lots of features like 50+ payment methods, 12 shipping methods, PayPal and Google checkout support.
When creating an online store it is very important to make sure your web host provider supports as many payment methods as possible, so that your customers will be able to pay with the method they want.
It's very frustrating when a customer wants to pay with credit card and the store only accepts, let's say PayPal...
Other features:
- sell physical & downloadable items
- store to customer messaging
- order notifications via email/SMS
- built-in sales reports
- create web pages, news & blogs
- customizable feedback forms etc.
They also offer the possibility to create your own affiliate program, so that you can better promote your store and increase the number of sales (an affiliate program can increase the no. of sales with more than 300%).
BigCommerce offers 5 plans, starting from $24.95/month.
They offer 50+ store designs and 28 built-in marketing tools. With their drag and drop design customization, your store can be “ready” in less than 5 minutes.
You can try BigCommerce for FREE 15 days.
Own an online store? Read my article Promote Your Online Store