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How to Create an Online Store in 10 Steps, 1 Month and Without Investment

Do you plan to create an online store but do not dare because of the investment that this may entail? Would you like to create your own job and do not know how to do it? Do you want to start making money on the Internet on your own and feel like working hard on it? Still don't know how to create an online store?

Although the title of the article may seem a bit exaggerated, really to make an online store you will only need a small financial investment, and above all a large investment in the form of time, I wanted to convey the idea that it is possible to create an e-business. commerce without the need for a significant financial investment.

For example, you can use a platform like Wix eCommerce that allows you to create and manage an online store easily and cheaply, from only €17 per month, providing you with all the tools you may need to grow your business and start selling online.

As you know, today it is possible to sell products through the Internet to everyone. It is also possible to create an online store without the need for computer skills. Wholesalers or dropshipping providers can directly ship their products to your customers.

There is enough information on the Internet to learn the basics of online marketing, and companies like PayPal make it very easy for us to implement an effective payment system. So, what's the excuse to learn how to set up the online store you want?

The 10 steps to create an online store

online-store

I am going to summarize the process of how to start an online store in 10 steps, very briefly and above, so that you can get an idea of ​​what would be essential to start selling from your own online store :

1. Choose the name and domain of your online store

This is one of the most attractive parts of any project, so I put it at the beginning to encourage the staff. Choosing a good domain is essential in an online store.

Both the name and the domain must be easy to remember and write, they must be as short as possible and possibly descriptive.

In the case of the domain, if it also contains any of our keywords, it will help us position ourselves in search engines for those terms. Try to make it a .com, or a .es if you will only sell to Spain.

2. Choose a good hosting company

This is practically the only investment you will have to make to create your online store, so do not be stingy and look for a company that offers you quality hosting and guarantees.

The speed of your online store is key, both for users and for search engine positioning. A slow page makes your users tired of waiting and abandon the page, while Google, for example, penalizes pages that take more than X seconds to load by sending them to the bottom of the search results. You should even pay more in Adwords for having a slow page!

So make sure that your hosting company guarantees you enough space for your online store and a good connection speed. By hiring a good hosting service you will also avoid unnecessary server crashes and you will be able to have your store available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We recommend Hostinger for your first store because it is the cheapest hosting with the best quality, you have hosting from only €0.99 per month ($0.99) with a free domain included and other very cheap options if you need more resources.

If you want to simplify your life, you can also use an online store service like Shopify, an all-in-one tool, which provides you with all the necessary tools to start your business, such as hosting, integrations with the main payment gateways, thousands of free templates and a web builder that allows you to create your online store in less than 24 hours and you can concentrate on selling and attracting customers.

3. Choose a Guaranteed Dropshipper

dropshipping-online-store

Some time ago we already explained how the dropshipping method works. Basically it is that our wholesaler or distributor sends directly the products that our customers have bought in our online store to their home address.

Obviously, the dropshipper wholesaler will take care of shipping the product without any company logo, adding your own invoice to the package if you wish.

In this way, the customer is equally satisfied and we avoid having to invest in the stock of products, in sending orders to the customer or worrying about logistics. The dropshipping company will take care of all this service for you.

Logically, as a general rule, the margins will not be as large as if we bought the products first, but to open an e-commerce business, get the first customer, test the product and see how everything works, I see it as the ideal solution for entrepreneurs who cannot invest in a large number of products.

There are many lists of wholesalers and dropshippers, make sure you choose one of guarantees, do some testing before selling directly to your customers, and have one more selected in case you have to change. Dont forget to establish a return policy for your business

4. Use a good CMS for e-commerce

As we mentioned in the hosting section, if what you want is to sell without worrying about technical things, it is best to use a website builder like Shopify, especially if you are just starting out. But if you dare to set up an independent website, you need a CMS or a content management system.

Currently there are many completely free and completely reliable CMS for ecommerce. All of them are designed to a greater or lesser extent so that they can be used by people without much technical knowledge.

In addition, as they are free code tools and known by a large number of professionals, there are many companies and freelancers who, for a small fee, can tweak or expand those features that you cannot do on your own.

Without wanting to expand or go into comparisons, for a project or store without too many complexities, I would choose Prestashop without hesitation, mainly due to its ease of use, but also because of its "lightness", good natural positioning and large number of easily configurable options.

Other CMS that are also recommended would be: WordPress, Magento, Oscommerce, Virtuemart (Joomla), Zencart, Opencart, Digistore or Drupal Ecommerce. When choosing the hosting, keep in mind that it has the CMS that you have chosen pre-installed, so the installation will be automatic and simple.

The simplest alternative would be a service like Shopify or Wix since they are very intuitive platforms that you can use without prior technical experience and without anyone's help to set up an online store. 

All of them allow the selection of various design templates, both free and paid, that will cover all your needs. Choose a template with an attractive, usable and action-oriented design to create your online store.

design-online-store

5. Customize the products of your online store

Many wholesalers provide online stores with their product catalog in formats that can be uploaded to your store automatically, and thus all products can be displayed in a very short time. It is not a bad idea to start with, but it is essential to personalize all the texts of the store, expand the product description with information about its use, describe details that cannot be shown with images and that allow the user to imagine the product without seeing it in a different way. physics _

In the long run, the only products that will be positioned correctly in google and other search engines will be those that you have modified, and potential buyers will appreciate not finding the same text that they will see in other stores. In other words, be original and give free rein to your imagination.

Images are another element that influences the purchase decision, so to improve the user experience, make sure that the photos are of good quality and show details of the products.

6. Add all possible payment methods for your online store

It is essential to offer as many payment methods as possible in your online store. If you can offer 4, better than 3. There are still people who do not trust buying online, and only order from stores that offer the cash on delivery method, since they will only pay when they receive the package. Others always use a credit card since they understand that there will be a company behind it and some use a bank transfer because it is more convenient for them.

You can add payment gateways with different banks but if you see it very complicated, either because of the banks or because of technical limitations when integrating the payment gateway (the implementation is somewhat complicated and requires knowledge of PHP), there are alternative solutions such as the integral Paypal gateway.

Paypal puts at our disposal a payment gateway that will allow us to charge our customers by card. Its "installation" is extremely simple and the only cost it will have for us will be the commission (quite high) that Paypal will charge us for each transaction made. All in all, it is a very good way of offering this much-requested form of payment in the world of ecommerce from the start.

7. Create a blog that accompanies the store

As I explained in the mini SEO guide for online stores, there are cases in which it is practically impossible to make long descriptions or to provide valuable content to our online store. In these cases, the creation of a blog is essential to attract some traffic to the store.

Although it is always advisable to create a blog that talks about our sector and everything that surrounds it, and that also helps us to promote our products in some way, directly or indirectly.

Little by little you will position yourself for the topics covered in the articles and this will bring you quality traffic willing to buy your products. So when creating an online store do not forget to create a blog to accompany it. If you do not have time or you are not good at writing, you can always use a platform like Fiverr to hire writers to write the articles for you and even the product descriptions and all the content of your website.

8. Regulate your legal situation

Legally you cannot sell products unless you do it as a freelancer or as a company. In addition, in most cases the creation of an SL is recommended, especially due to the issue of civil liability.

Creating a Limited Company is a process that, although we can carry out ourselves, it is likely that we will decide to leave it in the hands of an agency. You can use a comparison between Incfile vs Zenbusiness companies.

Make sure you have all the papers in order, take out insurance and comply with all current laws before starting your adventure, a fine or economic sanction for not acting correctly could make your company and your project disappear.

9. Create online advertising campaigns

Thanks to online advertising, we can publicize our online store economically but above all in a scaled way. Using correctly the free analysis tools that the Internet makes available to us, we will be able to know exactly which advertising campaigns give us benefits and which do not work, being able to rectify quickly and avoiding unnecessary losses.

In this way, we will be able to obtain benefits in a short time, and reduce the investment to "what we are earning each month", so that minus the small initial investment, the rest of the advertising could pay for itself. The ability of each one to achieve these benefits can make a difference in the future.

To start advertising on the internet, I would recommend using Google search results advertising using Adwords.

10. Work online marketing

Your online store works correctly and you have already made a sale through Google Adwords, some other advertising system or naturally. Okay, now is the time to expand the number of sales through marketing.

Create your own online marketing strategy : Make special offers, prepare a social media strategy, organize contests, follow up with your customers, write press releases... Do everything possible to improve your online presence, make your brand known, position your products in google and sell online.

As in all businesses, you must sell to survive. It is useless for your store to be the best if nobody knows it, it is useless for your prices to be the most competitive if nobody sees your products. You must make the effort to go out and sell, or at least carry out the relevant marketing actions to achieve the necessary sales.

The ideal is to start with marketing at the beginning of creating an online store, do not wait because otherwise the customers will take time to arrive.

Shopify has abandoned cart recovery functionality, which allows you to recover lost sales by automatically sending an email reminding the customer of the product or item they haven't finished purchasing. It also allows you to sell through social networks such as Facebook, Google Shopping, which helps you reach the users of these channels and get more sales for your store.

I have ignored some fundamental issues in the creation of any business, such as conducting a preliminary market study, the viability of the project, creating the business model with a business model canvas or documenting all the steps, but how I have focused on ecommerce businesses and online stores, I have preferred to simplify. You can get more tips for a project like this from entrepreneur Simon Vielma, to optimize your business plan.

We hope that by following these steps you have learned how to create an online store, and if you have already decided to create your online store.