Starting online store is very easy these days even if you are not technically savvy although it’s very hard to do everything yourself. So some of the following steps you might want to outsource to somebody who specializes on it.
1. Get Domain Name
Every online business starts with domain name. The sooner you get it the sooner you will feel like you’ve already started your venture! The only catch is it MUST contain the main keyword that targets your chosen niche. Also, don’t make it long – 2-3 words is perfect. And don’t put dashes between words.
2. Pick The Right Shopping Cart Platform
There are many options. Some are free (open source) and some are commercial solutions. The first thing you need to do is to come up with the list of features your online store should have. Then you should pick a shopping cart platform that has most of these features and the missing features should be easy to implement. If you are technically savvy then free open source solution is right for you. If you are not then you should go with paid hosted solution. Just make sure you research the best provider.
3. Load Products
It all depends on how may products you have. If it’s below 1000 you may want to do it all manually. But if it’s above you should consider automatic import of products. Most of the shopping carts support bulk product import. For example you can list all products info in Excel document and then upload this document along with product images to your shopping cart. Then you can run product import with single click and just wait until all products got imported.
4. Site Design
This is the most time wasting step. Many newbies are wasting their time and money on fancy designs and eventually give up on the whole idea. The most important thing to understand is that to sell you need simple and easy to use design. And you can always tweak the design later on. The goal is to make your site unique in some way. Don’t waste time on fancy stuff.
5. Choosing The Payment Processor
In order to accept payments you need to find the payment processor and hook it up to your site. Again, you need to research before making the decision on which payment processor to use. Make sure you support PayPal as well since it’s becoming a standard for online payment options.
6. Market Your Site
Once your site went live, don’t expect making sales right away. In fact it may take a month or more before you get the 1st order. So after your site is up and running you should actively promote it through different channels: Pay Per Click advertisement, Social Networks and Search Engine Optimizations are the major ways to market your online store.
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