Online Store Builder – Create Your Own Online Store
Whether you already own a physical store and are looking to expand your business by opening an online store or taking your first steps towards starting your own business by opening an online store with online store builder —this article will walk you through the basic steps to building an online store from scratch.
The best thing is that you can now quickly build an online store with the help of an eCommerce website builder. While there are many options, this article will help you become one of the best eCommerce website builder platforms. Hence, read on to learn how to start a business by building your online store.
Steps To Create Your Own Online Store
Read the following nine steps to create your online store:
Step 1: Find Your Ideal Ecommerce Website Builder
An eCommerce online store builder is software that allows you to build an online store in just a few simple steps without requiring coding knowledge or advanced technical skills. All you need is a great business idea and internet connectivity.
While choosing an online store creator, keep in mind the size and purpose of your online store. Shopivana can be ideal for you as it is both user-friendly and budget-friendly. Shopivana’s paid plans are suitable for startups and small to medium-sized businesses. Moreover, the plans come with a 10-day money-back guarantee feature.
Step 2: Choose The Best Plan For Your Business Requirements
Once you have decided which eCommerce website builder to use, you must choose the right plan. Since different types of projects come with different sets of features, you need to carefully consider your growth ambitions and the size of your business and then choose a plan.
Moreover, your budget, the number of products you plan to sell, and the features you want your store to have, need to be considered.
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Step 3: Choose A Domain Name For Your Online Store
A domain name is that part in a URL that proclaims your store’s name. The key to successfully launching an online store is to choose a good domain name because it helps to establish your brand and build trust with your customers. The domain name is what customers see in Google searches and the address bar. If you already have a domain name, you can transfer it to your online store builder. Once you have chosen your domain name, purchase it. The domain name has an expiry date; hence, you must renew it regularly.
Step 4: Select Your Ecommerce Template
Templates enable you to build a stunningly attractive site without learning to code. Before choosing a template, you need to consider the following three factors –
- The features that you want for your online store. These might include maps, an about us page, or galleries.
- The kind of homepage you want your store to have. Since a homepage is the first thing that meets a customer’s eye, it must meet industry standards.
- The eCommerce template of your online store should be such that it can be navigated easily by the customers. The navigation bar should be easily readable.
Step 5: Customize Your Ecommerce Template
Once you have chosen a theme/template, go to your store’s admin panel and start customizing the template. You can easily customize almost everything, including color scheme, font, size, images, etc. You can also embed apps within the template to access some unique features.
Step 6: Add Your Products
Now that you have designed a fashionable online store using the templates, it’s time to add your products to the store. The essential things you need to include in a product are name, category, price, weight(in case of physical products), and file( in case of products that can be downloaded, such as ebooks).
You need to check the number of products you can upload, the number of options available for each product, and the number of product variants before choosing a website builder.
Step 7: Set Up Payment Methods
Setting up a payment method is essential as it converts a browser into a buyer. B2B Ecommerce website builders optimize the payment procedure by connecting you directly with various payment options such as Visa, PayPal, MasterCard, and Apple Pay.
Choose a payment method after considering a tentative number of sales you expect to make and also what kind of persons will be your prospective buyers. Online store builders also provide an SSL certificate that encrypts your user’s data.
Step 8: Sort Out Your Shipping Settings
Now that you have included products and selected payment options, it’s time to ensure that you can deliver your products to the customers. Shipping options vary from one online store builder to another. Hence, it would be best to choose an online store creator whose shipping options perfectly suit your requirements. Shopivana has partnered with several shipping brands, such as Delivery, Nimbuspot, ShipRocket, etc., to help you deliver your product quickly.
Step 9: Preview, Test, And Publish Your Online Store
The last step is to double-check the features of your online store. E-commerce website builders have made it easy to preview your online store before finally publishing it. Following are some of the critical things to check while testing your online store –
- Whether your store is working on different browsers and mobile?
- Is your store’s checkout working?
- Have you tried your store’s contents?
Why Use Shopivana?
Although there are several eCommerce website builder platforms to choose from, Shopivana is the most recommended as the best website builder for an online store because of its following features –
- You can choose from hundreds of templates/themes per your business requirements.
- Shopivana enables you to design a no-code website for your online store. One can create a website in less than 30 minutes without technical knowledge.
- Shopivana enables you to develop a mobile-friendly website for your customers.
- Shopivana’s websites are SEO optimized, which helps with Google rankings. Moreover, they will provide you with marketing tools such as Google Merchant listing and social media sharing features which will help you to promote your online store.
- Unlike other hosted eCommerce platforms, Shopivana does not levy transaction fees on your payments.
- Your website is hosted on Microsoft servers which are highly secure and world-class. Moreover, you do not have to worry about hosting, backups, SSL, and uptime.
Conclusion
E-commerce website builder platforms have made it easy to design your online store. You do not need any technical skills, and the store setup process is simple too. Since the online store builder handles most of the technical work themselves, such as hosting, security and updates, this enables you to focus your attention on the creation and running of your online store. On top of that, if you use the feature-packed Shopivana website builder platform, nothing can stop your online store from soaring to the heights of success.