You’ve heard of e-commerce, but what is it? It’s the act of doing business over an electronic network. For example, you can buy and sell products or services online.

The internet has allowed many more people to make a living by selling their products on sites like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and more. This blog post will teach you how to get started with your e-commerce online store!

What is Ecommerce?

Ecommerce is a term used to describe transactions made over an electronic network. Like brick-and-mortar businesses, eCommerce companies have a product or service they want to sell and a shopping cart for customers to select what they will buy.

What products are sold on ecommerce sites?

All sorts of products are sold on eCommerce sites! For example, you can buy clothes, jewelry, ornaments, shoes, and more. In addition, many people sell their products on eCommerce sites without ever owning a business.

What types of ecommerce sites exist?

There are many types of eCommerce online stores. Some sell the same products but have very different designs and layouts. Here are just a few examples to give you an idea of what each type is like.

– An online retail store that sells discounted products

– A membership site where people pay monthly to gain access to exclusive deals

– A subscription site where people pay a monthly fee to gain access to exclusive content

– An online auction site that lets people sell items they own and don’t want anymore

Benefits of Ecommerce sites

The benefits of eCommerce sites are plenty! Many people who open eCommerce stores love what they do. Here are a few reasons why:

– Ecommerce stores can be opened by anyone, regardless of their location

– An eCommerce store is scalable, meaning it can handle millions of visitors per month on the same cheap hosting plan

– There’s no barrier to entry. Anyone can build an eCommerce store with the right guidance and methods

– There’s no limit to how much you can make on an eCommerce site. You can start with a small budget and scale your business as big as you want.

Prerequisites for Ecommerce sites

There are plenty of prerequisites for setting up your eCommerce store. Of course, there are many, but these are the most important:

High-speed internet connection

All eCommerce sites require a high-speed connection. When building the store, you’ll be uploading many images and videos, which will take up a lot of bandwidth. Plus, customers need to have a reliable connection so they can complete their purchases. A fast hosting plan is required for your eCommerce site to perform.

A product or service to sell

Not all eCommerce sites sell physical products. Instead, many of them sell a service, which is something that is not tangible. However, most people who use an eCommerce site as a business model sell physical products. Either way, you need to have a product or service to offer in your store before moving forward with it.

An eCommerce platform to run on

There are a ton of different eCommerce platforms to pick from. Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento are just a few examples. Some people create their custom eCommerce websites using a popular web design theme or template, but this approach is usually more time-consuming and costly in the long run.

A marketing strategy

Most electronic Commerce stores rely on a strong marketing effort to bring in new customers and sales. Without a proper marketing plan, it isn’t easy to turn a profit with your eCommerce store. So make sure you have a solid plan before opening up shop!

Summary

Ecommerce sites are growing rapidly as more people are turning to the internet to buy their products. If you have a product or service that people are willing to pay for, it may be worth setting up your eCommerce website!

If you’re interested in opening an eCommerce store, I recommend checking out Shopify – It’s what I use when building my eCommerce site, and I recommend it to everyone.

How do you open an Ecommerce site?

Building an eCommerce site is very simple, even if you don’t have any coding experience. The internet has made it so much easier than it used to be due to how many online tools and services are available.

Open an Ecommerce site with Shopify

Shopify makes it easy to build an eCommerce store without any coding experience. You can choose from hundreds of pre-made themes and templates, add products and features with just a few clicks of the mouse and add a powerful payment processor so people can buy your products.

And Shopify’s app store has plenty of marketing tools to help you bring new customers to your site while still keeping your costs low. Plus, they have great customer support if you ever run into any issues or have questions about your store.

Use WordPress to open an Ecommerce site

Not everyone likes building their website, which is why WordPress has become so popular. It’s very easy to set up a WordPress page and start selling your products or services without programming or web design experience.

You can sell physical or digital products on your site using the WooCommerce plugin for WordPress.

Other eCommerce platforms to consider

There are many other eCommerce platforms out there, but the three I mentioned above are the most popular. If you’re interested in opening your store, it’s worth checking each one out to see if it suits your needs.

How much does it cost to open an eCommerce site?

The cost of opening up a Shopify eCommerce store is just $29/month for the Lite plan. That gives you access to 100 products and most of the essential eCommerce features you’ll need.

If you want to sell more than 100 products or add custom branding and design, you can upgrade to one of their pricing plans for $79/month – $299/month (Shopify).

WordPress is free to use, and they also have a powerful suite of paid plugins and themes to help you create an amazing eCommerce site.

Summary

If you have a product or service that people are willing to buy online, I recommend opening a Shopify store. It’s the easiest way to build an eCommerce website without any programming knowledge. Plus, they have great customer support and very competitive pricing.

Downsides of Ecommerce

Ecommerce sites have a lot of great features and benefits, but they also come with some downsides. Here are a few to consider:

Ecommerce stores have high operating costs. You’ll need to spend money on buying inventory, paying for a warehouse or storage space, and then pay to ship everything out when you sell it.

Your site needs to be up 24/7. If your e-commerce store is down for any reason – whether it’s because of an issue with the website or a server downtime – you’ll lose money and risk losing customers.

You need to have a lot of traffic. There’s no point in opening a store if nobody can find it! So you either need to drive a lot of organic traffic or have enough budget for ads and marketing efforts to bring in buyers.

Ecommerce stores are very competitive. There are millions of different e-commerce stores out there, making it tough to stand out from the crowd and make sales. You’ll need a solid marketing strategy to get people to visit your website and stick around long enough to buy – especially if you’re using paid or social media ads.

Shopping cart abandonment is a big problem for e-commerce stores. When someone adds something to their shopping cart but then leaves the site before checking out, that’s called “cart abandonment.”

This happens all the time and can cause you to lose sales – especially if people use competitors’ sites instead of yours! So you need to find ways to bring back customers who left before they checked out.

Publishing your articles on an e-commerce site seems like a natural fit because you’ll already have the audience and subscribers there. But, it’s important to remember that not everyone is here to read about e-commerce! So, you’ll need to promote your posts well so people can discover them.

Don’t forget to take the time to promote your content on other social media networks, too. You can always cross-promote between sites to find new readers who may be interested in what you have to say.

Make e-commerce a part of your strategy, but don’t make it your sole focus! It’s much better to have a blog with lots of traffic and an e-commerce store on the side than to focus all your efforts on the store and depend on it for your income.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to hire staff?

If you’re selling physical products, you don’t want to try and do the shipping yourself! You will need to hire staff and pay them to ship the items you sell – and that’s in addition to any developers, designers, marketing team members, or other staff you may also need.

If your e-commerce store is focused only on digital products, you might be able to get away with doing some of the shipping yourself. But it’s still a good idea to hire a virtual assistant or part-time help to handle the orders that come in each day.

What kind of products should I sell?

It depends on what you’re interested in and what your skills are. But, for most people who want to start an eCommerce store, I recommend selling digital products or physical products.

Digital products can be ebooks, web design templates, Photoshop brushes, and plugins – anything that you can sell online as a downloadable file. They’re easier to create and don’t require much overhead, but they have a big drawback – you need to keep creating new products!

How long does it take to make my store live?

It will depend on how simple or complex your site is. For example, if you plan to use a free eCommerce platform like Shopify, it should take less than an hour to make your store live. But, if you want something more customized and unique, it could take much longer!

What are the steps to making my store live?

There are six steps to starting an e-commerce store:

1. Choose your type of store (physical or digital) and platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, Squarespace, etc.).
2. Create your layout with a theme or template.
3. Add all the pages you need (contact form, about page, shipping policy, etc.).
4. Add your products to the sales pages.
5. Connect your store to a secure payment gateway (Stripe or PayPal).
6. Set up shipping, taxes, and email deliverability (so people can check out and get their order!).

Last Thoughts

E-Commerce is a booming industry, and it’s easy to see why. With the eCommerce site, you can sell anything online- from books to clothes or even your products!

Read on here to find out more about how an e-commerce site works, what types of sites exist, and how you can start with Shopify. (ADD WHAT IS SHOPIFY ARTICLE)

We hope you have enjoyed this article on e-commerce! If you want to learn more about how to start an eCommerce business, visit our website.