In this era of digitalization, selling products and services on internet is highly beneficial for buyers and sellers. Buyer can get desired products from the comfort their home and seller doesn’t need a physical store or shop for selling their products. If you are looking or planning for opening an online e-commerce store then we are delighted to tell you that this is perfect time for online store. There are many tools and platform which made buying and selling things on internet a hassle free task. You can also start a online e-commerce store without any technical knowledge or coding. This article is completely dedicated towards the process of starting a online store.
What is Online Store?
An Online store is dedicated e-commerce website or application on which description, price and images of various products is shown. You can purchase these products digitally after viewing them. Online store also provide payment getaway, where you can make secure payment digitally from the comfort of your home. Shopping on online is available for 24 hours.
Online Store Benefits
Online store provides variety of benefits to both buyers and seller. online store Benefits are as follows
Benefits of Online Store for Seller
- Cost Effective– Selling on online store is cost effective as compared to selling on physical store. Selling on online Store does not need you to maintain physical store and service staff.
- Easy and Affordable Marketing and Promotion– Marketing and promotion is very importnat for sucessfull business. Online store allows you to promote and advertise your products and services in most cost effective ways. There are variety of marketing agencies and online marketing tools like email marketing, SMS marketing etc which will help you in promotion in most cost effective ways.
- Vast Customer Reach– With online store, you can spread your reach to millions of customers which are available all across the internet.
- Availability– Online store allows you to serve your customers 24/7. Customer can buy from your online store anytime because services of online store are always available on the internet.
- Easy and No Credit Payment– Payments are very easy on online store as there are various payment getaways which helps you to receive payments timely and without fails. Customer needs to pay in advance whenever he/she purchase products and services from online store. This will help business owners to get instant payment without credit.
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Benefits of Online Store for Buyer
- Convenient– Shopping & Purchasing from online store is very convenient and hassle free. Online Store allow buyer to purchase products and services from the comfort of their home.
- Competitive Price– Price offered by online shopping store is very reasonable and affordable. User can get better products at much more reasonable prices as compared to physical shopping.
- Vast Variety of Products– Online store offers vast variety of products to choose from. Buyer can select products after checking and comparing them with thousands of available products.
- Online tracking– Buyers can track delivery status of their purchased products.
- Quick & Easy Payment
- Home Delivery
Important Things Needed to Start Online Store
Starting an online store is very good measure to start an online business. This will provide you financial security. You need few things to start an online store.
- Domain Name- Domain is the name of your online store or website. This will help user to reach your website on the internet. We advise you to choose domain which is relevant to your business. If you want to know more about domain, you can read our domain dedicated article here.
- Website Hosting- Website hosting is another important step for starting online store. All the data and information of your online or website gets stored on web hosting. A good web hosting provides speed and performance to your website for better user experience. Uptime of your online store totally depends on the uptime offered by the servers of web hosting. It is advisable to choose hosting after extensive researching on features offered by webhosting. If want to know more about web hosting you can read complete web hosting dedicated article Here.
- WordPress- WordPress is open source content management system. It is free and widely popular among the bloggers, professionals, businesses etc. More than 40% of world’s website are based on wordpress due to its user friendly interface and variety of plugins available in its directory. You can read complete information of wordpress here. This article will help to understand basics and functionality of wordpress.
- SSL Certificates- Secure Socket layer (SSL) certificate is a digital certificate which ensures the safe and secure nature of website. SSL certificates helps to keep your website’s data safe from hackers, cyber attacks etc. SSL certificates in online stores are used to safeguard online store’s data, user information, and securing transactions.
- E-Commerce Software– You needs easy to use, user friendly e-commerce software that will integrate with wordpress to provide seamless shopping experience to your buyers. Shopify and Woocommerce are the two examples of e-commerce software that allows easy integration with wordpress.
In this article we will use woocommerce software because it provides easy integration with WordPress and it is also managed and designed by WordPress.
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How to Start Online Store Step by Step Procedure
Here we are providing easy and detailed steps to start and online store.
First of all Set up your WordPress Website
- The very first step of starting a online store, start with creating a wordpress website.
- Use you domain and hosting and setup your WordPress. This WordPress website is the base of your online store.
- You can get the detailed information of setting up wordpress website by clicking here
- Now install SSL certificates in your wordpress website to enhance safety features of your wordpress website.
- WordPress comes with pre loaded SSL certificates; all you need to do is to activate them.
- Now install Woocommerce plugin in your wordpress website. You can search for woocommerce plugin in the plugin directory of wordpress.
- When Woocommerce software gets installed, it automatically launches a set up wizard.
- After successful woocommerce setup with your wordpress, you will get a ‘Woocommerce setting’ tab on your screen.
- In this setting tab, add all the required information like address, country, region, mobile number etc. Fill all the details carefully
- Now click on continue tab
- After clicking on continue tab you will get a new tab asking nature & type of your products. For example, if you want to sell designer dresses you should select Fashion Apparel and accessories tab.
- Now click on continue tab
- The next option that will appear on your screen will ask nature of your products and services. For example if you are selling membership based products and services click on membership option, if you are selling products that need delivery and shipping you have select physical products option. You can also select multiple product nature.
- Now click on continue tab
- The next page of business details will appear on your screen. On this page you have to provide details of your business like status of product selling, number of products you want to sell. After that click on continue tab.
- After that a ‘free feature’ tab will appear on your screen. You need to uncheck this free feature tab to avoid any useless feature plugin installation.
- Upon clicking continue tab, a next page to select theme will show on your screen. You can choose theme as per your requirement.
- After choosing theme, click on continue tab and you woocommerce online store is ready to use.
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Process to Activate Payment for Online Store
Here we are sharing process to activate payments on your woocommerce account.
- Firstly open your woocommerce account and click on setting tab.
- After clicking on the setting tab, click on Payment option.
- A payment tab with lots of payment option will appear on your screen.
- Now select the mode and payment getaways as per your need and research.
- After you select the payment getaways click on setup option to start your payment options.
- Exit after clicking on Save changes tab
Process to Add Products on Your Online Store
Adding products list is the most basic thing of online store. You can follow the below mention steps to add products on your online store.
- On the side bar of woocommerce, click on products tab.
- After clicking on it, add title and details of your products
- Now on the right hand side a product categories box will appear add category of your product. You can create categories based on your products to provide easy navigation to your customers.
- After scrolling down a little bit, a product data box will appear. Add information like price details, inventory details etc in that box.
- After scrolling down a short product data box will appear.
- Enter required details of your products which you want your customer to read while viewing multiple products.
- After that add well captured images of your products in right hand side image box.
- Recheck all the detailed precisely and click on publish button.
- Your product will start showing on your online store.
Conclusion
Starting an online store is very beneficial due to its affordability, customer reach, hassle free operation, customer satisfaction and profitable revenue. You can start an online store without any technical and coding knowledge. Online tools like woocommerce makes online store a easy job. We hope this article helps you in getting information on how to start an online e-commerce store. Visit our website for more digital marketing related article.