Build an online store with zero experience required!

Step 1. Decide what you want to sell and who your going to be selling it to.

This requires lots of market research and its important to find a niche’ that is affordable and popular enough to earn the kind of profits that will keep your business afloat. There are several wholesale websites that can supply your store. I suggest buying from a wholesale retailer rather than someone like amazon because with markups on your items you can usually get more for less. For example, say your selling yarn on your website with all different colors for $4 a ball. On wholesale sites like DHGate, you may be able to find a deal where you can pay $5 for 10 balls of yarn. Buying in bulk like this will keep your store stocked and make the shipping process faster because most wholesale websites sell products from places like India and China. So its smart to buy what you need all at once.

You also need to think of who your going to be selling your products to. For example, If your selling yarn; your customer base is going to be ages 35+.  You need to think about where you will advertise. Many people ages 35+ don’t have a Facebook. That’s one marketing plot that may not go well. If your selling something everyone needs or wants Facebook can be a very rewarding way to advertise. Word of mouth can go a long way

Step 2. Pick a name for your website and purchase it.

This can be very expensive depending on how catchy or original the name you pick is. I suggest going to Godaddy you can find websites for as cheap as 99 cents. For example sallysyarnbarn.com is $11.99, but if you want something a little more catchy like yarnstore.com you’ll be paying about $1,500 for that domain name. That doesn’t include hosting or a website builder either that’s just for the name. If you are tech savvy and know how to write html code you can get a server for around $125 for 3 years. Or you can use Godaddy’s website builder that is relatively cheap and create your site with that. Its pretty simple to add code from Paypal or whoever you decide to accept payments through and place them under images of your products.

Step 3. Advertise your new business.

Now that you have your niche’ and a website and have started to put products on it you need to get the word out there so people can start buying stuff from your website. Start with friends and tell them to help you spread the word. Seems like a lame way to advertise but can prove to be quite rewarding if your customer service and products are worth mentioning. You can also try putting an ad in the paper or advertising online with Facebook or Google Ads.

Thanks for reading, if you have any questions or need help feel free the leave a comment or message me.