How to Start an Online Store in 2022: 7 Simple Steps

Starting an online store to sell products and services is easier than ever with plug-and-play ecommerce platforms and web builders. First, you’ll need to iron out a business concept and choose products to sell. Then, select an ecommerce platform, build your website, and choose an order fulfillment strategy. Online stores are visual platforms, so you’ll need strong product pages and a marketing plan. Overall, plan to spend around $100 to set up your online store (not including products).

Here’s how to start an online store in seven steps:

1. Choose a Business Concept

Building an online store starts with honing the idea for the products you would like to sell. When choosing what to sell, first select an overall concept by determining which niche or industry you would like to focus on. This idea can come from personal interests or market opportunities.

It’s easier to target customers with a specific interest and sell products that directly appeal to them rather than offering a wide array of general merchandise. Choosing a niche will also give you a specific direction to start and makes it easier to develop a strong brand. For example, a dog enthusiast might want to open an online store with pet products. However, a better business concept is to fill a market void or need, such as organic dog food specifically for pit bulls.

Select a Business Model

Once you have an idea of what you want to sell, you need to decide how to sell it. Some business models include:

• Start a dropshipping business (instead of stocking inventory)
• Develop and manufacture custom products
• Start a private label brand
• Pack and ship orders yourself
• Use a third-party fulfillment company to store inventory and fulfill orders

Start by thinking realistically about the amount of time you want to invest in your ecommerce venture. How much space do you have available or are you willing to obtain for storing inventory? If your online store is a side project, it may be realistic only to sell and stock a few products. Or, you can only sell products that are available for dropshipping, so you don’t have to fulfill orders or pay for a third-party service.

However, if you want to grow your online business, you will likely want to develop custom or private label products and stock many of them yourself. This plan means having a dedicated garage, room, or storage space for managing inventory and packing orders and, when your business takes off and you can no longer fulfill orders yourself, moving over to a fulfillment company (read our guide to the best).

Design a Brand

Once you have an idea of what you want to sell and how you want to sell it, you’ll need to develop a brand. This process includes picking a company name, website, and logo. Do this early in building an online store because you will need to purchase a domain name. Your domain name should either be your brand name or at least contain your brand name. For example, Away luggage brand’s website is awaytravel.com (away.com is already taken).

When choosing a domain name for your online store, be sure to:

• The “.com” extension is most common; however, choose an extension (.biz, .us, .net, etc.) that best reflects your store.
• Make it easy to spell.
• Keep it as short as possible.

Try our business name generator if you feel stuck on deciding a name for your business. We also came up with a list of domain name ideas to help you get started if you need help coming up with domain names.

Apply for Licenses and Trademarks

While doing your brand development, It’s also a good time to take care of the legal stuff—outline what licenses and legal protections you will need to start your business. Anyone selling products will need to obtain a resale license, also known as a reseller’s permit or sales tax ID from your state’s tax department. You will need to apply for this in each state where you have a physical presence (such as a warehouse).

If you are manufacturing or designing products, you will also want to file for a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) if your products qualify. You will also want to trademark your business name to prevent others from selling under your brand name.

2. Source Your Products Through Reliable Suppliers

Once your business plan is solid, the next step is sourcing your products. It will take some time to find the right suppliers and make sure you are satisfied with the final results. Plan to spend several months and several thousand dollars requesting sample orders from different suppliers, especially if you are customizing your products in any way with a unique formula, design, or branding.

Arguably the hardest part of starting an online store is finding a supplier you trust to deliver quality products on time and for the right price. There are a few different ways new businesses can go about finding one that is best for them. You can start by researching what manufacturers your competitors are using. You can also request samples from many suppliers at once through Alibaba or other US-based wholesale directories. The most traditional option is to visit industry trade shows to connect with suppliers in person.

Research Your Competitors

To find a supplier, one of the first steps you can take is to research your competitors. Purchase a few of their products and research what is on the product label. Many of them will have the manufacturing location or other details, which you can use in a Google search. There are also smartphone apps you can download that will scan product barcodes and pull up details on the manufacturer. With your smartphone and these apps, you can gather a lot of manufacturing leads on a trip to the mall, box store, or boutique.

Connect With Manufacturers Through Alibaba

Alibaba has millions of products from thousands of manufacturers. Through Alibaba, you can find suppliers to manufacture products, build private labels, or purchase ready-made products to resell. The site is a top name in product sourcing and makes it easy to search for specific products and filter results by price, minimum order, or browse top-ranking suppliers. You can even search by image if you have a product you want to replicate.

Use a Directory Service to Find US-Based Suppliers

In addition to searching Alibaba, there are several other directory sites offering mostly ready-made products. Some directory sites link to outside suppliers, while others have a built-in interface for placing orders.

Popular wholesale sites include:

• Faire: Unique items from smaller apparel, gift, beauty, and home product makers
• The Grommet Wholesale: Unusual gift items from independent makers and manufacturers
• Worldwide Brands: A directory site with thousands of wholesale suppliers
• Wholesale Central: A free directory site with thousands of wholesale suppliers

Attend Trade Shows and Wholesale Marketplaces

Attending trade shows is the most efficient way to test a lot of products firsthand and is a great way to find suppliers you might not otherwise encounter, especially if you are only searching online. There are some permanent showrooms that you can visit year-round to find suppliers and products. Other shows are temporary and bring in thousands of vendors at once.

Some of the most popular trade shows include:

• AmericasMart Atlanta: Gift and home items
• NY NOW: Gift, lifestyle, handmade, and home items
• Toy Fair: Toy, collectible, and children’s products
• Cosmoprof North America: Skincare and beauty products, including private label
• ASD Market Week: General merchandise, apparel, accessories, and suppliers offering custom and private label
• MAGIC: One of the largest apparel and accessory shows

Consider Designing a Private Label Brand

Private label brands are goods manufactured by one company but then sold under the retailer’s brand name. Private label products help businesses build a strong identity and prevent customers from trying to find your products for lower prices on other online stores. To start a private label brand, design a logo and packaging to place on a standard or slightly customized product from a manufacturer or wholesaler.

Starting a private label brand such as cosmetics and beauty products is a good middle-ground option between manufacturing a custom product and buying traditional wholesale goods. Private label items provide unique branding, SKUs for product listings, and sometimes unique formulas or design elements. Still, the process is much easier than designing and manufacturing a completely new product.

3. Choose an Ecommerce Platform

After sourcing products to sell, it’s time to choose a platform where you can sell them. Some ecommerce platforms offer templates with easy add-on features that can be adjusted via drag and drop. There are other platforms with greater flexibility for those who want to add their own coding elements. There are also shopping cart plugins that can be added to existing websites for businesses looking to monetize their site by selling products.

Selling on social media like Facebook and Instagram and marketplaces such as Etsy, eBay, and Amazon is also an option. Most retail businesses choose to sell in their own online store and integrate with social media channels and marketplaces for an added reach.

Creating a Templated Store vs Designing From Scratch

When building an online store, the first decision to make before selecting a platform is whether to use a templated store design or build a site from scratch. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Larger businesses with developers on hand may benefit from a custom store. However, most small businesses that don’t have a developer and want to manage the website themselves would have the flexibility to do so with a templated design.

Popular Ecommerce Platforms

There are several popular ecommerce platforms that many small businesses use to learn how to build an online store. Shopify, BigCommerce, and Square Online are some of the most popular platforms for new businesses and retailers looking to expand online. All of these programs offer templates, varying levels of inventory management tools, reporting, and options for connected payment processing.

These tools also offer native or plug-in solutions for selling and advertising on social media, selling in person, connecting a blog, and selling on third-party marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. They also have different plans for businesses of different sizes and sales volumes.

• Shopify: Best overall ecommerce platform for small businesses
• BigCommerce: Best ecommerce platform for growing businesses
• Square Online: Best online store builder for cafes and curbside pickup
• Ecwid: Best shopping cart platform to add on existing websites

Based on our evaluation, the choice of an ecommerce solution for most small businesses usually comes down to BigCommerce vs Shopify. Shopify is our top-recommended ecommerce platform for small businesses. However, BigCommerce may be better suited for larger-revenue businesses, especially those that have complex inventories or want to save on processing fees.

When to Use a WordPress Site

If your business is not a dedicated ecommerce site, but a blog, coaching, or publishing site that also sells merchandise, you may want to create a WordPress site and add a WooCommerce or other WordPress shopping cart plugin. Businesses can also turn any existing WordPress site into an ecommerce store by using these plugins, so it is a good option for businesses looking to sell merchandise or expand into retail sales.

4. Build Your Ecommerce Website

After choosing a platform, the next step is building your online store’s website by selecting a theme, incorporating payment processing, putting security measures in place, and getting any necessary add-ons. Refer back to your brand design and any custom products or packaging you have for a guide on choosing a color scheme, fonts, and an overall look for your site.

Choose a Theme

No matter what ecommerce platform you choose, all of them have many options for free and paid templates or themes, usually with multiple variations available. There are also many free and paid WordPress ecommerce themes available for different shopping cart plugins.

When choosing a theme for your online store:

• Invest in quality: Don’t shy away from paid themes; spring for the one you think is best. It’s not impossible to change themes later, but it is easier to pick the right one from the start.
• Opt for a responsive theme: Mobile browsing makes up a large portion of online shopping, so make sure your theme is optimized for mobile.
• Prioritize navigation features: Easy navigation is critical for a positive user experience, so make sure your theme has a great header, search, and related product navigation features.
• Evaluate product pages: Quality product pages help increase conversions. Choose themes with options for lots of high-quality photos and/or images, multiple types of product descriptions, and other dynamic content.

Integrate Payment Processing

Integrating payment processing is a mundane yet critical element of building an ecommerce website. As an online retailer, you’ll need to choose a Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant payment processor. Many ecommerce platforms have built-in payment processors or a few select payment partners that are compatible. Any built-in payment processors will be PCI compliant. For example, Square, Shopify Payments, Stripe, and PayPal are all PCI compliant.

For most small businesses, opting for the built-in payment processor is the easiest option. Payment processing rates between ecommerce platforms are usually competitive. However, once you start to grow larger (processing more than $15,000 per month) it may be worthwhile to actively shop for a payment processor that can offer lower rates, or negotiate a lower rate with your existing processor as you could qualify for volume discounts.

Adding Alternative Payment Methods

As an online seller, it’s critical to have an option for shoppers to enter their credit or debit card information. However, having more user-friendly options like one-click and e-wallet payments, PayPal, and installment options (buy now, pay later) are important for increasing conversions and sales. Most major ecommerce platforms have a direct integration for accepting PayPal payments. Many also accept Apple and Google e-wallet payments.

Installment payments are typically offered by a third-party processor that pays the retailer up front but collects monthly payments from customers, so shoppers are only paying a fraction of the total cost up front. Many of these services don’t charge customers interest or require hard credit checks. These payment options are appealing for shoppers who don’t use traditional credit cards. Popular providers include AfterPay, Klarna, Splitit, and PayPal Credit.

Learn more in our guide on how to offer buy now, pay later.

5. Decide How You’ll Fulfill Orders

Order fulfillment is the process of storing products, packing customer orders, and shipping products out to customers. When first starting, many small businesses handle this process themselves out of a garage or storage space. However, some companies handle order fulfillment for ecommerce sellers.

Order fulfillment companies will store products for you and pack and send customer orders as they come in. With this fulfillment method, ecommerce businesses still purchase inventory upfront and send it to the order fulfillment company to store. This method is often best for ecommerce businesses that have outgrown their at-home fulfillment space and do not want to start their own warehouse and large-scale fulfillment operation.

However, there are also dropshipping companies. Dropshipping companies serve as the product supplier and fulfill customer orders, so ecommerce businesses don’t have to purchase upfront inventory. When working with dropshipping companies, ecommerce sellers are limited in that they can only sell products the dropshipper has available. However, there are fewer upfront costs and a lot less work involved for ecommerce businesses. You can read our guide to starting your own dropshipping business.

Select a Shipping Provider

If you are packing and shipping customer orders in-house, you’ll also need to choose a shipping software or service and shop around for the most efficient shipping rates among FedEx vs UPS vs USPS—the most popular shipping platforms.

If you go with most ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Square Online, then you will be delighted to know that they have built-in shipping tools. These platforms have discounted shipping rates, automatically calculate shipping costs for customers at checkout, and make it easy for ecommerce businesses to print shipping labels directly from the order management system.

However, if you built your own site or are using a shopping cart plugin that does not have these features, you’ll need to find a third-party solution. For small operations, Stamps.com is a popular option. It syncs with many online marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy, plus shopping carts like Magento. Simply import customer orders and print out the shipping labels at home.

6. Add Detailed Product Pages

When your online store infrastructure is in place, it’s time to add in the actual products. There are multiple layers to this process. First, you’ll need to enter in all of the inventory data for each item like wholesale price, retail markup, vendor information, SKUs and barcode information, categories, colors, sizes, quantities, and whatever other data points are relevant for your specific merchandise. If you already have a list of inventory, you can upload this information in bulk via CSV or Excel file. You can also use our free inventory templates to help you get started. Otherwise, you can manually enter each product.

Create Descriptive Product Pages

After you enter the data, the next step is creating a detailed individual product page for each item. For ecommerce websites, product pages are arguably the most important element of the site. Shoppers can land on a product page after browsing your store, from a Google search, or via a targeted advertisement.

A product page should have:

• Clear pricing information: Pricing should be displayed prominently and clearly indicate whether or not the price displayed is before or after any promotions.
• Easy “Add to Cart” buttons: Add a large “Add to Cart” button next to product images and below pricing information; the goal is to get shoppers to buy, so make sure the button is a color that stands out.
• High-quality photos: Product photos can make or break sales. Use high-quality images that show products from all angles, in all variants, and in action where situationally relevant.
• Customer reviews or social proof: When buying online, shoppers can’t see or feel the product for themselves, so they rely on customer reviews to assess product quality. Incorporate user reviews in product pages and/or photos and testimonials from social media—most ecommerce platforms have these features built in or available through a plugin.
• Helpful product descriptions: Product descriptions should be concise and include precise product information like size and material, but should not be salesy.
• Proactively address customer concerns: Indicate whether or not shipping is free or calculated at checkout, or if there is a minimum order for free shipping.
• Show related products: At the bottom, display similar products, or items people who bought the item also purchased—some ecommerce platforms have this built in, while others have this feature available through plugins.

Write Well-Crafted Product Descriptions

Product descriptions should be uniform across the site, following the same template and tone throughout. In general, there should be three elements to a product description: a short intro, bullet points outlining high-level features, and a longer description at the bottom for shoppers who want greater detail.

Upload High-Quality Product Photos

Product photos are one of the most important elements of an online store. High-quality images can showcase the details and quality of an item, while low-quality or grainy photos leave shoppers with more questions than answers.

Some wholesale suppliers will provide high-quality photos of their products, which will save you a lot of time and money. Ask your suppliers if this is something they provide. If not, you can either take the photos yourself or hire a professional.

When taking the photos yourself, use a plain white background in a well-lit area. You can do product photography on a budget with a smartphone camera and natural light. Though, if you are not a professional or experienced photographer, for the best (and fastest) results, there are services that specialize in ecommerce photography.

Square Photo Studio offers very affordable product photography with a fast turnaround time. Ship Square the products, choose three photos with different angles for $9.95 or a 360-degree photo for $29.95. Square will send you the images within 14 days.

In addition to standalone product shots and 360-degree photos, also consider photos of the product in-use. This is especially important for apparel, accessories, and makeup items. Shoppers will want an idea of what the product will look like when worn. For decor and home items, consider lifestyle photos of the products so customers can picture the items in their own homes.

7. Launch & Market Your Online Store

After setting up the product pages, your site is ready to launch. Once your online store is live, it will require a multipronged marketing approach with search engine optimization (SEO), listings on additional sales channels, and email marketing to bring in a steady flow of shoppers. Some ecommerce businesses also use in-person sales at pop-ups and events to grow their business.

Create an SEO Strategy

Online stores need at least a basic SEO strategy to make sure that product pages appear in search results. To do this, ecommerce sellers need to target a keyword with each individual product page (such as “striped polyester T-shirt”). Ecommerce websites should also make sure to add product titles and descriptions that will appear in search engine results and alt text for images.

Online store builders like Shopify and BigCommerce have built-in tools to make this process easy. In addition to optimizing individual pages, ecommerce businesses should have a logical and user-friendly site structure so shoppers can easily navigate the website.

Sell on Marketplaces

Many successful ecommerce businesses grow by selling their products in more than one place. Even with a standalone store, many online businesses also sell on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Etsy. These sales likely won’t drive traffic to your main store, but they are a good way to bring in revenue and can help strengthen your brand credibility and recognition.

Shopify, BigCommerce, and most ecommerce platforms have tools to sell on Amazon, so your inventory and customer order information is synced and centralized in one place. This means you won’t have to check several places for customer orders or manually update available products across multiple sites.

Sell on Facebook & Instagram

For new online brands, advertising and selling on Instagram and Facebook are popular ways of gaining recognition. Both social platforms let businesses create advertisements that directly link to product pages or have options to buy without even leaving the social site. Plus, businesses can create ads targeting customers in a specific area, with particular interests, or of a certain age group.

Grow Your Email List

Email promotions are one of the best tools an online store has for driving repeat sales and connecting with customers. Ask customers to provide their email addresses with orders, but also have a sign-up option for people who visit your site but do not make a purchase. Most ecommerce platforms have either built-in tools for email marketing or integrations with email marketing solutions like Mailchimp.

Frequently Asked Questions About Starting an Online Store

Starting an online store looks a little bit different for everyone depending on the type of business you have and whether you’re taking a storefront online or building a new company from scratch. Here are some of the most common questions around starting an online store.

How do I start an online store with no money?

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Do I need a business license to start an online store?

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How much money can I make with an online store?

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How can I grow my online store?

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Bottom Line

Statistics show that 63% of consumers prefer online shopping, and 73% of ecommerce sales are expected to come from mobile. It is clear that ecommerce is here to stay and having an online store should be part of a retail business’ growth plan.

Thanks to plug-and-play software like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Square Online Store, setting up an online store is easy. Most people can even set up a basic store in under a day. However, building a successful and profitable ecommerce operation requires much more than simply building an ecommerce site. You’ll need a business plan, carefully selected or manufactured products, a marketing strategy, and an organized order fulfillment operation.

Shopify is one of the biggest names in ecommerce software because it makes it easy for individuals or businesses of any size to start an online store. Preset templates and built-in inventory and order management features make it simple to get an ecommerce business up and running in no time. Shopify’s app marketplace offers dropshipping companies, plus marketing tools and features to build out product pages. With several pricing plans, individuals can start a small online store and grow it to an ecommerce enterprise all on the same platform. Visit Shopify for a free 14-day trial.

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