Hey all, it’s Matt here from Style Factory — the go-to site for ecommerce advice.
In this video, I’m going to show you how to make an online store.
I’ll highlight the key things you need to get right, the key mistakes to avoid and some
online store builders you might want to consider for your project.
And, if you watch to the end, you’ll get some bonus resources on how to promote your
new online store effectively — and maximize sales.
But just before I get started, please do take a moment to like this video, subscribe to
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Ready?
Let’s dive in.
The first thing you need to do is pick the right products to sell.
When it comes to choosing what to sell, you have to focus not just on the quality of your
goods, but how unique they are.
This is because when you set up an online store, you are competing with lots of hugely
popular sites selling everything under the sun — eBay, Amazon, Etsy and so on.
Generally, you are going to have a tough time selling products if you are simply offering
stuff that is already widely available on those kinds of sites.
So, to create a successful online store, you need to find a niche – identify a product
range that is not being sold by every online retailer out there, but for which there is
enough demand to sustain an online business.
Finding a niche typically involves a bit of keyword research.
And, to perform this, you’ll need a keyword research tool.
Keyword research tools let you find out how many searches per month are performed for
particular phrases, and how hard it will be to rank highly in search results for them.
There are lots of keyword research tools available, but the three best known are probably Semrush,
Ahrefs and Moz.
You’ll find links to our resources about these in the video description.
Let’s take a quick look at keyword research in action.
Imagine you are thinking of entering the guitar or banjo selling business, but you’re not
sure which of these two niches to focus on.
By using a keyword research tool, you’d learn that there are 8,500 searches per month
for the search term ‘buy guitar’ and only 1,300 for ‘buy banjo.’
What’s more, you’d be able to find out the ‘keyword difficulty’ score of each
phrase.
In this example, you’d discover that ‘buy guitar’ has a difficulty score of 74%, meaning
that it will be hard to rank for that phrase.
And you’d learn that ‘buy banjo’ has a difficulty score of 13%, meaning that it
would be quite easy to rank for it.
Using these two pieces of data, you’d probably decide that creating an online store to sell
banjos might be the better option.
Despite there being less demand for banjos, there’s quite a lot of interest in them,
and less online competition from other merchants.
Now, once you’ve found your niche, and decided upon the products you’re going to sell,
it’s time to think about where to get them from.
And this brings us onto the next step: sourcing your stock.
There are three main options available when it comes to sourcing stock:
Manufacturing it yourself, purchasing it from a supplier, storing and reselling it or dropshipping.
The advantage of the first two options is that you can view the quality of stock first-hand
and ensure it is produced ethically.
The disadvantage is that you will need to invest cash in products which — if your
venture is not a success — you may never end up selling.
You may also face costs associated with storing your products somewhere.
The other option, dropshipping, is a fulfillment method where you don’t keep what you’re
selling in stock.
You take the order, send it to a supplier, and they deliver the goods to your client
— your store becomes, in effect, a ‘middle man’ of sorts.
The big advantage of dropshipping is that no upfront investment is required.
The downside is that dropshipping is a very competitive activity.
But whichever approach to sourcing your stock you ultimately decide on, you’re going to
need a tool to actually sell it with.
So let’s take a look now at choosing the right store builder.
There are tons of online store builders available, and it can be hard to work out which one is
right for you.
So we suggest taking a really good look at our ecommerce platform buyer’s guide – you’ll
find a link to this in the video description.
However, I’ll zoom in on a few key options here, so that you can get a quick sense of
which one might be a good fit for your business.
You’ve probably heard of Shopify — this is probably the best-known store builder currently
on the market.
It offers a really broad range of selling features and is particularly good for dropshipping
and international selling.
We also rate BigCommerce highly — this is another really good all-rounder that provides
a lot of bang for your buck.
Like Shopify, it comes with some very strong multicurrency features, so it’s also a good
option for selling your products internationally.
If you’re on a budget, we’d suggest taking a look at Wix.
This lets you sell more cheaply than Shopify and BigCommerce, and it also comes with a
comprehensive range of built-in marketing tools that you won’t find in many competing
store builders.
And finally there’s Squarespace.
Whilst this is arguably a less sophisticated ecommerce platform than the ones I’ve mentioned
above, it’s probably the easiest of them to use and comes with some truly stunning
templates.
You’ll find links to impartial reviews of all these platforms in the video description
– I’d strongly recommend that you check them all out before deciding which one is
right for you.
Once you’ve chosen your ecommerce platform, it’s time to collate your content for your
online store.
Content is king, so the saying goes, and with ecommerce, especially so.
To ensure that the build for your online store goes quickly, and results in an attractive
website, it’s best to collate all your content before you go anywhere near your store builder.
We recommend having the following to hand at the outset of your build:
Brand guidelines Copy for your pages
Product descriptions and pricing Product images
Blog posts about your niche and Contact details
Additionally, it helps to give a bit of thought to the operational side of things before you
start work on your store.
This means establishing a clear approach to things like
Shipping Tax rates and
Refunds
By being organized around content and operations, you can save time and avoid problems down
the line.
And once you’ve got all your content and operational issues sorted, it’s time to
populate your store.
To populate your store with all your content and product information, you’ll need to
use its content management system, which is also known as its CMS.
Now, each store builder’s CMS will be slightly different, but regardless of which one you’re
using, there are a couple of principles to bear in mind when populating your store.
The first is not to forget your keyword research - ensure that all your pages, posts and product
details reference the keyword research you conducted at the outset of this process.
The second is to adhere to best SEO practice.
This means ensuring that things like page URLs, page titles, headings and body copy
are formatted correctly and that images are fully optimized.
For a full guide to this process, I’d recommend checking out our video on increasing site
visibility – you’ll find a link for this in the video description.
Once you’ve populated your store, it’s time to launch it.
And this is where a launch checklist comes in.
A launch checklist is a series of tasks you need to run through to ensure that everything
on your online store is working as it should.
The exact nature of this checklist will depend on the type of platform you’re using and
the products you’re selling, but typically you will need to check that
All product information is correct Copy is free of spelling and grammatical errors
All hyperlinks are working Payments are going through
Email notifications from your store are working Shipping and tax rates are being correctly
applied Contact forms are working
Any necessary legal notices and refund policies are in place
Once you’ve run through this checklist, you can connect a custom domain to your store
and launch it.
But our ecommerce journey doesn’t end there - because it’s now time to promote your
store.
It’s tempting to think that once your online store is live, you can simply sit back and
watch the sales roll in.
It’s more complicated than that however - and you’re going to have quite a bit of
work to do to make a success of your store.
Here are a few things that you’ll typically need to do to start attracting visitors and
generating sales:
Search engine optimization Online advertising
Affiliate partnerships
Getting all these right can involve quite a learning curve, so you might want to consider
working with some marketing professionals to get things off the ground.
That said, it’s entirely possible to take a successful DIY approach to promoting your
store, and in the description for this video you’ll find some useful guides to promoting
your store.
Do check them all out!
So that’s it — our step-by-step guide on how to make an online store.
I hope you found it useful.
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