Need an Online Store? Here are 5 Quick Easy Platforms Use

create-easy-online-store

The Covid-19 lockdown is lasting a lot longer than we all anticipated, and many business owners need to consider creating an online shop. Not only for their own staff safety, but consumers are driving more online shopping due to not visiting shops as frequently – plus – with the various lockdown levels proceeding slowly, we don’t really have an idea when all walk-in-stores will be available to the public again.

Regardless, it is a great time to build your own online shop and keep selling your products during lockdown.

If you’re not very technical, don’t worry. I’ve put together this list for the easiest platforms to get started on right away.

5 Easy Online Shopping Platforms for First-timers

  1. Shopify – Realistic time to set-up: 1-2 days
    1. Internationally possibly the first platform everyone turns to.
    2. All-in-one website and eCommerce site (ie can take payment)
    3. Product section is already created, you can use a template builder, or choose from some predefined templates and then only fill in your copy for your general pages (home, about, contact) as well as your products, and of course define your pricing.
    4. It’s easy as it’s a completely guided process.
    5. Cost: Unlimmited products $89 per month (~R1,650.00 ) But currently offering 90 days free trial! (at time of article)
    6. *Their Shopify Lite product costs $9 per month (~R170.00) BUT doesn’t come with a website. It only integrates with another platform such as WordPress or Squarespace.
  2. Shopstar – Realistic time to set-up: 1-2 days
    1. An all-in-one solution, AND a local product too.
    2. This is a complete step-by-step guide too. You only need to add your product details and copy and pricing of course.
    3. Choose from predefined design templates and only add your personal images.
    4. Cost: Up to 25 products cost you only R110.00 per month. 14 days free trial. (at time of article)
  3. Wix – Realistic time to set-up: 1-2 days
    1. An all-in-one solution.
    2. This is a complete step-by-step guide too. You only need to add your product details and copy and pricing of course.
    3. Choose from predefined design templates and only add your personal images.
    4. Shipping – the platform already offers integration with some predefined couriers – pending availability in country.
    5. Cost: Unlimmited products, from $17 per month (~R320.00) (at time of article)
  4. SquareSpace – Realistic time to set-up: 2-3 days
    1. Now, although Squarespace also offers an all-in-one solution, the interface is not as intuitive as the others mentioned above, and it may take some time to understand what you need to do.
    2. Choose from predefined design templates and only add your copy and product information. You can also further customise templates with fonts & colours.
    3. Cost: Basic set-up from $26 per month (~R 480.00)  (at time of article)
  5. WordPress – Realistic time to set-up: 5-7 days
    1. Okay – so this one is a little more complicated than the three above, but still one of my personal favourite platforms as the options it gives you, is incredible.
    2. WordPress Offers 2 versions: One for bloggers on its own WordPress hosted url, and the second, which is what I’ll be talking about, is your own hosted website. Now, don’t be put off because of this – there are many “hosted platforms” you can choose, which will make this pretty much the same as the options above. Many hosts such as WPengine offer a fully-hosted package – ie you can choose your design, and they will do all the ‘set-up’ work for you and keep the core code up-to-date. Hetzner/Xneelo offers hosting & the quick-set-up, but you will need to load your own design (although this is super simple). The caveat for both, is that you need to choose a good design that already offers you built-in eCommerce options.
    3. Cost: A good eCommerce WP template can cost you anything around R750 and up (once-off)  and hosting will cost you on either the above-mentioned hosts (Hetzner/Xneelo R99 per month ; WPengine $30 (~R560)). (at time of article)

This is by no means a comprehensive list, and there are many others including Google Shopping and Amazon etc, however, the above reflect the easiest platforms, in my opinion, to get going.

Should You Take Payment Online?

If you don’t want to choose one of the all-in-one platform options, the other option is of course that you could just have a website that features your products, but you take payment by means of EFT etc.  You can choose to manually send invoices and take payment via EFT if it feels easier for you. But, online payment certainly makes it a whole lot easier for your customer to have an “all-in-one” shop, and it lowers your admin time – but some eCommerce systems can be tricky to get up and going, and it becomes a little more technical when trying to integrate them with your website.

 

Need help setting this up for yourself, or getting people to your online store? Speak to me, driving business to websites is what I do. 🙂

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