In this guide, we’ll walk you through the entire process of how to start an online store for your website - from product ideation to planning, building, launching, and promoting your online store.
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Disclaimer: This content should not be construed as legal or financial advice. Always consult an attorney or financial advisor regarding your specific legal or financial situation.
Define your target customers
Even if you don't have a product in mind yet, without a properly defined target market, your sales and promotional efforts will suffer. When starting an online shop, there are a couple of things to consider as you classify your target audience, as well as helping you find the ideal product to sell online.
- Identify key demographics: Start by gathering statistical data related to your audience: age, gender, marital status, education level, household income, and geographic location.
- Spot customers' professional interests: If you’re selling a business-related product, you might also want to profile your customers’ professional details, like the types of jobs they do and which markets they serve.
- Gather customer psychographics: It’s also important to learn your prospective customers’ lifestyles, goals, interests, and hobbies. Understanding these qualities helps you effectively target your products to their needs.
- Map out consumer buying behaviors and key influences: Do your customers research on mobile or desktop? Do their friends’ recommendations on social media sway their purchase decisions? Look at how your target consumers interact across all possible sales channels and touchpoints, including mobile apps, messaging platforms, and email.
An online survey tool can be helpful in gathering this data, along with free market research from organizations like eMarketer, Comscore, Pew Research, Nielsen IQ, and Think With Google Research Tools.
The more you learn about what makes your audience unique and ideal, the more targeted and effective your content will be.
Research and choose products to sell
Selling a unique product that stands out from all the rest is important if you want to build a successful online store. But how do you know if people actually need or want to buy it? Start by asking people that you know, such as family and friends.
Here’s what to ask when gathering insights from people you know:
- Do they love your idea? If so, find out what features would be most appealing to them.
- Is there anything about your product idea they would change?
- Ask about their ideal customer experience. What services would make it shine?
- Would they be willing to pay full price for your product? What do they think it’s actually worth?
- Have they bought similar products elsewhere? What did they like or dislike about both the product and buying experience?
Gathering this level of feedback is an excellent way to refine your product before selling it online.
You can conduct casual research by speaking with friends and family in person to gather qualitative insights, or by setting up a quick online survey.
SurveyMonkey has a monthly subscription service that you can use to survey friends and family, along with visitors to your website, to better understand who would or is buying your products right now. Google Docs enables you to set up survey forms, as well.
Get the products for your online store
Once you’ve narrowed down the products that you’ll be selling, you need to know how you’re going to source and physically store them. There are many options when first starting an ecommerce website.
Sell existing inventory online
If you already own a retail brick-and-mortar shop, you can use it as a place to store inventory from the moment you create your online store until your ecommerce business grows.
An online store is a perfect fit for existing brick-and-mortar retail businesses. Launching an online store is a cost-efficient strategy that allows store owners to increase their brand reach, brand awareness, and customer trust.
Use dropshipping to start an online store without inventory
Many first-time ecommerce entrepreneurs start their careers with no physical inventory. Through a process called dropshipping, you can act as a wholesaler of products that you curate on your store website, then purchase directly from the manufacturer to ship to your customers.
Create and ship your unique products on-demand
If you currently sell crafts, custom t-shirts, or artwork on sites like Etsy, consider creating an online store and driving those customers to your own website after your first sale. Include a business card or coupon in their parcel that promotes your site’s URL, and offers a discount on their next purchase.
That way, you keep one hundred percent of the future profits from repeat buyers. It also enables you to build a stronger relationship with those customers.
The beauty of these businesses is that you only need to create and ship what you sell in advance. Be sure to indicate how long a customer can expect to wait for the product, though, before they make their purchase decision.
Offer a monthly subscription service
Another way to manage your product inventory as a new ecommerce business is to sell a subscription-based service. You only need to store and ship the units you’ve already sold in advance each month or quarter — depending on your business development model.
If you’re still unsure on what kind of products you want to sell, you can check out our list of trending products to sell online.
Choose a business type
Before launching your online store, it’s important that you select the type of legal entity that you’d like your company to be. Establishing your business from the outset as a legal entity will save you trouble in the long run, as it’ll help you with the following:
- Protects your personal assets.
- Lowers your potential taxes.
- Allows you to more easily secure business loans/funding.
- Keeps your business and personal credit scores separate.
Not sure what type of business structure will fit your business? Here are some of the more common options:
- Sole proprietorship: A sole proprietorship is an unincorporated business with a single owner who pays personal income tax on profits earned from the business. This tends to be where most small businesses start, since the start-up costs are relatively low (and it’s fairly easy to change your legal structure later). The owner is also able to keep all of the profits for themselves.
Some of the disadvantages that you’ll want to be aware of include being fully (personally) liable for your business debts, it’s more difficult to get business credit/financing, and it can be more difficult to sell your business. - Partnership: There are several sub-categories to this legal entity type, including general partnership, limited partnership, and limited liability partnership. Partnerships are beneficial for new businesses, as it helps spread the costs, and pool skills and resources.
However, be aware that partners are liable for both the profits and the debts of the business. It’s also easy for business partnerships to fall apart, so you’ll want to ensure that you’ve prepared for this possibility before opting for this option. - Limited liability corporation (LLC): A limited liability company (LLC) is a type of private limited company. It’s a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a corporation.
The advantage to an LLC is that it limits your personal liability. This means that your personal assets are protected from business-related debts. It also allows the business to be taxed as a pass-through entity, which avoids corporate-level taxes.
Related: Check out GoDaddy's guide on How to start an LLC
Build your online store
At a minimum, you need to launch your online store using a hosting platform, custom domain name, unique site design, and compelling brand copy and imagery.
How much you spend on these items depends on your budget and your comfort level with doing some of the work yourself.
Select a business name and purchase a domain
When choosing your ecommerce business name, consider something that is short, memorable, and marketable. Our domain name generator can also help you find the right name for your ecommerce store.
Related: Guide to Domain Names - How do they work?
Consider using .shop or .store for general ecommerce, or get more specific with .jewelry, .clothing, .coffee and more.
Choose an online store builder and a design template
Most online store building platforms that host your website will also offer a variety of design templates that you can access for free or for a monthly fee.
A templated ecommerce website package comes in one quick install. It typically includes a website template/theme, product pages, shopping cart, payment processing feature, and hosting for your site.
Interested in seeing how easy GoDaddy’s Online Store is to set up and launch? Take a look at this quick walkthrough for more information.
Develop your pricing profile
When budgeting for the launch of your site, be sure to include all costs to get to your bottom line, then set your product pricing accordingly.
Your costs will include:
- Securing your site for payments (a secure sockets layer protocol or SSL)
- Hosting and platform fees
- Domain registration
- Business email account
- Themes, plugins, extensions, and modules add-ons
- Payment gateways and credit card processing fees,
- Advertising
- Inventory management
- Shipping fees
- Packaging supplies
Customers want to see what your products look like and their benefits before adding them to their cart. So, to better inform your customers, don't forget to include detailed website copy, product descriptions, and product photos on your website.
It's important that your site looks professional, so if you're not confident in your writing or photo-taking skills, consider hiring a copywriter or photographer to help you out.
Create categories for your products
First, you’ll want to start out by planning your product listing pages. Start by grouping your products into easily navigable categories.
It’s important to organize your online store’s inventory for an optimal user experience — especially if you have a large catalog of items for sale.
Begin by building an intuitive map of your product categories for easy and quick navigation. It’s similar to how you’d set up items for customers to find easily in a store.
The image below is a solid example of the categories you could include in an online clothing store.
Visit some larger brand sites, along with your competitors’ sites, to learn what they do well. Then, replicate or iterate on what you like best about those product categories.
Once that process is complete, you’ll need to convince customers using product descriptions to click on an item, add the product to their cart, and checkout.
Craft compelling product titles and descriptions
First, you'll want to come up with a descriptive product title. An effective product title should tell the viewer exactly what the product is. Not only does the title describe what the product is, but it can help your customers locate precisely what they're looking for.
Next up, write a detailed product description for that product. Details can make or break a sales transaction. Since you don’t have a sales clerk to answer your customer questions on a website, start by thinking of all the questions they might ask that person in-store.
For example, what fabrics is a sweater made of? Is it organic and earth-friendly? Was it made locally? What other items might pair well with it?
Here's a quick checklist of what you'll want to keep in mind when writing a compelling product description:
- Who is your audience? Knowing who you're writing your product description for will help you to better describe that product.
- Is your product description easy to read? Keep the description simple and user-friendly.
- What are the specific product features for this item? Being clear about what your product is and isn't will lead to better customer experiences.
- Is there a call-to-action to lead buyers to buy? Don't forget to include encouragement for the customer to add your product to their cart.
- Are there any incentives? Let customers know about any current sales, bundles, etc.
- Did you include SEO keywords in your description? Being intentional with including SEO keywords can help those browsing the internet find your products.
Upload enticing product photos
To convert a browsing customer into a buyer, your products must have quality photos. If it’s in your budget, consider investing in a professional photographer.
Not only do you want to provide customers with beautiful shots of your products, but you also want to help them envision what the product might look like on them or in their home.
Urban Outfitters creates beautiful settings for its lifestyle products to spark its customers’ imaginations.
Select products to feature
Next, you’ll need to promote your great products on your homepage and elsewhere on your site.
Two of the most common product categories for featured items are “Bestsellers” and “New Arrivals.”
Showcasing those items on your homepage or on product category pages will help you increase sales, and draw attention to new items for returning customers. Be sure to:
- Start with items with a large profit margin or to sell off excess inventory.
- Gather ratings and reviews of your products for a few weeks or months, then highlight those with the highest rating or feedback.
- Look at your site analytics to find the most popular search terms on your store. Featuring those items on the homepage will help to close those sales opportunities faster.
- Look at your Google AdWords account and identify the most common and best-converting product search terms.
To keep your site fresh for repeat shoppers, you must change your featured products on a regular basis. If you’ve already built a GoDaddy Online Store, it’s easy to manage your featured products.
Your online store’s home page is a good place to start when featuring hot new products. It’s often the first place that new and returning shoppers will land on your site, and it drives traffic directly to those items, without the need to search for them.
You can feature your great products vertically, horizontally, or place them in a slide show. Regardless, make sure the placement is highly visible.
You can also place featured products on category and product pages to up-sell and cross-sell.
For example, you might place a few featured pairs of jeans on a sweater product page. Or place thumbnails of more expensive handbags on the product page of a mid-priced bag to try and up-sell a customer.
You can even take advantage of your “thank you” page, which appears after a customer has completed a purchase. Experiment with different tactics to uncover the most enticing ways to get customers to click “add to cart” and check out quickly, which leads nicely into our next topic.
Define your refund and return policy
Clearly post a refund and returns policy on your website and prompt users to read it before they make a purchase.
This is essential as it will showcase your brand’s transparency while helping you avoid any costly consumer conflicts of interest in the future.
Your customers should be able to easily understand what you need them to do when returning an item and know your criteria for deciding whether a return will be accepted.
Create your privacy policy and terms of service (TOS)
Speak with a lawyer as you develop this policy, and ask them to help you to craft your terms of service, which is a legal document that outlines the terms and conditions for customers who use your products or services. It will protect you if any legal issues arise down the line.
Your privacy policy and TOS must be visibly posted on your site and should explain what you do with your customer’s information.
Be honest and state exactly how you will manage, distribute, and use customer information to build trust.
Cement your security policy
Your security policy should detail what you do to protect your customer payment information. Find the best ecommerce building platform that uses secure servers with SSL and explain to customers why it’s necessary. Also, be sure the platform is verified by a third-party security service.
The more information you can provide, the greater assurance you’ll give your customers that you’re being careful with their sensitive data.
Connect a payment provider
The key to closing an online sale is to provide an intuitive and seamless checkout and payment experience.
Some platforms offer built-in checkout and payment processing tools. For example, GoDaddy Payments enables you to securely accept payments online within the Online Store — but not all service providers do.
When evaluating options, you’ll need to consider:
- Does the platform’s merchant account accept all currencies and offer SSL certificates?
- What forms of payment can you accept through your account? Credit cards, personal checks, wire transfers, or money orders?
- How about PayPal or Stripe?
- Does your platform offer a payment gateway to verify, approve, and process charges in real time?
- Does it integrate with your website’s existing platform?
- Do other merchants like or complain about the platform’s checkout and payment experience?
Review all your options and ask the platform provider about the associated transaction rates and processing fees.
GoDaddy Payments offers the lowest transaction fees compared to other leading providers. View our product page for more information.
Set up payment options for customers
For our next step in building a successful online store, you’re going to set up your payment options. Understanding and implementing a smooth checkout process, and using the right payment gateways, will set you apart from your competitors.
According to 99 firms, “30% of shoppers will drop the purchase if they have to fill out their credit card information again, while 25% will do so on having to re-enter shipping info.” And many of them now prefer sites that offer 1-click payment solutions that save their purchase information so they can check out faster.
Do your research to ensure the platform you’re using offers a robust set of tools. Reading ecommerce product reviews will help you to find the right platform for your business.
Here’s a handy guide to help you through your payment processing setup.
Collecting sales tax
Online sales tax laws are constantly evolving. If you aren’t following the latest requirements for your online store, you could be on the hook for paying a large sum of unexpected fees.
Related: Websites + Marketing and Avalara AvaTax partner to empower entrepreneurs
Set up shipping or pickup
Next up, it’s time to set up your shipping options. As you develop your online store’s shipping solution, you’ll want to consider all of your shipping needs:
- What carriers will you offer and what are the handling fees?
- Will you be shipping based on weight and location or will flat rate work for you?
- Is your shipping formula based on the type of product you sell?
- Will you be shipping locally or nationally? Or both?
As you set shipping costs for your ecommerce site, remember that the price must be reasonable (or free, if you can afford it).
If you have a local presence for your business, you may also want to consider local delivery options or pickup, depending on the type of products that you sell.
Want more information on how to set up shipping options in GoDaddy’s Online Store? Our help guide has you covered.
Test your online store before launching
Now that you've written compelling product descriptions, added clear product photos, and set up your preferred payment provider, it's time to test out those features before going live.
If you're not sure where to start when testing your site, here are some recommendations on how you can test your ecommerce website before you go live:
- Functionality testing: Make sure that your website features are working as intended. This includes forms, buttons, links, images, and videos.
- Cross-browser testing: Test your website on different web browsers to make sure that your site looks and functions as it should.
- Mobile responsiveness: Similar to browser testing, you'll need to make sure that your online store works properly on various mobile devices.
- Usability testing: Ask other people to test out your website. Having others test your site can help ensure that your site is user-friendly.
- Content testing: Review your website content for accuracy, readability, and relevance.
Once you've completed your pre-launch checks, you're ready to move onto making your site live.
Launch your online store
The final step before your online store launch is to build a strategy for keeping your customers happy and their data safe and secure.
Before you launch your site, though, keep in mind that you'll want to keep an eye on some potential newly launched website pitfalls. You’ll need to budget some time for answering customer emails and phone inquiries, updating order statuses, and entering shipping details.
Here are some other considerations to keep top of mind:
- How will you send your customers their shipping confirmations?
- How will you handle phone and email inquiries?
- Will you have a separate business phone line?
- When and how will you answer social media questions and comments?
- How are you tracking your website performance?
- Would it save you time to include an FAQ section on your site, along with templated email responses?
Promote your online store
Your site is live! Now you’ll want to attract customers to your online store. Let’s take a look at tools that’ll help drive customers to your store.
Social media
If your brand targets Gen Zers or Millennials, it’s critical to have a social media presence to drive traffic to your website and boost your sales. It’s vital to use social media content as a free way to personally connect with customers, and build buzz about your latest products. Getting it right is essential.
Whether a customer’s experiences are good or bad, your business’s social profile is a place where they can go to engage and share their feedback about the products they use. The one-on-one interaction can also give incredible insight into what you’re doing right, and what needs improvement.
Advertise your website using paid marketing tools
Once you’ve created your seasonal or feature product promos, contests, and discounts, it’s helpful to drive traffic to them through online advertising. Here are some of the biggest paid marketing channels that small business owners use.
- Facebook and Instagram ads: Facebook and Instagram offer a host of image-based and video-based ad placements that you can target to your customers’ demographics, geo-location, and psychographic interests. The ads can be bought on a pay-per-click or cost-per-thousand (CPM) basis, as well.
Visit the advertising solutions pages for Facebook and Instagram to learn how to get started. - Google Ads, Network, and YouTube: Google Ads is a pay-per-click advertising platform that businesses use to target people who search on Google. You need to specify the search terms you want your ad to show up for and write ads that will appear on those search engine results pages (SERPs).
Ads on Google’s ad network and on YouTube can be targeted in a similar fashion. You can also place display (image) or video ads on these sites as well. - Install an ad pixel on your ecommerce website: To track your ad campaigns in your website analytics tool, and via an advertising platform like Google, Facebook, or Instagram, you’ll need to install an ad pixel on your ecommerce website.
It’s basically a tiny snippet of code that you add to your site to track customer sales conversions, help you optimize your advertising efforts, and enable you to re-target a customer after they’ve seen one of your ads on a specific site in an ad network or social media platform. Here’s an overview from Facebook to give you an idea of how to do it yourself.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engines are still one of the leading sources of traffic for any ecommerce website. That’s why optimizing your site for search is critical. To make sure your online store is easily found in search engines, review this comprehensive SEO beginner’s guide.
Email marketing
Email marketing is another powerful tool to connect with both potential and current customers. A Forbes study found that customers were three times more likely to complete a purchase from an email marketing campaign than social media.
Marketplaces
We touched on social media marketing a few sections earlier, but one segment of social media marketing that shouldn't be overlooked is selling on social marketplaces. If you’re using GoDaddy’s Online Store, Marketplaces allows you to seamlessly integrate your newly launched store with social marketplaces.
Related: How to sell on Facebook Marketplace
Summing it all up
Once you’ve planned everything from customer targeting to finding the right hosting and online store-building platform, your marketing strategies, as well as customer privacy and security policies, you can launch your online store with confidence.
Be sure to stay on top of sales tax collection laws wherever your products are sold and shipped. Likewise, regularly update your homepage and product pages with seasonal or hot new products to keep your site fresh for returning shoppers.
When you engage with customers on social media and on product review pages, be helpful and respectful of their product complaints and needs. We wish you great success as you launch your new online store, and invite you to come back to this blog whenever you need helpful tips on how to grow your business.
FAQs about starting an online store
How much does it cost to start an online store?
The price to start an online store will vary greatly depending on the type of company that you own. A small business can expect to spend anywhere between $1000 to $10,000 to launch their store, depending on the complexity of their business. An online store through GoDaddy starts at $12.99 per month. For a deeper dive, check out our in-depth guide: How much does it cost to build a website?
Can you build an online store for free?
Yes, it's possible to create a free online store. Some online store providers may require a paid upgrade to access certain features, while others (like GoDaddy) may offer a free trial for their online store service.
What is the least expensive way of selling online?
Marketplaces tend to be the primary entry-point for online sellers due to the lower barrier to entry versus creating a full ecommerce website. Examples of marketplaces would include websites like Etsy, Amazon, Walmart, Facebook, etc.
What are the most important pages an online store should have?
Your online store should include a home page, product pages, contact page, about us page, privacy policy, and a shipping/return policy page.
Is creating an online store worth it?
Creating an online store can be a great way to start a business, but whether it's worth it or not depends on several factors. Let’s take a look at some of those below:
Some benefits of creating an online store include:
- Increased reach: An online store allows you to reach a wider audience beyond your local area, potentially increasing sales.
- Lower overhead costs: An online store can be cheaper to run than a brick-and-mortar store, as it doesn't require rent, utilities, or staffing costs.
- 24/7 availability: An online store is open 24/7, allowing customers to shop whenever they want, which can lead to increased sales.
- Easier to scale: An online store can be easier to scale than a physical store, as you can add new products, categories, or features with relative ease.
However, creating an online store also comes with some challenges, including:
- Competition: With so many online stores out there, it can be challenging to stand out and attract customers.
- Technical expertise: Building and maintaining an online store requires some technical expertise, which can be a barrier to entry for some business owners.
- Marketing costs: To attract customers, you'll need to invest in marketing and advertising, which can be expensive.
- Shipping and logistics: If you sell physical products, you'll need to figure out shipping and logistics, which can be complex and time-consuming.
What is the average ecommerce store profit?
Generally, a 10% net profit is considered to be an average profit for ecommerce stores.
Disclaimer: This content should not be construed as legal or financial advice. Always consult an attorney or financial advisor regarding your specific legal or financial situation. All trademark rights belong to their respective owners. Third-party trademarks are used here for demonstrative and educational purposes only, use does not represent affiliation or endorsement.
