6 Steps to Start an Online Store on Your Own

Oct 19, 2020

Starting an online store today has become quite important these days due to the continuous boom in Pakistan's eCommerce Industry. If you have a laptop or PC and a good internet connection, then you can easily set up an online store. 

Basic Things Required to Start an Online Store 

For building an online store, you do not need to be any eCommerce specialist. You just need to follow the guidelines shared below:

1. Selecting the domain name for your website

2. Buying a Web Hosting Plan

3. Setting Up the Store 

So let’s begin!

6 Steps to Start an Online Store

1. Choose a platform for online store

One of the major mistakes that many beginners make is that they choose an inappropriate platform for their online store. For an eCommerce store, two platforms are a good choice i.e., WordPress combined with WooCommerce and Shopify. You can choose any of them depending upon your budget and other required features. Moving forward, to set up the store, you need a domain, hosting, and a free SSL certificate. The domain is the address of an online store. Hosting is the space through which you get your website live on the internet, and SSL is the special security level that secures the personal information of the customers for a store, such as a credit card number. Any good company such as ServerSea Hosting can provide all these three basic components for your website.

2. WordPress Settings

Once you have installed WordPress and WooCommerece on your website, you will receive a pop-up message on the WordPress. Go with the option “I don’t need help”. Now you will get the dashboard of WordPress. Go to Settings > General and then set the title and description of the website. The second step is to set up HTTPS. This SSL certificate is provided free of cost by the company. You just need to configure it on the Settings page. Modify the site address of the URL here. For example, replace Http with Http. 

3. Set Woo-Commerce Store

To start an online store, it is important to have a feature of payment method, currency, and shipment details. For this purpose, you will see a welcome to woo-commerce notification in the dashboard section. Here, click the RUN THE SETUP WIZARD button. Now WooCommerce Setup Wizard will appear and click on the “let’s go” button. In the page setup section, you can create a card, account, and check out buttons.  Moving forward, share the required information mentioned in the Store Locale Setup, Shipping, Tax, Payments, and you are all set. 

4. Add Products to the Store

Once you are done with the setup of woo-commerce, you can add products to the store. Go to the Products section and click Add New product, its title, description, and category. Also, add the image of your product. After providing all the required information, click the publish button. In the same way, you can add multiple products.

5. Customize WordPress Theme

The theme of the website is very important. Many paid as well as free themes are available on the internet for a WooCommerce store. Besides these, you can move towards the appearance and themes section and choose the perfect theme for your shop.

6. Customize Using Plugins

Adding different elements and features to your eCommerce store will give an attractive look to your online shop. To do so, add pages, contact forms, sliders, galleries, and other features. You can do this by using plugins. Thousands of WordPress websites are available that can provide better functionality to your site. 

Conclusion 

WordPress + WooCommerce is a great platform for beginners to build an online shop and sell products. It is easy to understand and use. Moreover, having an attractive domain name and a reliable WordPress web hosting will set the stage for the store. Just register your domain name, buy a hosting plan for your website and start your store today.