Everyone has been thinking about creating an online store for their business. Are you looking to create an online store and don’t know where to begin?
Setting up an online store is far easier and one of the best ways for entrepreneurs to earn income online. Once you have the right products which you need to sell online you can easily gain recognition and generate income from every corner of the world.
Here in this post, I will tell you what you need and how you can create an online store using WordPress themes and WooCommerce plugins. After reading this post you will be easily able to create your own e-commerce site.
Introduction to Online Store
Why do you need an online store? This could be the first question that would come to your mind that even my business is generating great income then should I need an online e-commerce website.
The answer is YES! You are doing a great job with your business and for that, you should be proud. However, do you know that you can generate more income if you are selling online and shipping products all around the globe instead of just selling the products in your backyard?
Yes, creating an online e-commerce store not only generates double your income but also helps your Goodwill turn into profit. If you are shipping products from one place to another then you are saving lots of time for users who walk through your store to purchase products.
E-commerce has become one of the most popular methods of making money online and an attractive opportunity for investors. You can take the example of AMAZON, which started as a small book store now it is known for its tech giant for online selling products.
E-commerce has experienced rapid growth since its humble beginnings with e-commerce sales projected to grow to 612.9 billion USD by 2020.
It is important that online business should be carried out on a secure platform. Here are some of the points that why you should create an online store and people often buy online.
Why do people buy online?
- Lower price: One of the common ways that users buy any product is that online e-commerce site sells the product at the lowest price as compared to offline shops, retailers, or wholesalers. If your users are getting a cheaper price product than the original price then they would love to shop on your website every time.
- Accessibility and Convenience: Since the shop is open 24*7/365 days it is more easily accessible from anywhere around the world and shop at any time. You can earn money even if you are sleeping and your shop is closed let your website start making money and you take time off.
- Wider Choice: Selection is the most important thing that you need to have when you are selling any product. Users can choose a wider range of choices, and have the same product, and compare it with different other products which help users to purchase the product as per their requirements.
- Saves Time: Users won’t need to walk into the store and dealing with the crowds and bargain with the shopkeepers just to get the best deal on the product that they choose. By online purchase, users can easily visit the site, choose the product, and purchase online without any hassle. This saves a lot of time and money and moreover less effort by online purchase.
- Reading Reviews from other Shoppers: If you are purchasing any product then you would love to hear the reviews or comments that other people have posted. They will be reading the reviews if the product is best suitable for their needs or not. Moreover, to that, a good review is always best to get higher sales and generate more income by encouraging more users to purchase online and visit your site.
Choosing the right platform
It’s important to have the right platform of your choice and what are the needs and requirements that you need for creating your website. While creating a website it might be possible that the changes that you need cannot get implemented. Since you are almost halfway down the road and customizing changes would be a major task for you.
Comparing WordPress with Shopify then paying $29/m is far better than creating a WordPress website and use the site for lifetime usage without paying additional charges.
Shopify offers online retailers a suite of services “including payments, marketing, shipping and customer engagement tools to simplify the process of running an online store for small merchants.”
I would recommend that you should list down the requirements as what you need for your website and compare other CMS options which I will mention in my coming points and with this way you can know which is the best and right platform for creating a website.
Is WordPress easy to use?
I have been recommending WordPress because this is how I created my first website and it was very easy to use.
Moreover, it is FREE, YES you heard it right it is free and it is an open-source platform even for beginners for creating a website. I would recommend you to try googling the number of websites created using WordPress.You will get amazed and surprised by the users that are using WordPress for creating their website and recommend others for creating a website using WordPress.
If you are new to WordPress then you can refer to WordPress for Beginners. I have mentioned the basics of how you can install and use WordPress for your site.
If you remember that I have been saying that creating a website is easy, I hope you remember and this was the main reason that I have been recommending the use of WordPress.
You see more than 60% of the websites are built-in WordPress because of the ease of use and better content management system. Moreover, it is better than its other competitors like Joomla and Drupal.
Getting a domain name and hosting partner
This one of the important steps that you need to complete before you build your events website. Choose your domain name and web hosting since you have decided to create an events website. Having a domain name is important as this will provide your site address where your users search on google.
I have divided this topic into different parts to get a better idea about how and what type of domain name you can choose and who are the best web hosting service providers to host your website.
Where do I get a domain name?
Normally, you can choose your own domain name. There are other domain service providers which provide you better domain name at an affordable price. I have been mentioned earlier about Bluehost that it provides both domain name registration and domain hosting services but you can choose other domain services like GoDaddy, SiteGround, and Hostgator.
There are many domain extensions that you can choose from like .com, .org,.net,.info and etc. You can choose any of the extensions that you like according to your site that you have created and you can register it with your hosting which I choose and recommend Bluehost.
Choosing the right plan & service for hosting you need
It is important to note that what type of services and plan you need before purchasing the web hosting service that you need even if you have a small website you don’t need to purchase or spend a huge amount of services and plan for hosting your website.
There are many services that a web hosting service provider but what you should look for are simple, secure, support, and low cost. Bluehost provides all these features and awesome services that I need and moreover you can get multiple options and services that you need like Shared Hosting, WordPress Hosting, VPS, and Dedicated hosting service.
Bluehost is one of the leading web hosting services which is also recommended by WordPress if you are starting to create a website. It is affordable, secure, and provides support 24/7, and provides you assurance and guidance on each and every step for maintaining your site secure and better performance.
I hope I have convinced you why I have been referring to Bluehost as one of your website hosting services.
I would mention that after a long time of hard work, pain, and energy you have created your dream website you should need some assurance and guarantee that it would be in safe hands and cannot get into the wrong hands.
Choosing the right theme for your e-commerce website.
Now, you have all the info you need it is time to take a step further to create your e-commerce website.
If you have decided to go for a self-hosted platform like WordPress then you should need a theme for creating a website. The first thing to start with is checking on other websites as to what is needed and what they have included, what type of design they have used for their website.
A little research on checking on the appearance of the theme that you require before you start building your site.
With WordPress, you will have thousands of Free & Paid themes that you can choose and moreover you will have many additional plugins for which you can add new features for your site without any developer or additional coding required.
Types of eCommerce theme
Storefront is the perfect theme for creating an e-commerce website as the theme is free and by using the WooCommerce plugin you can easily create an online store in minutes. Designed by WooCommerce core developers this theme has been designed for creating any type of online store.
You can look out for the list of some 50+ Free WooCommerce themes that you can choose for creating an online store. Just to make sure you can create an online store easily you can grab some of the best and top paid WooCommerce themes with advanced features.
If you are creating a website whether you are using a FREE or PAID WordPress theme. Moreover, there are certain things that you should keep in mind. The site is not only seen by you but it will get viewed all over the world.
To make the best impression we have to understand that your users will need easy to access, fast and simple options where they can explore your site in an easy way. Just having attractive layouts and looks and designs don’t make your website beautiful as it’s the way as to how it is going to work in the real world.
As said by, Mohamed Saad –“Web design is not just about creating pretty layouts. It’s about understanding the marketing challenge behind your business.”
Free vs Paid Theme
Mostly, people would prefer Free WooCommerce WordPress themes as compared to paid ones as you might be thinking I’m out of my budget and cannot take more on investing in purchasing a premium theme.
But I would like to mention here that there are many theme providers who provide premium themes at a very affordable cost. While some of the Free themes have their own limitations as compared to a paid theme.
There could be many WordPress theme providers that you can use for creating your WordPress website. You can check on this list here as to who are the best WordPress theme providers that you can choose from and what type of theme that you can choose for your WooCommerce website.
You can also check on this link here as 25+ WordPress plugins that you need for your WordPress site.
Once you have purchased the hosting and domain name you would find an option on how you can install the purchased theme on your WordPress site. Most of the steps are easy either you can install the theme using hosting server cPanel or using FTP server.
Now, you have all the ingredients for creating a site. You have purchased the domain name, web hosting, and WordPress installed. You have also installed the theme and necessary plugins on your site. So I guess everything is set I guess.
Not entirely done 🙂 you need to make changes to the theme site title, the logo needs to change, and the color that suits your events management company.
Customizing the theme as per your needs
When I say that we are not entirely done is because of the above options that need to gets changed. When you buy the theme, it will install with the demo content data like sample products, default logo, footer credits, and many other things.
You need to adjust according to your needs. Many theme providers provide settings or options to change this on the customizer options which you can find on the backend Appearance >> Customize section.
You can change the Site Title and Tagline as per your needs and once you change that you can change the Color of your website. After all, you don’t want to show the event site the same as the one sold by the theme providers.
You can add products from the WordPress admin dashboard so that your site cannot be shown blank when any user visits your website. You can add categories and use widgets as per your needs and create a fully responsive e-commerce website.
Installing WooCommerce Plugin
Now, you have configured the theme for your e-commerce site you need to install one of the most important plugins which help you to integrate an online store. You need to install the WooCommerce plugin, as it is one of the most used plugins for creating an e-commerce site.
WooCommerce plugin is Free and being developed by WooCommerce developers. The plugin has specifically designed for showing WooCommerce online selling products that have all the features that an online shop needs.
Once you install and activate the plugin, it will greet you with the WooCommerce setup wizard, you need to click on the button to start the wizard.
Setting up the WooCommerce Wizard
First, you will see the necessary store setup details where you need to add the address where your store is located, city, and postcode? Based on that you need to select the currency and the type of product that you need to sell in your store?
Secondly, select the payment gateway which you need to use for your site as by default you will be provided with Stripe and PayPal which you can choose and automatically be installed. You can also select an offline payment for your site from the dropdown.
Third, you need to add the Shipping payment for the products which you need to add, by default you can choose a Flat rate or Free Shipping and you can also add shipping for your country and outside of the country.
You can select the plugins recommended by WooCommerce for your online store. You can check/uncheck which plugins need to get installed and click on the button.
JetPack is one of the best and popular plugins which you can have on your online store. Product Stats, Security, Store Monitoring, and Product Promotion such features are included with the plugin. You can click on SKIP THIS STEP and later add the plugin if you need it for your site.
Finally, you need to import products for your online store if you have any CSV or XML files you can directly import the products on your store. If you need to manually add products then you can click on create a product and add your first product on your store.
Adding products to your online store
With the above steps completed, you can now add your products to your site and create an online store using the WooCommerce plugin.
You need to add the Product Title, Description, Categories, Product Images, Gallery, and setup price for your Product,
There are many other options that you can use whether you need to show a simple product, grouped product, affiliate product, or variable product.
Other Settings that you can choose from are integrating Shipping, Inventory, and Linked Products. Furthermore, you can add Attributes, Advanced Settings which you can easily set up for your online store.
Setting up the payment gateway
In our WooCommerce Setup wizard, we have enabled Stripe and PayPal as the payment gateway for our online store. We have more options which you can find by heading to the WooCommerce >> Setting >> Payment (tab)
You will see many other payment options which you choose like Bank Direct Transfer, Cash on Delivery, Check Payments, and many other Stripe Payment options based on the country you are located in.
Configuring WooCommerce settings
There are many settings and options which you can configure with the WooCommerce plugin. Once you install the plugin you can set up coupons, see orders of the purchased product, reports, settings, and status of your site.
Orders section: When any of your products get sold you will see the purchase order in this section. The name, date, status, and amount of the product which the user has purchased from your site. You can change the status manually from pending, to-completed, or keep it in the trash.
Coupons: If you are willing to give discounts to your products then you can create coupon codes from this section. You can create the name of the Coupon and Description and set the Coupon data as per your needs. You can set the Coupon type, Usage Restrictions, and Usage Limits.
Reports: You will see the transaction data of the orders, customers who have signed up, and the inventory stock on the products that you have in your store. You can filter the data based on year, month, and custom date.
Settings: In this section, you can set up the WooCommerce settings on your site. There would be many tabs on this section that you can configure like General settings, Product, Payments, Shipping, Accounts & Privacy, Emails, Integration, and Advanced.
Bonus – Marketing and promoting your store
Share your website on Social Media: One of the easiest ways that you can promote your website is by sharing your site on social media. Today, social media has become of the major tools for promoting any business and increase traffic on your site. This requires no cost and no effort you can simply share your content on social media like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
Maintaining Blogs: You have now created an online shopping store then you need to have some blogs post not only to give users new relevant information but also to take advantage of getting traffic on your shopping site.
You can ask your user’s to subscribe to get more interesting topics related to shopping and the new trends and products that they have showcased on your online store. This helps you to get more and more users engaging more time reading on your blog post and explore the products that you have on your site.
Use Guest Blogging for Brand Awareness: Guest Blogging is one of the best ways that you can promote your website. You need to target the relevant niche website and start writing a post for them. In the end, you can ask them to click on the link of your site and ask them to check out the amazing offers and discounts that the site offers.
Extend your store with advanced features using plugins
You have now your online store running successfully and if you are looking to expand your online store then there many many plugins that WooCommerce developers have built to create an advanced e-commerce site then there are many plugins that you can use for your site.
WooCommerce offers 200+ plugins that you can use for your site and they are being categorized based on payments, subscriptions, shipping, marketing, and store management plugins.
Some of the popular plugins which you can use are WooCommerce Bookings, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Coupon Referral Program, and many more which you can use not only on e-commerce websites but also for other business websites where you can use WooCommerce plugins for expanding exposure for your business.
Conclusion
Here, I have provided you with how you can easily create an online store using a WooCommerce plugin with WordPress themes. I hope I didn’t miss any of the steps in creating an online store.
Now I would like to hear from you:
Have you created an online store yet?
Which theme you have used for creating an online store?
I hope you liked this post, please let me know your answers in the comments section below.
I would humbly request if you share this post on your Facebook and Twitter accounts and spread awareness as they can or everyone can create an online store easily.