Building an online store from scratch was seemingly unachievable to me in the past, but it turns out that it’s something I wildly racked my brains for nothing. The process is only straightforward and quite intuitive, primarily if you use WordPress. And today, I want to help you set up an online store for your e-commerce business – in a single hour!
Let’s dig in without further ado.
What You’ll Need to Build an Online Store
Before cracking your knuckles and setting up your online site, you must ensure that a few things check out. As I’ve mentioned before, WordPress is inarguably the best at getting your online store set in an instant. Besides, it doesn’t require any HTML coding skills or prior experience.
Here are what you need before creating your online store.
Domain and Hosting
I usually prefer using BlueHost hosting for a few good reasons. It’s beginner-friendly and intuitive, quickly tracking your site creation to the last part. Besides, it’s a highly recommended affiliate hosting that WordPress officially recognizes.
BlueHost offers competitive plan prices, and you can create your online store relatively cheaply. But before I go further, let me smooth things out about what web hosting and domains mean.
Hosting offers virtual storage of all your website’s information, including files, to foster quick connection. Every website has a hosting, and so should yours. The glad tiding is that you never have to look hard since numerous hosts exist today.
On the other hand, a domain is a unique name to your online site and identifies what your business is all about. When choosing a domain name, a few things should check correctly. That includes avoiding numbers or hyphens but keeping the name relevant for your site.
Haven’t got a clue yet? I’ll set up an example for you.
Suppose you want to scale your shoe-selling business, specializing in the Balenciaga brand. Instead of using the single word “Balenciaga” – which, pretty sure, a few sites use this similar name – you can use a domain name like “NYstreetBalenciaga.” So, your online store’s site domain should be “NYstreetBalenciaga.com.”
If you experience this lightbulb moment, you should be quick to register your domain name with BlueHost. That helps you evade the risk of someone else possibly registering it for their site and owning it.
BlueHost is among the most proficient website hosts, and they provide you with a domain name that you pay for in your plan. The lowest you can cough out with this hosting service is usually $2.95, which is way more lenient to your pockets. But what’s more appealing is that you might not have to pay anything on WooCommerce on BlueHost for certain themes you choose!
WordPress and WordPress Theme
Of course, you already have in mind that WordPress should be your go-to option. But do you have a fitting theme that goes with it?
A WordPress theme, by definition, is a group of code, graphics, and style sheet files dictating the overall appearance of your online site. They’re the visual baseline and determine whether your online site would be appealing or downright aggravating to the eye.
A good WordPress theme should offer a more intuitive and easy-to-use user interface. That’s particularly essential in the e-Commerce business, usually marred with high bounce rates and incomplete customer purchase processes.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is a sought-after WordPress plugin due to its incredible scalability and ease of use. It has all functionalities and the kicks for creating your online store seamlessly. It’s customizable and open-source, and adding on that is it doesn’t charge you a single coin to install WooCommerce plugin.
For most themes and starter templetes you opt for, you don’t have to pay a single coin when using WooCommerce. Usually, this plugin is available for free and is included in the package.
Installing WordPress
Installing WordPress should be quite a breeze once you’re all set with what you need to create a website and have your BlueHost plan in place. BlueHost offers a one-click installation, and that should ease things.
Another alternative would be creating your WordPress site from scratch, which can be daunting. While you may not need any coding knowledge, it’ll take a lot of time and effort and sometimes create a less appealing site.
Your WordPress site should be ready as soon as you sign up for BlueHost. And the good thing is that this host does all the back-breaking work by making several available themes for you!
Installing a WordPress Theme (Astra)
WordPress themes help create an interface that’s intuitive and easy to navigate. Besides, they’re decorative and appeal to your potential customers. Hence it’d help if you put a lot of thought into it.
I usually recommend Astra, a theme that’s straightforward to use. It guides visitors through the site and offers tremendous space to patch as many items as possible for your business. Moreover, the theme has sutes that provide clear header options and layout settings and is easily customizable.
Keep in mind that you can still find more other themes as long as they offer you and your visitors the perks that intrigue you better.
Installing Woocommerce and Necessary Plugins
You can directly install WooCommerce from your WordPress plugins since it’s usually a process like any other plugin. The best part is that you have the WooCommerce setup wizard to thank for during manual installations, making this installation pretty straightforward.
You have two best methods to install WooCommerce, and they include:
Using any One of the Starter Templates
Starter templates are websites with a set design, pages, and blocks to import before customizing your site. Hundreds of these sites are available on the Astra theme and can be free or premium. Some of the best starter templates I’d recommend include:
Instaling From Scratch
You can also set up WooCommerce from scratch by manually installing it. The process isn’t a tough nut to crack, and it’s the easiest way to start an online store.
After logging in to your WordPress dashboard, you can click on “Plugins” and “Add new.” The WooCommerce icon should be available in the plugin collection, but you can search for it to make it much more manageable.
You can select “WooCommerce” once you find it before clicking “Install Now.” You can then confirm the installation by clicking “Yes.” That should do it!
Setting up Your Online Store
Once WooCommerce is in place and your Astra theme intact, you now need to set up your online store. That’s the last step to making your online store ready for business, and it should be so mind-boggling.
The essential panes that your online store should include are:
Shipping
It’d help if you had a clear shipping strategy, enabling policies, and solutions. It’s one way to determine how your products will reach your customers. Your delivery strategy must be above par to keep new customers and improve sales.
Most eCommerce sites promise to deliver products within a few days or weeks, depending on their customers’ geographical locations. As such, it helps to be true to your word, providing items at a stipulated time. It should be clear whether or not you offer conditional free shipping or not, since that’s essential to helping your potential customers decide on working with you.
So, if you’re only shipping locally, please be upfront with it. Similarly, it’d be good to let your customers know if you can ship internationally.
Taxes
Various regions and countries have different tax policies, so it helps to be clear with that, especially with your customers. Clients usually despise paying more without a valid reason, but being more upfront with it can come in handy.
To access the tax setting screen, click on “Settings” and “General” in WooCommerce. Select “Enable Taxes and Tax Calculations” and save the changes. You can still make more changes to tailor your online site to the tax jurisdictions of the shipping locations.
Payments
A good payment gateway makes it more seamless for your customers to shop and advance purchases. To add a payment gateway in WooCommerce, go to “Settings” and click on “Payments". You’ll be able to access numerous payment options, including direct bank transfers, check payments, cash on delivery, or PayPal.
Adding Products
Adding and managing products is one of the essential functions to keep your online store going and growing. You can group these products into categories to enable your shoppers to navigate easily. However, it’s best to know what product categories, tags, and attributes are.
To add a product on WooCommerce, click the “Products” button and select “Add Product.” You can then enter your product description and title before deciding whether you want your product downloadable or virtual.
Testing Your Store
Testing your store comes last before launching it and starting to make sales and shipments. You can test the entire process and check if the pages are well functional. Be sure to test the homepage, the customer login page, the product page, and the checkout process.
You can place a test order through your dashboard. The WooCommerce’s start-up guide should make it easier to test your site’s payment processes before deciding whether or not this entire process has been a success.
Conclusion
Setting up an online store is pretty straightforward; better yet, you can do that in just an hour. However, that’s only possible if you choose an excellent Host and a WordPress theme that’s easy to navigate. I love using the Astra theme for all the good reasons, and you should make it a staple when setting up your online store. Besides, BlueHost offers the best hosting and WordPress installation, making it your go-to option. Hopefully, this guide will help you create your online store quite seamlessly.
