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Selling products, services, or content online is one of the most exciting business ventures you can embark on. Whether you’re exploring the idea of selling online or you’ve made the decision to get started, our guide to how to sell online will empower you with the tools you need to answer those questions and succeed at building, launching, and marketing your own ecommerce business.
1. Decide what to sell online
If you know you want to try ecommerce but you’re not sure what to sell, ask yourself the following:
What do you enjoy doing?
What do you have experience in?
What do you have the time and resources to pursue?
Which industries are currently growing?
What you decide to sell might intersect with a few of those categories or only apply to one of them. Either way, the types of things you can sell online are nearly infinite: physical products you hand-make or invent, time-based services like classes or consultations, or even digital content like videos or ebooks.
For example, if you love graphic design, you can sell design templates, art, or print on demand products in an online shop. If you’re a trained yoga instructor, you can teach classes online or hold private lessons in person.
Get more tips on choosing what to sell
2. Brand your small business
Once you’ve landed on what you want to sell online, it’s time to develop your brand identity. Many pieces go into creating a brand, but the guiding question for each piece is: How do you want your customers to feel?
The different parts of your brand identity include:
Name
Visuals, like logos, colors, and fonts
Mission and values
Tone of voice
All of these come together on everything your brand touches, from your ecommerce website to social media and email marketing and new products you launch.
Name your business
The name for your business reflects a lot about your business’s identity: what you sell, your voice and tone, and your vision, mission, and values. Many business owners use personal details to name their business, like their name or a favorite place.
While you’re brainstorming a business name, a good place to start is to search for website domains similar to your name ideas. That helps you discover which names already have unique businesses attached to them, and which names are available for you to choose from.
Set up a business email address
A small but meaningful part of high-quality branding is having an email address that’s exclusively used for your business. Your business email address should include your business’ unique domain name and both should be tied to your business name. That creates a consistent, trustworthy experience for anyone who gets emails from you.
Learn how to set up an email for your storefront
Create a logo for your business
Your brand’s visual identity includes everything from the photos on your website to your product photos to your aesthetic on social media. You can start getting a feel for the visual identity you want to establish by creating a logo for your business.
A custom logo can make a big first impression on your audience. It’s a simple way to start building a cohesive visual identity across your online presence, including your ecommerce store and social media profiles.
3. Design a website for your online store
Having a website for your store is a must-have, not just for online sales, but to communicate with your customer base. Even if you have a brick-and-mortar store, having your own website gives you another sales channel and makes it easier for people to discover you.
Consider these key components while designing a website for your online business.
Website domain
If you’ve already started browsing domain names while deciding on the name of your business, you’ve kicked off the first step to building a website. Your domain name will help customers find your website and recognize your business.
Website template
Website templates make it easy to build a professional, branded website with no development or design experience. Website builders like Squarespace have website templates designed specifically for launching an online store.
Those templates give you the power to customize the functionality you need to succeed, including the ability to list and sort an unlimited number of products and customize your product details page (PDP) layouts.
See 7 ecommerce website template options
Navigation
The navigational flow of your website affects how easily customers can find, learn about, and buy your products. Organizing your website in an intuitive way starts with knowing where you want visitors to go when they land on your site and how to lead them there.
Great navigation leads visitors step-by-step from learning about your products through the checkout process. That means having:
Organized product pages
A search bar
Defined product categories
Clear FAQs and store policies
Simple checkout and payment processing
4. Add content to your online store
The way you display products in your online store directly impacts your online sales. Even with the best product ideas, your store design can have a real-time impact on how potential customers feel about making a purchase.
Two key areas to focus on are your product descriptions and product photography. Both are critical if you sell physical or digital products. Even if you sell services, it’s just as important to use imagery and text to accurately represent your offerings.
Product descriptions for your online store
With thoughtful product descriptions, you’ll be more likely to make sales. Clear descriptions also lead to fewer customer questions about your product details.
When writing each of your product descriptions, keep three goals in mind.
Show customers why your product stands out from competitors and what value it gives them.
Help customers understand if your product has everything they need.
Act as a surface for search engine optimization so customers can find your product.
Keep your target market in mind as you’re writing descriptions. They should fit your brand’s tone while delivering the key details about your product.
Learn how to write product descriptions
Product photography for your online store
Even the best product description will benefit from strong supporting product photography. Your customers need to see your products in their best light.
Taking good product photos is something anyone can do. You can even take quality product photos with nothing but your smartphone, natural lighting, and a clean backdrop. When you take product photos, remember to capture the angles and contexts that will best highlight your product for its target audience.
Make sure your photos are high quality enough for your ecommerce platform or any other online marketplaces where you’ll be selling your products. If you need help getting great product photos, some third-party businesses and freelancers specialize in helping entrepreneurs set up their own online stores.
Learn more about product photography
5. Manage your online store
If you want to sell physical products, three important considerations for your online store are:
Decide how to manage your inventory
A good inventory management strategy helps you keep up with demand for your products while protecting your profit margins.
Depending on what types of products you sell, your first step to inventory management is to decide whether you’ll manage inventory yourself or outsource to third-party suppliers (also known as dropshipping) for a fee. Both options come with their own pros and cons around space, time, and cost management.
Read about inventory management options
Set up shipping
Getting your products to your customers in a safe and timely way is crucial for any ecommerce business. There are many shipping factors to consider, including shipping costs, branded packaging, customized fulfillment options, and return policies.
As you decide how you’ll package and ship your products, keep in mind these top three priorities:
Be cost-effective.
Streamline your operations.
Create a positive experience for your customers.
Learn how to set up shipping for your business
Set up selling integrations
Your online store should be your headquarters for selling, but you can add integrations with third-party websites that will help you reach new customers. Add an integration with Meta to start selling physical products directly on Facebook and Instagram and meet your audience where they spend most of their time online.
Boost your search visibility by adding Squarespace’s Google Shopping integration. Once you sync your physical products, your items will show up in related Shopping searches, Google Image searches, and YouTube searches.
6. Launch and market your online store
Once you’ve built your online store, create a marketing strategy that incorporates both unpaid and paid advertising to get your store in front of potential customers.
Unpaid advertising
Many of the ways to start marketing your online store fall under the category of unpaid advertising. That just means that you don’t need to invest money to get the marketing online. Instead, unpaid advertising requires an investment of your time, energy, and ingenuity.
Unpaid advertising tactics include:
SEO, which involves working common search keywords into your website and online store. This makes your store more visible in search results related to what you’re selling.
Social media, which involves building community and promotional content around your brand. Start with the social media platforms where your customers are most likely to find you.
Blogging, which involves consistently running a blog on your website that covers topics relevant to your industry or the products you sell.
Paid advertising
If you have the budget for it, paid advertising can be an efficient way to increase brand awareness around your products and reach customers. Depending on which types of paid ads you pick, they use algorithms and keywords to reach the people most likely to want your products.
Paid advertising tactics include:
Social media ads, which allow potential customers scrolling through their social feeds to discover and buy your products directly from their feeds.
Pay-per-click (PPC) ads, which advertise your online store to potential customers directly on search results pages. These don’t cost you anything until people click on the ads.
This post was updated on May 26, 2023.