How To Start an Ecommerce Business: Complete Guide

Starting an ecommerce business is one of the best ways to leverage your retail acumen and sell to people around the world. The opportunities are limitless, and there’s a huge market at stake – in 2024, ecommerce topped $6trn in global sales (according to Shopify).

The barriers to launching an ecommerce business are incredibly low since you don’t need coding experience, a warehouse, or a huge budget. Plus, website builders make it easy to launch an online store in days rather than months.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to start an ecommerce business in eight easy steps. Keep reading to launch your new business today.

8 Steps to Starting an Ecommerce Business

Choose what to sell (and who to sell to)
Choose an ecommerce website builder
Register a domain name and business name
Build your ecommerce website
Set up payments and shipping
Understand legal and tax basics
Launch and market your store
Track, optimize, and scale

Step 1: Choose What To Sell (and Who To Sell To)

Before you can launch an ecommerce store, you need to figure out your business plan. What do you want to sell, and who do you intend to sell it to?

Begin by considering what you plan to sell. This could be something you’re passionate about creating or a product that’s in high demand. Most ecommerce businesses focus on physical products that are easy to ship, but you can also offer digital downloads or a marketplace that connects buyers with local services.

Whatever you choose, make sure it’s unique. You’re more likely to find customers if you offer something that’s superior to competing products or unlike anything that already exists.

Need ideas? Exploring what’s trending online is a good place to start. Check out Google Trends, Reddit, TikTok, and even Amazon to see what’s currently selling online and where there are gaps in the market.

Before you commit to a product, be sure to think carefully about who your target customers are. What problem is your product solving for them, and what alternatives do they have? Also, consider their online behavior, since this will have a big impact on how you market your business.

Finally, map out your target audience’s demographics – where they live, how old they are, what their income level is, and more. This will help ensure you’re focusing your efforts on customers you can realistically reach with your online store.

Step 2: Choose an Ecommerce Website Builder

For your ecommerce business to be successful, you need a great online store that draws in customers and provides backend tools to help you manage orders. While you can build a store from scratch, using an ecommerce website builder is a lot easier, faster, and more affordable.

Ecommerce website builders are designed to be beginner-friendly. They offer customizable templates and drag-and-drop content elements to streamline the design process and help you launch quickly. They also manage hosting and site security for you, so you can focus on building up your business instead of wasting time maintaining your website.

Some of the top ecommerce website builders include Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, and BigCommerce. All four come with secure payment processing, mobile-friendly templates, and inventory management systems to help you run your store. They also cover SEO basics, offer integrated marketing tools, and provide support every step of the way.

Want to learn more about which of these platforms is right for your business? Check out our in-depth comparison of the top ecommerce website builders for small businesses to learn more and select the right one for you.

Step 3: Register a Domain Name and Business Name

Now it’s time to decide what to call your new business. Your business name should reflect the product you sell while also being short and easy for customers to remember. Avoid any names that are already taken, even by a business in an unrelated industry.

If you need help coming up with ideas, AI chatbots can be very helpful for brainstorming. Before settling on your name, also run it by family and friends to see what they think of it.

Once you have your business name, you can register your new business. At minimum, you’ll need to file a Doing Business As form with your state’s secretary of state to make your venture official. This is also a good time to set up a business bank account and form a limited liability company (LLC), although neither of these steps is strictly required.

Next, it’s time to register a domain name for your ecommerce site. This is the address visitors will use to reach your website, such as “myonlinestore.com”. Ideally, it should be the same as your business name and use a “.com” domain extension, but you may have to get creative if your chosen domain name is already taken.

You can register your domain directly through the website builder you chose in Step 2 – most offer free domains for your first year.

Step 4: Build Your Ecommerce Website

Now it’s time to build your ecommerce website and online store. Your website builder should help you kickstart the design process with pre-designed templates. Choose one that’s specific for ecommerce and tailored to your industry.

You can customize this template by adding pages and populating them with your own content, including products for sale. Key pages include:

Homepage: Introduces your business and showcases top products.
Product page: Shows all of your products. If you have a lot of products, you may need multiple product pages for different categories of items.
Shipping & Returns page: Provides detailed information about your shipping and return policies.
Contact page: Offers your email, phone number, or another way for customers to get in touch with questions.

Your product listings should be as detailed as possible, with high-quality photos and videos. It’s a good idea to anticipate customer questions and include an FAQ section below each product description. If you have product variants, such as different sizes or colors, you can create listings for those using your ecommerce platform’s tools.

Most website builders optimize your site for mobile devices by default. However, it’s a good idea to double-check during the design process that your site displays properly on smartphone screens.

Step 5: Set Up Payments and Shipping

Before you can launch your online store and start accepting orders, you need to configure some backend settings.

First, connect a payment processor. Most top ecommerce platforms are compatible with all of the top credit card processors, including PayPal, Stripe, and Square. You’ll need to set up an account with one of these processors, then log in to your account through your website builder.

Next, set shipping rules for your products. Shipping rules control where in the world your products can be shipped to, how much shipping costs for each customer’s order, and which carrier you use.

Ecommerce platforms make it relatively easy to create shipping rules, especially if you only have a few types of products or products that are all the same shape and size. You can set up multiple shipping categories with different fees, and then designate which products fall into each category.

Whatever shipping rules you choose, make sure your shipping policies are clearly explained to customers on your Shipping & Returns page. It’s also a good idea to offer estimated delivery dates and shipment tracking, although you’ll likely need to pay for a third-party shipping integration to automate this.

Step 6: Understand Legal and Tax Basics

Ecommerce website builders take care of many legal and tax basics automatically, which is a huge relief for many first-time ecommerce business owners. For example, these platforms will calculate sales tax for each sale and pay it automatically on your business’s behalf. They’ll also ensure that your business complies with customer privacy laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) when collecting customer information.

That said, there are some things you need to be aware of. It’s essential to clearly outline on your Shipping & Returns page any terms and conditions that limit your return policy or product warranty, if applicable. It’s also a good idea to share a privacy policy on your website. There are many free examples available online that you can use to create your own privacy policy.

You are also responsible for paying income taxes on your business revenue. Using bookkeeping software, like Xero or QuickBooks, makes tracking your income and expenses easy and significantly streamlines calculating your taxes. Most ecommerce platforms enable you to integrate bookkeeping software right into your online store.

Step 7: Launch and Market Your Store

Now you’re ready to launch your store and share your new business with the world. To go live and start accepting orders, just click the “publish” button in your ecommerce site builder.

However, orders aren’t likely to start rolling in without some serious effort to market your business. At a minimum, you should build your site’s SEO to ensure your products appear in search results. Our beginner’s guide to website SEO offers a range of tips to help you get started.

Other ways you can market your business include:

Social media marketing: Create a profile for your business on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms. For even more impact, you can run paid ads on social media aimed at your target market.
Email marketing: Build a list of emails by collecting information about customers and visitors to your site. Then share newsletters, product discounts, and exclusive content to drive traffic to your online store.
Online marketplaces: List your products on marketplaces like Etsy and Amazon to expand your reach to more potential customers. Note that these marketplaces usually take a cut of your ecommerce sales, so it’s worth trying to drive customers back to your website.

For any marketing efforts, it’s a good idea to start with a small budget and see what results you get. Try different tactics, then scale up the ones that work well.

Step 8: Track, Optimize, and Scale

Once your ecommerce site is fully up and running, it’s time to dive into the data and find ways to grow your sales.

You can use several different analytics tools to gain insight into your site’s visitors. Your website builder’s analytics dashboard will show you which of your pages or products are most popular and how frequently customers are abandoning their carts, which could indicate an issue with your checkout process.

Google Analytics and Meta Pixel will help you track how people are finding your online store and give you more information about who they are, which is important for running effective marketing campaigns. You can also add new products, offer discount codes or free shipping, and hold site-wide sales to attract more customers.

Over time, you can scale up your online store by adding integrations through your ecommerce platform for inventory management, shipping, marketing, and merchandising. The automations these tools provide free you up to continue focusing on the big picture of your business and keep growing.

Your Ecommerce Business Starts With One Step

If you’ve decided to start an online business, ecommerce website builders make it easy to design, launch, and scale your online store. They automate many aspects of order management, shipping, and marketing, enabling you to focus on making your customers happy and keeping your business thriving.

Ready to launch your online business? Compare the best ecommerce website builders and take the first step today.

FAQs

How much does it cost to start an ecommerce business?

Starting an ecommerce business requires an upfront investment of a few thousand dollars. Expect to spend around $300 to $500 per year for an ecommerce website builder and budget at least $500 for marketing your new business. You’ll also need to pay for an initial inventory of products. The cost for this can vary widely depending on what your business sells.

Is ecommerce profitable?

Ecommerce businesses can be very profitable, although the profit margins on any single product can be low. The most important thing is to have a good product-market fit. The low barrier to entry of ecommerce means that there’s a lot of competition, so you need to have a unique product that customers want.

How to Start an Ecommerce Business: A Checklist