when I first set up an online store
almost 20 years ago there were hardly
any options other than creating a custom
website nowadays it's much easier to
start selling online in this video
covers three of the most common ways to
do it building your own online store
hosting your website and store through
an e-commerce platform and selling
through online marketplaces no matter
how you decide to start selling online
every web store needs to include a few
basic elements a gallery of your
products with photos descriptions and
prices a shopping cart so people can
build their order shipping options and a
secure way to accept payment if you
build your own website an online store
it's up to you to research choose setup
and then drop all these elements into a
website you've designed and hosted but
there are much easier alternatives
probably the most customizable and yet
easy to setup way to sell online is to
use an e-commerce platform like Shopify
or big commerce they offer both free and
paid templates for building your store
and overall website but these services
also provide just about everything most
businesses would need on the backend as
well taking care of details like website
hosting the shopping cart and shipping
menu secure payments exact fees and
services vary depending on which
platform and which plan you choose but
the basic plan start at about 30 US
dollars a month if you're really in a
hurry to just start selling you can do
that through an online marketplace like
Amazon Etsy eBay or Aliexpress with no
website or store to set up all you have
to do is set up your seller account on
your chosen platform wait for approval
and then upload your product details but
here's the thing about these
marketplaces
customers might not even realize they're
borrowing from your business and not
Amazon for instance and while these
sites get a lot of traffic competition
is steep still if you want to take
advantage of their customer traffic you
could always list your items on these
marketplaces in addition to putting up
your own online store no matter which of
these options you choose make sure the
online store and any related systems
that you set up play well with each
other and with your accounting software
so you can easily track all your new
sales activity thanks for watching and
be sure to check out our other small
business guides