Options For Setting Up An Internet Store

[post actualizado 2020]

In the mid-nineties the emblematic founder of Apple Steve Jobs predicted in a television interview what the future of the Internet would be.

In it he imagined a world in which real commerce would move to electronic commerce, in which all stores would sell through an online catalog and users should only buy with a few clicks from the comfort of their home.

As Steve glimpsed it happens today, electronic commerce has managed to position itself very well globally and has become a necessity for all those businesses that want to increase their sales, since the comforts provided by the internet stores They lead to more and more people who choose this means of shopping.

If we have a physical business today more than ever it is imperative consider a strategy for the implementation of our virtual store and there are many ways to achieve it.

Here are four of the simplest and cheapest ways to get started.

1. Set up a Store with Facebook

The main social network that exists today has served so that many companies choose it as their favorite to offer their products.

Due to the ease of use of Facebook, many have chosen to start their businesses by creating a Fan Page for their brand or their leading products.

The good thing about starting our store on facebook is that we will not need to pay for any hosting or domain or perform sophisticated programming tasks. Just create the profile and start uploading photos with the descriptions of our products to already have something working.

Facebook’s own virality will help our products to be promoted much faster, contributing to this the comments we make in the profiles of recognized stores or in those of our friends, avoiding nothing more to fall into unwanted advertising.

Of course, although Facebook is a very simple platform to use from the user’s point of view, for business issues there are many things that need to be learned to be able to work an online sales system through this network. Nothing a keen entrepreneur can’t learn quickly.

2. Set up a Store in Mercado Libre

Another of the options most used by merchants in physical stores is to promote their products in Mercado Libre. By opening your own digital store In this portal the exposure that the products have grows considerably.

Using Mercado Libre is completely free, it offers us tools to improve the appearance of our ads and many manuals to improve our sales.

The benefit of the system is the reputation, as we know buying on the Internet can still represent something dangerous if we are not careful with scammers, in this way thanks to the seller’s reputation rating system we can know which are the most qualified and with the most transactions successful.

Having a star reputation in Mercado Libre will be a plus when it comes to selling.

3. Set up a store with a content manager

Content managers are applications that allow you to easily set up websites, most of them are completely free and it is only necessary to rent a hosting service to start setting up our own virtual store.

Within these Content Managers we can mention WordPress, Blogger, Prestashop or Magento.

Steps to set up our online store with a content manager:

  • We purchase a Hosting service from a provider known as Hostgator.com or Justhost.com, which come with easy tools to install the aforementioned Content Managers.
  • We acquire a domain name to identify our store on the Internet, which we will redirect to our hosting.
  • We installed the content manager and started uploading the photos of our products to our electronic store.

It should be mentioned that although the assembly can be quite simple, it will always be necessary to be accompanied by a good digital marketing strategy to attract customers.

You must imagine that an online store is similar to a physical store in several respects. You can rent the premises and fill it with product but this does not guarantee sales unless you do marketing and attract customers.

On the Internet it works the same. The infrastructure will allow you to manage an inventory and a collection system. But your strategy must consider everything else.

Electronic commerce has managed to position itself very well globally and has become a necessity for all those businesses that want to increase their sales.

4. Set up your store with an automated platform

Now. If you are looking for something more formal and that has all the characteristics to immediately market your products, there are other very powerful applications such as Shopify that allows you to easily create a complete platform in a few minutes for your online store start trading quickly.

I must tell you that this is a payment platform, however it is very accessible in price and in terms of functionality it is the best that exists in the market. And its price is nothing compared to the investment you would make in a physical business.

These tools are very useful for those of us who do not want to make such a fuss and want to start selling our products as soon as possible.

With Shopify you could have your own online product store in a few minutes, customizable and with several templates from which you can choose the one you like the most, among many other functionalities.

So, I invite you to give it a try and start building your new online sales strategy.

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