How to set up an Ecommerce Store

Setting up your own ecommerce store is easy, inexpensive and your store serves as the base for selling your products for the highest margin since you don’t have to pay 3rd parties like Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Etsy, Amazon, Ebay, etc.

The key is to also sell on those platforms to take advantage of their gimormous customer base but to also try to drive traffic to your own site.

I’m going to lay out exactly what I do for my own shop, I will start from scratch and go as low budget as possible.

In other posts I’ll describe how to use Wix and Squarespace for their online shops and ecommerce capabilities. This also isn’t a post on how to build a WordPress site but we want to help you do that.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

First, go to Namecheap and get yourself a domain name. ( about $8 /year) (pic 1)

I started using Namecheap years ago and have found them to be easy to use and to have really reasonable pricing.

Next, go to Elegantthemes.com and buy the Divi theme ($89/year) (pic 2)

Divi is generally regarded as one of the top 1 or 2 WordPress themes for its versatility and bang-for-the-buck. Woocommerce is included, it has a million add-ons and tutorials so it’s really the best.

Now go to Greengeeks and sign up for a hosting plan. ($2.95/month) (pic 3)

Get the Pro plan for unlimited sites. They have good promotions. GreenGeeks has been awesome for me, I can host unlimited domains and subdomains on it and I have been amazed by the customer service. They are really prompt, seem to always be available and have saved me numerous times when I did something to break my sites.

To connect your domain name to your hosting, log in to Namecheap and point the nameservers to Greengeeks servers. (pic 4)

Even better, to speed up your site, Set up a free CDN (content delivery network) with Cloudflare (also pic 4) and point your dns at them instead.

To set up WordPress on your new server, log into Greengeeks (pic 5)

Go to the control panel, then go down to “WordPress manager by Greengeeks“. Install WordPress onto the domain you want, make sure to add your email to send the files to so you get a nice easy way to access your new site. Also, make sure to fill in the login info and also the Woocommerce part, you’ll want that.

Once you get your email, click the link that looks like “http://groovebackmedia.com/wp-admin” (pic 6)

Once you’re in, click on Appearance, themes, then import Divi from your download folder and activate it.

Divi includes Woocommerce which is the actual shop, so now you’re ready to start building your store.

You’ll need images of your products + descriptions and prices. Your shop, cart and checkout pages get created automatically when you are creating the WordPress installation in Greengeeks so that’s nice.

You should contact us to help with the rest of the set up to save you a lot of time.

One huge thing that we have been doing is opening an account with Pribntful for Print-on-demand apparel printing. You create the products in Printful, connect your website to Printful, then export them straight into your store. Printful works with Etsy and all the other platforms really well. They handle all of the details, you don’t need to carry any inventory. Basically, a customer orders from you, then you pace that order with Printful and the take over with making the item and then shipping. It works great.

Contact us for more info on Print-on-demand with Printful.

How to make money Dropshipping

Dropshipping means that you sell the stock of a supplier without having to keep any inventory yourself. You don’t even have to deal with shipping. Basically, a customer orders a product from your online store, then you place that order with the supplier at a wholesale price, then the supplier ships the product.

You can be successful at this by generating traffic and awareness, helping shoppers discover new products and providing excellent customer service.

Fine the right niche, build a solid brand, automate the store process, work your analytics to improve your marketing efforts and offer great customer service.

 

We can help you choose products, your niches and get you set up.

Contact us today.

How to make money with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a really solid way to make money online by refering site visitors to products using special links. Building niche and product comparison sites work well and you can find affiliates directly or use aggregate sites, lots of options.

We love this moneymaker and are standing by to help you get into it, contact us now.

How to make money on YouTube

There are a number of ways to make money from YouTube.

First of all, start making and uploading quality videos and find a way to get 1,000 subscribers.

You can then apply for the YouTube Partner Program which will open the door to earning advertising revenue from video ads, membership perks and Super Chat.

There are some especially effective ways to get to 1,000 subscribers which we can help with.

You may also qualify to receive Shorts bonuses as part of the YouTube Shorts Fund without being in the YouTube Partner Program.

A very popular and productive to build audiences and to make money is to become an affiliate marketer through product reviews.

A form of affiliate marketing is getting an interested brand to sponsor you after you establish an audience.

Creating and selling your own physical and downloadable products and merchandise has a much higher margin and there are a few ways to do that.

Crowdfunding through sites such as Patreon, Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Gofundme is yet another revenue channel – project-based and recurring.

Contact us if you are curious, we can help you create your YouTube channel from the ground up and get you headed in the right direction.

How to sell on Etsy

Etsy has developed into an amazing marketplace to connect with millions of people around the world to sell your goods.
Here is their breakdown of how their fees work:
How do fees work on Etsy?
Joining and starting a shop on Etsy is free. There are three basic selling fees: a listing fee, a transaction fee, and a payment processing fee. There’s also an advertising fee for sales that come from Offsite Ads.

It costs $0.20 to publish a listing to the marketplace. A listing lasts for four months or until the item is sold. Once an item sells, there is a 6.5% transaction fee on the sale price (including the shipping price you set). If you accept payments through Etsy Payments, we also collect a 3% + $0.25 payment processing fee when an item is sold.

Listing fees are billed for $0.20 USD, so if your bank’s currency is not USD, the amount may differ based on changes in the exchange rate. The payment processing fee may also vary by bank country.

You pay an advertising fee on any sales you make from Offsite Ads. When you open your Etsy shop, you can decide if you want to participate in Etsy’s advertising services.
To get started, just create a free account, set your shop location and currency, pick your shop name, set how you are to be paid, how you want to be billed for fees, then start creating your listings.
Etsy is for collectors, artists and craftspeople to sell their handmade goodies and vintage items.

Contact us to help you get set up and start making money selling on Etsy.

How to create a Print On Demand business with Printful

Printful is an online company that enables very easy creation and selling of custom products online.

Their extensive catalogue of products includes men’s clothing, women’s clothing, kids & youth clothing and hats They also have accessories like tote bags, backpacks, duffel bags, laptop bags, iPhone and Samsung phone cases, face masks, shoes, socks, flipflops, jewelry (bracelets, necklaces and earrings) and more.

They also have home & living goods like blankets, towels, pet products, aprons and more.

The process is pretty straightforward –
Create an account – they don’t charge for the service.

You choose from a wide array of products, add your design, then export it to your shop(s).

As an example, pick a specific brand of men’s t-shirt, choose the colors, the sizes, add you design to one or multiple places (front, back, inside label, outside label depending on shirt vendor), pick your mock (flat, wrinkled, on various models, etc), add your retail price, then export it to your WordPress site after you download the free Printful WordPress plugin and connect Printful to your shop. The products will then be inside of your WordPress site and you then set up the categories for displaying on the front end of your store.
When a customer buys the shirt from your site (at retail), you then log in to Printful and order that same item at wholesale and they make it a ship it to them.
You never have to touch the product other than ordering samples for yourself.

It works great and doesn’t put you at any financial risk.
They even have tons of designs you can use, plus really good tutorials.

Contact us to help you get set up with Printful print-on-demand ecommerce.