Selling Products Online: Easily Create an e-Store or Shopping Cart

As you know from previous posts (Free Internet Tools, Building your Small Business Website (Part 1), and Building your Small Business Website (Part 2)), I am a fan of using free website hosting and development platforms to get started.  As someone who has helped numerous small businesses, I understand that it is not always a priority to spend a decent chunk of money for an online presence when you’re just starting up.

However, if you’re going to make the effort to build a website using free tools, why not take it a step further and establish an online storefront?  This allows your web traffic to order products and services electronically, and can actually make it easier for you to get paid (accept electronic payments rather than check or cash). 

NOTE:  While the tools to create the shopping cart mentioned below are FREE, the actual payment processing service is NOT.  Make sure you are aware of the transaction fees you will be charged for processing payments from your e-Store customers!

Here are a few ways to create an online storefront (or an e-Store):

• How To Set Up a Google Store in Minutes (SmallBizTrends) – Difficulty: Low, especially if you’ve setup your website in Google Apps/Sites or Blogger!  NOTE: The Google Checkout plugin is still in the “Labs”, meaning it *could* eventually be removed or could be down for maintenance at random times.
• Getting Started with the Google Checkout Shopping Cart – Read this guide to set up a Google Checkout Shopping Cart script which will work with products you’ve created on your webpage.  Difficulty:  Medium
• WordPress e-Store Plugin (Tips and Tricks HQ) – This one is good if you are running a website on WordPress.  Difficulty: Medium
• Create Paypal Add-to-Cart Buttons (WesDotPhotography) – Difficulty: Low, although this can become time consuming if you have a large number of items to sell. 

You can also use the “Buy-it-Now” method, and add buttons on your website which allow customers to make purchases of single items in a quick manner.  If you’ve seen the MW2ML Technology website, you’ve probably seen my own implementation of “Buy Now” buttons for requesting pre-paid services. 

Here are a few links on how to setup a Buy Now button:

• Offer Google Checkout with Buy Now Buttons – Read this guide from Google to set up a Buy Now button.  Difficulty:  Low
• Buy Now buttons from Paypal – This guide from Paypal shows how easily you can create a Buy Now button for an item or service.  Difficulty: Low

As you can see, it is fairly easy to setup your website to sell products/services online! 

If you would like help creating an e-store on your website, feel free to Contact Me!

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