Create an e-commerce site
Are you thinking of opening a business based on an e-commerce site in which to sell products on the Internet and would you like some advice on this? Have you done some research, but the topic seems quite complex to you and you would like to know which are the best services to rely on? Don’t worry, here I am ready to clarify your doubts.
If your intent is to create an e-commerce site, you must first know that there are several possibilities to do so: it is in fact possible to open an e-commerce for free, through online services that are already almost completely preconfigured; secondly, if you have professional needs and more or less advanced technical skills, you can buy hosting and a domain and install a CMS, a software suitable for configuring an ecommerce in every aspect. Alternatively, it is possible to create an e-commerce site from scratch, through the programming language.
Wondering which is the best solution among those listed? In reality there is not, it all depends on your needs, skills and available budget. In this tutorial, therefore, I will illustrate all the situations mentioned, telling you about the resources available to you for the activity you have in mind to carry out. Are you ready to get started? Yup? Very well, take a few minutes of free time, so as to pay the utmost attention to the information I will give you in this guide of mine. I wish you a good read.
Index
- Create a free e-commerce
- Shopify
- Vidra
- Jimdo
- One Minute Site
- Other proprietary services
- Create an e-commerce through CMS
- WordPress
- Magento
- Drupal
- Prestashop
- Joomla
- Create an e-commerce site with PHP
Create a free e-commerce
If you intend to create an e-commerce site for free, as you have basic needs, I suggest you take a look at the platforms I am talking about in the next lines, in order to identify the service that best suits your needs.
Shopify
Shopify is a service used by over 1,000,000 stores around the world that allows you to create professional e-commerce in a few clicks, without having knowledge of programming or Web design (you can choose from hundreds of customizable templates). It offers unlimited secure hosting, free unlimited bandwidth, and a free shopify.com domain name, with the option to purchase a custom one or use an existing one.
Shopify handles everything from marketing to payments, secure checkout to shipping, and allows you to easily manage orders, inventory, and customer lists. It also allows you to launch marketing campaigns via Google, Facebook, email or SMS and to analyze sales data in detail. You can use it for free for a limited trial period (without entering payment details and without obligation to renew), after which you can choose from various plans suitable for all budgets and all needs, starting at $ 29 / month.
Going into more detail, to create an ecommerce with Shopify, all you have to do is connect to the official website of the service, type your email address and click on the Start free trial button. Then you have to type the password you want to use for your shop, the name you want to assign to it and press the Create your shop button.
Finally, you must specify if you have already started selling, what your current income is and if you are creating a store for a customer, provide the rest of the requested information, click the Next button (or Skip, if to skip this step) and provide the address to receive payments.
You will thus find yourself in front of the Shopify management panel with, on the left, the menu to access all the sections of the service: Home, with the main dashboard of your ecommerce; Orders, to manage orders; Products, to add and manage products; Customers, to manage the customer list; Analysis, to view sales data; Marketing, to set up marketing campaigns; Discounts, to set up discount codes; App, to expand your ecommerce with additional functions, and Online Store, to customize the appearance and pages of the store.
I also point out that Shopify is also available as an app for Android and iOS / iPadOS and allows both to create and manage ecommerce from smartphones and tablets. To learn more, check out my tutorial on how to create an ecommerce with Shopify.
Vidra
Among the best solutions you can consider to create a free e-commerce there is certainly Vidra, the platform promoted in collaboration with Visa that allows you to create and manage an online store in an extremely quick, convenient and simple way. Everything is done in just a few clicks: you register, choose one of the predefined graphic solutions that the platform makes available, upload photos and information on the products to sell and that’s it! Vidra thus creates a site through which customers can make their purchases.
The sites created with Vidra contain, in addition to the shop, a blog and personalized pages. They are also perfectly optimized for mobile browsing and search engines and can be associated with external domains. But among the advantages offered by Vidra there is not only the ultra-simple creation of the site.
To make the use of Vidra particularly convenient there is also all the management of orders and shipments: customers can pay by card, digital wallet or manual methods (e.g. bank transfer) and the shipment can be made either directly by the seller or by national couriers, with the possibility of scheduling deliveries directly from the platform and without having to enter into contracts with individual couriers. In short, zero bureaucracy!
The price? Vidra allows you to try all its most important functions for free for 14 days , after which you can choose whether to keep the free plan (with a catalog of 10 products) or to switch to paid plans, starting from 15 euros/month or 12.50 euro/month with the annual subscription.
To create your e-commerce with Vidra, connected to the home page of the service, type your e-mail address in the appropriate field and press the button Try it now, for free! Then enter your e-mail address, name and surname, name of your shop and password to be used to access the service and click on the Create your shop button.
For more details, see my tutorial on how to create an e-commerce with Vidra and the official Help Center, where you can find many tips and answers from the Vidra team.
Jimdo
To create an e-commerce site for free and easily, I suggest you turn to the Jimdo platform, which allows you to create Internet sites with subdomain. jimdofree.com, 500 MB of space and 2GB of bandwidth.
To start, connected to its official website, press the Create your website and register an account button, by clicking the Sign up with Facebook or Sign up with Google button, or fill out the registration form, indicating an email and a password, accepting the terms and conditions of the service and pressing the New registration button.
Then, click on the Create an online shop button that you see on the screen, indicate the type of site you want to create, placing a checkmark on one of the items proposed (for example Shop ), click on Get started now, choose the template to use , pressing on one of those shown and then selecting the button Ready? Via !, corresponding to the Free option, to continue for free.
On the next screen, enter the domain name to use (it is also possible to purchase it, with prices starting from € 6.50 / month), press the Check availability button and then the one called Create your site for free.
Wait for the editor to load and select the Toolbar button (top left) to manage the settings of your website, referring to the Shop section, for everything related to the e-commerce module; or click on the Design menu item, to change the aesthetic.
The optional Jimdo, Pro and Business paid plans (6.50 € / month and 15 € / month) are used to upgrade memory and bandwidth, to be able to sell an unlimited number of products (only for Jimdo Business, otherwise are maximum 3) and to eliminate advertising.
One Minute Site
Another free platform you can refer to is One Minute Site, which allows the sale of products, albeit with some limitations, such as a third-level domain. oneminutesite.it .
Then connect to his website, click on Try our ecommerce for free, fill out the form that is proposed to you with the name of the site, email address and password you want to use to access your account, check the boxes I am not a robot and I accept the general contract (following the instructions on the screen to resolve the captcha) and click on the Create your online store button to continue.
On the next screen, click on the DIY creation or Wizard creation box, depending on your level of experience with the creation of Internet sites. For example, click on Wizard, if this is the first time you use this tool, click on Select and continue and then answer a few questions, to start creating the site.
After answering all the questions, click on Save and Continue, in order to access the editor, click on the E-commerce item from the drop-down menu at the top and, finally, choose whether to click on the button Activate the catalog or Activate the e-commerce, depending on your needs for the sale of products.
Please note that it is possible to request the activation of the Try & Buy offer which gives the possibility to use the business version of the One Minute Site ecommerce for 3 months without anticipating any payment data. At the end of the 3 months, you will be contacted and you can choose whether or not to renew your subscription. If continued, the top-level domain and the mailboxes associated with it are also activated.
The optional subscription plans start at 8 euros per month + VAT (96 euros + VAT/year) and are used to upgrade the site and sell unlimited products (otherwise you can sell a maximum of 3 products for free).
Other proprietary services
If your intent is to create an e-commerce you can take advantage of other solutions similar to those previously indicated, such as those I am talking about in the next lines.
Alternatively, you can also sell your products on pre-existing e-commerce sites, such as eBay or Amazon, which are not free. In this regard, for more information about it, read my tutorial on how to sell on Amazon or my guide on how to open an eBay store.
- Blomming– this is a service that allows you to open a shop on the Internet and which includes a function that is used to integrate your product showcase on Facebook in order to sell them through the social network. It is not completely free, as prices start at € 9.99 / month with a free trial version. I told you about it in more detail in my tutorial.
- Wix– this is a service similar to those mentioned in the previous paragraph that allows you to create an Internet site including an e-commerce platform and which is also suitable for beginners. It allows you to get a free e-commerce site with a third-level domain. wixsite.com and also offers paid plans with prices starting at € 6.21 / month. I told you about it in my guide.
Create an e-commerce through CMS
However, if your intent is to create a professional e-commerce, you have to take into account the possibility to manually install a CMS or a Content Management System, in Italian called Content Management System.
The latter is in fact a software for the management of Internet sites which, in the case of e-commerce, must be installed and configured within a previously purchased hosting space. Furthermore, to create a site as professional as possible, it must be combined with a paid second level domain.
In this regard, I suggest you read some of my tutorials related to this topic, such as the one in which I told you about the best paid hosting and the one dedicated to the purchase of Web domains.
Furthermore, as regards the purchase of a hosting, I recommend that you evaluate the packages with dedicated servers and designed for e-commerce such as, for example, those of Aruba, which start from € 49.99 + VAT/year and allow to sell up to 100 products. As you will have understood by reading this tutorial of mine, opening an e-commerce requires greater technical requirements and, consequently, a greater expense, compared to opening a normal blog.
Having said that, in the following lines I will tell you about the most used CMS for the creation of an e-commerce.
WordPress
WordPress is one of the best-known free and open source CMSs. It is used for the creation of blogs and websites but can also be used to create an e-commerce. WordPress, in fact, has numerous plugins and themes useful for this purpose, such as WooCommerce, which can be installed for free. Thanks to these tools, WordPress can be used to create a complete and professional e-commerce platform in a simple way.
In this regard, know that it is possible to turn to all-in-one solutions that offer domain, hosting and a ready-to-use WordPress installation with WooCommerce. For example, Aruba Managed WooCommerce Hosting includes a WordPress installation with WooCommerce , annual registration and maintenance of a domain name, unlimited space on SSD and a 2GB database on SSD with support for 200 connections and traffic up to 500,000 monthly visitors.
In addition, the DV SSL certificate is offered for secure connections in HTTPS (now required by most browsers and search engines), monitoring and automatic backup, the staging environment to test changes to the site without altering the one in production, unlimited 1GB mailboxes, 10 PEC mailboxes on domain and much more.
The service has prices starting from 124.50 euros + VAT for the 1st year and then 249.00 euros + VAT/year. For more information, read my guide on Aruba Managed WooCommerce Hosting and consult the official website of the service.
And if you need more information about WordPress, you can read my guides dedicated to this CMS and some technical books on the subject.
Magento
One of the most complete and professional CMS for creating an e-commerce is Magento. However, this open-source software is suitable for experts in the field, as it is more difficult to use than WordPress and requires installation of the same on hosting platforms with high technical requirements.
Magento is available in a free version, Community Edition, which however, according to some users who use it, is a bit limited. There are also some paid versions, Professional Edition and Enterprise Edition, which however have quite high costs to be incurred, which you can request a quote for at this link.
If you want to deepen the subject, I recommend reading some technical manuals, such as those you find below.
Drupal
Drupal is another rather popular CMS that is used for building e-commerce with large stores. It is one of the best known alternatives to Magento: Drupal is in fact free and open source.
It is fully and advanced customizable but, obviously, specific technical skills are required for its use.
In this regard, below I show you some useful technical books to deepen the subject.
Prestashop
Prestashop is an open source CMS platform which is another alternative to consider for setting up an e-commerce. It is considered a valid alternative to Magento, as it requires fewer technical requirements and is considered by users to be easier to use, due to an active community, which helps in solving problems, and an administration panel with a more immediate design.
It can also be suitable for less experienced users, as its PrestaShop Ready tool is a “turnkey” paid solution (€ 19.90 / month after 15 days of free trial) for the creation of professional e-commerce.
Do you want to know this CMS better? Very well, here are some recommended books on the subject.
Joomla
Joomla is a CMS considered an alternative to WordPress that can also be used for the creation of e-commerce sites. For some users it is considered easier to use than Magento or Drupal, and it also integrates several plugins for the creation of an Internet site in which to sell products, such as Virtuemart.
To learn more about its use, you can find below some books on the subject.
Create an e-commerce site with PHP
If your needs are even more specific, as you would like to set up an e-commerce site, using the PHP programming language, you must consider contacting a professional in the sector, in case you have no technical knowledge.
Do you already have some knowledge of programming websites in PHP? Would you like to improve them or create a self-taught e-commerce? In this regard, my advice is to study the subject through specific technical manuals, such as those shown below.
I remind you that, even in this case, it is necessary to purchase a hosting and a web domain. You can learn more about these topics by consulting the guides on paid hosting and on how to buy web domains.