Categories: COVID-19E-CommerceWebsiteWork From Home

How To Set Up An Online Store In Minutes

Green Stick Marketing

Selling your products and services online rather than in-store means that you need a website with the capability to handle an online store. But while setting up an online store might seem complicated and time-consuming, it’s actually not as difficult as it seems!

Where possible, many businesses are moving some–or all–of their products and services online. Have you been investigating transitioning some of your business’ sales and operations to e-commerce?

To get started, all you need is a website that’s powered by WordPress—we’ll show you how to do the rest using WooCommerce, a free and open-source plugin that allows you to easily set up a functioning web store, complete with payment and shipping options, in minutes.

What You’ll Need To Get Started

A website powered by WordPress
Products or services to sell
30-60 minutes to set up and add products to your online store

Set up and install WooCommerce

Step 1: Find and install the WooCommerce plugin

First, you’ll need to install WooCommerce on your WordPress website. You can download it for free from the WordPress repository, or you can install it directly from your WordPress dashboard.

Log in to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins > Add New. Search for “woocommerce”, and click Install Now on the WooCommerce plugin (Note that the correct plugin’s author will be listed as Automattic). Wait a moment for the plugin to install, and then click Activate.

The plugin will now be active on your WordPress site.

Step 2: Follow the Setup Wizard

After installing WooCommerce, you’ll have access to the WooCommerce Setup Wizard to configure your store’s key settings like location information, payment and shipping methods, and types of products that you’ll be selling. Note that everything you choose in the setup wizard can be changed later on in your WooCommerce settings.

You’ll first enter information about your store’s address, the currency you accept, and whether you’ll be selling digital or physical products (or both).

Step 3: Choose your payment processing methods

Next, you’ll choose which payments you’ll accept using your online store. By default, you can use Stripe and/or PayPal, but you can also choose to accept offline payments like checks and cash.

Select the options you’d like to use, and WooCommerce will set them up for you. Extensions that allow you to use more payment processing methods are available, if necessary.

Step 4: Choose a shipping method

You can also configure how customers will be charged for shipping. You can set one rate for your specific business area, as well as other rates for customers outside of your business’ area.

Step 5: Choose optional add-ons

Once you’ve configured the basic settings for your online WooCommerce store, you can review optional add-ons. None of these add-ons are necessary to run your store, but some, such as Storefront, can simplify certain aspects of setting up your store.

Step 6: Finish setup

Before completing the setup process, you can choose to enable Jetpack, which is another WordPress plugin with additional features that can help in setting up and running your store. This plugin is not required, however WooCommerce recommends that if you’re in the U.S., you’ll want to enable Jetpack given recent legal changes.

Once you’ve completed the steps above, your store will now be ready for use, and you can begin adding your products to it.

Managing your WooCommerce store

After installing WooCommerce, two new tabs will be available on your dashboard’s side menu: WooCommerce–which contains your store settings, and Products, containing your product settings.

Follow the link at the end of the Setup Wizard or go to Products > Add New to begin adding products to your store.

WooCommerce has extensive documentation and tutorials on how to set up, manage, and operate your store. Here are some handy links for how to add products, sell and ship them, manage orders, and more:

Summary

Article Name

How To Set Up An Online Store In Minutes

Author

Chris Beckwith-Taylor

Publisher Name

Green Stick Marketing, INC

Publisher Logo

Chris Beckwith-Taylor

Chris Beckwith-Taylor is a marketing innovator, known for progressing the multifamily industry forward with his behavior-based, data-driven approach to digital strategy. Beckwith-Taylor currently guides all strategic digital and technology initiatives across Green Stick Marketing's growing business portfolio. Before launching his marketing agency, Chris was the Vice President Of Marketing at The Franklin Johnston Group, where he was responsible for the strategic marketing and leasing efforts across the organization's 20,000-plus conventional, senior, and affordable assets. Chris also worked as the National Marketing Manager for Fore Property Company, where he ran the lease-up efforts for new apartment developments in Denver, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Orlando, and Portland. Prior to joining Fore Property Company, Christopher managed the advertising for over 150 multifamily communities at CoStar, a commercial real estate information and marketing provider based in Washington, D.C. Beckwith-Taylor’s marketing experience began in 2006 as a leasing consultant in Chicago for Village Green, a management company based out of Farmington Hills, Michigan. He last served as a Regional Marketing Director there, overseeing sales, marketing and assisting with business development initiatives.