How To Create An Online Store For Your Business - Open Source vs Fully Hosted

So now you have decided on the products you want to sell (if you haven't, click here) and you have also found the source for those products. Now what? It's now time to start working on your storefront. Without a proper storefront, you will be just like the people who walk around selling their products. You sell to those who are not interested in what you have to offer and those that are interested will never find you. Most people have this misconception that in order to have a website, you must hire a web designer or developer and it will cost a lot of money to hire them. Thanks to technology these days, there are many cheaper options and the best part, you can do it on your own.

Open source vs Fully hosted

When talking about do-it-yourself online store platform, there are open source and fully hosted. When I first started on ecommerce, I actually went on the open source path. Open source was great. I signed up for a hosting plan and also got a domain name. Some good things about open source:

• No cost whatsoever (you only pay for hosting)
• Tons of beautiful and free templates to choose from 
• Had all the functions I needed to run my business

It seemed great at first until I got into actually building the online store. Yes, there are a lot of templates to choose from but they are not full templates. Meaning you still have to put in a lot of effort to customize your storefront. This was a problem even for me who has a background in IT. If you only know how to use a mouse and surf the web, no worries. You can still create an online store. Fully hosted ecommerce platform is an easier alternative. You can get all the great things of an online store without actually having to go through all the technical stuff. And it's still much cheaper than hiring people to create one for you.

How Easy Is It To Get Up And Running?

When you sign up for an all-in-one ecommerce service, you don't have to go through the trouble of finding a hosting and domain plan. And you don't need to have IT knowledge to get your webstore set up. You will be provided with all the tools to get your online business running. All you need to do is follow these simple steps: 1. Design your storefront

• Choose a theme from the theme store
• Upload your logo or custom header
• Customize the theme using a simple theme editor

2. Upload your products 3. Set up payment and shipping options 4. Drive traffic using a wide range of business tools

You Don't Have To Be a Tech Expert To Start

Like I said before, if you know how to use a mouse and surf the web, you can already create your own beautiful online store. If you are like me, I prefer to avoid the technical aspects all together so I can focus on more important things like selling and providing quality service to my customers. EasyStore allows me to do just that. If you are serious about your online business, then I suggest you create your store today with EasyStore. You can have your online store up and running in no time and start to focus on how you can grow your business even more.