The Ultimate Guide to eCommerce Software

The Ultimate Guide to eCommerce Software

Zapier

? 2016 Zapier Inc.

Contents

What Others Say About Zapier's Books . . . . . . . . . 2

Chapter 1: 3 Things You Need to Know Before You Start Your Own Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1. Do You Really Want to Run Your Own Business? . . . 6 2. What Will You Sell and How Much Should You Charge? 11 3. Who Will Be Your Customers and How Will You Find Them? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Chapter 2: From Startup Costs to Business Plans--What You Need to Start Your Own Business . . . . . . . . . 22 How to Determine Your Startup Costs . . . . . . . . . . 23 How to Find Legal and Financial Help . . . . . . . . . . 28 How to Create a Business Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Chapter 3: How to Sell Stuff Online--The 7 Best Places to Start Your Online Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 When The Entire Internet is a Store . . . . . . . . . . . 37 The Ingredients for a Successful Store . . . . . . . . . . 39 The Simplest Ways to Start an Online Store . . . . . . . 40 Taking Your Store to The Next Level . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Which Should You Choose? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 It Takes More Than Just a Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Chapter 4: How to Start a Store--A Step-by-Step Guide to eCommerce with Shopify and WooCommerce . . . . 70 What You Need to Set Up an Online Store . . . . . . . . 71

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How to Set Up a Shopify Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 How to Manage Your Shopify Store . . . . . . . . . . . 87 What's Different with a WooCommerce Store . . . . . . 97 Go Build Your Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Chapter 5: The 20 Best eCommerce Platforms to Start an Online Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Start a Simple, Hosted Online Store . . . . . . . . . . . 112 Build a Site With a Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Create a Full-Featured eCommerce Store . . . . . . . . 121 Add a Store to an Existing Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Run a Self-Hosted Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 The Other Tools You'll Need for a Store . . . . . . . . . 143

Chapter 6: The Best Online Credit Card Payment Processing Services for Your Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 What is Payment Processing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 The Most Common Types of Online Payment Processing Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 The Best Online Payment Processing Systems . . . . . . 150 The Best Account-Based Payment Systems . . . . . . . 151 The Best Direct Payments Services . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Square . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Apps With Built-in Payment Services . . . . . . . . . . 164

Chapter 7: How to Run a Successful Online Store . . . . . 173 Starting an Online Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 The Daily Tasks in Running an eCommerce Store . . . . 180 The Occasional Tasks to Get The Most From Your Store 188 The Yearly Tasks to Keep Your Store Running Smoothly 196 Keep the Focus on Your Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 More Zapier Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

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The start your own business bug can be incredibly easy to catch. One more needless traffic jam on your evening commute or another bad day at the office, and it's easy to wonder if you couldn't just build your own business instead.

Scratching that itch is easy if you start an online business. Unlike real-world stores, here's no storefront to rent and no sign to hang?"all you'll need is a free afternoon, something to sell, and perhaps $30 or less.

You could start without a dedicated online store of your own yet. Perhaps you'd like to sell your products on the internet's equivalent of a superstore or flea market, like Amazon or eBay. Maybe your product isn't done yet, and you need pre-orders from an app like Kickstarter. You might just want to sell one product, and only need a simple checkout experience for it, or you may want to build your own full-featured online store. It's not that hard.

Starting a full-fledged online business selling things, however, is a far more difficult thing. You'll need a name for your company, funds to get your business off the ground and running, and, perhaps, a business plan and formal legal structure.

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Whether you want to sell a few things occasionally or a lot of things regularly, this is the book for you. It will walk you through the questions you need to answer and the boxes you need to check before starting a business. Then, it'll help you pick out eCommerce software, walk you through setting it up, and leave you with tipsand-tricks to make the most of your store.

It's the perfect guide to getting your own special corner of the internet to stake your claim with your own business. You're in for a fun ride.

What Others Say About Zapier's Books

? "Simple and Clear." Sami Al-Maqtari on Zapier's An Introduction to APIs?

? "...a tremendous amount of quality information in this book" Steve Pickering on Zapier's Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing Apps?

? "Fantastically written book." Michael Wojcicki on Zapier's Ultimate Guide to Google Sheets?

? "This is an amazing little book... that keeps you from reinventing the wheel." Tyler Forge on Zapier's Ultimate Guide to Project Management

? "Definitely something for your team to read." Christopher Brisson on Zapier's Ultimate Guide to Customer Support

? "It was really helpful to inspire our company's processes." Alejandro Rodriguez on Zapier's Ultimate Guide to Remote Work

? ? ?

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Image Credit: Stores sign photo by Jason Baker via Flickr.



Chapter 1: 3 Things You Need to Know Before You Start Your Own Business

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do." - Steve Jobs There's a deep desire to own your own destiny--and starting your own business is one of the most obvious ways to do that. Your business can be anything, do anything, make and break its own rules. It's your chance to make your mark on the world. Starting a business might seem intimidating, though, especially if you're planning on ditching your day job to pursue your passion.

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