Starting out in ecommerce can be difficult, especially because an online store needs many different components that resemble a real store, but actually hold many different purposes that are hard to understand and implement if you do not have vast programming experience.  For those who are just beginning, a free online store supplier may be your answer to making sure that your online store has all the components it needs before it opens its doors so that you can see how they all work and intertwine with each other.  However, before you start to build your free online store, you need to understand all it will encompass.

One of the first components you will want to make sure your free online store template or web builder has is a shopping cart. Like a real shopping cart, a virtual cart is important to any free online store as you need to make sure that customers have an easy way to collect their items and watch their totals so at the end when they checkout they have picked up all the items they are interested in and do not forget to add in any products they may have noticed at the beginning of their shopping trip and forgotten about later.

You will also want to make sure that the free online store you use also has free web hosting built into it.  This is because web hosting can be quite an added expense, and not one that you can forgo.  Even if you build a free online store, without a proper web hosting service you will never be able to actually launch it on the web so that people can reach your store.  Obviously, if you have taken the time to build a free online store, you will want to make sure that your customers can reach it.

Another aspect that you will need to make sure your free online store has is merchant account integration. This is because once customers fill up their online shopping carts; you need to be able to make sure that customers have an easy way to pay. You will want to make sure that your merchant account is able to accommodate all types of online payments from direct deposit, to credit and debit, to even PayPal if you link to the popular way for people to pay online. The more options you give people to purchase your products on your free online store the more items you will sell.

Finally, the last thing, and probably the first thing that comes to mind when you build your free online store is a proper website design.  The website design of your free online store is much like the actual building design that a physical store would have.  You have to make sure that your website design is attractive and easy to navigate so that customers will be comfortable and satisfied after they make a purchase so that will come back or recommend your free online store to other people.

 Original Photo By: Tracy R. Olson