The first thing you must ask yourself when deciding to sell online is how do I get my store online?
This may seem like an obvious question with a potentially simple answer "I will get a website" but with so many options available with varying degrees of difficulty and cost in setting up and maintaining your store, you have to decide what is right for your business.
You can choose between popular out-of-the-box platforms such as 'Shopify' and 'Squarespace' which offers a seemingly easier setup at a price. An open-source platform such as 'Magento' that can deliver excellent platforms with the freedom of choosing your own hosting services but may require the services of a shopify developer to get you up and running.
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Whichever system you choose you to need to know which one is right for your business.
Receiving Payments
Once your store is designed, built, and ready for customers you need to decide on ways of receiving payments from customers. One of the greatest hurdles online retailers face is trying to reduce the number of abandoned carts.
There are many reasons why this could occur but it is worth spending time and effort to give your customers comfort and choice when using your store. The obvious initial payment method for most stores is 'PayPal' as it is has a global reach and is a household name for being a secure method of making and receiving payments, However, a second option might reduce an abandoned checkout due to offering choice.
There are many payment processing plugins available that are compatible with most shopping engines such as 'Shopify' and 'Magento' and these can run in tandem with 'PayPal' to increase your range of accepting payments.