3 Reasons You Don’t Need a Pricey Ecommerce Website

BY | SMALL BUSINESS

---

Looking at some of the elaborate ecommerce sites on the ‘net today can be quite intimidating; especially when you’re thinking of starting an online store. The idea of building shopping carts, comparison engines and payment gateways can be quite daunting. And that doesn’t even take into account mobile compatibility and security issues.

Luckily, these matters aren’t so scary when you learn how to take advantage of a cheap ecommerce website builder. Yes, you really can be a successful online merchant without forking over a boatload of cash for your website.

Here are three reasons you don’t need a pricey ecommerce website.

1. Free Ecommerce TemplatesThe best ecommerce hosting solutions, like those offered by Yahoo Small Business, offer handsome free templates with pretty much everything you need to run your company already baked in. Most of these include tutorials to help you get started. And the best part is no coding experience is necessary. If you can drag, drop, cut and paste—you’re good to go. These platforms usually include hosting and domain name services as well, all at a reasonable price.

2. Drop ShippingIf you have yet to decide what products you’ll carry, consider leveraging a drop shipper. These companies will deliver their products directly to your customers, after shoppers complete their purchases from your store. Going this route offers several significant advantages:

• You receive a ready inventory of goods with next to no expenditure of investment capital.

• The need to maintain a shipping department is eliminated, along with the need for warehouse space. In other words, there are no goods to store. Everything is handled by the drop shipper.

• It is incredibly simple. All you’ll need to do is post photos and descriptions, market your site and rake in the cash.

As you can see, this strategy gives you more cash to work with, which is perfect for your future marketing and hiring efforts.

3. Social Media Guerilla MarketingAs part of your marketing campaign, you can create useful native content to help drive traffic to your ecommerce site. This can be in the form of how-to articles involving the products you carry, or a general interest piece you can promote in social media. These stories can be touted across all your social media platforms. This method is an ideal way to get your name out there with very little cash outlay.

In addition to the promotional advantages, social media outreach also establishes you as an expert in your given area. This helps to generate a following, which ultimate leads to new customers. Reddit posts, Facebook groups, Instagram influencers and Tumblr blogs can all be leveraged with next to no cash when you provide substantive content.

Yes, there are some big players out there, but you can look just as good as they do online. Today’s cheap ecommerce websites have all the features you need, as well handsome templates. In fact, the word “cheap” really doesn’t apply. It’s better to think of them as inexpensive, yet powerful. What’s more, these templates can be customized to give you a distinctive presence, reflective of your values and wholly appealing to your target audience.

So, what are you waiting for? If you’re serious about doing business on the web, you’ve got to take advantage of Yahoo Small Business. Publish your ecommerce website quickly, with minimal effort and at very little expense. Try it today!