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Designing Your Free E-Commerce Website From Scratch to the First Sale

Designing Your Ecommerce Website From Scratch to the First Sale

11 min read

With 51Ƶ, you can add a store to your website, social media page, to marketplaces like Amazon or to get an ecommerce website with ܾ- online store.

We call it Instant Site. It comes in handy for those looking to establish a web presence. With the help of an intuitive editor, it’s possible to create a website with no coding and in no time.

Instant Site is based on customizable blocks that you can design to tell your business’s story. If you want to explore all the Instant Site opportunities, this guide will walk you through setting up your ecommerce website step by step.

To begin, log into your 51Ƶ Control Panel and go to . Then click on the “Edit Instant Site” button —here we go.

How to sell online
Tips from e-commerce experts for small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.
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Cover Image

Our brain gets .

A stunning cover picture will tell your visitors where they are and spark their interest in your store in a second.

51Ƶ demo starter site

51Ƶ Starter Site Demo

It’s a win if your cover image represents your product in action. If it’s hard to showcase your product (for example, because you sell e-goods), refer to free stock photosfor a professional entourage picture.

Look for a high-resolution image starting from 1200 px wide for your cover image.

When you’re choosing your cover image, make sure that your title doesn’t fully cover your product’s important details and that it’s a clear image.

Learn more about beautiful product photographyhere: How to Take Great Photos for Your Online Store

Title

Eventually,it’s up to you to decide what exactly it should say. It might be a brand name only, or it might not contain a brand name at all. In any case, the title should help the visitor understand if they are in the right place.

ecommerce website: title

Make it actionable and SEO-friendly (for example, Green Farm: Shop fresh local vegetables online) for more clicks and scrolls.

Subtitle

The subtitle is the best place for a punchline, orin ecommerceterms,theunique selling proposition. It serves to help your customers understand what you offer and how it’s different from the others.

It’s okay to take advantage of two or three lines of text here if they canconvince the visitors it’s the best place to buy what they came for.

ecommerce website: subtitle

Learn more: How to Create a Strong Unique Selling Proposition for Your Online Store

Your Logo

First of all, get one. It’s a big investment in making your business recognizable. There are at least six ways to get a logo,from free to professional and expensive.

Learn more: How To Create An Awesome Logo For Your Brand

The best size for a retina-ready logo picture onaInstant Site is 600×600 px.

Make sure you’ve protected your brandand the logo is not only unique but also safe.

ecommerce website: logo

Storefront

There is so much to be said about creating a beautiful storefront. The minimum effort consists ofthese steps:

ecommerce website: storefront

Pro tip:51Ƶ’s Instant Site is the perfect fitfor a landing page on which you want to sell just one product (or test your new products).

Why Choose Us Section

Just like in the subtitle, you need to addpersonality to your ecommerce website, but in more detail.

ecommerce website: why choose us section

What can put a business forward, apart from low prices and high quality?

Think about your business processes and write down a list of advantages at every step. For example, you:

  • Use local and organic materials
  • Deliver the same day
  • Offer home-made exclusives
  • Allow deep order customization
  • Have the widest range of colors in the market,etc.

Pro tip: Be specific. Compare these two statements:

  1. We Ǵڴڱ󾱲-ܲٲ product.
  2. Our product is made of certified,organic,raw materials from Georgia.

Everyone hears and sees a lot of marketing phrases these days like “high quality”,“low prices”,“fast delivery”, and“best service” — and they are usually discardedas nothing but a buzz.

Just like in any other case, it’s much more effective to use proof instead of buzzwords in this section.

Testimonials

The majority of online shoppers consider customer feedback as asocial proof.

ecommerce website: testimonials

Excited by the coming launch of their own business, sellers might compose a dozen reviews to be on the safe side. They often neglect how good people are at recognizing fake reviews. Some customers wouldn’t be impressed enough to buy;others would leave the store to look for a more honest seller.

So rule #1 is: publish real feedback. Friends and relatives might be able to help, but make sure they stay honest and say more than empty exclamations like “cool, awesome product!”.

You can also get feedback from the comments section on the Product Details page.

If there’s no feedback yet, you can simply hide this blockor add your own quote to get even more personal with your visitors.

Just don’t forget to replace the stock picture that is providedas an example!

Related: How to Collect Customer Feedback and Use It to Build Trust

About Us Section

This section especially matters for startups.

If someone from the press enters your website and eventually gets interested in your product, your “About Us” section will serve as a short interview. Depending on how much this part impressed the reporters, they might contact you to make a sensation out of it.

ecommerce website: about us section

Here’s what ,a professional copywriter, says about this section:

Beyond being a place to educate and inform curious shoppers, it’s often the first step toward establishing a relationship with new customers. Think of it as the place where you get to introduce yourself as the face behind the brand for the very first time.

Read more tips on writing an “about us”page like a copywriter in her post: How to Write an “About Us” Page if You’re Not a Copywriter

For the store owner picture,use an image of 512×512 px. Pictures with one person are the best because they can’tconfuse the visitors.

Location

“Why add a physical address on the map if you sell online?” — you may ask. Here’s the answer.

Many businesses use 51Ƶ’sInstant Site to launch their first online store. That means they haven’t got any seller’s reputation at that time. Displaying a physical address demonstrates the reliability of the store owner. Also, it may be the address for returns, refunds,or .

ecommerce website: directions

You can hidetheaddress section if you feel it’s not relevant to your business.

Contact Details

Don’t forget to add your contact info and set up social buttons: change links to your business profiles and save the changes. Otherwise, your customers won’t be able to follow you onsocial media andtheymight forget about your store.

ecommerce website: contact us section

Add your phone number and it will appear on the top of your ecommerce website (above the fold) together with the links to your physical address and business hours (if you fill and enable those sections).

ecommerce website: contact details

Your Store URL

By default, the name ofyourInstant Site will look something like this: store12345.ecwid.com.

Instead of 12345, it will contain your own store ID. That says nothing to your potential customers. You can replace your store ID with the actual store name, e.g.goodbooks.ecwid.com. Thatwill make the link more recognizable, SEO-friendly, and better-looking.

It’s also possible to connect your Instant Site with a custom domain name (e.g. goodbooks.com) on paid plans.

You can make all the necessary changes to your store URL address in .

Note:Apps for customizing your storefront like Promo Bar, Coupon Popup, and more, are compatible with Instant Site too. Don’t forget to have a look at the 51Ƶ App Market to extend the functionality of your Instant Site.

That is basically it  now you can build a selling website with your own hands. Congratulations!

Share links to your Instant Sites in the comments, and I’ll be happy to give advice.

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Looking for more ways to sell online? Read these posts:

Or, and have a look at 51Ƶ 101 to get the idea of the ways to sell with 51Ƶ.


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With 51Ƶ Ecommerce, you can easily sell anywhere, to anyone — across the internet and around the world.

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So simple to use – even my most technophobic clients can manage. Easy to install, quick to set up. Light years ahead of other shop plugins.
I’m so impressed I’ve recommended it to my website clients and am now using it for my own store along with four others for which I webmaster. Beautiful coding, excellent top-notch support, great documentation, fantastic how-to videos. Thank you so much 51Ƶ, you rock!
I’ve used 51Ƶ and I love the platform itself. Everything is so simplified it’s insane. I love how you have different options to choose shipping carriers, to be able to put in so many different variants. It’s a pretty open e-commerce gateway.
Easy to use, affordable. Looks professional, many templates to select from. The App is my favorite feature as I can manage my store right from my phone. Highly recommended 👌👍
I like that 51Ƶ was easy to start and to use. Even for a person like me, without any technical background. Very well written help articles. And the support team is the best for my opinion.
For everything it has to offer, ECWID is incredibly easy to set up. Highly recommend! I did a lot of research and tried about 3 other competitors. Just try ECWID and you'll be online in no time.

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