So, you have decided the next big thing you are going to do is opening an online store to sell goods. Great! You will need a website, wont you?
Making website is like making a cocktail; mixture of art & science. There are things like design and there are complex things like ‘Database’ as well. Whenever you think about getting a website the first thing that comes in your mind is “Do I have to know all of those things?” The answer is No. You don’t have to. The shortcut way to avoid all this hassle is to get someone to make the site for you. You will probably end up writing them quite a large paycheck, but you will get a functioning site. This way you can concentrate on other things in the business. They will probably try to sell an ongoing maintenance / service contract which you will probably take as you avoided to know anything about making of the site. So you will be tied to them in some sort of way, which is not a great idea at all. Being an entrepreneur you want to do most things in-house. Out sourcing is an idea suitable for the big fish in the pond!
So, the other way is to make the site yourself. And yes, that can be done. You will need to learn few things (quite a lot of things actually!) and spend lot of time experimenting. Good thing is, you can do all of these while doing your product research, your planning, budgeting etc. In business things don’t happen overnight and your store will take time to shape up. If you are planning to become an entrepreneur, you must have time for doing this sort of things as you are the small fish in the pond!
I am not going to talk about domains, hosting, servers, coding or anything much technical in this article. This is going to be a non-technical article (for the Dummies to be honest) to encourage you to try making your own online store at home while being offline. Most importantly for free.
As simple as it is!
You have a computer and an internet connection, right? Well, this is all we are going to need. The easiest way to learn making website is doing it locally. Locally means in your computers hard drive, not in a web server. You don’t have to worry about getting a domain name or any hosting to make websites. You can make websites in your computer without any spending any money. There are few free softwares which allows you to do all of this magical things. They trick your computer to think that they are accessing files from the internet, but the files are kept in your hard drive. A bit like virtual CD drive programs if you have used anything like that.
If you have a windows pc then you should look for Wamp. Wamp is a server program which you install in your pc. This will install all necessary framework to allow you to make & manage a functioning website in your pc. Next thing you will need is WordPress. This is a small program which allows you to create & manage content for your website. Once you have installed Wamp and WordPress successfully you should be able to see your offline website. Working on wordpress is like working on MS Word. You write contents, arrange them and then save them for later viewing or printing. Please use google for step by step instruction for installation, there are many videos available too. Once you are in your site dashboard, you need to install a plugin called Woocommerce. This is the best gift mankind have ever had since the invention of the internet. You don’t have to take my words for granted, just install it and see the magic!
You will have a fully functional e-commerce website running in no time! You have to make few changes in the settings to specify your payment options, delivery costs and then start adding your products. Browse for Themes to change look of your site, customise them to your choice, do your own tricks! The products will appear beautifully, when selected they can be added to shopping cart and the cart can be brought to check out. All of this runs in the background, you do not have write a single line of code.
Isn’t that magic?
Once you have spent plenty time making your store and are happy with your site finally, you can get your domain registered and get a suitable hosting plan for the site. Then its all about copy and paste from your hard drive to your hosts hard drive.
There are many other aspects of making a website which i am not covering here. Things like SEO, marketing, promotions etc. These are important things but all of that can be done later, so why wait for something which can be done now?
At least learn how to make the site, you are not going to spend any money for this. If you get stuck or don’t like doing it, you can always hire someone to do the job. Remember this is a skill with great increasing demand. If things turn out to worse than you expected and your business fails, you will have a carrier to bounce back to!
Necessary links
Wamp: http://www.wampserver.com/en
WordPress: https://wordpress.org
Woocommerce: http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce
The writer of this post:
Hasan Khan, manager of a hardware store based in North London where we sell a wide variety of products ranging from small nails to big power tools. I transformed the business by selling products online.
I love to read, follow Manchester United & trends in technology. My favorite time of the day is when i put my daughter to sleep!
I also go by the name Shawon. Studied Finance & Banking at Dhaka University. Worked briefly at a stock broker in Dhaka Stock Exchange and moved to the UK to study accountancy but gave up half way as i thought i would be better off in business.
Most recently am quite excited to write for the new entrepreneurs and would love to hear your feedback.
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