What You Think Is Important In An Online Store, Might Not Be

Attractive FAB.com Main Page

If you think your site needs to look like a million dollars to sell products products, you've got another thing coming. There are many sites on the web that look nothing like gorgeous sites like FAB.com and yet they still manage to get tonnes of traffic and sell many products.

Don't get me wrong, your site still needs to look decent but it does not have to look fantastic. What is more important is the functionality and purpose of every element on the site. Nothing on the site should tempt a visitor into doing anything other than making a purchase on the site.

Typical Amazon Main Page Design

Take a look at Amazon. Do you honestly think it looks as though Michael Angelo had a hand in it's design? Of course not. But a lot of really smart people using a lot of very high tech programs have put this site together, optimizing it into the conversion monsters it has turned out to be.


Coming back to your site's looks, you need not worry much. If you browse top ecommerce software review sites, you'll notice that free ecommerce template designs have come a long way. They do not look like a 5 year old designed them anymore. Check out this article at http://ecommercesoftware1.weebly.com/ and find out what questions are usually asked when considering an ecommerce software.

5 years ago, you had to pay for such designs and now you can get them for free. 

Building Your Very One Online Store Isn't Rocket Science

In all honesty, it's not that hard to build and run your very own online store. That said, you still need to put in some effort to market it, especially at the start.


Ecommerce isn't an automatic ticket to riches as some people might have you think but it is a good way to make living off or supplement your existing income.

The first store I ever started made me $400 a month after just a month of working on it. Back then, it was much easier to rank on search results pages. However, I still needed the help of a couple of friends with programming and design background to help me customize the store.

In those days, the free templates offered by ecommerce solutions providers were far from attractive. They were nothing compared to what you get now. There weren't many top ecommerce software providers around so no one was in any hurry to provide quality features that came free with the software. That was circa 2003.

Fast forward 10 years and there are a number of online store solutions to choose from. Each offering a spectrum of nice looking free templates and tools that help in marketing and conversion.

I actually use more than one ecommerce solution to power my stores. I've been around long enough to know that they are all pretty much the same. However, some may have features like a particular template or a tool which would fit in nicely with the products you are selling.

When I started out, I already knew what I wanted to sell. But many have no idea. Most people want to start their own online store but have know clue what to sell.

For those of you who have yet to figure out what to sell online, just do a bit of research to find out what kind of items people bought most last year. Some items offer very good margins but have low turn over. On the other hand, some other items might offer lower margins but sell like hot cakes.

If you want to sell items which are completely new and therefore do not have much competition, take a tip from this site http://www.afterskoolkids.org/looking-for-innovative-products-to-sell-check-out-kickstarter. 

But keep in mind, there's always a risk to selling anything - new or existing. The important thing is to do enough ground work so you have a better chance of success.