Yes You Can Sell Online Too: A Simple Guide for Small Business Owners

If you have been running your shop, your studio, your boutique, or your small business for years and keep hearing that you should be selling online too, this one is for you.

Maybe you have thought about it. Maybe you looked into it once, felt completely overwhelmed, and quietly closed the laptop. Maybe you have told yourself you are not a tech person and left it at that.

Here is the thing though. Thousands of small business owners just like you have figured this out. Not because they were especially young or especially technical. But because they took it one small step at a time and asked for help when they needed it. That is exactly what this guide is going to do. We are going to walk you through everything, from why you should do this to how to tell your customers you are open online so the orders start coming in.

01Why Selling Online Is One of the Best Decisions You Can Make for Your Business Right Now

You Are Leaving Money on the Table Every Single Day

Your physical shop can only serve people who can get to you. It is limited by your opening hours, your location, and how many people happen to walk past your door. Your online store has none of those limitations. When your shop is closed at night, your online store is open. When someone moves out of the area but still loves your products, they can still buy from you.

According to Shopify, small independent businesses that added an online store grew their overall revenue by an average of 50 percent in their first year of ecommerce. Not because they had big budgets or clever strategies. Because they made it possible for more people to buy from them.

It Protects Your Business in Ways You Cannot Predict

The past few years taught every small business owner a very hard lesson. When something outside your control forces your physical shop to close or slow down, the businesses with an online presence kept going. The ones without it had nothing to fall back on. An online store is not just an extra revenue stream. It is a safety net.

Your Customers Are Already Online Looking for What You Sell

People are actively searching online for exactly the kinds of products that small independent businesses like yours sell. They are tired of the same mass-produced items from the same big retailers. They want something with a story behind it. Something made with care. Something from a real person who knows their product inside out.

According to a report by Etsy and the Independent Retailer Association, 67 percent of online shoppers say they actively prefer to buy from small independent businesses when they can find them easily online. The keyword there is easily. When you have an online store, you become easy to find and easy to buy from.

It Does Not Have to Replace Your Shop. It Works Alongside It.

This is one of the most common misconceptions we hear. Your physical shop keeps running exactly as it always has. Your online store simply opens another door for people to find you and buy from you. Many small business owners find that their online store actually brings more people into their physical shop too, because customers discover them online and then want to come and visit in person.

02The Things That Are Probably Stopping You (And Why They Are Smaller Than They Feel)

I Am Not a Tech Person

This is the biggest one and we hear it constantly. The platforms available to small business owners today are not built for tech people. They are built for people exactly like you. Shopify, Squarespace, and Wix are designed so that someone with no technical background whatsoever can set up a beautiful, fully functional online store. They have drag and drop editors, step-by-step setup guides, video tutorials for every single thing you might need to do, and live chat support available whenever you get stuck.

It Will Cost Too Much

Starting an online store is one of the most affordable business investments available. The platforms we recommend start at between $17 and $39 per month. That is less than most people spend on coffee in a week. And unlike many business expenses, this one has a very direct and measurable return because every sale your online store makes is revenue that would not have existed otherwise.

Nobody Will Find My Store

The people most likely to buy from your online store in the beginning are people who already know and love you. Your existing customers, your social media followers, your email subscribers, the people who walk into your shop. You do not need to find strangers first. You start with the community you have already built and grow from there.

My Products Are Not Suitable for Selling Online

Unless your product is something that genuinely cannot be shipped, like a haircut or a physical therapy session, it can almost certainly be sold online. Candles, clothing, jewellery, food products, home goods, art, plants, gifts, skincare, craft supplies, books, and thousands of other product types are sold online every single day by small independent businesses. If you can put it in a box, you can sell it online.

03What You Need Before You Start

A Clear Idea of What You Are Selling Online

You do not need to put everything online at once. Start by choosing your ten to twenty best sellers. The products your customers love most, that you know inside out, and that are straightforward to pack and ship. Think about:

• Which products do your customers ask about most
• Which products have the best margin after packaging and shipping costs
• Which products are easiest to describe and photograph
• Which products are robust enough to survive being shipped without damage

An Understanding of Your Costs

Before you set your online prices you need to understand your full cost per product when sold online. A common mistake is pricing products online at the same price as in the physical shop without accounting for additional costs. Go through your numbers carefully.

• The cost of the product itself
• Packaging materials including boxes, tissue paper, tape, and any branded extras
• Shipping costs to your customer
• Platform transaction fees, typically between 0.5 and 2 percent per sale
• Payment processing fees, typically around 2.9 percent plus a small fixed amount per transaction

Your Brand Basics

Your online store should feel like an extension of your physical shop. Before you start building gather together:

• Your logo if you have one. If not, a simple text-based logo works perfectly well to start.
• Your brand colours, even if you have never formally defined them
• A short two to three sentence description of your business that explains what you do, who you do it for, and what makes you different
• A warm friendly photo of yourself. People buy from people online and a genuine photo of the person behind the business builds trust immediately.

04Choosing the Right Platform for Your Online Store

There are three platforms we recommend for small business owners who are new to selling online. All three are excellent. The right one for you depends on your priorities.

Shopify: Best for Businesses Focused Primarily on Selling Products

Shopify is the world's most popular ecommerce platform with over 4.4 million live stores in more than 175 countries according to Shopify's own data. It is designed from the ground up for selling products online and everything about it is built around making that as easy as possible.

What Shopify does particularly well:

• Inventory management that keeps track of your stock levels automatically and alerts you when things are running low
• Built-in shipping integrations that connect directly to carriers so you can print labels from home and get discounted shipping rates
• A huge library of apps that add extra functionality as your business grows
• Excellent built-in analytics so you can see exactly what is selling and where your customers are coming from
• 24 hour customer support via chat and phone

Pricing starts at $39 per month for the Basic plan. A free three-day trial is available. Visit shopify.com

Squarespace: Best for Businesses Where Beauty and Presentation Matter Most

If your business is built around beautiful things, think boutique clothing, handmade jewellery, art, floristry, or homeware, Squarespace might be your best home. According to Squarespace's own research, businesses using Squarespace report an average 30 percent increase in online inquiries within the first three months of launching their site. Its templates are genuinely stunning and make products look beautiful with very little effort.

What Squarespace does particularly well:

• Design quality that is hard to match on any other platform at this price point
• A clean uncluttered editor that is genuinely enjoyable to use
• Strong blogging functionality if you want to write about your products or your business
• Built-in email marketing tools so you can start communicating with your customer list from day one

Pricing starts at $28 per month for the Basic Commerce plan. A free 14-day trial is available. Visit squarespace.com

Wix: Best for Businesses That Want Maximum Flexibility and the Lowest Starting Cost

Wix is the most flexible of the three platforms in terms of how you can design and organise your store. Its drag and drop editor gives you more creative control than the more structured editors of Shopify and Squarespace. Wix powers over 230 million websites worldwide according to Wix's own figures, making it one of the most widely used website builders available.

What Wix does particularly well:

• The most beginner-friendly editor of the three, genuinely feels like playing rather than working
• A very large library of templates covering almost every type of business
• Strong built-in features for businesses that offer both products and services, such as booking systems alongside an online shop
• Lower starting price point than the other two platforms

Ecommerce plans start at $17 per month. A free plan is available with limited functionality. Visit wix.com

Which One Should You Choose?

05Setting Up Your Store Step by Step

Here is your clear step by step plan. Take it one step at a time. There is no rush and every step you complete is progress.

Step 1: Start Your Free Trial and Choose Your Template

Go to whichever platform you have chosen and start your free trial. You will be asked to create an account with your email address and a password. That is all you need to get in.

Once you are inside, browse the template library and choose one that feels like your business. Do not spend too long on this. The template is just the starting point and you will personalise everything. Things to look for in a good template:

• Clean and easy to navigate so customers can find products quickly
• A layout that puts product photos front and centre
• A style that matches the personality of your brand, whether warm and cosy, elegant and refined, or bright and fun
• Good mobile presentation. According to Statista, more than 60 percent of all online shopping now happens on mobile phones.

Step 2: Add Your Brand Basics

Before you add any products, spend a little time making the store feel like yours. Add your logo or business name to the header. Set your brand colours. Write your homepage headline, something warm and welcoming that tells visitors exactly who you are and what you sell within the first few seconds.

Add a short about section that tells your story. This is one of the most important pages on a small business website because people want to know who they are buying from. According to Nielsen Norman Group, the About page is consistently one of the most visited pages on small business websites because shoppers want to feel connected to the person behind the products before they buy. Be warm, be personal, and be genuine.

Step 3: Add Your Products

This is the heart of your store. For each product you add you will need:

• A clear product title: Keep it simple and descriptive. What is the product, what is it made of, and if relevant what size or variant is it.
• A product description that sells: Start with the feeling or benefit the product creates. Then describe what it is made of. Mention who it is perfect for. Include practical details like size, ingredients, or care instructions. End with a warm gentle nudge toward adding it to their basket.
• At least three to five photos per product: A clean main image on a plain background, detail shots showing texture and materials, and at least one lifestyle image. According to Etsy's seller research, listings with lifestyle photos convert at up to 40 percent higher rates than listings with product-only images.
• A profitable price: Make sure every product is priced to cover the product cost, packaging, shipping, platform fees, and payment processing with margin left over for you.
• Stock levels: Your platform will track inventory automatically once you tell it how many of each item you have. This prevents you from selling things you do not have in stock.

Step 4: Set Up Your Point of Sale System Integration

If you already use a point of sale system in your physical shop, connecting it to your online store means your inventory is managed in one place. When you sell something in the shop it comes off your online stock automatically. When you sell something online it comes off your in-store stock automatically. This prevents the very frustrating situation of selling something online that you have already sold in the shop.

The most widely used POS systems and how they connect:

• Shopify POS: If you choose Shopify for your online store, their own point of sale system integrates seamlessly and manages your inventory across both channels automatically. Works on an iPad or iPhone and is included at no additional cost on the Basic plan. Visit shopify.com/pos
• Square: One of the most popular POS systems for small businesses and connects directly with both Shopify and Squarespace online stores. Free to start with no monthly fees, charging only a small percentage per transaction. Visit squareup.com
• Lightspeed: A more comprehensive retail management system suitable for businesses with larger inventories or multiple locations. Starts at $89 per month. Visit lightspeedhq.com

Step 5: Set Up Payments

Every platform makes this straightforward. Your platform will guide you through connecting a payment processor that securely handles your customers' card details and transfers the money to your bank account.

• Shopify Payments: Built directly into Shopify. No additional transaction fees. Accepts all major cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Money deposited into your bank account within two to five business days.
• PayPal: Available on all three platforms and trusted by customers worldwide. According to PayPal's own research, stores that offer PayPal as a payment option see up to 82 percent higher checkout conversion compared to stores that do not. Well worth enabling alongside your main payment processor.
• Stripe: A payment processor used by millions of businesses worldwide. Connects with all three platforms and is reliable, secure, and straightforward to set up.

Step 6: Set Up Shipping

Shipping is the thing most new online store owners feel most nervous about. It is actually very manageable once you understand the basics.

Your three main shipping approaches:

• Flat rate shipping: Every customer pays the same amount regardless of what they order. Simple and easy to manage.
• Free shipping above a threshold: Hugely popular with customers and consistently proven to increase average order value. According to the National Retail Federation, 75 percent of online shoppers expect free shipping on orders over a certain amount and are more likely to add extra items to their basket to qualify for it.
• Variable shipping: Calculated automatically based on the weight and destination of each order. Most accurate but slightly more complex to set up.

Packaging you will need:

• A range of box sizes to fit different products without excessive empty space
• Tissue paper or bubble wrap for protection
• Tape and a good tape gun
• A label printer if you are planning to ship regularly. A basic label printer like the Dymo LabelWriter costs around $80 and saves significant time compared to taping printed paper labels onto packages.
• Branded extras like a handwritten thank you card, a sticker, or a small tissue paper wrap. These details make customers feel special and are much more likely to lead to repeat purchases and word of mouth recommendations.

Step 7: Test Everything Before You Go Live

Before you open your store to the world, do a complete run-through as if you were a customer. Most platforms let you place a test order so you can see exactly what the experience is like from start to finish.

Check these things:

• Does every product page look the way you want it to on both a computer and a phone
• Is the checkout process smooth and easy to complete
• Do the payment options work correctly
• Are your shipping rates calculating properly
• Does the confirmation email that goes out after an order look professional and friendly
• Are your contact details easy to find so customers can reach you if they have a question

06How to Tell Your Customers You Are Online and Start Getting Orders

Having a beautiful online store that nobody knows about is like opening a new shop and forgetting to unlock the door. Here is how to make sure your existing community knows you are open for business online.

Start With the People Who Already Love You

Your existing customers are your warmest audience. They already trust you, already love your products, and already want to support your business. According to Campaign Monitor, email marketing generates an average return of $42 for every $1 spent, making it the most cost-effective marketing channel available to small businesses. If you have been collecting email addresses from your customers, now is the time to use them.

Send a warm personal email announcing that you are now open online. Make it feel like a letter from a friend, not a marketing message. Include:

• A warm personal opening that acknowledges your relationship with them
• The exciting news that you are now online and what that means for them
• A direct link to your store so they can visit immediately
• A special offer exclusively for your loyal existing customers, a small discount or free shipping on their first online order
• An invitation to share your store with anyone they think might love it

Tell Your In-Store Customers Face to Face

Put a small beautiful sign near your till or on your counter letting customers know you are now online. Train yourself and any staff to mention it naturally during transactions. Something as simple as "We have just launched our online store by the way, so you can order from us from home now too" is all it takes. Add your website address to your receipts, your bags, and any other materials customers take away with you.

Update Your Google Business Profile

Make sure your website address is added to your Google Business Profile. This is free and ensures that anyone who finds you through a Google search can click straight through to your online store. According to Google, businesses with complete Google Business Profiles receive 7 times more clicks than those with incomplete profiles. You can manage your profile at business.google.com

Use Social Media to Spread the Word

Social media is your most powerful free marketing tool for announcing your online store. The goal here is not to create polished perfect content. It is to be warm, genuine, and excited. Your followers chose to follow you because they like you. Let them see your personality.

• On Instagram: Post a photo of your new online store on your phone or computer screen alongside your products with a caption that shares your excitement. Add your website link to your bio and mention in your caption that the link is there. Share a story series walking followers through your store.
• On Facebook: Post your launch announcement on your business page. Share it to local community groups with a warm personal note. Ask your friends and family to share it with their networks.
• On TikTok: A short video of you packing your first online order or talking to camera about launching online can reach an enormous audience for free. According to TikTok's own data, small business content consistently outperforms brand content on the platform because audiences actively root for real people running real businesses.

Ask Your Best Customers to Spread the Word

Word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing available to any small business. After someone places their first online order and receives it, follow up with a personal email or note thanking them and gently asking if they would be willing to share your store with anyone they think might love it.

Consider creating a simple referral incentive. Something like: share your unique link with a friend and when they place their first order you both receive a small discount on your next purchase. According to Nielsen, 92 percent of people trust recommendations from friends and family over any other type of advertising. Your happy customers are your most powerful marketing team.

07You Are More Ready Than You Think

You have been building the foundations of a successful online business for years without realising it. You have the products. You have the knowledge. You have the relationships. You have the trust of a community that already loves what you do.

The only thing that was missing was the store. And now you know exactly how to build it. Take it one step at a time. Ask for help when you need it. Be patient with yourself. And remember that every successful online business you have ever admired started exactly where you are standing right now.

You have got this. And we are rooting for you every step of the way.