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How To Create A WordPress Ecommerce Website

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How To Create A WordPress Ecommerce Website

WordPress is the most flexible platform for online sales available today.

The open-source nature of WordPress ensures that it is a reliable platform that is not going to disappear one day or go out of business.

Continue reading to learn how to create a WordPress ecommerce website and establish a successful online sales presence.

What Are Ecommerce Platforms?

An ecommerce platform is the content management system used to build and manage an online store.

There are generally two kinds of ecommerce platforms:

  • Proprietary SaaS (Software as a Service) Ecommerce Platforms.
  • Open-source Ecommerce Platforms (WordPress).

A proprietary SaaS platform handles all of the technology, hosting, and to varying levels, the SEO of the ecommerce store.

The benefit of a proprietary ecommerce platform is not having to think about the technology, which frees the merchant to focus on marketing and sales.

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The downside of closed platforms is less control over the SEO and website. A merchant may be unable to add unavailable features on the closed platform.

The SEO capabilities of closed platforms vary, with some offering competent search performance options while others less so.

Rob Snell of GunDogSupply.com said WordPress wasn’t an option in 1997 when he and his brother opened their online store.

He shared that his experience with Yahoo! Stores (Turbify) has been exceedingly positive. Rob noted that paying extra not to have to deal with technology is money well spent for him.

He shared his experience with a SaaS platform:

“When you use a platform built for ecommerce, you get peace of mind, but that comes with a price.

I really don’t mind paying enterprise-level hosting rates to get that level of security, support, and uptime.

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I sleep pretty well knowing that the engineers at Turbify (formerly Yahoo! Small Business) are on the job. At the end of the day, I’m a retailer, not a software engineer.”

What Is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is an open-source plugin that adds ecommerce functionality to WordPress. It is developed by Automattic, the commercial side of WordPress.

There are different ways users can experience WooCommerce, starting with the completely free WordPress extension.

The free WooCommerce plugin enables everything a small business needs to create a successful ecommerce store.

Users can also install free and paid extensions developed by WooCommerce and the Woo community for logistical, technical, and marketing.

These extensions, vetted by WooCommerce, include payment gateways, configurable shipping options, and automatic sales tax calculations.

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The modular nature of WooCommerce means that whatever function is needed can be seamlessly added to the WooCommerce store.

While it’s possible to create an ecommerce site without WooCommerce, it’s generally easier to create a store with WooCommerce than without it.

Katie Keith of Barn2 Plugins explains the benefits of using WooCommerce to create a WordPress ecommerce store:

“WooCommerce is the best path forward because of the size of the community, the number of extensions, and the considerable amount of resources.

WooCommerce is the easiest option because you can take advantage of the wide range of compatible themes and plugins, allowing most store owners to create an ecommerce store to exact requirements without needing to write any custom code.

If anything custom is needed, then it’s easy to find a developer to do it.

WooCommerce is easy to use, and many learning resources and tutorials are available to help you with it.

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If you ever want to know how to do anything in WooCommerce, just Google it. You’ll almost certainly find a free tutorial or video to help you!”

Why Choose WooCommerce?

The primary benefits of WooCommerce are the nearly limitless possibilities of what can be created with WordPress, lower costs, and a huge community of developers to support the platform.

The ability to launch an ecommerce site with WordPress depends on the skill and knowledge of the person creating the website, which is why (depending on the scope of the online store) it may be helpful to engage a WordPress developer.

But it’s not always necessary to engage a developer because some web hosts offer a custom point-and-click WordPress feature that makes creating a store as easy as answering questions.

Once the store is up and running, the daily maintenance of the CMS (content management software) itself is relatively trivial.

At the same time, the costs of operating the site can be remarkably low compared to a proprietary ecommerce platform.

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Plan For Site Speed Optimization

High Core Web Vitals speeds are within reach of WordPress ecommerce sites. But it’s something that has to be planned for.

Business owners can (and do) leverage the open-source freedom of WordPress to create speedy ecommerce stores.

Adam J. Humphreys of Makin 8 shared his insight:

“WooCommerce is for those with a solid SEO strategy that want to write solid content and bring people to their site with that.

Shopify’s platform for content is satisfactory but not at all designed for a high search performance approach, which is why most of my clients don’t opt for it.

If you don’t want to pay a ridiculous amount for an ecommerce platform then WordPress with Woocommerce is the best place to get started.

Most inexpensive WordPress hosts are enough to get started with a proper CDN like Cloudflare.”

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WordPress Ecommerce Hosting

Site speed depends on many factors, but the foundation of a high-performance ecommerce store begins with web hosting.

Choosing the best web hosting for a WordPress ecommerce site is essential.

The following are top considerations for choosing the best hosting for a WordPress ecommerce site.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is basically thousands of websites hosted on a single server (computer), all sharing the resources of that one server.

The benefit of shared hosting is its incredibly low cost.

The downside is that inexpensive shared hosting is notoriously underpowered for intensive applications such as ecommerce. Consequently, low-cost shared hosting should generally be avoided.

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Virtual Private Servers

Virtual Private Server (VPS) is a type of shared hosting but with very few sites sharing the resources. A VPS is a relatively affordable option for fast performance.

A major consideration for a VPS is that it requires familiarity with server control panels, which adds an additional layer of technology to deal with.

Managed Dedicated Servers

A managed dedicated server is a  server that is operated by a single customer.

Managed means that the web host takes care of the server hardware, updates the software, maintains backups, and in general, removes a layer of technical overhead.

An unmanaged server is one where the customer handles the software.

Both kinds of dedicated servers provide high-speed performance.

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Managed WordPress Hosting

A popular option is to use a managed WordPress web hosting platform.

Managed WordPress hosting offers the convenience of not having to deal with the underlying technology.

A major benefit of managed WordPress hosting is that they provide a fast and secure WordPress environment that is optimized for site speed out of the box.

There can be limitations to what plugins can be used, such as caching plugins, because they tend to use too many resources. But the managed web hosts offer their own optimized replacements at the server level.

Many managed WordPress hosts offer built-in site performance benefits such as caching and Content Delivery Networks (CDN).

Thus, with a managed WordPress web host, one can achieve the speed and security benefits of a closed SaaS system but with the freedom and generally lower costs of an open-sourced system.

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It’s a great choice because it solves the problem of site speed at the hosting level, is secure, and the hosts offer service specific to the needs of WordPress websites.

Popular Managed WordPress Hosts To Consider

The following are examples of popular managed WordPress web hosts.

Click And Build WordPress Hosting

Bluehost is an interesting choice because they offer a straightforward click-and-build approach to WordPress ecommerce websites that can rival any of the closed-source ecommerce platforms.

The Bluehost fill-in-the-blanks style approach to WordPress ecommerce handles payments, inventory management, and all other aspects of ecommerce.

Bluehost offers the freedom to easily build an online WordPress store with the flexibility to implement a solid SEO strategy.

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It offers all of the conveniences of a proprietary SaaS ecommerce solution but with WordPress.

What Are WordPress Plugins And WooCommerce Extensions?

WordPress and WooCommerce can be upgraded with additional functionalities using plugins and extensions.

  • The WordPress core is extended with plugins. Changes made with WordPress plugins affect the entire website.
  • WooCommerce is upgraded with extensions as well as plugins. WooCommerce extensions only apply to the WooCommerce part of the website. But there are also plugins in the WordPress plugin repository that are specific to ecommerce (with or without WooCommerce) and plugins specifically for WooCommerce.

Adding a new feature related to ecommerce is done through WooCommerce extensions available on the WooCommerce website and through plugins available in the WordPress plugin repository.

WooCommerce extensions can generally be grouped into four essential functionalities:

  • Payments.
  • Shipping and tracking.
  • Inventory management.
  • Sales.

There are multiple ways to browse for WooCommerce extensions, such as by functionality and collections.

WooCommerce offers a collection of recommended extensions called WooCommerce Essentials.

WooCommerce Essentials are extensions chosen by WooCommerce to form the foundation for launching a successful ecommerce website.

Some of the essential functionalities are:

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  • Payments.
  • Backup.
  • Product Display and Sales Add-ons.
  • Theme.
  • Coupons, Gift Cards.
  • Google Marketing Integrations.
  • Automations (like abandoned cart reminders).

How To Choose WordPress And WooCommerce Plugins And Extensions

WooCommerce developer James Kemp, the founder of IconicWP, shared his insights on extending WordPress ecommerce stores:

“Make sure every plugin and extension you choose serves a purpose.

Does it increase the average order value?

Does it ensure more customers complete their checkout?

Does it improve the user experience?”

Dorron Shapow of 100PercentOrganicSEO.com shares what store owners need to focus on when deciding what plugins they’ll need.

“In my experience, site owners seem to lose sight of the user experience.

How an ecommerce store is structured and what the user flow is like from different touch points of entry should be considered before a single pixel is on the screen.

So the most common mistake I see is not thinking like a site visitor.

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For example, site visitors that are cash in hand and only want a few things may convert into a sale because of competitive pricing, fast or free shipping, and a quick and easy checkout.

For them, it’s important always to be three clicks away from a complete transaction.

Not everyone needs to be pushed or have to swat pop-ups and bells and whistles.

And that’s going to influence the choices of plugins needed.”

Examples Of Ecommerce Extensions And Plugins

Chuck Price of Measurable SEO shared a list of recommended ecommerce plugins and extensions:

  • WooCommerce.
  • Advanced Order Export For WooCommerce.
  • Booster for WooCommerce.
  • Braintree for WooCommerce Payment Gateway.
  • Contact Form 7.
  • Conversios.io – All-in-one Google Analytics, Pixels and Product Feed Manager for WooCommerce.
  • Multistep Product Configurator for WooCommerce.
  • PW WooCommerce Gift Cards Pro.
  • Woo Custom Related Products.
  • Woo Invoices.
  • WooCommerce Bulk Price Update.
  • WooCommerce Google Analytics Integration.
  • WooCommerce Side Cart.
  • WooCommerce Single Product Page Builder.
  • WooCommerce TM Extra Product Options.
  • WooCommerce Tree Table Rate Shipping.

Dorron Shapow recommends the following WordPress plugins:

  • WooCommerce.
  • An SEO plugin (I prefer Rank Math because it offers more free functionality and built-in schema).
  • Payment gateway integration.
  • Analytics Integration and dashboard.
  • A CRM for newsletters.
  • Website security plugin.
  • A page builder I prefer: Elementor.
  • Shipping integration and tracking.
  • Contact form plugin.
  • WooCommerce Email Customizer.
  • WP optmize cacheing plugin.
  • Optional chat functionality.
  • A backup plugin with daily backups.

James Kemp recommends:

  • Flux Checkout (ensures checkout process is optimized for conversions).
  • RankMath for SEO.

WordPress Ecommerce Website Mistakes To Avoid

Among the top mistakes an ecommerce site can make is to pile on so much functionality that conversions begin to suffer.

Plugins and Extensions work by downloading extra code and scripts to the shopper’s browser.

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The more code and scripts downloaded, the longer it takes for a webpage to function, which slows down the shopping experience.

A smart developer can overcome these issues by doing things such as only downloading what each page needs.

For example, there is no reason to download scripts and fonts related to a contact form if there is no contact form on that webpage.

Unfortunately, an old coding practice of adding scripts to every page is still widespread in the software development world, so make sure that every extension or plugin is absolutely necessary.

Chuck Price notes that many mistakes common to any WordPress site are common for WooCommerce sites.

Chuck shared:

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“Probably the same mistakes as any WordPress site can hinder a WooCommerce store:

Not keeping plugins up to date.

Forms don’t work

Vulnerable to security threats

Plugin incompatibilities.”

Dorron Shapow focuses on the user experience to avoid mistakes that hurt sales:

“A failure to find the right balance of design, user experience, and SEO.

What sometimes shocks clients is telling them that an ecommerce site should have little to do with the merchant and more to do with the customer.

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The website is for them.”

Before Going Live With The Online Store

No matter how much thought is devoted to how a site should work, it’s almost inevitable that customers will encounter unforeseen problems.

That’s why I recommend making it easy for site visitors to contact you to provide feedback about the site. It can be through email, chat or text, or all three.

Customer feedback is super important to understand what works and what does not.

Another tactic for ironing out user experience bugs is a free user experience analytics offered by Microsoft called Clarity.

Clarity helps site publishers understand how far users are scrolling on a page, identifies what parts of a webpage are frustrating, which pages work best, and even offers machine learning AI to make improvement suggestions.

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Some mistakenly compare Clarity to Google Analytics, but there is no comparison between them because they each do different things.

  • Clarity tracks the site visitor user experience on individual webpages, showing how users interact with a webpage.
  • Google Analytics is useful for tracking site visitors to gain insights into conversions relative to ads or individual webpages.

It may be useful to use Clarity to gain insights into site performance during at least the first three to six months after the website goes live.

What to do before and after the site is live?

James Kemp of IconicWP offers five considerations:

Is your store easy to navigate? Can customers easily find their way through your store right up to the purchase confirmation page?

Is your store optimized for search engines? Don’t go overboard with optimizations – ensure you’re using an SEO plugin like Toast or RankMath to help people find you in search results.

Have you tested your payment gateway and purchase flow?
There’s nothing worse than going live and finding out your influx of potential customers can’t checkout!

Have you optimized your checkout? Use a WooCommerce extension (like Iconic’s Flux Checkout) to ensure your checkout process is refined and optimized for conversions.

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How will you promote your store? It’s unlikely you’ll be able to launch and expect traffic without further effort. You’ll want to consider paid advertising on Google, Facebook, and other social media platforms, ongoing content marketing on your website via a blog, and being active and valuable in relevant online communities.”

WordPress Is A Top Choice For Ecommerce

WordPress is a stable platform for creating an ecommerce store, offering virtually unlimited options for almost any need.

According to BuiltWith.com, WooCommerce is the most popular ecommerce platform.

Katie Keith of Barn2Plugins shared why WordPress is so popular:

“The huge community around WooCommerce means that there are more extensions available to add extra features than any other platform.

There’s also a vast community of WooCommerce experts who you can hire to build and support your store.

You won’t find a wide range of professionals with any other platform.”

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Those are great reasons to feel confident in investing in a WordPress ecommerce website for your business.

More resources:


Featured image: Shutterstock/Lysenko Andrii



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WP Engine sues WordPress co-creator Mullenweg and Automattic, alleging abuse of power

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stylized wordpress logo

Web hosting provider WP Engine has filed a lawsuit against Automattic, and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, accusing them of extortion and abuse of power. The lawsuit comes after nearly two weeks of tussling between Mullenweg, who is also CEO of Automattic, and WP Engine over trademark infringement and contributions to the open-source WordPress project.

WP Engine accused Automattic and Mullenweg of not keeping their promises to run WordPress open-source projects without any constraints and giving developers the freedom to build, run, modify and redistribute the software.

“Matt Mullenweg’s conduct over the last ten days has exposed significant conflicts of interest and governance issues that, if left unchecked, threaten to destroy that trust. WP Engine has no choice but to pursue these claims to protect its people, agency partners, customers, and the broader WordPress community,” the company said.

The case document, filed in a court in California, also accused Mullenweg of having a “long history of
obfuscating the true facts” about his control of WordPress Foundation and WordPress.org

The story so far

Mullenweg had criticized WP Engine for infringing WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. He called them the “Cancer of WordPress” and also called out WP Engine’s private equity partner, Silver Lake, for not caring about the open-source community.

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Later, WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist letter, asking Mullenweg and Automattic to withdraw these comments. Automattic then sent its own cease-and-desist, accusing WP Engine of infringing WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.

Notably, Mullenweg banned WP Engine on September 25 from accessing WordPress.org resources, including plug-ins and themes, and preventing WP Engine customers from updating them. Two days later, Mullenweg provided a temporary reprieve and unblocked WP Engine until October 1.

On Wednesday, Automattic published a proposed seven-year term sheet that it had sent to WP Engine on September 20, asking the hosting company to pay 8% of its gross revenues per month as a royalty fee for using the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.

Alternatively, WP Engine was given the option to commit 8% by deploying employees to contribute to WordPress’s core features and functionalities, or a combination of both people hours and money.

WP Engine didn’t accept these terms, which included a probation on forking plugins and extensions from Automattic and WooCommerce.

You can contact this reporter at [email protected] or on Signal: @ivan.42

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Automattic demanded web host pay $32M annually for using WordPress trademark

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Automattic demanded web host pay $32M annually for using WordPress trademark

“WPE’s nominative uses of those marks to refer to the open-source software platform and plugin used for its clients’ websites are fair uses under settled trademark law, and they are consistent with WordPress’ own guidelines and the practices of nearly all businesses in this space,” the lawsuit said.

Mullenweg told Ars that “we had numerous meetings with WPE over the past 20 months, including a previous term sheet that was delivered in July. The term sheet was meant to be simple, and if they had agreed to negotiate it we could have, but they refused to even take a call with me, so we called their bluff.” Automattic also published a timeline of meetings and calls between the two companies going back to 2023.

Mullenweg also said, “Automattic had the commercial rights to the WordPress trademark and could sub-license, hence why the payment should go to Automattic for commercial use of the trademark. Also the term sheet covered the WooCommerce trademark, which they also abuse, and is 100 percent owned by Automattic.”

Automattic alleged “widespread unlicensed use”

Exhibit A in the lawsuit includes a letter to WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner from a trademark lawyer representing Automattic and a subsidiary, WooCommerce, which makes a plugin for WordPress.

“As you know, our Client owns all intellectual property rights globally in and to the world-famous WOOCOMMERCE and WOO trademarks; and the exclusive commercial rights from the WordPress Foundation to use, enforce, and sublicense the world-famous WORDPRESS trademark, among others, and all other associated intellectual property rights,” the letter said.

The letter alleged that “your blatant and widespread unlicensed use of our Client’s trademarks has infringed our Client’s rights and confused consumers into believing, falsely, that WP Engine is authorized, endorsed, or sponsored by, or otherwise affiliated or associated with, our Client.” It also alleged that “WP Engine’s entire business model is predicated on using our Client’s trademarks… to mislead consumers into believing there is an association between WP Engine and Automattic.”

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5 Most Profitable Online Businesses You Can Start Today for Free!

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5 Most Profitable Online Businesses You Can Start Today for Free!

In today’s digitalized world, starting a business doesn’t always mean you have to have a good chunk of money and years of experience in the field. Yeah, it’s good if you have them, but even without them, you can start a business and make money. Not just a few hundred dollars; some businesses can even make you a millionaire if you invest your time and available resources into them. 

You need to have the right approach and the proper set of skills to make that happen. And you can learn such skills for free on the internet. So, all you need is the willingness to put in the work and effort it needs. 

In this post, you’ll see 5 most profitable online business ideas that you can start today for free. You don’t need anyone to help you with these businesses when you’re starting out; you can do it all alone, and you can manage these businesses from the comfort of your home. 

Even if you don’t know a single thing about these businesses, you can learn them for free on YouTube, Udemy, and the Interent. There’s more than enough free resources out there about these topics to take you from 0-10 real quick. 

So, sit down and grab your popcorns, because this article might be the only thing you need to launch your first online business, today itself!

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Please note: This post contains affiliate links to products I use, trust, and recommend. If you choose to purchase a helpful product using these links, I may receive a small commission for referring you – at no extra cost to you. These funds help me keep this blog up and running.

1. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most profitable and easy-to-start businesses out there. In affiliate marketing, you need to promote someone else’s product in order to make money. The person who promotes the product in exchange for some commission is called an affiliate

When you sign up to be an affiliate of any program, you’ll get a unique link to promote the products called an affiliate link. You need to use your affiliate link to send customers to the seller’s page. That link tracks the amount of sales you generate to determine the money you make. 

You don’t need to create, package, or ship the products yourself. The seller who is selling the product will do these all. All you need to do is, refer customers to the seller. And when the customer referred by you through your affiliate link makes a purchase, you get a small percentage of the sale amount as a reward. That’s it. That’s what affiliate marketing is! 

Through affiliate marketing, you can promote both physical and digital products. 

You don’t always have to sell products to earn affiliate commission. Sometimes, you get commission to make people download something. That can be an app, software, or browser extension. Sometimes, you get commissions to make people sign up for particular websites or services. Sometimes, you get commission to generate leads for businesses and agencies, etc. All these things need to be done through your affiliate link in order for you to make a commission.

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how affiliate marketing works

How to Get Started?

1. Choose your Niche

You need to choose a niche to start affiliate marketing. You can’t promote everything from workout gear to making money online courses yourself! So, choosing a niche is very important to succeed in affiliate marketing. Some popular niches for affiliate marketing are: health & fitness, finance, home & kitchen, technology, relationships, etc. 

2. Find the Product

After choosing a niche, you need to find a product to promote. If you decide to get into the health and fitness niche, then you can promote workout plans, weight loss supplements, keto meal plans, hair loss products, and so much more. So, decide what you want to promote and find a good product for it. 

3. Build a Platform

Now, you’ve decided your niche, and your product is ready to promote, so all you need is a platform to promote it. You can promote affiliate products either through a blog or through social media. You can write articles on your blog or grow your social media accounts to share your affiliate links. 

Here are some popular affiliate marketing platforms you can join. 

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The affiliate marketing industry is worth nearly $17 billion. So, you can start your affiliate marketing journey today to get a small chunk of that seventeen billion dollars for yourself!

2. Selling Digital Products

Selling digital products is another great way to make a hefty amount of money online. Digital products are a great way to share your knowledge and creativity with the world while making some money. 

Digital products are products that are created and sold online. They don’t exist in the real world, except for printables. Printables are graphics that are created digitally but needs to be printed out in the real world to be used. 

From ebooks to online courses and printables to music, there’s a wide variety of products that you can create and sell. 

Here are some digital products that you can create and sell easily. 

If you’re wondering which digital product sells the best and which one you should sell, consider this analysis done among 96,000 creators by influencers.club. According to the analysis, online courses were the most sold digital products, with 35.7% of the entire digital products sold, followed by ebooks (7.3%) and cookbooks (3.8%)

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Here are a few more: 

Check out 16 Best Digital Products to Sell in 2024

How to Get Started?

1. Choose Your Niche

The first step to building a profitable digital product business is to choose a niche that you’re interested in and have a demand in the market. You can select a niche based on your expertise, passion or to profit from an untapped market opportunity. Make sure that there are enough people willing to pay for your products so that you can make a good amount of money selling them.

2. Create Your Product

After choosing a niche to get into, you need to create a solid product to sell. In order to get constant sales, your product needs to be highly valuable. Either it needs to solve your customer’s problem or it needs to add significant value to their life. Make sure that your product is up-to-date, functional, and user-friendly. 

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3. Set up a Platform to Sell

Now that you have decided your niche and your product is ready to sell, all you need is a platform to host and sell your products. You can either sell digital products through your own website or through platforms like Etsy, Gumroad, Teachable, etc.

You can sell ebooks, printables, planners, digital arts, wallpapers, templates, etc. through Etsy and Gumroad. And to sell online courses, you can use platforms like Teachable or Udemy. 

You can use graphic design tools like Canva and Adobe Illustrator to create printables, stickers, templates, wallpapers, etc. And you can write your ebook on Google Docs or Notepad and save it as a pdf to sell it. 

4. Price Your Products

After your product is ready and you’ve decided a platform to sell, you need to set a price to sell your products.

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Pricing is a really crucial part. You can’t price it too high or too low. If you price it too high, very few people are likely to buy it, and if you price it too low, you won’t make enough profit.

So, while pricing your product, evaluate the product yourself and do your market research to analyze your competitors pricing to determine your own product’s pricing. 

You can promote your digital products by creating video/image content, writing blog posts, email marketing, paid ads, SEO, and through social media marketing. 

Digital products can be a great way to make money online passively without needing much work and attention. So, this might be something you would love to get into! The best part is, there is no limit on how much money you can make. Ana from TheSheApproach has made over $55,000 selling ebooks alone through her small blog.

3. Print on Demand

Print on Demand, or POD, is gaining immense popularity in recent times due to its business model. Print on demand business has less to no startup cost, which makes it easier for anyone to get into it.

In Print on Demand business, you create designs to print on mugs, t-shirts, hoodies, caps, pants, etc. After your design is ready, you find a print-on-demand supplier to print and sell your products. 

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Unlike other type of businesses, in POD, the products are not produced first and listed for sale later. Instead, the products are promoted first and only produced or printed when a customer places an order. 

In POD, your job is to create designs and market your products. Your POD supplier will do everything else, from printing, packaging, and delivering the product. They will even handle the returns if they have to. 

How to Get Started?

1. Choose a Niche

First of all, choose a niche you want to start your business in. Choose a niche that has huge demand in the market and something you’re interested in. For example, if you’re interested in sports, you can create designs related to sports, print them, and sell them. 

2. Create Your Designs

After you’ve chosen your niche, you need to create designs to print on products. Good designs attract more eyeballs and generate more sales compared to plain, low-quality designs. So, put your maximum effort into creating good designs. Your designs might be the only differentiator between success and failure of your POD business. 

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3. Choose a Print on Demand Supplier

After your design is ready, you need to find a good and trustworthy POD supplier to print and supply your products. Choose a supplier that uses high-quality materials to create products, has less fees, low shipping time, good customer support, and large area coverage. These things are crucial for your business’s success. 

Here are some popular print-on-demand suppliers: 

4. Set up Your Store

Now that your product is ready to sell, you need to find a platform to sell it. You can sell your POD products on Etsy, WooCommerce, or eBay, or setup a Shopify store to sell them. Your store must be clean and colorful to convert more visitors into customers. 

5. Price Your Products

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After your store is setup, you need to price your product. Make sure to check your competitors prices before pricing your own products. You can’t sell your products for significantly more than what your competitor is selling for. If you do so, you won’t get as many sales as you would have with a lower price point. 

You can market your Print on Demand products mainly through social media and paid ads. You can start and grow a social media account to promote your POD products for free. 

The print-on-demand market is worth more than $7.24B in 2024 and is projected to reach $43.4B by 2030 with a growth rate of staggering 26.8%. So, this might be the chance to dip your toes into the world of ecommerce with print on demand.

4. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is one of the hottest and most popular online business right now. It has made thousands of teenagers and 20-year-olds millionaires, and its craze is not going down anytime soon. 

Dropshipping is a business model where you find a product, advertise it, and generate sales, but someone else produces, packages, and ships them for you.

You buy products for less price from retailers or even manufacturers and sell them for a higher price through your own store. For example, if I find a cool watch on Alibaba.com that I can buy for $7 a piece, then I will create my own store to advertise that product and sell it for $20, $30, or even more. That is how you make money with dropshipping. 

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In dropshipping, you don’t have to worry about producing product, packaging, shipping, or keeping a product inventory because whenever an order comes in, you forward that order and customer’s details to your supplier, and then your supplier will produce, package, and deliver the product to your customer. There are several tools and softwares to automate this entire process. Here you’re basically a middleman reselling the products. 

How to Get Started?

1. Find a Product

To start a dropshipping business, first you need to find a product that solves a specific problem of your customers. Sometimes the product can be a fashionable or decorative item like a watch. The product has to have a high potential to sell. In the world of dropshipping, a product that solves a problem and has a high potential to sell is called a winning product.

2. Find a Supplier

After finding a good product to sell, you need to find a supplier who can supply you the same product for a cheaper price. A supplier can be the making or breaking point of your business because your job is to promote the product and bring customers. Everything except that is done by your supplier, so if you find a good supplier, you won’t have or have very few problems in your business, and vice versa.

So, before choosing your supplier, check their product quality, delivery time, packaging style, and customer service. A good supplier must have high-quality products, low delivery time, good packaging quality, and good customer support. 

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AliExpress is the go-to platform to find suppliers and products at a cheaper price, for dropshipping.

3. Build Your Store

After you’ve found a good product and a reliable supplier, you need to build a store to market your products. You can create your store on platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, GetResponse, and Wix or sell them directly on Amazon or eBay. The design of your store must be clean, simple, and colorful to get more sales. 

4. Market Your Store

After your store is setup and ready to sell, you need to advertise it, to bring customers to it. To advertise your store, you can use social media, paid ads, content marketing, SEO, and more.

Most dropshippers advertise their store through either Facebook or TikTok ads and through content marketing by creating viral pieces of content for TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts. 

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That’s it! That’s how you can start your own dropshipping business and profit from the $250B dropshipping industry.

5. Dropservicing

Now you know what dropshipping is, but have you ever heard about dropservicing? Huh? Dropshipping deals with selling physical products, but dropservicing is all about selling services. 

Dropservicing, also known as service arbitrage, is a business model where you sell services to clients. But instead of doing the work yourself, you outsource the work to a third-party service provider, either a freelancer or an agency. In dropservicing, you’re basically a middleman, just like in dropshipping, who acts as a service seller in front of clients to make money without doing any work yourself. 

Whatever remains after paying your service provider from the amount your client paid is your profit. For example, if you find a client who is ready to pay you $1000 to edit a video for him. Then you find a freelancer or a video editing agency who can edit the same video for $400, then you can keep the remaining $600 with yourself. The more you charge your client and the less you pay your service provider, the more money you make. Didn’t understand? Read it again, you’ll get it! 

How to Get Started?

1. Choose a Niche

To start a dropservicing business, you must be good at some kind of skill or a particular niche. That can be web designing, video editing, graphic designing, content writing, etc. Even though you’re not the one doing the work, you need to have proper knowledge and skill in the field to convince your client that you’re capable enough and a perfect fit for the work. 

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2. Find Your Service Provider

After you’ve decided your niche, you need a service provider to do the required tasks for you. While choosing a service provider, you need to make sure that they are good at what they do; otherwise, you’ll end up with a low-quality output that may not satisfy your clients and may not fulfill their requirements. You can find service providers on platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, etc., or on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. 

3. Setup a Platform

After you’ve decided your niche and found the service providers, you need to market your services in order to get clients. To do so, either you can create your own website, create a profile on freelancing platforms, or promote your services through social media. 

While setting up a platform, you need to add your portfolio, past works, pricing, client testimonials, and contact information. Don’t worry if you don’t have any of these! You can add your service provider’s portfolio and client testimonials as yours while setting up your platform. 

4. Set Your Prices

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Before you launch your dropservicing business, you need to set a price for your services. While setting up pricing your services, find out how much your service provider is charging for the service you’re going to sell, and set your prices accordingly. For example, if your service provider charges $400 to edit a video, you can set your video editing price at $600, $700, or more. 

You can promote your dropservicing business through content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, cold outreach, paid advertising, and freelance platforms. 

Cold outreach is a process where you reach out to or contact someone via email who doesn’t have any connection with your business. The email is meant to aware them about your product or service and provide them with an offer.

Best Platforms to Start Your Business

If you’re thinking of starting a blog to get into affiliate marketing, then I would highly suggest you create your blog on either Wix or WordPress. These two are the best blog builders out there. 

And if you’d like to create your own website to promote your digital products, dropshipping/dropservicing business, and print-on-demand products, then I would suggest you use GetResponse’s simple drag-and-drop website builder. It’s very easy to use and completely free to create and manage a website for lifetime. Getresponse also has its own email marketing tool, so, if you want, you can even start email marketing with it for completely free!

Get your business online with free website builder (en)

Tips to succeed:

1. Stay Consistent: You won’t see results overnight, so you need to be consistent to get results and make money. 

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2. Learn, Learn, Learn: Whatever business you get into, learn about it as much as you can. Learning will help you gather more knowledge about the topic, which ultimately helps you to get better results and earn more. 

3. Be Patient: Many people give up too early because they are really, really impatient. Remember, great things take time, and if it were so easy and fast, then everyone would have done it. 

4. Provide Value: If you want to make money, then you need to provide something that is equally valuable to your customers. So, make sure your main motive is to provide value along with making money. 

So, these were the 5 most profitable online business ideas that you can start today for free. Let me quickly recap them for you. 1. Affiliate marketing 2. Selling digital products 3. Print on Demand (POD) 4. Dropshipping 5. Dropservicing. Make sure to give them a try if you’re thinking of starting an online business. And tell me in the comments, which one of these businesses would you start if you have to?

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