How to set up an online store: 10-step guide for 2025

The e-commerce market potential is massive and growing daily. There’s a whopping 35% of surveyed business owners looking to expand e-commerce efforts in 2025. And for good reason—online business owners traditionally have lower overhead costs than brick-and-mortar store owners, and they have the potential to reach a global audience.

Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, setting up your own online store can open up vast opportunities. Luckily, the process is easier than ever with today’s software and shop platforms. With the right steps, you can reach customers all around the globe and sell online like never before.

Jump to:

• Step 1. Plan your online store
• Step 2. Select the right e-commerce platform
• Step 3. Build your brand identity
• Step 4. Create your online store
• Step 5. Handle the product management
• Step 6. Optimize for success
• Step 7. Build the customer experience
• Step 8. Market your online store
• Step 9. Get shipping and fulfillment setup
• Step 10. Launch your store and grow
• Start your business with confidence
• Frequently asked questions about setting up your store

1. Plan your online store 

The first step in knowing how to set up an online store is knowing that you need to plan, plan, plan. This isn’t a task to take lightly—how you plan your online store setup will impact every step after this one. 

And with so much potential success riding on a successful online store experience, you’ll want to ensure it’s done right the first time. 

• Find your passion. If you are starting your business from scratch, think about what you are interested in, and what existing problems you and your store can solve? This can be a large, big-picture idea, like clothing, home and garden items, or electronics. 
• Select your niche market. If you are a new or existing business make sure you identify your niche market or specific area you’ll focus on selling. If you enjoy clothing, for example, what clothing will you focus on? Women’s, men’s, or both? All aspects of clothing, or just a small selection? 
• Identify your target audience. Conduct market research to determine the target demographic that will buy your product. What is their age, gender, online presence, and shopping habits? How will they likely learn of your store?
• Learn key online store terms. You’ll want to be well-versed and knowledgeable about your store’s operations.

2. Select the right e-commerce platform

Once you’ve decided on the basics of your business, you’ll need to select the right e-commerce platform to host your store. Keep in mind that your website will be consumer-facing, allowing customers to interact with your inventory and ultimately make a purchase. 

To choose the right platform for your unique business and business model, spend time reviewing: 

• Key features available, including design and customization options, the ease of adding and modifying inventory, built-in marketing tools, and payment gateways. 
• Pricing and scalability options, especially if you anticipate your business's success and growth (who doesn’t?). You’ll need to know that your chosen platform can accommodate more professional tools if needed down the road. 
• Technical requirements for accessing your shop on the backend. Do you need a specific operating system or internet setup? 

See below for the top platform options in the e-commerce space and how they compare.

3. Build your brand identity 

Once you’ve figured out some of the logistics of starting an online store, the fun part is learning how to build your brand. This seemingly simple but important task will help distinguish you from your competitors, securing your sales and overall company health. 

When building your brand identity: 

• Create a logo and visual elements that relate to your overall concept. For instance, if you sell floral jewelry, incorporate floral elements and colors into your logo. 
• Develop brand guidelines for your brand's content, including emails, invoices, the website, shipments, and product packaging.
• Craft your brand message so customers know who you are and why you’re unique. 
• Design your website theme to showcase the best layout possible for your inventory. How will you tag and group items? How will your brand identity run throughout your website? 

4. Create your online store 

You’ve done the backend legwork—now it’s time to create the online store for your shoppers to see. Before they get to see your vast inventory to select from, you’ve got some work to do. 

To create your online store, you must: 

• Choose and register your domain name. Your domain name is the website address consumers will use to access your site. It should reflect your business and be simple for consumers to remember. Most companies choose a domain name that matches their business name.
• Design website layout and customize the theme and layout to match your brand guidelines and offerings. 
• Organize product categories so that shoppers can easily navigate between items. 
• Integrate payment gateways like PayPal or Square so consumers can pay you directly. 
• Set up shipping options by establishing clear rates and return timelines. 

Having expert advice when setting up your online store will save you from needing to redo countless hours of work and can position yourself to be successful immediately. 

5. Handle the product management 

You’re almost at the finish line! After you build your website and set the foundation, you’ll now need to handle the tangible project management aspect of running your online business.

For the product management aspect of your business, you’ll need to:

• Source products and inventory to keep in your store, deciding whether to keep inventory or purchase/make as needed. 
• Create compelling product listings highlighting your product's unique features and benefits, including sizing specifications and dimensions when appropriate. 
• Determine the best pricing strategy for your brand to stay competitive. 
• Conduct inventory management using QuickBooks Online to track inventory and manage order fulfillment efficiently, ensuring you have just the right amount of inventory. 

6. Optimize for success 

Before launching your website to the public, you’ll want to ensure that customers can navigate it smoothly to make purchases. After all, no shoppers wish to arrive at a website that looks clunky, gives errors, or doesn’t load images properly. 

To keep customers on key pages and increase sales: 

• Learn about website performance optimization, including search engine optimization (SEO), user experience, and off-page optimization. 
• Enhance the checkout process by streamlining the process, adding guest check-out options, and multiple ways to pay. 
• Ensure that the site looks good on both desktop and mobile, as many shoppers like to buy while on their phones. Also, confirm that major button options are easily clicked on mobile. 
• Improve site response speed by using compressed images and enabling browser caching. 

7. Build the customer experience 

Setting up the customer experience is critical when starting an online store. Since you may not get a ton of customer engagement at the beginning of your online business, you have to position yourself to be proactive and not reactive when it comes to what customers favor and need. 

Spend time before launching to build the customer experience by:

Setting up customer support channels to get questions answered efficiently and quickly, such as email, live chat, and phone. 

Managing returns and refunds by creating a set expectations policy, clearly listing them on the site and in shipments. 

Considering customer experience optimization by offering a personalized experience with product recommendations, providing excellent customer service, and building brand loyalty by instituting loyalty programs and exclusive promotions.

Creating a post-purchase experience by providing fast, reliable shipping, personalized communication, and order tracking updates.

8. Market your online store 

Since your new store will be online and not at a physical location, you’ll need to put in some work to thoughtfully market it to your target audience. Considering their habits, you’ll want to focus on ways to drive customers to your site over competitors. To do this effectively while maintaining your small business marketing budget, you can:

• Invest in email marketing by building and segmenting an email list. Then, use email marketing automation to send emails automatically at different times. 
• Consider paid advertising methods like Google Ads, social media advertisements, and retargeting ads. 
• Remember, SEO optimization is your best marketing tool. Optimize every page's titles and descriptions and provide descriptive filenames and alt text for images. 
• Utilize social media marketing by choosing the right platforms to create a business page and sharing high-quality content, like videos, images, and giveaways. Remember to engage with your customers on social media—the more views and clicks you get, the more traffic potential you have. 

9. Setup shipping and fulfillment 

The finish line for building an online store is close. Now, you need to tidy up the last few important loose ends. You’ll need to set up shipping and fulfillment processes so that customers can place their orders. 

Be sure to do the following to get customers their orders promptly: 

• Choose a shipping carrier to fit your customer’s needs. Many carriers offer priority, first-class, and two-day shipping. 
• Determine shipping costs to your customer, factoring in things like overall package weight and destination. Many businesses offer free shipping after a certain dollar amount. 
• Decide on packaging, choosing appropriate packaging materials and branding. 
• Optimize fulfillment and shipping tasks by streamlining the processes, automating shipping label creation, and investing in the right equipment (like scales and printers) upfront. 

10. Launch your store and grow 

You did it—your online store is set up and ready for orders. But don’t think that this is the end of the line. You’ll need to monitor your store’s activity to make sure that customers flock to your site and leave happy with purchases. 

• Seek customer feedback by using surveys, sending emails, and providing your customers with various ways to get a hold of your business in case of a problem.
• Track key metrics, such as website traffic and engagement, sales and revenue, and customer acquisition, to ensure your target audience becomes loyal customers. 
• Continuously improve your tracking methods to make sure you capture the most up-to-date and relevant information for your business. 
• Consider scalability and growth as time goes on to grow your online business even further. 
• Become knowledgeable on e-commerce accounting best practices to help analyze your business for future growth. 

Start your business with confidence

The world of e-commerce has grown extensively and is continuously evolving. Opening an online store will help you stay relevant in a fast-paced world, allowing customers from all over to reach you. QuickBooks E-Commerce helps speed up backend operations with bookkeeping automation and financial planning tools, keeping you on track for success.