Ecommerce 101: The basics of building a successful online business

Selling online is an exciting venture and we're here to help you. Follow these basic steps to selling online and you can be on your way to launching and growing a thriving online business with ProStores.

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Design your store

Create a professional look with a range of design tools. Our preset design themes and templates are a great way to get started.

  • Select your design theme and preset page layouts – choose from over 190 professionally-designed templates
  • Upload your logo or create one with Prostores' built-in logo generator
  • Customize your store with our Design Editors or with Dreamweaver

Quick Tips

Get a customized look for a great price at the ProStores Template Store »

Interested in full custom design? Hire one of our Certified Designers »

Add Products and Categories

Set up your catalog in two easy ways.

  • Add categories and products one at a time. Just follow the steps in our Add Category and Add Product wizards.
  • Use our Import Data feature to upload a spreadsheet that contains all of your catalog information, including inventory counts.

Quick Tip

You can also upload images of your products one at a time or all at once in a Zip file.

Set up payments

Get set up and get paid. Our Payment Preferences wizard will help you setup PayPal, select which credit cards to accept, and set up an online credit card payment processor.

  • Accept online payments right away with PayPal. Your customers can pay using their PayPal account or with a credit card through the PayPal site.
  • Securely process credit cards right on your store with a merchant account and online payment processor

Quick Tips

To accept PayPal, you’ll need a PayPal Premier or Business account »

ProStores works with these online payment processors »

Set up shipping and sales tax

Show your customers accurate shipping and tax rates in your shopping cart and automatically add these charges to orders on checkout.

  • Set up custom shipping rates with the ProStores Shipping Setup wizard
  • Turn on built-in rate calculators for USPS®, FedEx®, UPS®, or Canada Post
  • Easily set up sales tax rates with our Sales Tax Setup wizard

Quick Tips

Set up simple default shipping rates and add at least one of the major carriers.

Check with your state tax board about charging sales tax.

Open for business

Set up the basics and open your store for business in a day or two:

  • Use our preset design themes and page layouts
  • Enter products and categories
  • Accept PayPal as your main form of payment to get started
  • Set up basic shipping rates and add one major carrier
  • Open for business!

Then, you can:

  • Customize your design
  • Set up an online payment processor to accept credit cards
  • Add content to your store over time

Quick Tip

Before you start to promote your store, go through the store as a shopper would and place a few test orders.

Optimize your store for search

ProStores has built-in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools that can help improve your ranking on search engines like Google™ and Yahoo!®.

  • Search-engine friendly page urls with search engine tuning
  • Automatic site-map creation and submission to Google™ and Yahoo!®
  • Customizable product keywords

Quick Tip

Content is king with SEO – add useful information like buying guides and product reviews to your store and update it often.

Interested in advertising on search engines? ProStores Marketing Services can set up and manage paid search campaigns for you.

Advertise on shopping sites

ProStores automatically submits your product catalog to Google Base, which is free.

We also provide tools to do this with three major comparison shopping engines (CSEs): Shopping.com®, Yahoo! Shopping®, and Shopzilla®.

  • Set up accounts with the sites you want to submit your product catalog to
  • Follow the step-by-step instructions to have your catalog information automatically sent to each site

Quick Tip

To submit your product to multiple CSEs, check out the ProStores-compatible tools from MerchantAdvantage or SmartFeed.

Sell on eBay

With more than 250 million potential customers, eBay is a great way to attract new customers and turn inventory into cash fast.

We have the best eBay integration of any ecommerce solution on the market.

  • List to eBay directly from ProStores
  • Streamline listing with eBay listing templates
  • Automatically sync your inventory on eBay and ProStores

Quick Tips

Learn more about the benefits of selling on eBay »

Already selling on eBay? See why ProStores is the best Web store for eBay sellers »

Drive repeat business with email marketing

One of your most valuable assets is your relationship with existing customers.

You can use email marketing to turn one-time buyers into loyal customers and drive repeat business.

Keep your customers coming back for more with:

  • New product announcements
  • Special offers
  • Tips for using your products

Quick Tip

Once your store is open, get started on email marketing right away with ProStores-compatible tools from Constant Contact® or IMN Sales in a Click™.

Learn more about how email marketing works in this free guide from IMN Sales in a Click »

Get customers to buy more with merchandising and promotions

If you're a retailer, you know how important merchandising and promotions are to getting people to buy more once they’re in your store.

ProStores has built-in merchandising and promotions tools than can help boost your average order size and drive repeat business. Here are just a few.

  • Highlight Featured Products on your home page
  • Display cross-sell/upsell merchandising on the shopping cart
  • Storewide Sales
  • Product Sales

Quick Tip

More advanced promotions are available with ProStores Advanced and Enterprise tiers »

Manage your inventory

Give shoppers a great buying experience and show items that are available for immediate sale.

ProStores has built-in inventory tracking that will deduct the right amount from your inventory when items are sold.

Keep your inventory up to date with the following options.

  • Enter and edit quantities for each product one at a time
  • Use the Import/Export Data feature and a spreadsheet to update inventory quantities for a group of products all at once

Quick Tips

Merchants with more sophisticated needs can set their store up to communicate with a ProStores-compatible tool like QuickBooks®

More sophisticated inventory management features are available with ProStores Advanced and Enterprise tiers »

Manage your orders

We also have a built-in Order Manager that helps you stay on top of your orders and provide a great customer experience

  • Receive notices of new orders by email or on your desktop with ProStores Store Monitor
  • Track your orders from payment authorization through shipping and post-sale credits.

Quick Tip

If you need to coordinate inventory and orders for multiple sales channels, take a look at Stone Edge Order Manager, a ProStores-compatible tool.

Manage your shipping

Be more efficient and increase customer satisfaction with shipping through ProStores.

  • View, sort and print a list of orders that are ready for shipping
  • Print packing lists individually or in bulk
  • Generate UPS® and FedEx® labels and provide tracking numbers to your customers
  • Pay for postage and generate USPS® labels through your PayPal account

Quick Tip

Take a look at these ProStores-compatible tools for more advanced shipping management: Stone Edge Order Manager and Shipworks.

Manage your customers

Stay close to your customers. Review real-time activity about your newest and most loyal customers.

  • Update customer information in Store Administration
  • Allow customers to update their own information on your storefront
  • Export customer lists for email and other marketing campaigns

Quick Tip

Give customers incentives to sign up for an account with your store – like access to future promotions through your email newsletter

More sophisticated customer management features are available with ProStores Advanced and Enterprise tiers »

Track your success

Get sales and site traffic information at your fingertips with our built-in reporting tools.

  • Executive Summary reports show you best selling products, top customers, and the store search keywords shoppers are using
  • View Sales Reports by individual product or grouped by category and manufacturer
  • Track the number of visitors coming to your store, see where they’re coming from, and identify keywords they’re using to find you on the web

Put the knowledge you gain from the reports to work. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

  • Highlight best sellers
  • Promote slow-moving items
  • Target top customers with special offers

Quick Tip

Building a successful online business is an ongoing learning process, and ProStores is with you every step of the way.

Get the know-how to succeed in the ProStores Learning Center and eCommerce Currents, our newsletter and online library of ecommerce and business tips.