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Detemine the Right Platform For Your Online Store

So let's dive in first of all we're going to determine the right platform for your online store now moving beyond etc means setting up your online shopping cart some of you so you're still selling on and see how many of you have you're your own website it's a block or something else some other people have some of you at least have a space but we want to not only have a space we want to give you an online shopping cart and this gives you the ability to generate revenue even if something happens here at the shop it gets shut down something happens if he decides tomorrow I don't think they're going to decide tomorrow that they want to close that if that's he decided tomorrow that they wanted to shut down and be like hey guys we had a good run we're calling it quits right? We do want to leave you hanging here's the other nice thing you no longer need to be super tech savvy to set up your own online store when I started selling on etsy it was a matter of convenience people were asking me if...

they could buy my stuff online as he was fast as he was simple etc was easy now there are a lot of other platforms that do that for you we're gonna talk about a couple today here is our first step in getting over decision paralysis I do not care about which is the best overall I am not going to make you compare one hundred features I'm not even gonna make you compare a lot of platforms instead what we're going to dio is we're going to find the best one for you really really quickly make the decision and move on right that's what we're doing and if you're like meghan I want to use something else that's fine it's okay you can do something else pointed that we're gonna make a decision today so let's start with which of these statements best describes you and you guys were watching live you got to jump in our chat rooms and share this is well which one of these sounds the most like you, eh I'm not I'm not super tech savvy and I don't have a lot of products or sales yet kind of at the beginning you're not you want to mess with code you want a vest with design just kind of want to get in and get out maybe your b I have more products or maybe a slightly higher sales volume or you'd like more robust features or analytics anyone a data person who anyone like staff yes I'm a staff person it's cool I love my data tells you so much it's numbers or magic all right see fairly tech savvy very tech savvy you've already got a website it's built on wordpress and you just don't want to manage two sites or d I'm not super sex savvy, but I have really great beautiful for tar product geography. I really want to show it off. So which one sound like you who are which? We have some a's in the group? How about these? Okay, sara, that makes me happy because I know what your sites built on nec's. Okay? No, we got some brave people here. We'll talk about that second. All right? How about d's? Ok, we're gonna go on. I'm going to reveal the magic moment. We're going take your platform in two seconds, right? Okay, if you answered a, I'm not super tech savvy and I have a lot of product yet. Big cartel is a really good place to start. It's easy, it's, inexpensive it's actually, where I started, it was fast and simple. I felt it up. You've got more products or higher sales volume and you'd like some more robust features. Analytics shopify, that's. Why? Sarah, I know you're on there already, so I was excited to see you pick that one that's why I moved. So if anyone ever asked me why don't make the leap from big cartel a shopify? I wanted to more robust back and I wanted the stats I wanted the analytics I want to know where my customers were coming from, a like my data so see, I put in here and I'm probably going to discourage a lot of you from actually picking it I'm gonna funnel you somewhere else in a minute but it comes up in every conversation I have with people so I wanted to address it which is wu commerce so if you've already got a site billed on wordpress woo commerce is a plug in that you can use that enables you to sell on your site it works well if you either hire a developer know a lot about tech or you don't have a ton of products you're looking a little their best we're going to show you what we might change your answer it's okay and it's okay if you were on wordpress and don't want to do all of this there's a work around it means you have to manage to sites but there was a workaround it's not a big deal it's actually what I do and then if you're not super tech savvy but he's got a really beautiful product geography want something simple and easy and done and all in one space squarespace is a really good option for you let's hear it? We have a lot of season dean is samia says I'm a c leave alive, alina says I'm a be okay and christine says bnd awesome and yeah, a lot of season dvd great all right so this at least gives us a place to start now we're going to answer a couple more questions if you're sort of like I hear stable dying I'm a b or d or I'm kind of on the fence or like I have a wordpress site but I'm not super tech savvy so I want to answer these questions because by the end of this I'm going to make every single person in this audience tell me what platform you're picking so the other thing that we do want to figure out is are you gonna block or not blawg it's okay if you don't want to blawg I'm going to give you guys a pass it's fine there are reasons to do it but if you're not going to do it well and consistently just forget it it's ok so some programs shopify has a blogger feature so great it's one of their downfalls not ideal squarespace makes it easier so if you're someone who doesn't produce a lot of content if you belong in a really regular basis that that's part of your marking strategy squarespace but me easier especially if you don't have the tech savviness tio deal with the loo commerce thing happening on wordpress right? So that's something just consider were you guys that bloggers not bloggers bloggers ok, so if you already have a blawg until posted wordpress and you don't want to use the pool commerce plug in you can use either big car teller shopify under a sub domain. It's really easy. Yes, you have to log into two separate sites. Yes, you have to install your google analytics on two separate sites, but it takes like, two seconds. It's really not a big deal, and that is actually what I d'oh so I've had meghan almond dot com for a long time, they've been blogging in creating content since two thousand six. I have a lot of it. I did an entire year long project, right maid outfit, post every single day to generate content for pinterest there's a lot of log posts not giving that up, so my shopify site is just parked at shopped out mega nomine dot com most people don't even realize that they're moving from one to the other simple, easy solve that problem, and you can do the same thing with big cartel it's. What I did by big cartel site also used three parked at shopped at my economic dot com, and we'll talk about the domain piece in a second. But I want you to pick your platform first because that's going to tell us how you want to get your domain, all right, one more consideration, because I know that you guys have it is how much is this going to cost? Prices change so I'm not going to answer that right at this moment you go to every site and look at their pricing strategy most of them operate in a monthly or annual fee model and I want you to consider this ah small investment it's really not that big in the future of your business but if you are sort of price sensitive you can kind of think about do you want to keep your expenses as low as possible? Do you not mind spending a little bit more for those more robust futures or options and kind of somewhere in the middle is I don't mind spending a little bit more for that great design and ease of use so big cartel probably your least expensive option think square space I don't quote me on this but I believe that we'll commerce is like a one and done fee but I don't know that for a fact but since we just dissuaded all but the very, very, very tech savvy est of you from using that it's we're just wrapping it up all right course may I think fall somewhere in the middle shopify is a little bit more expensive here's the deal you do not need the most expensive shopify monthly plan I finally upgraded it because I wanted more they suckered me and with more data but you can't buy without it so think about kind of where your budget falls and then the last thing is to think about your longer term business schools yes, nothing is permanent, but you don't want to have to move site six months later, right? So if you have more ambitious growth goals or you're doing a lot of volume, consider that when you're picking your platform so how big of a percentage of your income comes from online sales? Is that a big part? Is it a small part? Do you just need something that kind of funnel in those people who didn't buy right at the craft show or you really trying to drive a lot of traffic there? And then how fast are you planning to grow? So are you trying to really ramp up very quickly or you kind of chugging along a little more conservatively if you're trying to go fast, step up to shop afire squarespace right away skip the big cartel stuff if you're like, I just need a little space and I won't spend a little money don't spend a lot of money you could start with big cartel in see how that works for you. All right? So one last thing stuck between two here's the rial simple test go to those sites see if there's a template you love and let that determine your platform, but at the end of the day you have to love the way your site looks right you have to love it and so go in and find the template look to see what you love and you can tell you guys something right now we're not going to get into tech stuff here there's no time and everything changes so fast google is your best friend big cartel templates search shopify templates search really really simple just spend a few minutes looking at it again let's not get bogged down in decision paralysis if you know which platform makes the most sense for you pick it first then pick your template but if you're kind of on the fence looking a couple templates pick the one you like well enough and move on all right so now we're at our first actions death which is I want you to pick your platform and sign up and here's the other thing most platforms have a free trial you're probably going to give him your credit card it's fine used the business credit card it's an expense right get in there and just try it out so that's your action stuff is you're going to pick a platform in sign up I'm gonna ask our studio audience right now making you all commit what your platform five square space squares shopify or squarespace you're gonna you're gonna do a little couple of looking yep alright bye bye shopper fire squarespace ok perfect all right so we're all committed and we're ready to move on