A Step-by-Step Guide for Brick-and-Mortar Stores Moving Online
Photo by Andy Hermawan on UnSplash
Moving your online store makes so much sense when you look at the statistics:
- 64% of Americans shop in stores weekly (Capital One Shopping)
- Global e-commerce sales are predicted to reach roughly $7 trillion in 2026 (Landmark Global).
- Omnichannel shoppers generate 30% higher lifetime value than single-channel shoppers (Harvard Business Review).
And it’s just so much cheaper without the overheads of running a store. If you’re considering moving your brick-and-mortar store online, we’ve created a comprehensive step-by-step guide to help you do it.
Step 1: Set Up Your eCommerce Store
Step one is a simple step-by-step process within itself.
Domain name
To set up an e-commerce store, you need to secure a domain name, which you might already have if you set up a company website when you opened your store. If not, you can use a hostinger promo code to get your domain name and keep it as short as possible, and if it can’t be an exact match to your brand, pick the closest brand-aligned name to it. Always go for a .com, if possible, and a local TLD if relevant.
Hosting
If you use the coupon, you can find double discounts on domain names and hosting with virtual private servers (VPS). With a VPS, you get better performance and control. We’d stay away from the cheaper shared hosting options.
Website platform and design
There are specific e-commerce website builders, with some of the most popular being:
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Webflow
They’re relatively straightforward, but you can also find affordable Shopify website builders on Upwork or Fiverr.
For the design, we’d recommend making these features a priority:
- Mobile-first (majority of traffic is mobile)
- Fast-loading pages
- Simple navigation (categories, filters)
- Clear CTAs (“Buy Now”, “Shop Now”, “Add to Cart”)
Payment systems
Reliable payment systems are obviously so important. Your payment system should support credit and debit cards, as well as digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Many e-commerce businesses also support Stripe and PayPal.
After the bulk of the website design is finished, we’d recommend getting professional product photos taken and hiring a content writer to write professional, SEO-optimized content, especially for product descriptions.
Step 2: Set up Your Supply Chain for Online Sales
You will already have a supply chain, but you need to optimize it for online sales. For that, we recommend auditing your:
- Supplier reliability
- Lead times
- Minimum order quantities
- Self-fulfilment options (pack and ship yourself)
- Demand forecasting with historical store data, seasonal trends, and early online sales data
Your supply chain might be ok as it is, but you do need to optimize it for online sales and product fulfillment, which essentially means tracking your inventory.
Step 3: Set Up Shipping and Local Pickup Options
Then you need to think about other basics, such as your shipping strategy and the fees you need to charge, or when to promote free shipping, what shipping provider to work with, and how to package the items so they’re protected, especially for crate and air transport.
We highly recommend integrating shipping tools for label printing and tracking automation.
Those are the basic steps, but you will find unique pain points along the way, such as managing promotions and order fulfillment or marketing for online visibility. Once you have your store and supply chain set up, the rest is a few learning curves along the way. As of 2026, there are approximately 31 million e-commerce sites worldwide (Sellers Commerce), so it’s not an impossible task.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.