Get helpful tips on launching your store
Introduction to building an online store
Building an online store can be a challenge when starting an ecommerce business. It takes time and resources to establish an effective online presence, so having the right strategies and tools can simplify the process and help you create an online destination that resonates with customers and boosts sales.
Here, you’ll learn:
Here, you’ll learn:
- Options for building an online store
- How to set up an online store
- Tips for choosing the right ecommerce site for your storefront
- Benefits of creating an Amazon storefront
- How to set up an Amazon storefront
Two ways to launch your online store
Building an online store requires choosing the right approach for your business needs, whether you’re building a custom website or creating a dedicated space on an ecommerce website.
Ecommerce site
Ecommerce sites simplify the process of setting up an online store or storefront. They provide user-friendly interfaces, customizable templates, and integrated payment options. These features make ecommerce sites especially attractive options for those without extensive technical knowledge.
These sites manage hosting, security, and updates, and can also allow you to reach their already established customer base. Due to these advantages, ecommerce sites often include recurring costs like monthly fees, and customization might be limited unless you invest in higher-tier options.
These sites manage hosting, security, and updates, and can also allow you to reach their already established customer base. Due to these advantages, ecommerce sites often include recurring costs like monthly fees, and customization might be limited unless you invest in higher-tier options.
Custom website
If you want oversight of your store’s design and functionality, building a custom website offers flexibility and customization, catering to specific branding or feature needs.
A custom website allows for a unique user experience, but requires a significant investment of time and resources. You might need to hire developers and designers, manage hosting, and independently ensure site security. Though setup can be complex, it offers the potential for long-term scalability and adaptability.
Choosing the right path between an ecommerce site or custom build depends on your business goals, budget, and technical skills. Each method has its advantages, so consider what aligns best with your vision for your online store.
A custom website allows for a unique user experience, but requires a significant investment of time and resources. You might need to hire developers and designers, manage hosting, and independently ensure site security. Though setup can be complex, it offers the potential for long-term scalability and adaptability.
Choosing the right path between an ecommerce site or custom build depends on your business goals, budget, and technical skills. Each method has its advantages, so consider what aligns best with your vision for your online store.
Did you know?
More than 60% of sales in the Amazon store come from independent sellers
Independent sellers in the US averaged more than $290,000 in annual sales in the Amazon store in 2024. More than 55,000 independent sellers generated over $1 million in sales in 2024.
11 steps to build your online store
Whether you choose an ecommerce or custom website, these steps will guide you through the process:
- Define your business goals: Start by clarifying what you want to achieve. Consider your target audience, product offerings, and long-term vision. For example, if you launch a store focused on eco-friendly products, your goal might be to become a leading supplier of sustainable goods for environmentally conscious shoppers.
- Conduct market research: Investigate your industry and competitors to understand market trends and customer preferences. This insight will help refine your product offerings and differentiate your store. For example, you could research competing eco-friendly stores to understand their product range, pricing strategies, and customer reviews to identify gaps and opportunities in the market.
- Plan your store or storefront structure: Outline the categories, product pages, and navigation flow for your store. A well-structured layout enhances the user experience. For example, you could create a sitemap with categories like “Home Essentials,” “Apparel,” and “Beauty Products” for an eco-friendly store to ensure easy navigation for customers seeking specific products.
- Choose your store or storefront location: Decide between an ecommerce or custom website based on your business needs. Consider factors like ease of use, scalability, and cost. For example, you could opt for an ecommerce site if you have limited technical skills, or a custom website if you require unique features like a custom-built product configurator.
- Design your store or storefront: Create a visually appealing and brand-consistent design. Whether using templates or designing from scratch, ensure your store is user-friendly and mobile-responsive. For example, you could use a green and earthy color palette for your eco-friendly store to reflect your brand values and create an inviting atmosphere that resonates with the intended audience.
- Set up payment and shipping options: Integrate secure payment gateways and establish clear shipping policies in order to build trust with customers and ensure smooth transactions. For example, you could offer shipping options, like standard, express, or eco-friendly packaging, to cater to various customer preferences.
- Develop and upload content: Create engaging content with compelling product descriptions and enhanced images, optimizing for search engines to enhance visibility. For example, you could highlight the sustainable features of your products in your descriptions and include enhanced images that showcase their eco-friendliness.
- Test your store: Before launch, thoroughly test your store’s functionality, including navigation, the checkout process, and mobile compatibility. Address any issues to ensure a seamless customer experience. For example, you could perform a test purchase to ensure the checkout process is smooth and the website is responsive across different devices.
- Launch your store: Once testing is complete, go live with your store. Announce the launch through your marketing channels to attract initial traffic and customers. For example, you could announce your grand opening through social media and email marketing, offering a discount on the first purchase to attract initial customers.
- Market and promote your online store: Continue attracting customers and driving sales through effective marketing strategies. Develop a comprehensive marketing plan that outlines your goals, audience, and the channels you’ll use to reach customers. Consider engaging with customers on social media and through email marketing, optimizing for search engines (SEO), using paid advertising, and creating content that establishes your brand as an authority. For example, you could create a marketing plan that targets environmentally conscious shoppers, then use social media to share tips on sustainable living, build an email list by offering exclusive eco-friendly guides, optimize your site with keywords like “sustainable products,” and create blog content that highlights the benefits of eco-friendly choices, positioning your brand as a leader in sustainability.
- Monitor and optimize: Track your store’s performance using analytics tools, then regularly update your content and design based on customer feedback and data insights. For example, you could use analytics tools to track which eco-friendly products are most popular, then update your inventory and marketing strategies to boost sales and customer satisfaction.
Learn the lingo:
Payment gateway
A payment gateway is a service that processes credit card payments for online and traditional brick-and-mortar stores. It acts like a bridge between your store and the bank, ensuring that customer transactions are smooth and secure.
10 tips for choosing the right ecommerce site
With so many ecommerce website options, here are some tips to help you choose the right site for your business:
- Assess your business needs: Consider your business requirements, like types of products, volume of transactions, and any unique feature needs, to home in on options that can effectively accommodate your business model.
- Evaluate ease of use: Look for a site that offers a user-friendly interface, both for you and your customers. The setup process should be straightforward, allowing you to manage your store with ease, even if you have limited technical skills.
- Consider scalability: Choose an ecommerce site that can grow with your business and handle increased traffic and product inventory without compromising performance.
- Review customization options: Ensure the site provides the design flexibility and functionality needed to match your brand identity. Look for customizable templates, themes, and the ability to add new features as your business evolves.
- Check for mobile responsiveness: With a growing number of shoppers using mobile devices, it’s crucial to select a site that offers a seamless experience on smartphones and tablets. Test how your store will look and operate across different devices.
- Analyze payment and shipping options: The site should support multiple payment gateways and provide various shipping options to cater to different customer preferences. This flexibility can enhance the user experience and boost sales.
- Examine SEO and marketing tools: Opt for an ecommerce site with robust SEO features and marketing integrations that can help you drive traffic and sales.
- Prioritize security features: Protect customer data and transactions by ensuring the site complies with industry standards and offers features like SSL certificates and fraud protection.
- Consider support and resources: Check for customer support and resources like tutorials, forums, and help centers that can help you troubleshoot issues or learn how to maximize site features.
- Explore integration capabilities: Streamline operations by finding a site that easily integrates with other tools and services you use, like inventory management systems and accounting software.
What are the benefits of building an Amazon store?
If you choose Amazon as an ecommerce website to help launch your online store, once you’ve registered for a selling account, you can create a public business profile that includes information like your mission statement, logo, and business certifications. Customers can see your business profile by clicking your seller name wherever they find it on Amazon, including in a product’s Featured Offer and More Buying Choices page.
For even more features and to build a full storefront on Amazon, brands can enroll in Amazon Brand Registry to unlock exclusive tools. Setting up a storefront with Brand Stores allows you to create a unique shopping destination where you can showcase your products and tell your brand’s story. Using the Store builder, you can design a multipage experience with text, images, and videos, and you get a custom web address for marketing. You can also track performance metrics like page visits and sales to optimize your store.
Like R+Co hair products, you can share your story and showcase your unique brand with multiple interactive pages.
Here are more benefits of building your storefront with Amazon:
For even more features and to build a full storefront on Amazon, brands can enroll in Amazon Brand Registry to unlock exclusive tools. Setting up a storefront with Brand Stores allows you to create a unique shopping destination where you can showcase your products and tell your brand’s story. Using the Store builder, you can design a multipage experience with text, images, and videos, and you get a custom web address for marketing. You can also track performance metrics like page visits and sales to optimize your store.
Like R+Co hair products, you can share your story and showcase your unique brand with multiple interactive pages.
Here are more benefits of building your storefront with Amazon:
- Trust: In 2023, Amazon was ranked the most trusted brand by US consumers. Amazon offers a comprehensive suite of tools and services that can help you create a customized shopping experience in a trusted store.
- Ease of setup: Amazon’s self-service Store builder makes it easy to create your own storefront—no coding or design expertise required. Templates help you create a customized shopping experience with text, images, and video through simple drag-and-drop tiles. You can also manage your storefront and business details on the go using the Amazon Seller app.
- Customization options: While maintaining consistency with the overall Amazon brand, you can customize your storefront with your logo, branding colors, and product images.
- Mobile optimization: Amazon storefronts are designed to ensure a seamless shopping experience across all devices. Whether customers shop on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone, they can easily browse and make purchases.
- Marketing tools: Amazon offers marketing tools that help you create cost-per-click ads, promotions, coupons, deals, and more to help drive traffic to your brand.
- Data insights: The Brand Analytics tool provides actionable performance data to help you make informed decisions about optimizing your storefront and product offerings.
- Ecommerce infrastructure: Amazon’s built-in ecommerce infrastructure provides secure payment options, checkout optimization to reduce cart abandonment, and automation of repetitive tasks to keep your business running smoothly. You can also rely on Amazon for logistics to store, pack, and ship products through Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
- Support and growth: Amazon Seller University provides educational resources to empower your business growth, and the Service Provider Network connects you with trusted third-party providers for account management, returns, advertising, and more.
Did you know?
Amazon storefronts can lead to more sales
Shoppers who visit a storefront during their shopping journey purchase 53.9% more frequently, have a 52.1% higher add-to-cart rate, a 42.4% higher average selling price, and a 71.3% higher average order value compared to those who don’t visit a storefront.1
1Amazon internal data, August 2024
How to create an online storefront on Amazon: 5 steps
Whether you’re a seasoned seller or just starting out, these steps will help you set up your own Amazon storefront.
1. Sign up to sell, enroll your brand, and register for sponsored ads
Sign up for a Professional selling account, or log in to Seller Central if you already have one. Next, enroll your brand in Amazon Brand Registry and register for sponsored ads.
2. List your products
If the product you want to sell is already in the Amazon store, in most cases you can use its product ID, or GTIN, to match an offer to the existing product detail page. If a product isn’t already in the Amazon store, you’ll create a new product detail page.
When building your storefront, you can either select products you’ve listed to feature in your storefront or use dynamic widgets to automatically populate specific displays, like best-selling products or recommendations based on visitor behavior.
When building your storefront, you can either select products you’ve listed to feature in your storefront or use dynamic widgets to automatically populate specific displays, like best-selling products or recommendations based on visitor behavior.
3. Build your Brand Store
Create an online home for your brand using the Store builder:
- In the main menu of Seller Central, select Stores, Manage Stores, then Create Store.
- Create your homepage and add your brand name, a high-quality logo, and a page meta description.
- Choose a storefront format. You can pick from three templates, each with adjustable content tiles:
- Product collection: Display a collection of related products, highlight a particular shopping theme, or give shoppers a complete view of your catalog.
- Marquee: Include a curated product display of multiple subcategories with additional space for imagery, product descriptions, and customer quotes.
- Product highlight: Promote specific products in your catalog (like bestsellers or new launches), making them more visible to shoppers.
- Build subpages, up to three levels deep. Select Page Manager, then Add a page.
- Use the Tile Manager to add and arrange images, text, and video content on the page.
- Preview how the storefront will appear for desktop and mobile browsers. Select an individual tile to make edits.
- Ensure your finished storefront meets the Stores creative guidelines, then select Submit for publishing. The moderation review can take up to 24 hours, and you can check the review status in Store builder. If approved, your storefront will automatically publish.
- Once your storefront is published, you can create multiple versions and schedule when new versions go live, helping you do work in advance for special events, product launches, or seasonal updates.
- Track your storefront’s performance in the Insights dashboard in Store builder. See page views, sales, and more, and update your storefront as needed.
4. Enhance product listings with A+ Content
A+ Content helps bring your brand’s story to life by adding videos, enhanced images, customized text placements, shoppable product-comparison charts, and more to your product detail pages.
The standard version of a product detail page looks something like this:
A product detail page enhanced by A+ Content looks something like this:
5. Drive traffic to your virtual doorstep
Once you’ve built an online storefront, reach more customers through performance advertising and ecommerce marketing strategies, including cost-per-click (CPC) product ads, deals, coupons, promotions, social media marketing, and email and blog content.
You can use a mix of these and other techniques, like SEO, to increase brand awareness. For example, you can use social media to drive traffic to your blog. Then at the end of blog posts, encourage visitors to sign up for your monthly email newsletter. In your newsletters, offer tips and advice, along with promotions and coupons for products available in your ecommerce store.
You can use a mix of these and other techniques, like SEO, to increase brand awareness. For example, you can use social media to drive traffic to your blog. Then at the end of blog posts, encourage visitors to sign up for your monthly email newsletter. In your newsletters, offer tips and advice, along with promotions and coupons for products available in your ecommerce store.
Integrate with an existing online store or ecommerce website
Is your brand already online? You can integrate Amazon with your existing sales channels through services like Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) and the Selling Partner Appstore.
MCF uses your Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) inventory to provide fast, reliable fulfillment for customer orders from other sales channels—including your own website.
The trusted third-party apps from Amazon’s app store include ecommerce solutions connector apps, which help integrate additional ecommerce sites with Amazon for quicker listing and improved order management, and multi-channel fulfillment apps, which can help you manage logistics like listings, inventory, shipping, and reviews all on one dashboard.
MCF uses your Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) inventory to provide fast, reliable fulfillment for customer orders from other sales channels—including your own website.
The trusted third-party apps from Amazon’s app store include ecommerce solutions connector apps, which help integrate additional ecommerce sites with Amazon for quicker listing and improved order management, and multi-channel fulfillment apps, which can help you manage logistics like listings, inventory, shipping, and reviews all on one dashboard.
Monetize your social media audience
If you’ve built a social media following, you can monetize your content with an influencer storefront. The Amazon Influencers program allows you to create your own page on Amazon with an exclusive URL, share your recommendations with your followers, and earn rewards on qualifying purchases. You can also host shoppable livestream events to introduce new products, make tailored recommendations for customers, and more.
Launch and grow a storefront online
Get started with an ecommerce storefront to grow your business and achieve higher sales.
How ShadesDaddy keeps the family tradition of entrepreneurship alive
"Since we started selling on Amazon, the business has completely changed. We were able to scale a lot quicker and able to hire a lot more people."
Pablo Palatnik
Founder, ShadesDaddy
Helpful resources
Whether you’re looking to start a new brand, expand an existing brick-and-mortar business, or increase ecommerce sales, here are some resources to support your path to success.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an ecommerce store?
An ecommerce store is an online destination where businesses can sell their products and services. Customers can browse and order products online, then get them delivered to their home. Businesses can choose to sell through a single online channel like their own website, an ecommerce site like Amazon, or through a variety of online channels.
What is an Amazon storefront?
An Amazon storefront is a personalized online space for brands to display and sell their products in the Amazon store. It lets businesses create a unique shopping experience by customizing their page to showcase their brand and products, making it easier for customers to find and buy what they need.
What are the requirements to have an Amazon storefront?
To create an Amazon storefront, a brand must have a Professional selling plan. They must also enroll in Amazon Brand Registry and register for sponsored ads.
Do you need an LLC to open an Amazon storefront?
No, you can begin as a sole proprietor and later register as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) if you like. But an LLC isn’t required for creating or managing an Amazon storefront.
What does it cost to start a Store on Amazon?
Creating a storefront, or Brand Store, is free. But to build a storefront in the Amazon store, you'll need a Professional selling account, which has a monthly subscription fee, plus selling fees. Other optional costs can vary based on how you choose to manage and promote your storefront, and which services and programs you enroll in.
Can I use my own coding for a store on Amazon?
No, Amazon storefronts are created using templates and tools provided by Amazon. However, you can personalize your storefront and create a unique branded experience by using the customization features Amazon offers, like adding your logo, product images, descriptions, and more.
"We found that the tools, the features, everything that we can do within the branded storefront can mimic what we’re doing on our website."
Susan Petersen
Chairwomen & Chief Brand Officer, Freshly Picked
*A Professional selling account is $39.99 a month + selling fees. Learn more
