Online commerce has grown steadily over the years, and this trend shows no signs of slowing down. According to the Brazilian Electronic Commerce Association (ABComm), Brazilian e-commerce is projected to reach an impressive R$ 204.3 billion in revenue by 2025.
In this scenario, e-commerce has established itself as an excellent option for small and medium-sized entrepreneurs who want to expand their operations in the digital environment.
Having an online sales website is a highly professional solution for marketing products on the internet. Although it is ideal for selling physical items, it can also be used to offer services, such as online classes or courses.
In this article, we will teach you how to create a free sales website to start selling online in a practical and quick way, covering everything from choosing the platform to tips that will help you attract and retain customers. Let’s get started!
How to create a free sales website?
Check out our step-by-step guide with tips on how to create a complete sales website:
1. Define what you are going to sell
Before you begin, it is essential to define the products or services you intend to sell. Choose a niche market and analyze the competition. This step helps you create a free sales website that aligns with your audience’s expectations and identify opportunities to stand out in the market.
Opting for products in high demand is a good strategy, but also consider categories that you like, are familiar with, or have knowledge of. This facilitates negotiations with suppliers and simplifies promotion.
To avoid competing directly with established brands, look for a specific niche. By specializing, you reduce the number of direct competitors and increase your chances of attracting a more engaged audience.
2. Set your budget
In addition to defining what to sell on your website, it is essential to know how much you can invest when creating a free sales website, even if you choose to use a free platform. This is because there will always be other costs involved, such as staff, marketing, etc.
With a well-structured budget, you can plan your next steps with more confidence and avoid financial surprises. Here are some of the fixed costs of creating a sales website:
- Monthly e-commerce platform fees or marketplace fees;
- Company registration (if you don’t already have a CNPJ);
- Company bank account;
- Accountant fees (if necessary);
- Initial investment in marketing campaigns to attract customers.
Regardless of your available budget, understanding these expenses is essential to adjusting your strategies and ensuring that your e-commerce business grows sustainably.
3. Define your target audience
Next, it’s time to define your target audience. To do this, you need to understand who your customers are and create a persona—a fictional character that represents your ideal consumer, based on characteristics such as age, interests, needs, and purchasing behavior.
Understanding and knowing your customers allows you to target your online sales strategies more assertively. Elements such as pricing, communication tone, and even social media campaigns will be tailored to meet audience expectations, increasing your chances of retaining them.
4. Choose between an online store or marketplace
To learn how to create a free sales website, it is important to understand that there are different online business models, the most common being the online store and the marketplace. Below, we will show you the main features of each one:
Online store
An online store is a website for selling products online, developed by the entrepreneur themselves to display and market their products. You can choose to create the website from scratch or use an e-commerce platform that offers “ready-made templates” for online stores.
When setting up an online store, you have complete control over the organization of products, store design, and payment and shipping methods. This means that decisions about how the website will function and how it will be presented are your responsibility.
Marketplace
Marketplaces are websites for selling products where various retailers can market their products, like in a virtual shopping mall. Among the best-known examples are Mercado Livre, Shopee, Amazon, and OLX.
These websites have a uniform visual identity and allow you to sell new or used products. In addition, they tend to attract a large volume of visitors and charge commissions on sales made on the platforms.
On the other hand, the customization of your store is limited, since you share the environment with other sellers.
Although they are different, it is possible to combine your online store with the marketplace in your sales strategy. Depending on how your e-commerce is structured, you can integrate marketplace orders into your sales system, making management easier.
5. Register a domain
Registering a domain is one of the main steps when setting up a free sales website. The domain is your website’s online address, i.e., the URL that customers will type into the address bar to access your store.
Choose a short, easy-to-remember name that is related to your business or niche market. Also, make sure that this name is not being used by any other company and has an extension such as .com, .com.br, or .store.
Contrary to what many people think, having your own domain conveys professionalism, helps build your brand identity, and contributes to a better experience.
6. Produce quality content
Now that your store is well structured, you will need to produce quality content to attract even more visitors and convert leads into customers. Relevant content serves both to inform and educate the public and to improve your website’s SEO.
Here are some ways to generate content for your online store:
- Blog: Create a blog on your website to share tips, tutorials, news about your products, and useful information for your customers. This is an excellent way to attract organic traffic.
- Product Descriptions: Write detailed descriptions for each product, highlighting its features, benefits, and how it can solve problems or improve the consumer’s life, as this helps convince the customer and increases conversions.
- Videos: Videos are a great way to show your products in action, as well as making it easier to understand their features. Create tutorial videos, unboxings, or product demonstrations.
- Guides and E-books: Depending on your niche, offering more comprehensive content, such as guides or e-books, which can be downloaded in exchange for contact information (such as email), can also help build a list of qualified leads.
7. Create a responsive online sales website
An important point in the process of creating a sales website is to create a website with responsive design. What does this mean? It means that your e-commerce will be adapted in terms of design and size to suit viewing on different types of screens.
This allows it to be viewed correctly on computers, tablets, and smartphones. As a result, it is possible to have more visibility on search engines, such as Google, increasing the chances of attracting new customers.
8. Promote your sales website
Now that you’ve checked out all the tips for creating a free sales website and it’s ready, you need to share it so that people know about it. To do this, it’s essential to invest in digital marketing, creating paid and organic campaigns to promote it.
The best place to promote your website is on social media, which allows you to post to your follower base, in addition to creating ads.
These ads will be displayed to the audience according to the demographic characteristics and interests you choose.
Best tools for creating a free sales website
Finally, we have prepared a list of platforms that can help you create a free sales website on the internet.
Check out the unique features offered by each platform and choose the best option to boost your online sales:
1. Wix
As a complete solution, learning how to create a free sales website with Wix is extremely simple. After creating your account, you can build your page by selecting a professional template and customizing it entirely to your liking with a drag-and-drop editor.
Starting with the basic plan offered by Wix, you can already register unlimited products, take advantage of abandoned cart recovery tools, and publish your products for sale on social media.
Highlights:
- Hundreds of professional and fully customizable templates;
- Drag-and-drop editor so you can position visual elements however you want;
- Custom domain and high-quality hosting;
- All your pages are optimized for mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.);
It’s worth considering investing in your own business through a professional platform like Wix.
You can try Wix for 14 days, and if you’re not satisfied, simply request a guaranteed refund to get your investment back.
2. Nuvemshop
Nuvemshop also allows you to create a free sales website that can be used for up to 15 days. Today, it is the largest e-commerce platform in Brazil and also offers extremely affordable plans for those who have already tried the free website created on Nuvemshop and want to continue using it after the trial period.
Highlights:
- Sell through multiple digital channels;
- Customized store with no limitations;
- Specialized guidance and customer service;
- Strategic and marketing tools.
The company received awards for best e-commerce platform in 2017, 2019, and 2020 from ABCOMM. In addition to allowing you to sell through its online store, it also offers sales channels through Facebook, Instagram, and integrations with marketplaces. It’s worth checking out its unique features.
3. WEBSITE123: create a free sales website in 3 steps
For those interested in learning how to create a free sales website step by step, with SITE123, you can easily create an online store.
Just choose a ready-made, professional, and responsive theme, i.e., optimized for mobile devices, and customize it according to your preferences.
Highlights:
- Multiple customizable themes;
- Sell through marketplaces;
- Digital marketing and online sales tools.
The online store’s admin panel is intuitive and allows you to easily register products, control inventory, and process payments.
For those looking for a platform to create a sales website as quickly as possible and without any headaches, we recommend checking out the features offered by SITE123.
4. Integrated Store: create a Brazilian sales website!
Now, if you are looking for a completely free option for an unlimited time, Loja Integrada is an excellent alternative for creating a free sales website.
They also offer essentially all the features you need to create a free sales website and start selling as soon as possible, without complications.
However, you will have a limit of up to 50 registered products and up to 5,000 visits to your store—which is already excellent for launching your own digital business.
To extend these limits, choose one of Loja Integrada’s paid plans and get access to even more features.
5. Tray
Tray couldn’t be left off our list of tools for creating a free sales website. Although it doesn’t offer a free plan, it does allow you to visit a demo store.
It offers a wide variety of important features and tools, all in a single system. You have access to features such as emailing, delivery organization, and connection to various online sales platforms.
In addition, they have an app that makes it easier to manage your business from your phone, as well as an app store to add extras to your website. What makes this platform stand out is that it is perfect for entrepreneurs who want to find multiple solutions in one place.
One of the cool things about this service is that it adapts to what your business needs, because the plans offer different options. That is, you can choose the basic features if your store is smaller, or go for more complete solutions if your business is larger.
How much does it cost to create a sales website?
As we highlighted earlier, although there are several platforms that allow you to create a free sales website, there are still costs involved, such as staff, marketing, inventory, website customization, extra features, etc.
However, all of these costs can vary greatly depending on the type of business and the choices you make. We cannot define an exact amount, but it is essential to plan a budget that takes these different areas into account.
The initial and ongoing investment in your online store will be essential to ensure the sustainability and growth of your business in the world of e-commerce.
Have you learned how to create a free sales website?
With these alternatives, it will be easy to start selling directly from your own digital business.
But remember, putting your sales page online is only the first step. You will still need to optimize your pages for conversion, invest in digital marketing strategies to get people to discover your business, and make sure you are ready to serve your customers well.
So, after creating a free sales website, be sure to come back here to our blog and check out more marketing and sales tips!