Selling online: stores, marketplaces, payments, shipping and returns.
A practical guide to selling templates, ebooks and other downloads: platforms, file delivery, licenses, piracy prevention and the sales tax basics most sellers miss.
How to list, price and sell on Facebook Marketplace without getting scammed: the payment methods to avoid, the most common seller scams and how to set up safe local meetups.
One photo shoot, four rulebooks. Here are the image sizes, backgrounds and banned elements for Amazon, Etsy, eBay and Walmart, plus a single spec that passes all of them.
To sell on Walmart Marketplace, apply through Walmart's seller sign-up with a business tax ID (an SSN isn't accepted), documents verifying your business name and address, a track …
To sell on Amazon, pick a selling plan (Individual at $0.99 per item sold or Professional at $39.99 a month), register in Seller Central with a government ID, …
Choose FBA if you want Prime eligibility and hands-off shipping for small, fast-selling products, and you can pay per-unit fulfillment and monthly storage fees. Choose FBM if you …
If your Amazon seller account is suspended or deactivated, open Account Health in Seller Central, find the exact policy or metric that triggered it, and submit an appeal …
To sell on several marketplaces without overselling, keep one master inventory count and sync it to every channel automatically, using one SKU per sellable item across all channels. …
To sell safely on Facebook Marketplace, keep all chats in Messenger, accept cash in person or Facebook checkout for shipped items, and confirm any payment in your own …
Amazon seller fees start with a selling plan ($0.99 per item sold or $39.99 a month) and a referral fee on every sale, usually 8% to 15% in …
To become a TikTok Shop seller, sign up in TikTok Shop Seller Center as an individual or business, verify your identity, add a US bank account and tax …
To sell on eBay, create a seller account, research prices using sold listings, then list items with clear photos, an accurate title and an honest condition description. Most …
The US de minimis rule used to let imports worth $800 or less enter duty-free with little paperwork. Duty-free de minimis has been suspended for all countries since …
For small sellers, USPS is usually the best fit for light packages under a few pounds and residential delivery, with free package pickup and free Priority Mail boxes. …
To set shipping rates for an online store, measure your typical package sizes and weights, learn how carriers charge dimensional weight, then choose a model: flat rate, real-time …
To print shipping labels at home, weigh and measure the package, buy postage online through a carrier site such as USPS Click-N-Ship or through your store platform or …
To ship internationally as a small business, complete an electronic customs declaration for every package with an accurate description, value, country of origin and 6-digit HS code. Then …
A 3PL (third-party logistics provider) is a company that stores your inventory and picks, packs and ships your orders for you. You pay fees for receiving stock, storage, …
To offer free shipping without losing money, know your average shipping cost per order, then cover it by setting a free-shipping threshold above your average order value, building …
Choose ecommerce packaging by matching each product to the smallest box or mailer that still protects it, because carriers bill large, light parcels by dimensional weight. Pick the …
To sell digital products, pick a platform that handles file delivery and checkout, write a clear license for each product, use expiring download links and watermarks to limit …
Starting an online store can cost from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. A lean store using print on demand or handmade products mainly pays for a …
To sell handmade products online, price each item to cover materials, your hourly labor, overhead, platform fees and profit. Start on 1 channel, such as Etsy, Amazon Handmade …
Dropshipping works like this: a customer buys from your store, you forward the order to a supplier, and the supplier ships directly to the customer. You never hold …
To start an online store, pick a product with proven demand and healthy margins, set up your business and tax registrations, choose an ecommerce platform, add products and …
To decide what to sell online, start with problems and niches you understand, check search demand with Google Trends and Keyword Planner, read 1 to 3 star marketplace …
Print on demand lets you sell custom-designed products, such as shirts, mugs and posters, without holding inventory. You upload designs and list products in your store. When a …
Often, yes. There's no single federal license for selling online, but many cities and counties require a general business license, and most states require a seller's permit to …
To make a product video with a phone, plan a short shot list, film in soft window light on a steady tripod, and record 15 to 90 seconds …
Amazon wants a pure white main image with the product filling about 85% of the frame and at least 1,000 pixels on the longest side for zoom. Walmart …
To write product descriptions that sell, lead with the main benefit for a specific buyer, back it up with scannable specs, answer the top objections about size, fit, …
Amazon listing optimization means writing a title, bullet points, description and backend search terms that match what shoppers type, backed by strong images and, for brand owners, A+ …
Ecommerce SEO for product and category pages means writing unique titles and descriptions, adding Product structured data with price and availability, keeping category pages crawlable with plain pagination …
To edit product photos with AI, start with a sharp, well-lit photo, use an AI tool to remove the background, then add a clean white or generated lifestyle …
To take product photos with a phone, shoot near a large window with soft daylight, use a white sweep backdrop, steady the phone on a tripod, and lock …
Shopify fees come in 4 layers. You pay a monthly plan, card processing on each Shopify Payments sale, an extra transaction fee if you use a third-party payment …
Choose Etsy if you sell handmade, vintage or craft items and need buyers fast, because Etsy brings marketplace traffic in exchange for per-sale fees and strict rules. Choose …
To speed up a Shopify store, audit your apps first: remove ones you don't use, then clean leftover code they left in your theme. Next, resize and compress …
Headless commerce separates your store's front end, the pages shoppers see, from the back end that handles products, carts, checkout and orders. The two talk through APIs, so …
To migrate to Shopify without losing SEO, crawl and export every old URL, map each one to its new Shopify URL, and load the list as 301 redirects …
To set up a Shopify store, sign up and pick a plan, add store details, upload products, choose a theme, connect a domain, then configure payments, taxes, shipping …
Choose a Shopify theme by testing it with your own products, not the demo. Check mobile speed and Core Web Vitals, product page features like variant pickers and …
Shoppers abandon carts mostly because of surprise costs like shipping, tax and fees, slow delivery, low trust, forced account creation and long or buggy checkouts. Fix those first. …
Stripe is usually better for stores that want a customizable, card-first checkout, lower standard card rates and predictable bank payouts. PayPal is better for reaching shoppers who prefer …
To prevent chargebacks, use a statement descriptor customers recognize, send clear receipts, ship with tracking, make refunds and cancellations easy and use 3D Secure on risky orders. To …
Buy now, pay later can make sense for stores with higher-priced items and healthy margins, because it may lift conversion and order size. The trade-off is a merchant …
Fraudulent online orders often combine several red flags: billing and shipping addresses that don't match, failed AVS or CVV checks, rush shipping on high-value items, a freight forwarder …
To accept payments online, sign up with a payment provider such as Stripe, PayPal or Square, connect it to your website or store platform, and use its hosted …
To reduce ecommerce returns, track a structured return reason for every return, then fix the root causes behind the top reasons. Most fixes are on the product page: …
Under the FTC's consumer reviews rule, in effect since October 21, 2024, you can ask every customer for an honest review and even offer an incentive, as long …
A good order tracking email answers "where is my order?" before the customer asks. Send 5 core messages: order confirmation, shipping confirmation with a working tracking link, a …
To set up ecommerce customer service, start with 1 shared support inbox, a help center that answers your top 10 questions, and saved replies for common requests like …
Return fraud is when a shopper abuses the returns process, for example by wearing an item and sending it back, shipping back an empty box, or returning a …
To write a return policy for an online store, state the return window, item condition rules, which items can't be returned, who pays return shipping, any restocking fee, …
AI shopping agents such as ChatGPT, Google's AI Mode and Amazon's Rufus pick products from structured data they can trust: product feeds, on-page schema markup, reviews and up-to-date …
Prepare for the holidays by locking in inventory and supplier dates first, then testing your site's speed and checkout, posting carrier shipping cutoffs, and scheduling Black Friday and …
Google Shopping ads show your product's photo, title, price and store name in Google Search, the Shopping tab and Images. They run on product data from Google Merchant …
The 3 ecommerce metrics that matter most are conversion rate (orders divided by sessions), average order value (revenue divided by orders) and customer acquisition cost (marketing spend divided …