So you’ve created a sample library, sample pack or plugin and now you want to sell it, but where do you start? The first steps in creating your online store can seem daunting – what platform should you use, how much will it cost, what is the best platform, what functionality will you need etc.?
Its important to think through these questions first before deciding on the final platform that you’ll use for selling your products as once you’ve created your store, its often difficult to migrate to a different platform further down the line.
When first setting up your store, its easy to go with whatever eCommerce solution is the quickest and easiest to setup. However, once you dive deeper into each platform, you’ll see that its important to really note the functionality each offers and how this may affect your business in the future. For example, Shopify is very simple and quick to setup, but a lot of extended functionality (like custom branded invoices for example) requires an external “app” which has an additional recurring monthly fee. Additionally, some platforms are more focused on physical products rather than digital products. Again, Shopify is very intuitive to use, but the functionality for offering digital downloads is not straight forward and requires an additional “app” – some of which require monthly payments.
Before you look at the platforms, here are some questions you should answer first:
Do you need to calculate and charge VAT to customers within Europe (VATMOSS)?
Does GDPR apply to you?
What size are your products? How will you handle downloads? Where will you host your files (eg. Amazon S3) and will that integrate with your store?
How much time are you willing to spend on this? Do you just want a quick setup, or would you rather build a more robust solution that you can expand further down the line?
Additionally, here are some of the most terms you may..
