How to Set Up a Weebly Store & 3 Great Examples

In as little as a day, you can have your Weebly store ready to take orders. It has a drag-and-drop interface, which means you don’t need to know HTML, JavaScript, or CSS to create your store. You can also use Weebly apps to expand functionality. To begin selling, fees start at $12 per month.

Weebly is an all-in-one ecommerce platform where you can host your online store and even a blog. You can build your store, track and ship orders, and use social media integrations with Weebly. Get started today.

Visit Weebly

The following are the seven steps to setting up a Weebly store.

1. Create a Weebly Account

To create your account, click “sign up” in the top right corner of the Weebly homepage. You will complete a form with your name, email address, password, and country. From there, you’ll need to choose the ecommerce store option instead of the regular website option. An ecommerce store will allow you to sell your products and services straight from your website without having to create a separate store.

Select the box to your right to create your Weebly website with an ecommerce store

Once you select the ecommerce option, it’s time to choose your store’s name. There isn’t a character limit for naming your store, but it shouldn’t be too long of a name because you want people to remember it easily. While it’s essential to choose a name that isn’t easily confused with the name of another store and is easy to spell, you can always change the store name later. If you can’t think of a store name now, just use your name until you come up with a better option.

The next question asked in the setup process is about whether or not you’re already selling products and services or whether you’re just playing around with the site. Your answer will determine if the site teaches you how to import products and services from another provider or how to get started from scratch. For this tutorial, we’re assuming that you’re just getting started with selling online. Next, it’ll ask when you plan to start selling.

Select the middle option if you’re just getting started

There are many different products and services that you can sell with a Weebly store. Physical products include tools, apparel, jewelry, and accessories. Services include classes, events, and professional services such as coaching or consulting. If you’re unsure of what you want to sell right now, you can choose “Other” and click “Continue.” You can change this later if needed.

You can select multiple options before clicking continue

You don’t need to have a storefront to create a Weebly ecommerce store. However, you will have to provide the address at which you conduct business. The reason for this is so that taxes and shipping are calculated appropriately based on your location. You can change the address later, so if you’re unsure of which address you want to use, just use your personal one.

Entering your store’s address is the final step for creating your Weebly account

2. Choose a Weebly Layout

Once you’ve created your Weebly account entirely, you’ll see your website’s dashboard. After you start making sales, you’ll see all of your earnings data here, but for now, it’ll show zeros. Just below that, you’ll find your setup guides. Pick the first guide in that series, which covers designing your website using a layout. A layout simply changes the look and feel of your website.

Click the blue highlighted box to choose a Weebly theme

There are six different Weebly layout options from which to choose. When picking a layout, know that you are going to change the fonts, colors, and logo, so select your layout based on the structure itself. Each of the designs work well when running a Weebly store, and some even make it easy to showcase your Instagram feed. If you’re only showing products in your feed, this might work against you. The best Instagram photos show your products being used.

You can change the Weebly layout later on

Choose from 16 different layout colors and, from there, you’ll have three different combinations with each color scheme. Keep in mind that your images will also change the look and feel of your entire layout. Try to choose complementary colors. For example, if all of your photos are peach-colored, you might want to select light blues to complement the peach.

An easy way to find complementary colors is to pick two colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. These will create high contrast, which means it’ll make the colors pop. Typically, you’ll use one as a background and then accent with a complementary color.

If you’re still unsure of which color scheme looks best with your brand, ask a trusted friend to give their opinion

Your font choices include modern, classic, elegant, strong, and vintage. Under each of those font categories are font pairings. For example, under the classic fonts, you’ll find the Butler font paired with the Karla font. The first font name you see is typically what you’ll see in your headers, and the second font will be used in your subheadings or paragraph text.

You can change your font combination later on, but you’ll have to choose one for now

After you choose your fonts, upload a logo. If you don’t have a logo, you can hire a freelancer to create one using a service like Fiverr. If you’re a personal brand, such as a travel blogger or life coach, you’ll want to use a photo of yourself. The placement of your logo will depend on the layout you select. Once you upload your logo, click finish.

In the layout that uses an Instagram feed as the main content, the logo appears in the lower right corner of the Weebly store, and also appears at the very top and center of the site

3. Generate a Domain Name

A domain name is the URL of your website. This domain name should be easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and shouldn’t contain any numbers or hyphens. Your URL should also be evergreen, which means that it’ll still be relevant a year from now.

For example, you might love being a single bachelor right now. However, in a few years, you could find yourself married with two kids. A more appropriate name has longevity, so don’t go with a name such as “A Bachelor’s Tent,” unless you’re explicitly targeting bachelors who want tents.

You can import a domain that you already own. However, it will involve you changing nameservers, which is best reserved for really tech-savvy users. You’ll choose a Weebly subdomain if you’re okay having Weebly listed within your URL. For example, it would say fitsmallbusiness.weebly.com instead of fitsmallbusiness.com.

Because you’ll add an ecommerce store to your site, we recommend getting a domain directly through Weebly instead of using a Weebly subdomain. You’ll get a free domain with a paid Weebly plan, which starts at $5 per month and goes up to $25 per month.

You’ll get a free domain name if you purchase Weebly’s annual plan

4. Customize Your Weebly Site

Now that you’ve set up your site, you’ll have the opportunity to edit the details of your website. What you can edit will depend on the layout you chose. However, each layout will typically have a section that allows you to change and add pages, modify the text boxes, and add elements to each page.

Text boxes

Weebly is a visual editor, which means you can select any area of the site and edit it directly without knowing how to code HTML. Once you click on the text you want to edit, a side panel opens up that allows you to change the color for just the section you’re editing. You can also make the text bold or italic.

If you change the colors and fonts from this menu, it will only update it for the section you’re working on and won’t change the entire site’s colors and fonts

Images

Your layout will likely contain several areas where you can change an image. Some layouts have entire backgrounds you can edit. Others have banners, such as the one used in the example layout below. You can upload your own pictures. Otherwise, there are many free ones to choose from within the editor.

The banner image we selected is one of the many free options within Weebly; you’ll see all of the free options when you click on “replace” from the left panel, or you can upload your own from there too

Sections

Formally known as elements, sections are what allow you to add features such as video, PDFs, code, testimonials, and featured items. If you’ve chosen a layout that doesn’t have an Instagram feed, but you want to add one to a different layout, you can do that with the section option. You can even sell directly from Instagram, which is a nice tie-in when you feature your Instagram feed on your website.

The featured items section has many different template options to choose from, and some templates have several featured items while others only feature one item

Pages

From the top of the Weebly editor, select the plus sign and select page. Here, you can add as many pages as you want. However, try not to add too many pages, because you will clutter your menu. Later, you’ll add your store but, for now, consider adding a gallery page. This is particularly helpful if you don’t have an Instagram page right now. On a gallery page, you can feature customer-submitted photos of people using your products.

Keep in mind that if you select “Add page to navigation,” it will show up as an option in your navigation menu

5. Expand Functionality With Weebly Store Apps

After creating your website but before creating your store with Weebly, you should add apps. An app will help expand the functionality of your entire site and your store once you’ve created it. Apps are found in the Weebly App Center and include tools to boost traffic, get customer reviews, and engage social media users. Popular apps include FAQ’s, Payment Button, and StoreMetrics, but you’ll have more than 350 from which you can choose.

FAQ’s

The free FAQ’s app makes it easy to create an entire frequently asked questions (FAQs) section or page on your Weebly site. This is an excellent app for ecommerce sites because you don’t want someone to navigate away from your shop if they need answers to common questions after your customer service hours. You can update your FAQ’s section to match your site’s background color and style.

Use FAQ’s to answer the most common questions you get about your site or store

Payment Button

When you install the Payment Button app by POWr, you can accept payments easily using PayPal with the free version. If you have the $11.99 per month premium version, you can also accept payments using Stripe. If you’re OK with taking just PayPal using the Payment Button but want to remove the POWr logo, you’ll pay $4.99 per month.

You can customize the colors of your buttons using Payment Button

StoreMetrics

The free version of the StoreMetrics app gives you access to basic analytics such as net revenue, revenue per visit, and the highest revenue date. The premium version of StoreMetrics costs $15 per month. It includes metrics such as shopping cart abandonment rate, average order value, conversion rate, average basket size, and insights on customers who abandoned the checkout.

An example of the StoreMetrics dashboard

6. Set Up Your Weebly Store

Now that you’ve designed your site and added apps, you’ll have to set up your Weebly store. You’ve done most of the work already. From your Weebly editor, click on “+Add” at the top of your page. From there, click on “Item.” This will open up a box with several pieces of information you’ll need to complete regarding your product or service. Select the type of item it is, whether it’s physical or digital, a donation, membership, event, or service.

You’ll also want to add images, the title of your item, price, and description

From there, you’ll enter how your shoppers will receive the product or service. Options include shipping, pickup, or both. Note that if you’ve indicated your products or services are digital and don’t include a physical component, the option to enter shipping information disappears.

You can also add options and modifiers to your items for sale. An example of a time you’d use options is if you’re selling apparel that has different colors and sizes. A modifier will allow your customers to customize their order. An example of this is if you offer monograms on a mug, your customers will be able to tell you what they want on the monogram.

The last part of adding a product is to perform search engine optimization (SEO). This is the process of making your products show up at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) if they search for a particular keyword. The data that you put into the SEO fields are what potential customers see on the SERP about your product.

The permalink is the URL of your product page. For example, if Fit Small Business sells Fit Small Business branding, the permalink could be /Fit-small-business-branding. If our domain name is FitSmallBusiness.com, it would show FitSmallBusiness.com/fit-small-business-branding for the product page.

When adding an item to your Weebly store, you can specify details that enhance SEO

After you’ve added all of your products and services, you’ll publish your Weebly store by clicking “Publish” on the top right of your dashboard. Note that to sell on your Weebly site, you’ll have to use a premium plan. Premium Weebly plans start at $12 per month and go up to $79 per month. Once you pay for your premium plan, your Weebly store will be live.

7. Position Your Weebly Online Store for Growth

Publishing your Weebly store doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll have flocks of customers headed your way. You’ll have to market your ecommerce store to attract visitors. Tactics for marketing include SEO, using social media, and running contests. Think of marketing more like a marathon than a sprint. You’ll need to do it over time consistently to see real traction in your efforts.

SEO

If you choose to add a blog page to your Weebly store, you’ll get to create regular content for your audience. By providing quality answers to your ideal client’s questions, you can grow your authority and expertise in your niche. Search engines like websites give quality answers, so create long-form content that thoroughly answers a visitor’s question. You should also use keywords that tell Google what your blog post is about.

Social Media

You don’t have to master every social media platform available, but you should have a presence on major platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. The great thing about social media is the ability to go viral without necessarily needing to spend any marketing dollars. However, you can create social media ads to give your posts a little traction.

Contests

There are a few different ways to run contests, but popular ones typically take place on social media, on your website, and through email. Most contests use a combination of each of those. You can offer a giveaway or incentivize current customers to share a photo of them using your product or service. Many customers go out of their way for just a shoutout on social media. An example would be when your business page shares the post a customer creates mentioning your product.

An example of a viral Twitter giveaway

Examples of Successful Weebly Stores

How you define success may look different than someone else who’s more established as an ecommerce store owner. However, you should celebrate every victory along the way. Your first sale will inspire your next one and, with the right skills, resources, and consistency, you can create even more success with your Weebly store. You might also decide that your ecommerce store is doing so well that you’ll offer it to retailers or open your own brick-and-mortar store.

Backwoods Soap & Body Products

Since 2015, Backwoods Soap & Body Products has sold more than 500 soaps and even stocks the soaps on brewery shelves. Each of the soaps contains beer, which started when the co-owner’s husband’s brewery had leftover beer. She created soap using the beer for her sons, and then the entire town caught on. Now, she sells the soaps using her Weebly site too.

Backwoods Soap & Body Products started in 2015 and uses Weebly for their ecommerce store

Dharma Yoga Wheel

Within nine months of launching its Weebly store, Dharma Yoga Wheel hit $1 million in sales. The couple behind the store, Dov and Raquel, now ship their wheels to dozens of countries. They also offer teacher training and wholesale products for customers.

Dharma Yoga Wheel has sold more than 15,000 of its Dharma yoga wheels using its Weebly store

Botany Bay Farm

Through its Weebly store, Botany Bay Farm sells pasture-raised pork, beef, chicken, and eggs. Its store owners knew they wanted to be a different kind of farmer—they desired natural foods and advanced technology. They discovered how easy it is to create a Weebly store that serves not only local customers but those further away as well.

Botany Bay Farm also sells specialty items such as cheese, raw milk, and tea

Pros and Cons of Using a Weebly Store

Creating a Weebly store to sell your products and services is quick and easy. It has a wide range of drag-and-drop features so that you can create your store without knowing HTML, JavaScript, or cascading style sheets (CSS). This also means you’re limited in how you customize your store. You’ll pay transaction fees per sale if you don’t pay for at least the Business plan, and you’ll need to pay for an app to accept offline payments.

Pros of Using a Weebly Store

There are many benefits to using a Weebly store, and they include:

• Quick: You can have your Weebly store published and ready to accept orders in less than a day.
• Easy: Weebly is easy to use with drag-and-drop features. You don’t have to know HTML, Java, or CSS to create an attractive website.
• Supports selling services: Many ecommerce store providers only support selling physical products. Weebly supports selling physical products, services, and digital goods.

Cons of Using a Weebly Store

The drawbacks of using a Weebly store include:

• Customization: Since Weebly is a drag-and-drop platform, customization is limited. You’ll need to focus heavily on colors and imagery to give your store the look you want.
• Fees: Weebly takes three percent of your sales if you use the $12 Pro plan. You’ll need the $25 per month business plan or higher to avoid transaction fees.
• Offline payments: You can’t accept offline payments unless you use a premium version of the Payment Button app.

Bottom Line

Creating a Weebly store is a great way to sell your products and services online as fast as possible without needing any technical expertise. Because you don’t have to pay until you publish your store, Weebly lets you take your time when building your site and uploading products, although you can get it done in as little as a day.

With Weebly, you can create an attractive ecommerce store without needing any technical expertise. You can have many different products with different variables and even customization options. Get started today.

Visit Weebly