Ever dream of having your own store? Perhaps you want your own boutique or clothing line. You can start your very own clothing boutique store online right now (or any kind of store). When I was in my teens, I always thought it would be cool to have my own store. Never did I imagine that I would be selling products online without inventory.

The online world has become one of the biggest places for retail. It is still in the early stages too which is why the time to get into ecommerce is now. So many brick and mortar retail stores are closing because they haven’t adapted to the latest operations of today. Selling and marketing online is what is happening now and it is the wave of the future. So if you’ve ever wanted to start a store, you can make an online store that doesn’t require as much money as a brick and mortar store. One of the many benefits of having an ecommerce store online is that it is always open 24/7. You are able to make sales while you sleep! It’s an awesome feeling to wake up to sales notification from your phone. Passive income is great.

Ecommerce is one of the most popular ways to make money online because there is a model known as dropshipping where you can be selling products online without inventory. There is no fee required to pay your supplier to sell their products. This is how you start a business without money online. You’ll just have to pay for your store’s hosting.

What exactly is dropshipping and how does it work?

Dropshipping is a business model where you set up your own store, drive traffic and customers to buy items from your store, and when they buy, you order the items from your supplier. Your supplier is the one that sends out the product to your customer. You make the difference in price known as your profit margins. Businesses like costco.com and wayfair.com run on dropshipping models.

Now that we’ve established how you can have an ecommerce business without having to have inventory with the dropshipping business model, I am going to show you how to get started with setting up your own store using Shopify.

Shopify is a super easy to use ecommerce platform. Kylie Jenner’s store, Kylie Costmetics, is one of the thousands of stores that uses Shopify as their ecommerce platform. You can get your free 14-day free trial of Shopify here. After that, plans start at only $29 dollars a month. Compared to a brick and mortar store, $29 is an awesome deal right? That’s like the price of three Chipotle burritos. The Shopify store does everything. There are also many apps to make your Shopify store even better.

One of these apps is called Oberlo. It integrates with suppliers so you can easily add products to your store, place the orders for when your customers order the item, and able to add their tracking number for shipping automatically. Super easy!

How to start an online store

1. You’ll need to register for a Shopify account.

Do that here and receive a free 14-day trial.

2. Register for a domain

You’ll need to come up with a store name and then register for a domain. You can register your domain with Namecheap. Namecheap starts at $3.98/year. A lot of people get stuck with a store name for a very long time. It shouldn’t take you that long to come up with a name. I suggest using a keyword related to the niche you are selling in.

3. Connecting your domain

Once you have registered for your Shopify store and domain name, you’ll want to start setting up your URL to direct to your domain that you bought from Namecheap. You can do this from the homepage once you are logged in. Click Online Stores under Sales Channels and you will see Domain. Click Domain and connect the domain name you purchased.

4. Setting up your Shopify Theme

Next, you’ll need to set up the look of your store and your branding. You can get a free them from Shopify. They have several free themes you can choose from. You can also purchase a theme from Theme Forest. Select a theme to your liking by installing it.

5. Logo

Once your theme has been installed and selected, you’ll need to select a logo. You can use Canva to create your own logo. You can also hire someone from Fiverr to create your logo. You’ll need to set your logo to the right size for your theme. Install the completed logo onto your theme.

6. Installing Oberlo

You’ll need to install Oberlo from the app store. To get there, go to your sidebar, find Apps, then click Visit Shopify App Store. Search for Oberlo and install with the Get button.

7. Find your products

Once Oberlo is installed, you can access it from Apps. Then click the little tag button and click Search Products. Once you find an item you want to sell, simply click Add to Import List. You can then access these products you want to sell from the tag icon and then Import List. From this list, you can change the copy and then click Import to Store.

And that’s basis of creating an online store without inventory! You can fix up your store’s collection, theme, and be ready to launch your very own store.