Get Started with Wix eCommerce | Full Course | Wix Learn

Hi, my name's Henry and I'm a learning designer at wix. Over the next eight lessons, you'll learn how to set up your WIX ecommerce store from the ground up. We'll be using my own E commerce store as an example. See, I run News, an online clothing store selling streetwear, cosmetics and accessories. By the end of this course, your online store will be ready to start selling and we'll have covered some best practices to set up your business for success along the way. In this lesson, we're going to start with the most important element of your store, the products you sell. Now, whether you're importing from another platform, starting from scratch, or already have a product catalog, I'll walk you through how to add products here and offer some best practices for maximizing sales on your product pages. Let's jump in. Now, you will need to have WIX stores installed, so you'll see these e commerce tabs on the left hand side of your dashboard if you do. If you don't see these tabs, then you can add WIX stores by going to Apps and then App Market and searching for WIX stores. Now if you have products on another platform and you want to migrate them to Wix, you can use the Cart2Cart app. All you got to do is go into the app market and search for cart2cart and you're going to see it right here. You just need to install that. Now, Cart2Cart will take your entire product catalog and migrate it into wix, including all the associated data that comes with it. Now if you have a product catalog that you want to upload to wix, all you've got to do is go to store products and then products and then go to import multiple products to your store. Now your CSV file will have to match the CSV template that we have. So just download that CSV file here and make sure that yours matches. Then you can just upload it here. Now, if you want to upload your products individually, just click here and go to new products. You'll be prompted to indicate whether you're selling a physical or a digital product. I'm selling clothes, so I'm going to choose physical, but the process is essentially the same for both. Now, if you're looking for products to sell, you can get started with a dropshipping company that will handle the sourcing and shipping of products for you. Dropshipping can be a really great way to enter the ecommerce market or just to expand your existing product lines to see what you can sell. Check out Modellist here in the dashboard, just under Find products to sell. Now I've also linked to a dropshipping guide in the Resources tab if you want to learn more. All right, so let's add a product. So from the dashboard, go back to products, go to new product and I'm going to choose physical. Now, the first thing to add in is your product name. Mine is called a unisex pullover. Next, we're going to add some images. Now, there are some best practices to bear in mind. JPEGs are usually preferred because they're low data and usually much smaller than their PNG equivalent. However, there are two cases that PNG files might be better and that's if the image has any transparent parts and when extreme quality and sharpness is needed. So for example, images with small text or rich color gradients. Now I'm going to go here and add some of the photos that I made earlier. Okay, so what you're going to want to have is a minimalist product photo. And that's just the product in good lighting against a contrasting background that allows it to stand out like a solid white background. But you're also going to want to have a lifestyle image. And that's an image showing the product in a space or with someone using it. It's like a relatable scene that will allow your customers to imagine themselves using the product and experiencing it in their own lives. So I'm going to add these here. Awesome. Now there's a couple of other things that you might want to add here. So consider adding an image that shows the dimensions of the product. And also bear in mind that the dimensions can be written in the product description. Also consider using a high quality video that can help people to better visualize the product. All right, now the last thing we need to talk about with images is alt text. So you can help Google better understand your images by adding alt text. And it's just a brief description of your images that improves your site's search engine optimization or SEO. And it also improves accessibility. So to add it you just go up to these three dots here and go to edit alt text for images. And now you want to add alt text for every image. So for this lifestyle image, I'm just going to write something really simple like model wearing purple news pullover and that's all it has to be. Alright, next up we are going to edit the product info. So with the product name it's super simple. Just clearly state what the product is. And here you can Add a ribbon. So that's really good to set a product apart, like indicating that it's a new arrival or a seasonal addition. So I'm going to say that this is on sale and add that. Now if we scroll down a little bit, you can add a brand attribute in this box. Now although this won't appear to your customers, it will help them search when they're looking for a specific brand and it will help keep your products organized in search results. So next time you have another product from the same brand, you can just select it from the drop down menu. Now it's time to talk about the product descriptions. Product descriptions are important for SEO. They should be unique. So don't use the manufacturer's descriptions because other sites may use them as well. So just write your own. Alright, so here's one that I've already made. Now you want to make sure that you write descriptions that are clear and easy to read. So put the customer in view of owning the items, stuff like the perfect sweater for all the weather. And also clearly describe the features of your product as well as outline why it's a good choice. Remember, this is your sales page. Mention in the description what the product is made from, especially if it aligns with your store's brand values. So cruelty free, organic, vegan, locally sourced, all that good stuff. Now also do plug in keywords and think about what your potential customers will search for. In finding a specific product. You don't need to force it or add any extra keywords without context. So for example, a customer might be looking for a red legendary sweatshirt. By adding those words into your description, you give your customer a better chance of finding that product when they search. And remember, if you write informative description descriptive text, keywords will be implemented naturally. Now you can also add product dimensions if they're relevant down here in the additional info section along with care instructions and policies and warranties and shipping. All right, next up it's pricing. So it's pretty self explanatory. Here you can just enter the price that your customers are going to pay for the product. And down here it's optional but for your own reference you can enter the cost of goods, which is the amount it costs for you to make or buy the product. And and the profit margin is going to calculate automatically. Now bear in mind this is not displayed to customers. Awesome. So now we can scroll down to our product options. So if your product comes in different sizes, colors, materials or other variations, be sure to add product options so customers can choose the option that they want. Now, if none of your products have variants, feel free to move on to the next section inventory. So if you do have options, you just hit add options and then you can add in, let's say color. Now mine comes in three colors, purple, red, and turquoise. Awesome. I just hit add and you can see that those populate here. Now, I've also got three sizes, small, medium, and large. Hit add. And now if I go down to manage pricing and inventory for variants, I can actually see every single variant that I have and I can edit each one of them individually. So for example, let's say one of mine costs less than another. I can put -5. And then the price of that item is going to automatically update. And then let's say because I know it costs less, it costs $20 instead of 25, I can update my cost of goods for that item as well. You can also add in your SKU or stock keeping unit. So for this I know it's NSCN 1023 31. And then I can decide whether it's in stock or out of stock. And finally I can add the product weight. And this will be really useful later on when we're talking about shipping. Awesome. And down here you can manage all of those variants that you just set up. A collection allows you to organize your products into structured groups, just like how you might organize certain types of clothes on a rack in a brick and mortar store. Now, in this lesson, we're going to set up collections so you can organize your online store in a way that helps your shoppers find products more easily. Now keep in mind, a product can be in more than one collection. So to set one up from your dashboard, just go to products and then collections. Awesome. And then you just go to new collection and the first thing you want to add is your collection title. Now some examples of collections might be best selling products or products that are a certain type, color or material. Do bear in mind that the names of your collections also serve as keywords. So it might help to call your collection something that people might search for like running shoes or party dresses. For now, I'm going to call mine sweaters. And next we want to add our collection image. So I'll go to apparel and I've already got some images set up. Awesome. Now we need to add our products. So you just go to add products and then search your list of products and add as many as you'd like to the collection. That'll do for now. And I will add. All right, now you just need to Go to Add Collection to Site Save and go to Editor. All right, now you can choose to add a new page for this collection or add the collection to an existing page. I'm going to go with create a new page for now, but it's up to you. Awesome. And that's been added. Now you've gone through the process of adding your products to your online store. So to connect a payment method from your dashboard, go down to Settings, go to Accept Payments, and first you'll want to confirm your business location. Now remember, this is where your business is physically located, not necessarily where your customers are. So mine's in the United States and I'm going to choose that. Now, WIX will automatically suggest suitable payment providers available in your region. I'll link to a full list of available providers in the Resources tab. All right, now choose the payment provider that you want to connect to. Wix, Stripe, PayPal, there's loads of options. Now, by selecting Connect Payment, you can learn more information about each provider, including the fees that they charge and the payment methods that they offer. Now, choosing a payment provider that offers several methods of payment can give your shoppers the opportunity to pay with their preferred method, creating a positive checkout experience and helping to increase conversions. See credit cards and PayPal. They are global, but some customers might prefer a local payment method that's more popular. So I'd recommend researching common payment methods in your target markets and selecting options that are relevant for those customers. Now, all payment providers have restrictions on the types of products that sellers are allowed to offer. That doesn't necessarily mean you can't sell them, it just means that you'll need to process payments through a different provider. Prohibited products will be listed in the terms and conditions. And in the case of WIX Payments, you can find the prohibited products by clicking here. The process of connecting a payment provider is similar no matter which one you choose. Now I'm going to select wix Payments, which is wix's native payment provider. See WIX Payments has competitive fees and accepts major debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, and other popular payment methods. Also, clothing is not on their prohibited items list, so I'm all good there. Now, a huge benefit of WIX Payments is that you can manage all of your transactions, payouts and more right from your WIX dashboard. And depending on where you're located, you can also use WIX Payments to accept payments in person through WIX Point of Sale, which automatically syncs your online and in person payments, inventory and sales. Alright, you're now connected to A payment provider. To start accepting payments, you will need to have a WIX Business premium plan. So to upgrade your plan, you can just click here and go to Business and E Commerce plans. If you already have a premium plan, you'll just need to finish adding your personal, business and banking details to verify your identity. Now, once you've started selling, you'll be able to see and manage all of your payments on your dashboard, including refunds and chargebacks. You can connect your wix store to additional payment methods like Buy Now, Pay later, just by going down here to see more payment options. And here you'll see afterpay, Affirm, and Klarna, among others. You can also add manual payments here, and that means you can keep track of offline payments by cash or check. All right, awesome. You've now completed payment setup and you're ready to receive payments from your customers. But before you start selling, you will need to set up your shipping and taxes. Positive shipping experiences can be the deciding factor between a bad review and a return customer. In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to make the most of the shipping solutions on wix. So let's jump in. So, from your dashboard, go down to Settings and then go to shipping and fulfillment. Now here you're going to see your shipping regions. WIX stores come with two regions already added. One for your own country, which is the domestic region, and one for the rest of the world, which is the international region. Now, both offer free shipping by default. From this starting point, I can decide which countries or regions within countries I actually want to ship to. Now, you can group all regions that follow the same rules into the same group. So for example, I could add another part of the US into my own domestic region. Now you can group all regions that follow the same rules into the same group. Now, it is important to note that to sell in a region, there must be a shipping rule that applies. For example, if you don't have a shipping rule that covers Spain, so Spanish customers will not be able to check out. All right, so I'm going to add a new region here. Let's add one for the uk. Now we'll set up our shipping rates before you start, it's important to determine what shipping strategy you want to use. Now, there's no one size fits all, and your shipping strategy will probably evolve as your business grows. So first of all, by default, we've got four shipping selected. Now, customers love free shipping, and offering it can create strong checkout incentives. You see WIX stores that offer free Shipping have an average of 17% higher order values. But of course it also needs to make sense for your business. There are ways to offer free shipping with minimal impact to your operating costs. And the first is to just incorporate the cost of shipping into your product prices. Another is to offer free shipping at a set minimum order value. This both encourages customers to place more items in their cart to access free shipping and also allows you to avoid accepting orders that might not be profitable for your business. So you can do that by choosing any of these other rates and then going down here to offer free shipping when a customer buys over a certain amount, just check this box and add the amount. Awesome. Now, while free shipping is attractive to your shoppers, ultimately it's most important to offer up the shipping options that make sense for you. Other ways to price out shipping are, for example, flat rate, which we have right here. Now that's good for products with similar properties. So think something like candles, which are all the same weight and the same size. Of course, talking about weight, we can also rate by weight and that's good if you have products that differ in weight. So let's say you sell jewelry and bicycles. We can also rate by price. So this is really good for charging lower paying customers, but rewarding those who spend more. For example, I can set a price range here. For zero to one spend, I can put a rate on of $10 and then I can add as many ranges as I want bringing down that shipping rate the more my customer spends. Now I can also rate by product and that's really good to charge for categories of product like breakable products and unbreakable products. And this option can also be helpful if you sell drop shipping products. So for example, you could create a group for dropshipping products and then another for your own products with different shipping rates for each. Finally, you can get real time calculated rates. See if your store is located in the US and Brazil, USPS and Correo's calculated rate, which shows your customers an estimated rate during checkout based on the weight dimensions and the to and from addresses of the order. To offer real time rates with additional postal carriers and in other locations you can add shipping apps like Shippo, Shipstation or Envia. For now I'm going to offer free shipping and here you can change the shipping option name. I'm going to stick with free shipping for the moment. Customers are going to actually see this in their cart and at checkout. Next you can add in the estimated delivery time. Now the shipping partner that you use might actually Offer an estimated date range for delivery and you can just pass on these details for your shoppers here. Awesome. Now as we discussed, it is optional that you can offer free shipping when a customer buys over a certain amount. Next up we've got local delivery. And this is great for you to connect with your local customer base and encourage customers to say shop locally and support the community. So just go to add local delivery. And here you can add the area name. So for example, maybe I do San Francisco. And here you can set your delivery rate. And again you can offer free delivery if a customer buys over a certain amount. Now you can set the area by radius from where your fulfillment center is based or from zip and postal codes. I'm going to stick with radius for the moment. And here you can add an estimated delivery time or you can actually specify Delivery times. So 9am to 6pm I like that. Monday to Friday, that's when I deliver. And finally you can set the delivery types and conditions. So do you do same day, next day or minimum two day delivery? You can also set a cutoff time for same day delivery orders. So for example, if I'm selling perishable items, this can be really useful. Then I'll add that area. Now when your shopper gets to their cart page, it's going to suggest local delivery as an option based on their location. And finally we're going to talk about local pickup. This is a great free option if you have a brick and mortar store or if you can support pickups in a physical location like a warehouse or a pop up shop. And I'll just call it store pickup. You've now set up your shipping. One of the most important steps. Tax regulations vary by country to country. And in the US they can even vary on the state, county and city level. Now I would recommend that you consult with an accountant or your local tax authority for specific information relevant for your store, including who you're required to collect sales tax from. Now WIX offers two methods of collection. You can use automated and manual. You can switch from one method to the other with a single click. But let's just start with automated for now. So from your dashboard go down to Settings and go to tax. Automatic tax calculation is offered through Avalara, which calculates tax based on up to date tax rules. And when rates change, it actually updates automatically. So you just hit this button here. You can also use Avalara to sell products that are taxed at different rates. So for example, if the general tax rate in Your region is 10%, but cosmetics are taxed at a different rate. You can set up a tax group for cosmetics by going down to tax groups, toggling that on and then going to create group. Now in the group name I'm just going to type cosmetics and now I need to select a code that best matches the items in this group. So I can go to select. Now you can see in the drop down that cosmetics is already there. But if you go down to search more tax codes, Avalara has got a bunch of different ones that you can use which you can see by searching here. For now I'm just going to go with cosmetics and now I just need to add items to this group. So I'll go down and add all my cosmetics. Amazing. That'll do for now and then I'll go to save Avalara's up to date tax calculation, no matter what region you sell in or ship to, helps mitigate risk. However, you should remember that you are always still responsible for ensuring that your taxes are correct. Now I'm going to switch over to manual tax by hitting that button and switching over. Now with manual calculation, you select the regions where you want to collect tax and then manually enter the tax rate collected in that region. If the rate changes though, it is up to you to update it. So I can just go in here and make sure that those percentages are correct. Now you'll also need to determine how you'd like to collect tax. You see, in some countries, such as the us Price tags show only the price of the product itself. The tax is added during checkout, whereas in other countries, like some countries in the European Union, the product price already includes the tax. You can select the method required for your store down here in Tax settings. Creating and posting clear policies about your terms of Business helps you create transparency and build trust. See, customers want to know what to expect from you before they make a purchase, and policies can serve to protect you and your business. Also, some policies are legally required for ecommerce businesses. So in this lesson we'll review the basics for setting up your terms and conditions, returns and privacy policies. But also keep in mind it is your responsibility to ensure that your policies meet the latest legal standards in your region. It's always a good idea to consult with a legal professional before committing to any policies from your dashboard. Go down to Settings and go to E Commerce settings and then you just scroll down to checkout policies. Now the policies you add here will automatically appear as clickable links on the footer of your checkout, right? So the first one Here is Terms and Conditions Terms Terms and conditions should include a set of legal terms defined by the owner of a website that a customer must agree to. Try to keep yours concise with simple language so your customers can read and understand them. Next up, it's the return policy. Now, many customers want to know the return policy before they complete a purchase. But think about what's reasonable for your company as well as what would be reasonable to expect from the customer. Outline what they can expect from you, like what products can be returned or exchanged? Will you exchange, offer store credit, or just return their money? What are the conditions for a return or exchange for my store? I'm going to say if you are not completely happy with the item you purchased from our store, we will refund your purchase provided the item is returned to us in its original condition and packaging unworn, unwashed, and with all labels attached within 30 days of receipt. Alright, next up, let's talk about the Privacy Policy. It's an important piece of communication and trust for your customers, but it's also a key part of making your site legally compliant. Now we'll go over some standard best practices for your privacy policy here, but you may want to talk to a professional to ensure that your site complies with the privacy laws in the regions you operate, including GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California. So in your privacy policy, you want to outline the types of information you collect, how and why you collect and manage your site visitors information, how you communicate with your site visitors, how you use cookies and other tracking tools, how your site visitors can withdraw their consent, and your contact information. In addition to a privacy policy, there are further steps you can take on WIX to help ensure your site is compliant with Internet privacy laws. So first of all, you can just add your contact information by clicking this Contact Us box here. Including contact information on your site is one of the biggest steps in making your site legally compliant in many regions. It also helps customers feel confident that they have a line of communication to your business that their questions and concerns can be addressed if they have any. Now another step towards privacy compliance in many regions is requesting consent to collect information. So you can ask for consent using a cookie banner. You can add that to your site by going to Settings, Privacy and Cookies. Then go to display a cookie consent banner. And first off, just toggle this on. Now you can completely customize this to fit in with your branding and the tone of your website. You can even edit the message down here and when you're done you just go to Save and Publish. And now you've added a cookie banner to your site. You've now created and added your policies. Now these may continue to evolve as your business grows, but you can always come back and update them whenever you need. Alright, let's go to the editor. So here you can customize your online store to look and feel consistent with your brand. Now let's take a look at our color and text themes. To adjust those, you just go to Site Design and then click on Customize over Site Theme. Now you can choose any of these featured themes, but I'm just going to stick with my main one. Now you can change your colors individually by going to Color Theme and then choosing any of these out of the box solutions. Again, I'm going to stick with the one that I've already chosen. And you can also change each color individually by clicking on one of these boxes and changing the code, then hitting Apply. Now to change your text theme. It's pretty much the same. You just click on text and again you can choose an out of the box solution here, or you can go back and change the font of each of your headings individually. Now you can use one main font for your main text and another slightly different font for your heading text to help keep your site more coherent and easier to navigate, especially for those with accessibility needs. Now, to update your photos, you can either upload high quality images that you've taken yourself, or you can add free WIX images, free WIX illustrations, or stock images from Shutterstock. And as I said in an earlier lesson, you should add alt text to every image on your site, including linked images and icons, unless they're purely decorative. And that's to improve your site's SEO and accessibility. So to add alt text to these images, all you do is click on the image twice and then go to Settings. Scroll down and under what's in the image, tell Google, type in your alt text. Now remember, don't use photo of or image of. Just dive right into describing what's there. If you have a logo and you haven't already done so, add it to the top of your site here. However, if you need a logo, you can use the WIX Logo Maker, which is an automated tool that helps you to design a new logo from scratch or connect with a professional designer who will create one for you. To do that from your dashboard, go down to Marketing and SEO and go to Logo Maker. Now try to lead your customers from any page to the purchase page in as few clicks as possible and make sure your site is laid out in a clear way and you can do this with the following elements. So first off we've got the header. This is the first thing people see on your site and it should include your logo so people know where they are. It should also include On Site Search so they can quickly search what they're looking for. Now to add a search bar, all you do is go to the Add panel, go down to Menu and Anchor, go to Site Search and you can choose any one of these search bars, drag it on and customize it however you'd like. Now your menu is your shopper's map to your store. The links listed here should help your customers easily find what they're looking for. So use specific labels like Shop instead of products or Contact us instead of info. The menu needs to be readable, so if you have more pages than can fit comfortably, you can use drop down menus to help organize the links and list those links in a strategic order. For example, if you want your customers to go to your store page first, then list this link first in the menu. Now let's talk about headings. Your On Site text can be used to highlight what you want to promote. Like is there a new collection or is something on sale? The text here should be clear and used to direct your customers. For example, this heading on my first fold says Flash Sale directing my shoppers to shop on my sales page. So here I am on my Shop page. Adding filters can help your customers find what they're looking for more easily. Now to add filters to your store page, click into the Shop widget and then go to Settings. Go down to Filters and then create whatever filters you'd like to add. Just by hitting this toggle, you can even create custom filters. Now back on my homepage, I'm going to show you the footer. Your footer will remain the same across all of your pages and it should include navigation links, links to your policies, your contact information, social media icons, a newsletter or blog sign up, and the methods of payment that you accept. Now if I go back up to the top, we're going to talk about calls to action because you should include clear calls to action wherever you can. With Buy now, add to Cart and Shop now buttons. For example, I've got Shop now here in between Flash Sale and if you scroll down, you'll also see that underneath just landed, I've got another Shop now button. You're going to see those across the the website. An about page shows potential customers the story behind your business and invites them to develop A deeper connection to you and your products, which builds trust. And this is also a great place to showcase your business values. You see, shoppers are more likely to complete a purchase from a business whose values align with their own. A contact page can build trust and help customers feel more confident about your business, knowing they can get in touch with you should they need or want to. It should include your business name, your phone number or business email address, your location, if you have a brick and mortar store, and social media icons. Asking site visitors to enter their email address on a welcome pop up is a great way to grow your email contact list and increase revenue. And since email marketing is one of the most effective ways to sell, with a conversion rate of 6.4%, it's essential that you build up these contacts. So to add one, just go to the Add panel, go down to Interactive under Lightboxes, go to welcome, and then choose any of these templates. Now I've already made my own welcome pop up and I'm going to show you what I've done. Now you can design your pop up to be consistent with your branding and you can incentivize people to leave their email with a discount as I have here. Now the first thing you want to do is set your triggers. So go up here, click on the image and then click on Likebox and then go to Set Triggers. Now here you can say what the lightbox's name is and that's just for you. You can also automatically display the Lightbox on pages or you can choose not to. I'm going to do that. You can choose which page it displays on. I'm going with my homepage because it's a welcome pop up, then decide what delay you want. I'm going with zero seconds because I want it to be the first thing my customers see. Now down here you can choose how the Lightbox closes. So so you can either do it with an X icon or with a close button. I'm going to choose the close button to help assistive technology users. And speaking of that, to design for accessibility, make sure that your pop up is accessible to more shoppers by using large writing, high contrast colors, clear instructions, and an obvious way to close the pop up. Now, before you publish your site, click through all of your site pages so you can see if there are any fixes that you need to make. I'm going to do that by going to Preview and then just clicking through all of my links. Many of your shoppers may be viewing your site on mobile devices. See on Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2021, 69% of shoppers on Wix stores were shopping on mobile and WIX automatically optimizes your site for mobile, which you can see by clicking here on the mobile version of your site. As with your desktop site, you should test every page and path in your mobile site and fix any mistakes or bugs you find. While every WIX store comes with a free wixsite.com address, connecting your site to a domain gives it a more professional look. It promotes and unifies your brand, and it also makes it easier for visitors to find your site on search engines. You can connect your own domain by purchasing a domain from Wix or But before you choose a new domain name, check Google and social media to see if other businesses have similar names or social handles. You can also connect or transfer a domain from another host. Alright, you're now ready to publish your site and start selling, so just hit Publish in the top right corner. In this course, you've learned how to add products, connect payments, set up shipping, navigate taxes, and establish policies for your e commerce site. Congrats, Sam.