Discover how easy it is to set up your own online store with Big Cartel! This guide covers everything from signing up and adding products to customizing your design and accepting payments, making ecommerce simple and accessible for any business.
For our second blog post in this series, let's dive into setting up your own ecommerce store using Big Cartel. Big Cartel is designed with simplicity in mind, making it perfect for artists and small businesses looking to create an online presence quickly and easily. Starting with Big Cartel is straightforward - simply sign up for a free account, choose your shop name, and verify your email. Once your account is set up, you'll be guided through a simple checklist to complete your store setup. This includes adding your products, setting up shipping options, and connecting your payment processor. The user-friendly interface ensures that even those with minimal technical skills can navigate the setup process without any hassle.
Big Cartel also offers a range of customization options to help you create a store that reflects your brand. You can choose from various themes and personalize your store's design, ensuring it stands out and captures your unique style. Adding products is a breeze, with options to import multiple products at once or add them individually. The platform supports various product options and categories, making it easy to organize your inventory. Shipping can be customized at both the product level and storewide, providing flexibility to meet your business needs. Plus, with integrations for PayPal and Stripe, you can easily accept payments from customers. Once your store is ready, deploying it to the world is just a click away. With Big Cartel, setting up an ecommerce store is not only simple but also enjoyable, allowing you to focus on what you do best - creating and selling your unique products.
Big Cartel has a great YouTube video walking you through how set up your shop. Check out the article that goes over the setup for the different pricing tiers.
First, go to bigcartel.com. You have a few options from here:
We are going to set up a free plan today for my friend and his gallery, My Ink Flow. Let's use the dropdown and pick Free Plan. That will take us to another page where we can click on the Get Started Free button.
Choose the name of your shop. This will be the Shop URL, but you can change it if you want it to be different from the Shop name. Check out this sign-up resource for more info.
Hit the Sign up button to create you shop. You will get a verification email. Click on the Verify your email address button and you are ready to start your store set up.
Note: Please notice the Dark Theme. This account was created in late 2023. Your screen may look different as the layouts change. We update articles as necessary. We will try to keep Ink Flow Studio images but have replaced some.
If you want to change the email address you are using or have any issues and need support, you have the option at the bottom of the Let's verify your email address screen in Big Cartel.
Once you create your account, you are redirected to your dashboard and presented with a simple checklist of items to complete to finish up your setup.
It's important to set this up for proper sales tax calculations. You can always change this later by going to the Account page and scrolling down to the Location & currency section.
After you update your location and currency information, the checklist will be updated to let you know the step is complete. You are now ready to move on and add your first product.
Click on the Add a product step on the checklist or click on the Products page at the top. The free version does have its limitations but is excellent to test out the platform and even start selling to evaluate if you like the shopping experience for your managers and customers. See How to Add a Product article from Big Cartel for more information.
You can add one product at a time, or you can import many products. If you are coming from a different platform, you can export all your products and import them into Big Cartel. Check out Importing Products to learn more.
This is not a marketing strategy walkthrough. It would benefit you to do some research on product naming and description techniques to take advantage of search engines as product names are indexed and descriptions improve searchability. Check out Write to Sell for writing and storytelling techniques.
Determine your price by determining your costs to sell the product. The Art of Pricing will provide more guidance.
Big Cartel recommends product images be 10 MB or less. The supported file formats are .jpg, .gif, .png. For help on taking quality photos, check out our articles, Product Photography Basics and Shoot Product Photography Like a Pro.
One thing that is great about Big Cartel is how simple the product page is. It's limited but straightforward which makes your product setup easy. Add categories to organize your products and assist your customers in finding what they are looking for. If you have different sizes, colors, or materials, add a variant or variant group to your product.
We will add a variant group today. Click the Add variant group button and select Get started.
In this case, Ink Flow Studio is selling different sized art, so naturally, our variant group is named Size. We list out all the sizes with optional dimensions like 24 inches by 36 inches. You can move the list around or delete any list items.
Once your variant group is the way you want it. Big Cartel will create the product listing for you and all the variations will be listed on your product page.
You have two options when setting up your shipping: individual product-level or storewide profiles.
You can add shipping rates for each product based on size and weight. You have room to be creative like “each additional item” shipping cost. Refer to How to Set up Product-level Shipping for more details.
Creating shipping profiles applies to all products. You can set up shipping methods like Standard or Next day shipping. Refer to How to Set Up Shipping Profiles for more details.
Big Cartel integrates with PayPal and Stripe. You can run your shop with one service connected but having both will give you more options to accept payments. It also will help prevent payment issues if one service is down. If you use Stripe, you can accept in-person payments using the Big Cartel app.
Some ecommerce platforms charge a commission on each sale. Big Cartel does not charge any listing for transaction fees which helps keep more money in your pocket. Big Cartel is required to withhold sales tax which show up on statements as a “Partner Commission” or “Application Fee." This is not a transaction fee. PayPal and Stripe have their own transaction fees. To learn more, see How Does Payment Processing Work on Stripe and PayPal?
PayPal is easy to use log in to your account, pick a payment method, and allows for guest checkouts. It offers a trusted platform where your customers find convenience and security. Customers can also use PayPal Credit to buy now and pay later.
Stripe is the easiest for your customers to pay with a credit card. It also comes with Express checkout and various payment methods.
Big Cartel walks you through the set up with a YouTube video, Setting up your checkout with Big Cartel. Learn more about getting paid by reading Set up checkout.
Now that you have products and a way to accept payment, it's time to sell them. Big Cartel makes customizing your store easy by providing templates to start you off. Once you select a theme, you can start customizing the design.
Add custom pages to compliment your product pages. You can add several pages to provide more information like an about me, business policies, ordering process, or frequently asked questions. You have plenty of room to exercise your creativity. Add images, change colors and most important of all, have fun with the design.
You can always reset the theme to start over, or experiment with a different theme.
Finally, you get to deploy your new Big Cartel store. To launch your store, go to your Account page and scroll down to the Shop design section. Find the toggle for Maintenance mode and switch it off. You will get a pop-up window that will ask you if you are ready to launch. Congratulations and well done! You are officially an ecommerce professional.
Go check out myinkflow.com and see the awesome art produced by Milenko Mladjenovic. Follow his work on Instagram and Facebook.
Horacio Bermudez