Customized E-Commerce Site in WordPress for Less Than $150

by Bill H.

Using WordPress, you can build your own fully functioning, customized e-commerce website with a customized theme and logo design for less than $150.  I’m not talking about a cheesy, poorly designed site either, but a clean, well-designed, professional looking e-commerce site.  In fact, Sell It! on the Web was re-designed exactly in this manner.

Customized E-Commerce Site in WordpressHere are the details of how to do it and how much each component will cost:

  • WordPress Installation – $0
  • Hosting Account:  $5-$10/month
  • Customized WordPress Theme < $100
  • WordPress E-Commerce Plugin – $0
  • Logo Design < $50
  • 3rd Party Merchant Account – $0

WordPress Installation

The WordPress installation itself you can download and install very easily on your own.  The only thing that you’ll need in addition to the WordPress download is a hosting account, which you can get very inexpensively.

Hosting

Many of the most competitive and affordable web hosting companies provide installation support for WordPress.  In fact, there are several web hosts (below) that offer “one-click” WordPress installs to make it even easier to install.  The cost of hosting on a monthly basis for these 3 companies is $5-$10 per month and you can get discounts for buying a year in advance, if you should so choose.  Here are several of the most reputable and reliable “one click” WordPress hosts:

Free WordPress Themes

You can download either a free theme or a customized theme, depending on your preference for the “look and feel” of your site. Here are a few places to find free themes:

Customized Themes

Wordpress has a vast array of customized, affordable themes that will give your Wordpress site it’s very own professional, customized look.  Single license fees for most of these themes are available for less than $100.  In fact, Sell It! on the Web uses the DIY “Thesis” theme.

WordPress E-Commerce Plugin

You can download the WP e-Commerce plugin to integrate a full featured shopping cart application, allowing you to easily sell your products and services online.  The WP e-Commerce plugin is ideal for bands and record labels selling music, for clothing merchandisers, as well as artists and individuals selling items such as books, DVD’s and MP3 files.  The plugin is also available free of charge.

Logo Design

You can easily design your own logo to integrate into your WordPress theme using Microsoft Paint or Microsoft Word.  A better solution might be to mock-up or “rough out” your design ideas in Paint or Word and then forward to an inexpensive logo design company, such as LogoNerds.com, to design the finished logo.  LogoNerds can design a customized logo for you for less than $50.

3rd Party Merchant Account

Use a 3rd party merchant account like PayPal or 2Checkout instead of getting your own dedicated merchant account.  You can easily convert your 3rd party account when the time is right, you have the revenue to justify it and you can afford the expense of a dedicated merchant account.  Until then, stick with a 3rd party account that will charge you a small percentage per transaction instead of big upfront expenses and fees.

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Tagged as: e-commerce, online business, online sales, wordpress

{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

Paul Clark November 12, 2009 at 3:16 am

Thanks, we just purchased the DIY thesis theme. Found your post very helpful.

Thanks

Bill H. November 12, 2009 at 3:28 am

Thesis will undoubtedly be one of the best investments you’ll ever make in your website, hands down.

tia January 9, 2010 at 5:58 pm

that WOULD be brilliant… except the ecommerce plugin doesn’t work with fatcow hosting.
so there’s a wad of money blown.
woop.

itcians June 24, 2010 at 2:27 am

Get a Custom Designed Wordpress Powered CMS or Blog at just $150

Colin8ch September 23, 2010 at 12:01 pm

Great post on getting an ecommerce site online quickly and with a minimum investment. Wordpress is so much more robust than just a “blog”. Woo themes has some really nice web 2.0 looking themes now that makes it even easier to plug in some content and be selling your products online in no time.

Sherie October 25, 2010 at 10:02 am

Started building my online store using Twenty Ten theme and WP ECommerce plugin. I’d like to change to Thesis though. My store is operational now, just continuing to load more products. Will I have to start unloading my listings all over again? Or will ECommerce plugin, graphics and product files change over automatically when I install Thesis? I’m praying I won’t have to start building my store all over from scratch. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. ~Sherie

Bill H. October 25, 2010 at 12:03 pm

Thesis has a great support team that can answer questions specific to the ECommerce plugin. My first inclination would be to say that it shouldn’t be a problem simply because WP ECommerce is a DB driven plugin that shouldn’t be effected by a change in themes. But I would inquire at Thesis forums and maybe even send an email the ECommerce plugin folks as well.

Sheila November 7, 2011 at 8:30 pm

I would like to hire someone to create an ecommerce website to sell my book using wordpress.
How can I find someone with the knowledge of seo?
Any suggestions? I really don’t want to try and do this myself with the added part of accepting paypal and downloading a pdf file after purchase. Also, I would like a lot of help with seo.
Thank you.

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