Updated: March 4, 2024
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We have expressed our belief that small businesses should consider having websites. They are a vital technology if your business is to survive. With them, comes the power to connect to billions of people. We will look at how to use GoDaddy for ecommerce through building an online store. Let’s get building.
Today, we will be building a website through the GoDaddy website builder. This is our first time using it. We will be building a website for a flower shop. Particularly one that specializes in Roses. Why roses? Because we are hopeless romantics.
You can check out our GoDaddy website builder review. We share our experience on what it is like for a beginner. We give you insight on the challenges we faced while building. We also share some of the highlights you might experience when using the website builder.
Is the GoDaddy website builder free?
Like everyone else, we like free things. Whenever you are trying out a product, you should be on the lookout for free versions. Check how long the free version lasts. The longer the free period, the better for your pocket and your experience. A couple of days may not be long enough for you to learn everything you need to.
As of this writing, GoDaddy offers a one month free trial period. GoDaddy will require you to offer a payment method after the trial period or if you want to publish the website you created. So you won’t need to give your credit card details during the trial period. If you already have an account with your payment credentials, they will only charge you after the one month trial period is over.
These terms change often. Please confirm the terms and discounts by visiting the current plans and pricing page.
The Goal
We want to set up an online store for a flower shop. The main pages we will need are:
- Homepage
- Product page
- About us
- Contact us
- Checkout
Let’s get started
Navigate to the GoDaddy website builder page. Here’s how to do it.
If you are on the homepage. Look for the navigation bar at the top. We advise you to use your laptop for this process. You can switch back and forth between this tab and the website builder. The website builder has a phone simulator which will show you how it will look on the phone.
Click on Websites & Hosting
Online Store
A popup menu will show up with more options.
Click on the Online Store button to the left. The button is under the Websites column.
You may wonder why we are not clicking on Website Builder. GoDaddy has created a second category for their Website Builder. The Online Store is a tier above the Website Builder. Here, you will build a website with the ability to list and sell products, accept payments and arrange for shipping. You cannot run a store with the Website Builder option. What you can do instead is have a blog or offer services and schedule appointments. Check the plans and pricing to see what the other differences are.
We will be selling flowers so we go with the Online Store option.
After clicking, you redirect to a page that looks like this.
Feel free to scroll down the page and see what other features to expect.
There are a couple of templates available. A template within the GoDaddy website builder means an already set up build. You can simply edit a template and replace the words and images with your own. It shortens the time to creation and makes the learning curve bearable. It is a smoother introduction to the website builder. Better than ending up staring at an empty screen wondering what to do next.
Would you look at that, we found a template we might like.
The template in the middle looks like it could work for our flower shop. If you hover over the template, you get two options.
You check what the template is about by clicking on Preview.
Once you have navigated through it and liked what you have seen, you can now start working on it.
Click on Start for Free.
Create an Account or Sign in
If you are new to GoDaddy, the website redirects you to a page where you can sign up. You can sign in if you had logged out earlier.
Once you have successfully signed up, the website redirects you to where you can create your website.
Select a category
You’ll be offered the choice to choose the category of your website. We typed in ‘ecommerce’.
Click Next
Enter the site name
The next step is to enter your site name. We chose ‘Wain Rose’ as the name.
Take a tour
After the website builder registers the name of your site, it asks you if you want to take a tour. Why the heck not? It’s only 60 seconds so we are taking a tour. It shows you how to make changes to the website. How to add sections and edit titles.
Create the homepage
Here is where rubber meets the road. We will create the web pages and show you what we came up with. Each page is accessible and edited by clicking on the navigation bar. The website builder divides each page into sections that you can edit and style individually. You can add as many sections as you want and remove the ones you don’t want.
Click on a section to edit it. If you want to edit text, click on it. There is a tool menu on the right with more edit features. We have changed the theme from the one in the previous photo. You can add a background image like our blue rose and change it from the default. The image below shows you how the builder looks when editing the homepage.
Check the images below to see how our homepage looks after making adjustments from the default. We have also added products which the homepage displays in another section.
The photos above are of how the homepage would look like on a desktop. Let us show you how the homepage would look on mobile. Pay attention to the mobile layout because most of your users are on mobile. Users will first search on the phone when shopping. They then change to their laptops if they want to have a better look at the product. Don’t lose your users because of a poor mobile design. They may never come back.
So far it has been easy.
Create the products page
The products page automatically updates once you add the products to your website. We discuss the process in another article. Check out our article on adding products to the GoDaddy website builder. We show you the different ways available.
The products page has an automatic sort feature for your customers. It displays a list of your products. You can use categories to organize your products.
Here are our roses on the products page. Beautiful aren’t they. We are not taking orders though.
Each product has a product page that contains more details about it.
On mobile, the product page has all the attributes.
Create the checkout page
The checkout page already exists. That is another perk of using the GoDaddy website builder. You only click on a button to add the payment methods that you would like to accept on your store. The current supported payment gateways are Square, Stripe and Paypal.
Creating the contact us page
The default contact us page only requires a couple of edits. We have added our contact information. The message box is already configured and ready to use.
Creating an about us page
The about us page gives credibility to you and your business. Show your customers that you are a human and you exist. Here is how the default looks like before.
Here is how it looks after we have made a few tweaks.
Last thing to do to have a website
The platform will need you to have a domain name to publish the website. You can use your own domain name if you already have one. You can purchase one through GoDaddy as well. If you don’t want to commit, you can use a placeholder domain which they will offer you. It takes the format of ‘example.godaddysites.com’. You get to have a functional website where you can test out its features, including checkout.
If it all seems like gibberish, we have prepared a guide on what you need to know before purchasing a domain name. It helps you avoid common mistakes people make when they are starting out. Give it a quick check before you commit to a domain name.
GoDaddy will require you to choose a plan before they publish your website. Remember all this time we have been building on a free trial version. GoDaddy never asked for credit card details nor the plan, which was quite nice.
Now that you have worked on your website and feel comfortable with the tool, you can proceed to the next step. Choosing a payment plan on GoDaddy means you will only pay once the free trial is over. The current option available for anyone who wants to sell products is the GoDaddy Ecommerce plan. You can check the current price here. It is affordable and comes with all the features that will help you keep track of your products. We are talking about shipping and inventory management. It helps you seamlessly connect to your accounts on other platforms like Ebay and Amazon.
Before you go…
You are now familiar with how to go about building an ecommerce store using the GoDaddy website builder. We did not cover the process of adding products because we thought this article would be too long. You can check out our tutorial on how to add products to your GoDaddy online store here.
The process had its highlights and disappointments as with any other website builder. We talk about our honest thoughts on this process on our GoDaddy website builder review. If you have not committed to purchasing, you get to know what you are signing up for. Check it out.
