Most first-time sellers and small businesses don’t want the hassle of setting up websites, taking care of hosting, security, or processing payments. If you would like to focus on just selling products, many websites are offering to set up a store for you in minutes with professional pre-made designs and powerful customisation under the hood.

Take a look at some of the best free and paid services we could find to build an e-shop the easy way. It’s perfect for bedroom based crafters, bands, clothes designers, and artists.

1. Shopify

A popular choice with designers for template layout customisation www.shopify.com

Example stores:

2. Etsy

Ideal for individuals with hand-made items, and a fantastic community www.etsy.com

3. Big Cartel

Do-it-yourself web shop, and our favourite! www.bigcartel.com

Example stores:

4. Volusion

Scales up to a larger business store when you outgrow your small one www.volusion.com

Example stores:

5. Art Flock

Creative community ideal for selling original artworks on canvas www.artflock.com

Other links of note:

• Bonanzle: The new kid on the block, a fun place to sell items and socialise at the same time
• BuyitSellit: Best of all, it’s free!
• Garage Sale: A new Facebook application to advertise and sell stuff to your network of friends

“Imitate the best until you are the best.”

Finding inspirational design is a great place to start before creating an online shop. This post showcases 30 examples of fresh and modern e-commerce, you might find some new ideas for your own store.

We’ve collected a variety of looks from high tech and minimalist to unusual scrapbook textures and spring fresh colours.

Scrapbook look

Bright colours, torn edges and scraps of textured paper are all elements of the stylish scrapbook design. Extra effects like sticky tape and paperclips give them a realistic feel.

Fox Cubs has the perfect blend of outdoors imagery to set the mood for a family hike

Scrapbook Your Memories incorporates the textures from products into the page design

Mouse to Minx is a quaint burlesque store with a fresh twist

Anthropologie

Island Snow

Rose Buds

Free People blends together a collage of hand made elements for this unique look

Spring fresh style

Greens and crisp whites make this a popular choice for an exciting design inspired by springtime. Added grass and insect imagery help connect visitors to nature.

Taste Book

Just Dogs

Kaivalya Hoop Dancers

Blooming Direct

Lekmer

Lady Bugs Picnic

Minimalist design

Big images feature on the home page of these minimalist designs to grab the eyes attention in one place.

Dyson

Supermarket

Rotofugi

Emptees

Nine West

High-tech store

Stark colour contrasts and bold fonts grab the attention of these male dominated technology stores. Elements are tied together with a single colour to balance out the black on white.

Bell

Aperion Audio

Tokyo Cube

Clear Channel Satellite

Abt

Crate and Barrel

Apple Store

Feminine feel

Lots of baby blues and sweet pinks make these designs ideal for the female customers you might expect at these stores. Rounded corners also feature heavily in some designs.

The Knot

Pink Frosting

Hullabaloo Parties

2Cute

RH Baby & Child

This theme requires the WP e-Commerce plugin from here for shopping cart functionality, but works as a fully functional blog on its own. The design features custom made ‘Add to Cart’ buttons and a beautiful shopping cart widget design.

Download the theme for free!

• Live Demo
• Download Crafty Cart (.zip package)

How do I set up a wordpress shopping cart and start making money?

It’s easy! Just follow these simple steps…

• Download the popular e-Commerce plugin for WordPress completley free
• Install the plugin and activate, remember to enter your PayPal or Google Checkout details in the settings for payment processing
• Get the e-Commerce theme that will transform your WordPress blog into a shop – Download Crafty Cart
• Activate the theme in the WordPress admin. Done.

Some cool features of crafty cart

I made my best effort to keep the code tidy and clearly organised for easy styling and changing the design to your taste. It comes with full Widget support, plus Gravatars and separate Pingbacks as standard in modern themes. It’s such a pain to upgrade the plugin and redo all the template hacks normally, so I included everything you need in a single theme folder which makes upgrading a breeze.

Keep an eye out for more freebies like this one in the near future, subscribe to our RSS feed.