Experiment with new business ideas on a budget – free web stores 1

As a smart entrepreneur you’re always experimenting with new ideas and projects, most of the time it’s prudent to keep the cost on the project low, or better yet zero.
But as you explore various tools to stand up your experimental project, you find that the tools fall in the one of the following categories:
– The bait and switch : a tool that advertises a very attractive features set, and starts at a low price or has free tier, but you soon find that the features that matter come at a premium, and raises the overall cost to the level of the other paid solutions.
– The beater : A tool that’s seen better times, either runs on old technology or employ a process that is no more effective. But it’s irresistibly cheap or very inexpensive.
– The Free Skeleton : Modern no frills solutions offered for free , usually by tech giants, usually to entice users into their platforms.

One of the projects that entrepreneurs experiment with the most are web stores.

For an established businesses the maintenance cost of web store is peanuts compared to the revenue it generates and the savings it offers the business. For example Shopify Plus starts at $2000 .
But when experimenting with eCommerce you need something that’s effective but doesn’t break the bank.
Obviously 14 days free trial will not cut it, luckily during COVID many free and viable options popped up.

Square is famous for payment processing and POS system but their echo system now encompasses online stores, starting at $0 and include shipping module and selling on Facebook and Instagram, more about selling on these platforms later.

Although at this price level you will not get all the bells and whistles, but for validating a business idea, it’s a good starting point and if the project is will go live and you want to get rid of the Square ads being displayed on the store, and need to use your domain name, the next tier is only $12/month

In the next article we will discuss a surprisingly good web store, with one price tier of $0

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