Sell your designs online

Looking to pay for a new Rolls Royce or fill your swimming pool with champagne using the proceeds from you creative projects? An online store isn’t guaranteed to make you that kind of money, but there’s no harm in trying. If you think your work is worth selling, chances are someone will want to buy it, so why not stick a shop on your site?

The two main reasons people don’t bite the bullet and create e-commerce solutions for their sites are the twin fears of cost and difficulty. Admittedly, a bespoke, bells and whistles shopping cart system can be an expensive project, and the code required can look like spaghetti thrown at the wall, but there are some more cost-effective alternatives.

With a small – and I mean small – amount of HTML knowledge, it’s possible to graft an online store to your site, or create one from scratch, using the free solutions offered by PayPal, FastCart and others. Over the next three issues you’ll be shown step-by-step how easy it is to design and build your own online store, starting here with the best way to design your shop. What you then spend your profits on is up to you...