Creating an online store is an essential first step for small business owners and artists who want to receive greater visibility in the marketplace. According to the latest statistics, about 2.7 billion people shop from e-commerce stores, and this number is projected to grow at an unprecedented rate in the upcoming years. Hence, it’s even more important to leverage these consumers and scale your business by selling your goods online. 

Are you looking for a platform to create your e-commerce store? Big Cartel is one such platform. It offers an easy-to-use interface to make your store, especially for artists looking to sell their artwork without having to worry about complex set-ups. However, building a successful Big cartel website necessitates more than just adding products; a thoughtful approach to branding, design, and user interaction is also required. This blog will guide you through the essential steps for creating an online store, including the Big Cartel cost structure and the setup process. So, let’s get started!

What is Big Cartel?

Big Cartel is an online marketplace created especially for creative businesses that want to sell their goods easily. To that end, the platform is designed with small business owners in mind and helps them build an e-commerce website without any complications. An advantage of a Big Cartel website is that it has an intuitive interface that lets users add custom themes to their online store and manage a number of products for free. Users can upgrade their plan as their business expands, offering easy scalability and adaptability. 

Furthermore, Big Cartel stands out for its community-focused ideas and for offering resources and assistance to creative people who are seeking to carve a niche for themselves in the competitive market. This makes Big Cartel a popular choice among those who value ease, affordability, and a welcoming environment for promoting a range of creative products, from handmade t-shirts and art prints to premium pottery. 

Key Features

Let’s look at some of the key features of the Big Cartel website:

• The platform offers a free plan with limited features to help you get started. 
• Automation with built-in SEO tools, tax calculation, and website-building with customizable templates. 
• Easy store migration by importing products from other marketplaces. 
• Comprehensive real-time reporting and analytics to help you make data-driven decisions to scale your business. 
• Integration of multiple payment gateway options. 

Big Cartel Cost

Big Cartel focuses on business-friendly and scalable plans. You can currently choose from the Gold, Platinum, or Diamond Big Cartel cost plans. Every plan has different features designed to meet your business's demands.

Gold

Platinum

Diamond

Free

$15/month

$30/month

Product catalog containing 5 products with 1 image for each product only.

List up to 50 products with 5 images per product.

500 product listings available with 25 images per product. 

Import products from other e-commerce stores and marketplaces. 

Bulk edit all your products for enhanced automation.

Priority support for quick query resolution. 

Real-time store-related data.

Advanced analytics with a real-time sales dashboard

Dashboard integrated with Google Analytics to gauge your performance and attract organic traffic with best SEO practices. 

No dedicated ad support

Ad support for social media and Google ads

It enables the creation of ads targeting certain consumer segments like Facebook, Google, etc. 

E-commerce store with a generic domain.

Custom domain integration

Allows advanced control and customization features. 

Ideal for those looking for a cost-effective solution or starting out with their online stores. 

Established stores that need more advanced options. 

Perfect for those looking to scale their processes and scales with dedicated support rapidly. 

Additional Big Cartel Costs You Must Consider

Before selecting an appropriate Big Cartel cost plan, there are other indirect or additional investments you need to take into account to improve your website's performance. This might involve additional costs like:

• Domain name cost: Your domain name is your website's address, which provides complete details to guide consumers to your site. You can buy a custom domain directly from Big Cartel for $1 in your first year. After that, depending on the top-level domain (TLD) extension you choose, such as .com, .net, or .biz, the domain primarily costs $10 to $20 annually.
• Templates & design cost: Big Cartel makes all its customizable templates available for free. However, if you want to save time and customize special features for a storefront, the price will range from $3,000 to $10,000 for each design.
• Apps & integration cost: To enhance your web store, you need to increase the number of add-ons or integrations using strong third-party apps. With all pricing plans, Big Cartel offers access to a large number of apps for higher functionalities, such as manufacturing, store management, marketing, promotion, and payment processors. All these apps cost anywhere between $0 and $40 a month.
• Marketing cost: The paid Big Cartel plans, at no additional cost, also offer basic marketing services, including traffic reporting and setting up discount tags. However, if you want to engage your customers more effectively, you can invest more in SEO and new marketing ideas. Many marketing apps integrate with your Big Cartel website, which can charge an average of $12 to $40 per month.

Big Cartel Website Setup

Once you select the ideal Big Cartel plan after factoring in the total cost, you may be wondering about the setup process. Here is a step-by-step process to set up your Big cartel website easily, without any stress. 

Step 1: Sign Up for a Big Cartel Account

1. Navigate to the official Big Cartel website and register on your account by clicking on the Open Your Shop button.

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2. Once you select that option, Big Cartel will automatically take you to the pricing section. Choose the pricing plan that fits your needs and click on Select. The free plan allows you to get started creating your store right away.

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3. To create an account, you just need to provide your email address, the name of your shop, the store's URL, and an account password. If you have a custom domain, you can connect it later.

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Step 2: Set Your Store Location & Currency

1. As soon as you sign up for the account, you'll be taken straight to your dashboard. There, you are presented with a checklist that outlines everything you need to do to get your Big Cartel store up and running.
2. You will need to provide your location. The setup wizard provides a link for this.

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3. Since Big Cartel uses your location to calculate the taxes you must add to each order, it is important.

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Step 3: Add Your Products

1. Now that you have set your location and currency, it’s time to add your products.
2. To add a product, you can either click on Products from the top menu or navigate to the checklist on your dashboard.

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3. Provide the item's price, description, and name for the product.
4. If you sell multiple product types, you can add categories and apply the category to each of them. 
5. Also, you can set different prices for different variables.

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6. Go to your product page and scroll down to set up options for the product. The option to set up variations will appear. 
7. If your product has more than one size or color option, click on Add Variant Group.

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8. After that, Big Cartel will automatically generate every product variation for you.

Step 4: Set Up Backend Tools

Once your product catalog is ready, you can start configuring other settings for your store. These consist of creating shipping profiles, linking payment processors, and modifying checkout preferences.

Set Payment Options

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• With Big Cartel, you may accept payments using Stripe or PayPal. If you have accounts in both, add each to give your clients additional payment options.
• To accomplish this, select Accounts from your dashboard's main menu, then scroll down to Payments.

Create Shipping Profiles

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• When it comes to shipping, you have two choices. You can create shipping rules for individual products as you add them, or you may fill out shipping profiles and then save them based on country or weight. 
• You can set a shipping cost for "each additional item" and a shipping cost for a single item for your Big Cartel website. This feature may entice the customers to purchase more products since the total shipping cost will be lower.

Adjust Checkout Preferences

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• You can modify the checkout information preferences by clicking on Account in the upper right corner. For example, you can decide whether to require customers' phone numbers during checkout or receive an email each time an order is placed. 
• Additionally, Big Cartel automatically sends clients an email upon placing an order, unless you disable this feature.

Step 5: Design Your Big Cartel Store

Now that your products are added and your backend tools (shipping and payment options) are configured, you can concentrate on the design of your Big Cartel store. Although, you can design your Big Cartel website before proceeding with other steps, if you prefer. 

1. To begin, select your preferred template. There are 18 free themes available on Big Cartel.

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2. After deciding on a theme, you can update your website with new images, fonts, and color schemes.

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Optional: Connect Your Domain

1. You have the option to connect your domain at any time. 
2. Visit your account settings to make this change. 
3. When you move down to your Shop, there's a small heading that reads +Add a custom domain.

In case you don't have a personalized domain, you can buy one from a reputable provider like GoDaddy or Squarespace.

Step 6: Launch Your Big Cartel Store

Once you have finished all the steps, it’s time to open your Big Cartel store! Go through every item on the checklist to make sure you're prepared to accept and process orders and preview your website.

1. Go to your account, select Your Shop, and turn off Maintenance Mode to start your shop.
2. A pop-up window appears requesting that you open your shop.

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Power Your Big Cartel Store with Neo

Your work does not stop with just creating your Big Cartel website. You will have to focus on streamlining your operations, establish a communication platform to interact with your employees, consumers and other stakeholders, as well as enhance your brand awareness. Creating a uniform online presence for your business is simple with email hosting services that integrate your custom domain. Neo, an email hosting platform, is the best choice for those looking for a robust and secure enterprise solution for your e-commerce store.

With helpful features like a co.site domain name, which is free for a year, a complimentary one-page website, email marketing options, AI email writer, and more, Neo aids small businesses in expanding and becoming more productive.

Core Features of Neo

The following are some of Neo's primary features:

• A personalized email address with your domain name is needed for uniform branding.
• Read Receipts feature to monitor emails that the recipients have opened and track your marketing campaigns.
• Email template functionality to craft frequently used emails quickly and automatically.
• You can arrange important emails in a different tab by using the Priority Inbox function.
• Use automated follow-up reminders to respond to unanswered emails.
• You can plan the emails for the optimal delivery time with the Send Later option.

Final Thoughts

Big Cartel offers an easy-to-follow web development process for creating online stores, allowing anyone, regardless of their technical background, to create online operations. After registering and configuring your preferences, you can easily add products and personalize your Big Cartel website. From the first setup to the most advanced customization, you may focus on the significance of a unified brand image and successful customer engagement tactics with this easy-to-navigate platform.

However, once your Big Cartel website is ready to go live, power it with Neo’s email hosting services. It provides you with email marketing tools and business email accounts for a branded and professional look. So, register on Big Cartel today and connect your Neo email account with your shop to scale up!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1. Does the Big Cartel no-cost plan offer a customization option?

The free plan of Big Cartel offers lots of features, including customization options while choosing your store’s theme and template, creating the product catalog, and more. However, the customization options may be limited for some users. 

Q2. Does Big cartel charge a percentage of sales?

Big Cartel does not keep a portion of the sales. Rather, when you use third-party processors like PayPal or Stripe to complete your payments, you will have to pay transaction fees. Generally, Stripe will cost less than PayPal.

Q3. How many items can you sell for free on Big Cartel?

With a forever-free pricing plan, you can sell five products on your eCommerce store and attach an image for each. However, we advise upgrading to premium plans like Platinum or Diamond plans to sell more items.