It’s a bit expensive looking at the top/popular online store options at first glance.
 
So to simplify it a little bit, there’s roughly 3 options folks go with that we see everyday:

Drop-Shipping & Printing

This is where you pay the company for hosting your store and they also let you upload designs and they'll print/ship the product for you (is a bit pricey, depending).

This is ideal if you're a graphic designer or artist. And sites like Printify.com can provide you a store design or you can use your own like mine (www.freshairflavor.com/catalog)

Hosted E-Commerce Store

This is what you see most businesses and start-ups use.

Things like Shopify.com or Sellfy.com . Shopify focuses more on selling physical products, whereas Sellfy focuses on selling digital products and physical products.

Annually, Shopify is $479.88 ($39/month) and Sellfy is $264 ($29/mo...$49/mo to remove their branding).

Self-Hosted Online Store

This is the option I go with and also advise clients/people to go with, especially nowadays.

You pay monthly/annually for hosting a website/store, which also comes with the same if not similar page builder and store builder tools the above options come with.

The common tools: WordPress for the site, Elementor for the page building, and store plugin like WooCommerce for selling.

The storefront option I go with is called WooCommerce, and this trio of WordPress-Elementor-WooCommerce built my store I linked above (Fresh Air Flavor Catalog). I use Printify to sell the graphic design products until I start putting physical products up for sale. 
 
 
One big piece of advice: have a product or service already to sell. If you’re still figuring out or wondering how to make your first product or service, click here. 
 
 
Hopefully that cleared things up. Feel free to ask me any questions or leave a comment below.
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