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How to Build a Low-Budget Ecommerce Website in 2025

on 7 July 2025, by Bogdan, in Blog, Cloud, Guides

by Bogdan

Want to learn how to build an ecommerce website in the most affordable way possible this year? This guide will walk you through the essential steps of creating an online store from scratch without breaking the bank.

There are countless tools, ecommerce platforms, and tactics out there for building an online shop. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed or unsure where to begin. Sometimes, you may spend more money on tools than is needed to build an ecommerce site.

In this guide, we’ll help you cut through the noise by showing you clear steps to build a store, even on a tight budget. We’ll also recommend the best, most affordable platform you can use moving forward.

Here’s what we’ll go over:

How to plan your ecommerce business before building starts.
How to choose the right platform (and why Brizy Shop is the most affordable option).
How to set up, build, and optimize your online store from scratch.

Let’s get started right away.

How to plan your e-commerce business before you start building your shop

Before you create an online store, it helps to take a step back and consider what makes your product or service unique and who it’s for. This step usually involves defining your niche and conducting market research to confirm if your e-commerce business idea has real demand and room for growth.

Doing these things can help you save time, money, and stress later as you build.

Define your niche

Instead of trying to sell everything, find a niche where you can actually solve a clear problem or meet a strong demand. One way to approach this is by choosing a specific type of product or targeting a certain group of customers.

For example, “personal care” is a broad term.

However, selling anti-dandruff shampoo for men with sensitive scalps is a niche.

Conduct market research and select products

The whole point of conducting market research is to learn three major things:

Find out who your competitors are. The best way to do this is to conduct a competitive analysis. For example, you can identify direct and indirect competitors in your area and look at what they sell, how they price, and how they market.
Learn more about your potential customers. Who are they? What do they need? What problems can you solve for them?

Is Brizy Shops available for all Brizy plans?

Yes. Brizy Shops is a Cloud add-on you can enable on any Cloud plan, per website.

Pro tip: You can gain genuine insights by speaking directly with customers. Take surveys, make questionnaires, or run social media polls.

Identify relevant market trends in your chosen niche. Free tools like Google, Ubersuggest, or Ahrefs can help spot trends and keyword ideas to validate demand.

Doing this kind of market research can help you select product items that have proven demand and even decide your e-commerce business model.

Decide on an e-commerce business model

An e-commerce business model is simply how you plan to make money by selling products or services online. It explains the type of product or service you sell, where you get those products, how you deliver them to customers, and how customers pay you.

There are several e-commerce business models to consider. Here’s a brief breakdown of a common one:

Sell your own products

This model involves selling something that you:

Make yourself. Handmade crafts, baked goods, or artwork.
Design or manufacture. For example, clothing, gadgets, or accessories.
Own and resell. For example, collectibles or secondhand items.

This model gives you full control over your product quality, pricing, and brand. But also means you’ll handle inventory, packaging, and shipping yourself.

Buy and resell products

Instead of selling your own products, you can purchase items from a supplier or manufacturer and sell them to your customers. This is called retail or wholesale. And of course, you’ll resell at a higher, but reasonable price in order to make some profit.

White-labeling can also fall into this e-commerce model, but with a twist. This model allows you to sell products made by someone else, but under your brand name. The supplier produces the product, and you put your logo, label, or packaging on it. Customers think it’s your brand.

Want to find out different types of products you can sell as white label? Take a look at our post on 14 of the best white label products to sell this year.

Dropshipping

In simpler terms, dropshipping is a way of selling products without holding inventory.

When a customer places an order, you will forward it to your supplier, who will ship it directly to the customer. Your profit is the difference between the price you charge customers and the amount the supplier or partner charges you.

Note: This is often popular with beginners because it has low startup costs and minimal financial risk.

Other common types of ecommerce models include:

Print-on-demand. In this model, store owners create custom designs for things like shirts or mugs, and a partner prints and ships them when someone orders.

Sell digital products. This includes selling digital downloads like eBooks, templates, or online courses. No shipment is required.
Subscription-based model. Customers pay regularly (like monthly) for access to products or services. This works well for things like food boxes or memberships.

Once you’ve decided on the business model you’ll sell things online, finding an e-commerce platform to build an online store on a low budget will be easy.

What are the most affordable platforms for starting an online storefront?

To find the best and most affordable ecommerce platform, we considered the full cost estimates for building and running a store. Not just the starting price.

That’s because what seems “affordable” upfront might not stay that way if your store grows or your needs change.

Affordable e-commerce platforms:

The following are the top e-commerce platforms we narrowed down to because of their affordability (and the extensive features they offer):

Shopify. It is a popular and user-friendly platform that lets you build online stores. Shopify’s basic plan is the cheapest and incurs the highest transaction fees of 2% for each sale, if you didn’t know. These small percentage cuts can add up and significantly eat into your profit margins.

WooCommerce. WooCommerce is the best e-commerce platform to add store functionality strictly to a WordPress site. While it’s free, add-on costs from extra features like hosting, plugins, or integrations often cost more (if you don’t choose wisely).

Brizy Cloud Shops. If you’re already using Brizy (and you’re not on WordPress), Brizy Shops offers the easiest and most beginner-friendly way to create an online store with their e-commerce website builder. It’s affordable with its venture plan starting at $14 per month.

Because of its simplicity and unique approach, we recommend it if you’re a small business owner or a new shop that doesn’t need the complexity or high fees associated with Shopify or WordPress + WooCommerce. Here’s why.

Why is Brizy Cloud Shops the best choice

Firstly, Brizy Shops is a robust add-on that lets you turn your Brizy Cloud website into a complete online store where you can sell various products and services.

This shop add-on is powered by Ecwid integration directly into Brizy Cloud.

Note: Ecwid is a trusted and robust e-commerce solution for over a decade and is used by hundreds of thousands of merchants worldwide.

Thanks to the Ecwid integration, you get all the powerful ecommerce features needed to create, market, and smoothly run a successful online shop from a centralized Brizy CMS dashboard. Additionally, you will enjoy all the benefits Brizy Cloud provides, like web hosting, security, automatic backups, a robust drag-and-drop editor, shop templates, and more.

With Brizy Shops, you will be able to:

Add and manage products easily.
Run discounts and promotions like gift cards.
Set up multiple and secure payment gateways.

Manage customers and track store orders in real time.
Sell on social platforms, marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, and even in person using a POS system.

So, what really makes Brizy Shops the best choice?

Brizy Shops is a versatile e-commerce solution.

It works for many types of businesses, whether you're a small shop, freelancer, agency, or startup. You can sell physical products, digital downloads, services, or take bookings. It supports both simple stores and growing online brands.

In addition, with Brizy Shops, you're not limited to just selling on your website. You can connect to a social media platform you already use, marketplaces, or even sell in person via a POS system. That opens more ways to reach your customers, with less effort.

And because it’s built on Brizy Cloud, you get full control over design and branding. You can design a storefront that looks and feels like your brand using a simple, yet robust drag-and-drop editor.

Note: With Brizy Shops, you won’t have to pay transaction fees for each sale like Shopify charges for all its plans. Instead, you only cover monthly costs for the Brizy PRO plan and a separate fee for the Brizy Shops add-on to add ecommerce features. These two costs cover every feature you need to host, design, and run your store.

Scalable inventory management

Not to forget, Brizy Shops makes it easy to manage your products, no matter how small or large your inventory is.

At the beginning, you can start with a small number of products and grow at your own pace. As your store expands, Brizy Shops allows you to add unlimited product listings. You can organize your inventory with categories, tags, and filters to help customers find what they're looking for quickly. This makes it simple to scale without losing control.

Up next, we’ll walk you through setting up your store now that you’ve picked an e-commerce platform to sell your products.

How to set up and optimize your online store

Let’s look at how you can set up your online store and optimize it for sales using Brizy.

Buy your domain and set up hosting

Usually, the first component of building a website is getting a domain name and a web host.

If you already use Brizy Cloud, you won’t need to worry about finding a host. Brizy fully hosts this cloud-based platform and all web projects. This means all the technical setup, such as server configurations, performance optimization, backups, and security, is automatically handled on your behalf.

Brizy Cloud supports a custom domain, too. You can easily connect your own domain (like yourstorename.com) to your Brizy Cloud website instead of using the default Brizy subdomain (like yourstore.brizy.site).

So, once you buy a domain from a registrar like Namecheap or GoDaddy, go ahead and connect it to your Brizy Cloud Shop project on the dashboard.

Quick tip: In Brizy, connecting to a domain can come last after your entire shop is set up and ready to launch.

Choose a theme and design your store

A theme is just a pre-designed layout with images, text, buttons, and other elements. It allows you to modify the appearance of your website quickly instead of creating web pages from scratch.

Brizy Cloud, like other e-commerce platforms, allows you to start building your shop from scratch, with AI, or a ready-made shop template.

New in Brizy Cloud: Generating a new Brizy Cloud project with AI now lets you instantly build a full, multipage website in minutes. Generate your homepage, About Us, Contact, and more pages instantly. No templates. No starting from scratch. Just click, generate, and customize.

Ready to sell? Activate the Brizy Shops add-on anytime to turn your site into a fully functional online store.

Activate the Brizy Shops add-on

Activating the Brizy Shops add-on turns a project into a full e-commerce store. It unlocks all shop features you need to:

Add products
Set up payments
Sell on multiple channels

Manage orders
Manage clients and billing

The activation will also give you access to all e-commerce page templates to design your shop pages.

So, on your Brizy dashboard:

Hover over your new project.
Click the meatballs (⋯) menu to open additional project options.
Select Activate Shop and choose a plan to enable the shop functionality.

This adds e-commerce features to your project so you can start adding products and set up your store.

Add products to your store and set up categories

Normally, products are added to an online store as images. That implies you must capture high-quality images that can convince customers to buy.

This is because 75% of online shoppers love to inspect product photos before they decide to buy. If the images are high quality, they are more likely to buy than if the images are of low quality.

Here are a few tips to capture high-quality images:

Choose a clean, neutral background.
Use natural light where possible.
Capture each product from multiple angles, like close-ups, side views, or the depth of the canvas or frame.
Edit each photo with the right Photoshop tool, such as Adobe or Lightroom.

Pro tip: We have a media library where you can manage, organize, and save these product photos.

Write detailed product descriptions for each product as well. Descriptions are just as important because they give customers key details that a product photo can’t show (e.g., size, condition).

When your product photos are ready, you can add them to your Brizy shop.

List your products in Brizy Shops

Brizy Shops' functionality does a good job of making this process as simple as possible. It also includes additional features like nice product templates and image zoom to make your products pop, detailed, and informative.

Just click the hamburger menu at the top left corner of the Brizy CMS dashboard. Then, go to Shop > Products > Add New Products to upload your recently captured product photos.

You’ll see this classic Brizy Shops editing screen that includes fields like product name, product gallery, product description, prices, SKU, product availability, and so on. There’s a lot of info to add on this screen:

You can add attributes, product options, SEO keywords, etc., and enable related products.

Next, organize your products into categories. Categories help your customers find what they need faster. For example, if you sell clothing, you might create categories like Men, Women, Accessories, or New Arrivals. You can also add tags to group products even further, such as by color, style, or season.

When you’re finished, click the Publish button to add your products.

Set up shipping and payment options

Next, you can set up shipping and payment methods so customers can complete their purchases smoothly.

To add shipping, go to Project Settings > Shop > Shipping tab on your BrizyCMS dashboard. You’ll be able to add a new shipping or delivery method to your store. This depends largely on your business model. For example, if you sell locally, you can also offer local pickup as an option.

Offer multiple payment options too

Don’t forget to add multiple payment gateways so customers won’t abandon their carts because they can’t find their preferred payment method.

Keep in mind that around 10% of customers abandon carts because there weren’t enough payment methods.

Go to Project settings > Shop > Payments tab and enable secure payment options like PayPal, Stripe, or direct bank transfer. If you’re selling internationally, choose gateways that support multiple currencies or those options that are locally supported.

Note: Brizy Shops, because of Ecwid integration, allow you to process transactions from over 70 payment providers, if you didn’t know.

Other things you can do in the Project settings screen include:

Importing a product catalog or customer data from your previously Ecwid store into Brizy Cloud.
Set up taxes, legal policies, return policies, and so on. By the way, every shop needs a clear refund and return policy to reduce misunderstandings and build trust.

Market your e-commerce store

Marketing your shop online is really just about helping people discover you, feel connected to your store, and understand how to buy your products or services. You can do that in a way that suits your style, your energy, and your goals.

Here are some gentle, practical ways to get started on a low budget:

Social media marketing

You can pick one or two platforms you already like or use. You don’t need to be everywhere. Just focus on the social media platforms where your style of doing business fits naturally and where you already enjoy spending time.

Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok are popular for sharing pictures of your products and other visual content. YouTube or even LinkedIn can also work, depending on your audience.

Here are a few low-effort content ideas:

Use stories and reels to share the story behind your business and what motivates you.
Post behind-the-scenes photos or videos of how you make or package your products.
Share customer testimonials or reviews using screenshots or simple text posts.

Share a quick tip related to your niche or a fun fact about your product.
Repost user-generated content when customers tag you.

Quick tip: Set a timer for 30 minutes once a week to schedule a few posts ahead using a free tool like Buffer or Later. Then, you can stop thinking about it for a few days.

Start small with email marketing

You don’t need a big mailing list to see results. What matters more is having a small group of people who genuinely care about your work. These are often the customers more likely to support your business long term, recommend it to others, and come back to buy again.

The easiest way to build an email list is to add a simple signup form with a promise of what they'll get in return.

What emails could you send?

A quick update on what’s new in your store (with a direct link to buy).
The story or inspiration behind a new product
Early access to new items or subscriber-only discounts.

Quick tip: Start with just one email a month. Set a reminder, write it like you’re talking to a friend, and hit send.

Collaborations and like-minded partnerships

Working with others can open doors you couldn’t open alone. You don’t need a big network. Just one or two like-minded people who share your values or whose audience overlaps with yours can introduce your business to a new group of potential customers without needing a big campaign.

Here are a few practical ideas you can try:

Co-create a product with a local artist or maker (e.g., a special edition item or bundle).
Run a giveaway where both of you promote it and share followers.

Write a joint blog or email feature introducing each other’s work.
Collaborate with micro-influencers who love your product and genuinely want to share it.

Quick tip: Think small and genuine. A local artist, a small business, a creator, or even an influencer you admire could be your best partner.

Search visibility (take advantage of search engines)

People are searching for products and services every day. They literally type what they need into Google or other search engines. Showing up in those search results can bring the right people straight to your store.

Where to start:

Use clear product titles and descriptions. Add words your customers would naturally use when searching. Think simple, direct, and relevant.
Write helpful content. Short blog posts or how-to guides related to your products give search engines more to index and more reasons to show your site.

Fill in your SEO settings. Add page titles, meta descriptions, and image alt text. These help search engines understand your site better and show your pages to the right people.

You don’t need to master every e-commerce marketing strategy. Just start with one or two that feel doable and build from there.

Launch your store and monitor traffic and sales

Before launch, you should run some tests on your e-commerce website to identify and fix issues and bugs.

One way you can do this is to invite some of your close friends, team, or family members to test your e-commerce site and give their feedback. Ask for their feedback using feedback forms, comment cards, questionnaires, etc. You can then make final adjustments based on the feedback they gave.

When you’ve confirmed your online shop is working smoothly, you can officially announce it’s open on social media, email, and on your website.

Monitor traffic and sales, and respond to customer inquiries

From this point on, your focus should shift to understanding how people are using your store. Use built-in analytics and reports to track where your traffic is coming from, what products are being viewed, and how sales are performing.

Finally, respond quickly to customer questions or issues as they arise. They’re often the people most ready to buy. The better your customer experience, the more likely they’ll come back or tell others. Keep refining your store based on what the data and your customers are telling you.

Start building your online store today

Building an online store doesn’t have to be expensive. With a bit of planning and the right tools, you can build a store that truly reflects your brand and make it easy for people to buy the products you work so hard to create.

Planning helps you stay focused and avoid spending on things you don’t need. That means doing your research, choosing the right products to sell, and deciding how you want to run your e-commerce business.

And when you’re ready to build your store, Brizy Shops gives you everything you need at a fraction of what larger ecommerce platforms may charge. These include powerful ecommerce features, modern store templates, and all the benefits of the Brizy Cloud platform, like an editor, hosting, and connecting to your domain.

If you’re looking for a smart, affordable way to launch your online store, Brizy Shops is built to help you start strong and grow with ease.

Get started today and bring your store to life — on your terms.

Article by Bogdan

Co-founder & Head of Design, Bogdan has a passion for everything that works great and looks awesome. Guilty for most of the UI and UX around this place and for the product roadmap.