How do I make a website to sell my merchandise?

Go to your local High School and see if the computer technology instructors would like a "live" test for the class. It would be a great practical application for them.

Building an on line business starts with you. What do you have a passion for or what is your hobby. This is your niche. Next identify profitable topics within that niche. By topics I mean information that you will use to build traffic through your unique voice. Make a content blueprint of your site including the perfect domain name. Research other monetization options besides your merchandise. What are you going to sell? Are you going to use affiliates or do you want to write an e-book. These are the first steps. You need a plan. After that you can start to concentrate on web hosting and site building. There are some good site builders available but check them out. Some are cheap and simply warehouses full of useless sites. You need one that offers support ( critical) and has the tools needed to build a long term profitable business at no extra charge. Some appear inexpensive but the fine print tells you to pay for the extras. Search these out carefully. Most of these don't require HTML knowledge. They are wysiwyg builders. be sure they show exactly how to build the pages for the search engines. Once you have done that you will start to create your sites look and feel, build a home page, submit sitemap to the search engines,build a footer , and then start your 1st tier pages. These are the pages on your nav bar. It is not as scary as it sounds but it does require planning and motivation. I don't want to violate the community guidelines so if you need more info simply e-mail me.

I highly recommend the site www.ecrater.com . I have 2 stores on this site, and it's 100% free. The only fee I pay is to PayPal when I make a sale. There's no picture, listing or sales fee ever. If you have merchandise ready to sell, just take pictures, upload to the site and add your description. It's not an auction venue, you list your price and that's it. It has Google analytics now, so you can gain more hits from web searches. The format is pretty boring, (white background with colored borders) but you can't beat the price. We have a great and helpful community forum for beginners, you can post up to 10 pictures of each item, and list as many items as you want, with no time limit. The marketing is up to you. If you sell at craft fairs or shops, just get some cards from VistaPrint(free as well!) with your new ecrater web address, and hand them out everywhere you go. Good luck!

Look at Yahoo Small business hosting service...it will cost you $39.95 per month but easy to put your item and sell it online.