The process of selling your products online is becoming easier, and users have more tools to be visible online without extensive technical knowledge. You can use Facebook’s Marketplace and its business pages, where you can open a store and connect it with Instagram, which has become an essential option for entrepreneurs. There’s already the option to make purchases from Instagram, where you can tag a product in a post, and from there, your customer can go to your website’s shopping cart and make the transaction easily. It’s called Facebook or Instagram Shopping.

In addition to social media, sellers have the option to subscribe to marketplaces like Mercado Libre or Amazon, which have the infrastructure to offer your products. However, for many entrepreneurs, these platforms present high costs, as they can deduct up to 17% of the value of your products as a commission and cover fiscal and banking taxes. This alternative, in the end, is an intermediary that increases the cost to the final consumer, making the product less competitive.

The world of open-source software offers cost-free alternatives with minimal internet knowledge using platforms like WordPress and WooCommerce. These need to be set up on a website, to which you should give your domain or internet name and hosting to make it available on the network. I’ve known some entrepreneurs who have gone through this process themselves with some success. However, it requires time to set up the page, and time is something good entrepreneurs don’t have. There are many elements to take care of to ensure the page works correctly and, more importantly, provides a pleasant experience for the buyer and generates trust in making a purchase.

The main benefit of this last alternative is that you manage shipping fees, they don’t deduct handling commissions, and you take care of your taxes. You receive the money from your sales in your bank account, reducing costs for the benefit of the consumer and your own.

However, in terms of marketing and promotion, you are practically on your own.

Looking at it in perspective, publishing your products and selling them online is not difficult, but once they’re posted, entrepreneurs face the real challenge. Promoting their items and making them visible to the public amid an ocean of alternatives that buyers have to choose from.

There’s a whole science behind this. Promoting products and selling for free online isn’t difficult, but it requires perseverance, discipline, and consistency to be constantly posting content on social networks, writing blogs, taking photos, sharing, commenting, and participating. It’s a slow process, but as it grows, you can see the results. Seeing people comment, share your products, and make purchases is the reward.

Of course, there’s the fast track, which requires paid advertising to boost your products. It can be expensive, but it has immediate benefits. Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads are not massive or targeted at everyone; they are rather targeted advertising that goes to people who may be interested in your products. If your products are for a young audience, you can schedule ads to reach them specifically directly on their social networks from their own devices for a specific time.

In summary, selling online is a job. It’s not just posting, and customers come to buy. It’s a task that many pay for professionals like “Community Managers” to do full-time, given that promoting products and services requires it. But it’s not impossible, so go for it!