TL; DR: For the past decade, Weebly has been helping more than 45 million businesses and bloggers around the world broadcast their brands and messages to the masses. The web host’s user-friendly platform makes it easy for entrepreneurs to set up online retail spaces with intuitive tools, including its famous drag-and-drop web builder, professional-grade templates, and integrated marketing and eCommerce solutions, among many others. With top-tier customer support and competitively priced hosting plans, Weebly is dedicated to helping budding entrepreneurs build their businesses from zero to success.
In 2014, Raquel Vamos and Dov Vargas had both been practicing yoga for six years. In that time, they had honed their craft under the guidance of the famed Sri Dharma Mittra and had become successful yoga instructors in New York City.
Looking to create a tool that could help novice yoga practitioners and master yogis alike develop mobility safely and efficiently, the couple put their heads together and imagined a new approach to meditative fitness with the Dharma Yoga Wheel.
Raquel and Dov witnessed the benefits their invention, a wheel-shaped prop that assists in yoga backbends and inversions, was providing their clients and knew they had something special on their hands. The problem: They had no way to get the word out about it. That’s when Raquel and Dov found Weebly.
“I never expected to build a website because I always had that idea that you have to hire someone,” Dov said in a video. “Weebly just changed the game.”
Designed specifically with new entrepreneurs in mind, Weebly’s user-friendly, drag-and-drop platform allowed the duo to easily create a professional-grade site to broadcast their brand.
“It took me one hour to build,” Raquel said. “The foundation was there. I just kind of put my own twist on it.”
When they clicked Publish to open the doors of their new online shop, they had no idea the impact it would have on their business. Just nine months after their Weebly store went live, sales exploded, and they reached their $1 million milestone.
“I thought we’d sell 100 in one year,” Raquel said. “I didn’t know it could be 100 sometimes in one day. It’s pretty cool.”
For the past decade, more than 45 million entrepreneurs, like Raquel and Dov, have been using Weebly’s turnkey web design and hosting platform to quickly and easily get eCommerce sites up and running. The host’s intuitive web builder, professionally designed templates, and eCommerce and marketing tools allow site owners to develop, launch, and grow their businesses online to reach broader audiences and open new revenue streams.
Set Up Shop Online in Under an Hour — No Coding Knowledge Required
Dana Walsh, Director of Weebly’s Marketing Events and Community, told us the company’s goal is to make web development intuitive. Weebly’s drag-and-drop editor and professionally designed themes make it simple for anyone to set up shop online without the need to code.
“You can do it all with our platform,” Dana said. “We have themes and design aspects that make it beyond easy to set up an in-depth online store with several hundred products in no time.”
According to Nick Dellis, Weebly’s VP of Business Development and Strategy, creating websites used to be a complex task and usually required the help of a professional developer. Today, web builders, like Weebly’s, have changed the game.
Weebly’s Nick Dellis and Dana Walsh told us how the host makes it simple for businesses to build professional-grade sites.
“It made it easy for someone to sort of take control of their own destiny,” Nick said. “Weebly has taken the guesswork out of the building process, as eCommerce is now at a point where there’s no technical or cost hurdle people have to get over.”
The removal of these barriers has increased opportunity for small business owners looking to enter the eCommerce market. As Nick noted, not long ago, web development was expensive and difficult. Now, with Weebly’s cost-effective and intuitive platform, just about anyone can get a business site online.
“Being able to successfully sell online is going to become more and more important for everybody,” Nick said. “We make it so easy, it’s silly, and that helps people build confidence. And, when you give people confidence, they don’t abandon their business goals.”
Weebly makes what can seem a daunting task of web design less intimidating. As a result, people who would otherwise be scared off by the technicalities of building an eCommerce site actually go through with the process.
“It’s what we do best,” Nick said. “We care about making people entrepreneurs.”
eCommerce Tools Developed Around the Needs of Emerging Businesses
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, technology seems to change at the speed of light. And, over the years, site building tools for eCommerce have followed suit.
Nick told us it’s not enough for hosts to simply offer, say, just shared hosting and a web builder anymore. To stay competitive, Weebly has to offer a one-stop solution that includes everything a business needs to get online and succeed in the eCommerce space.
“You’ve got site builders, and then you have eCommerce, shared hosting, and domain registrars,” Nick said. “It’s no longer acceptable to be a one-trick pony. To be successful you have to offer site builders, domain registration, email, and eCommerce and marketing tools. You have to be a product-based company.”
And this, according to Nick, is what makes Weebly unique. Not only does the company provide top-notch hosting, domain services, and a renowned site builder, Weebly also offers eCommerce solutions, such as product galleries, secure shopping carts, integrated tax and shipping calculators, and inventory management.
“It’s all about creating a space to build a seamless experience for the site owner,” Nick said. “And our ability to do that is significantly better than what the traditional shared hosting provider offers.”
Weebly’s eCommerce tools come with more than 200 apps and integrations developed with a focus on the needs of the modern online business. Nick told us Weebly understands how people transact on the web, and it’s the company’s goal to help entrepreneurs understand this, too.
“We asked ourselves how to help our customers as they grow — how to get them over the hump,” Nick said. “It’s our goal to onboard these emerging businesses, push them to a successful state, and help them scale.”
Design Matters: Make Smart Investments When Creating Your Brand
Many new business owners are strapped for cash, so they do their best to stay as lean as possible; however, this can sometimes negatively impact a business. According to Nick, one of the simplest actions entrepreneurs can take to improve success rates is to direct resources to design.
“You have to stand out in a world of Amazon and everybody else,” Nick said. “So getting design right is really important. And, when I say design, I’m not just talking about site design. I’m also talking about things like quality photographs and graphics.”
Nick said the importance of design cannot be underestimated for aspiring eCommerce entrepreneurs. Site owners must ensure their photographs, copy, and content positioning are carefully considered to succeed in the competitive online space.
“All of that matters so much more in eCommerce than anywhere else,” he said. “So my advice to people who are building ecommerce stores is invest in that stuff. Invest in a photographer to take amazing pictures because you’re going to end up competing against people who do.”
Dana underscored the importance of design in eCommerce, noting it can make or break a business. According to Dana, the quality of photos and content can work to deter or attract a potential conversion.
“Pictures are often the number one selling point,” she said. “Spending the extra money on a photographer to take product shots can put you on the road to becoming a successful seller.”
Operating With a Mission to Take Entrepreneurs From Zero to Success
Though inspirational, Raquel and Dov’s story of building a $1 million online business from scratch isn’t unique. More than 45 million entrepreneurs around the world are using Weebly’s eCommerce platform to build, launch, and broadcast their brands to the masses.
And Weebly shows no signs of slowing its efforts to help businesses triumph and grow online. Dana told us Weebly is doing this in a number of ways, and giving businesses the ability to work with agility is near the top of the list.
“Time is the number one thing that we don’t have enough of,” she said. “When it comes down to it, a small business needs to be able to update its site on the go, in person, and as quickly as possible. Weebly allows you to do that with our mobile, user-friendly accessibility and also make a beautiful site quickly and with our themes.”
From Nick’s perspective, this ease of use and agility is the driving factor in helping people without much web experience realize their dreams.
“The number one thing that I hear from everyone is, ‘Man, I never knew I could do it.’ That’s the big takeaway,” Nick said. “Our goal is to take entrepreneurs from zero to success. That’s the thing that matters to us at Weebly.”
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