First, what a website was doing for you
A store website does three jobs: it shows your products, it takes payment, and it tells you what to fulfill. Every option below does those three in some form. The differences are fees, how much it looks like yours, and whether shoppers can find you there on their own.
Think about where your buyers already are. If they follow you on Instagram, a link from your bio matters more than search traffic. If they find you at markets, the QR on your table is the front door.
1. Sell on a marketplace (Etsy, eBay, Amazon Handmade)
Marketplaces bring their own shoppers, which is their big advantage. You list products, they handle checkout, and you ship.
The cost is fees and control. Etsy charges listing fees, a transaction fee and payment processing, and offsite ads can take more. Your shop looks like everyone else’s, and the next result in the search is a competitor. Many sellers use a marketplace to be found and their own link for repeat customers.
2. Sell in social media shops
Facebook and Instagram shops and TikTok Shop let shoppers browse inside the app. Setup takes a business account and a product catalog, and rules and fees change often.
They work best when you already post a lot and your followers buy on impulse. For small sellers, posting a product and putting “link in bio” under it is often simpler than keeping a catalog in sync.
3. Send payment links or invoices
Stripe, Square and PayPal can all make a payment link for one product or an invoice for one buyer. It is quick for a handful of custom orders.
It doesn’t scale past that. There is no shop to browse, no stock count, and you keep the order details in your messages. Fine for commissions, painful for 30 items.
4. Take orders in DMs and comments
Plenty of sellers start here: post a photo, take orders in comments, collect Venmo, keep a list in Notes. It costs nothing.
It breaks when something sells well. Two people claim the last one, a payment comes in with no name on it, and you spend the evening matching screenshots. If that is you, the next option is the usual fix.
5. A link-in-bio store
A link-in-bio store is a small mobile shop at one link. You put the link in your Instagram or TikTok bio, in Facebook groups, in texts and on a QR sign, and shoppers tap photos and pay there.
This is the middle ground: your own page and your own customers, without building a website. A SnapCart shop is free to start: photos, prices and stock on one link, and shoppers pay with Apple Pay, a card, Venmo, PayPal, Cash App or cash. Stock counts down as orders come in, so nobody buys the last one twice.
6. A hosted store builder (Shopify, Square Online, Big Cartel)
Store builders are a website, just without code. They make sense once you have dozens of products, need custom pages, or want apps for subscriptions and wholesale.
They also come with themes, apps and a monthly bill. If you sell a few dozen things and mostly to people who already know you, start smaller and move up when the shop outgrows it.
Getting paid and getting found
Whatever you choose, make paying easy on a phone. Most small-shop traffic is mobile, and every extra form field loses buyers. Apple Pay and Venmo are the fastest for most shoppers.
Without a website you won’t get much search traffic on day one, and that is fine. Put your link everywhere you already are: your bio, your email signature, your market sign, your business cards, and every post that shows a product. A link-in-bio shop on a good platform can still be found in search over time, because each shop is its own public page.
How to choose
Already busy on social and tired of DMs: a link-in-bio store. Want strangers to find you: a marketplace, plus your own link for repeat buyers. Mostly custom one-offs: payment links. Dozens of products and a brand to build: a store builder, when you get there.
You can combine them. Plenty of sellers keep an Etsy shop for discovery and send regulars, market shoppers and followers to their own link to skip the fees.