You're ready to sell to tabletop & hobby game enthusiasts — you have a product, a customer list and a marketing plan. But how do you actually launch the store? Which platform? What layout drives sales? Which apps do you need? Great questions. Here's our official roadmap to DIY e-commerce success.
Step 1 — Pick the perfect platform
There are a lot of ways to sell tabletop products online, and the platform you choose is pivotal to the long-term success of your store. The usual suspects: WooCommerce, Squarespace, Big Cartel, Webflow, Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix, Square, Weebly, Swell — and more.
TLDR: the simple answer is Shopify.
Whether you're a small startup, a growing business or an established company, Shopify is our top pick for vendors in the tabletop and hobby game industry. A few reasons why:
- Standard e-commerce features — a full suite to manage products, collections and checkout.
- Customizable storefront — friendly to start, headless-ready as you grow.
- Theme store — free and paid themes you can tailor to your brand.
- Robust app marketplace — an integration for nearly anything you can imagine.
- Scalable plans — from solo creators to Fortune 500.
- Local POS & multi-channel — sell in person and on TikTok, Facebook and Google.
- In-depth analytics — data to guide your marketing and decisions.
Which plan?
If you're a solo or small DIY operation, start with Shopify Basic. It's budget-friendly (especially paid annually) and includes everything you need to launch — full online-store features, low transaction fees, discounted shipping, multi-channel sales, unlimited customers, 24/7 chat support and POS Lite.
Step 2 — Create your account & add products
Once your account and subscription are set, configure the rest of your store:
- Account & business settings — business details and bank info during setup.
- Add products — descriptions, images, pricing and variants like size or color.
- Sort into collections — curated collections help customers find what they want fast.
Step 3 — Theme, pages & settings
Now set up the look and feel. On a budget, Shopify's free Dawn theme is versatile and friendly. Willing to invest ~$350? The Sleek theme is neutral, flexible and brand-ready with dozens of section options.
Add the pages customers expect
Shopify ships the essentials (home, collections, product, cart, checkout, account, policy pages). Add a few non-default pages that build trust:
- About Us
- Contact Us
- FAQs
For each page, set the meta data you want surfaced in search results. Then use the theme customizer to set your global theme settings, build out each page template, and assign templates to the right pages, products and collections.
Step 4 — Add helpful apps
The Shopify App Store is full of tools that make running your business easier — if you can imagine it, there's probably an app for it. We've put together a companion guide on picking the right set of apps for a tabletop store, so you're not installing things you don't need.
Step 5 — Buy a domain & launch
You're almost there. Publish your theme, then grab a domain — we recommend a .com if it's available, with .shop, .store, .online, .net or .co as solid alternatives. Connect it to your store and you're live.
You launched your store
That was a long road — and you made it. Want professional help instead of the DIY route? That's literally what we do. Let's play this co-op.