How to Start an Online Store

Starting an online store is technically easier than it has ever been. What stops people is rarely the software — it is everything around it: payments, shipping, product data, returns. Here is a sequence that works.

Step 1: check whether you actually need a store

If you sell five products to 200 Instagram followers, one good page with an order form may be enough. A full store makes sense once you have twenty or more items, repeat customers, or plans to run ads. A store taking three orders a month is maintenance work without revenue.

Step 2: choose a platform

• WooCommerce — a free WordPress plugin. You pay only for hosting and the occasional extension. The most flexible option and the easiest to connect to local payment providers and couriers.
• Shopify — €29 to €79 a month, everything works out of the box, but you pay transaction fees unless you use Shopify Payments, which is not available everywhere.
• Lightweight builders (Ecwid, Square Online) — fine for a handful of products, restrictive as soon as you grow.

For most small businesses WooCommerce is the rational choice. It does need decent hosting — a store is far heavier than a brochure site because every cart and every search is calculated in real time. We would recommend at least the SEO Biznis plan (€8.50 a month) for stores up to a few hundred products; details are on our plans page.

Step 3: payments

Sort this out early, because approval takes time:

• Card payments — via Stripe, your bank''s gateway, or a local aggregator. Expect fees of 1.4–2.5% plus a fixed amount per transaction, and two to four weeks of paperwork.
• PayPal — quick to set up, higher fees, trusted by international buyers.
• Bank transfer — free for you, slow for the customer, still useful for B2B.
• Cash on delivery — essential in some markets, irrelevant in others. Know your audience.

Step 4: shipping

Agree rates with a courier before launch. You need exact prices by weight and zone because those feed directly into checkout. Most major carriers have WooCommerce plugins that generate labels automatically — that saves an hour a day once orders pick up. Decide early whether you offer free shipping above a threshold; it consistently raises average order value.

Step 5: legal requirements

Usually skipped, always the first thing checked:

• Full company details: legal name, address, registration and VAT numbers, contact
• Terms and conditions plus a privacy policy
• The 14-day right of withdrawal, clearly explained (EU consumer law)
• Returns and complaints procedure with deadlines
• Prices including VAT, or a clear note if you are not VAT registered
• Cookie consent that actually blocks scripts until consent is given

Step 6: product data

The real work is not technical. For each product you need:

• At least three photos on a clean background, minimum 1000×1000 pixels
• A 100–300 word description answering the questions customers ask by phone
• Accurate dimensions and weight — shipping cannot be calculated without them
• An SKU and stock level

Budget 15 to 30 minutes per product. For 100 products that is five to ten working days. Plan for it.

Step 7: speed, because it directly affects sales

E-commerce measurements consistently show the same pattern: one extra second of load time cuts conversion by roughly 7%. On a store doing €10,000 a month, that is €700 monthly — far more than any difference in hosting price.

Practically: object caching, WebP images, a CDN for static files and enough PHP memory. Our WordPress hosting is tuned for WooCommerce and includes daily backups, which are non-negotiable for a store — one failed plugin update without a backup can cost you a day of sales.

A realistic starting budget

Hosting €8.50 a month, domain €12 a year, theme €60, product photography €200–500, setup €400–1,500 if you do not build it yourself. The first month is mostly labour rather than spend. Start with a smaller range and expand once orders arrive.