How to Start an Online Store and Create an Ecommerce Website — Product, Registration, Platform and Legal Duties

How do you start an online store without spending your budget on something nobody buys? Start with the product, the margin and a demand test — choose the platform afterwards. This guide walks through everything it takes to create an ecommerce website: validating the offer, registration and EU VAT rules, choosing a store model, legal duties with their dates, payments and delivery, and a plan for the first 90 days.

Every figure in this article carries a source and a date. Platform and payment-gateway prices are as published on 30 September 2026 — price lists change, so check them again before you decide. We describe the law as a map of duties, not legal advice, and because EU consumer and e-commerce law isn't fully harmonised, some sections describe the mechanism rather than a single number and say so.

The market context is simple: according to Eurostat, 73.56% of individuals aged 16–74 across the EU27 bought something online in the last 12 months in 2025 (Eurostat, dataset isoc_ec_ib20).

How to start an online store: product, margin and validation first

The most expensive mistake when building an online store is building the whole thing, with a hundred products, before anyone has confirmed they want to buy them.

Product and customer in two sentences

Write your offer hypothesis in one or two sentences: who the product is for, what problem it solves, and what the customer gains. If you can't put it briefly, a visitor won't understand it on the page either. Next to it, write down how you differ from stores already selling something similar: price, availability, faster delivery, advice, your own production.

It's worth knowing what goes wrong most often. Across the EU, 35.43% of people who bought online in the previous three months ran into at least one problem, and the most common one was delivery that was slower than promised, at 19.92% (Eurostat, dataset isoc_ec_iprb21, 2025 data). For a new store that means two things: the cost and the promised date of delivery have to be in your margin and on the page from day one, and trust — your company details, your terms, a clear returns policy — has to be built before anyone sees a product, not after a complaint.

Margin, calculated on one order

Before you pick a platform, work out what's left from a single order. From the gross price, subtract:

• VAT, if you're liable for it,
• the cost of buying or making the goods,
• the payment gateway's fee (rates below),
• the cost of shipping, if delivery is free or partly subsidised,
• packaging,
• a share of the cost of returns,
• customer-acquisition cost — ad spend divided by the number of orders it produced.

If a few cents are left, no platform will fix that — change the price, the product mix, or the free-delivery threshold instead.

A seven-day test of the offer

You can test demand without a store. A simple kit is enough:

1. A one- or two-screen landing page: a headline with the benefit, a photo, a price or a range, the delivery time and method, three FAQ answers, and a line about returns.
2. A form and a quick way to ask: an "Order" button and an "Ask a question" one.
3. Test traffic: a handful of posts where your customers actually are, a Google Business Profile, a small ad campaign.
4. Five calls with people who clicked: why they came, what stopped them, what was missing.
5. A note after the test: a list of objections, the most-chosen variant, and the questions about delivery and payment.

Go criteria after a test like this: recurring enquiries or orders, a clear sense of which variant people actually want, and clarity on the payment and delivery methods they expect. No-go criteria: lots of visits and few clicks on the button (an offer or audience problem), clicks without a completed order (missing trust, unclear delivery, returns or price), or scattered answers (you need a different bundle, price or lead time). We don't give pass/fail numbers — they depend on your category and price point. What matters is whether the signal improves with each change to the offer.

A rule for the start: until you have repeat orders, don't invest in a large catalogue, personalisation, or a headless architecture. Proof of demand first, complexity second.

Social platforms and marketplaces are channels, not a store

If you plan to start by selling on Facebook or Instagram, know where that stands today: as of September 2025, Shops on Facebook and Instagram use checkout on the merchant's own website, and payment processing inside Shops was discontinued (Meta Business Help Center). Shops support also differs by country: France, Germany, Italy and Spain are in open beta, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden have a limited feature set, and other EU countries aren't on Meta's list at all (Meta Business Help Center) — so check your own country's status before you rely on it. Social platforms bring customers in, but the purchase still ends on your own store, which is where your data and your margin live.

A marketplace is a different matter. Large marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay can be a reasonable second channel and a demand test once you've validated the offer elsewhere — but it's never your customer base or your data. We cover how to connect a store to a marketplace, including the large Central and Eastern European players, in marketplace integration.

Registration and VAT: trading informally or setting up a company

Trading on a small scale

Some member states let you test an idea or trade occasionally on a small scale without registering a full company, through a national informal-activity or micro-trader scheme. Whether that option exists at all, what its revenue ceiling is, and what it's called are not harmonised at EU level — they're set by each member state, so check your own country's business registry before you rely on this.

EU consumer-protection law applies whether or not you're a registered company: a customer's 14-day right of withdrawal and the other duties in the Consumer Rights Directive bind anyone selling to consumers at a distance (see Legal duties, below).

VAT: the domestic exemption and the EU SME scheme

EU law lets member states exempt small businesses from charging VAT domestically below a national threshold. The threshold itself isn't harmonised, but EU law caps how high it can go: under the SME scheme (Directive (EU) 2020/285), a domestic VAT exemption cannot exceed €85,000 a year, and — since 1 January 2025 — a business established in one EU country can also use a similar exemption on sales into other EU countries, provided its EU-wide annual turnover doesn't pass €100,000. The exact domestic threshold differs by country, so check your own before you plan around it.

Selling to consumers in other EU countries

Once you ship to consumers in other EU member states, a separate figure matters: an EU-wide €10,000 a year in cross-border B2C distance sales of goods and digital services, combined across every member state in the current and the previous calendar year (EU One Stop Shop; Directive 2017/2455). Below it, you charge VAT as if the customer were in your own country; above it, you owe VAT where the customer is — which the One Stop Shop (OSS) lets you report through a single return instead of registering in every country you sell into. We cover OSS, IOSS and the packaging and customs duties that come with cross-border selling in cross-border e-commerce.

How to create an ecommerce website: SaaS, open source or custom code

Starting an online store comes down to choosing one of three models. A detailed comparison sits in ecommerce platform comparison and in the ecommerce platforms overview. If you're not sure where to start, the which e-commerce platform quiz can help.

SaaS: a subscription with hosting and updates included

In the SaaS model you pay a subscription and the vendor handles servers, security and updates. You'll launch fastest, but you work within the platform's feature set. How that trade-off plays out, and what to check in a vendor's contract, is in our guide to SaaS.

Example price lists (read 30.09.2026, EUR, excl. VAT unless stated):

Three things worth knowing before you sign. First, trial periods differ: Shopify gives 3 days free, then €1/month for 3 months; PrestaShop Hosted gives 14 days. Second, the subscription isn't the whole bill — payment processing, apps, and (on Shopify, if you skip its own payment processor) a surcharge all come on top. Third, plan your exit before you go in: Shopify exports to CSV and PrestaShop Hosted promises you can recover your data, but an export is data, not a store — the look, the configuration and the URLs have to be rebuilt elsewhere. We cover that move in ecommerce migration and SEO. Who's actually responsible for customer data in a cloud service is covered in cloud data security.

Open source: the code is free, everything else is billed

WooCommerce and PrestaShop are software you download without a licence fee. You pay for everything around it: hosting, extensions, implementation, updates, and someone to keep it running. WooCommerce's own pricing page estimates hosting at $25–350 a month for most stores, and extensions at $29–299 a year each (WooCommerce pricing). PrestaShop's self-hosted Classic edition is a free download; its Hosted plan is the subscription option in the table above. The upside is full control and no single-vendor lock-in; the downside is that updates, backups and security are on you.

Custom code and headless

A store built to order, or in a headless architecture — your own front end talking to a commerce engine over an API — makes sense once a ready-made platform blocks the sales process: unusual B2B pricing, integrations with your own systems, several markets at once. Early on, without confirmed demand, it's usually a premature investment. If a store has to run alongside an ERP and a warehouse system, also look at B2B e-commerce platforms.

What it costs

The full cost breakdown is in ecommerce website cost. Work out your own budget with the store setup cost calculator, and ongoing cost over a few years with the ecommerce TCO calculator. If you want to start with no spend at all, see what a free online store actually offers.

Legal duties of an online store

Below is a list of duties that apply to any store selling to consumers, whether it's registered as a company or not. Have a lawyer check the actual documents before launch — this is a map, not legal advice.

Pre-contract information and your terms of service

Before a consumer commits to a distance contract, you have to tell them — clearly and comprehensibly — who you are, the price, and how and when they can withdraw, including the model withdrawal form (Directive 2011/83/EU). Exactly what form your own "terms and conditions" document has to take is set at national level, so check your own country's transposition; the information duty itself is EU-wide.

Fourteen days to withdraw, and the exceptions

Under the Consumer Rights Directive, a consumer can withdraw from a distance contract within 14 days, without giving a reason (Art. 9(1)). If you don't inform them properly, that period is extended by 12 months (Art. 10). You refund all payments, including standard delivery, within 14 days, and you can withhold the refund until the goods come back or proof of return arrives (Art. 13); the consumer bears only the direct cost of returning the goods, unless you agreed to cover it or didn't tell them they would have to (Art. 14). The official EU model withdrawal form reads, verbatim:

> (complete and return this form only if you wish to withdraw from the contract)

> — To [here the trader's name, geographical address and email address are to be inserted by the trader]:

> — I/We (\) hereby give notice that I/We (\) withdraw from my/our (\) contract of sale of the following goods (\)/for the provision of the following service (\*),

> — Ordered on (\)/received on (\),

> — Name of consumer(s),

> — Address of consumer(s),

> — Signature of consumer(s) (only if this form is notified on paper),

> — Date

> (\*) Delete as appropriate.

Exceptions where the right doesn't apply include goods made to the consumer's specification, perishable goods, and sealed goods that can't be returned for health or hygiene reasons once unsealed (Art. 16). If you sell personalised products or food, check whether they fall under these exceptions — it affects both your terms and your margin.

Applicable since 19 June 2026: a separate directive adds a dedicated "withdraw from contract here" function to the store interface itself, confirmed with a "confirm withdrawal" step (Directive (EU) 2023/2673, new Art. 11a). Member states had to transpose it by 19 December 2025; check whether your own country's implementing law is already in force.

Legal guarantee of conformity

Under Directive (EU) 2019/771, a seller is liable for a lack of conformity that becomes apparent within two years of delivery (Art. 10(1); member states may extend this). For the first year, the burden of proof is reversed in the consumer's favour — a fault that shows up in that window is presumed to have existed at delivery (Art. 11(1); some member states extend this to two years, Art. 11(2)).

GPSR: product information in the offer

Since 13 December 2024, Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety has applied directly in every member state — it's a regulation, not a directive, so there's no national transposition to wait for. Article 19 requires that an offer sold at a distance show, clearly and visibly, at least: the manufacturer's name and postal and electronic address (plus those of an EU-based responsible person, if the manufacturer is outside the EU), information to identify the product, including an image, and any warnings or safety information in a language easily understood by consumers, as determined by the member state where the product is sold (Regulation (EU) 2023/988, EUR-Lex). In practice, that's extra fields on every product page.

Accessibility

The European Accessibility Act (Directive (EU) 2019/882) extends accessibility requirements to e-commerce services. Member states had to apply it from 28 June 2025 (Art. 31(2)); it works through each member state's own implementing law, so check your country's law for the exact scope. The directive itself exempts micro-enterprises that provide services: an enterprise employing fewer than 10 people with an annual turnover or balance-sheet total not exceeding €2 million (Art. 3(23), Art. 4(5)). Even where the exemption applies to you, the same requirements — readability, contrast, keyboard navigation — overlap heavily with what any customer buying on a phone actually needs.

Price-reduction claims, and what's coming for invoicing

If you advertise a price cut, the announcement has to show the prior price: the lowest price you charged in at least the 30 days before the reduction (Price Indication Directive 98/6/EC, Art. 6a, inserted by the "Omnibus" Directive (EU) 2019/2161 and applied since 28 May 2022). Member states may set different rules for perishable goods, for products on the market for less than 30 days, and for progressively increased reductions, so check your own country's transposition before you run a sale.

On invoicing, the EU's VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package (Directive (EU) 2025/516) mandates structured e-invoicing and digital reporting for cross-border B2B transactions from 1 July 2030, with domestic systems to be aligned by 2035. Member states can also run their own domestic e-invoicing rules before that date — check your own country's current rules with your accountant.

Payments and delivery

Payment gateway: standard rates

A gateway takes a cut of every transaction. Standard published rates (read 30.09.2026):

The fixed part of the fee (€0.25, €0.35) matters most on cheap orders: on a €5 order, Stripe's €0.25 alone is already 5% of the sale, before the percentage. On a €40 order it's under 1%. EU law also caps the underlying interchange fee on consumer cards at 0.2% for debit and 0.3% for credit cards (Regulation (EU) 2015/751) and bans surcharging consumers for using a regulated card (PSD2, Art. 62(4)). For online card payments, the strong-authentication exemption threshold is €30 per transaction (RTS (EU) 2018/389, Art. 16). We cover payment methods and logistics in more depth in payments and logistics.

Delivery: plan for parcel lockers from day one

Parcel lockers are growing fast: InPost Group alone operated 62.0K active parcel machines in 2025, up 30% on 2024, across several European countries (InPost Group, 2025 highlights). Plan a locker option from the start, not as an afterthought. There's no single EU price list for parcels — Regulation (EU) 2018/644 only requires parcel carriers to submit their public single-piece tariffs to the national regulator, which the Commission then publishes (Art. 5), and requires you, the trader, to state your cross-border delivery options and charges at the pre-contract stage, where possible and applicable (Art. 7). Show the delivery cost early, ideally on the product page, so the customer doesn't discover it at the last step of checkout.

Launch and the first 90 days: what to measure

Before launch, place a test order from cart to return: pay with every method you offer, check the confirmation emails, the shipping label, the invoice and the withdrawal form. Make sure the domain, the mailbox and every platform account are registered to you, not to a contractor, and that every account has two-factor login.

After launch, work in a 30/60/90-day rhythm. Each stage has a goal and a few numbers that say "keep going" or "fix this." We don't give target values — compare yourself against your own previous period.

Four metrics to start with

• Conversion rate — orders divided by sessions. Track it separately for mobile and desktop, and for each traffic source.
• Average order value — revenue divided by the number of orders. Shows whether your bundles and your free-delivery threshold are working.
• Returns — the share of orders returned, and why. A repeated reason usually points to a description, a photo, or a sizing table.
• Customer acquisition cost — ad spend in a given channel divided by new customers from that channel. Compare it against the margin on a single order that you calculated earlier.

Google Analytics 4 with add-to-cart, checkout-started and purchase events, plus Google Search Console, is enough to measure all of this. The processes that drive your costs after launch — and the numbers worth reporting on them — are covered in our overview of ecommerce operations.

30, 60 and 90 days

The first 30 days: confirm demand. One or two offers or bundles, your two or three main payment methods, a locker option and a courier, a simple returns policy, analytics in place. Each week you check conversion and average order value, and note recurring customer questions — they go into your FAQ and your product pages.

By 60 days: optimise and get your first organic traffic. Shorten the checkout form, improve photos and descriptions, write two or three pieces of content answering customer questions, and tidy up internal linking. Start tracking queries in Search Console — more on this in SEO for e-commerce.

By 90 days: automate. Connect the store to the systems you already use — inventory, accounting, a marketplace — so that stock and orders stop being re-typed by hand. Order of operations: products and stock first, then orders, logistics last. Add post-purchase emails and abandoned-cart reminders. Each month, compare acquisition cost against margin and review the reasons behind returns.

Do it yourself, or bring in a contractor

Build it yourself if you're selling a handful to a few dozen products, a SaaS platform covers your process, and your own time is cheaper than a build budget. Before launch, work through the store UX checklist; the wider picture of where stores lose customers is in our ecommerce UX overview.

Bring in a contractor if you need ERP or warehouse integration, an unusual order process, several markets at once, or a store that can't be boxed in by a theme and a plugin.

We build stores ourselves in a headless architecture — our own front end, payment gateway and integrations, with the code sitting in the client's own repository. We describe that approach on the headless online store page. It's the right fit once a store has confirmed demand and is hitting the limits of a ready-made platform; if you're still validating the product, SaaS is usually the better place to start. The whole cycle — platforms, payments, logistics, SEO — is gathered in our guide to e-commerce.