To start an online shop sounds like a technology question: which platform do I choose, how much does it cost, who builds it for me. In reality the platform is the last decision, not the first. In our experience, the shops that get off to a good start are the ones where the owner already knows what they sell, how they get paid, how they ship and who keeps everything up to date. Let's go through these decisions one by one, in plain words.
Before you start an online shop: the decisions that matter
These questions need answers before anyone talks about platforms. They are the same ones we ask in every first meeting, because the answers change everything: costs, timelines and the technical choice.
The catalog: how many products will you actually put online? Ten well-curated products are one project; five hundred with size and color variants are a different project altogether. It also matters how many photos and descriptions you can realistically prepare.
Payments: cards and PayPal are the bare minimum in Italy. Instalment payments (Klarna, for example) can help on products above a certain price, but they come with fees: consider them later, not at launch.
Shipping and returns: which courier do you ship with, at what price, in how many days? And what happens when a customer wants to send a product back? Returns need to be decided upfront, because by law customers have the right to change their mind.
Invoicing and VAT: every order generates a tax document. If you already use management software, the shop needs to talk to it; if you do everything by hand, every sale becomes extra work. It's a detail nobody looks at before launch, and a month later it weighs enormously.
Who updates the products: prices, availability, new arrivals. If the answer is "the web agency", every change will have a cost and a waiting time. Better a tool you or someone on your team can use directly.
Ready-made platforms or a custom shop?
Solutions fall into two families, and neither is "the right one" in absolute terms: we work with both, and the choice depends on the project.
Ready-made platforms give you a working shop in a few weeks: payments, cart and order management are already there, and you pay a monthly fee. The limit is that you move along their tracks: some customizations are easy, others impossible or expensive. For most first shops, this is the most sensible route.
A custom shop is built around the way you work: it makes sense when you have specific needs — a product configurator, different price lists per customer, a tight integration with your management software — that a ready-made platform doesn't cover. It costs more at the start and needs someone to look after it, but it doesn't force you to bend your business to the software.
The hidden work: a shop doesn't run itself
The website quote is only part of the bill. The rest is ongoing work, and it's better to know upfront: decent product photos (bad photos don't sell, on any platform), descriptions written from scratch rather than copied from the supplier, replies to customers asking "where is my order?", parcels to prepare, returns to handle, stock levels to keep up to date. Many small businesses discover that e-commerce is an extra piece of the business, not an extra website. That's not a reason to give up: it's a reason to start with a workload you can actually sustain.
The most common first-shop mistakes
Too many products at launch: twenty well-crafted product pages, with good photos and descriptions, beat two hundred half-finished ones. Adding products later is easy; winning back the trust of someone who saw a sloppy shop is hard.
Ignoring mobile checkout: most purchases today start on a smartphone. If paying from a phone is awkward, the cart gets abandoned — and you'll never know, because nobody comes to tell you.
No legal pages: terms of sale, return policy, privacy and cookie notices are not optional, they are a legal requirement. They are missing most often precisely in DIY shops, and the fines are real.
Shipping costs decided at the last minute: if you discover after launch that shipping costs you more than you charge, every order becomes a loss.
Where to begin, concretely
Start from the answers, not from the platform: how many products, which payment methods, how you ship, who updates things. With those in hand, the technical choice becomes almost obvious — and above all it becomes the simplest setup that fits your case, not the most complicated one somebody wants to sell you.
If you're thinking about opening your first online shop, get in touch and tell us what you want to sell: we'll help you choose the simplest setup that works for you, whether that's a ready-made platform or something custom. Talking it through costs nothing.
