Online shop for a small business: platforms, costs and shipping in 2026
• Thursday, 24th September 2026 •
“We want to sell online” comes up in every second conversation with a small business that has a physical product. The next question is always the price, and the honest answer ranges from a small monthly fee to a large one-off project. Here is how to find your place on that scale.
Do you need a shop at all? – A shop makes sense for repeatable products with a fixed price that you can pack and ship, or hand over in person. Ask three questions. Can you state the price without talking to the customer? How many items do you sell: 5, or 500? Can you actually handle the orders, with packing, shipping, returns and messages? A shop that takes orders you answer a week later hurts the brand more than it helps. If you sell individually quoted services, you need a good enquiry form rather than a shop.
1. Social media and messages – No set-up cost. You post, the customer writes, you agree payment and shipping by hand. Fine for a few sales a week or made-to-order products, but there is no automation and it does not scale.
2. Marketplaces – Allegro, Etsy, Amazon and similar. You pay a commission plus fees for promotion. The traffic is already there, but you compete on price next to hundreds of similar offers and the customer belongs to the platform, not to you.
3. Subscription platforms (SaaS) – Shopify and similar. A monthly fee covers hosting, security, payments and courier integrations. Quick to launch and low maintenance, with some limits on customisation. The best default for most small shops.
4. Open source on your own hosting – WooCommerce or PrestaShop. No licence fee, full control of code and data, a huge ecosystem, but you pay for set-up, hosting and ongoing technical care.
5. Custom-built shop – Makes sense for unusual sales processes, large scale or deep integration with warehouse or production systems. For a business selling a few dozen items a month it burns budget.
The real first-year budget – Implementation is usually less than half of what you spend in year one. Add product photography, product descriptions (copying the manufacturer’s text makes you invisible in Google), payment fees of roughly 1.5–2.5% per transaction, shipping integration and packaging, legal documents, advertising (without traffic a shop does not sell) and technical maintenance. A subscription shop is the cheaper route; a well-built open source shop costs noticeably more in year one.
Legal basics – In the EU you need a 14-day right of withdrawal with the legal exceptions, a clear total price including delivery before checkout, an order button that states the obligation to pay, the 30-day lowest price rule for discounts, GDPR-compliant privacy policy and consents, and accessible design under the European Accessibility Act: contrast, keyboard use, image descriptions and clean structure. Have a lawyer review your terms rather than copying a template.
What decides sales once the shop is live – Traffic (SEO takes months, so plan ads, social media and your mailing list), photos that let customers “touch” the product, clear delivery times and costs, trust signals such as reviews, and fast replies. If you want help choosing a platform or planning the first year, tell us about your products and we will recommend the simplest route that works.
What’s more, Digital Effect offers affordable web design, AI consultancy and a pay monthly option. It’s worth thinking about, isn’t it? Contact us today for more information.
