How to start an online store

To start an online store, decide what you sell and who buys it, work out your prices and how you will deliver and get paid, then build the store: add your products with good photos, choose a theme, set up checkout and shipping, test a real order and open. Most of the work is in the decisions, not the software — a small store can be built in a weekend once they are made.

This guide walks through those steps in the order that saves the most time, with the mistakes that cost new stores their first customers.

1. Decide what you sell and to whom

Before anything else, write one sentence: "I sell [what] to [whom], and they buy from me because [reason]." For example: "I sell handmade leather wallets to people who want a gift that lasts, and they buy from me because every wallet is stitched by hand and engraved for free."

That sentence decides almost everything that follows — your product photos, your prices, the theme you choose and what you write on every page. If you cannot fill in the last part, that is the first thing to work on: a store without a reason to choose it competes on price alone.

Start small. Ten products that you can photograph well, describe properly and deliver reliably will sell better than two hundred that are half finished. You can add more once you know what people actually buy.

2. Work out your numbers

An online store has costs a market stall does not. Before you set prices, add up what one order really costs you:

Your price has to cover all of that and still leave a margin worth your time. If it does not, change the product, the price or the delivery terms now — it is much harder after customers are used to a price.

Decide too who pays for delivery. You can charge it at checkout, include it in your prices, or offer free delivery above an order value. Whatever you choose, show it before checkout: an unexpected fee on the last step is one of the most common reasons people abandon an order.

3. Decide how you get paid

Offer the ways your customers already pay. In many markets that means cash on delivery first, then bank transfer, then cards and wallets.

• Cash on delivery — the customer pays the courier when the order arrives. It earns trust from first-time buyers, but you wait for the cash and some orders are refused at the door. Our guide to selling online with cash on delivery covers how to keep that under control.
• Bank transfer — the customer pays into your account and you ship once the money arrives. No fees, but slower, and it only suits customers who are comfortable with it.
• Cards and wallets — paid at checkout through a payment provider, which charges a fee per payment. You need an account with a provider before you can switch these on.

On Soooks, cash on delivery and bank transfer are built into checkout and carry no platform fee on any plan. Card and wallet payments go through your own provider account, so the money settles to you, not to us.

4. Get your products ready

For every product, prepare before you build anything:

1. A clear name that says what it is, the way a customer would search for it ("Linen shirt, short sleeve" rather than "The Riviera").
2. Photos: a clean main photo, the product from other angles, a close-up of the material or finish, and one that shows it in use or to scale. You do not need a studio — see taking product photos with a phone.
3. A description that answers what a customer would ask in a shop: size, material, what is included, how to care for it, how long delivery takes.
4. Options such as size and colour, with a price and stock count for each.
5. The price, and a compare-at price only if the item really was sold at that price before.

What a good product page needs goes through each part in detail.

5. Build the store

With the decisions made, building is the quick part.

1. Create your store. On Soooks every plan starts with a free trial, with no card required. Your store gets a free address straight away, and you can connect your own domain at any time — the security certificate is set up for you.
2. Choose a theme. Pick one whose layout suits your products rather than the one with the nicest demo photos: a theme built around big images suits fashion and home goods; a denser grid with filters suits a large catalogue of similar items. On Soooks every theme has a live demo store, so you can click through a real product page before you choose.
3. Add your products and collections. Group products the way customers look for them — by category, occasion or collection — not by how they are stored in your stockroom.
4. Write the pages people check before they buy: about, contact, delivery and returns. Short and specific beats long and vague.
5. Set up delivery. Add the areas you deliver to, what each costs and how long it takes.
6. Set up checkout: the payment methods you decided on and the details you need from customers (a phone number, for example, if your courier calls ahead).
7. Set up your notifications — the order confirmation and shipping emails — with your name and logo, so customers recognise them.

Until you open, you can keep the store behind a password so only you and the people you invite can see it.

6. Test a real order

Before you tell anyone about the store, place an order yourself, on your phone, as a customer would:

• Find a product from the home page in a few taps.
• Add it to the cart, change the quantity, go to checkout.
• Check that the delivery cost and total are what you expect.
• Pay with each method you offer, and check that the confirmation email arrives and looks right.
• Fulfil the order in your admin, and check what the customer sees.

Then ask two or three people who have never seen the store to do the same while you watch without helping. Wherever they hesitate is what to fix first.

7. Open, then get your first customers

Remove the password and tell the people who already know you: your customers, your followers, your friends and family. Your first orders will almost always come from people who already trust you.

After that:

• Share products, not your home page. A post that links straight to the product it shows sells better than one that sends people to browse.
• Keep the first buyers. A thank-you message, a discount on the next order or a note in the parcel brings people back. On Soooks, a welcome email and an abandoned-checkout reminder can run automatically.
• Watch what people do. Your orders, best sellers and the pages people visit tell you what to add more of and what to fix.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Opening with too many products. Fewer, better products with proper photos and descriptions sell more and are easier to keep in stock.
• Hiding delivery costs until checkout. Show them on the product page or in a banner.
• Copying descriptions from the supplier. They read like everyone else's, and they rarely answer what your customers ask.
• Skipping the test order. The problems you find yourself are the ones customers will not have to.
• Waiting for the store to be perfect. Open when it is clear and trustworthy, then improve it with what your first customers tell you.