Table of contents
Before the platform: the questions that come first
The question "which platform should I use" almost always comes first and is almost always premature. Three questions come before it, and they shape everything else.
Who buys, and why from you. If you sell a product available everywhere at the same price, e-commerce alone does not solve that: there needs to be a reason to choose you — range, expertise, service, speed.
How many products, and how much they change. Thirty stable items are one thing; three thousand with size and colour variants and constant price adjustments are another, with very different technical needs.
Who runs it day to day. An online shop needs daily work: orders, shipping, enquiries, returns. If nobody has the time, the best platform in the world will not help.
According to the Politecnico di Milano B2c eCommerce Observatory, online retail in Italy keeps growing, but the growth concentrates on businesses with a clear proposition and reliable service — not on those who simply show up.
Choosing the platform
There are three realistic options for a small or medium business, with different logics.
Shopify is a subscription service: you pay a monthly fee and get a shop that works, with hosting, updates and security handled for you. You start quickly, maintenance is minimal. In exchange you have less freedom for deep customisation, and costs grow with apps and commissions.
WooCommerce is an add-on for WordPress: the shop is yours, on your hosting, with full control. It costs less in fees but needs maintenance: updates, backups, security. It makes sense if you already have a WordPress site or need particular customisations.
PrestaShop sits in between, widely used in Italy and France, handling large catalogues and European tax rules well. It requires more technical skill than Shopify.
We compared the two most common options in the article on WordPress and Shopify. The sensible choice depends less on features on paper and more on who will maintain it over the coming years.
Real costs, line by line
Quotes you find online only describe the initial build. Here are the items that make up the actual cost.
Build: from a few thousand euros for a simple shop on a standard platform, considerably more if you need integration with management software, configurators or unusual pricing logic.
Recurring fees: platform subscription or hosting, domain, certificate, paid extensions. Tens of euros a month in simple cases, hundreds in structured ones.
Payment commissions: every transaction carries a cost, typically between 1.5% and 3% depending on the method. On thin margins it weighs more than people expect.
Content: decent photography and well-written product pages. It is the most underestimated item and the one that most affects sales.
Marketing: a shop without traffic does not sell. Whether you choose advertising or organic ranking, it belongs in the budget from the start.
Day-to-day running: somebody's time. It is a real cost even when it never appears on an invoice.
Legal requirements to get in order
Selling online means distance selling, and Italian and European law is specific. The main points.
VAT registration and notifications: you need e-commerce activity correctly registered and notified to the municipality. An accountant knows the procedure; doing it after you start selling complicates matters.
Right of withdrawal: customers can return a product within fourteen days without giving a reason. It must be stated clearly in the terms of sale, and you need an operational process to handle it.
Legal warranty: two years on conformity defects for consumers. It differs from the manufacturer's warranty and cannot be excluded.
Mandatory information: full company details, prices including VAT, shipping costs visible before payment, delivery times.
Privacy and cookies: a proper policy and consent collection compliant with the guidance of the Italian data protection authority. A banner offering only "accept" is not compliant, as we explain in the article on cookies and privacy.
Shipping: where you win or lose
Shipping is where many online shops lose customers, for two reasons: cost and transparency.
Cost shown late drives abandonment. Checkout usability research has indicated for years that unexpected shipping costs are the leading cause of abandoned carts. Showing the cost as early as possible — ideally on the product page — reduces abandonment even when the figure is not low.
Thresholds work. "Free shipping over fifty euros" is effective because it shifts attention from cost to benefit, and often raises average order value. It should be calculated on real margins, not copied from competitors.
The courier is part of the product. For the customer there is no distinction between your shop and whoever delivers: a late parcel is your fault. It is worth choosing carefully and negotiating rates as volumes grow.
Payments: which ones to offer
The practical rule is to offer the methods your customers expect, without multiplying them needlessly.
Credit and debit cards are essential. PayPal remains widely used in Italy and reassures people who dislike entering card details. Digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay speed up purchases on phones, where most transactions now happen.
Bank transfer makes sense for high-value orders or business-to-business sales. Cash on delivery is still requested in some areas and categories, but brings costs and more frequent returns: assess it case by case.
Every added method is also an administrative complication. Three methods that work well beat seven handled badly.
B2B is a different kind of e-commerce
If you sell to resellers or other businesses, the requirements change substantially: differentiated price lists per customer, a private area with personalised pricing, recurring orders that are easy to repeat, minimum quantity handling, deferred payment.
It is an area where results come faster, because you do not need to convince strangers: you need to make reordering simple for people who already buy. In the case of Birra Cadore the problem was not the storefront but reseller orders arriving through phone calls and messages that had to be transcribed by hand: a private area where each reseller orders independently brought a 62% increase in online orders.
The three mistakes that close online shops
Assuming traffic arrives on its own. This is the most common error. An online shop with no plan for bringing visitors is a shop on a street nobody walks down. Budget for being found belongs at the start, not once sales fail to appear.
Neglecting product pages. Photos recycled from the supplier and two-line descriptions do not sell, and do not rank on Google either, being identical to everyone else's. Product pages are your salesperson: if they do not explain, measure, show and reassure, the customer goes elsewhere.
Ignoring the data. An e-commerce produces valuable information: where people stop, which products get viewed but not bought, at which step the cart is abandoned. Those who read those numbers correct course; those who do not repeat the same mistakes.
Where to actually start
If you are considering opening, the sensible order is this: define what makes you worth choosing, calculate real margins including commissions and shipping, make sure someone can run it, then choose the platform. Technology is the last step, not the first.
If you already have an online shop that underperforms, before rebuilding it is worth understanding where it loses people: often the problem is not the platform but speed, product pages or one step in the checkout. A free check of your site's health is a reasonable starting point.