How to Start Selling Online

Selling online fails more often from the wrong order than from the wrong tools. Businesses spend on advertising before the checkout works, or build a beautiful store for products nobody can photograph. Here is the order that actually holds.

1. Decide what you are selling online

Not everything in your shop should go online first. Start with products that are:

• easy to describe in writing,
• easy to ship,
• and not returned often.

Twenty products you can photograph, describe and post reliably beat two hundred you cannot.

2. Prepare the product material

This is the step most businesses skip, and it is the one that decides conversion. A product page needs a clean photo, a real description and a correct price.

• Studio product photography — €10 per product
• Product description writing — €2 per product
• AI product image enhancement — €2 per product

If you have hundreds of products, AI can draft the descriptions and we check them. It is €100 for AI product descriptions plus review — far cheaper than writing each one from zero, and far better than publishing the supplier’s text that a hundred other sellers also use.

3. Build the store

A complete online store starts from €990. That includes categories, product pages, cart and checkout. Add what your business actually needs:

• Product variants (size, colour) — from €100
• Stock management — from €150
• Discount codes — €100
• Customer accounts — €150

Resist the urge to buy every feature at the start. Subscriptions, gift cards and loyalty schemes are worth money only after you have steady orders.

4. Connect payment

The customer must be able to pay the way they expect. In Romania that usually means card and cash on delivery.

• Netopia, EuPlătesc, PayU, Stripe, PayPal, Mollie — €290 each
• Apple Pay / Google Pay — €150 each
• Cash on delivery — €100

The payment provider’s own transaction fees are separate and go to them, not to us. Ask about them before signing.

5. Connect delivery

Connect at least one courier properly so shipping documents are created from the order automatically.

• FAN Courier, Sameday, Cargus, DPD, GLS — €250–290 each
• Automatic AWB — €150
• Locker delivery — €150
• Shipment tracking — €100

Locker delivery is worth adding early. It is cheaper for the customer, and it removes the “nobody was home” problem that generates most of your support calls.

6. Test with real orders

Before announcing anything, place real orders yourself: card, cash on delivery, a return, a refund. Payment testing is €100 and it is the cheapest insurance in this list. Finding out that confirmation emails do not arrive is much less expensive before the first campaign than after it.

7. Then, and only then, buy traffic

Now advertising makes sense, because the money you spend arrives at a store that works.

• Google Ads account setup — €150
• Google Shopping — €290
• Facebook or Instagram advertising — €290
• Monthly management — €290/month, with the advertising budget paid separately to the platform

The common expensive mistakes

• Advertising a broken checkout. You pay for every visitor either way.
• Publishing supplier photos and text. You look identical to every competitor, and search engines have no reason to prefer you.
• Ignoring stock. Selling what you do not have costs you marketplace ratings and customer trust.
• No plan for returns. Returns are part of selling online, not an exception. Build the process before you need it.

A realistic first budget

A working store with payment, a courier and fifty products prepared properly lands in the region of €1,500–€2,500 one-time, plus roughly €99/month for maintenance and the yearly domain and hosting. Advertising is on top and is yours to control.

That is the honest number. Anyone quoting far less is leaving something out — usually the product material, the testing, or both.