How to create an online store: 10 steps from idea to first order

What are the steps to creating an online store?

Building an online store starts not with the design but with the product, the buyer and the numbers: will people buy the product online, how much will delivery cost and how will orders get into your accounting system? The platform, payments and shipping are chosen only once these questions are answered. The table shows all 10 steps and what needs to be decided at each one.

If a web studio is building your store, the developer handles the technical side of steps 3, 4 and 6–10, leaving you the decisions and the product content. That's also how it works when you build an online store with Saitai.lt.

1. Will people buy your product online?

Before investing in a store, check whether people search for your products online and whether you still have a margin after delivery and payment fees. You can test demand more cheaply: on a marketplace, on social media or with a one-page website with an order form.

• Who is your buyer, and why will they buy from you rather than from a big marketplace?
• How many products will you have at the start, and how often will prices and stock levels change?
• How much will delivery cost, and who will pay for it?
• How many products might be returned, and what will you do with them?

If you have fewer than 10 products and they rarely change, a website with an order form or a product catalogue without a basket is often enough.

2. Which legal form should you choose?

You can sell online with an individual activity certificate (individualios veiklos pažyma, i.e. as self-employed) or by setting up a company, such as a small partnership (MB) or a private limited company (UAB). It's best to choose the form after talking to an accountant, as it determines your taxes, liability and accounting rules. Your business must be registered before your first sale.

If you plan to sell to consumers in other EU countries, since 1 July 2021 a single EU-wide threshold of €10,000 per calendar year has applied: once you exceed it, VAT is usually charged at the rate of the buyer's country and can be declared through the One-Stop Shop (OSS). Discuss this part with your accountant too.

3. Which e-commerce platform should you choose?

For most small and medium-sized stores in Lithuania, WooCommerce is a good fit – a free, open-source plugin for WordPress with ready-made modules for Lithuanian payment and shipping services. VirtueMart suits you if your website already runs on Joomla, and a custom store is built when the standard checkout flow doesn't fit.

4. What domain and hosting do you need?

Register the domain in your company's name so it stays yours even if you change developer. An online store needs hosting with an SSL certificate, regular backups and enough server resources, because the catalogue, search and basket put more load on the server than a simple website. Decide in advance where the mailboxes on your domain will be hosted, too.

5. How do you prepare the product data?

Put your product data into a spreadsheet before the store is built: for each product, the name, code, price, description, photos, category, variants, weight and stock level. A spreadsheet like this can be imported from an Excel or CSV file, and suppliers' products can be synchronised from an XML feed.

• Weight and dimensions – without them you can't calculate delivery prices correctly.
• Variants (size, colour) – whether they have separate codes, prices and stock levels.
• Photos – in a consistent format and background, at least 2–3 per product.
• Descriptions – your own, not copied from the supplier: the same text in dozens of stores helps none of them in search.

6. Which payment methods should you connect?

In Lithuania, shoppers mostly pay via bank links and payment cards, so to start with one payment provider, such as Paysera or Montonio, plus bank transfer is enough. Stripe or PayPal are worth adding if you sell abroad, and a pro forma invoice if your buyers are companies.

The contract with the payment provider is signed by your company, and you pay transaction fees directly to the provider at its rates. Providers usually review the store, so it should already show your company details, contact information and terms of sale before you connect.

7. How do you organise shipping?

Parcel lockers are one of the most popular delivery methods in Lithuania, so it's worth offering at least one parcel locker network and a courier at checkout. The most commonly connected are Omniva, DPD, LP Express and Venipak: the shopper chooses a parcel locker at checkout, and you print the shipping label in the store's admin area.

• Set the delivery price by weight, size or order value.
• Decide above what order value delivery is free, and whether that pays off.
• Describe the returns process: who pays for returns and how quickly the money is refunded.

8. How do you connect the store to your accounting?

Every order has to reach your accounting system as a sales document. When there are few orders, your accountant can transfer them by hand or import an export file, but as sales grow, manual re-entry becomes a source of errors and delays.

At that point the store is connected to accounting software such as Rivilė, B1.lt, Centas or Finvalda: orders, customers and invoices are passed to the accounting system automatically, and stock levels and prices flow back to the store. This is possible if the software has an API or an import option. More on our page about integrating accounting software with your online store.

9. What legal requirements apply to an online store?

When selling to consumers online, you must publish the seller's details and terms of sale, ensure the 14-day right of withdrawal, publish a privacy policy and obtain consent for non-essential cookies. What follows is a general checklist, not legal advice: the exact wording should be prepared or checked by a lawyer.

• Seller details: name, company code, address, email and phone number.
• Terms of sale: prices, payment, delivery times, returns, warranty, dispute resolution.
• Right of withdrawal: a consumer can usually withdraw from a distance contract within 14 days without giving a reason; there are exceptions, e.g. for goods made to order.
• Discounts: when announcing a price reduction, the previous price shown is usually the lowest price applied in the 30 days before the reduction.
• Personal data: a privacy policy under the GDPR; consent for non-essential cookies and newsletters under the GDPR and the Law on Electronic Communications (Elektroninių ryšių įstatymas).
• Accessibility: since 28 June 2025, the requirements of the European Accessibility Act apply to e-commerce services; under the directive, they do not apply to microenterprises providing services (fewer than 10 employees and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than €2 million).
• Disputes: in Lithuania, consumer disputes over goods bought online are handled out of court by the State Consumer Rights Protection Authority (Valstybinė vartotojų teisių apsaugos tarnyba, VVTAT) – this is stated in the terms of sale.

For this part, the developer provides the pages, the cookie consent banner and consent checkboxes in the forms, while the content of the legal texts comes from you or your lawyer.

10. What should you check before launch?

Before launch, place a test order with every payment and delivery method, and check the emails to the shopper and to yourself, the invoices, how the store works on a phone and the search settings. An error found before launch is cheaper to fix than one reported by a customer.

1. Test orders: payment, order statuses, returns, invoice.
2. Category and product names and descriptions, readable URLs, Product structured data, the sitemap.
3. Google Analytics 4 with e-commerce events, and Google Search Console.
4. Loading speed and ease of use on a phone – a large share of shoppers browse and buy on their phones.
5. Backups, and a person who will update the system and plugins after launch.

Can you create an online store for free?

Partly. The software can be free – WordPress and WooCommerce are open source, and hosted platforms offer free trials – but a working store always has costs: the domain, hosting, payment providers' transaction fees and a lot of your time.

With a hosted platform you can build the store yourself, but you'll pay every month and depend on what the platform can do. If you commission the build, most of the cost is a one-off fee for the work. You'll find a comparison of packages and running costs on our page ‘How much does an online store cost?’.

Sources

• Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights (14-day right of withdrawal): eur-lex.europa.eu
• Directive (EU) 2019/2161 (lowest price applied in the previous 30 days when announcing a discount): eur-lex.europa.eu
• Directive (EU) 2019/882, the European Accessibility Act (applies from 28 June 2025): eur-lex.europa.eu
• Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR): eur-lex.europa.eu
• European Commission, VAT One-Stop Shop (OSS, applies from 1 July 2021): vat-one-stop-shop.ec.europa.eu
• State Consumer Rights Protection Authority (VVTAT): vvtat.lt

Planning an online store? In the enquiry form, tell us how many products you have, which payment and delivery methods you want to offer and which accounting software you use. Within 1 working day we'll tell you which platform fits and where to start.