How to start an online shop in the UK, step by step

Step 1: Decide what you sell and who buys it

Before you look at platforms, write three things on one page: what you sell, who buys it, and why they would buy it from you rather than from a marketplace or a high street shop. A shop that sells "gifts" is hard to describe and hard to find. A shop that sells hand-poured soy candles for people who want a gentle scent is easy to describe, easy to photograph and easier to rank in search.

Then check the practical side:

• Margin: after the cost of the goods, packaging, postage and payment fees, is enough left per order to make packing it worthwhile? Work this out per product, not as an average.
• Supply: can you restock reliably, or are you selling one-off pieces? This changes how you manage stock and how you write product pages.
• Weight and size: heavy, bulky or fragile items limit your shipping options and push up your costs.
• Restrictions: food, cosmetics, toys, candles and electrical goods each have their own safety and labelling rules. Read the relevant guidance on gov.uk before you buy stock.

Step 2: Sort out the business basics

You can trade as a sole trader or set up a limited company. Each comes with different tax and admin duties, and the right choice depends on your circumstances. HMRC and Companies House explain the options on gov.uk, and an accountant can help you choose. Before launch, most new shops need:

• Registration with HMRC for Self Assessment (sole trader) or a company registration (limited company).
• A separate business bank account, so sales, refunds and fees are easy to reconcile.
• A view on VAT. Many small shops start below the registration threshold, but you need to keep an eye on turnover. Our guide to VAT for online shops covers the basics.
• Your legal pages: terms of sale, privacy notice, cookie notice, returns policy and your business details. The UK ecommerce legal checklist lists what each one needs to cover.

Data protection applies from your first order. The ICO website explains whether you need to pay the data protection fee and what your privacy notice should say.

Step 3: Choose how you will sell

There are three common routes, and many shops end up combining two of them:

Route	Good for	Trade-offs
Marketplace (Etsy, Amazon, eBay)	Testing demand quickly and reaching existing buyers	Fees on every sale, rules set by the marketplace, limited access to customer data
Hosted shop builder (Shopify, Wix, Squarespace)	Getting started without managing software	Monthly subscription plus paid apps and, on some plans, transaction fees; moving away later takes work
Your own WooCommerce shop	Owning the shop and its data, full flexibility	Needs good hosting and someone to keep it updated

There is no single right answer. If you are unsure whether anyone will buy your product, a marketplace is a cheap test. If you already have customers or a clear niche, your own shop gives you more control over prices, branding and repeat business. Our guide on Etsy versus your own webshop goes deeper into that choice.

Step 4: Build the shop in the right order

Whatever platform you pick, the build follows the same sequence. Working in this order avoids redoing pages later.

1. Register your domain. A short .co.uk or .com that matches your shop name. Avoid hyphens and spellings that are hard to say out loud.
2. Set up hosting or your platform account with an SSL certificate, so every page loads on https.
3. Pick a clean, fast theme. Simple layouts are easier to use on a phone and easier to keep quick.
4. Plan your categories before adding products. Think about how a customer browses: by type, by occasion, by room or by recipient.
5. Add products with clear photos, a useful description, price, stock level, weight and dimensions. Weight matters because shipping rates often depend on it.
6. Set up shipping zones and rates for the places you will deliver to.
7. Connect payments: a card gateway plus at least one wallet or PayPal.
8. Add your legal pages and link them in the footer and at checkout.
9. Place test orders with real cards, including a refund, before you go live.

Step 5: Get payments, shipping and returns right

These three decide whether a visitor finishes an order. Customers expect to pay by card and often by Apple Pay, Google Pay or PayPal. Compare gateways on their fee structure, how quickly money reaches your bank and how disputes are handled.

Shipping costs should be visible before checkout. Show them on product pages or a clear delivery page, and keep the number of options small: one standard and one faster service is enough for most new shops. A returns policy that is easy to find reduces questions and builds confidence. UK consumer law gives online buyers minimum rights that your policy cannot take away, so write your policy around those rights rather than against them.

Step 6: Launch and win the first orders

A brand new shop gets very little search traffic in its first weeks, so plan how your first customers will find you:

• Tell your existing network: friends, past customers, local groups and anyone who follows you on social media.
• Run a launch offer with a clear end date, so there is a reason to buy now.
• Collect email addresses with consent from day one. A small list of people who asked to hear from you is more dependable than a large audience on a platform you do not control.
• Write useful product and category pages so search engines have something to rank. Results take months, so start early.
• Ask your first buyers for honest reviews, and reply to every one.

Step 7: Run it week by week

After launch, a short weekly routine keeps the shop healthy:

• Check orders, stock levels and unanswered customer messages.
• Look at products that get views but no sales, and improve their photos, price or description.
• Keep WordPress, WooCommerce and plugins updated, or make sure someone does it for you.
• Download your sales and fee reports for your bookkeeping.
• Test the checkout on your own phone at least once a month.

If you choose WooCommerce and would rather not manage servers and updates yourself, Retail Web Hosting sets up managed WooCommerce hosting with Elementor included, with your shop ready within one working day of choosing your domain. Our hosting plans page lists what each plan includes.

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