How to set up an online store in Spain, step by step

What do you need before setting up the store?

Before touching anything technical, it's worth being clear on three things. They're not required just to start reading, but they save you from redoing work later:

• What you sell and to whom. A physical product, a digital one or a service; the sale price and, above all, your real margin once you subtract materials, hours and shipping. With no margin, no website fixes the maths.
• Your tax situation. If you're going to invoice on a regular basis, in Spain you normally need to register as self-employed (autónomo) or have a company. The website doesn't decide this: an accountant does, and it's the step most people skip.
• Realistic expectations. A new store doesn't sell on its own from day one. Selling takes time, a product people actually want and ranking work. If someone promises you guaranteed sales, be wary.

With that clear, the rest is an orderly process. Let's go step by step.

The 10 steps to set up your online store

1. Define the product and your margin. Decide what you sell, at what price and how much is left clean per order. This number rules everything else: if the margin is very thin, payment or platform commissions eat it up.
2. Sort out the legal framework with an accountant. Before charging, talk to an accountant or advisory: self-employed or company registration, VAT, invoicing. It's the least glamorous step and the most important. The website doesn't exempt you from being registered to sell on a regular basis.
3. Choose a platform or a custom store. Here there are two main paths: a platform like Shopify (quick to get going, with a fee and a payment commission) or a custom store on your own domain. We compare them in the table below.
4. Register your domain. Your address on the internet (yourbusiness.com). It's best if it's short, easy to dictate and carries your brand. The domain is yours and stays with you even if you change everything else.
5. Connect a payment gateway. This is what lets you take card, Bizum or PayPal payments. Every gateway charges a commission per transaction; it exists in any system, so factor it into your margin from the start.
6. Upload the products. Good photos, clear and honest descriptions, prices, variants and stock. This is where trust is won or lost: a poor product page holds back a purchase more than the price does.
7. Set up shipping. Zones, rates, delivery times and which courier you use. Decide whether shipping is separate or included in the price, but make sure the customer knows before paying: surprises in the cart are the number one cause of abandonment.
8. Comply with the GDPR and the legal texts. Legal notice, privacy policy, cookie policy, terms of sale and right of withdrawal. For a store in Spain this is not optional. Your accountant or a legal adviser helps you draft them for your case.
9. Launch the store. Check that the buying process works from start to finish (add to cart, pay, get confirmation), that it looks good on mobile and loads fast. Place a test order yourself before opening.
10. Work on ranking. Once it's live, you need to get found: SEO on Google and visibility in AI tools like ChatGPT, content, Google Business Profile and reviews. This doesn't end on launch day; it's ongoing work.

If you want to go deeper into how visibility is worked on, you have it in ranking on Google and AI. And to see the full store silo, go back to online stores.

A platform like Shopify or a custom store?

This is the decision that shapes the rest the most. There's no "good" option and a "bad" one: it depends on how much you want to manage yourself, on your margin and on how much it matters to you that the store is truly yours. Here's the honest comparison:

If you want to see this decision in depth, we develop it in Shopify vs a custom store. And if cost is a concern, look at how much an online store costs.

And to make it sell? What we can and can't promise

This is the question that's really on your mind: "okay, I set up the store, but will it sell?". We're going to be very honest, because here a lot of people promise what they can't deliver.

What is in our hands: that the store is well built (fast, clear, easy to buy from and looking perfect on mobile), that it complies with the legal side and that it works its ranking so you get found on Google and in AI. That's the work, and we answer for it.

What we can't promise: a number of sales or that your business will be profitable. Selling depends on things outside the website —your product, your price, your market, demand— and no honest person can guarantee that. That's why at Zenith we don't sell "pay per result", or "a store that's guaranteed to sell", or guaranteed rankings. We sell you the work done well; the result depends on many hands, not just ours.

• A well-built store removes friction from buying. It doesn't create demand where there is none.
• Ranking work increases the chances of being found. It doesn't guarantee a position or a citation in an AI.
• Your margin, your product and your price are still yours and are what weigh most on whether you sell or not.

And if you don't want to set it up yourself?

The 10 steps are perfectly doable, but they add up: the legal part, the photos, the product pages, the payments, the shipping, the GDPR and, afterwards, the ranking work that never ends. It's only natural that you'd rather spend that time on your product and your customers.

If that's your case, this is exactly what Zenith does. We turn the usual model on its head:

1. Building it is €0. We build the custom store for you, fast and on Cloudflare. You don't pay for the build.
2. On your own domain. The store is yours, with your brand and your customers, not inside someone else's shop window.
3. No sales commission from Zenith. We don't take any % of what you sell. The gateway/bank always exists, in any system, and we explain it to you clearly.
4. A fixed tailored monthly fee. It depends on your business and your catalogue, and it includes domain, SSL, maintenance and the ranking work. It has an honest minimum of a few months, because doing it well takes time.

The detail of the fee and how it's calculated is on pricing. No rush and no sales promises: just the work, with the maths laid out in plain sight.

Is it profitable to set up an online store? The sum almost nobody does first

Setting up the store doesn't tell you whether it'll be profitable; that's told by a two-line sum worth doing before choosing a platform or a domain. And there's one variable this very guide hasn't given you yet: your margin per order isn't enough, you have to subtract what it costs to bring in each buyer.

Look at your clean margin per sale (price minus product, minus shipping, minus the gateway commission) and subtract the average cost of acquiring that customer. Acquiring them has two routes with different economics: SEO and AI visibility take months but that traffic isn't paid per click; ads bring visits from day one, but each one costs. If after that subtraction a positive, repeatable number is left, you have a business that scales. If it's negative, the first thing to adjust is the product or the price, not the website.

We make this point because it's where most people fool themselves: a beautiful store on an €8 margin that costs €12 to fill with visits loses money faster the better it works. We build the store for you; the number of your margin is set by you, and we help you look at it squarely.

With stock, without stock or made to order: how the setup changes

A lot of people specifically look for how to sell without having a warehouse full of boxes. There are three basic models and it's worth choosing yours before uploading products, because it changes how you set up the product pages, the delivery times and the legal texts. The website is built just as well in all three; what changes is the logistics behind it and what you have to state honestly on each product page.

With your own stock you buy the product, store it and ship it yourself: more control over quality and delivery times, but you tie up money in inventory. Made to order or on demand, you prepare each order as it comes in: zero stock sitting idle, but longer delivery times that you must make crystal clear before the customer pays. And dropshipping, where a supplier ships directly to the buyer, sounds convenient but has fine print: you're still the one selling, and therefore the one responsible for the GDPR, the right of withdrawal and customer support, and the one who faces the customer if the supplier fails or is late.

If you're going to sell without stock, the critical point isn't technical: it's that the customer truly knows how long it'll take and what happens if there's a problem. That transparency on the product page is what prevents returns and bad reviews.

• Your own stock: more control and fast shipping, but money tied up in inventory.
• Made to order or on demand: zero stock sitting idle, longer delivery times that must be clear before paying.
• Dropshipping: you don't store anything, but you're still legally responsible for the sale, the delivery times and customer support.

Beyond Shopify: the map of platforms (WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Wix)

Above we compared Shopify with a custom store, but when you search for what to build the store with, more names appear and it's easy to get lost. The other most-searched options in Spain are WooCommerce (the store add-on for WordPress), PrestaShop and builders like Wix. None is magic, and they all share one point few mention: none of them ranks on its own, whatever you do with the template.

WooCommerce and PrestaShop are powerful and flexible, but they leave you in charge of hosting, updates, plugins, security and performance (yours or whoever you hire): a neglected WordPress store becomes slow and insecure over time. Builders like Wix start fast, but tie you to their system and their monthly bill.

There's no best option for everyone. If you want to handle it yourself daily, a self-editable platform gives you that control. Zenith's custom store goes the opposite way on purpose: lightweight, on your own domain, with no plugins to maintain or that break on the next update, and we maintain it, in exchange for you not self-editing it every day.