How to Start an Online Store Step by Step — Product, Registration, Platform and Legal Duties

How do you start an online store without spending your budget on something nobody buys? Start with the product, the margin and a demand test — choose the platform afterwards. This guide walks through everything it takes to start an online store in Switzerland: validating the offer, registration and VAT, choosing a store model, legal duties with their dates, payments and delivery, and a plan for the first 90 days.

Every figure in this article carries a source and a date. Platform and payment-gateway prices are as published on 30 September 2026 — price lists change, so check them again before you decide. We describe the law as a map of duties, not legal advice.

The market context is simple: according to Eurostat (data collected by the BFS), 85.5% of individuals aged 16–74 in Switzerland bought something online in the last 12 months in 2025, up from 83.42% in 2023 (Eurostat, dataset isoc_ec_ib20, geo=CH). Swiss consumers spent CHF 15.8 billion on goods online in 2025, up 6% on CHF 14.9 billion in 2024 (Handelsverband.swiss, with NIQ/GfK and Swiss Post, "Onlinehandelsmarkt Schweiz 2025", German-language page).

How to start an online store: product, margin and validation first

The most expensive mistake when building an online store is building the whole thing, with a hundred products, before anyone has confirmed they want to buy them.

Product and customer in two sentences

Write your offer hypothesis in one or two sentences: who the product is for, what problem it solves, and what the customer gains. If you can't put it briefly, a visitor won't understand it on the page either. Next to it, write down how you differ from stores already selling something similar: price, availability, faster delivery, advice, your own production.

Two things have to be settled before launch: the cost and the promised date of delivery have to be in your margin and on the page from day one, and trust — your company details, your terms, a clear returns policy — has to be built before anyone sees a product, not after a complaint.

Margin, calculated on one order

Before you pick a platform, work out what's left from a single order. From the gross price, subtract:

• VAT, if you're liable for it (8.1% standard rate, 2.6% reduced; ESTV),
• the cost of buying or making the goods,
• the payment gateway's fee (rates below),
• the cost of shipping, if delivery is free or partly subsidised,
• packaging,
• a share of the cost of returns,
• customer-acquisition cost — ad spend divided by the number of orders it produced.

If a few centimes are left, no platform will fix that — change the price, the product mix, or the free-delivery threshold instead.

A seven-day test of the offer

You can test demand without a store. A simple kit is enough:

1. A one- or two-screen landing page: a headline with the benefit, a photo, a price or a range, the delivery time and method, three FAQ answers, and a line about returns.
2. A form and a quick way to ask: an "Order" button and an "Ask a question" one.
3. Test traffic: a handful of posts where your customers actually are, a Google Business Profile, a small ad campaign.
4. Five calls with people who clicked: why they came, what stopped them, what was missing.
5. A note after the test: a list of objections, the most-chosen variant, and the questions about delivery and payment.

Go criteria after a test like this: recurring enquiries or orders, a clear sense of which variant people actually want, and clarity on the payment and delivery methods they expect (in Switzerland, that means knowing early whether customers expect TWINT). No-go criteria: lots of visits and few clicks on the button (an offer or audience problem), clicks without a completed order (missing trust, unclear delivery, returns or price), or scattered answers (you need a different bundle, price or lead time). We don't give pass/fail numbers — they depend on your category and price point. What matters is whether the signal improves with each change to the offer.

A rule for the start: until you have repeat orders, don't invest in a large catalogue, personalisation, or a headless architecture. Proof of demand first, complexity second.

Social platforms and marketplaces are channels, not a store

If you plan to start by selling on Facebook or Instagram, know where that stands today: as of September 2025, Shops on Facebook and Instagram use checkout on the merchant's own website, and payment processing inside Shops was discontinued (Meta Business Help Center); Switzerland is listed among the countries with a limited feature set rather than the full experience (Meta Business Help Center). Social platforms bring customers in, but the purchase still ends on your own store, which is where your data and your margin live.

A marketplace is a different matter. In Switzerland, Galaxus runs merchant and supplier partner programmes (its commission isn't public), and Ricardo charges a success fee of 8–12% of the sale price depending on product type, capped at CHF 290 (German-language Help Centre; listing itself is generally free). Either can be a reasonable second channel and a demand test once you've validated the offer elsewhere — but it's never your customer base or your data. More in marketplace integration.

Registration and VAT

Trading on a small scale, and growing into a company

A sole proprietorship has to be entered in the commercial register once its revenue in the most recent financial year reaches CHF 100,000 (Code of Obligations, Art. 931(1)); below that, registration is voluntary (Art. 931(3)). Separately, ask your cantonal AHV compensation office whether you have to register as self-employed — that question is independent of the commercial register.

Whatever your registration status, Swiss unfair-competition law (UWG) already requires anyone selling via e-commerce to give clear and complete identity and contact details, state the technical steps to conclude the contract, offer a way to correct input errors, and confirm the customer's order without delay, electronically (UWG, Art. 3(1)(s), in force since 1 April 2012).

VAT: two CHF 100,000 thresholds

For a store based in Switzerland, the first figure is the general one: a business is exempt from VAT liability as long as its total turnover from taxable supplies, in Switzerland and abroad, stays below CHF 100,000 a year (MWSTG Art. 10(2)(a)). The exemption ends once the previous year's turnover reaches the threshold, or as soon as it's foreseeable that a new business will pass it within its first 12 months (MWSTG Art. 14(3)).

The second figure is the mail-order rule for goods shipped into Switzerland from abroad: once a seller — Swiss or foreign — generates at least CHF 100,000 a year from small consignments dispatched from abroad into Switzerland, those deliveries count as domestic supplies, are taxable in Switzerland, and the seller must register in the Swiss VAT register; the place of supply moves to Switzerland from the month after the threshold is reached (MWSTG Art. 7(3)(b) and MWSTV Art. 4a; ESTV). Imported goods are exempt from import tax when the tax due would be CHF 5 or less per assessment (SR 641.204, Art. 1(d)) — in practice, low-value parcels. Since 1 January 2025, a new platform-taxation rule (MWSTG Art. 20a) treats a platform operator as the supplier to the buyer for VAT purposes, which can matter if you sell through a marketplace rather than only your own store.

Selling into the EU

If you ship from Switzerland to EU consumers, the relevant thresholds sit on the EU side: the EU's own distance-selling and OSS rules decide when a seller shipping into the EU needs to register and account for EU VAT there. We cover that in cross-border e-commerce.

Store model: SaaS, open source or custom code

Starting an online store comes down to choosing one of three models. A detailed comparison sits in ecommerce platform comparison and in the ecommerce platforms overview. If you're not sure where to start, the which e-commerce platform quiz can help.

SaaS: a subscription with hosting and updates included

In the SaaS model you pay a subscription and the vendor handles servers, security and updates. You'll launch fastest, but you work within the platform's feature set. How that trade-off plays out, and what to check in a vendor's contract, is in our guide to SaaS.

Shopify's Swiss price list (German-language page; Shopify has no English Swiss pricing page) gives, read 30.09.2026: Basic CHF 29/month billed monthly, or CHF 21/month billed yearly; Grow CHF 79/CHF 59; Advanced CHF 359/CHF 269; Plus "from €2,100/month" — note that Plus is still priced in euros even on the Swiss page. Shopify's trial is 3 days free, then CHF 1/month for 3 months. The page doesn't state whether these are VAT-inclusive.

On top of the subscription, Shopify Payments is available in Switzerland and includes TWINT: on the Basic plan, standard online cards cost 2.95% + CHF 0.30, and TWINT costs 1.75% + CHF 0.30 — noticeably cheaper than a card, which is worth knowing when you decide which methods to promote at checkout. Using a different processor instead of Shopify Payments adds a 2% surcharge on the Basic plan.

PrestaShop Hosted and Shopware publish their prices in euros, not Swiss francs. Ask any vendor other than Shopify directly whether they bill in CHF.

Three things worth knowing before you sign. First, the trial is short: 3 days, then a token fee for 3 months — budget time to actually test the platform properly. Second, the subscription isn't the whole bill — payment processing and apps come on top, and TWINT's lower fee versus cards is a real lever on your margin. Third, plan your exit before you go in: platform exports give you data, not a store — the look, the configuration and the URLs have to be rebuilt elsewhere. We cover that move in ecommerce migration and SEO. Who's actually responsible for customer data in a cloud service is covered in cloud data security.

Open source: the code is free, everything else is billed

WooCommerce and PrestaShop are software you download without a licence fee. You pay for everything around it: hosting, extensions, implementation, updates, and someone to keep it running. WooCommerce's own pricing page estimates hosting at $25–350 a month for most stores, and extensions at $29–299 a year each (WooCommerce pricing). PrestaShop's self-hosted Classic edition is a free download; its Hosted plan is priced in euros. The upside is full control and no single-vendor lock-in; the downside is that updates, backups and security are on you.

Custom code and headless

A store built to order, or in a headless architecture — your own front end talking to a commerce engine over an API — makes sense once a ready-made platform blocks the sales process: unusual B2B pricing, integrations with your own systems, several markets at once. Early on, without confirmed demand, it's usually a premature investment. If a store has to run alongside an ERP and a warehouse system, also look at B2B e-commerce platforms.

What it costs

The full cost breakdown is in ecommerce website cost. Work out your own budget with the store setup cost calculator, and ongoing cost over a few years with the ecommerce TCO calculator. If you want to start with no spend at all, see what a free online store actually offers.

Legal duties of a Swiss online store

Below is a list of duties that apply to a store selling to consumers in Switzerland. Have a lawyer check the actual documents before launch — this is a map, not legal advice.

No statutory right of withdrawal for online purchases

This is the single biggest difference from EU law, and it's worth stating plainly: Swiss law does not give online shoppers a statutory right of withdrawal. The Swiss government's own SECO/KMU portal puts it directly: "In e-commerce, Swiss law does not provide for any withdrawal period or other right of return once the order has been placed. The seller can provide for such a clause, but has no obligation to do so." (KMU portal, SECO). The Code of Obligations' revocation rules (Art. 40a–40e, 14 days) apply to sales proposed at the doorstep, at the workplace, on public transport, at promotional excursions or by telephone, not to online shops (Art. 40b). The Code of Ethics of Handelsverband.swiss provides for a 14-day right of return, but it binds only the association's members. For everyone else, a returns window is a commercial choice, not a legal duty, and you're free to set its terms.

Warranty under the Code of Obligations

The seller is liable for defects under CO Art. 197. An exclusion or limitation of the warranty is valid in principle, unless the seller fraudulently concealed the defect (Art. 199) — so it can be excluded in your terms, subject to a fairness check. The basic limitation period is two years from delivery (Art. 210(1)); shortening it below two years (or below one year for second-hand goods) is void for consumer goods sold by a professional seller (Art. 210(4)). The Unfair Competition Act (UWG Art. 8) separately bars contract terms that create a significant and unjustified imbalance to the consumer's detriment — the backstop a court applies if a warranty exclusion looks unfair in practice.

Identity, contact details and order confirmation

Anyone selling via e-commerce in Switzerland must give clear and complete identity and contact details, including an email address, state the technical steps needed to conclude the contract, provide a way to correct input errors before submitting an order, and confirm the order electronically without delay (UWG, Art. 3(1)(s)).

Prices and price-reduction claims

Switzerland has its own rule here, separate from the EU's: the Price Disclosure Ordinance (PBV, SR 942.211). Goods offered to consumers must always show the actual price to pay in Swiss francs (Art. 3), with VAT and other non-optional charges included; shipping costs may be shown separately (Art. 4). A crossed-out comparison price is allowed only if you actually charged it immediately before — and then you may show it for at most half the time you charged it, two months maximum — or for at least 30 consecutive days, in which case there's no time limit (Art. 16(1)(a) and (3), as revised from 1 January 2025).

Data protection

The revised Federal Act on Data Protection (revFADP / nDSG, SR 235.1) has been in force since 1 September 2023 (Art. 74). It is Swiss law in its own right, separate from the EU's GDPR — check your privacy notice against it, not only against the GDPR.

What doesn't apply here

The EU's GPSR product-information regulation and the European Accessibility Act are EU instruments; Switzerland is not an EU member, so they don't govern sales within Switzerland. If you also sell into the EU, those EU rules can still apply to that part of your business — see cross-border e-commerce.

Payments and delivery

Payment methods: TWINT, cards, and invoice-style options

Standard published rates (read 30.09.2026):

TWINT costs less than a card at Stripe, at Shopify Payments and in PostFinance's E-Com Bundle (the All-in-One plan charges the same flat rate for every method) — a strong reason to make sure it's visible at checkout from day one. Fixed fees (CHF 0.30 at Stripe and Shopify Payments, the CHF 0.18 PSP fee at PostFinance) and per-transaction minimums (CHF 0.20 at PostFinance) matter most on cheap orders. We cover payment methods and logistics in more depth in payments and logistics.

Delivery: Swiss Post and its pick-up network

Swiss Post's standard business parcel prices, valid from 1 January 2026, run from CHF 9 (PostPac Economy, up to 2 kg) to CHF 22.50 (Priority, up to 30 kg), all VAT included, with a sales discount of 2–8% depending on monthly revenue, from CHF 500 excl. VAT (Swiss Post price list, German-language PDF). Pick-up points are extensive: PickPost has over 2,700 service points, and My Post 24 has over 320 locations for self-service parcel collection (Swiss Post). Returns can run through a business reply label: the return is free for the customer, and you pay the parcel price plus a CHF 0.50 surcharge per business reply consignment (VAT included). Show the delivery cost early, ideally on the product page, so the customer doesn't discover it at the last step of checkout.

Launch and the first 90 days: what to measure

Before launch, place a test order from cart to return: pay with every method you offer, including TWINT, check the confirmation emails, the shipping label, the invoice and your returns policy. Make sure the domain, the mailbox and every platform account are registered to you, not to a contractor, and that every account has two-factor login.

After launch, work in a 30/60/90-day rhythm. Each stage has a goal and a few numbers that say "keep going" or "fix this." We don't give target values — compare yourself against your own previous period.

Four metrics to start with

• Conversion rate — orders divided by sessions. Track it separately for mobile and desktop, and for each traffic source.
• Average order value — revenue divided by the number of orders. Shows whether your bundles and your free-delivery threshold are working.
• Returns — the share of orders returned, and why. A repeated reason usually points to a description, a photo, or a sizing table.
• Customer acquisition cost — ad spend in a given channel divided by new customers from that channel. Compare it against the margin on a single order that you calculated earlier.

Google Analytics 4 with add-to-cart, checkout-started and purchase events, plus Google Search Console, is enough to measure all of this. The processes that drive your costs after launch — and the numbers worth reporting on them — are covered in our overview of ecommerce operations.

30, 60 and 90 days

The first 30 days: confirm demand. One or two offers or bundles, TWINT and cards as your main payment methods, a Swiss Post delivery option, a simple returns policy, analytics in place. Each week you check conversion and average order value, and note recurring customer questions — they go into your FAQ and your product pages.

By 60 days: optimise and get your first organic traffic. Shorten the checkout form, improve photos and descriptions, write two or three pieces of content answering customer questions, and tidy up internal linking. Start tracking queries in Search Console — more on this in SEO for e-commerce.

By 90 days: automate. Connect the store to the systems you already use — inventory, accounting, a marketplace — so that stock and orders stop being re-typed by hand. Order of operations: products and stock first, then orders, logistics last. Add post-purchase emails and abandoned-cart reminders. Each month, compare acquisition cost against margin and review the reasons behind returns.

Do it yourself, or bring in a contractor

Build it yourself if you're selling a handful to a few dozen products, a SaaS platform covers your process, and your own time is cheaper than a build budget. Before launch, work through the store UX checklist; the wider picture of where stores lose customers is in our ecommerce UX overview.

Bring in a contractor if you need ERP or warehouse integration, an unusual order process, several markets at once, or a store that can't be boxed in by a theme and a plugin.

We build stores ourselves in a headless architecture — our own front end, payment gateway and integrations, with the code sitting in the client's own repository. We describe that approach on the headless online store page. It's the right fit once a store has confirmed demand and is hitting the limits of a ready-made platform; if you're still validating the product, SaaS is usually the better place to start. The whole cycle — platforms, payments, logistics, SEO — is gathered in our guide to e-commerce.