Online store development
Who this is for
For a business that already sells — in a shop, over the phone, on social media — and wants orders to come in on their own, without someone answering the same questions fifty times a day. A small producer, a shop with a physical location, a brand that started on Instagram and has outgrown direct messages.
An online store is a different project from a business website. There the goal is an enquiry; here it's a completed order — and between the two there are a dozen places where a customer can give up. The store's job is to remove as many of them as possible.
Where orders get lost
Usually not in the product and not in the price. Three causes come up almost everywhere.
A slow catalogue. A product page that takes four seconds to load on mobile data loses many visitors before they've seen the first photo. In e-commerce, speed isn't a nice-to-have — it's revenue.
A long checkout. Mandatory registration, six screens, fields nobody understands the point of. Every unnecessary step loses some of the people who had already decided to buy.
A mobile version nobody thought about. Most online orders now come from phones. If the cart is awkward to fill in with your thumb, the store loses most of its customers without the owner ever finding out.
How I approach it
We start with the catalogue, not the design. How products are grouped, what variants they have, what customers will filter by — this shapes the whole structure, and it's the most expensive thing to redo later.
Then comes the checkout. It asks only for what's needed for delivery, and payment is offered the way your customers actually pay. Online card payments go through Stripe, which handles both one-off payments and subscriptions if you sell something monthly.
The look comes last. Not because it doesn't matter, but because good design on top of a confusing structure is still a confusing store.
See what it looks like
Demo project: online store built with Next.js
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A store built as a demo: catalogue, cart, card payment (Stripe) or cash on delivery, and an admin panel for products and orders.
The demo is in Bulgarian.
Online store — from €590, with a catalogue of up to 50 products. All prices
What's included
Catalogue and categories
A structure where customers find a product in seconds. Filters and search shaped around how people actually search in your niche.
Product pages
Photos, variants, stock and descriptions, arranged to answer questions before they come up.
A short checkout
Every extra step costs you orders. So the checkout asks only for what's really needed for delivery.
Online payments
Cards via Stripe, plus bank transfer or cash on delivery as options. Which ones go in depends on your business.
Order management
A dashboard where you track orders, change their status and update stock — without having to call me.
Technical SEO for stores
Product structured data, clean category URLs, correct canonical links. Without these, your products don't show up on Google.
Which platform
For a new store I have two main directions. A custom Next.js store gives you maximum speed and full control over the checkout — a good fit when the catalogue is manageable and speed comes first. Lightweight WooCommerce on WordPress is the sensible choice when you need a familiar dashboard and lots of day-to-day content work.
If you already have a store on PrestaShop or OpenCart, I can assess what's worth building on and what isn't. I've worked with both platforms on existing projects.
The right direction for you depends on the number of products, the budget and how much you want to run the store yourself. If the simpler option does the job, I'll tell you — even when it's not in my favour.
How it works
- 01
A call about your business
What you sell, to whom, how you deliver and how you take payments today. Half of the technical decisions follow from this.
- 02
Quote and contract
A written scope, timeline and price. No deposit for the work — you pay once it's finished.
- 03
Catalogue structure
Categories, attributes and variants. This step saves the most rework later on.
- 04
Design and development
You approve the design before a line of code is written. Then you follow a live working version.
- 05
Test orders and launch
We run real orders from start to finish — payment, email, status. Only then does the store go live.
The most common reason stores get delayed isn't the development, it's the catalogue. If product photos, descriptions and prices are prepared alongside the development, the project launches much sooner.
Pay after it's done
No deposit for the work. Only the domain, hosting and licences are paid upfront, if the project needs them.
6 months of support
The store takes payments and personal data — for the first six months I monitor it and fix problems with no extra invoice.
The code is yours
The code, design, domain and logins are yours from the day of handover.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does an online store cost?
- An online store starts from €590: a catalogue of up to 50 products, card payments (plus cash on delivery if you offer it) and an admin panel for products and orders. A bigger catalogue, stock management or a connection to another system is priced separately. After a short free call you get a concrete quote.
- How long does it take?
- Usually longer than a regular website, because besides the development there's the catalogue to prepare — photos, descriptions, prices, categories. If your product data is ready, the timeline gets noticeably shorter. The exact timeline goes into the contract before we start.
- Which payment methods can I accept?
- Online card payments run through Stripe, which supports one-off payments and subscriptions. Bank transfer and cash on delivery can be added as checkout options. Which ones you need depends on your business, and we decide that on the first call.
- Can I add products myself?
- Yes. The store connects to a dashboard where you add products, change prices and track orders. I show you how it works at handover.
- I have a store on another platform. Can you help?
- It depends on the platform. I've worked with PrestaShop and OpenCart on projects that already run on them. I look at what you have first, then tell you whether it makes sense to build on it or whether moving to a new platform is the smarter option.
- Will I need support after launch?
- A store needs more attention than a regular website, because it takes payments and personal data. Support is included for the first six months. After that it continues on agreed terms.
Tell me what you sell
How many products you have, how you deliver and how you take payments today — that's where we start. The consultation is free and there's no obligation.
Free consultation