How to add an online shop to the website you already have

Start from what you already have

Your website has value you don't want to lose: an address printed on your bags and your van, a Google listing that points to it, years of being found by people looking for a bakery or a florist nearby. Adding an online shop should build on that, not replace it.

Before comparing tools, answer four questions:

1. What do you want to sell online? Your whole range, or the dozen products people ask for most?
2. How will customers get their orders? Click & collect, local delivery, shipping, or a mix.
3. Who looks after your website today? You, a web designer, a relative, nobody?
4. How much time can you give it each week? Be honest: an online shop needs its products, prices and photos kept up to date.

A bakery that wants Saturday pre-orders needs something very different from a wine estate shipping cases across France. Your answers point to the right option.

Five ways to add a shop

1. Rebuild on an e-commerce platform

Move your whole site to a platform with a built-in shop, such as Shopify, Wix or Squarespace. You get a complete toolkit in one place: themes, apps, marketing features. In exchange, you pay a monthly plan, rebuild your pages on the new platform, point your domain to it and run the shop yourself. It is the right choice if online sales will be a large part of your business and you, or someone you pay, will manage them.

2. Add a plugin to your current site

If your site runs on WordPress, WooCommerce turns it into a shop. The plugin itself is free to install. The costs are elsewhere: hosting that can cope, paid extensions for things like pickup slots or delivery zones, a payment extension, and the time to set it all up and keep it updated and secure. A good option if you already work with a web designer who knows WordPress.

3. Embed a shop widget

Tools such as Ecwid let you build a catalogue in their system and paste a piece of code into your existing pages. Your site stays where it is. You set up the products, payments and delivery options yourself, and your website builder must allow embedded code. Plans usually depend on the features and the number of products.

4. Sell on a marketplace

Etsy for makers, delivery apps for food, specialist sites for wine: marketplaces bring visitors you wouldn't otherwise reach. But you sell on their site, next to your competitors and under their rules, and they charge fees or a commission on each sale. The customer relationship largely stays with the platform. Useful for discovery; less so for the regulars who already know where you are.

5. A done-for-you Shop tab

A service adds a ‘Shop’ link to your existing menu that opens an online shop in your colours, and sets everything up for you: products, photos, prices, payments, pickup or delivery. Your site, its address and its host stay the same. This is what Add Your Shop does. The trade-off is honest to state: fewer options than a full platform (no app store, no theme marketplace), and for bigger changes you rely on the service.

Two other routes are worth knowing. A web agency can build a made-to-measure shop, usually as a project with maintenance afterwards. And specialist ordering services for food shops are generally sold by subscription or on quote.

The options side by side

For a detailed comparison of each tool, with sources and the cases where it is the better choice, see our comparison pages.

Which option suits which shop

A few illustrative cases:

• A florist on Wix who wants local delivery for a dozen bouquets. Wix's own store makes sense if you are happy on Wix and ready to move to a paid plan. A done-for-you Shop tab makes sense if you would rather not configure it yourself, or pay a fixed monthly amount.
• A wine estate with 200 wines and an agency that built its WordPress site. WooCommerce, run by the agency, may well be the best fit, especially if you want detailed stock management or a link with your accounting software.
• A ceramicist who sells mostly at markets. A marketplace such as Etsy brings new buyers; your own shop is where people who met you at the market come back to.
• A bakery that wants Saturday pre-orders with pickup slots. A done-for-you Shop tab is built for exactly this: a short range, slots, payment up front, orders by email. Our click & collect guide shows how to run it.
• A shop that wants online to become its main business, with hundreds of products, marketing automation and apps. A full platform such as Shopify is likely the better choice.

Many shops combine two options: a marketplace for reach, and their own shop for regulars.

What you need, whichever you choose

• A product list with names, short descriptions, sizes or units (‘serves 6’, ‘75 cl’) and prices including VAT.
• Photos. Phone photos are fine: our 15-minute photo method shows how.
• Food information if you sell food. In the EU, when food is sold at a distance, allergen information (and, for prepacked products, the other mandatory food information) must be available before the purchase is completed (Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, article 14; see the European Commission's guidance).
• A payment account in your business's name. Expect to provide identity documents, your company details and a bank account. Our payments guide explains fees and payouts.
• Fulfilment rules: pickup days and times, delivery zones and charges, shipping rates, cut-off times.
• Your seller information: who you are, your terms of sale, how customers can cancel, and your privacy policy. Online sellers must give customers this information before they order.
• An inbox someone reads every day the shop is open. Orders and customer questions arrive there.
• Access to your website's menu, or to the person who manages it, to add the shop link.

What it really costs

Whatever the option, the costs fall into five kinds:

1. Setup: your time, or an invoice from an agency or a web designer.
2. Fixed fees: a monthly plan, hosting, paid extensions. Due whether you sell or not.
3. Per-sale fees: a commission or a transaction fee on each order.
4. Payment processing: the card fee, charged on each payment whatever the option. On Stripe's standard pricing, 1.5% + €0.25 for a standard European card (checked October 2026).
5. Your time: keeping products, prices and photos up to date. Often the biggest cost, and the one nobody invoices.

When you compare options, add up all five over a full year, including the quiet months and the busiest ones.

For the done-for-you option, here are our own numbers. Add Your Shop has no setup fee and no monthly fee. We charge 2.5% of each order paid online (products plus any delivery charge), capped at €49 per calendar month, excluding VAT. Stripe's fee is separate, paid to Stripe and never marked up. Three illustrative months with €50 orders paid by standard European cards:

Because of the cap, the effective rate falls as you sell more: at €4,000 in a month, €49 works out at about 1.2%. VAT may apply to our commission. The pricing page has a calculator, and our comparison pages set out other options' prices with their sources.

Launch checklist

• The launch range chosen: start with your best-sellers, not everything.
• Prices checked, including VAT, with clear sizes and units.
• One good photo per product, in the same light and on the same background.
• Ingredients and allergens ready for food products.
• Pickup slots, delivery zones and shipping rates decided, with cut-off times.
• Payment account opened and verified in your business's name.
• Terms of sale, legal notice and privacy policy in place.
• A test order placed and refunded, so you have seen the whole journey.
• The shop link in your menu, visible on mobile as well as on a computer.
• Your regulars told: in the shop, on your bags, on social media and on your Google Business Profile.