Following questions from prospective and existing clients, we decided to write about everything to do with an e-shop.
What is an online shop
It is any kind of commercial transaction between individuals or legal entities that takes place by electronic means. These commercial operations and transactions are carried out without the “traditional paperwork” and usually take place over computer networks. They can involve either information or goods.
Although it sounds simple, setting up an e-shop is actually a slightly more complex process. Essentially, anyone interested should bear in mind that this is a new shop. Like every shop, it has certain costs, such as hosting for the e-shop, the purchase cost or the licences for free applications, support, scalability, ease of use and others depending on the e-shop.
Choosing an application to build an e-shop
Whichever application you go for, the choice should always depend on your own requirements, as every e-shop is a separate case. So you have the following options:
Ready-made solutions: e-shops under a GNU licence (pre-built) that cost nothing or have a minimal purchase cost.
Ready-made, pre-built applications that have been modified and improved with custom work by a freelancer or a company.
Solutions built from scratch and tailored to the needs of each business, which cost a lot more.
At web-mate we recommend the last 2 solutions, as they are usually the safest and most scalable. Together with cost, we believe these 3 should be the criteria for choosing a solution for building an e-shop.
Hosting Service
There are mainly 2 options for hosting our e-shop . Put more plainly, hosting is the space where the e-shop will “live” together with its information (photos, prices etc.). The first option is housing it on a server kept on our own premises, and the second is renting space from companies that have servers for hosting.
The first option, which is also the most expensive, is only considered by very large companies that have specialist staff to maintain and monitor these systems, as well as the “budget” needed to buy the right equipment. At web-mate we generally do not recommend buying a server to host a website or an e-shop, since you also have to consider how fast technology changes and the cost of upgrades. As we said earlier, buying a server only makes sense for large companies or for companies that already use a server.
The second option is more affordable and suits pretty much everyone, especially small and medium-sized businesses.
Prices for renting the space where the e-shop will be hosted depend on the company and the features it offers, and they vary from provider to provider. A particularly important factor in the final choice is what the hosting provider can offer, since it must provide the right conditions for the e-shop to run smoothly, have specialist support staff, solve any problems well and quickly, and be reliable in terms of uptime (in short, the hosting service you paid for should actually work). Security is of course a key factor too.
At web-mate we believe we meet the above requirements for providing hosting (and we have proved it). We offer 2 options: either a Dedicated Server or a VPS (virtual private server).
Essentially both do the same thing in a different way. It always depends on what you want and how much you are willing to pay. In general a dedicated server is always more expensive than a VPS, and technology has moved on so far that we can now talk about a VPS with unique user accounts (in other words, dedicated per user). In general it depends on your needs.
So, once you have thought about all of the above, it is time to choose a platform. If you have decided on a custom application, the advice stops here, since I cannot cover or anticipate everyone’s individual needs and questions, and I would suggest you talk to us for more details.
If you decide to use a ready-made platform, we recommend:
1) WooCommerce on WordPress
2) Shopify
The order is not random, as it reflects our opinion. WooCommerce is free, the shop’s code and data belong to you, and there are ready-made plugins for most Greek banks, payment providers and couriers. Shopify runs on a monthly subscription: you get started faster, but you pay every month and you are tied to the platform. To configure either of them for a better look and better promotion of your products, you will certainly need the help of a specialist.
You can download WordPress and WooCommerce from their websites, or install them from your hosting service at the click of a button. Shopify doesn’t need hosting of your own, since it runs on the company’s servers. Personally I would recommend the second option (this is another criterion for choosing a hosting service), especially if your knowledge is not quite up to the whole undertaking.
After installing the application you can set all the required parameters for the system to work properly, and then you need to think about how you will sell and handle your transactions.
Transactions and payment methods
These days the most widely used payment methods are the following:
* By card online, through a bank or a payment provider (Viva, Everypay, Stripe etc.)
* With IRIS, straight from the customer’s online banking
* With PayPal (a service you can find out more about at https://paypal.com)
* By bank transfer
* Cash on delivery
In our opinion all five methods should be available, or at least 4. IRIS is in fact compulsory: since 1 December 2025 all shops in Greece, physical and online, must accept IRIS payments. You can read more in our article on IRIS payments for e-shops.
For card payments you will need to work with a bank or with a payment provider such as Viva, Everypay, Stripe or PayPal. Let’s look at the bank or provider option and how it is connected to the application. Once you have signed a contract with the bank or provider and agreed a commission for each transaction, you need to “connect” the application to the bank. There are modules (programs) for this, some free and some paid. I cannot vouch for their security in every individual case, but it would be wise to take this seriously and let problems from the past be one of the criteria in your choice. Most Greek banks have now handed card payments over to specialist payment companies (e.g. Nexi, Worldline, Global Payments, Euronet), and all these systems work in much the same way.
And this is how it works:
Usually the customer, having finished shopping (various products in the shopping cart), wants to pay.
The program shows them the shipping methods available in their area and the payment options, usually on the same checkout page.
At this point, if they choose to pay by card, they either enter their card details in the provider’s secure form on the page or are taken to the bank’s or provider’s secure environment (SSL). The card is checked over the Visa or Mastercard network and, for most purchases, the customer confirms the payment in their banking app or with a one-time code (3-D Secure, the strong customer authentication required by the EU’s PSD2 directive). If all the details are correct and the card has enough available balance, the order is completed and the customer returns to the e-shop page.
The bank or provider notifies the shop owner, and the transaction is also recorded in the Back office (the shop owner’s transaction management page). The application also sends an email to the customer and the shop owner (if this has been set in the application’s admin area) and records the order. Modern payment gateways update the e-shop automatically for every transaction, so the order status changes by itself as soon as the payment is approved.
The buyer doesn’t need to be a member of the site to buy. WooCommerce and Shopify both allow purchases without an account (guest checkout), and this works normally with banks and payment providers. It is up to you whether you ask customers to register.
PayPal is an organisation, a company that specialises in this field
Its philosophy is as follows:
a) You can make your purchases and sales as a PayPal member
b) You can make your purchases and sales by credit card through PayPal
c) You can create an account, sign an agreement and have all your transactions processed through this service every month
PayPal is widely used and has very flexible and secure payment methods, which we recommend without reservation. The owner of the e-shop can set in the admin area whether a buyer who pays with PayPal automatically becomes a member of the e-shop as well.
Main criterion for choosing a payment method: commission
A bank or payment provider may take (withhold) roughly 1.5%-2.5% on each card payment, depending on the agreement, sales volume, what you sell etc. For sales within Greece, PayPal’s standard fee is 3.4% + €0.35 per transaction, with lower rates for card payments processed through PayPal. IRIS costs the business noticeably less than cards. Fees change, so always check each provider’s current price list before you sign.
We hope we have answered some of your questions; for anything more, don’t hesitate to contact us. The main thing to remember is that for a job like this it is better to turn to a specialist than to build an e-shop yourself, because later you may pay many times over, either for failure due to incomplete information about how an e-shop works or for security gaps you were not aware of. Finally, at web-mate we always recommend encryption when transferring data to the e-shop .
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