Online Stores That Actually Sell: Beyond the Platform

A webshop is not a business modelLaunching an online store has never been easier. Making it profitable has never been harder. The recent turbulence ar...

A webshop is not a business model

Launching an online store has never been easier. Making it profitable has never been harder. The recent turbulence around the large ultra-fast-fashion players is a useful reminder for any merchant in Catalonia: when transport costs, duties and new EU charges on low-value parcels rise, a business built purely on cheap products shipped one by one has almost no room left to manoeuvre. Margins that looked comfortable at 6% can collapse to 2% in a single quarter once fulfilment costs climb.

That is not a problem exclusive to global giants. A Lleida retailer shipping to Barcelona, or a Tarragona brand selling into France, faces the same arithmetic on a smaller scale. The difference is that a well-built online store can adapt faster than a multinational — if it was designed to.

What actually moves the needle

Most ecommerce projects fail not because of the platform, but because of the decisions taken around it. In our experience working with shops across Catalonia, the gap between a store that limps along and one that sells consistently usually comes down to a handful of factors:

Conversion before traffic. Pouring budget into advertising while the checkout leaks visitors is the most expensive mistake in ecommerce. Fixing product pages, shipping transparency and payment options first multiplies the return on every euro spent later.
Real logistics costs in the price. With low-value parcel charges now applying across the EU, stores that still advertise free shipping on a 12 € item are quietly losing money on every order. Pricing and shipping thresholds need to be modelled, not guessed.
Mobile-first, always. The overwhelming majority of browsing in Spain happens on a phone. A store that is merely "responsive" is not the same as one designed for a thumb on a 4G connection in the middle of a shop.
GDPR-compliant data handling. Consent, analytics and email marketing must be set up correctly from day one. Retrofitting compliance after a complaint is far more costly than doing it properly at launch.

PrestaShop or WooCommerce? The honest answer

There is no universally correct platform, only the right fit for a specific catalogue, team and growth plan. PrestaShop remains a strong choice for Spanish merchants with large, structured catalogues, multi-language needs and complex tax or carrier rules — its ecosystem is mature and well understood locally. WooCommerce, built on WordPress, suits brands that want tight integration between content, SEO and shop, and that value flexibility over out-of-the-box structure.

What matters far more than the logo on the dashboard is how the store is configured: caching and hosting tuned for speed, a checkout stripped of unnecessary steps, structured data for search engines, and an admin that a non-technical team can actually use. A bespoke build on either platform will consistently outperform a generic template with fifty plugins bolted on.

The stack around the shop

An online store is never just a store. It sits inside a wider stack: invoicing that complies with Spanish electronic invoicing requirements, stock synchronisation with physical points of sale, customer support channels, and analytics that respect user consent. When these pieces are disconnected, staff spend their days copying data between systems instead of selling.

This is where many merchants in Girona, Barcelona and Lleida lose their competitive edge — not to a better product, but to a better-organised operation. Automating order-to-invoice flows, connecting carriers and centralising customer data frees the time needed to actually grow.

Build for the next three years, not the last three

Regulation is tightening, transport is getting more expensive and customer expectations keep rising. A store designed in 2020 for cheap, frictionless shipping may already be obsolete. The sensible approach is to build an ecommerce platform that can absorb new costs, new markets and new rules without a full rebuild — modular, measurable and owned by you, not rented from a marketplace that changes the rules overnight.

That is the difference between having a website that takes orders and running an online business that genuinely sells.

Put these ideas into practice

Talk to ALMC about a solution for your business. Explore your options or contact our team.

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