Building an online store starts with the profit on a single order, before you choose a platform or a design. Next come the legal requirements in your country, then the platform, payment and shipping, product and policy pages, and a real test order from start to delivery. After launch, your job becomes watching where visitors stop and fixing that, week after week.
Most guides start with the name and the logo and leave the math and the obligations for the end. That order is expensive, because a good design cannot rescue a product that makes no profit after shipping and returns. We checked the sources in November 2026. This article is not legal or tax advice.
Step one is working out the profit per order
Calculate what remains from each order after every cost. This hypothetical example uses made-up figures, so replace them with yours.
| Item | Hypothetical amount |
|---|---|
| Average order value | 1,000 |
| Cost of goods | −500 |
| Shipping you pay | −60 |
| Online payment fees | −30 |
| Packaging | −20 |
| Average returns cost per order | −40 |
| Profit before ads | 350 |
In this example, 350 is the most you can pay to win one order without losing money. If your cost per order from ads is higher, each sale loses you money. The full calculation is in our article on customer acquisition cost. Do not move on until this table is written for your top five products.
The legal requirements in Egypt and Saudi Arabia
Review these before launch. The table summarizes points from secondary legal sources, so the official texts and the latest decisions are what count.
Write your returns and shipping policies from these points with a lawyer or adviser, and do not copy them from another store. If you collect customer data, also review the Saudi data protection law or Egypt's law.
Choose the platform by your size and order type
If you are starting with a limited range, a ready-made platform is usually enough, since it provides payment, shipping and hosting. A custom store makes sense when you build business logic that platforms do not cover, or when your order volume needs special connections to your systems. The detailed decision table is in ready-made platform or custom store.
Before paying any platform, try three things during the trial: add a product with sizes and colors, place a full order from a phone, and export your orders and customers to a file. If one of these is hard, you will suffer from it every day.
Set up payment and shipping the way your customer expects
Payment methods differ between the two countries, so ask the platform or gateway what it supports for your business on the date you sign.
- In Saudi Arabia, Salla for example lists Mada, Visa, Apple Pay and stc pay, plus buy-now-pay-later services such as Tabby and Tamara among the options for stores.
- In Egypt, gateways such as Paymob handle online payments, and Fawry lets people pay cash for online purchases at its outlets.
- Cash on delivery, if you offer it, should be in your profit table, including orders refused at the door.
For shipping, agree with two companies if you can, and set the areas you truly serve, realistic delivery times, and who pays for returns. Then write those times on the product page so the customer does not discover the cost at the last step.
Why your review should start at the cart and checkout
The Baymard Institute puts average cart abandonment at 70.22%, based on 50 studies (updated September 2025). The top reasons, once people who were only browsing are set aside: extra costs for shipping, tax and fees at 40%, slow delivery at 20%, distrust of the site with card details at 19%, forced account creation at 18%, and long checkouts at 17%. These are global figures and are not specific to Egypt or Saudi Arabia, but they give you a good order for what to check first.
They translate into practical choices when you build: show the shipping cost before the cart, allow guest checkout, keep payment steps to a minimum, and put the delivery time beside the buy button.
A checklist before launching your store
| Area | Confirm that |
|---|---|
| Products | Photos are real, descriptions cover size, material and use, and prices include what they should |
| Policies | Shipping, returns, privacy and terms pages are clear and linked in every footer |
| Trust | Company details, a contact channel someone actually answers, and the verification badge if it applies |
| A real order | You placed a card order, and a cash order if offered, and followed them through delivery and return |
| Messages | Confirmation and shipping messages arrive with correct order details |
| Phone | You tried the whole purchase on a mid-range phone |
| Speed | You checked the home page and a product page. See website speed |
| Measurement | Add to cart, begin checkout and purchase events appear with correct values. See setting up conversion tracking |
| Support | A named person answers messages, with ready replies for the most common questions |
A plan for the first 30 days after launch
Do not begin with a large ad budget. The first month is for finding mistakes and fixing them while you sell in small quantities.
- Week one. Send the store to existing customers and contacts. Ask five people to buy in front of you and note where they stop.
- Week two. Run a small ad on your best product and compare cost per order with the profit in your table.
- Week three. Open the purchase path report: how many visitors opened a product, added to cart, started checkout and finished. Fix only the largest drop.
- Week four. Call your first customers, ask about delivery and the product, ask for reviews, then update real profit per order after returns.
Once an order is proven to make money, move to the channel plan in digital marketing for companies. At that point, spending more becomes a calculated decision.
Your next step
Open a spreadsheet and write the profit per order for your top five products today. If the profit looks healthy, pull your country's requirements and start a trial on one platform. If you need someone to build the store and connect payment, shipping and measurement, that is the work of PlanKit's e-commerce solutions team.