How to set up a Shopify webshop yourself: 12 steps to launch

This Shopify guide for starters shows how to build and set up a Shopify webshop yourself, and that is faster today than ever: the platform handles hosting, security and updates, and since the AI wave of 2025-2026 Shopify even creates a first version of your store based on a short description. Yet at ClickForest, as a Shopify Partner building webshops for SMEs in Flanders, we see starters stumble over the same thresholds every time: the Belgian obligations, the payment methods, and the step from “store online” to “store that sells”. So below you will find how Shopify works and what it costs in Belgium, the complete step-by-step plan with the Belgian points of attention most guides skip, the AI tools you get at no extra cost as of September 2026, and an honest answer to when you’re better off outsourcing.

What do you need to arrange to start a webshop in Belgium?

Before you touch Shopify, arrange your company number, your VAT and the legal basics of your site. Anyone selling professionally in Belgium registers with the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises via a business counter; that company number becomes your VAT number after activation. With an annual turnover of no more than €25,000 you can use the exemption scheme for small businesses; your accountant will tell you whether that pays off.

If you also sell to consumers in other EU countries, watch the threshold of €10,000 per year in total: above it you charge the VAT of the country of arrival, which you handle through the OSS scheme (source: FPS Finance).

On top of that, every Belgian webshop has obligations to respect from day one: your name, address, company number, email address and phone number visible on the site, a total price including VAT, delivery costs clearly stated before the customer orders, and the 14-calendar-day right of withdrawal for distance selling, with the duty to inform and refunds via the same payment method (source: FPS Economy). Since 2024, article VI.45/2 of the Belgian Code of Economic Law also requires every webshop delivering to Belgian consumers to offer at least two different delivery methods, for example home delivery and a pickup point. Businesses founded less than three years ago are not yet covered, nor are webshops that only offer collection at their own premises. Boring? Absolutely. But whoever sorts this out first builds without stress afterwards.

How does Shopify actually work?

Shopify is a SaaS platform: you rent a complete webshop infrastructure, with hosting, security, updates and checkout included, and you pay a monthly subscription. You pick a theme, add products and extend with apps, while the technology under the hood stays with Shopify. That’s exactly why it’s the safest route to a professional webshop for most SMEs.

How it fits together for a Belgian store:

• Subscription: Basic costs €32 per month, Grow €92 and Advanced €384 when paying monthly; paying yearly brings that to €24, €69 and €289 per month, and Plus starts from €2,100 per month.
• Transaction fees: via Shopify Payments an online card payment costs 2% plus €0.25 on Basic, 1.8% plus €0.25 on Grow and 1.6% plus €0.25 on Advanced, and a Bancontact payment €0.39. With an external payment provider, Shopify adds 2%, 1% or 0.6% per plan on top (Shopify Belgium pricing page, September 2026).
• Theme: your store runs on a theme; the newest generation is called Horizon, is free and generates custom blocks with AI.
• Apps: extra functions come from the App Store; which apps are worth it is covered in our Shopify apps guide.
• Shipping: Shopify’s built-in shipping labels are not available in Belgium, so you connect an app such as Sendcloud.
• VAT: since 13 May 2026, new stores in the EU choose between Shopify Tax and manual settings, because Basic Tax is no longer available to them.
• Management: since the Spring ‘26 edition, assistant Sidekick sits on every screen of the Shopify app and helps you by typing or voice.

Still doubting whether Shopify is the right platform for your situation? We make that assessment thoroughly, with market shares and a decision framework per SME profile, in our comparison of Shopify versus other e-commerce platforms; this guide assumes that choice has been made.

How do you create a Shopify account?

Go to shopify.com/be, create an account with your email address and start the trial: 3 days free, then 3 months at €1 per month, so you can try everything before you pay the full rate. Use your business email address right away and fill in your company details correctly, with the same name and address that must legally appear on your site.

Until launch, your store sits behind a password page, so you can build and test at your own pace. If you don’t want to start from a blank screen, the AI store builder from step 3 creates a first design for free.

How do you build a Shopify webshop? The plan in 12 steps

The core in one list: create your account, set up the basics of your store, arrange payments, shipping and VAT the Belgian way right away, and test everything thoroughly before launch. If your photos, copy and paperwork are already prepared, you’ll get through this in days rather than weeks. Count on these twelve steps:

1. Create your account and start your trial. How that works and what you fill in is explained above; get your company details right from the start.
2. Choose your theme. Start with the free themes; the newest generation runs on the Horizon foundation. A paid theme is rarely the first priority.
3. Set your branding. Logo, colours and fonts; Shopify’s AI store builder generates a first design based on a short description of your business if you want (according to Shopify in seconds; in practice a starting point you still refine).
4. Add your products. Strong photos, honest stock, and product descriptions that Shopify Magic helps you write for free on every paid plan; do rewrite the AI output into your own voice.
5. Structure collections and navigation. Start from the way your customer searches.
6. Create the essential pages. About, contact, shipping and returns, terms and conditions and privacy policy, with your company number visible.
7. Set up your payments. Shopify Payments with Bancontact activated is the baseline for Belgium; details in the payment section below.
8. Arrange your shipping. At least two delivery methods for Belgian consumers, via an app: with Sendcloud you create labels for bpost, DHL, DPD and UPS, among others, and offer pickup points in the checkout.
9. Get your VAT settings right. Set the reduced Belgian rates per product category via Shopify Tax or manually, show prices including VAT and check this with your accountant, especially above €10,000 per year in sales to consumers in other EU countries.
10. Connect your domain name and business email address. A webshop on a .myshopify address doesn’t look professional.
11. Install your measurement. GA4 and conversion tracking set up correctly, with a consent banner; our GA4-for-Shopify step-by-step plan walks you through it.
12. Test and go live. Place a test order yourself, check payment and email flows on mobile, and only then switch off your password page.

Every step is manageable; the pitfall is skipping steps. Especially 7, 8 and 9 are where we at ClickForest receive most half-finished webshops from SMEs in Flanders.

Can AI build your Shopify webshop in 2026?

Largely, and that’s no longer marketing talk: Shopify has pushed AI into every layer of the platform. The AI store builder generates a first store design from a description, Shopify Magic writes product copy and emails for free on every paid plan, and assistant Sidekick became in the Winter ‘26 edition (December 2025) a proactive colleague that adjusts your theme through plain language and builds automations when you describe them.

Since the Spring ‘26 edition of 17 June 2026, Sidekick also works with third-party apps. CEO Tobi Lütke summed up the company’s course in an internal memo in April 2025 like this:

“AI will totally change Shopify, our work, and the rest of our lives. We’re all in on this.”

— Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify (April 2025)

And Vanessa Lee, VP of Product at Shopify, at the launch of the Winter ‘26 edition in December 2025:

“We’re living in a modern-day renaissance with AI at the center.”

— Vanessa Lee, VP of Product at Shopify (December 2025)

Our practical experience as an agency: use those AI tools fully to start faster, but treat the output as a first draft. A generated design without your own brand identity remains interchangeable, and AI product copy without your own customer knowledge remains generic. The gain lies mainly in how fast you start; what’s already possible with AI apps and marketing automation in Shopify we’ve covered separately.

Which payment methods do you need for Belgian customers?

For a Belgian webshop, Bancontact is non-negotiable. Bancontact Company itself reported 2.5 billion payments for 2025, of which 526 million mobile, and 48% of Belgians paid via QR code that year (the app has been called Bancontact Pay since 16 March 2026, no longer Payconiq). A Belgian webshop without Bancontact leaks customers at the final click.

Practically you have two routes. The first is Shopify Payments, the built-in solution: for Belgian webshops it supports the major cards (Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, American Express), automatically also Apple Pay, Google Pay and Shop Pay, and locally activatable Bancontact and Klarna. One practical detail almost nobody knows in advance: iDEAL | Wero for Dutch customers can only be activated after you’ve processed at least 100 orders through Shopify Payments; if you’re selling mainly to the Netherlands from day one, plan for that. The second route is an external payment provider such as Mollie, by its own account used by more than 20,000 merchants on Shopify, with cards, iDEAL | Wero, Bancontact and Klarna in one integration; do factor in Shopify’s extra fee of 2%, 1% or 0.6% per plan. Our rule of thumb: start with Shopify Payments plus Bancontact, and consider Mollie if you have specific Benelux methods or invoicing needs.

Rather launch properly right away? As a Shopify Partner, ClickForest sets up complete webshops for SMEs in Flanders, from payments to tracking. See our startup and migration approach or book a no-obligation video call.

What does a Shopify webshop cost?

Count on four items: the subscription (in Belgium from €32 per month, or €24 per month when paying yearly on Basic), transaction fees per payment, possibly a one-off paid theme and your apps, since specialised apps charge monthly. The amounts per plan and payment method are listed above. On top of that comes professional help for design, migration or marketing if needed.

The more useful question for a starter is: where can you save without risk and where not? Feel free to save on a paid theme and on apps in the early phase; the free themes and built-in functions (including Shopify Magic) go surprisingly far. Don’t save on your product photography, your measurement and your payment mix, because those are the three places where a cheap start directly costs revenue. And don’t count yourself rich with “free”: your biggest investment is your own time anyway, and that rarely features in the comparisons online.

How long does it take to set up a Shopify webshop?

From our own build practice: a simple store with a limited assortment can be set up by a motivated starter in a few days to two weeks; a professional webshop with polished design, full product catalogue, correct Belgian settings and working tracking takes several weeks. Migrations from another platform take longest, because data, URLs and SEO have to move too.

The lead time depends less on Shopify than on your preparation: whoever has product photos, copy, shipping rates and legal pages ready flies through the plan above; whoever still has to create everything along the way stays stuck for weeks on steps 4 and 6. Our tip: see the launch as the start of the real work, because a webshop without visitors sells nothing.

How do you make sure your webshop gets found and bought from?

Launching a webshop is half the work; being findable and convincing is the other half. The basics: search engine optimisation from day one (titles, product copy, structure; follow our Shopify SEO checklist), correct measurement so you know what works, and a conversion rate you actively improve.

New since 2026 is that “being found” is broader than Google: with Shopify Catalog and the Universal Commerce Protocol, Shopify pushes product data straight to AI assistants like ChatGPT and Copilot, and through agentic storefronts merchants’ products appear in those conversations. President Harley Finkelstein on the scale of that:

“If you look at Shopify’s data, specifically at checkouts from January 2025 to January 2026, merchants have seen 14x more orders coming from agents compared to last year at the same time.”

— Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify (January 2026)

That is a Shopify-own figure from an undisclosed base. For a Belgian starter, the key detail is geography: selling via ChatGPT is currently only possible if your store also sells to customers in the United States, and Shopify only shows the direct checkout in Microsoft Copilot to customers in the US. The direction is clear, though: clean product data gets rewarded twice. Finkelstein again, on why that is:

“You can’t just scrape information and expect a great experience.”

— Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify (January 2026)

What agentic commerce concretely means for your product data is covered in our guide on agentic commerce for webshops; if you sell (partly) via dropshipping, definitely also read our dropshipping and fulfilment guide for Belgium.

Build it yourself or outsource?

Honest answer: for a simple store with standard needs you can perfectly start yourself today, certainly with the AI tools on board. Outsourcing becomes the logical choice as soon as custom work, a migration or serious revenue goals are involved, because then beginner mistakes in payments, VAT or SEO quickly cost more than the build itself.

Situation	Do it yourself	Outsource
Small assortment, standard design	Fine starting point	Rarely needed
Migration from another platform	Risk of data and SEO loss	Recommended
Custom design or functionality	Quickly hits limits	Recommended
B2B features, multilingual, integrations	Complex	Recommended
Little time, budget available	Slow process	Live faster
Tight budget, plenty of time	Logical choice	Scale up later

What such a project looks like in practice you can see in our cases: for Studio Play and Authentic Flavours we built complete Shopify webshops, each with the Belgian payment and shipping mix set up right from day one. ClickForest builds and migrates Shopify webshops for SMEs in Flanders; if you want to have your Shopify webshop built, you’ll find the full offering there.

What should you remember about setting up a Shopify webshop?

Building a Shopify webshop yourself is more feasible than ever in 2026: the trial, the free themes and the AI tools (store builder, Magic, Sidekick) take a lot of work off your hands. The Belgian success factors remain human work: company number and mandatory information in order, Bancontact in your payment mix, at least two delivery methods, correct VAT and working measurement.

The biggest mistake remains: launching first, thinking about findability later. If you would rather not do it yourself, how to choose a Shopify partner in Belgium runs through the six criteria that make the difference.

ClickForest helps SMEs in Flanders with Shopify webshops in every phase: started yourself and got stuck, migration or full build, and afterwards findability and growth. Torn between doing it yourself and outsourcing? Book a no-obligation video call and we’ll look at what’s smartest for your situation together. The full cost side of outsourcing, including payment fees and what comes on top after going live, is in what a webshop costs. And which Belgian agencies demonstrably do that work is in the overview of Shopify agencies in Belgium.