An e-commerce website is a shop, a warehouse front desk and a customer service desk at once. For a direct-to-consumer brand it is often the whole business. The e-commerce website requirements in the UK are partly commercial (what makes people buy) and partly legal (what you must tell them and how you must treat them). Get both right and the site does the selling; get either wrong and you pay for it in abandoned baskets, chargebacks or complaints.
This guide is for product brands and online retailers, from a maker selling fifty items to an established brand with thousands of SKUs. The fundamentals are the same.
Product pages do the selling
The product page is where most buying decisions are made. It needs several good photographs, including the product in use and in context for scale; a clear price including VAT; a description that answers real questions (size, material, care, compatibility, what is in the box); stock status; delivery estimate; and the add-to-basket button visible on a phone without scrolling too far.
Write product descriptions yourself rather than pasting the manufacturer’s text. Unique descriptions help search engines tell your page apart from the dozens of other retailers using the same copy, and they let you answer the questions your customers actually ask. Reviews on product pages help, as long as they are genuine: the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 bans fake reviews and concealing incentivised ones.
What an e-commerce website needs, page by page
| Page or feature | What it must do |
|---|---|
| Home | Say what you sell and for whom, show best sellers and current offers, and make search and categories obvious. |
| Category pages | Filter and sort that work on a phone, clear prices, and a short intro that helps search engines. |
| Product pages | Photos, price with VAT, full details, stock, delivery estimate, reviews and a clear add-to-basket button. |
| Basket and checkout | Delivery costs before payment, guest checkout, familiar payment methods and as few steps as possible. |
| Delivery and returns | Costs, times, countries, cut-offs and how returns work, in plain English. |
| About | Who is behind the brand, where things are made, and why it exists. |
| Legal pages | Terms of sale, privacy notice, cookie policy and business details. |
Checkout: where sales are lost
Most abandoned baskets are abandoned at checkout, and the common reasons are well known: unexpected delivery costs, being forced to create an account, too many steps, and a missing preferred payment method. Show delivery costs early, ideally on the product page. Offer guest checkout. Support the payment methods your customers expect, which for most UK consumer brands means cards plus at least one wallet such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, and possibly PayPal.
Use a reputable payment provider so that card details never touch your own server. That keeps you out of most of the burden of PCI DSS compliance, the card industry’s security standard.
The legal requirements for UK online selling
The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 require you to give consumers key information before they buy: the main characteristics of the goods, your identity and geographic address, the total price including taxes, delivery costs, payment and delivery arrangements, and the right to cancel. Consumers generally have 14 days from delivery to cancel for any reason and a further 14 days to return the goods, with exceptions such as personalised, perishable or unsealed hygiene items. You must refund, including standard outbound delivery, within 14 days of receiving the goods back or proof of return.
The Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002 require your site to show your business name, geographic address, email, company number and VAT number where applicable, and any relevant trade body or authorisation. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 gives customers rights where goods are faulty, not as described or not fit for purpose, separate from the cancellation right.
Prices must include VAT for consumers, and the CMA’s guidance on the DMCC Act says compulsory charges should be included in the headline price. If you sell subscriptions, new subscription contract rules under the same Act are being introduced, so check GOV.UK for the current position. If you sell into Northern Ireland or the EU, additional product safety rules such as the EU’s General Product Safety Regulation may apply.
Privacy, cookies and email marketing
An online shop collects personal data at every order, so it needs a clear privacy notice under UK GDPR. Cookies and similar tracking for advertising and most analytics need consent under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), which means a cookie banner that genuinely lets people refuse. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 relaxed consent for some low-risk cookies, so check the ICO’s latest guidance before you set up tracking.
Marketing emails to consumers generally need consent, with a “soft opt-in” exception for existing customers who bought something similar and were given a chance to opt out. Do not pre-tick the marketing box at checkout.
Mistakes e-commerce sites make
- Delivery costs revealed only at the last step.
- Forced account creation before checkout.
- Manufacturer descriptions copied word for word.
- Slow product pages from oversized images and too many apps or plugins.
- Returns policies that contradict consumer law, such as “no refunds on sale items” for online orders.
- Cookie banners that make “accept” easy and “reject” hard.
- Missing business address and company details.
Which platform, and what it costs
The main cost drivers for an e-commerce site are the number of products and variants, product photography, integrations with stock, accounting and fulfilment systems, subscriptions or wholesale pricing, and the amount of custom design. Payment and platform fees continue for as long as you trade, so compare the total cost over two or three years, not just the build.
Hosted platforms such as Shopify, Squarespace Commerce and Wix eCommerce charge monthly subscriptions, typically from around £20 to several hundred pounds a month depending on plan, plus transaction or payment fees. Apps for reviews, subscriptions or shipping add more. WooCommerce is free software but needs hosting, maintenance and security. Custom builds from agencies commonly cost £5,000 to £50,000 or more for established brands, depending on product numbers and integrations with stock, accounting and fulfilment systems.
We can add an online shop to any plan, quoted on your call, and it comes as standard on our Pro plan: £6,950 plus £299/month for a site designed from scratch, with unlimited products, card payments, customer accounts, order emails and integrations with your stock or accounting systems, plus ongoing SEO and conversion testing. We write product copy and category pages with you. Nerdsharks builds for new product brands and established retailers alike, and for large catalogues we will tell you honestly whether a specialist platform suits you better.