E-commerce Guide for Spain

Before choosing a platform there are three decisions that condition everything else: how many SKUs you will carry, whether you sell only in Spain or abroad too, and where the stock comes from. A catalogue of thirty products and one of thirty thousand have nothing in common, neither in technology nor in content work.

The fourth decision, the one that sinks the most projects, is who produces the listings. Every product needs its own photos, a written description and consistent attributes. Copying the manufacturer's listing is what every other seller of the same product does, which is why none of them ranks.

• Number of SKUs and how often the catalogue changes
• Markets and currencies from the start, not patched on later
• Stock origin: own warehouse, supplier or dropshipping
• Who produces photos and descriptions, and by when
• Whether it must sync with an ERP or a physical POS

An online store in Spain must identify the operator with name, tax ID and address, publish sale terms accessible before purchase, inform of the fourteen-day right of withdrawal and display the final price including tax plus shipping costs before payment.

On top of that comes data protection: a real privacy policy describing what is collected and why, a consent banner that does not load cookies before acceptance, and a channel for exercising rights. And if you sell to other EU countries, watch the threshold that requires charging the buyer country's VAT.

• Full identification of the operator and contact details
• Sale terms accessible before purchase
• The fourteen-day right of withdrawal, explained
• Final price with tax and shipping before payment
• Cookie consent that loads nothing before acceptance

In Spain three options coexist: the bank's gateway (Redsys), an international gateway such as Stripe, and account-based methods like PayPal or Bizum. Most stores end up combining a main gateway with one or two extra methods, because losing a sale for not offering the customer's method costs more than the fee.

European rules require strong authentication on most card payments, and that is where many integrations fail: implementing it halfway produces declined payments with no visible explanation for the buyer, who simply leaves thinking the shop is broken.

• Compare the total fee, not just the advertised percentage
• Check the real time until money reaches your account
• Implement strong authentication properly or lose payments
• Offer the local method your customer uses, even if it costs more
• Test the full refund flow before opening

Shipping cost is the leading reason for cart abandonment, especially when it appears as a surprise at the last step. Showing it earlier, or including it in the price and advertising free shipping, converts better than hiding it until the end even when the total is identical.

Returns have to be designed, not improvised. Who pays return postage, how long the refund takes and how it is requested must be written down and easy to find. A clear returns policy increases conversion, because it lowers the perceived risk of buying.

• Show shipping cost as early as possible, not at the last step
• Realistic timeframes: promising less and delivering is worth more
• Order tracking without the customer having to call
• A written, clear and easy-to-find returns policy
• Work out the real cost of a return before setting prices

The category page captures the generic search and the product page the specific one, so both need their own text. A category with nothing beyond a grid of products rarely ranks, because there is nothing to index except item names.

Product structured data — price, availability, ratings — lets Google display that information in results, which improves click-through measurably. You also have to decide what to do with out-of-stock products: deleting them throws away their ranking; keeping them with alternatives preserves it.

• Original text on categories, not just a product grid
• Descriptions written by you, not copied from the manufacturer
• Product structured data with price and availability
• Filters that do not generate thousands of duplicate indexable URLs
• Out of stock: keep the URL with visible alternatives

A large share of full carts never become purchases, and most of that loss happens in the last three steps. The causes repeat: forcing account creation, asking for data not needed to ship an order, and costs that appear at the end without prior warning.

Guest checkout is the single highest-return improvement in almost any store. After that: fewer fields, visible progress, the ability to correct without going back to the start, and accepting payment without leaving the site. Every removed step shows in the final figure.

• Guest checkout, with no forced account creation
• Only the fields needed to charge and ship
• Total cost visible before the last step, with no surprises
• The ability to correct a detail without starting over
• An immediate confirmation email with the order detail