A complete guide to launching an online store in Romania (2026)

Last updated: April 2026

You want to open an online store in Romania and you are not sure where to start. The short answer: you need an eCommerce platform, a domain, hosting, payment and courier integrations, and a handful of legal boxes ticked. The longer answer - the one that separates a store that sells from one that sits there - is what follows.

We have laid the whole process out in clear steps, from business idea to first real orders. Whether you sell physical products, digital goods or services, and whether this is your first project or a migration away from a platform that costs too much every month, this guide gives you the full map for 2026.

Romania's eCommerce market passed EUR 8 billion in 2025 (source: ARMO, GPeC). Growth has not stopped. Romanians buy online more than ever, and the barrier to entry for a serious business owner has dropped considerably. The timing is good - but only if you get the fundamentals right.

1. What running an online store in Romania looks like in 2026

An online store is no longer an add-on to a physical shop. For a lot of Romanian business owners it is the main sales channel, sometimes the only one.

Where the Romanian market stands

The figure above covers both large retailers and the small and mid-sized stores that worked out early that being online is not optional. Today's Romanian shopper compares prices on a phone, pays with Apple Pay, wants delivery to a parcel locker, and expects the whole thing to run smoothly from first visit to parcel in hand.

What that means for you: there is a market and there is demand. There is also competition - and a slow, badly built store with broken integrations and no marketing behind it will not last.

Why it makes sense to launch in 2026

• Lower entry costs than a physical shop - no rent, no sales staff, no geographic limit
• Real scalability - the same setup serves 10 customers or 10,000
• Data and control - you know what people search for, what they buy, where they come from and where they abandon the cart
• Open around the clock - the store sells while you sleep
• Access to EU markets - the One Stop Shop VAT scheme makes selling across the EU simpler, though the exact tax details are a conversation for your accountant

What has changed in five years

In 2020 you could launch a basic store and still sell reasonably well. In 2026 the bar is higher. Shoppers expect:

• Apple Pay and Google Pay straight from the phone
• Delivery to parcel lockers (easybox, Sameday)
• An invoice issued automatically the moment the order is placed
• Automated email and SMS follow-up
• Reviews with photos, ratings and replies from the seller
• A returns policy that is clear and easy to find
• GDPR compliance that visibly works

None of this is a nice-to-have. A store that skips it loses orders to one that does not.

2. Launching a store: a ten-step checklist

Before you pick a platform or talk to an agency, walk through these ten steps. This is the order in which things should happen.

Step 1: Validate the business idea

Ahead of any technical spend, answer a few basic questions. Is there demand for what you sell? Who are your customers? What do you offer that the market does not already have? Can you fulfil orders profitably? A well-built store cannot rescue a business model that does not work.

Step 2: Set up the legal entity

To sell online legally in Romania you need a registered entity. The usual options are a sole trader (PFA) or a limited company (SRL). The SRL gives you more personal protection and is what most higher-volume stores use. Talk to an accountant or a lawyer before you decide.

Step 3: Pick the domain and hosting

The domain is your address. Keep it short, memorable and tied to your brand. The .ro extension is the natural choice for the Romanian market, .com works well if you also sell abroad. Hosting should be fast, ideally located in Europe, with automatic backups and support you can actually reach.

Step 4: Choose the eCommerce platform

This is the biggest technical decision you will make. In short, you are choosing between a monthly subscription platform and an open source build whose code belongs to you. We compare the two in the next section.

Step 5: Build the store

Design, category structure, product pages, information pages (about, contact, returns policy, GDPR, company details). This is the longest stage, and the one where an experienced agency shows its worth against a freelancer or a DIY setup.

Step 6: Connect payments and couriers

Without online payment and automatic shipping labels you do not really have a working store. Test every integration thoroughly before launch.

Step 7: Set up invoicing and your ERP

E-invoicing is mandatory in Romania: since 2024 for B2B and since 2025 for B2C (source: ANAF, Romania's tax authority, OUG 89/2025). Invoices must reach the RO e-Factura system within 5 working days. Automatic invoicing wired into your store is not a luxury, it is an operational and legal requirement.

Step 8: Sort out the legal side

GDPR, Cookie Consent v2, a returns policy under OUG 34/2014, a page with your company registration details, unit pricing for food products. All of it belongs before launch, not after.

Step 9: Test everything

Place test orders. Check that invoices are issued automatically. Check that shipping labels generate correctly. Test on phone, tablet and desktop. Test load times. Do not launch an untested store.

Step 10: Launch and promote

Launch is the beginning, not the end. SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads, email marketing, social. A store with no traffic does not sell.

3. Which type of platform to choose

This is the question we get most often, and the right answer depends on your situation. There are clear principles, though.

Subscription platforms - what you gain and what you give up

A SaaS platform gets you a store quickly, with little upfront cost. You pay monthly, you get something already configured, hosting included. On paper it reads well.

The limits show up over the medium term:

• You do not own the code - you are renting. If the platform changes its pricing or shuts down, you are exposed
• Limited customisation - you can build what the platform allows, not what your business needs
• Costs that stack up - subscriptions accumulate year after year and leave you owning nothing
• Transaction fees - some platforms take a cut of every sale on top of the subscription
• Patchy integrations - not every Romanian courier or invoicing provider is supported natively
• Migration is painful - when you want to leave, the data export is often incomplete

Open source builds - why we prefer them

At Pronet Design we work mainly with OpenCart, a mature open source platform with an active community and a lot of room to move. Alongside it we build on PrestaShop, Magento and custom PHP when a project calls for it.

What an open source build gives you:

• You own the source code - completely. You can work with any agency, at any time, without losing anything
• No compulsory monthly fee - you pay once to build, not forever to exist
• Full customisation - if a service has an API, the feature is possible
• Integrations that match the Romanian market - Fan Courier, Sameday, Netopia, PayU, plus SmartBill and Oblio for invoicing, which in turn file your invoices with ANAF through RO e-Factura
• Growth without penalty - more sales does not automatically mean a bigger platform bill

When a subscription does make sense

There are situations where SaaS is the right call: testing an idea quickly on a minimal budget, very low sales volume that does not justify an upfront build, or no need for anything custom. But for a serious business, or one you intend to grow, an owned solution pays for itself fairly quickly.

4. What an online store costs in Romania

There is no single price for an online store - it depends on complexity, integrations, design and platform. But the two approaches compare clearly.

The cost of a custom store with Pronet Design

An online store starts at EUR 3,400 excluding VAT, with no compulsory monthly fee. A business website starts at EUR 2,500 excluding VAT.

What that covers:

• A design built around your brand
• An open source platform (OpenCart, or whatever fits the project)
• Core integrations: online payment, courier, invoicing
• GDPR setup, Cookie Consent v2, legal pages
• Basic on-page SEO
• Full testing before launch
• The source code - yours, in full, with no strings

Maintenance is optional, not compulsory

Monthly maintenance starts at RON 300 a month and covers updates, technical support and monitoring. It is entirely optional. We have stores launched in 2018 still running fine without an active maintenance contract. You own the code and can work with any agency you like - there is no lock-in.

5. Integrations a Romanian store cannot do without

A store without the right integrations is a shop with no till and no courier. Here is what you need connected.

Online payments

• Netopia Payments - Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay, Google Pay
• PayU Romania - including interest-free instalments
• Stripe - the natural choice for international sales
• ePlatesc
• Plati Online
• Revolut Pay
• ING Pay
• iPay (Banca Transilvania)
• UniCredit instalments - a custom module we built ourselves
• TBI instalments
• LeanPay
• Bank transfer - account details shown automatically at checkout and in the confirmation email
• Cash on delivery

Our rule: if the service has an API, we integrate it.

Couriers and automatic shipping labels

• Fan Courier - including FanBox lockers
• Sameday - including easybox lockers
• GLS
• Pallex - for oversized items and pallets
• DPD
• Dragon Star
• Urgent Cargus

Automatic invoicing and ERP

E-invoicing is mandatory: B2B since 2024, B2C since 2025, with a five working day filing window (source: ANAF, OUG 89/2025). We integrate:

• SmartBill, Oblio, Facturis, SAGA - the standard options
• Priority, Senior Software, Expert Contab, Nexus - fully custom integrations
• Any ERP with an API - if your system is documented, we connect it

Email marketing and automation

• WhiteImage - the OpenCart connector was built in-house at Pronet Design
• Newsman, TheMarketer, Mailchimp, Klaviyo

Abandoned cart: a first reminder email, then a second one two days later carrying an automatically generated discount code. That one automation alone recovers a meaningful number of orders every month.

Advanced features

• AI chatbots - Molin, Fastbots, or a custom bot against any AI provider's API
• eMAG Marketplace (Romania's largest online marketplace) plus feeds for Favi, Compari and Price.ro
• Fully automated GDPR - correction, portability and erasure requests handled without anyone lifting a finger
• Cookie Consent v2 - required if you run Google Ads
• Photo reviews - customer images, star ratings, a "was this helpful?" vote
• Unit pricing (per 100ml, per 100g, per kg, per litre) - a legal requirement under EU Directive 98/6/EC and Romanian HG 947/2000, applying to any pre-packaged product sold by weight or volume: food, cosmetics, detergents and cleaning products, online stores included
• Company details page - legally required

6. The legal side of running a store in Romania

Legal form

To sell online you need a registered entity: PFA, II or SRL. The relevant activity code for online retail is 4791. Talk to an accountant before deciding.

GDPR

GDPR applies to any store that collects personal data. Fines reach 4% of worldwide turnover or EUR 20 million (source: GDPR Art. 83). We implement GDPR end to end, so customers can exercise every right straight from their account.

Cookie Consent v2

Without Cookie Consent v2, Google can restrict or stop serving your ads (source: Google Developers). It is a technical and a legal requirement at the same time.

B2B e-invoicing

Since 1 January 2024 every B2B invoice has to be filed through ANAF's e-Factura system (source: ANAF). We wire automatic invoicing with e-Factura filing into the store.

The right to return - OUG 34/2014

Under OUG 34/2014 (source: Portal Legislativ, ANPC, Romania's consumer protection authority), customers can return goods within 14 calendar days without giving a reason.

OSS and VAT on EU sales

Once you pass EUR 10,000 in cross-border B2C sales within the EU (in force since July 2021, source: European Commission, ANAF), you have to register for the One Stop Shop scheme.

Company details page

Every online store is legally required to publish its full identification details: company name, tax number, trade registry number, registered office and contact details.

Unit pricing

For food and cosmetics, showing the price per 100g or per 100ml is a legal requirement. We calculate it automatically.

7. SEO and marketing after launch

SEO - the foundation of organic traffic

The basics: clean URLs with keywords in them, optimised titles and meta descriptions, unique product copy, good load times, a mobile-first layout, product schema markup and an XML sitemap.

Google Ads and Meta Ads

Google Shopping works particularly well for eCommerce - your product appears with a photo and a price right in the search results. Meta Ads earn their keep on remarketing and visual products.

Email marketing

We integrate WhiteImage (our own connector), Newsman, TheMarketer, Mailchimp or Klaviyo. The automations that matter: abandoned cart, order confirmation, and a review request once the parcel has arrived.

Reviews

We build a full review system - customer photos, star ratings, a "was this helpful?" button and replies from the admin panel.

Marketplaces and comparison engines

Automatic feeds for eMAG Marketplace, Favi, Compari and Price.ro, refreshed whenever you change a price or a stock level.

8. Mistakes we keep seeing

Across more than 160 projects, the same errors come round again and again:

1. Choosing a platform on upfront cost alone - work out the total over three to five years, not just the first invoice
2. Launching with half the integrations missing - a customer with a bad first experience does not come back
3. Treating the legal side as optional - GDPR, Cookie Consent v2 and the returns policy are not negotiable
4. Copy-pasted product descriptions - duplicate content, penalised by Google
5. Neglecting mobile - test on several devices before launch
6. No marketing plan for launch day - budget for it from the start
7. Poor product photography - pay for proper photos
8. Ignoring load times - a slow store loses customers and rankings
9. No regular backups - daily automatic backups are the minimum
10. Hiring an agency with no Romanian eCommerce experience - the local specifics matter

What happens next

Pronet Design has delivered more than 160 projects, works with 130+ active clients, holds 23+ five-star Google reviews and has seen client stores win 6 GPeC trophies between 2023 and 2025 - GPeC being Romania's main eCommerce competition. We work with owners who want to build something real, rather than pay subscriptions forever for something that is not theirs.

If you would like to talk through your own project, get in touch. The first conversation is free and you will leave it with a clear idea of what your store needs and what it will cost.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to launch an online store?

Four to eight weeks for a standard store, from the first briefing to going live. Projects with heavy ERP work, thousands of products or unusual functionality run three to six months. The biggest delay is almost never technical - it is waiting for product photos, descriptions and legal texts from the client.

Do I need technical knowledge to run the store?

No. Adding products, editing prices, processing orders and printing shipping labels are all done from an admin panel built for people who are not developers. Training is included when we hand the store over, and we record the session so new staff can watch it later.

Can I move an existing store to a new platform?

Yes. Products, categories, customer accounts, order history and existing URLs can all be migrated. Keeping the old URLs matters more than most owners realise - it is what stops you losing the search rankings you already have.

What happens if I stop working with the agency?

You own the source code and the database. Another developer can pick the project up. We still have stores built in 2018 running today with no monthly licence tied to us, which is the whole point of building on open source.

Can I sell outside Romania?

Yes. Multi-language and multi-currency are part of the build. For sales to other EU countries, the One Stop Shop scheme has applied since July 2021 - once you pass EUR 10,000 in cross-border sales in a year, you charge the VAT rate of the customer country and declare everything through a single return.