Shopify store setup, step by step: what decides the timeline and the cost?

The honest answer to “how long does a Shopify store take, and how much does it cost?” is: it depends on the number of products, the design scope and the integrations. But those variables aren’t vague. If you know which decision affects the timeline and budget and why, you can compare quotes properly.

Why Shopify?

Shopify is a fast, secure platform with low maintenance. You focus on selling without worrying about servers, updates or security. Set up correctly in Türkiye, it works with local payment providers, instalments, cash on delivery and local carriers.

One thing to know: Shopify Payments isn’t available in Türkiye, so Turkish stores work with a third-party payment provider.¹ Because charging customers abroad in several currencies is only possible with Shopify Payments or Adyen,² the payment provider should be chosen during discovery.

Setup runs in four steps

1. Discovery. Your product structure, audience, operations and growth goals are mapped out. Skip this step and every step after it is guesswork.
2. Design. Information architecture, page flows and a mobile-first interface made for your brand.
3. Build. Theme development, product and collection structure, payments, shipping, tax and app integrations.
4. Launch and training. Testing, speed optimisation, go-live and management training for your team.

What we pin down in the discovery call

Before writing a quote, we get written answers to these questions:

1. Catalog. How many products, which variants (size, colour, material), and where does the product data live?
2. Current site. Are products, customers and orders moving over? We list the old site’s URLs and plan redirects from that list.
3. Payments and shipping. Which payment provider, are instalments and cash on delivery needed, which carriers?
4. Integrations. Marketplace, ERP, accounting and e-invoicing connections.
5. Legal texts. KVKK privacy notice, distance sales contract, cookie management.
6. Tracking. Who owns the GA4, Meta Pixel and Google Ads accounts, and what will be measured?

This list becomes the scope document, the schedule and a fixed-scope quote.

6 decisions that set the timeline and cost

1. Product count and variant structure. A 20-product catalog and thousands of products with size, colour and material variants are not the same job.
2. Ready-made or custom theme? A ready-made theme is quick but boxes you in. A custom theme is shaped around your brand and needs more design and development.
3. Data migration. If products, customers and orders move from an existing site and redirects from old URLs are needed (to protect your rankings), that is a separate line item. On Shopify, redirects can only be set from URLs that no longer work, and standard plans allow up to 100,000 redirects.³
4. Integrations. Marketplace (Trendyol, Hepsiburada, Amazon), ERP, accounting and warehouse connections widen the scope.
5. Legal compliance. KVKK (Turkish data protection), distance sales contracts, cookie management and e-invoicing should be in every store. Article 10 of KVKK requires a privacy notice when personal data is collected,⁴ the Distance Contracts Regulation requires pre-contract information and gives consumers a 14-day right of withdrawal,⁵ and Law No. 6563 requires prior consent for commercial electronic messages.⁶
6. Tracking. A store launched without GA4, Meta Pixel and Google Ads set up spends its ad budget blind.

Ask when you get a quote

• Is the quote fixed-scope and in writing?
• Does the theme belong to the store owner, and can the team update it on its own?
• Are redirects from old URLs included?
• How does post-launch support work?
• Can you browse stores they have built?

The last one matters most: browse the reference stores yourself and look at speed, product pages and checkout.

How it works with us

As a Shopify Partner, every project starts with a free discovery call. Then we provide a clear schedule and a fixed-scope written quote. The source code and intellectual property belong to you.