Starting an online store in Quebec: where to begin

"We want to sell online. Should we get Shopify?" It is almost always the first question we hear, and it is the wrong one. In the web projects we run, the stores that go off the rails almost never do so because of the software. They fail because nobody decided who would write the product pages, how returns would be handled, or where the visitors would come from.

The platform is the most standardized, best documented and, frankly, easiest part of the whole project. Everything upstream of it is not. So this article proposes a sequence, not a list of tools: catalog, logistics, obligations, traffic. The platform comes last, and that is good news.

The short answer, for the busy

Before picking a platform, settle four things in this order. The catalog: who writes the product pages, who shoots the photos, in French first if you sell in Quebec. Logistics: packaging, shipping rates, and a written return policy that says who pays for returns. Obligations: a store selling to Quebec customers must offer its site in French (section 52 of the Charter of the French Language), and GST/QST registration becomes mandatory once taxable sales exceed $30,000 over four calendar quarters. Traffic, finally: a numbers-based plan for where visitors will come from, because a store nobody visits sells nothing. The platform comes last because it is the easiest step: Shopify, the most common choice, starts at $49 CAD per month. Online stores rarely fail for lack of software; they fail for lack of product pages, margin after shipping, or visitors.

The catalog: the project nobody budgets for

An online store is first and foremost a catalog. Not a mockup, not a logo: product pages. Each item needs a clear title, a description that sells without overselling, exact specifications (dimensions, materials, care) and photos showing the product from several angles in consistent light. Multiply by 40, 80 or 200 products and you are looking at the real budget of the project: dozens of hours of writing and at least a full day of product photography, usually more.

So the question to settle before anything else is: who does this work? If it is you, plan it like a construction project, at a realistic pace: writing ten good product pages a week, on top of running the business, is already demanding. If it is a freelancer or an agency, it is a cost to budget from day one. It is the same trade-off as for a brochure site, the one we walk through in building your website yourself or hiring an agency, with one aggravating factor: a catalog is never finished. New products, stockouts, price changes, seasonal photos: someone will have to keep all of it current, every week, long after launch.

Shipping: the physical side of a digital business

Selling online is a physical trade disguised as a digital one. Every order has to be packed, weighed, labelled and handed to a carrier. Before choosing anything, answer concrete questions: what boxes do your products travel in? Who prints the labels and packs the parcels, and at what point in the day? What happens when a customer in Rimouski or Vancouver returns an item?

Two decisions deserve particular care. First, free shipping. It is a margin decision, not a slogan. If you offer it, its cost comes out of your profit on every order; set a threshold (free above a certain cart size) based on your numbers, not on what the big chains do. Second, the return policy. Write it before launch, because it defines who pays for return shipping, what condition the product must come back in, and how quickly the customer gets refunded. Returns are a normal expense of online retail; discovering them by improvising costs more than planning for them.

Payments and taxes: one paragraph each, no more

Two topics need to exist in your plan without turning into a thesis. Payments first: every online transaction goes through a processor that takes its cut. On Shopify's entry plan, for instance, Shopify Payments charges 2.8% + 30¢ per online card transaction, per the pricing published on Shopify's Canadian page as of July 2026. That is neither scandalous nor negotiable at your scale: it is one more line in your margin math, same as packaging.

Taxes next: as long as your taxable sales stay under $30,000 over four calendar quarters, you are a "small supplier" and GST/QST registration is not mandatory, per Revenu Québec. Above that, it is, and selling into other provinces brings its own rules. One hour with your accountant before launch settles 90% of this; it is probably the most profitable hour of the entire project.

Selling in Quebec happens in French

A business selling in Quebec must serve its customers in French, and that includes the website. Section 52 of the Charter of the French Language requires catalogs, brochures and other commercial publications, including what is published on a website, to be available in French. An English version is allowed, provided a French version of comparable quality exists and is accessible. The Office québécois de la langue française handles complaints and regularly publishes infraction notices about business websites; for a company, fines range from $3,000 to $30,000 and double for a repeat offence, per Éducaloi.

The right way to read this obligation is not to read it as a constraint. Writing your product pages in French first means speaking the language of your first market. English then becomes an expansion decision (the rest of Canada, the United States), not a grudging compliance exercise. What does not work is the plan to "translate after launch": after launch come the orders, the returns and the new products, and the translation never reaches the top of the pile.

The number one killer: assuming visitors will come

The implicit business plan of many stores fits in one sentence: "once the site is live, people will buy". The internet does not work that way. A brand-new store, with no history, shows up nowhere: not in Google, not in anyone's feed.

Run the numbers coldly, with explicit assumptions. Suppose about 2% of visitors place an order: a prudent working assumption for a small store, not a promise. To get 20 orders a month, you need around 1,000 visits. Where will they come from? The honest answers are few: your existing customers (a well-kept newsletter is the most underrated asset in retail), local SEO if you also have a physical storefront, paid advertising (which costs money on every click and demands margins that can absorb it), and time, because search rankings for a new store are measured in months. And once the visitor arrives, the page still has to do its job: the mistakes that hurt conversions cost more on a store than on a brochure site, because every visit has an acquisition cost.

If none of these sources produces a plausible number, you do not have a website problem. You have a signal to rework the offer or the channel before spending a dollar on development.

So, what about the platform?

One paragraph, as promised. For the vast majority of Quebec SMBs, Shopify is the reasonable default: $49 CAD per month for the entry plan ($37 per month billed annually), a mature ecosystem, and nothing essential missing for selling straightforward products. Its direct competitors are broadly equivalent at the starting line, and custom development is only justified when a specific workflow demands it, which is rarely the case for a first store. If you have done the work in the previous sections, choosing a platform will take an hour and will probably be right. If you have not, no platform will save you.

The sequence, in practice

Here is what an orderly start looks like: a realistic catalog inventory (how many products, who writes, who shoots, French first); a written shipping and return policy, with free shipping treated as a margin decision; an hour with an accountant for taxes and payment fees; a traffic plan with numbers, even rough ones; and only then, the platform. It is less exciting than picking a theme. It is also what separates the stores that sell from the ones that wait.

If you want to run your project through this checklist with someone who has done it several times, we offer that conversation, no strings attached.

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This article offers general guidance for planning an online store, not legal or tax advice. Language and tax obligations depend on your situation: validate them with your accountant and, if needed, a legal advisor.