I build online stores for businesses in Łódź and across Poland - from a small shop with a few dozen products to full integrations with warehouses and wholesale systems. A small turnkey store with BLIK, InPost and basic SEO starts from €2,500, a medium one with integrations from €5,000. Typical timeline: 3-7 weeks from the signed agreement.
What the build includes
An online store is not just a storefront - it is a system that has to take an order, process payment, generate a shipping label, and send the customer a tracking notification. The minimum for a store on the Polish market:
- Product catalog with variants (size, color), filters, search, and bulk import from a file.
- Payments: BLIK, Przelewy24, cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay. No BLIK means losing real orders in Poland.
- Delivery: InPost parcel lockers with point selection in the cart, and standard courier options.
- GDPR compliance, store regulations, and a 14-day return policy. In Poland this is a legal requirement, not optional.
- Basic SEO: page titles, meta descriptions, sitemap, Google Shopping feed, GA4 and Search Console setup.
Most stores I inherit skip SEO at launch and then pay for ads where they could have had organic traffic. I wire it in from day one.
Real-world case: a Łódź fashion brand and its warehouse
A local Łódź clothing label - small-batch production, their own patterns - came to me selling entirely through Instagram and Allegro. Łódź has that textile history in its bones, and a lot of these little studios still run the same way: they cut and sew in house, but the actual selling happens in DMs and on a marketplace that takes a cut of every order. The cracks were showing. Every order had to be copied by hand out of Instagram into a notebook, then punched into InPost for shipping, and half the messages were "do you still have it in M?" when M had sold out that morning. Stock never matched anywhere, so they kept selling things they didn't have and sitting on things nobody knew were in.
What they needed was their own store where the customer picks size and color against real stock, pays with BLIK, and chooses an InPost locker right in the cart - and all of it tied to the warehouse and to Allegro in one place, instead of tracking inventory in three notebooks by hand.
I built the store on WooCommerce: a catalog with variants and live stock, BLIK and Przelewy24 wired in directly, InPost locker selection in the cart. On top of it I put Baselinker as the single hub - it holds orders from both the store and Allegro in one window, syncs stock both ways, and prints InPost labels in a batch. Plus basic SEO and a Google Shopping feed, so the products started showing up in search and not only in followers' stories.
The first two months told the story. Conversion on their own store came out roughly twice what the Instagram-DM flow had been giving them - people place the order themselves, at night, with no back-and-forth. The manual grind on orders and labels dropped hard: handling one order went from a few minutes of messaging to a couple of clicks in Baselinker, which added up to around 10 hours a week freed. Stock mismatches basically disappeared, because warehouse, store, and Allegro now read the same numbers. The build took five weeks. They kept Allegro, by the way - just as an extra channel next to their own store, so they're no longer paying commission on every sale.
Price ranges and timelines
- Small store - up to a few hundred products, ready-made template adapted to the brand, BLIK and InPost: €2,500-€5,000. 3-5 weeks.
- Medium store - large catalog, product filters, customer account, integrations with suppliers or warehouse: €5,000-€12,000. 5-8 weeks.
- Large or custom - ERP integration, wholesale pricing, non-standard logic: from €12,000. From 9 weeks.
Prices are net. Hosting and domain are an extra ~€60-€100 per year. For a full breakdown of what drives cost and a platform comparison, see the development cost guide for 2026.
Which platform to build on
I do not have a platform I always push. The right choice depends on your product range, your team's technical comfort, and your plans for growth.
WooCommerce works well for stores with 50 to several thousand products when you want full control and no platform subscription fee. It needs hosting, updates, and occasional maintenance - you pay for that, not for the platform itself. Polish payment providers and InPost integrate cleanly.
Shopify makes sense when you want a fast start and do not want to think about hosting or security patches. You pay a monthly subscription from around €30, plus a payment processor fee. The trade-off: less flexibility on custom checkout flows and recurring costs that add up over time.
Headless on Next.js is the right call when WooCommerce or Shopify hit their limits: B2B pricing, a product configurator, ERP integration, a marketplace with multiple sellers. Higher upfront cost, lower maintenance cost, and noticeably better performance for the end buyer.
For most businesses in Łódź starting out, WooCommerce or Shopify is the right fit.
Łódź and the rest of Poland
Łódź sits in the geographic center of Poland, which is a genuine logistical advantage for online selling - shipping to any corner of the country is equally convenient from here. The city has a strong manufacturing and design heritage: textiles, fashion, furniture, local brands - exactly the kind of product that translates well to an online store.
I work remotely. No physical presence in Łódź is needed - I have run projects with clients from Warsaw, Wroclaw, Gdansk and abroad without a single in-person meeting. If you want to meet in Łódź, that is possible, but it is an option, not a requirement.
More details on the online store service page.
How the work goes
We start with a short brief - 20-30 minutes - to pin down the scope, platform, and integrations. You get a fixed quote before any work begins. No surprises halfway through if the scope does not change.
The project goes in stages: catalog structure and design, development, payment and delivery integrations, content upload, testing, and launch. After launch I set up GA4 and Search Console, run a basic SEO check, and hand over admin access with a short walkthrough.
Why me
I am not an agency. I write the code myself and manage the project personally - one contact for the whole thing. I integrate Przelewy24, InPost, and PayU directly via API, not through marketplace plugins. Every store I ship has Core Web Vitals in the green on day one and loads in under a second on a mobile connection. I show the Lighthouse report during development, not after handover.
Ready to talk? Get in touch - the estimate is free and I reply within 24 hours on business days.
FAQ
How much does an online store in Łódź cost? A small turnkey store with BLIK, InPost and basic SEO costs €2,500-€5,000. A medium store with a large catalog, customer accounts, and supplier integrations is €5,000-€12,000. A large custom build with ERP or wholesale logic starts from €12,000. I give a price range before the call so you know whether the budget fits before committing time to a brief.
How long does it take to build an online store? A small store takes 3-5 weeks from the approved design. A medium store with integrations takes 5-8 weeks. A custom build is 9 weeks or more. The most common bottleneck is not the code - it is product photos and descriptions. If that content is ready when we start, the timeline holds.
WooCommerce or Shopify - which is better for a store in Łódź? WooCommerce gives you full control and no platform subscription, but you take on hosting and maintenance. Shopify is simpler to run but charges a monthly fee and payment commission. For most businesses in Łódź both work well - the difference is in how you want to distribute costs over the long term.
Do I need to be based in Łódź to work with you? No. I work remotely with clients across Poland and from abroad. The full project runs through Slack, email, and Figma. If you prefer an in-person meeting in Łódź, that is possible on request, but it is not required.
What payments and delivery options are essential for a Polish online store? BLIK and Przelewy24 are non-negotiable - BLIK is the most-used payment method in Poland and a store without it loses a significant share of checkouts. For delivery, InPost parcel lockers are the first choice for around 70% of Polish online shoppers. DPD or DHL courier is the standard second option.
Can I migrate a store from Instagram or a marketplace like Allegro? Yes - this is one of the most common projects I get. Selling through Allegro means paying commission on every order; selling on Instagram means losing customers who cannot add to a cart. I migrate the product catalog, handle SEO properly during the move, and can connect Allegro as an additional channel alongside the store. Your own store is an asset you own outright, with no platform taking a cut.
