70% of carts abandoned globally
7 parts to a complete setup
3 silent salespeople — shipping, payments, email
Shipping, payments, and logistics for your store

According to long-term research by the Baymard Institute (baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate), Czech and global shoppers alike abandon their carts in an average of 70% of cases. The main reasons have not changed in years: unexpected extra costs (shipping above all), forced registration, and a checkout that is too long or complicated. And of those three, shipping is the one most often ignored — because people assume that "everyone does shipping the same way" and make no effort to optimize it.

Optimizing shipping and payment methods is one of the few things you can fix in a day and see lift your revenue within a week. This article is about how to get it right the first time.

If you are reading the pillar guide to starting an online store, this is a deep dive into Phase 5.

Part 1: Shipping

Shoptet Balíky — the easiest route to integrated shipping

Shoptet Balíky is an integrated shipping solution right inside the Shoptet admin. Instead of manually registering with several carriers and connecting API keys, you manage shipments directly from the admin under `Shoptet Balíky → Carriers`.

Two modes (per Shoptet's official documentation)

Balíky Komplet (recommended for starting out)

Balíky Napojení (for advanced users)

The two modes can be combined — you can run different modes with different carriers at the same time.

For most new online stores: choose Komplet. Negotiating rates with carriers only makes sense once you have enough shipping volume for the carriers to listen.

The path in Shoptet to set up shipping

`Settings → Shipping and payments → Shipping methods`

What to configure for each shipping method

  1. Shipping method name (shown to the customer) — "Zásilkovna pickup point (1–2 days)" is better than "Zasilkovna_Pickup_Point". A concrete description activates sensory language (Lacey, Stilla & Sathian, Brain & Language, 2012) and reduces cognitive load.
  2. Internal note (for your eyes only).
  3. Pricing — based on order value or weight.
  4. Free shipping over X CZK — recommended CZK 1,000–2,000 (≈ €40–80) depending on your average order value. Details below.
  5. Delivery countries.
  6. Delivery time — be honest; better "2–3 days" than a "24 hours" you will not meet. A promised-but-missed deadline lingers in the customer's memory more strongly than the entire rest of the shopping experience — the peak-end rule (Kahneman, 2011) working in the negative direction.
  7. Printing labels from the admin — Shoptet Balíky can print labels without visiting the carrier's website.

The minimum set you must have

Shipping

Purpose

Price (from)

Zásilkovna pickup point

The default choice for most customers

low tens of CZK

PPL / DPD to the address

For people who do not want a pickup point

low hundreds of CZK

In-person pickup

For local customers, zero cost

Free

If you sell fragile or bulky items, add Česká pošta Balík do ruky or GLS. If you have items that must arrive the next day (food, flowers), add Express shipping.

Rules that will raise your conversion rate

1. Free shipping is the strongest psychological trigger in e-commerce.

This is not a mantra, it is neurobiology. In Predictably Irrational (2008), Dan Ariely demonstrated the zero-price effect with a classic chocolate experiment. When the researchers offered a luxury Lindt truffle for 15 cents and an ordinary Hershey's Kiss for 1 cent, 73% of customers rationally paid up for the truffle — they recognized that the quality gap was far greater than the 14-cent difference in price. Then the experimenters cut both prices by 1 cent, so the Lindt cost 14 cents and the Hershey's was free. Both the price gap and the quality ratio stayed identical. Yet now 69% of customers chose the ordinary Hershey's. The word "free" completely overrode any rational reasoning about value.

The same mechanism turns free shipping into a psychological bomb. People would rather pay CZK 1,200 (≈ €48) for an order with free shipping than CZK 1,050 + CZK 90 shipping (≈ €42 + €3.60). Irrational? Yes. Does it work? Every time. Set free shipping from an amount that is 10–20% above your AOV. The combination of free shipping and loss aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, Econometrica, 1979) leads a customer with CZK 1,350 (≈ €54) in their cart to add another CZK 200 (≈ €8) of goods just to unlock free shipping worth CZK 100 (≈ €4). From a purely mathematical standpoint they are spending CZK 100 more than they have to. Psychologically, they "won" — they beat the system. A well-set free-shipping threshold is one of the most reliable tools for raising average order value.

2. Show progress toward free shipping in the cart.

"Add just CZK 137 (≈ €5.50) more and shipping is free!" This little detail raises your AOV even more than the threshold itself, because it works with several principles at once: the goal-gradient effect (Hull, 1932) — the closer we are to a goal, the more effort we are willing to expend; the endowment effect — the cart already psychologically "belongs" to the customer, and giving it up hurts; and loss aversion — not reaching free shipping feels like a loss, not a neutral outcome.

3. At least 3 shipping methods.

Fewer = you are not giving the customer a choice. More = choice paralysis. Three is the golden middle ground, and it aligns with the classic Iyengar–Lepper jam-tasting study (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000), where 6 options dramatically outsold 24 options in real-world sales. Three shipping options are even easier to digest.

4. Always Zásilkovna or Packeta.

The vast majority of Czech customers prefer pickup points. Without Zásilkovna you lose a significant segment of the market.

5. Do not publish nonsensical combinations — see the Combinations section further on.

Part 2: Payment gateways

Shoptet Pay (the default choice)

Unless you have a very specific reason to go elsewhere, Shoptet Pay is the default choice for a new online store. Since September 1, 2025, Shoptet Pay has been part of all Shoptet plans.

Advantages according to the official documentation:

Always verify the exact fees, commissions, and list of supported methods on the official site shoptetpay.com or at support.shoptetpay.com — Shoptet adjusts them from time to time, and I should not leave figures here that could be different tomorrow.

Disadvantages:

Alternatives to Shoptet Pay

Gateway

Best for

Monthly fee

GoPay

Simple integration, Czech support

From CZK 0

Comgate

Wide range of methods, B2B

From CZK 0

Stripe

International stores, premium developer tooling

From CZK 0

Twisto

Deferred payments, adds conversions

From CZK 0

Klarna

Deferred payments, international

From CZK 0

Recommended combination of payment methods

  1. Card (Visa, Mastercard) — the most common.
  2. Apple Pay / Google Pay — for mobile customers, a higher conversion rate.
  3. Online card payment via a payment gateway — the default option.
  4. Bank transfer — for older customers.
  5. Cash on delivery — a must, even though it is expensive. A large share of Czech customers still prefer physical contact with their money.
  6. Twisto / Klarna — deferred payments. This option has an effect that deserves a more detailed explanation below.

Why deferred payments change the game psychologically: In 2007, a team led by Stanford neuroscientist Brian Knutson used fMRI to observe what happens in the brain just before a purchase decision (Knutson et al., Neuron, 2007). When a participant saw a product, the reward center (the nucleus accumbens) lit up. When they saw the price, the insula activated — the region associated with processing physical pain and negative emotions. A purchase happened when activity in the reward center outweighed activity in the pain center. If the pain was stronger, the customer did not buy.

This "pain of paying" grows the more tangible the payment is. Handing over banknotes hurts the most, paying by card less, an online payment less still, and a deferred payment (Twisto, Klarna, "buy now, pay in 30 days") defers that pain almost entirely. At the moment of purchase, the brain does not register a loss, because it will occur sometime in the future. That is why adding a deferred payment to the checkout typically raises the average order value — customers dare to buy more expensive items they would otherwise never let themselves click on.

How to connect a payment gateway (general procedure)

  1. In the Shoptet Market (doplnky.shoptet.cz), find the add-on or integration for the given payment gateway, or activate the gateway directly in the admin under Settings → Shipping and payments → Payment methods.
  2. Sign the contract / terms of business directly with the gateway provider.
  3. Go through the approval process (KYC) — Know Your Customer, company documents, proof of identity.
  4. After approval you receive API keys (Merchant ID, API key, Secret key).
  5. In the Shoptet admin you enter them into the relevant section for that gateway.
  6. Set the currencies (CZK, EUR, and any others).
  7. Run a test payment — verify the whole flow from cart to confirmation email.
  8. Set up the mapping of order statuses to payment statuses in the Orders section of the admin.

Part 3: Combining shipping and payment

In Shoptet, the allowed combinations are configured directly in the detail of each shipping method — for every shipping option you tick which payment methods are available with it. It is not a separate section; it is part of editing each shipping method under Settings → Shipping and payments → Shipping methods → shipping method detail.

This is something a large share of new online stores do not handle carefully enough. And then they wonder why customers pick absurd combinations at checkout that cannot be fulfilled.

What you need to sort out

Part 4: Connecting to accounting and ERP

Automating data transfer between your store and your accounting system saves you hours of work every week and cuts errors to a minimum.

The most widely used accounting systems in Czechia

System

Best for

Shoptet integration

Pohoda

Small and medium businesses

Full, two-way

Money S3

Medium businesses

Full, two-way

FlexiBee

More modern smaller businesses

Full, REST API

iDoklad

Micro-businesses, sole traders

Basic

Helios

Large enterprises

Via an integrator

What gets transferred

The rule everyone forgets

⚠ Set your VAT status (registered / not registered) in Shoptet BEFORE connecting to accounting. If you connect accounting and later change your VAT registration, you will be manually fixing 200 items in both systems at once. It is no fun.

Part 5: CRM and email — connect it NOW, not in six months

Email marketing has long been one of the highest-return channels in e-commerce. Industry reports from the Data & Marketing Association and Litmus have historically cited returns of tens of dollars for every dollar invested — the exact figures shift year to year depending on methodology, but email has long ranked at the very top among ROI channels. It is not magic, it is fundamentals: you own the database, you own a distribution channel no one can switch off tomorrow, and you talk to people who have already shown interest.

And yet I still see new online stores that do not connect email even six months after launch. Do not do this. Every month without email is lost revenue you will never get back — because transactional moments (order confirmation, a review request, an abandoned cart) are one-off and cannot be "caught up on" later.

Email tools recommended for Shoptet

Tool

Best for

Price (from)

Ecomail

Czech, full Shoptet integration

Free

SmartEmailing

Czech, advanced automations

low thousands of CZK/mo

Mailchimp

International, simple

Free

Klaviyo

Advanced e-commerce stack, AI

Free

For starting out in Czechia I recommend Ecomail — it has a free plan, native Shoptet integration, and its own customer support in Czech.

How to connect Shoptet with an email tool

  1. Activate the integration in the Shoptet Market — the add-on for the given tool.
  2. Link the accounts — authorize via an API key.
  3. Customer synchronization — Shoptet sends new customers to the email tool.
  4. Order synchronization — for segmentation and personalization.
  5. DNS records for deliverability (MANDATORY):

⚠ Without SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, half your emails will end up in spam. And you will not even find out why. Verify your setup with mail-tester.com — the target is 9/10 or 10/10.

Automations you must have ready from second one

  1. Welcome series — for new newsletter subscribers (3–5 emails). The first touch in a welcome series works with the principle of reciprocity (Cialdini, Influence, 2006) — when a customer receives valuable content for free, a sense of obligation forms in them.
  2. Abandoned cart — 1–4 hours after abandonment, a reminder + a gentle nudge. This category of email has long had one of the highest ROIs in email marketing, because it works with the sunk cost fallacy (described by Arkes & Blumer, 1985). The customer has already invested time in choosing and filling out the checkout. A reminder psychologically spares them the need to "start over," which for the lazy System 2 (Kahneman, 2011) is a stronger motivator than we think. Industry reports from email providers (SaleCycle, Klaviyo, Omnisend) have long shown that a quickly sent first email and a follow-up series of two to three messages recover a significant portion of the sales that were originally lost.
  3. Post-purchase series — a thank-you, usage tips, a review request. Here you actively fight cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) — after buying, the customer instinctively looks for confirmation they made the right decision. If you do not give it to them, they will find it elsewhere, or start to doubt. A thank-you email congratulating them on a "great decision" + tips on how to use the product is exactly what reduces that psychological dissonance and builds loyalty.
  4. Win-back — reaching out to inactive customers after 60–90 days.
  5. Recommendations for similar products — based on previous purchases. Personalized recommendations have long generated a significant portion of online store revenue; according to a frequently cited McKinsey analysis (2013), Amazon's recommendation algorithm was behind roughly a third of its revenue.

A rule from practice: Deploy these automations BEFORE launching your store. As soon as the first orders come in, the automations start working that same day. Deploying them a month later means a month of lost revenue you will never get back.

Part 6: Warehousing and fulfillment

For small stores up to 100 orders a month, you handle the goods yourself. From 100+ orders a month, consider a fulfillment service — outsourcing your entire logistics.

How fulfillment works

  1. You send your goods to the fulfillment provider's warehouse.
  2. The provider receives, records, and stores them.
  3. When an order comes in, the provider picks, packs, and ships it.
  4. Tracking is posted back into the store.
  5. Meanwhile, you focus on marketing and growth.

When to start considering fulfillment

The cost of fulfillment

It varies by volume, but typically:

Work out your own hourly rate + the cost of space and compare. Fulfillment is often cheaper than packing yourself from a relatively low monthly order volume, especially once you factor in the opportunity cost — what you could be doing with that time instead of packing boxes.

How to connect it with Shoptet

In the Shoptet Market (doplnky.shoptet.cz) you will find integrations with fulfillment partners (Skladon, Express One, and others). After activation, the settings appear in the admin as a new tab or within existing sections (depending on the specific add-on).

Part 7: POS for brick-and-mortar sales

If you also have a physical store or pop-up shop, the Shoptet POS connects your online and offline sales.

What it can do

How to activate it: The Shoptet POS is a standalone product. You activate it through the Shoptet Market (doplnky.shoptet.cz) and link it to your existing store.

Pre-launch checklist

The full series: How to start an online store in 2026

This article is part of a seven-part series on starting an online store in 2026. The other parts:

FAQ

Which carriers should every new online store have?

The minimum: Zásilkovna (pickup points and parcel lockers), Česká pošta (nationwide coverage), PPL or DPD (to the door). In an optimal setup, add DHL for international and Balíkovna for cheap in-person pickups. Shoptet Balíky brings them all under one API, so you just activate them in the admin.

How much does a payment gateway cost?

Shoptet Pay has transaction fees of roughly 1.2–1.9% + CZK 3–5 per transaction, with no monthly fee. GoPay and ComGate are at a similar level. Stripe works out to 1.4% + CZK 3 for European cards, but has more sophisticated fraud prevention. For a starting store, Shoptet Pay is the default — a few clicks in the admin and it is done.

Do I have to offer cash on delivery?

On the Czech market, historically yes — 20–30% of customers still demand it. But it is gradually declining (Gen Z ignores cash on delivery). Charge for it (CZK 49–79, ≈ €2–3) and communicate why paying by card is faster. Retiring cash on delivery is a matter of 2–3 years for most segments.

When does external fulfillment make sense?

Once you ship more than 200–300 parcels a month and it takes you or one person entire morning shifts. Fulfillment (Skladon, Balíkobot Fulfillment, BaseLinker) costs CZK 15–45 per pick (≈ €0.60–1.80) + storage per m³. For smaller volumes it is unnecessary overhead.

Why connect your store to email right from the first order?

Because 30–40% of revenue in a healthy store comes from email over the long run. Welcome series, abandoned cart, and browse abandonment work automatically, 24/7. If you only hook it up six months later, you lose revenue you will never recover — contacts you should have had in a sequence from day one.