Before you open a Salla store: what to prepare so it sells in month one, and what can wait

The theme is done. The logo has been through three rounds and finally looks right. The launch goes up on WhatsApp Status and Instagram. An hour later the first message comes in: "How many days to Jeddah? Can I pay cash on delivery?" You open the store dashboard to answer and find that nobody has picked a courier, decided whether cash on delivery is allowed, or priced delivery to Jeddah.

The first question from the first customer wasn't about colors. My view is that a store isn't ready when the design is finished. It's ready when you know what each order leaves you, payments are switched on, shipping is settled, and the pages of your best products answer price, delivery and payment on a phone screen. If you're opening a Salla store (a Saudi platform for building online stores), design is the last thing that decides month-one sales, not the first.

Where does "the store is ready when the design is done" come from?

Design is the part you can see. You pick a theme, send the preview to friends, and the work looks finished. Margin, shipping and verification don't show up in a screenshot.

What stops sales in month one has little to do with the theme. Salla's own launch guide says you need a commercial registration or a freelance document to activate payment methods and verify your store. Saudi Arabia's E-Commerce Law requires the store to tell the consumer, before the contract, the total price including taxes and any delivery charges. So the delivery fee is decided before the first order. The same law lets the customer cancel if delivery runs more than 15 days past the contract date or the agreed delivery date, unless you both agreed to extend it or the delay comes from force majeure. It also requires you to warn the customer of an expected delay.

My rule: prepare in the order that decides the sale, not the order you can see.

What should you prepare before you open a Salla store?

1. The offer, and what each order leaves you

Before you set a price, work out what an order leaves you after product cost, shipping and payment fees. A hypothetical example in round numbers: a product sells for SAR 200 before VAT (if you're VAT-registered, the customer pays VAT on top, and that money isn't yours), costs SAR 80, ships for SAR 25 and carries about SAR 5 in payment fees. That leaves SAR 90 before advertising. This is your break-even, the most an ad can cost per order before you make nothing. On a cash-on-delivery order, also subtract the courier's COD fee and what refused orders cost you. Run your own numbers in the campaign profit calculator.

If the number comes out small, the problem is the offer, not the ad you haven't run yet. Change the price, build a bundle, or lead with a different product.

With any store, I start with the market and the offer, before advertising. I worked with MecalMen, a Jordanian men's accessories store that went on to sell in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, from its early days around 2016, and the first thing I prepared was the groundwork for a marketing plan, market research included, then the full plan and the budget breakdown.

2. Documentation and payments

Start this today. Payments wait on it, and a store that can't take payment doesn't sell.

Salla's merchant obligations page sets out two routes. If you have a commercial registration (CR, the Saudi business registration), add the store to it online through the Ministry of Commerce website within 30 days of creating the store, and authenticate it with an approved body such as the Saudi Business Center. If you don't have a CR, the freelance document is the route.

Either way, the store has to show your name or trade name and address, your CR number and VAT number if you have them, your contact channels, how to file a complaint and how long you take to respond. It also needs three policy pages: terms of use, privacy, and exchange and returns. Salla notes that violations can bring a fine of up to SAR 1 million, or suspension or blocking of the store.

If you're a company outside Saudi Arabia selling into it, from Jordan for example, ask Salla which document it accepts for your case before you build anything. For plans and fees, see the Salla vs Zid comparison.

3. Cash on delivery and order confirmation

Saudi shoppers will ask about cash on delivery, so decide your answer first. Do you offer it on every order, or only up to a certain value? Is there a fee? Then decide how each cash order gets confirmed before it leaves the warehouse: a WhatsApp message or a call.

A cash order refused at the door costs you shipping both ways and pays you nothing. The full method is in how to tell why cash-on-delivery orders get refused.

4. Shipping and the delivery promise

Choose your courier, write down the delivery time and fee for each group of cities, and show both before checkout. Then make a promise you can keep. If Riyadh takes two to four days, don't write "two days". A late promise turns into angry messages, and past 15 days, unless it's force majeure, the customer can cancel and recover what they paid plus the costs the delay caused.

5. Pages for your first three to five products

Don't launch with 40 products. Start with the three or five whose margin you know and that you can deliver on time, and open each page on your own phone. Can you see the price, the delivery time and fee, the payment methods and a line on returns without much scrolling?

A good product page answers the WhatsApp question before anyone types it. Write the returns policy to match the law: the consumer may cancel within seven days of receiving the product if they haven't used it, except in the cases the law excludes. State who pays return shipping: under the law the customer bears the cost of cancelling unless you agree otherwise.

6. Tracking before the first ad

Place a real order on your own store, the way a customer would, and check three things. The order appears in the Salla dashboard. The confirmation message arrives. The purchase reaches your ad account once, at the right value. If it shows up twice or not at all, stop and fix it first.

At Argan Package in Saudi Arabia, part of my work was connecting conversion tracking and product catalogs with Snapchat, TikTok and X. My rule: an ad whose purchases you can't measure spends money and gives you numbers you can't act on. The Snapchat setup and check are in your store's first Snapchat campaign.

7. One channel, one small test

Pick one channel for the first month. If people search for your product by name or by the need it meets, start with a small Google search campaign, as in your store's first Google Ads campaign. If people buy it on sight, Snapchat is the closer fit.

Size the budget from the margin in step one, using money you can afford to lose. Write the stop rule before launch. Then read the sales sheet before the ad report. The report tells you what the platform credited to itself; the sheet, what actually sold and got delivered.

The pre-launch checklist

Print the table, and don't announce the launch until the third column is done on every row.

Item	Why it decides month-one sales	How you know it's done	Link
Margin per order	Sets the most you can pay in ads for one order	A written figure for each of your first five products, after shipping and payment fees	Campaign profit calculator
Documentation and payments	Without them, payments aren't activated and the store isn't verified	Payment methods live; store added to your CR or tied to your freelance document, and verified	Salla store launch guide
Policy pages and store details	A legal requirement, and the first thing a hesitant customer looks for	Terms of use, privacy and returns pages published; contact and complaint details visible	Salla merchant obligations
Cash on delivery	Decides how many orders turn into cash	A written rule on who gets COD and when, and how each cash order is confirmed	Cash-on-delivery refusals
Shipping and the promise	The total price includes delivery, and delay opens the door to cancellation	Courier chosen; time and fee per city group shown before checkout
Pages for the first three to five products	They're where your ads land	Price, delivery, payment and returns visible on a phone without long scrolling
Test order	Without it, you can't tell whether the ad sells	An order that appears in Salla and in the ad account once, at its value	First Snapchat campaign
First channel	Keeps a small budget in one place	One channel, a daily amount and a written stop rule	First Google Ads campaign

What can you ignore before launch?

Comparing themes once you've picked one that works on a phone. A second theme won't answer the delivery question.

Uploading the whole catalog at once. A catalog of 40 half-finished pages gives a customer 40 reasons to hesitate, and your best sellers will show up in the orders, not in your guesses.

Launching on three ad channels together. On a new store's budget you'll get a handful of numbers from each and can't judge any of them.

Apps and add-ons you don't need yet. Each one can break in your first week. Add one when there's a reason.

My view: in the weeks before launch, most of the money goes on what the owner sees and the least on what the buyer asks about.

What should you do this week?

Start the documentation today, because nothing else on the list sells until payments are on. Then work out the margin on your first five products and ask two couriers for their delivery times and fees to your cities. After that, write the three to five product pages and place the test order. Design goes on the last day of the week, not the first.

If your store looks ready but you don't yet know what each order leaves you, that's where I start in e-commerce growth: the market, the offer and shipping first, then the ad.