Ecommerce branding: name, logo, colors and trademark for your store

In short: ecommerce branding starts with the name. You check the domain and the trademark registers first, then make a mark, pick two or three colors and write down how the store speaks. AI gives you a logo draft in minutes, and a Bulgarian trademark costs €291.43 for up to three classes and protects the name for 10 years.

This guide is for founders selling in or from Bulgaria and for EU cross-border sellers. It is written by the team behind CloudCart, the Bulgarian ecommerce platform, and is not legal advice.

What a brand is and how it relates to the logo

A brand is the way customers recognize your store and what they expect from it: name, mark, colors, tone of voice, service and promise. The logo is one of these elements, the graphic sign that sits in the header, on the invoice and on the shipping box.

For an online store, branding has a practical job. A visitor who does not know you decides within seconds whether the site looks serious. The same logo in the header, in the order email, on the invoice and in the ad tells them they are dealing with one company. A mismatch raises doubt at the exact moment of payment.

Element	What you decide	Where it shows in the store
Name	What the store is called and how it is spelled	Domain, headings, emails, invoices
Logo	Mark and wordmark, plus a small version for the icon	Header, favicon, invoice, email, checkout
Colors	One primary, one accent, a few neutrals	Buttons, banners, promo bar
Fonts	One for headings, one for body text	The whole storefront
Tone of voice	How you write: form of address, sentence length, words you avoid	Product descriptions, emails, chat, social media

How to choose an online store name: 6 checks

A good online store name is short, sounds the same to everyone, has an available domain and does not clash with a registered trademark in your industry. Run these checks in order before you order a logo, because changing the name later means a new logo, a new domain and lost positions in Google.

1. Say it out loud. Spell the name to three people over the phone and ask them to write it down. If you get three spellings, customers will search for it three ways.
2. Latin and Cyrillic. Your domain is in Latin letters, while Bulgarian shoppers often search in Cyrillic. Pick a name that transliterates only one way, so nobody has to guess between "ch" and "tch" or "zh" and "j". If you are a foreign founder, ask a Bulgarian speaker how the name sounds and whether it means something unintended.
3. Domain. Check both .bg and .com for the name. In CloudCart you buy an available domain straight from the admin, in Settings → Domains, and connect one you already own from the same screen. How it works and how SSL is turned on is covered in the guide to the domain, SSL certificate and store security.
4. Registered trademarks. Search the name in TMview, the shared database of EU trademark offices, which includes Bulgarian marks. Search the Cyrillic spelling too, plus similar names in the same class of goods.
5. Social media and marketplaces. Check that the handle is available on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, and that no seller on eMAG (a large marketplace in Bulgaria and Romania) or Pazaruvaj (a Bulgarian price comparison site) already uses it.
6. Google search. If a big company with the same name fills the first page, you will compete with it for every search. Choose a name you can rank first for.

Important: the company name in the Bulgarian Commercial Register and the store name can differ. One EOOD (a Bulgarian limited liability company with one owner) can sell under a brand with another name. Customers see the brand; the invoice carries the company. When to choose an ET or an EOOD is covered in the guide to company registration for an online store.

Trademark registration in Bulgaria and the EU: fees and timelines

Registering a national trademark in Bulgaria costs €265.87 for filing and examination for up to three classes of goods or services, plus €25.56 for the registration certificate, €291.43 in total. Each further class costs €15.33. These are the fees the Bulgarian Patent Office lists under its tariff in force since Jan 1, 2026, in its answers on the national trademark (in Bulgarian).

According to the same page, you file the application on the office's form, by post or through its e-services portal. You write out the full list of goods and services; the class number alone is not enough. After examination, the application is published, and for the next three months anyone can file an opposition. The registration is valid for 10 years from the filing date and can be renewed for further 10-year periods without limit.

	Bulgarian trademark	EU trademark
Where you file	Patent Office of the Republic of Bulgaria	EUIPO (the EU Intellectual Property Office)
Territory	Bulgaria	All EU countries
Fee for 1 class	€265.87 (covers up to 3 classes) + €25.56 certificate	€850 when filed online
Second class	Included	+€50
Third class	Included	+€150
Each further class	+€15.33	+€150
Renewal, up to 3 classes	€153.38 for the next 10 years, if paid before expiry	Under the EUIPO fee schedule

The EU fees are from the EUIPO fees and payments page. A Bulgarian mark is enough when you sell mainly in Bulgaria. An EU mark makes sense once you already sell to Romania, Greece or other EU countries, or when you are a foreign founder planning to serve several EU markets from one store.

Two rules matter for a store. Each application covers one mark, so a name used in both Cyrillic and Latin letters may have to be split into two. And goods cannot be added once the application is filed, so list the categories you plan to launch next year too.

How to create a logo for an online store: 7 steps

Creating a logo starts with a short brief and ends with files in several formats, whether AI or a designer does the drawing. The brief matters most: it decides whether you get a sign for your customers or a pretty picture that says nothing.

1. Write a 5-line brief. What you sell, to whom, at what price point, the three words you want customers to use about you, and which brands in your niche you do not want to look like.
2. Pick the logo type. A wordmark (the name in a chosen font), a symbol plus wordmark, or a monogram from your initials. For a new store, a wordmark is the safest choice, because customers learn the name.
3. Make 10 to 20 options. With an AI tool or hand sketches. Do not fall for the first one.
4. Test it small. Place each option at 32 px and at 200 × 80 px. If it is unreadable at 32 px, it is out.
5. Test it in black and white. The logo has to work without color: on an invoice, in print, on a sticker.
6. Check for look-alikes. Search TMview and Google reverse image search, so the mark does not turn out to resemble someone else's.
7. Export the files. A vector master (SVG), a PNG on a transparent background, a square version for the icon and a light version for dark backgrounds.

AI logo makers: ChatGPT, Gemini, Canva and Krea

An AI logo works best as a draft: AI gives you dozens of directions in minutes, and you clean up the best one. ChatGPT and Gemini draw an image from a description, Canva lets you arrange the wordmark, colors and font on a template, and Krea generates images and video in your brand style for covers and banners.

A prompt works better when it is specific. An example for a ceramics store:

"Minimalist logo for an online store selling handmade ceramics. A simple single-line symbol that suggests a cup, separate from the wordmark. Flat vector, two colors: deep green and sand. No gradients, no shadows, white background. Show 6 options."

Four things AI still gets wrong, so you check them yourself:

• The letters. Generated wordmarks often have a wrong or distorted letter. Set the name separately, in a real font.
• The vector. Most tools return a raster image (PNG, JPG). For print and clean scaling, the symbol is redrawn as a vector.
• The resemblance. AI learns from existing marks and can hand you something familiar. Do not skip the TMview check.
• The rights. Read the tool's terms for commercial use of the output before you file a trademark.

The same tools help keep product photos in your brand style.

Logo formats and sizes for your store, favicon and social media

An online store uses its logo in at least seven places, and each has its own size. In CloudCart they sit on one screen, Settings → Brand settings (at /admin/settings/brand), as separate cards. Each card takes its own file, so you can put a simpler version on checkout and a formal one on invoices.

Slot	Where it shows	Size	Format
Store logo	The header of every page	200 × 80 px	SVG or PNG on a transparent background
Favicon	Browser tab, bookmarks, phone home screen, Google results	Square, up to 240 × 240 px	PNG on a transparent background
Logo for invoice	PDF invoices	200 × 80 px	PNG or JPG
Logo for email	Order and shipping emails	200 × 80 px	PNG
Store checkout logo	The checkout page	200 × 80 px	A simpler version
Default image	Products without a photo	A square works best	PNG or JPG
Cover image for sharing	Link previews on Facebook and Messenger	At least 1200 × 630 px	JPG or PNG, up to 8 MB

A favicon is a square. Google's favicon guidelines require a 1:1 aspect ratio and recommend a size larger than 48 × 48 px so it looks sharp everywhere. 240 × 240 px meets both conditions and is the upper limit of the Favicon card in CloudCart. Put an initial or the symbol without the wordmark on the icon, because letters are unreadable at 16 px. The card accepts SVG, but browsers display SVG favicons inconsistently, so PNG is the safer choice.

The sharing image is a separate file. Meta recommends at least 1200 × 630 px and a ratio of about 1.91:1, and the file should stay under 8 MB. Place the logo in the center with space around it, so smaller previews do not crop it.

For social media profiles, use a square version with the symbol centered, because profile photos show in a circle. If you still see the old favicon after saving, reload with Ctrl+Shift+R (Cmd+Shift+R on Mac).

Brand colors and fonts

An online store palette is clearest with one primary color, one accent color and two or three neutrals. The primary color is for the logo and headings, the accent is reserved for the "Buy" and "Add to cart" buttons, and the neutrals are for backgrounds and text. When only the buttons carry the accent, the eye finds them at once.

1. Take the colors from the logo. Write down their exact HEX codes, for example #1F4D3A and #E8DCC4, and use them the same way everywhere.
2. Open Design → Theme Editor → Colors. A CloudCart theme exposes 80 to 130 color variables in groups (Main, Promo Bar, Header, Footer and more), with the live store next to them.
3. Change the button color first. Then the header and the footer.
4. Pick two fonts. In the Typography tab, choose from about 88 Google Fonts: one for headings and one for body text. If you sell to Bulgarian shoppers, check that both support Cyrillic, because product names and reviews will be in Bulgarian.
5. Check readability. Dark text on a light background, never gray on gray. Check it on a phone, in sunlight.

How to change the theme, colors and homepage is covered in the guide to store design, themes and the editor. When you want a storefront built fully to your own design, see Nitrogen and custom design.

Brand voice: how your store writes

A brand voice is a set of rules for how the store talks to customers: form of address, sentence length, the words you use and the words you never use. Written on one page, it makes every text sound like one person, even when three people and an AI write them.

Rule	Ceramics store	Sports supplements store
Address	"you", warm	"you", short and direct
Length	Sentences up to 20 words	Sentences up to 12 words
We say	"handmade", "local clay", when it is true	grams, servings, flavors
We never say	"unique", "the best"	promised results, medical claims
Example	"The mug holds 300 ml and is dishwasher safe."	"30 servings. 25 g protein per serving."

A store in English and Bulgarian needs the rules for both languages; Bulgarian shoppers expect the polite plural "you" (vie) from a shop.

These rules go straight into your tools. Aura Studio writes product descriptions from the store data, and you accept or edit them against your rules. In Aura Chat you paste the tone into the "Instructions for the assistant" field (up to 8,000 characters, in Apps → Aura Chat → Knowledge & Skills). The same page also works as a prompt for ChatGPT or Claude.

A Bulgarian brand: when origin helps sales

A Bulgarian brand wins when origin is part of the product: cosmetics with rose oil, food, ceramics, locally made clothing. Then "made in Bulgaria" is a reason to buy, and it belongs in the logo, the description and on the packaging.

Three rules if you build on origin. Claim it only when it is true and you can prove it, because customers and inspectors will ask. Show it in specifics: the town, the workshop, the raw material. And think about the name beyond Bulgaria: if you plan to sell to Romania and Greece next year, check how it sounds there and whether it is available across the EU in TMview.

For foreign founders it works the other way: a brand from abroad gains trust in Bulgaria with a Bulgarian version of the store and local couriers such as Econt and Speedy.

How much branding a new online store costs

Minimum branding for a new online store costs as much as the domain, the AI tool subscription and, if you choose, a trademark registration. A designer logo is an extra cost that depends on the designer and the scope of the work.

Cost	Amount	Required?
.bg or .com domain	A search in Settings → Domains shows the price for the first and the following year	Yes
AI logo	Under the plan of the tool you choose	No, if you work with a designer
Bulgarian trademark, up to 3 classes	€291.43	No, but it protects the name
EU trademark, 1 class	€850	When you sell in several countries
CloudCart store	€1/month for the first 3 months, then from €14/month (Baby Pack, billed annually, excluding VAT)	Yes

Plan prices are on the pricing page. Every step from the name to the first order is in the guide on how to create an online store, and what to do once the store is live is in the plan for the first 30 days of an online store.

Branding mistakes to avoid

• A logo before the name check. A logo for a name that is someone else's registered mark goes in the bin.
• Only one logo version. A horizontal logo does not work as a favicon, and a colored logo on a transparent background disappears on a dark banner.
• An AI-generated wordmark. One wrong letter in the store name shows on every page.
• Different names across channels. One name in the domain, another on Instagram and a third on the invoice confuse customers and Google.
• A tone that lives only in your head. Without written rules, every new text sounds different.

Frequently asked questions

Name and logo ready? Create a store for €1/month for the first 3 months. Questions about uploading the logo or connecting the domain? Write to us at support@cloudcart.com.