# How to get your first sale online: a 30-day plan for a new store How to get your first sale online in Bulgaria in 30 days: COD and courier offices, Bulgarian product pages, NRA registration, traffic and a checklist. Source: https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/start-first-30-days-online-store · CloudCart · 2026-11-06 In short: you get your first sale online when the store can legally take payment and people can find it. In Bulgaria, that means cash on delivery (COD) next to cards, delivery to a courier office or parcel locker, product pages in Bulgarian and a store declared to the NRA. The 30-day plan has four weeks: setup, catalog, traffic, first orders. This plan comes from the CloudCart team, the Bulgarian ecommerce platform, and follows the path in our admin. It is written for foreign founders, expats and EU sellers who run a business in Bulgaria. If you are still choosing your model (your own products, resale, dropshipping, a physical shop with an online storefront), the next sentence points you to the right start. See [the eight ways to start an online store by business type](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/start-online-store-by-business-type) and come back here. ## What the 30-day plan for your first sale looks like The plan for a new online store has four stages, each with a clear result at the end of the week. Ads sent to a store without a working checkout or without NRA registration cost money and carry legal risk, so traffic comes in week 3. | Week | Days | Focus | Result at the end | | 1 | 1-7 | Payments (CloudCart Pay, COD), couriers, legal pages, plan and domain, NRA registration under Ordinance N-18 | The store can legally take and ship an order | | 2 | 8-14 | Catalog in Bulgarian, descriptions and photos with AI, a test order | The first products are complete and the test order runs end to end | | 3 | 15-21 | Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Meta, Pazaruvaj | The store is visible and gets its first visits | | 4 | 22-30 | Shipping labels, first orders, reviews, emails, reports | A first sale and data on what to improve | ## How to start an online store with no experience: what to prepare before day 1 You can start with no ecommerce experience if five things are ready before day 1: a registered business, a qualified electronic signature (QES), a business bank account, a product list with photos and someone who checks your Bulgarian texts. The platform handles the technology, but these items depend on you and take the longest to arrange. - A business. Selling goods on a regular basis usually needs a sole trader (ET) or a company such as an EOOD (single-member limited liability company). The choice depends on turnover and risk, so make it with an accountant. The forms and steps are in the guide to registering a company for an online store . - A QES. A qualified electronic signature is the digital signature Bulgarian institutions accept online. You use it to declare the store in the NRA (National Revenue Agency) portal. Without a QES, week 1 stops. - A business bank account. CloudCart Pay accepts an account of the company or of its representative, but under the alternative regime of Ordinance N-18 the account that receives card payments must be held by your company. - A product list. Name, price, stock and at least one clear photo per product. An Excel sheet is enough. - A Bulgarian reader. If you don't write Bulgarian yourself, plan who will read the product pages and legal texts before launch: a partner, a translator or your accountant's team. ### Why the store speaks Bulgarian A store that sells to consumers in Bulgaria gives them the key information in Bulgarian. Under [the Bulgarian Consumer Protection Act](https://lex.bg/laws/ldoc/2135513678) (in Bulgarian), Art. 5(1), written information about a product must be in Bulgarian, and Art. 47(7), in force since July 25, 2014, says the same for the information in a distance contract. Labels on goods offered to consumers are in Bulgarian or also in Bulgarian (Art. 9(1)). In CloudCart, the storefront language and the admin panel language are two separate settings (Settings → General). You keep the admin in English and show customers a storefront in Bulgarian. Aura Studio writes product descriptions and translations from the data already in the store, so you can start from an English description and have a native speaker check the result. For EU customers, the Multilang app adds a sister storefront per language, synced from the main store. ## Week 1 (days 1-7): payments, couriers, legal pages and the NRA In week 1, the store becomes ready to take money and ship a parcel by the rules, in the order of what depends on what. - Day 1: sign up and pick a theme. You create the store, pick a ready-made theme and fill in the name, logo, contacts and company address. The mobile version comes with the theme. Set the storefront language to Bulgarian and the admin language to the one you work in. - Day 2: CloudCart Pay. Settings → Payment methods → CloudCart Pay. Sign-up has seven steps: account, company, representative, documents, consent, bank account and status. You upload the documents as files, with no visit to a bank. The method goes live after approval, so start on day 1 or 2. - Day 2: cash on delivery and bank transfer. You turn them on in the same menu. Keep COD next to cards: a shopper who doesn't know your brand yet pays only when the parcel arrives. - Day 3: couriers. Apps → Econt, Speedy (DPD Bulgaria) or BOX NOW. Econt and Speedy are the Bulgarian courier networks with offices across the country; BOX NOW runs parcel lockers only. You enter the details from your courier contract, the sender address and the services: to an address, to a courier office, to a parcel locker. For COD, the courier contract needs a cash on delivery agreement. At checkout, the customer sees the shipping price and picks where to collect the parcel. - Days 4-5: legal pages. Terms and conditions, a privacy policy, a cookie policy and return terms, in Bulgarian. The cookie banner and Google Consent Mode v2 are part of the platform (Apps → GDPR → Cookies). - Day 6: plan and domain. You choose a plan (the first 3 months are €1/month) and point your domain. The SSL certificate is installed from Settings → Domains → SSL in one click and then renews itself. The domain is one of the details you file with the NRA, so it comes before registration. - Day 7: NRA and Ordinance N-18. You declare the store in the NRA portal with your QES and turn on invoicing in the admin. For card payments under the alternative regime, you install the N18 Audit app and enter the unique number the NRA gives the store. > CloudCart Pay 0% transaction fee through Dec 31, 2026 Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay are paid in the store's own checkout, with no separate bank contract, and the money usually reaches your account in 2 to 5 business days. Companies and sole traders (ET) can apply. How CloudCart Pay works → ### What the legal pages must say The Consumer Protection Act lists what the shopper learns before ordering. Under Art. 47 these are the main characteristics of the goods, the trader's name, registered office and address, phone and email, the price with taxes, delivery and the right of withdrawal. Under Art. 50, an online shopper can withdraw from the contract without giving a reason within 14 days of receiving the goods. Under Art. 54, the trader refunds everything received, including delivery, within 14 days of the withdrawal notice. [Your Europe, the European Commission's portal](https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/returns/index_en.htm), summarizes the return rules that apply across the EU. A lawyer who works with Bulgarian law should review the texts for your business. Which points go into the terms and how to write them is covered in the [guide to terms and conditions for an online store](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/terms-and-conditions-online-store). ### NRA registration before the first sale Declaring the online store to the NRA is mandatory before sales begin. [Ordinance N-18](https://lex.bg/laws/ldoc/2135540645) (Bulgaria's reporting rules for sales, in Bulgarian), Art. 52m(1), requires the details of the online store to be filed in the NRA e-services portal with a QES, whether the domain is your own, rented or on a platform. The document for each sale depends on how the customer pays. In CloudCart, the sales document (the receipt Ordinance N-18 requires instead of a fiscal receipt) and the invoice are issued from the order. The table by payment type, the registration fields and the monthly XML file are in the article on [Ordinance N-18 for an online store](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/n18-online-store-nap). Important: don't run ads or take orders before the store is declared to the NRA. If you later add a payment method, you update the registration within 7 days of the change (Art. 52m(3)). ## Week 2 (days 8-14): the catalog and photos with AI A catalog sells when every product answers the shopper's questions without a chat: what it is, what it's made of, what size, what delivery costs. Start with your best sellers and make them complete. - Days 8-9: categories and products. You arrange categories the way shoppers search (by type, occasion or size). You upload products at once from Excel or CSV through Apps → CSV Import, or add them by hand. Baby Pack allows up to 100 products, Starter Pack up to 2,000. - Days 10-11: photos. At least one photo on a white or light background and one in use for every product. AI tools help with background, light and lifestyle shots, as long as the product keeps its real look. - Days 12-13: descriptions and SEO in Bulgarian. Aura Studio writes product and category descriptions, SEO titles, page URLs and translations from the data in the store and from the photos. You accept, edit or rewrite. Have a native speaker check your top products. - Day 14: check and test order. Open the store on your phone as a shopper: every product has a price, stock, sizes or variants and at least two photos. Then order yourself with delivery to a courier office and to an address, by card and by COD, and check the emails the shopper gets. If you prefer to work in sentences, connect the store to an AI assistant. In the admin, open the menu at the bottom left → "PAT tokens" → new key, then paste the sentence from the page into Claude Code, ChatGPT Codex, Gemini CLI, Cursor or VS Code. The assistant asks about your goal and creates products, categories, descriptions and settings step by step, while you write to it in English. > Store with an AI assistant Your catalog from a spreadsheet with one sentence Give the assistant the key and your product sheet: it creates the categories, uploads the products and writes the descriptions, and you check the result in the admin. Connecting the assistant carries no CloudCart fee. How to connect the AI assistant → ## Week 3 (days 15-21): first traffic from Google, Meta and Pazaruvaj The first visitors of a new online store in Bulgaria come from three places: Google search, ads and posts on Facebook and Instagram, and price comparison sites such as Pazaruvaj. The store is now visible because you chose a plan on day 6: while a store is on trial, it blocks search engines, and AI assistants can't see it either. - Days 15-16: Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Apps → Google Search Console and Apps → Google Analytics. You see which searches find you and where visits come from. Marketing → SEO → Llms.txt holds the file that explains the store to AI assistants. - Day 17: Google Business Profile, if customers can meet you in person. Under Google's Business Profile guidelines , a profile is for businesses that make in-person contact with customers during stated hours, at an address or at the customer's place. An online-only store isn't eligible. A showroom, a workshop or a pickup point is. - Days 18-19: Meta. Apps → XML Feed → Facebook: you enter your Pixel ID to count visits, carts and orders from ads. The Facebook Dynamic Ads feed and the Instagram feed come with every plan. Run one campaign with a small daily budget on the 3-5 products you are strongest in, with Bulgarian ad text that matches the product page. - Days 20-21: Pazaruvaj. Apps → XML Feed → Pazaruvaj. Pazaruvaj is a Bulgarian price comparison site where shoppers compare offers from many stores. You paste the feed URL from the app into your merchant profile there, and catalog changes go in on their own with the next feed update. Don't skip the cheapest channel: people who already know you. A message to friends, colleagues and expat groups you belong to, a post on your own profile and a link in your Instagram bio often bring the first order before the first ad does. > Sales channels One catalog for Pazaruvaj, Facebook, eMAG and Google You change price and stock once in the store, and with the next feed update they change in every connected channel, with no manual spreadsheets. On Baby Pack, the Pazaruvaj and Facebook feeds take up to 100 products, the same as the plan's whole catalog. Sales channels in CloudCart → ## Week 4 (days 22-30): first orders, reviews and emails Week 4 turns visits into orders and first buyers into repeat buyers: the first sale, the first review and the first subscriber. - Day 22: the shipping label from the order. The shipping label is created from the order itself (Orders → the order → Shipping → Shipping label), so you don't type the address again in the courier's system. The customer gets a tracking number. Try it on the day 14 test order before real orders arrive. - Days 23-24: reviews. Apps → Product Reviews. In the setting for who can leave reviews, choose only customers who bought the product. The window after purchase for leaving a review is 7 days by default. If delivery takes a few days, extend it (the field takes 1 to 365 days). - Days 25-26: emails. Marketing Suite has ready-made automations: "Welcome" for a new subscriber with a personal code, and "Abandoned cart" with an email after 1 hour and a personal link that restores the full cart. Turn them on before ad traffic arrives, with the texts in Bulgarian. - Days 27-28: the first orders. You process each one the same day: confirmation, shipping label, tracking number. For COD orders, Econt and Speedy can report back when the customer has paid, and the order is marked completed on its own (COD sync, a plan feature with a monthly quota). - Days 29-30: report. You open Analytics and look at the funnel and sales by traffic source (see the table below). You decide which channel gets the budget in month two. Marketing emails go only to people who agreed to receive them. [The Electronic Commerce Act](https://lex.bg/laws/ldoc/2135530547) (in Bulgarian), Art. 6(4), bans unsolicited commercial messages to consumers without their prior consent. So the sign-up form says clearly what the customer will receive and how often. ## Checklist for a new online store The checklist collects the 12 tasks from the plan with their place in the admin. The store is ready for traffic when the first 9 rows are done. | Task | Where | Done when | | Company details, contacts, languages | Settings; Settings → General | Name, address, phone and email show in the store; the storefront is in Bulgarian | | CloudCart Pay | Settings → Payment methods → CloudCart Pay | Status is approved and the card shows at checkout | | Cash on delivery and bank transfer | Settings → Payment methods | Both are active | | Couriers | Apps → Econt, Speedy or BOX NOW | Checkout shows a price for an office or locker and for an address | | Legal pages | The store's pages | Terms, privacy, cookies and returns are published in Bulgarian | | Plan and domain | Admin: plan choice; Settings → Domains | The store opens on your domain with SSL | | NRA registration | NRA e-services portal, with a QES | You have the store's unique number | | Invoicing and Ordinance N-18 | Settings → Invoicing; Apps → N18 Audit | Invoicing is on and the NRA number is entered | | Products | Products; Apps → CSV Import | Every product has a price, stock and at least 2 photos | | Google and Meta | Apps → Google Analytics, Google Search Console, XML Feed → Facebook | Analytics counts visits, the Pixel records a purchase | | Pazaruvaj | Apps → XML Feed → Pazaruvaj | The products are approved in your Pazaruvaj profile | | Reviews and emails | Apps → Product Reviews; Marketing Suite | "Welcome" and "Abandoned cart" are active | ## What to measure in the first month In the first month, you track five numbers, because they show exactly where the sale is lost: no visits, visits without carts, or carts without orders. Each number has a simple action when it is low. | Number | How it's calculated | Where you see it | If it's low | | Visits (sessions) | Number of visits in the period | Analytics; Google Analytics | More channels: Pazaruvaj feed, Meta ads, posts | | Conversion rate | Orders ÷ visits × 100 | Analytics → Conversion funnel | Photos, descriptions, shipping price, payment methods | | Abandoned carts | Carts without an order | Orders → Abandoned | Turn on the reminder and test checkout on a phone | | Average order value | Revenue ÷ number of orders | Analytics | Bundles, a free shipping threshold, related products | | Cost per order from ads | Ad spend ÷ orders from ads | Meta Ads Manager; Analytics → Sales by traffic source | Change the product or the visual before raising the budget | With few visits, one order swings the percentages, so judge conversion once visits reach the hundreds. ## Mistakes that delay the first sale - Ads before checkout works. The first clicks land in a store without card payment or without a shipping price. - The whole catalog half done. Start with fewer products, each with several clear photos, sizes and a description. - Only one payment method. Some shoppers want to pay by card, others by cash on delivery. Offer both from day one. - Delivery to an address only. A shopper who isn't home during the day needs a courier office or a locker. Turn on all three options your courier supports. - Product pages in English only. The Consumer Protection Act asks for product information in Bulgarian, and your customers search for products in their own language. - Sales before NRA registration. Ordinance N-18 requires the store to be declared before sales begin. ## What the first month costs: €1/month for the first 3 months For a new CloudCart store, the plan costs €1/month for the first 3 months, €3 in total for the plan. The offer is for new stores through Dec 31, 2026 and applies to every plan, from Baby Pack to Unicorn, with all the plan's features. The discount applies on its own, with no code. Apps, services and add-ons are paid at their own prices. The transaction fee on sales is 0%. | Plan | First 3 months | After, billed annually | Billed monthly | Products | Revenue per 6 months | | Baby Pack | €1/month | €14/month | €19/month | up to 100 | up to €9,999 | | Starter Pack | €1/month | €33/month | €39/month | up to 2,000 | up to €24,999 | | CC Pro | €1/month | €83/month | €99/month | up to 7,500 | up to €249,999 | | CC Master | €1/month | €249/month | €299/month | unlimited | up to €499,999 | Prices exclude VAT, as on the [CloudCart pricing page](https://cloudcart.com/en/pricing). For a first store with up to 100 products, Baby Pack is enough. If your catalog is larger, start on Starter Pack so you don't move products after a month. How a ready-made platform compares with the other options is in the guide to [starting an online store in Bulgaria](https://cloudcart.com/en/blog/how-to-create-online-store). > New store €3 for the first three months of the plan If you choose the plan on day 6, the whole 30-day plan fits in the first €1 month, and you then have two more months at €1 to see which channel sells. Start now, and Black Friday and Christmas fall within the €1 period. Create a store for €1 → For the emails after your first orders, see [campaigns and automations in Marketing Suite](https://cloudcart.com/en/campaigns), and for AI descriptions and translations, see [what AURA does in the admin and the storefront](https://cloudcart.com/en/aura). For a question about the setup, write to support@cloudcart.com. ## Frequently asked questions **How long does it take to get the first sale in a new online store?** It depends mostly on traffic. The store can be ready for orders in 2-3 weeks if you follow the plan: setup, catalog, then traffic. The first order often comes from people who know you and from posts, before ads have collected data. **How do I get my first sale with no ecommerce experience?** Prepare a business, a QES, a business bank account and a product sheet, then follow the order: payments and couriers, legal pages, domain and NRA, catalog, traffic. A platform with built-in payments, couriers and invoices covers the technical part. In CloudCart, you can also build the catalog with an AI assistant, writing to it in English. **Can a foreigner run an online store in Bulgaria in English?** You can run the admin in English, but customers in Bulgaria get the product information and the contract details in Bulgarian under the Consumer Protection Act (Art. 5 and Art. 47(7)). In CloudCart, the admin language and the storefront language are separate settings, and Aura Studio helps with translations. A native speaker should check the final texts. **Do I need to register my online store with the NRA before the first sale?** Yes. Under Ordinance N-18, Art. 52m(1), the details of the online store are filed in the NRA e-services portal with a QES before sales begin. This applies to your own domain, a rented domain and a store on a platform. **Should a new store in Bulgaria offer cash on delivery?** Yes, offer it next to card payments from day one, so a shopper who doesn't know your brand can pay when the parcel arrives. You need a COD agreement in your courier contract. In CloudCart, Econt and Speedy can report the paid amount back, and the order is marked completed on its own. **Where do the first customers of an online store come from?** From people who already know you, from Facebook and Instagram ads on a few strong products and from price comparison sites such as Pazaruvaj. Google search grows more slowly, so you connect Search Console in the first month and see results after it. **How much does the first month of an online store cost in CloudCart?** €1 for the plan, because the first 3 months on every plan are €1/month for new stores through Dec 31, 2026. After that, Baby Pack is €14/month billed annually or €19 billed monthly, excluding VAT. The transaction fee on sales is 0%, and CloudCart Pay has a 0% transaction fee through Dec 31, 2026.