Start here
- What an Australian online store needs: a launch checklist covering pages, prices, returns, checkout, privacy, accessibility and speed.
- E-commerce website cost in Australia: published 2026 price ranges for Shopify and WooCommerce, and the running costs quotes leave out.
- Shopify vs WooCommerce vs BigCommerce: a neutral comparison built around who runs and maintains the store.
Rules that affect your store pages
- Australian Consumer Law for online sellers: consumer guarantees, major and minor problems, change-of-mind policies, accurate descriptions and reviews.
- Price display and card surcharges: the total price rule, drip pricing, delivery fees and the end of card surcharges on most major card networks from October 2026.
- GST for online stores: registration thresholds, GST-inclusive prices, platform settings and low value imported goods.
- Spam Act rules for store email and SMS: consent, identification and unsubscribes, including checkout opt-ins and abandoned cart messages.
Technical guides
- PCI DSS and hosted checkouts: what hosted checkouts cover, and the 2025 change to SAQ A on scripts.
- Product structured data: product snippets versus merchant listings, Merchant Center feeds and keeping markup accurate.
- Store migration without losing search traffic: URL mapping, redirects, sitemaps and the weeks after launch.
How these guides are written
Every guide is written by our editor, Lucas Foster, and checked against its sources on the date shown. Regulator pages and official documentation come first. Commercial price guides and law firm summaries are used only where no primary source covers the point, and they are labelled. The editorial policy explains how corrections are handled.
These guides are general information about running an online store. They are not legal, tax or financial advice, and rules change. For decisions about your business, check the regulator's current guidance or speak with a qualified adviser.