Choosing an E-commerce Platform

Off-the-shelf or custom? The decision follows from how much of your business is standard, not from your revenue.

The e-commerce platform question is usually posed as "off-the-shelf or custom?" and answered by revenue. That is the wrong pairing: the decision should follow from how much of the business is standard.

Standard work belongs on a ready platform

If you list products, let people add them to a basket, take payment and hand the parcel to a courier, your work is standard. That software has been written many times, and ready platforms do it better than you will.

The real value of a ready platform is not setup speed but freedom from maintenance: payment provider rule changes, security patches, browser compatibility — all of it becomes the platform's problem.

Distinctive work deserves custom code

If part of your business is not standard — made-to-measure production, complex pricing, a dealer network, subscription logic, a link to production planning — a ready platform will struggle. Papering over those needs with plugin after plugin produces something more expensive to maintain than custom software would have been.

The right answer is usually a mixture: the standard part stays on the platform, the distinctive part is written as a separate service and integrated.

Integrations are half the decision

Accounting, shipping, payments, stock and marketplaces — this is the invisible part of e-commerce that eats most of the time. The question when choosing a platform is not "does this integration exist?" but "how quickly can we write one that does not?"

A platform without an open API will not cause problems in year one; it will stand in the way of your growth in year three.

Portability

Product data, customer data and order history are yours. Make sure you can take them out. An infrastructure you cannot leave gives you no leverage against a price rise or a drop in service.

Speed counts

Finally: whatever you choose, page speed and search visibility decide whether the investment pays off. On ready platforms this is mostly a theme decision; in custom builds it is a performance budget set on day one.

The deciding question

What percentage of your business is standard? If it is ninety, start with a ready platform. If the non-standard part is the heart of your business, have that part written for you — and leave the rest off the shelf.