In this guide 6 sections
Start on Shopify unless you have a clear reason not to. It handles catalogue, checkout, payments and apps for most sellers. Consider a custom store when pricing rules, trade accounts, subscriptions or integrations need logic that apps cannot supply, or when fees and lock-in outweigh the build effort.
Start with the catalogue you actually have
Count your products, variants and options before anything else. Shopify copes with ordinary sizes and colours but caps options and variants per product, so made-to-measure goods with many combinations need metafields, an app or a clumsy workaround.
Bundles, rental dates, engraving text and file uploads are the other awkward cases. Test each one in a trial store loaded with a dozen of your messiest products. A feature list proves nothing. A working demo does.
- Products with many option combinations
- Kits and bundles that share stock
- Customer text or artwork for personalisation
- Items sold by length, weight or area
- Separate stock held in several warehouses
Checkout, payments and fees
Checkout is where Shopify is strongest and least flexible. Wallets, tax settings, fraud checks and instalment providers such as Afterpay are handled for you, but you can reshape the flow only within set bounds. Confirm early that your payment gateway works in every country you sell to, because a missing gateway cannot be fixed with a plugin.
Read the fee structure line by line: the monthly plan, the extra charge when you use an outside gateway, and the app subscriptions that creep upward. Total them for your expected order volume, then set that beside hosting and upkeep of a custom build.
Integrations, trade pricing and subscriptions
Apps connect Shopify to accounting, shipping labels and inventory. They work until your process differs from the app’s assumptions. Ask how an order reaches your books, what happens when a webhook fails, and who is told on a Saturday night when it does.
Customer-specific price lists, credit terms and buyer approvals exist through apps and newer B2B features, but check the exact behaviour against your own contracts. Subscriptions that let buyers pause, skip or swap an item need the same scrutiny.
- Order sync to accounting or ERP software
- Stock levels shared with a warehouse or dropship supplier
- Price lists, credit terms and Incoterms per customer
- Subscription changes: pause, skip, swap
- An alert when any sync breaks
Lock-in and what you really own
On Shopify you rent the platform. Products, customers and orders export, but your Liquid theme, app data and checkout behaviour stay behind, so leaving later means rebuilding the storefront and redirecting every old address.
A custom store hands you the code and the database, along with the duty to patch, host and back up. Send buyers to a hosted payment page so that card numbers never touch your servers, and schedule security patches the way you schedule payroll. Ownership is a trade, not a prize.
When custom work pays, and a way to test it
Custom pays when pricing or fulfilment rules are the business. A distributor with negotiated prices, split shipments and approval chains gains more from fitted software than from stacked apps, because every exception then lives in one place.
Otherwise begin on Shopify, run it for six months and keep a list of every workaround your staff invent. If the list grows, you have a build brief. If it stays short, you saved the effort.
Write that workaround list this week.
Store platform decision sheet
A sheet of one page split into sections. The first section lists catalogue traits with a yes or no for each. The second lists integrations with the connected system, the direction of data and who owns a failure. The third logs staff workarounds, how often each occurs and which option would remove it.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Can I move from Shopify to a custom store later?
Yes. Export products, customers and orders, then plan redirects for every old address so search traffic is kept. The theme and app settings must be rebuilt.
Is a custom store more secure?
Not automatically. Shopify carries patching and card security for you. A custom store must do both itself, ideally by sending buyers to a hosted payment page.
Can Shopify run a wholesale shop?
For simple trade pricing, yes. For per-customer contracts, credit limits and approval chains, test closely before relying on it.
Should I build before I have sales?
Rarely. Prove demand on a platform first. Custom work makes sense once the rules you need are known from real orders.