Which e-commerce platform should you choose?

The choice of e-commerce platform usually gets reduced to a price comparison. The real difference is which one will get in your way once the business grows.

There are three options and none of them is absolutely better than the others.

Hosted platform

You pay a monthly fee and never touch infrastructure.

When it is right: Standard catalogue, moderate volume, no technical team, and you need to start quickly.

Where it constrains you: The moment you want a flow the platform does not allow. Dealer pricing, complex variant structures, or an order flow specific to your operation leave you either hunting for plugins or bending your process to fit the platform.

The hidden cost: Per-transaction commission and plugin subscriptions. As volume grows the monthly total rises significantly.

Open source on your own server

The software is free; hosting and maintenance are yours.

When it is right: High customisation needs, access to technical support, and a requirement that your data sits on your own servers.

Where it constrains you: Updates and security. An installation that is not maintained becomes both a security risk and impossible to upgrade within a few years.

The hidden cost: Servers, maintenance, and plugin incompatibilities. The only free part is the licence.

Custom development

The system is written around how you actually operate.

When it is right: Your operation is non-standard, you need to connect several systems, your volume makes licence costs meaningful, or e-commerce is at the centre of your business.

Where it constrains you: Initial cost and time. If you need to start selling tomorrow, this is not the option.

The hidden cost: Almost none, but it requires an ongoing development relationship. In exchange, the code and the data stay entirely yours.

Three concrete questions for the decision

1. How many systems get involved after an order? If it is one, a hosted platform is enough. If it is three or more, the integration layer is the real work, and that requires development regardless of platform.

2. How many rules does your pricing depend on? A single price list is fine. Prices that vary by customer group, quantity, or product configuration are where hosted platforms struggle.

3. What happens in three years? Multiply the monthly platform fee and commission by three years. The resulting figure is often comparable to custom development, and at the end of it you own an asset.

Is a marketplace a fourth option?

Not exactly, but it affects the decision. Marketplaces give you ready-made traffic; in exchange they take commission, do not share customer data, and can change their rules whenever they like.

The practical approach: use a marketplace as a sales channel, not as your only channel. Growing on a marketplace without your own site is like growing on rented land.

If you plan to run both, stock and pricing need to be managed from one place. That requirement alone can change your platform decision, because some hosted platforms struggle with multi-channel management.

A technical checklist before deciding

Whichever option you are considering, ask these six questions during evaluation:

• Can I export my data? Are product, customer, and order records available in a standard format?
• Is there an API? Accounting, shipping, and warehouse connections will be built through it.
• How fast is it? Measure the platform's own demo store on mobile.
• Is the search engine side flexible? Can URL structures, titles, and descriptions be edited?
• How many people will use the admin panel? Some plans charge per user.
• What happens on a busy day? Can it handle campaign-day traffic?

The answers to those six matter more than the monthly price.

A common fallacy: "we will migrate later"

Starting on a hosted platform and migrating later is possible, but not as easy as people assume. Products and customers migrate; order history, campaign structures, and integration flows usually get rebuilt from scratch.

So make the "migrate later" decision deliberately: if you are starting with it as a temporary solution, fine. If you think it is permanent and it turns out not to be, you pay twice.

Our position

If you sell a standard catalogue, we will recommend a hosted platform. We have no problem saying so. Custom development only comes out cheaper when your operation is genuinely different.

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Describe your catalogue structure and your post-order flow and we can work out which makes sense. See e-commerce development.