E-commerce

What this shelf covers

Software for selling physical or digital goods online: storefronts, catalogues, checkout, order handling and the back office behind them. Some products are complete platforms, some add a cart to a site you already run, some specialise in digital delivery or subscriptions.

Taking payments in general belongs in payments. Stock across warehouses and channels sits in inventory, and label printing with carrier rates is shipping and logistics.

The first decision is where it runs

Hosted platforms handle servers, updates, backups and security, and they limit how far you can bend the checkout. Self-hosted software gives you the source and every operational duty attached to it.

The honest test is not cost. It is whether someone in your organisation will apply a security update on a Tuesday in December. If the answer is no, hosted is correct even where the licence looks free.

A third route sits between them: a headless back end serving a front end you build. It suits teams with developers and several sales surfaces, and it suits a two-person shop badly.

Checkout is where the money leaks

Every additional field costs orders. That is the most reliable finding in this category, and it is why checkout flexibility deserves attention before theme design.

Check what you can change without a developer: field order, guest checkout, address handling for the countries you sell to, and how errors are displayed. Then check payment method coverage in each market, since a shopper without their usual method rarely goes looking for a card.

Look at what happens after failure too. Abandoned basket recovery, saved carts, and a retry path for a declined card are ordinary revenue. Platforms differ in whether any of it is included or sold as an app.

Catalogue, variants and the parts that break at scale

• Variants with several options, their own stock, prices, images and identifiers.
• Bulk editing and imports, because changing four hundred prices by hand is not a plan.
• Filtering and search on the storefront, which decides whether large catalogues sell.
• Digital delivery with licences, downloads and access control if you sell files.
• Subscriptions with pausing, upgrades and dunning if you sell recurring goods.

Test with your most awkward product rather than a sample one. The item with six options, restricted shipping, a bundle discount and a country-specific price is the one that exposes a platform’s limits.

Tax, shipping and selling across borders

Selling internationally turns a store into a compliance exercise.

Ask how the platform calculates tax by destination, whether it handles inclusive and exclusive pricing per market, and what it does about registration thresholds. Then ask about duties at checkout, because a customer who receives an unexpected customs bill is a refund and a bad review at once.

Shipping rates should reflect reality. Flat rates are simple and either lose money or lose customers, so check whether live carrier rates are available on your plan rather than a higher one.

What the store really costs

Three layers stack up: the subscription, transaction fees, and the applications you add to fill gaps.

Payment processing is roughly two to three percent plus a fixed sum per order. Several platforms add a surcharge unless you use their own processor, which can outweigh a lower monthly price entirely. Apps are the third layer and the least predictable, since a store commonly ends up paying for reviews, subscriptions, upsells and a report builder.

Model the total on your expected order volume and average basket, not on the monthly figure. Related pricing habits are described in what pricing pages hide.

Before committing, run a test order through the whole path: purchase, confirmation mail, refund, and the report your accountant will ask for at the end of the month.

What to fix before changing platform

Migration is expensive and frequently unnecessary, so it is worth separating a platform problem from a shop problem.

Slow pages, a long checkout, poor product photography and thin descriptions are shop problems. They travel with you, and moving platform while they remain produces the same conversion rate on a new invoice.

Platform problems look different. A checkout you cannot change. A catalogue structure that cannot express your products. Payment methods your market expects and the platform does not support. Costs that scale badly with the orders you actually take.

If the list is mostly the first kind, fix those first and reconsider afterwards. If it is the second kind, plan the move properly: addresses preserved or redirected, order history exported, and a quiet period chosen deliberately rather than in the run-up to a busy season.