Online Store: Shopify, Custom-Built or Both

Shopify is the right call when you sell products at a fixed price and want to start selling soon. A custom store is the right call when the way you sell doesn't fit a template. And there's a third option we use often: a custom storefront with Shopify behind it, so the design is yours and the cart, payments and inventory are Shopify's job. Here's how to choose, what drives the cost and what to check before deciding.

When Shopify makes sense

• Physical products with fixed prices and ordinary variants: size, color, pack.
• You want to sell this week, not in two months. Cart, payments, inventory, discount codes and shipping come ready.
• You don't have a tech team and want to add products yourself, from your phone if need be.
• Payments without setting anything up: Shopify Payments is available to businesses in the United States, Canada and Mexico, among other countries. If you'd rather use another processor, Shopify charges an additional transaction fee that depends on your plan.
• There's an app for almost everything. Reviews, invoicing, carriers, chat.

The trade-off: a monthly fee that varies by plan, fees on each sale, and most apps add a monthly charge of their own. And you work within what the theme allows: if you want the store to do something Shopify didn't anticipate, you end up fighting the platform or paying for one more app.

When a custom store makes sense

When the way you sell is part of what sets you apart, or when the store is one more piece of a system you already run.

• You sell by quote, not by cart. A catalog with list prices and a formal written quote for businesses and institutions, like the one for RUCEG, a supplies distributor in Mexico that needs neither a cart nor a payment gateway.
• Your selling rules are your own. AMANTI sells intimate products with discreet delivery across Mexico: a catalog of 152 products, bundled kits, coupons and discount campaigns that switch on with a single toggle, and a Google Shopping feed. Each of those rules is built to fit.
• Every piece is one of a kind. Arte entre Líneas sells 84 pieces of botanical jewelry, each unrepeatable, organized by collection and managed from its own database.
• You already have an internal system (inventory, ERP, invoicing) and the store has to read and write there, not in a separate database that needs syncing.

The trade-off: you pay for development and maintenance instead of a subscription; payments go through a processor (Stripe, Mercado Pago, Conekta or your bank's); inventory, taxes and shipping are yours to solve with whoever builds it; and you need automated tests, because nobody else is making sure the cart still works.

The middle path: your storefront, Shopify behind it

Shopify lets you use its engine without its theme: with the Storefront API you can build the front of the store in whatever framework you like and let Shopify handle catalog, prices, cart and checkout. Shopify calls it headless: "all the power of Shopify under the hood, with complete control over the frontend."

That's how we built FEYAVI, a store for semi-cured gel nail wraps aimed at the US market: Nuxt up front and Shopify behind it for catalog, pricing and cart. Every design has its own product page (128 in all, one per variant), the catalog is read live from Shopify, and the site carries 350+ automated tests and was checked at 12 screen sizes. The brand adds products and changes prices in Shopify like any other store; the design is theirs.

It fits when brand and design are part of the sale but there's no point rebuilding cart, payments and inventory. The trade-off is two things to maintain: Shopify and the storefront. Catalog changes you make in Shopify; design changes go through whoever built the front.

What drives the cost

No figures, because they depend on each store, but this is what weighs most:

• Subscription, fees and apps. On Shopify you pay them every month for as long as the store exists. A custom store has no platform subscription, but it does have hosting and a payment processor.
• Design. A theme, an adjusted theme or a design of your own. The big jump is between the second and the third.
• Photos and product pages. The work nobody quotes and the one that takes longest. A store with bad photos doesn't sell on any platform.
• Integrations. Electronic invoicing if you sell in Mexico, inventory, an ERP, WhatsApp. Each one is a small project inside the big one.
• Maintenance. On Shopify, Shopify does it. Custom, someone has to look after the server, the dependencies and the tests.
• Tests. On Shopify, your theme's; custom, everything's. Ask for them on any of the three paths.

Shipping and payments: Mexico and the US

If you sell in Mexico

• Cash. A share of customers pay at convenience stores. With OXXO through Stripe, the customer gets a voucher, pays at the counter and you get confirmation by the next business day; those payments can't be refunded the same way and have no chargebacks, so returns need a process of their own.
• Bank transfer and cards. The usual. What matters is that the store marks the order as paid on its own, without someone checking the bank.
• Shipping. Labels through a carrier or an aggregator, rates by zone or free shipping above a certain amount, tracking the customer can see without messaging you, and a clear rule on who pays for returns.
• Invoices. Business customers will ask for a CFDI, Mexico's electronic invoice; have the store collect tax details at checkout.

If you sell in the United States

• Sales tax. It varies by state and, in many, by county or city; it's generally charged based on the shipping destination and only where your business has nexus. Shopify helps you charge it but doesn't file or remit it for you unless you use Shopify Tax. A custom store needs a tax calculation service and an accountant on that side.
• Shipping. Customers expect tracking, clear delivery times and easy returns; it's the first thing they compare.
• If you ship from Mexico, check with your carrier what happens at customs and who pays import duties before you publish prices.

What to check before you choose

1. How many products and how many variants? Are they unique or repeatable?
2. Fixed price, quote, or both depending on the customer?
3. Where do you ship, and with whom?
4. What systems do you already have, and what does the store need to read from them?
5. Who will add products, photos and copy, and how often?
6. What happens in your peak season? A store that goes down on Black Friday never pays for itself.
7. Whose name are the Shopify account, the domain, the payment processor and the customer data in? Your company's, always.
8. Which tests run before each change?

If the answers point to repeatable products at fixed prices, Shopify. If they point to rules of your own or a system that already exists, custom. If what you care about is the design and Shopify already handles the rest, the middle path.

If you'd like us to take a look

Tell us what you sell and where, and we'll say which of the three paths we'd take and why, even if someone else ends up building it. See how we build stores and sites on Web & App Development, browse the portfolio or reach us through contact. If you already have a store and aren't sure whether to rebuild it, read before you rebuild your website; and if you want to know how we quote, here's the process.