Shopify or a Custom Online Store? How to Choose

When Shopify is the right choice

• You sell physical or digital products from your own catalogue.
• A standard checkout works for you: cart, shipping, taxes, payment.
• You want to manage products, orders and inventory yourself from day one.
• Shopify's add-on apps cover the extras you need, such as reviews, subscriptions or wholesale pricing.

Shopify handles hosting, security and checkout, so your budget goes into design, product content and marketing instead of infrastructure.

When a custom store makes sense

• A marketplace, where several sellers list products and each gets paid their share automatically.
• Card payments taken directly through your own bank, where Shopify doesn't support it.
• Bookings, rentals or quotes that don't fit a cart-and-checkout flow.
• Deep connections to systems you already run, like inventory, accounting or point of sale, where an off-the-shelf app falls short.
• Pricing or rules that change per customer in ways Shopify can't model.

The middle ground

It isn't always one or the other. Many stores run on Shopify and add a custom piece for the one part that doesn't fit, such as keeping stock in sync with another place you sell, a quote request, or a private ordering page for wholesale customers.

Questions to ask before you decide

• What do customers buy, and how do they pay?
• Where else do you sell (in store, on marketplaces, wholesale), and does inventory need to stay in sync?
• Who will add products and update the store each week?
• Which payment provider or bank do you need to use?
• What has to connect to your accounting or other systems?

What we build

We build Shopify stores and custom online shops, including marketplaces where many sellers get paid and card payments taken directly through your bank. Our own product Seascape takes card payments for dive and tour shops through a local Belizean bank, and Secure Processing now offers the same to other businesses in Belize.