Setting up an online shop: platforms, costs and pitfalls.

Selling online can feel like a big step when you're already juggling stock, suppliers and the day-to-day running of a business. The platform you pick shapes a lot: how quickly you can launch, what it costs to run, how easily you can add products, and whether you hit a ceiling as you grow.

This guide covers the choices that matter, the features you actually need, and the mistakes we see when businesses rush into selling online.

Do you need a shop, or just a way to take payments?

Not every business needs a catalogue with hundreds of products. If you sell a small range, offer bespoke services, or take orders that need a conversation first, a full shop might be overkill. Ask yourself:

• Do customers need to browse, compare and check out on their own?
• Will you be adding new products regularly?
• Do you need to manage stock, variants like size and colour, or delivery rules?

If the answer to all three is no, you might only need a payment provider and a good contact form. Stripe or GoCardless can handle one-off or recurring payments without the cost of running a shop platform.

The three main routes

When you do need a full shop, most businesses end up on one of three paths. None is better for everyone. It depends on what you sell, how you work and where you want to be in two years.

Hosted platforms: Shopify, Squarespace, Wix

You pay a monthly fee and they handle hosting, security and updates. You get a dashboard, templates, payments that work out of the box and a support team when something breaks.

If you're testing a new product line, have a small catalogue (say under 100 products) and want to be live this month, this is hard to beat. It suits shops with simple products and pricing, no unusual workflows and no in-house technical help.

The trade-off is control. Fees tend to rise as you grow, and you're limited to what the platform allows. A custom checkout, bespoke reporting or a link to your existing systems often means paying for extra apps, or simply hitting a wall. If you go this way, pick a platform that lets you export your products and customer list cleanly, so you're not stuck later.

WordPress with WooCommerce

WooCommerce is free at its core, very flexible, and you own the whole setup. If you already have a WordPress site, it's a natural next step. It suits businesses that want flexibility without a big budget, or that need the shop tied closely to existing content or memberships.

The catch is upkeep. You pay for hosting, someone to set it up properly and plugins for extra features. You're also responsible for security patches, plugin updates and speed. A badly set up WooCommerce site can be slow, insecure and expensive to fix. If you choose it, budget for proper hosting, not a £3-a-month shared plan, and for someone who knows how to keep it running.

Bespoke

A custom-built shop isn't a luxury. It's about building exactly what your business needs. If your workflow is unusual, your catalogue is complex, or you need custom pricing, stock systems or wholesale links, bespoke can work out cheaper and faster in the long run.

Built with tools like Next.js and React, a bespoke shop is fast and secure, and it can grow with you. You're not paying monthly fees that climb with revenue, fighting plugin conflicts, or waiting for someone else to add a feature you need now. The upfront cost is higher, but once you add up transaction fees, app subscriptions and time spent working around a platform's limits, it often costs less over three years.

The cheapest platform today can become the most expensive if it can't grow with you.

Questions to ask before you choose

1. How many products will you sell, and how often will that change? A handful suits a simple platform. Hundreds that change often need better tools.
2. Do you have unusual workflows? Prices for each customer, approval steps, or links to systems you already use? Off-the-shelf platforms rarely handle these well.
3. What's your budget over three years, not three months? Monthly fees, transaction costs and apps add up. Compare the total, not just the launch cost.
4. Who will run it day to day? Without technical help in-house, a hosted platform, or a bespoke build with a care plan, makes sense. WooCommerce with no support is a risk.
5. How much does speed matter to you? A slow shop loses sales. Bespoke builds are usually faster than plugin-heavy WordPress sites or bloated Shopify themes.

Features that actually matter

Every platform promises hundreds of features. You'll use a handful. Focus on these:

• A checkout that works on a phone. A lot of online shopping happens on mobile. If checkout is fiddly there, you lose sales.
• Clear product pages. Good photos, honest descriptions and visible prices. No surprises at the till.
• Delivery choices. Let people choose. Click-and-collect can work well for local shops in Norwich, King's Lynn or Great Yarmouth.
• Easy payment. Card payments are a must. Apple Pay and Google Pay speed things up. Don't force people to create an account before they can buy.
• Stock management. If you sell physical products, you need to know what's in stock and when to reorder. Updating it by hand leads to mistakes.

Common mistakes

Not testing the checkout

You'd be surprised how many shops go live with broken payment forms or confusing delivery options. Test the whole journey, on a phone, before you send a single customer to the site.

Getting delivery costs wrong

Free delivery sounds great, but on tight margins it can wipe out your profit. Be upfront about delivery costs, or build them into your prices. Most people don't mind paying for delivery, they just want to know before they get to checkout.

Forgetting about fulfilment

Taking orders is the easy part. Packing, labelling and posting them is where the work piles up. Have a system in place before the orders start coming in.

What we've learned

We've built shops for businesses selling everything from branded packaging to wholesale supplies. For Surplush, we built a wholesale platform with carbon tracking for each account and e-cargo bike delivery across Norwich, Cambridge and London. For Brandemic, we built a packaging configurator with artwork proofing that lets cafés and restaurants order branded cups and bowls without the usual minimum orders.

Both needed workflows no off-the-shelf platform could handle cleanly. But not every business does. The ones that get this right start with how they work, not with the platform. Work out what you need to do, then pick the tool that does it well.

If you're not sure which route fits, it helps to talk to someone who has built all three. You can see more about our e-commerce websites in Norwich, and we're always happy to talk it through.