Choosing the right e-commerce platform in 2021

Picking an e-commerce platform is one of those decisions that's easy to get wrong and expensive to change. I regularly talk to businesses like yours that chose a platform based on a recommendation from a friend or a persuasive salesperson, and are now stuck with something that doesn't fit.

There's no single "best" platform. There's only the best platform for your specific situation.

The main contenders

Shopify is the most popular hosted platform, and for good reason. It handles the hosting, security, and PCI compliance for you. The admin is intuitive, there are thousands of themes and apps, and you can absolutely get a shop live quickly. Plans start at £29/month. The trade-off is customisation, you're working within Shopify's constraints, using their templating language (Liquid), and paying transaction fees unless you use Shopify Payments.

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that turns any WordPress site into a shop. It's free (the plugin, at least), hugely flexible, and benefits from WordPress's massive ecosystem. The trade-off is that you're responsible for hosting, security, updates, and PCI compliance. It also gets unwieldy at scale, a WooCommerce site with 10,000 products needs careful optimisation.

Magento (now Adobe Commerce) is the enterprise option. It handles massive catalogues, complex pricing rules, multi-store setups, and B2B commerce. It's powerful but complex, you need a dedicated developer or team, and hosting costs are significant. The open-source version is free; Adobe Commerce starts at thousands per year.

BigCommerce sits between Shopify and Magento. It's a hosted platform with more built-in features than Shopify (no transaction fees, better multi-channel support out of the box) but a smaller app ecosystem. Plans start at £29/month.

How to decide

Start with these questions:

How many products do you have? Under 500, any platform works. Over 5,000, you'll want something that handles large catalogues well, Magento or BigCommerce.

How complex is your pricing? Simple retail pricing works everywhere. If you need customer-group pricing, tiered pricing, quote-based pricing, or complex discount rules, WooCommerce with the right plugins or Magento are better fits.

How much customisation do you need? If you want a standard shop layout with minor tweaks, Shopify is perfect. If you need a completely custom front-end, you'll either need WooCommerce (full control) or a headless setup where the platform acts as a back-end API.

Do you sell across multiple channels? If you need your products on Amazon, eBay, Instagram, and Google Shopping as well as your website, Shopify and BigCommerce have the best built-in integrations.

What's your budget? Shopify and BigCommerce are predictable, monthly subscription plus some app costs. WooCommerce is cheap to start but costs add up (hosting, premium plugins, developer time). Magento is expensive no matter how you look at it.

The headless option

Increasingly, I'm seeing e-commerce move towards headless setups. This means using an e-commerce platform for the back-end (products, orders, payments) but building a custom front-end. Shopify has a Storefront API. BigCommerce has one too. Saleor and Medusa are headless-first alternatives. The result is a blazingly fast front-end with the reliability of an established commerce back-end.

This is more expensive to build, but for brands where the shopping experience is a differentiator, it's worth it.

My recommendation process

I always start with the business requirements, not the technology. What do you sell, how do you sell it, what are your growth plans, and what's your budget for the next 12 months? The platform choice follows from those answers.

If you're choosing a platform or thinking about migrating from one that isn't working, I'm happy to talk through the options. Reach me at [email protected].