E-Commerce

Which platform, and what will the shop really cost to run?

Settle both before anyone designs a product page. A shop has to take a visitor from a listing to a confirmed order, with its reviews, prices, basket emails and tracking set up to follow UK rules. The starting price buys a Shopify build, handed over in your name; a headless front end (a storefront built as its own code, with Shopify behind it) or a fully custom build is an add-on. Beyond the build, a shop carries a platform subscription, the apps you run and payment fees, all in your own accounts.

Sound familiar?

Three situations a small business selling online may recognise.

The brand that has outgrown its theme. The product pages are still the theme's defaults. The delivery charge first appears on the payment screen, which is the last point at which a customer learns what the order really costs. The reviews widget came with the theme, and nobody has checked what it shows.

The WooCommerce shop nobody owns. It was built years ago on WordPress. Plugins have piled up, updates are waiting, and nobody can say whether the advertising pixel loads before or after the cookie banner. It still takes orders, and any change has to keep it taking them.

The seller moving off Etsy or Wix. Orders come in, but the shop lives on someone else's platform. You want a shop of your own, keeping the catalogue and the brand.

How it works

1. We make the platform recommendation on the first call. Where a themed Shopify store fits, we will say so, even when a bigger build would bill more. We recommend headless or a fully custom build only when the brand experience or the integrations genuinely outgrow a themed store.
2. We design the templates that take money. Listing, product, basket and checkout come first, not only the home page. Delivery costs show as a figure, or an honest estimate, as early as the shop can calculate one.
3. We wire payments, delivery and tax. Payment gateway, delivery rules and carrier rates, and tax calculation, each tested against real orders before launch. The tax setting and the price on the page are set up together, so consumer prices display VAT-inclusive.
4. We build reviews in from the start. Your review section launches empty, with an honest "no reviews yet", and each review is stored with proof of purchase. The star ratings that search engines read appear only once real reviews exist.
5. You launch, and we stay for thirty days. Through the first weeks of live trading we cover bug fixes, small tweaks and team training. The store, domain, analytics and customer data sit in accounts you own from day one.

What the starting price buys

Enough to start trading: a themed Shopify shop designed for your catalogue that takes payment, charges delivery by your rules and shows VAT-inclusive consumer prices, with reviews and consent built in from the start. Product photography and description writing are not part of it.

Add when you need it: a move from WooCommerce or Wix, with every URL that matters mapped and redirected · a move from a marketplace such as Etsy, bringing the brand and catalogue across rather than the ranking · a headless front end or a fully custom build · subscriptions, with their pause, skip and failed-payment states · multi-currency and selling abroad · links to your business systems (ERP) or fulfilment · a care plan once the thirty days end. Each is scoped when you need it.

Shopify or WooCommerce: which suits a UK small business?

Shopify is the starting recommendation, because it runs the payments, fraud tooling and platform patching for you; WooCommerce suits a business already on WordPress or with unusual product logic, but then everything is yours to look after, so someone has to own it. We build on either, and where Shopify fits, moving an existing WooCommerce shop across is an add-on we scope with you.

What keeps you safe

• Reviews. Since 6 April 2025 UK law has banned fake reviews and hiding that a review was incentivised, and the CMA can fine without going to court. We will not seed or write reviews, or carry over any not traceable to a real customer, and will decline a build that depends on them.
• Consent and email. "Reject all" is as prominent as "Accept all", and we test that nothing non-essential, such as tracking or advertising code, runs before a visitor agrees. Every email sign-up is captured with its opt-out at the point of collection and stored with the basis it was collected on.
• Accessibility. In UK terms the accessibility floor is the Equality Act 2010, so the checkout gets a manual keyboard pass against WCAG 2.2 AA.
• Your terms. Your returns policy, terms and consumer-rights wording need someone qualified to sign them off.

What it costs

From £6,500 for a themed Shopify build, excl. VAT; a WooCommerce build is quoted against its own scope. The catalogue, the theming and any integrations move either. UK agencies quote roughly £2,500–£10,000 for a standard small-business website; a shop has more to get right at once — order path, tax display, reviews and consent. Platform fees, such as the Shopify plan, transaction fees and third-party app subscriptions, are not included: they stay in your name and are named in the proposal. Every service is on the pricing page.

When something else fits better

If you sell nothing online and want enquiries rather than orders, Web Development is the better fit. If the shop exists and simply needs looking after, a Maintenance plan covers updates, monitoring and a monthly bucket of improvement hours. Where the follow-up email automation is the larger part of the job, it belongs in CRM automation, and being found before anyone buys is SEO. Clinics selling retail skincare and aftercare online carry the advertising rules for treatments on top of the consumer ones; that groundwork is on beauty and wellness clinics. If you already sell online and want to know where the shop stands, start with a free audit.

Get in touch with your catalogue and the platform you sell on today, or read how a project runs first.