E-commerce Development Judged on Revenue Per Session, Not on Launch Day

• How much does an e-commerce website cost?

  A custom Shopify build starts at $14,000, about £11,000. Headless and custom platforms start at $38,000 and typically run to $160,000. Most mid-market merchants land between $25,000 and $70,000. The free audit produces a real number before you commit.

• Should we use Shopify or build custom?

  Shopify, unless you have a specific reason not to. Below roughly $20M in revenue it is almost always the right answer, and a custom build is a liability you maintain forever. Custom earns its place with complex configurators, quote-to-order, marketplaces or unusual subscription rules.

• What is headless commerce and do we need it?

  A separately built frontend calling your commerce platform through an API. It is worth it when content and commerce need to be one experience, when your catalog is large enough that theme performance cannot be fixed, or when you run several storefronts off one backend. Otherwise it adds cost and complexity for little return.

• Will you improve our Core Web Vitals?

  Yes, and we put specific targets in the acceptance criteria rather than describing it as an outcome. On commerce, LCP is closely tied to conversion, so we treat it as a revenue metric. We measure field data, not just Lighthouse, because they routinely disagree.

• Can you replatform without losing our Google rankings?

  This is the single biggest risk in a replatform and it is manageable. URL and redirect mapping is planned before any build work starts, structured data is carried across, and we monitor Search Console closely for the first eight weeks. Traffic dips are normal for two to three weeks; collapses are a planning failure.

• What AI features actually help an online store?

  Semantic search first, by a wide margin. Then product data enrichment, which improves conversion and organic rankings at once. Then recommendations trained on your own behavior data. Chatbots are the most commonly built and the least valuable, and we will push back if that is where you want to start.

• Do you integrate with our ERP and 3PL?

  Yes, and it is usually where the real operational value sits. NetSuite, Sage, QuickBooks, Akeneo, ShipStation and most 3PL APIs. Where no API exists we build a flat file or EDI path, which is still common in distribution.

• Can you handle both US and UK selling?

  Yes. Currency, sales tax and VAT, address formats, spelling and shipping expectations get designed in rather than discovered. A UK customer presented with a zip code field will usually leave, and that is entirely avoidable.

• How do you prepare a store for Black Friday?

  Load testing against realistic peak traffic, a performance budget locked in CI, a code freeze window agreed in advance, and a rollback plan. The growth retainer includes this. It should be done in September, not November.

• Our store is slow. Can you just fix it?

  Often yes, and we would rather do that than sell you a rebuild. The audit tells you whether the problem is fixable in place, which for theme-based stores carrying too many apps it usually is. Roughly a third of our audits end in a fix rather than a project.

• Do you handle PCI compliance?

  We build so that card data stays with your payment provider and never touches your servers, which keeps your PCI scope to the smallest questionnaire. We are not a QSA and will not sign off your compliance, but we will architect so it is straightforward.

• What ongoing support do you offer?

  A growth retainer from $2,900 a month covering development capacity, performance monitoring, conversion work and peak readiness. Or ad-hoc support if you have your own team and only need occasional help.

Still got questions? Talk to our team.