How to Choose an Ecommerce Platform: What Actually Matters Before You Build

To choose an ecommerce platform, start with how the business sells rather than with a platform name. Map the catalogue, the checkout and payment needs, the markets and marketplaces you sell into, the systems the store has to connect to (stock, accounting, fulfilment, point of sale), who will run the store day to day, and what genuinely needs custom development. Then compare platforms against that list and the total cost of running them, which includes far more than the monthly subscription.

There is no single best ecommerce platform in Australia. Shopify is the right answer for a large share of the businesses we work with, and we work with it more than any other platform, but a business with complex B2B pricing, an unusual catalogue or heavy integration needs may be better served elsewhere. The sections below are the requirements we work through before recommending anything.

Start with the business requirements, not the platform name

Before comparing features, write down how the business actually trades:

• what you sell, how many products and variants, and how often the range changes
• who buys (retail customers, trade accounts, wholesale, or a mix)
• where you sell (your own site, marketplaces, social channels, a physical store)
• which countries and currencies you sell in
• which systems already run the business, and which of them the store must talk to
• who will add products, change prices, write content and fulfil orders

That list is what the platform has to support. A platform that does everything on the list adequately is usually a better choice than one that does a few things brilliantly and needs workarounds for the rest.

Product and catalogue complexity

Simple catalogues fit almost any platform. Complexity shows up in:

• large numbers of variants per product
• products sold in bundles, kits or configurable sets
• different prices for different customer groups
• products with many attributes customers need to filter by
• items that need custom shipping rules because of size, weight or fragility

For My Divine Home, a homewares and furniture store, the problem was in the product data: items arrived from the point-of-sale system without shipping information, so larger pieces could not be sold online properly. Whatever platform you choose, check how product data will get into it and stay accurate.

Checkout, payments and markets

Check which payment methods your customers expect (cards, digital wallets, buy now pay later, PayPal) and whether the platform supports them through providers available in Australia. Check how it handles multiple currencies, tax, duties and localised domains if you sell overseas.

Payment costs vary by platform and by how payments are processed. Shopify charges an additional transaction fee when a third-party payment provider is used, with the rate depending on the plan, as its help centre explains in third-party payment providers. BigCommerce's current plans set annual online sales thresholds, move a store to the next plan when the trailing twelve months of sales exceed its limit, and charge a fee on orders processed through payment providers outside its embedded list. Both are worth modelling against your expected sales, using the current BigCommerce pricing and Shopify pricing pages, rather than comparing headline subscription prices.

Integrations and operational systems

This is where many platform decisions succeed or fail. List every system the store has to exchange data with: inventory or ERP, accounting, point of sale, warehouse and shipping, marketplaces, email and SMS, reviews, and customer service. For each, check whether there is a maintained integration, what it costs, and exactly which data moves in which direction.

An integration that syncs stock levels once a day may be fine for a small range and a problem for a fast-selling one. Ask for specifics.

Content and merchandising

If the store needs to tell stories as well as list products (guides, lookbooks, landing pages for campaigns, collection pages with real content), check how easy that is for the team to build without a developer. Look at how flexible collection pages are, how landing pages are created, and how well the platform handles images and video.

For Wise Wine, the Shopify store we are building combines wine sales with separate hubs for the cellar door, restaurant bookings and wedding bookings within the one site, so the platform has to handle content and bookings as well as products.

Who needs to manage the store internally

The best platform on paper is the wrong one if the team cannot run it. Consider:

• how many people need access, and with what permissions
• how easy it is to add products, run a sale or change a homepage banner
• whether reporting answers the questions the business actually asks
• how much the team will depend on an agency or developer for routine changes

Custom functionality

Most stores need less custom development than they think. Apps and extensions cover a lot of ground, but each one adds cost, page weight and something else to maintain. Where something genuinely needs to be custom (an unusual configurator, complex B2B logic, a specific integration), check how the platform supports it and what happens to that work when the platform updates.

SEO and migration

If you are moving an existing store, migration is where search visibility is most at risk. Check that the new platform lets you control URLs, titles, meta descriptions, structured data and redirects. Then plan the move properly: map every old product, collection and content URL to its new equivalent and use permanent redirects. Google's guidance on site moves with URL changes recommends keeping redirects in place for at least a year.

Product data, customer accounts, order history, reviews and gift card balances also need a migration plan. Not all of them move cleanly between platforms.

Cost: subscription is only one part

When comparing cost, include:

• the platform subscription at the plan you will actually need, including any sales thresholds
• payment processing and any platform transaction fees
• apps and integrations, most of which are monthly
• theme or design and development, upfront and ongoing
• hosting, if the platform is self-hosted
• internal time to run the store
• migration, if you are moving

Prices change often, so check the official pricing pages at the time of the decision rather than relying on a comparison article, including this one.

When Shopify is usually a strong fit

Shopify tends to suit businesses that want a reliable hosted platform the team can run without a developer, a strong checkout, a large ecosystem of apps and integrations, and room to grow into marketplaces and international selling. It is the platform behind several of the stores we work on, including BlueAnt, and the store we are building for Wise Wine.

When another platform may make more sense

Another platform may be the better choice when the business has complex B2B requirements such as customer-specific catalogues and pricing, very large or highly configurable catalogues, deep integration with an existing ERP that already has a strong connector for a different platform, or a need for full control of the code and hosting. BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, WooCommerce and others each suit some of those situations.

The important thing is to decide on the requirements first. A platform migration is expensive and disruptive, and it rarely fixes a conversion problem on its own. If the real issue is the store experience, our article on ecommerce mistakes that hurt conversion is a better place to start.

If you're planning a new store or migration, send us the current platform, product catalogue and the systems it needs to connect to. Our ecommerce work covers platform selection, store builds and migrations, and our website design work covers the site around it.