Picking the best ecommerce platform is the most important thing any online business will do. Whether you’re starting from scratch or upgrading from an older system, the platform will dictate how customers feel, how smoothly things run, what you can do with marketing, and how easily you can grow later. There are plenty of options, although arguably the practical choices are fewer than merchants would have had to make 15 years ago. There’s a platform for everyone out there, from simple and easy little web shops to highly complex, integrated systems. It’s not, though, just about finding something that looks like it might do the trick for now. Rather, it’s about finding what actually fits what you want to do now, what you have to work with, and where you want to go.
So, we’re going to look through the important areas you’ll need to think about when you’re figuring out which ecommerce platform is best for your business, and what questions you should ask before you decide on anything.
1. Be Clear on Your Business and How You Want to Grow
Before you start shopping around platforms or agencies, you really have to understand your business and what you need from your ecommerce site. Too many merchants will select a solution first and regret it later when they find out what it can’t do. You need to ask yourself:
- What are you selling (physical ‘stuff’, digital downloads, online subscriptions, B2B, or a mix of everything)?
- How much do you need to get involved with things like catalogues, pricing, shipping, or customer groups?
- What are your growth ambitions? Are you looking for organic growth or a hockey stick upwards curve?
- Are you only looking to sell here in the UK, or do you want to sell in Europe or further afield and therefore deal with different currencies, tax regimes, languages, or stores?
- How do you ship? Are you a drop-shipper, have you got your own warehouse(s), or something somewhere in between?
The answers to these questions will show how much wiggle room you need. If, for instance, you’re selling subscriptions, you’re going to want to focus on billing, but if you’re selling many different kinds of items, you might need fancy product management and sophisticated search tools.
2. Examine SaaS, Open-Source, or Enterprise Platforms
Most platforms can be categorised into 3 different areas:
a.) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
These are platforms such as BigCommerce or Shopify that handle the hosting, security, and updates. Great if you want things simple and quick. SaaS platforms are quick to set up, less to worry about, they have predictable monthly costs, and they have a wealth of applications for additional features and functionality.
On the other hand, as all the code is centralised, you have less say in functionality, you’re charged on the volume or size of transactions (so you pay more the better you do), you have less freedom to make bespoke changes around your own business requirements and you’re beholden to the SaaS provider.
b.) Open-Source Platforms
These are platforms that are free to use and usually supported by an online community. Good examples are Magento Open Source, WooCommerce, Umbraco and Shopware Community Edition. The plus points are that you get all the code, so you can change anything and everything you like. There is a range of third-party extensions and plugins available and you have the latitude to customise the solution to your precise needs. There are plenty of agencies that can support you (or developers if you want to bring it in-house for some reason), and best of all, it’s free of charge.
The challenges are that you (or your agency) will be responsible for your platform’s hosting, coding, and security. They need regular updates and patching and the platform needs to be expertly managed and maintained to avoid “code clash” with extensions and core platform.
c.) Enterprise Platforms
These are rich-featured, powerful platforms for businesses with complex requirements. Examples include Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, commercetools and Oracle Commerce Cloud. They offer complete customisation and have rich features (especially with B2B solutions) out of the box. They come with phenomenal support from the vendor and offer optimised and fully managed hosting and infrastructure. The security and resilience are second to none. What’s more, they’re highly scalable, meaning they can support growth on an essentially unlimited basis.
All that clearly comes with cost. These solutions can take a long time to implement, and they are expensive both in terms of licensing/platform charges and development. You will also need a highly skilled agency to develop these solutions, too.
3. Figure Out What Features You Need
Once you know what kind of platform, list the features you need. Here are some big areas:
a.) Product and Inventory
Think about:
- Number of SKUs
- Complexity of your variants
- Bundling
- Advanced attribute management
- Real-time stock integration
If your catalogue is reasonably simple, many basic SaaS platforms will be sufficient. For complex attributes or large catalogues, you may need more powerful systems like Magento or Shopify Plus which have third-party extensions/apps.
b.) Customer Experience and Front-End Flexibility
Here, you need to consider:
- How much creative control you want (or more importantly, need)
- Do you need customised user journeys
- Are you going to require content-heavy experiences (such as blogs, landing pages, guided selling, etc)
- Do you (or will you) need the ability to create multiple storefronts or regional sites
Modern headless architectures also allow you to separate the front end from the platform backend for maximum flexibility (take a look at my previous blog post on headless).
c.) Checkout and Payment Functionality
Some areas you’ll need to reflect on include:
- Guest checkout
- Mobile optimisation (ever more critical)
- Ability to add custom steps to the process
- Payment flexibility (PayPal, Apple Pay, regional gateways, etc)
- Fraud detection tools
Some industries demand specialised payment flows—subscriptions, wholesale order forms, or trade credit—so it’s wise to check compatibility early on to avoid going down a blind alley.
d.) Shipping, Fulfilment, and Returns
Each platform integrates differently with carriers, third-party logistics (3PLs), and returns tools. Keep your eye on:
- Multi-warehouse support
- Real-time shipping rates
- Automated fulfilment rules
- Click and collect (if you have brick-and-mortar locations)
If your shipping model is complex, make sure the platform you’re selecting supports advanced rules or has reliable apps.
e.) B2B Features (if relevant)
B2B is a more complex beast than B2C. If you are a B2B merchant (or might be down the line) sellers need:
- Customer-specific pricing
- Purchase orders
- Simple quoting and Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) tools
- Customer credit limits
- Sales rep accounts
- Restricted catalogues
4. Assess Integration and API Capabilities
Most modern ecommerce businesses rely on an entire ecosystem rather than simply standalone platforms. You must ensure compatibility with:
- ERP (or Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)
- Accounting software
- CRM platforms
- Marketing automation tools
- Marketplaces (such as Amazon or eBay)
- Personalisation engines
- Loyalty programmes
- PIM systems
See if the platform provides:
- APIs
- Webhooks
- Native integrations
- Middleware connectors
A platform with strong API support (e.g., Adobe Commerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Shopify Plus) will be much easier to extend over time.
5. What about Hosting, Performance, and Reliability?
Site speed and reliability will directly affect your conversion rates and are hence hugely important. Some of the performance considerations include:
- Server capacity (horsepower, essentially)
- Content delivery networks (CDNs)
- Image optimisation
- Automatic scaling during traffic spikes (e.g., Black Friday)
- Uptime SLAs
- Load balancing
- Caching mechanisms
Enterprise and SaaS platforms handle performance automatically, while Open Source systems need proper hosting providers (e.g., dedicated and specialist Magento hosting).
6. Review Security, Compliance, and Data Protection
To be completely squeaky clean, your platform is going to need to support:
- PCI compliance
- Secure payment tokenisation
- GDPR compliance
- Two-factor authentication (2FA)
- Bot protection
- Regular security patches
With Enterprise and Open Source stores, these areas will require far more active engagement in these areas from you. SaaS offerings include these protections in the service.
7. Examine Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Costs are important in choosing a platform. But there’s more to it than might initially meet the eye. You need to look at every pricing element an ecommerce platform includes:
- Licensing fees or subscriptions
- Platform fees
- Development and customisation
- Third-party apps, extensions or plugins
- Payment processing fees
- Hosting (if self-hosted e.g. with Magento Open Source)
- Maintenance and support costs
- Integrations/middleware
- Future upgrade costs
Sometimes a “cheap” platform becomes expensive after adding necessary apps. Conversely, a higher-end platform can be better value if it reduces development overhead.
8. Look at the Platform’s Ecosystem and Support
A strong ecosystem potentially reduces cost and risk. You need to take into account the:
- Size of the developer community (worldwide)
- Availability (and cost) of specialist agencies
- Quality of documentation
- Support
- Training materials you can get your hands on
To put it into context, platforms like Shopify and Magento have particularly vast global development communities, while smaller platforms like Sana are limited to just the vendor.
9. Make Sure of Future Proofing
Any platform you select shouldn’t just fit your business today, but also in three, four, five years from now. You need to ask:
- Will it support any new markets or product lines you might provide?
- Will it be able to handle traffic spikes and growth?
- Is the platform innovative, leading-edge and has a features roadmap embracing new developments such as AI?
- Does it regularly release enhancements?
Scalability and adaptability really should be central to your decision.
A Final Note
Choosing the right ecommerce platform for your business takes a lot more than merely comparing feature lists. It’s on you as the merchant to understand your business model, what your technical needs are, how your fulfilment operates, and, most of all, your long-term ambitions as a business. Take a structured approach. Start with your business requirements, evaluate platform types, analyse functionality, assess integration capabilities, and review long-term cost. If you do this properly, you’ll select a platform that will let you manage your operation without it being too big or too small a hammer to crack your ecommerce nut.
And remember, the right platform isn’t necessarily the most popular or expensive; it’s the one that fits with all the moving parts of your online trading: your ecommerce team, your customers, and your strategic direction. If you carefully evaluate and do your research (or involve a third-party consultant, you can build an online store that will do you want for the right price and grow with you as an online business.