The platform decision shapes the next five years
A bad e-commerce platform pick can cost an order of magnitude more in re-platforming than the original implementation.Shopify
Strengths: turnkey, fast time-to-launch, hosted, strong app ecosystem, internationalisation gets continually better.Trade-offs: customisation has limits. Cost scales with revenue (transaction fees + plan tiers).
Use when: standard direct-to-consumer business, brand can live within Shopify's UX patterns, time-to-launch matters more than long-term cost optimisation.
WooCommerce
Strengths: WordPress-based, infinite plugin ecosystem, no per-transaction fees, full control over hosting + database.Trade-offs: you operate it. Plugin compatibility is real engineering work. WordPress security posture is its own ongoing concern.
Use when: WordPress is already in the stack, content marketing tightly integrated with commerce, smaller catalogue, in-house technical capability.
Magento (Adobe Commerce)
Strengths: genuinely enterprise-capable, deep B2B and multi-store features, customisability is the strongest of the major platforms.Trade-offs: expensive (licensing + infrastructure), heavy operational footprint, specialist developer market.
Use when: complex B2B requirements, multi-brand / multi-region, existing Magento expertise.
Custom (Saleor, Medusa, in-house)
Strengths: no compromises, optimised for the business, modern stack (headless, composable).Trade-offs: real engineering investment, ongoing maintenance, no vendor support.
Use when: your commerce is genuinely non-standard.
Headless Shopify
A common middle path: Shopify for catalogue, checkout, payments. Custom front-end via Storefront API.The decision factors
- Catalogue complexity — simple product → most platforms work; complex variant logic → matters
- Checkout customisation — Shopify's checkout is now extensible
- Payment flexibility — multi-currency, BNPL, region-specific (iyzico, PayTR for TR)
- Internationalisation — multi-language, multi-currency, multi-tax-region
- Operational ownership — hosted vs self-managed
- Cost scaling — Shopify's % fee at high GMV vs flat infrastructure cost
Local context (TR market)
- Iyzico, PayTR are the established TR payment processors
- Trendyol, Hepsiburada are the dominant marketplaces
- e-Fatura / e-Arşiv invoice integration is mandatory for many sellers
- KDV (VAT) handling per product type
- Cargo integration (MNG, Aras, Yurtiçi, Sürat, PTT)
These integrations are mature on local platforms (Ticimax, IdeaSoft) and require additional work on global platforms.
One pattern we'd warn about
Picking a platform on the demo experience. The first month with any platform is fine; the third year is what matters.One pattern that always pays off
Modeling a worst-case migration scenario before signing.What's your platform?
