Which platform to choose for an online store: 10 questions before you start

You choose a platform for your online store once and live with it for years. Moving is possible, but it’s always work. So instead of a “top 10 builders” ranking, here are the questions worth asking any platform before you start — and an honest take on when each option fits.

Three types of solutions

	SaaS platform	CMS (OpenCart, WooCommerce)	Marketplace
What it is	a ready store in the cloud for a monthly fee	software on your own hosting	a storefront on someone else’s platform
Who it suits	typical stores that want to sell, not administer	those who need non-standard logic and have a developer	testing demand, selling without your own traffic
Main risk	dependence on the platform’s features	costs and security are on you	commission and buyers who aren’t yours

10 questions for any platform

1. What’s included in the plan, and what costs extra? Are Nova Poshta, online payments, instalments and a software cash register (PRRO) built in or separate modules?
2. Are there order and product limits? What happens when you exceed them?
3. Does the platform take a percentage of sales?
4. Can you pay monthly, or only a year in advance?
5. Your own domain — on which plan, and with SSL?
6. SEO: can you edit titles and descriptions, is there a sitemap, product markup, 301 redirects?
7. Languages and currencies: does each language get its own URLs?
8. Migration: can you transfer products, customers and orders from your old site? And if you want to leave — can you export your data?
9. Team: can you give a manager access to orders only?
10. API: can you connect the store to a CRM or warehouse system?

How we answer these questions

Honestly, so you can compare:

• Nova Poshta, Ukrposhta, Meest, online payments, instalments and PRRO — on every plan;
• no order limit; products — 500 on Start, 10,000 on Business, 30,000 on Pro;
• no percentage of sales;
• monthly payment on every plan, cheaper yearly;
• your own domain with SSL — on every plan;
• meta tag templates, sitemap, markup, 301s — yes;
• Ukrainian, English and Russian with separate URLs;
• migration from Horoshop, Prom, WooCommerce, Shopify, OpenCart and Tilda;
• team roles with permissions;
• REST API and webhooks — on the Pro plan.

Pick a plan for your store

When a platform isn’t the right choice

If you need a product configurator, a complex wholesale price list with individual terms for each customer, or deep ERP integration without an API — look at custom development. The online store cost calculator will help you compare the costs.