WordPress, Shopify or Custom-Built?

A woman who runs a homewares shop in Balmain has three quotes on her desk. One is for WordPress, one is for Shopify, one is for something custom-built. Each sounds sensible on its own. Together they contradict each other, and each firm has explained why the other two are a mistake.

She does not have a technology problem. She has an advice problem. All three are good tools, and the right one depends on questions nobody has asked her yet: what she sells, who updates the site, and how unusual her business rules are. Here is how to work it out without a sales pitch attached.

Start with what the website has to do

Before comparing platforms, write down what the site must actually handle. Be specific and boring.

• Are you selling products online? How many, and do they have sizes, colours or variable stock?
• Are you selling services or time? Bookings, quotes and enquiry forms behave very differently from a cart.
• Who will update it? You, on a Sunday night, or a marketer who does this for a living?
• How often does the content change? A weekly blog and seasonal ranges need different plumbing from a five-page site that barely changes.
• Anything unusual? Trade pricing, member logins, licence numbers, delivery zones, hire periods, minimum order quantities.

That last question decides more than anything else. Ordinary requirements are well served by ordinary platforms. Unusual requirements are where cost lives.

WordPress: the flexible workhorse

WordPress runs an enormous share of the web, and for good reason. It handles content beautifully, a non-technical person can update it once it is set up properly, and there is a plugin for almost everything.

It suits you if:

• Your site is mostly pages and articles — a clinic, a trades business, a school.
• You publish regularly and want to add pages yourself.
• You need moderate flexibility: a booking form, a members area, a small shop bolted on.

The catch is maintenance. WordPress is a collection of parts from different makers, and parts need updating. Neglected plugins are the most common way small Australian sites get broken into or slowed down. Budget for someone to keep it patched.

A five-page brochure site on WordPress is often the right answer, and a straightforward website build costs far less than anything custom. More moving parts — logins, calculators, booking integrations — still sit comfortably on a standard platform.

Shopify: when selling products is the whole job

If your business is essentially “we have products, people buy them”, Shopify removes an enormous amount of work. Payments, checkout, tax display, stock counts, discount codes and abandoned-cart emails all come as standard, and hosting and security are somebody else’s problem.

For Australian sellers, this matters more than it first appears:

• Payments. Australians expect familiar options, and Afterpay, Zip and the usual cards are well trodden ground on hosted platforms.
• Shipping. Australia Post, Sendle and Shippit integrations are common, saving you from writing postage rules for a country this large.
• GST-inclusive display. Australian shoppers expect to see the price they will actually pay. Getting tax display right on a bespoke cart is fiddly work you may not need.
• Consumer law. Australian Consumer Law gives customers refund and faulty-goods rights regardless of your policy, and collecting customer details brings obligations under the Privacy Act 1988. A hosted platform does not remove those, but it gives you standard places to put your policies.

Shopify’s limits show up when your business is not shaped like a shop: unusual pricing, service bookings, complex quoting, heavy content publishing. You can bend it, and each bend adds another monthly app fee. A store straining against those limits is the moment to consider ecommerce development.

The cheapest option that genuinely does the job is not a compromise. It is the correct answer, and it leaves money for the things customers actually notice.

Custom-built: when the platform becomes the bottleneck

Custom means built for your business rather than assembled from ready-made parts. It is the right call less often than agencies suggest, and more often than owners realise.

Custom earns its keep when:

• Your core process cannot be expressed in an off-the-shelf platform — hire periods, trade tiers, freight by weight and zone, complicated approvals.
• You are paying for several add-ons that each do most of what you need.
• The website is really a tool your staff use daily, which points at custom development or internal software.
• You have real scale and the platform’s rules are now costing you sales.

Custom does not mean fragile, but it does mean you own the upkeep. No vendor releases improvements while you sleep. That is the trade: exact fit in exchange for responsibility.

If none of those points describe you, a standard platform is not you settling. It is you spending sensibly.

How to decide, in about an hour

1. Write the list. What the site must do, who updates it, and anything unusual about how you sell.
2. Count the odd bits. No unusual requirements points at Shopify or WordPress. Two or three points at a stretched platform. Four or more starts to justify custom.
3. Decide who maintains it. If nobody will patch a WordPress site, a hosted platform is safer. If someone will, WordPress gives more freedom.
4. Keep control of your assets. Register the .com.au yourself. auDA administers the .au namespace, and .com.au requires an Australian presence and a close, substantial connection to the name. Hold your own domain and hosting logins.
5. Choose reversibly. Products, pages and posts can be migrated later. Pick what fits the next two or three years, not forever.

If you would like a second opinion with nothing attached, describe your business and we will say honestly which of the three we would choose — including when that answer is the cheapest one. You are welcome to start a conversation.