
Ask HN: $500k revenue business – Shopify vs. Custom website? - jimmygatz
Hi HN,<p>I run an e-commerce business which now turns over ~$500,000&#x2F;year. It was initially built on Shopify but I am currently looking to invest some money into rebuilding the website and am considering all my options.<p>I assumed it would be cheaper in the long-term to invest in having it custom made, but with the new Shopify online processing fees it seems this is not the case.[1] Shopify payment fees are 1.8% + 20p compared to Paypal which is 2.9% + 30p and Stripe which is similar. Even with the unlimited Shopify plan which works out at $2148 a year it&#x27;s still cheaper for me to use Shopify as I save ~$5000 on online processing fees.<p>My questions are:<p>1. If Shopify payment fees are nearly 1% lower than Paypal&#x2F;Stripe, why does anyone still build their own custom website outside the Shopify platform? Is there some kind of catch I&#x27;m missing?<p>2. Are there any other platforms I should be considering building my website on?<p>Would really appreciate any thoughts or feedback you might have. If you need any more information please ask and I&#x27;ll be happy to answer.<p>Thanks in advance for your time,<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.shopify.co.uk&#x2F;pricing
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jonah
Well before that volume of sales, people generally set up a merchant account
and use a payment processing gateway like Braintree or Authorize.net instead
of one of these intermediated systems. You can then negotiate your rates down
below what Shopify+ charges. (You can also configure your own gateway with
Shopify. Here is a list of the ones supported in the UK:
[https://www.shopify.com/payment-gateways/united-
kingdom](https://www.shopify.com/payment-gateways/united-kingdom) )

It really depends on the needs of your business. Does the hosted solution do
everything you need it to? Are you hampered by a lack of features or
flexibility? How complex are your product offerings, and content management
and marketing needs? What are your growth projections? These types of
questions should have a larger influence on your decision than transaction
fees.

If you want to build your own site, check out SpreeCommerce (Rails) -
[https://spreecommerce.com/](https://spreecommerce.com/) and ReactionCommerce
(Node/Meteor) - [https://reactioncommerce.com/](https://reactioncommerce.com/)

Don't hesitate to add more detail or ask me more questions here or offline - I
deal with this stuff all day.

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warewolf
First, Congrats on $500k+ that's not easily done. I have a Ecommerce I started
that makes $200k+/year. As of last year I gave my brother the CEO title. I
still own my shares and have my seat on the board.

Right now the company is going threw some similar changes as you. We have
decided based on feedback to do a Rebrand. Along with creating a new site. The
first site was originally build using Bigcartel. We are still conducting
research on what platform we will use but we are certain we will not create a
completely custom site.

Simple explanation our company is not a tech startup, its a product company.
So we want/need simple maintenance that our team can handle which a platform
like Shopify, Squarespace, Bigcartel etc provides. My reason? I've experienced
several problems in the past with maintaining a custom site.

The questions we are asking are asking our self, may be something you want to
ask yourself as well before you build a new site.

What's our reason for wanting to rebuild the site? Are we seeing loss in
sales? How long will it take to build? What do our customers need, that they
aren't getting from our site now?

So far we are leaning towards Shopify over squarespace. The only payment
option on ss is stripe and all though we love the advance tech stripe is
building the rates are to high.

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faramarz
Have you looked at Shopify Plus? Maybe reach a rep at the company for more
info, but from the looks of it, the processing fee is 0%. What the monthly
bill is, I don't know.

[https://www.shopify.co.uk/plus](https://www.shopify.co.uk/plus)

