The Playbook · DIY OR HIRE
Build the e-commerce store yourself or hire someone?
Set the store up yourself when you sell a few products to people who already know you. Hire someone when the catalog has variants, shipping has zones, or the store has to talk to anything else. That is the line. Below is what each side contains, what hiring costs against my $2,500 floor, and what you keep either way.
What can you set up yourself?
A Square store if you already sell in person on Square: the products are there, and the online side is a switch. A Shopify template with under twenty products, one shipping rate and your own photos. A payment link for a single product. All three are a weekend, and for a business testing whether anyone buys online, a weekend is the right size of bet.
The Shopify versus Squarespace matchup and the Square versus Stripe matchup pick the tool in a page each.
What should you hand to a builder?
Variants, meaning sizes and colours with their own stock counts. Shipping by zone and weight. Tax across states. Any connection to inventory, accounting or a booking system. Speed on a phone, which templates cap. And the checkout itself, because the difference between a store that sells and one that does not is usually three taps you cannot see from the admin panel.
The moment a small store becomes a call
It is usually the first return. A return touches the order, the inventory, the refund and the customer's email, and a template handles each of them slightly wrong. When the fixes start eating your evenings, that is the call.
Where is the line, exactly?
Three tests. More than one shipping rule? More than one variant per product? Does the store have to talk to anything else? One yes means get help with that piece. Two yeses means hire the build.
What does each route cost?
Do-it-yourself is the platform fee, the processor's cut, and your weekends. Hiring adds the build: my Signature floor is $2,500 and Flagship is $5,000, with a store sitting above a brochure site of the same size, and the cost calculator has a store option. Care after launch is month to month on the plans page either way, and the store cost play shows the margin math that decides whether any of it pays.
What do you keep either way?
Everything, if the accounts are in your name. Platform, domain, processor, photos, customer list. Whether you built it or I did, you should be able to change builders without losing an order. The e-commerce service page says what a store from me includes, and the store mistakes play is worth reading before either route, because the leaks are the same on a template and on a custom build.
What else do owners ask?
Is Shopify DIY-friendly?
For a small catalog with one shipping rate, yes. It gets hard exactly where the money is: variants, zones, tax, and the apps you stack to fill the gaps.
Can I start on Shopify and move to custom?
Yes, and it is a common order. Keep the domain and the processor in your name, export the products and customers, and the move is a rebuild rather than a rescue.
What if I only sell ten products?
Then a template or a payment link is probably right, and I will say so. Spend the difference on photos; a bad photo loses more orders than any platform choice.
Your move. Call or text (847) 387-0244, or price your build in six taps and I call you with the exact number.
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