How to Choose the E-Commerce Platform That Fits Your Business
A strong e-commerce platform is the engine behind your online growth. But with so many options available, it can be difficult to determine which platform truly aligns with your business and ambitions. Should you go for a simple webshop solution, a flexible suite, or even invest in custom development?
Equally important is the way you implement and continue to develop the platform. Some companies choose a self-service approach, where the in-house team manages much of the work themselves. Others work with an agency that handles the build and implementation, often in separate projects and at higher cost. There are also integrated solutions where both the platform and implementation are managed by one partner, with the collaboration focused on continuity and growth.
Which approach suits you best depends on your internal knowledge, capacity, and the level of flexibility you need.
In this blog, we’ll give you the tools to make the right decision.
Step 1: Define Your Strategy and Ambitions
Before looking at platforms, you need to be clear about your own goals. Ask yourself questions like:
Do I want to sell national or international?
Some platforms work fine for local sales but have limitations when scaling internationally. Think about cumbersome language management, SEO restrictions from translation plugins, missing local payment options, or incorrect handling of European VAT rules. If international growth is part of your strategy, choose a platform that supports this natively and at scale.
How many products and categories do I want to manage?
The size and complexity of your assortment largely determines the requirements for your platform. The more products and variants, the more important it is to think about how you’ll manage and maintain product data.
Is my focus B2C, B2B, or a combination of both?
Not every platform supports B2B functionality such as customer groups, tiered pricing, or quotes. If you’re combining B2C and B2B from the same inventory, centralized inventory management becomes essential – and so does choosing a platform that supports it seamlessly.
Do I want to run one webshop, or multiple brands, shops, and physical stores?
Platforms differ greatly in their support for multi-store or omnichannel. A suite often offers this out-of-the-box, while other platforms rely on extensions or custom development.
What is the knowledge and capacity of my team?
With a strong technical team you can manage more in-house. With limited resources, choose a platform and partner that relieve you of this burden.
A clear view of your strategy, ambitions, and resources helps you evaluate platforms based on what you truly need, rather than being swayed by flashy features or “familiar names.”
Step 2: Look at Features and Integrations
Not every platform matches your operations equally well. A brand with a few hundred products has different needs than a retailer with thousands of SKUs, multiple stores, and complex logistics.
Key questions to ask:
Is a webshop-only platform enough?
A basic webshop with CMS can be a good start. But once your assortment grows, you sell through multiple channels, or you manage inventory in several locations, additional systems become essential. A PIM (Product Information Management) system helps you manage product data centrally and consistently, while an OMS (Order Management System) assigns, splits, and processes orders intelligently – including ship-from-store capabilities. Together, these systems drive scalability, consistency, and efficiency.
How strong are the platform’s integration capabilities?
Integrations are a must for any professional e-commerce business. The question is not if you’ll need to connect with ERP, POS, marketplaces, or loyalty platforms, but how easily the platform enables this with robust APIs, scalability, and monitoring tools.
What do I need from the frontend?
Some platforms rely on standard templates and plugins – fast to set up, but with limited customization. Others give you full freedom to build your own frontend – maximum flexibility, but requiring extra time, budget, and expertise. In between lies a middle ground: platforms with native features and tested, conversion-driven UX, which you can flexibly adapt while still preserving speed and ease of use.
By answering these questions, you’ll see whether a webshop-only setup is sufficient, or if you benefit from additional systems like PIM and OMS. The next choice is whether you connect these via a best-of-breed setup (more options but also more complexity), or choose a modern e-commerce suite where these modules are natively integrated.
Step 3: Maintenance and Innovation
E-commerce never stands still. Regulations change, customer expectations grow, and technology evolves quickly. That’s why you should also consider how your platform is maintained and developed over time.
Innovation and new features
SaaS platforms deliver continuous improvements automatically. Open-source often leaves updates to your own team or an external agency, which requires ongoing time and budget.
Maintenance, updates, and migrations
In a best-of-breed setup (webshop, CMS, PIM, OMS, integration platform) you must manage updates for each component and ensure compatibility. SaaS e-commerce suites handle this centrally, reducing risk and overhead.
Security, hosting, and support
Open-source usually means self-managed hosting, patches, and certificates. SaaS includes these by default – offering high security, scalable performance, and centralized support.
SEO and performance
Page speed and technical SEO are vital for conversion and visibility. SaaS platforms optimize this continuously, while with open-source or custom solutions you often need to manage it yourself.
A future-proof platform relieves you of these worries by embedding innovation, maintenance, security, and performance into the core.
Step 4: Budget and Total Cost of Ownership
The costs of a platform go beyond license fees and the initial development. Also consider:
Hosting and security
Is this included or do you need to arrange it separately? This can have a major impact on your overall costs and stability.
Ongoing development and customization
A SaaS platform includes many features by default, which reduces the need for customization. With open source, you often need to invest in additional extensions.
Maintenance and updates
Automatic updates save time and costs. With platforms that require a lot of maintenance, you need to factor in recurring project expenses.
Internal time and resources
Don’t forget that your own team also spends time on management, testing, and coordination. These are costs that are often overlooked.
A platform that seems inexpensive at first can turn out to be more costly due to hidden expenses or slow processes. That’s why you should look at the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): what does the complete picture cost, both now and in the future?
Step 5: Suite, SaaS, or Custom Development?
There are three main types of platform models. Which option suits you depends on your phase, your resources and your ambitions.
Open source / custom: maximum freedom, but high ongoing development and maintenance costs. Suitable for large organizations with their own IT teams and unique processes, willing to invest in continuous development.
SaaS webshop: easy to use and fast to launch, but limited in customization and scalability. A good fit for startups or smaller brands with a modest assortment, prioritizing low entry costs and simplicity. Long-term, it may prove restrictive.
E-commerce Suite: combines the best of both worlds – complete functionality, scalability, and flexibility, with native integrations (ERP, POS, marketplaces, PSPs) and room for customization. Ideal for brands, retailers, and wholesalers aiming for serious growth and omnichannel strategies, without hitting technical roadblocks.
Conclusion: Make an Informed Choice
Choosing an e-commerce platform is more than an IT decision. It determines how fast you can grow, how flexible you are in adapting, and how strong your customer experience will be. Focus on:
Scalability: will the platform grow with your ambitions?
Integrations: can it connect easily with your critical systems?
Maintenance & innovation: who ensures updates, security, and performance?
Total Cost of Ownership: what are the real costs, now and in the future?
Impact on your team: do they spend time managing tech, or can they focus fully on business and growth?
The NextChapter multiˣ suite combines scalability, flexibility, and omnichannel capabilities with proven, high-converting webshops tailored to your brand identity. With NextChapter, you choose not only solid technology but also a partner that helps your brand truly grow online.
👉 Curious which platform best fits your organization? Contact us for a free consultation or download our brochure.