Shopify vs a Custom Online Store: How to Decide

What Shopify does well, and why Tepia starts there

Checkout conversion is tuned by a team larger than most retailers will ever employ. For a consumer catalog of simple products, Tepia has no reason to recommend anything else.

Tepia is a custom software studio and has built on Shopify’s APIs for clients rather than against them.

The decision gets interesting when your business model stops matching Shopify’s assumptions, or when your fee line grows faster than your margin.

The triggers that push a store off Shopify (or partly off it)

Tepia sees the same triggers across retail, manufacturing and distribution clients.

• Shopify’s B2B features cover the basics on Plus; deep variants usually need custom code.
• Tepia’s work with RELI Solutions on window and door replacement is a configurator problem at heart.
• Subscriptions and usage billing. Mixed carts of one time and recurring items, proration, pause and skip logic, or billing tied to consumption.
• ERP and inventory truth. When NetSuite, SAP, Epicor or a warehouse system must be the system of record, the sync layer becomes the real product and the storefront is a thin client on it.
• Fee math at volume. Platform fees, app subscriptions and the payment surcharge for using a third party processor stack up. Tepia runs the numbers below.
• Mobile as a channel. A native app with push, loyalty and saved payment can outperform a mobile web theme. Tepia clients report roughly 20% revenue increase after adding mobile.

Fee math: Shopify vs headless vs custom over five years

The table uses illustrative round numbers. Payment processing is excluded because you pay it under every option.

The headless middle path Tepia recommends most often

Headless commerce means Shopify keeps doing what it is good at (catalog, cart, checkout, payments, fraud, taxes) while Tepia builds the front end you actually want: a React web storefront, a native iOS and Android app, or both, talking to Shopify through its Storefront and Admin APIs.

The limit of headless is checkout itself. Tepia maps that boundary during Discovery.

How Tepia approaches Shopify vs custom store decisions

Tepia applies its six phase process whether the outcome is a headless front end or a full custom store.

1. Discovery. System investigation of your current Shopify setup, app stack and fee history, interviews with merchandising, customer service and fulfillment staff, and a third party integration review covering ERP, accounting and shipping. Deliverables: Investigation Summary, Interview Summary, User Stories. This phase produces the build, headless or stay recommendation.
2. Design. Design questionnaire, moodboards, style guide, detailed wireframes and sample designs, with particular attention to product discovery and checkout friction.
3. Development and Testing. Alpha and Beta schedules with test plans for functional, user acceptance and non functional work such as load testing ahead of peak season and sync accuracy against the ERP.
4. Training. Hands on sessions for merchandisers and customer service on the admin tools, using real user story scenarios.
5. Launch. Catalog, customer and order history migration, redirects to protect search rankings, a cutover plan timed away from peak season, and Tepia support reps on rollout.

Frequently asked questions