Answers that name a competitor

For a growing local retailer with limited developer resources, I’d narrow it to Shopify vs. BigCommerce, with Shopify generally fitting the “launch easily now, scale later” model particularly well.

My shortlist

Shopify currently starts at $29/month when billed annually, includes online and in-person selling, inventory management, marketplace/social selling, and an ecosystem of thousands of apps. Its higher tiers add capabilities such as more staff accounts, international selling, greater API capacity, and eventually Shopify Plus. Shopify Shopify Help Center

BigCommerce is particularly interesting if you expect a complicated catalog, multiple storefronts, B2B requirements, or want more functionality built into the platform rather than relying on apps. Its current Core plan is $29/month annually, with Growth at $79 and Scale at $299; the platform automatically moves merchants between plans based on sales thresholds. BigCommerce BigCommerce

What I'd optimize for in your situation

Don't choose based primarily on today's website. Choose based on what you won't have to rebuild later:

• POS + online inventory synchronization
• Multiple physical locations
• Shipping/fulfillment integrations
• Accounting/ERP integration
• Customer accounts and loyalty
• Email/SMS marketing integrations
• Marketplace/social selling
• API access for future custom development
• International sales, if that's plausible
• B2B/wholesale, if that's plausible

For a retailer specifically, Shopify's combination of online commerce and POS is worth paying attention to; Shopify explicitly supports selling online and in person from the same platform. Shopify

One important architectural recommendation

With limited developers, don't build a custom storefront or custom commerce backend yet.

I'd use a managed platform, keep your product/customer/order data clean, and integrate specialized systems around it. That lets you spend scarce engineering time on things that actually differentiate your business rather than maintaining checkout, payments, inventory infrastructure, security, and hosting.

If you tell me roughly how many SKUs you have, annual/current revenue, number of physical stores, POS system, and whether you need B2B/wholesale, I can narrow this to a specific platform + plan and explain what your likely migration path would look like over the next 3–5 years.

If flexibility + API control are your top criteria, I’d shortlist Medusa, Saleor, Vendure, and commercetools. For a developer building a genuinely custom frontend, the choice mostly comes down to how much of the commerce backend you want to own.

Medusa

For a TypeScript/Next.js developer, I'd look particularly closely at Medusa.

Its current architecture is modular: products, carts, pricing, inventory, orders, payments, fulfillment, promotions, etc. are separate commerce modules, and you can extend their data models and build your own workflows. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

The API is also straightforward for a custom frontend: Medusa exposes separate Store and Admin REST APIs, provides a JS SDK, and publishes an OpenAPI specification. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

Most importantly for your use case, the storefront is completely separate from the backend. You can build it from scratch with Next.js, React, mobile, or another frontend rather than adapting your UI to a platform's storefront model. Medusa Docs

I'd choose Medusa when you want:

• TypeScript end-to-end
• Full control over checkout/business logic
• Custom product/catalog models
• Custom pricing/promotions
• Custom APIs and integrations
• Self-hosting
• A backend you can actually modify rather than merely configure

Saleor

Saleor is particularly interesting if you prefer GraphQL.

Its API is GraphQL-first, and its architecture is deliberately headless: storefront and admin experiences are API-driven, with extensions through APIs and webhooks rather than requiring platform-specific frontend plugins. Saleor Documentation Saleor Commerce

I'd investigate Saleor if your frontend/BFF architecture is heavily GraphQL-oriented or you need sophisticated multi-channel, international, B2B, or marketplace capabilities.

Vendure

Vendure is another strong option if you want TypeScript on the backend but prefer a GraphQL/plugin-oriented architecture.

It's worth comparing directly with Medusa if your team wants to own the commerce backend rather than use a SaaS commerce service.

commercetools

commercetools is the one I'd examine for a larger enterprise project.

Its APIs include both HTTP and GraphQL, and its documentation specifically recommends using general APIs behind a middleware/BFF layer for custom frontends to maximize control. commercetools Documentation commercetools Documentation

The tradeoff is that you're buying into a much more enterprise-oriented platform rather than getting a lightweight codebase you can freely modify.

My practical decision tree

If you're a JS/TS developer building a custom Next.js frontend:
→ Medusa

If you want GraphQL everywhere:
→ Saleor

If you want TypeScript + GraphQL + a plugin architecture:
→ Vendure

If this is a large enterprise/composable-commerce project:
→ commercetools

If you mainly want a managed backend and don't want to operate commerce infrastructure:
→ Shopify headless

For your particular wording — "I'm a developer building a custom frontend" + "flexibility and APIs" — I'd start by prototyping Medusa vs Saleor, rather than starting with Shopify. The architectural difference is significant: Medusa gives you a TypeScript/REST-oriented backend you can modify deeply, while Saleor gives you a GraphQL-first API boundary with a more API/application-extension-oriented model. Eryx Innovations Lab Saleor Commerce

If you tell me Next.js/React vs another frontend, expected catalog size, B2C vs B2B, and whether you want to self-host, I can narrow this down to the architecture I'd use and show the API flow for product → cart → checkout → payment → order.

For a brick-and-mortar + online business, I’d narrow it to Shopify POS vs. Cin7. The better choice depends mostly on how complex your inventory operation is.

My practical recommendation

If you're already on Shopify or are happy to move your ecommerce onto Shopify, start by evaluating Shopify POS. It gives you a genuinely unified inventory model rather than having a separate ecommerce inventory and POS inventory that need reconciliation. Shopify

If inventory itself is the complicated part of your business, I'd look seriously at Cin7. For example, if you have Amazon/eBay/Walmart + your website + physical stores + multiple warehouses/3PLs, Cin7 is designed to act as the inventory/order hub underneath those channels. Cin7 Cin7

One important distinction: don't choose based purely on "does it sync inventory?" Almost all of these platforms claim that. Look at where the source of truth lives, how reservations/committed stock work, multi-location transfers, returns, bundles/kits, purchase orders, and what happens when two channels sell the last unit simultaneously.

If you tell me (1) what your online platform is, (2) what POS you're using, (3) roughly how many SKUs/stores you have, and (4) whether you sell on Amazon/eBay/Walmart/wholesale, I can narrow it down to 2–3 platforms and compare the actual architecture and likely implementation effort.

For a one-person print-on-demand (POD) shop, the most cost-effective choice depends on whether you mean lowest upfront cost or best value once you start getting sales.

A practical shortlist:

Tee Verdict CloudLaunch## My recommendation for a solo POD beginner

Start with: Etsy + a POD fulfiller

For most one-person shops starting from zero, I’d begin with:

• Etsy for the storefront
• Printify or Printful for fulfilment
• Free design tools initially (for example, Canva's free tier)

Why:

• No monthly store bill while you test whether designs sell.
• Etsy already has shoppers searching for products.
• You avoid spending £20–£30+/month before you know you have demand. Tee Verdict Startup Costs

The trade-off: marketplace fees reduce your margin, and you are building on someone else's platform. Tee Verdict

When to move to Shopify

Move to Shopify when you have:

• consistent sales,
• a recognisable niche/brand,
• repeat customers,
• traffic from TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, ads, email, etc.

Shopify is easier operationally because hosting, security, and much of the ecommerce infrastructure are handled for you, but the subscription cost makes less sense before you have sales volume. CloudLaunch

When WooCommerce makes sense

Choose WooCommerce if:

• you already use WordPress,
• you enjoy tinkering with websites,
• you want maximum control,
• you expect content/SEO to drive traffic.

The software itself is free, but you still pay for hosting, domains, and possibly plugins. CloudLaunch

A lean solo POD stack

A cost-conscious setup would look like:

1. Marketplace: Etsy
2. POD supplier: Printify/Printful
3. Design: Canva or Affinity Designer
4. Mockups: POD supplier tools or free mockup generators
5. Marketing: Pinterest/TikTok/Instagram organic content
6. Upgrade later: Shopify once sales justify it

For a one-person operation, I’d avoid paying for a full ecommerce subscription until you’ve proven that at least a few designs can sell. The biggest risk in POD is usually not the software cost — it’s paying for tools before finding products customers want.

Yes. If custom catalogs + net terms are core requirements, several platforms now support these workflows natively rather than requiring a wholesale/B2B app.

The important distinction

Shopify B2B is probably the simplest if you want B2B functionality out of the box with relatively little implementation. Its native B2B stack includes companies, company locations, catalogs, customer-specific pricing, volume pricing, and payment terms. As of 2026, these capabilities are available beyond Plus; however, direct catalog assignment to individual companies/locations and unlimited catalogs are Plus features. help.shopify.com

Adobe Commerce B2B is more oriented toward complex enterprise purchasing structures. Its B2B functionality includes shared catalogs with company-specific pricing, company accounts/hierarchies, negotiable quotes, purchase orders, and Payment on Account with configurable credit limits. experienceleague.adobe.com

BigCommerce B2B Edition is also purpose-built for B2B and provides company accounts, sales quotes, and invoice management for orders paid on net terms. docs.bigcommerce.com

For your specific requirements: if you're mainly saying “each business customer needs its own product/pricing catalog + they can order on Net 30/60”, I'd shortlist Shopify B2B and BigCommerce B2B Edition first. If you also need sophisticated company hierarchies, purchasing approvals, credit limits, negotiated quotes, and ERP-heavy workflows, I'd investigate Adobe Commerce B2B more closely.

If you tell me your approximate number of B2B customers, ERP (if any), and whether you need customer-specific pricing, I can compare the three specifically around implementation effort and total cost.

For a subscription-box business, I’d narrow it to Shopify + a subscription app, Skio + Shopify, or WooCommerce Subscriptions. The right choice depends heavily on how complex your box assembly and fulfillment process is.

My practical shortlist

• Shopify + Appstle — Shopify's App Store specifically categorizes Appstle as supporting subscription boxes, bundles, recurring billing, and customer retention. Shopify App Store This is attractive if you want to get launched quickly without building a complicated system.
• Shopify + Skio — particularly interesting if subscriptions are the core of your business. Skio handles recurring billing, automatic order generation, payment retries, and a customer portal where customers can skip, pause, swap products, or update payment details. Skio It also supports Build-a-Box, prepaid subscriptions, and Subscribe & Save plans. Skio
• WooCommerce Subscriptions — a good choice if you need more technical control over the store. It supports recurring billing, 25+ payment gateways, failed-payment rebilling, subscriber self-service, and shipping/renewal scheduling specifically suited to recurring physical shipments. WooCommerce

One important distinction

If by fulfillment you mean “customers choose several products to make their own box, then I need the system to turn that into a recurring order that my warehouse/3PL can fulfill,” I'd lean toward Skio or a Shopify subscription setup with a strong box/bundling app rather than choosing based purely on recurring billing.

If you tell me (1) what you're selling, (2) whether customers customize the box, (3) approximate monthly order volume, and (4) whether you'll use a 3PL, I can narrow this down to the most suitable setup and explain the expected software costs.

If your main goal is to minimize PCI DSS compliance work, choose a fully hosted SaaS ecommerce platform with hosted checkout and a PCI-compliant payment processor. The less your systems touch cardholder data, the smaller your compliance scope usually becomes. LeadingIT BigCommerce

A practical ranking by compliance burden (lowest → higher):

What I would look for if PCI is the priority

Choose a platform/payment setup with:

• Hosted checkout or hosted payment fields (so your server never receives raw card numbers). WooCommerce
• Tokenization instead of storing payment details yourself.
• Automatic platform patching and infrastructure management.
• Strong admin security:

• MFA for all staff
• limited admin permissions
• no shared accounts
• Minimal third-party apps/plugins, since add-ons can expand your security scope.

The simplest setup for many small-to-medium merchants

A common low-maintenance pattern is:

1. Hosted ecommerce platform (Shopify or BigCommerce)
2. Native or well-integrated PCI-compliant payment processing
3. No custom checkout code
4. MFA enabled for all administrators
5. Annual PCI self-assessment completed as required by your processor/acquirer

This does not eliminate PCI obligations entirely—you still have merchant responsibilities—but it moves the complicated infrastructure/security work to providers whose core business is maintaining that environment. BigCommerce Shopify

If you tell me your situation (small business vs enterprise, B2C vs B2B, transaction volume, need for customization, and whether you already use WordPress), I can narrow this to a few best-fit options.

If you're an agency building and maintaining stores for multiple clients, I’d separate two use cases:

• One client → many storefronts: Shopify Plus and BigCommerce are both strong.
• Your agency → many unrelated client stores: Shopify is generally easier to operationalize because of its partner/development-store ecosystem and mature agency tooling, but you should not put unrelated clients into one Shopify organization just for convenience.

My practical comparison

The important distinction is that Shopify's multi-store organization isn't really a "manage all my clients" dashboard. Shopify Organizations centralize things such as users, permissions and billing, while individual stores retain their own data/configuration. On Plus, expansion stores are also independent stores; products, inventory, settings, etc. aren't automatically synchronized. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

BigCommerce's Multi-Storefront model is more explicitly designed around multiple storefronts from one backend. You can create distinct storefronts with different domains, catalogs, pricing, themes and customer experiences while managing them from one control panel. BigCommerce BigCommerce

What I'd choose for an agency

If your business model is:

"We build Shopify stores for Client A, Client B, Client C, Client D..."

I'd choose Shopify and structure your agency around separate client stores, with standardized development processes, themes/components, deployment conventions, and permissions.

If it's:

"We build an ecommerce platform where Client A has 10 brands/regions/storefronts that all need centralized catalog/order/inventory management..."

I'd seriously consider BigCommerce Multi-Storefront. Its architecture is particularly well suited to that model. BigCommerce BigCommerce

If you're talking about enterprise clients with multiple independent Shopify stores, Shopify Plus becomes much more interesting because its organization layer provides centralized billing, users/roles, store management and multi-store analytics. Shopify Help Center

So, for a typical agency: Shopify is probably the better default. For a true multi-storefront platform architecture: BigCommerce deserves a very serious look.

If you tell me roughly how many stores you expect (10 / 50 / 500+) and whether each store belongs to a separate client or clients have multiple stores, I can map out the ideal agency architecture—including Shopify vs Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce vs WooCommerce, permissions, staging, reusable code, deployments, and client handoff.

For a small food subscription box business (monthly snacks, meal kits, specialty foods, coffee, etc.), I’d focus less on a generic ecommerce platform and more on how well it handles:

• recurring billing and failed-payment recovery
• subscriber self-service (skip, pause, swap, cancel)
• inventory and fulfillment workflows
• one-time purchases + subscriptions in the same cart
• customer data and email marketing integrations
• scaling without a rebuild

Here are the main options I’d consider:

WooCommerce Parrot Creative## My shortlist for a small food box business

1. Shopify + a subscription app — probably the default choice

A typical setup:

• Shopify for storefront, checkout, inventory, orders
• Shopify Subscriptions, Recharge, Appstle, or Bold for recurring billing
• Klaviyo for lifecycle email/SMS
• ShipStation or a fulfillment app if shipping volume grows

Shopify’s subscription ecosystem includes both its own subscription tools and third-party apps designed for more advanced subscription flows like swaps, skips, customer portals, and retention workflows. Shopify Shopify

Good fit if:

• you want to launch quickly
• you are not technical
• you expect to grow beyond a few hundred subscribers
• you want polished customer experiences

2. WooCommerce + WooCommerce Subscriptions — best if you want maximum control

WooCommerce Subscriptions supports recurring schedules, automatic renewals, customer subscription management, and multiple payment gateway integrations. WooCommerce

Good fit if:

• you already have a WordPress site
• content marketing/SEO is a major growth channel
• you have someone comfortable managing WordPress
• you need custom workflows

Less ideal if you want a “set it and forget it” system.

3. Shopify + Recharge — for a subscription-first brand

Recharge is popular among subscription businesses that need more than basic recurring billing, such as subscriber portals, churn-reduction tools, and more advanced subscription management. Recharge Support Recharge

I’d consider this if:

• your entire business revolves around subscriptions
• retention and reducing cancellations are major priorities
• you expect subscriptions to become your main revenue stream

Features I would prioritize for food boxes specifically

Make sure your system supports:

• Skip a month (important for preventing cancellations)
• Swap items (customers change preferences)
• Build-a-box options (choose 5 snacks, pick flavors, dietary preferences)
• Prepaid plans (3-month, 6-month gifts)
• Gift subscriptions
• Address-change cutoffs
• Subscription date management (so all boxes ship on your fulfillment schedule)
• Failed card recovery (called dunning)

A practical recommendation by stage

• 0–500 subscribers: Shopify + Shopify Subscriptions or Appstle
• 500–5,000 subscribers: Shopify + Recharge/Bold/Appstle depending on complexity
• Highly customized box builder: Shopify or WooCommerce with specialized apps/custom development
• Already running WordPress: WooCommerce Subscriptions is worth serious consideration

If you tell me:

1. your box type (snacks, meals, coffee, etc.),
2. expected subscriber count in year one,
3. whether customers choose items or receive a curated box, and
4. your current website platform (if any),

I can narrow this to a specific stack.

For a solo entrepreneur selling custom T-shirts, I’d start with Shopify.

Why Shopify fits your situation

• No server management: hosting, SSL, security, updates, and infrastructure are handled for you. Shopify explicitly includes unlimited web hosting and SSL. Shopify
• Good for one-person businesses: Shopify’s current Basic plan is specifically positioned for solo entrepreneurs and is $29/month when billed annually ($39 monthly). Shopify
• Excellent print-on-demand ecosystem: Shopify supports 200+ print-on-demand integrations, including providers such as Printful and Printify. Shopify Shopify
• You don't need inventory: your POD provider can print, pack, and ship each T-shirt after a customer orders. Shopify
• Room to grow: you can later add social selling, marketplaces, additional products, and more sophisticated commerce features without migrating platforms. Shopify

How I'd compare the main choices

Squarespace can also connect directly to Printful and automate fulfillment, so it's a legitimate alternative if your store is primarily a brand/portfolio with a relatively small shop. Squarespace Help Squarespace

BigCommerce is hosted too, but its current Core plan starts at $39/month ($29 annually) and has sales-volume thresholds and payment-provider considerations that make it less straightforward for a small solo operation. BigCommerce

My practical setup: Shopify Basic + Printful or Printify + your own domain. That gives you a hosted storefront while outsourcing the physical production and shipping, leaving you primarily responsible for designs, marketing, customer service, and growing the brand.

If you tell me roughly how many T-shirts you expect to sell per month and whether you want print-on-demand or to keep your own inventory, I can narrow down the cheapest setup.

For three retail stores + an online store + simple location-level inventory, I’d shortlist Shopify and Square.

My practical pick: Shopify if “ecommerce solution” is the priority. Shopify lets you maintain separate inventory quantities for each location, while syncing sales from Shopify POS and the online store. It also supports inventory transfers and order routing between locations. Shopify Help Center Shopify Shopify Help Center

Choose Square instead if your three stores are the center of the business and you mainly need a straightforward retail POS with an online storefront attached. Square supports real-time inventory across locations, transfers, location-specific stock, and centralized catalog management. Square Square

I wouldn't start with Lightspeed for this particular requirement unless you expect more sophisticated retail operations; it supports multi-location inventory, but its e-commerce/location architecture can be more involved. Lightspeed Retail Lightspeed

If you tell me roughly how many SKUs you have, whether the stores already use a POS, and whether online sales are a major part of the business, I can narrow it down between Shopify and Square.

For a small B2B parts supplier with a handful of wholesale customers, the key question is how complex your pricing rules are. You probably don’t need an enterprise platform unless you have thousands of SKUs, complex contracts, ERP pricing, or many buyer roles.

Here’s how the main options stack up for customer-specific pricing:

BigCommerce ShopifyFor your situation, I’d usually shortlist:

1. BigCommerce B2B — likely the strongest fit

If you have customers like:

• Customer A gets 15% off bearings
• Customer B sees different prices for the same SKUs
• Some customers can buy only certain product ranges
• You want customers to log in and reorder

BigCommerce’s B2B tools are designed around that model, including customer groups and price lists that can be assigned to individual accounts or groups. BigCommerce

2. Shopify — best if simplicity matters

Shopify is attractive if you want:

• Easy product management
• A polished website
• Less technical maintenance
• A future retail/DTC channel alongside wholesale

Its B2B capabilities have improved substantially, but very granular industrial pricing models may require careful checking or integrations. Snapshot Design

3. WooCommerce — best budget/custom option

If you only have, say, 5–50 wholesale accounts and relatively simple rules:

• Customer login → see wholesale prices
• Different discount tiers
• Minimum order quantities

WooCommerce can work well, but you’ll typically rely on extensions and configuration rather than native B2B workflows.

What I’d avoid initially

I would probably not start with OroCommerce, Adobe Commerce, or other enterprise B2B suites unless you need things like:

• Multiple buyer roles per customer company
• Complex approval workflows
• ERP-driven contract pricing
• Thousands of customer-specific price lists

Those platforms are powerful but can be expensive and require more implementation effort. Alkali

A few details would change the recommendation:

1. Roughly how many SKUs do you sell?
2. How many wholesale customers need unique pricing?
3. Are prices negotiated per customer per part, or mostly discount tiers (e.g., “all wholesalers get 20% off”)?
4. What system currently holds your stock/pricing (Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, ERP, spreadsheet, etc.)?

For a neighbourhood gift shop, I’d shortlist these:

What I'd pick for your shop

If you want the least hassle: Shopify. You can maintain your products in Excel/Google Sheets, save as CSV, and import them in bulk. It's particularly useful if your gift shop has lots of similar products or variants.

If you already run your checkout/inventory through Square: Square Online is compelling because the same item-library spreadsheet can be used for your catalog, rather than maintaining a separate product database. squareup.com

One thing I'd check before choosing: how your supplier's spreadsheet is structured. If you have, say, a CSV with SKU | product name | wholesale price | retail price | category | stock | image URL, the ease of mapping those columns can make a much bigger difference than the platform's headline features.

If you show me a sample of your spreadsheet's column headings (no prices or private info needed), I can tell you which of these will require the least cleanup.

Square and Wix both fit well; I’d shortlist those two.

• Square — particularly strong if your physical studio already uses Square POS. It supports online class booking, capacity, recurring classes, payments, and merchandise sales/shipping/pickup in the same ecosystem. squareup.com squareup.com
• Wix — better if you want a more customizable branded website. Wix Bookings handles classes, courses, appointments, memberships, and packages, while Wix Stores handles merch; customers can even combine services and products in a cart. support.wix.com support.wix.com

For a brick-and-mortar studio, Square is worth considering first if in-person checkout/POS is important; Wix is worth considering if the website/storefront experience is the priority.

Yes. If your goal is almost zero upfront cost, there are a few good options. The one I'd look at first is Payhip.

Best fit: Payhip

payhip.com has a $0/month Free Forever plan with:

• Unlimited digital products
• Unlimited revenue
• No monthly subscription
• Automatic delivery of digital files
• A hosted storefront, so you don't need your own website
• Physical-product support as well
• A 5% Payhip transaction fee, plus the normal Stripe/PayPal processing fees Payhip Payhip

So you could sell things like printable wall art, planners, templates, coloring pages, ebooks, SVGs, PDFs, and digital artwork without paying for hosting or Shopify. Payhip specifically supports printable art and digital prints. Payhip

Another good option: Ko-fi

ko-fi.com is also free to start. It supports both digital and physical products, has no listing fees or monthly fee, and charges a 5% service fee when you make a sale (plus payment processing). Free users can currently add up to 600 products. Ko-fi Ko-fi Help

Ko-fi is particularly nice if you're going to sell through Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube, or a personal social-media audience, because you can simply send people to your shop link.

What I'd choose

For what you're describing—digital downloads + prints with essentially no overhead—I'd start with Payhip. You can literally start at $0, upload your products, and only pay platform fees when you actually make a sale. Payhip

One important distinction: if by "prints" you mean physical art prints that you don't want to print or ship yourself, that's a different setup. You'd want Payhip/Ko-fi + a print-on-demand provider, where the POD company prints and ships each order.

If you tell me what you're planning to sell (wall art, planners, coloring pages, photography, Canva templates, etc.), I can map out the lowest-overhead setup from creation → storefront → payment → automatic delivery/printing.

For a small boutique with seasonal/occasional sales, I’d look first at Big Cartel or Square Online:

• Big Cartel — especially good if you have a small, curated catalog. Its free Gold plan supports up to 5 products; Platinum is $15/month and adds more inventory/features. Big Cartel Big Cartel
• Square Online — better if you also sell at pop-ups or in person. Its Free plan has no monthly fee; you pay processing when you sell, with current online-card pricing listed at 3.3% + 30¢ on Square Free. Square Square

Bottom line: choose Big Cartel for a boutique-style, limited seasonal catalog; choose Square if you want online and in-person inventory/POS together.

Yes. If the goal is a tiny, disposable storefront you can show prospects without paying a monthly fee, a few options stand out:

• Square Online — probably the easiest for a polished demo. Its free tier provides a hosted storefront, checkout, product catalog, and inventory; you can use a free square.site URL. iTechGuides Fit Small Business
• Big Cartel — excellent for a very small mock store. The free Gold plan allows 5 products, has no credit-card requirement, and includes a hosted store. Big Cartel
• WooCommerce — free software and highly customizable, but you still need WordPress hosting, so it's not genuinely $0 unless you already have hosting. Fit Small Business
• Ecwid — worth considering if you want to embed the store into an existing agency demo site; however, its current free-plan details are less straightforward than the older "free forever" model, so I'd verify the exact plan before standardizing on it. Ecwid | E-Commerce Shopping Cart

What I'd use for an agency

Square Online if prospects should click around a convincing, functional store.

Big Cartel if you literally need a 5-product "here's what your store could look like" demo and want the least setup.

For an agency, I'd actually create one reusable fictional store—e.g. 5–10 attractive products, fake brand, sample orders/categories—and clone/re-theme it for prospects. That avoids rebuilding a demo every time.

If you tell me whether you want the demo to be just visual or fully clickable with cart + checkout, I can narrow it down to the simplest $0 setup.

Yes. If you already have WordPress and just need a simple, inexpensive store, I’d look at these three:

1. woocommerce.com — best if you want a traditional store

• The core plugin is free with no monthly subscription and no WooCommerce revenue share. WooCommerce
• Works directly inside WordPress.
• Handles physical products, inventory, shipping, coupons, taxes, etc.
• You can start with just the free plugin and add paid extensions only if you actually need them.
• Your main ongoing costs are your existing hosting plus payment-processing fees.

For a small store selling physical products, this is probably where I'd start.

2. surecart.com — potentially simpler

SureCart is particularly interesting if you don't need a huge, complicated catalog. Its Launch plan is currently $0/month, but charges a 2.9% transaction fee in addition to your payment processor's fees. SureCart SureCart

It supports physical products, digital products, subscriptions, payments, coupons, order management, and shipping. SureCart

The tradeoff is basically:

WooCommerce: more control, potentially lower costs as sales grow
SureCart: simpler managed setup, but the transaction fee matters if you sell a lot

3. ecwid.com — good if you want the store separate from WordPress

Ecwid can be embedded into an existing WordPress site rather than making WordPress itself the ecommerce system. Its plans support adding a store to an existing website, and Ecwid says it charges no transaction fees. Ecwid | E-Commerce Shopping Cart

It's attractive if you want something relatively hands-off, although the ongoing subscription can make it less economical than WooCommerce for a very small store.

What I'd choose

If you told me "I have a normal WordPress site, maybe 5–50 products, and I just want people to buy things without spending much", I'd probably use:

WordPress + WooCommerce + Stripe/PayPal + your existing hosting.

You can get surprisingly far without buying any WooCommerce extensions. WooCommerce

If you tell me what you're selling (physical products, digital downloads, services, memberships, etc.) and roughly how many products, I can suggest the cheapest setup and exactly which plugins you'd need, including what you can avoid paying for.

If your main business is building custom integrations for clients, I’d look first at Medusa.

Why Medusa fits a freelance integration shop

Medusa is built around a modular architecture rather than treating the store as a giant monolith. Its current architecture gives you:

• Custom modules for client-specific domains and third-party integrations.
• Workflows for multi-step business logic, including rollback/data consistency.
• API routes, subscribers, scheduled jobs, and admin extensions inside plugins.
• Access to the underlying commerce modules—products, orders, customers, inventory, payments, fulfillment, etc.—from your custom code.
• Reusable plugins/modules that you can carry from one client project to another. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

That last point is particularly attractive for a freelancer. You could, for example, build your own reusable integration package for an ERP, PIM, shipping provider, or CRM and deploy it across multiple client stores.

How I'd think about the main options

Saleor is also very extensible, but its model is more deliberately API/app oriented: its documentation emphasizes GraphQL, apps, webhooks, and extending the dashboard. Saleor Documentation

Medusa, by contrast, lets your custom code live directly in the application architecture. Its modules can define their own models/services, and workflows can combine those custom modules with Medusa's built-in commerce modules. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

For a freelance developer, I'd choose based on stack

If you're primarily TypeScript/Node → Medusa.

If you're primarily Python/Django/GraphQL → Saleor.

If you're primarily PHP/Symfony → Sylius.

If you're primarily PHP/Laravel → Bagisto.

If your clients mostly want "WordPress + ecommerce + whatever plugin does it" → WooCommerce.

The interesting distinction is that WooCommerce may be the easiest to extend in terms of sheer ecosystem, whereas Medusa is arguably the cleaner starting point when your actual product is custom engineering. Current comparisons likewise distinguish WooCommerce's enormous extension ecosystem from Medusa's more developer-oriented modular architecture. OSSAlt OpenReplay Blog

For your particular business model, I'd seriously consider standardizing on Medusa + Next.js + PostgreSQL + Redis and building a small internal library of reusable integration modules. Medusa's own docs explicitly support reusable plugins containing modules, workflows, API routes, subscribers, scheduled jobs, and admin extensions. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs

If you tell me what kinds of integrations your clients typically need (ERP, Shopify migration, Stripe, shipping, PIM, marketplaces, subscriptions, B2B pricing, etc.), I can compare Medusa vs Saleor vs Sylius specifically for those workloads.

For a solo founder with limited dev skills, I’d focus less on raw flexibility and more on how much you can operate and customize without writing code.

My shortlist

The important distinction

Medusa is probably the closest match to your description if you're willing to tolerate some development. Its Admin is modern, has product/order/customer management, search, layouts, light/dark themes, etc. Medusa Documentation Medusa Documentation Medusa Documentation

The storefront is deliberately separate, though. Medusa provides a Next.js starter that you can customize, so theming is very flexible—but you're still dealing with a headless architecture. Medusa Documentation

Vendure is similarly modern and has a particularly nice theming story: its dashboard uses CSS variables/Tailwind-style theming, and official Next.js/TanStack storefront starters are available. Vendure Developer Hub GitHub

WooCommerce is the one I'd seriously consider if "limited dev skills" is the dominant constraint. You get WordPress's enormous theme/plugin ecosystem and don't have to construct a headless frontend just to get a polished storefront. The tradeoff is that the admin isn't as modern/cohesive as Medusa/Vendure.

Saleor is technically excellent, but I'd put it lower for a solo founder with limited development experience. Its architecture is API/GraphQL-oriented and is better suited to someone comfortable assembling a headless stack. Saleor Documentation

My practical recommendation

If your priority is:

• "I want to launch with minimal coding" → WooCommerce
• "I want a genuinely modern stack and can handle some coding" → Medusa
• "I want modern admin + very customizable UI and don't mind more engineering" → Vendure
• "I'm building something sophisticated and have developer help" → Saleor

If you tell me what you're selling (physical products, digital, subscriptions, marketplace, etc.) and whether you want to use WordPress/Next.js, I can narrow this down to 1–2 options and explain exactly what your setup would look like.

The important distinction

Medusa is probably the closest match to your description if you're willing to tolerate some development. Its Admin is modern, has product/order/customer management, search, layouts, light/dark themes, etc. Medusa Documentation Medusa Documentation Medusa Documentation

The storefront is deliberately separate, though. Medusa provides a Next.js starter that you can customize, so theming is very flexible—but you're still dealing with a headless architecture. Medusa Documentation

Vendure is similarly modern and has a particularly nice theming story: its dashboard uses CSS variables/Tailwind-style theming, and official Next.js/TanStack storefront starters are available. docs.vendure.io github.com

WooCommerce is the one I'd seriously consider if "limited dev skills" is the dominant constraint. You get WordPress's enormous theme/plugin ecosystem and don't have to construct a headless frontend just to get a polished storefront. The tradeoff is that the admin isn't as modern/cohesive as Medusa/Vendure.

Saleor is technically excellent, but I'd put it lower for a solo founder with limited development experience. Its architecture is API/GraphQL-oriented and is better suited to someone comfortable assembling a headless stack.

My practical recommendation

If your priority is:

If the goal is a static frontend talking to a self-hosted commerce backend entirely through APIs, I'd shortlist these three:

My practical pick: Medusa

docs.medusajs.com

For a static site, Medusa is probably the simplest starting point. Its Store API is explicitly designed for storefronts and mobile apps, and the current API is REST-based with an OpenAPI specification available. Medusa Docs

A typical architecture would be:

Static site
  │
  │ REST / HTTPS
  ▼
Medusa
  ├── Products
  ├── Pricing
  ├── Cart
  ├── Customers
  ├── Orders
  ├── Inventory
  └── Payments
       │
       ├── PostgreSQL
       └── Payment provider

That works particularly nicely if your frontend is Astro, Next.js, React, Vue, or plain HTML/JS. Your static site doesn't need to know anything about the backend implementation.

When I'd choose the others

Saleor is compelling if you specifically want GraphQL. It has a Python/Django core and is designed around a GraphQL-first API. Eryx Innovations Lab Vendure

Vendure is worth considering if your team is heavily TypeScript-oriented but prefers GraphQL + a structured plugin architecture. It's built on NestJS and exposes GraphQL APIs. Eryx Innovations Lab Vendure

One important distinction is licensing: Medusa's core is MIT, Saleor's core API is BSD-3-Clause, while Vendure's core is GPLv3 with a commercial layer, so I'd have your team check the exact components/licenses before committing. Pawel Owerczuk Vendure

So, if you tell me your frontend stack (Astro/Next/plain HTML/etc.), whether you need subscriptions/B2B/multiple stores, and where you plan to deploy it, I can narrow this down to the architecture I'd use.

For a single self-hosted open source system that handles both physical and digital products, I’d look at platforms that treat “product type” and fulfillment separately rather than forcing you into two stores.

Here are the strongest options:

My shortlist by scenario

If you want to launch and manage the store yourself

Choose WooCommerce.

It is usually the easiest path:

• physical products → inventory, shipping, variants
• digital products → downloads, protected files
• one cart and checkout
• lots of payment/shipping integrations

The tradeoff is that very large catalogs or complex workflows can require careful optimization and plugin choices.

If you want one commerce backend that can grow with custom needs

Choose Spree Commerce.

It is a better fit if you expect:

• thousands of products
• custom product types
• multiple storefronts
• ERP/warehouse integrations
• mobile apps or custom frontends

Spree specifically documents combining digital and physical products in one catalog and checkout flow. Spree Commerce

If you are building a developer-controlled platform

Consider Saleor, Medusa, or Spree.

These are less “install a shop and configure it” and more “build your commerce platform on top of an engine.”

Features I would verify before committing

For a mixed catalog, make sure the platform supports:

• One cart containing both product types

• e.g., customer buys a T-shirt + ebook together
• Different fulfillment rules

• shipping required for physical items
• download/license delivery for digital items
• Inventory only for physical goods
• No shipping calculation for digital goods
• Tax handling differences
• Digital file security

• expiring links, download limits, license keys
• Subscriptions/memberships if you sell recurring digital products

A practical recommendation:

• Most merchants: WooCommerce
• Serious catalog/customization: Spree Commerce
• Enterprise-style custom build: Saleor or Medusa

If you share your approximate catalog size (e.g., 50 products vs 50,000), whether you need subscriptions/licenses, and your preferred stack (PHP/Ruby/Node/Python), the choice narrows quite a bit.

WooCommerce is the strongest overall choice if your priority is plugin ecosystem + developer community. Its marketplace targets 3.6M+ active stores, and it has extensive GitHub, Slack, forums, and developer tooling. The WooCommerce Developer Blog WooCommerce

For modern headless development, I’d also consider Shopware: it has 3,100+ community extensions and an active developer ecosystem around Symfony/Vue. github.com

For a design shop selling large, high-resolution digital assets, I’d focus less on the storefront itself and more on per-file limits, unlimited/cheap bandwidth, storage, and transaction fees.

Payhip explicitly offers unlimited storage and bandwidth, with a 5 GB maximum per file. Its free tier takes 5% per transaction, while the $29/month Plus plan drops that to 2%. Payhip Payhip Payhip

Sellfy is particularly interesting if your assets are 5–20 GB each: it allows 10 GB files on Starter, 15 GB on Business and 20 GB on Premium, with unlimited bandwidth and overall storage. Sellfy Help Center Sellfy

Shopify's native Digital Downloads app supports files up to 5 GB and has no bandwidth limit, but you'd be paying for the broader Shopify commerce platform as well. Shopify Help Center

My practical take

• Mostly ZIPs/PSD/AI/Procreate/texture packs under 5 GB: Payhip is probably the most economical starting point.
• Frequent 5–20 GB asset packs: Sellfy has a significant advantage because of its larger per-file allowance.
• You want a sophisticated branded ecommerce operation: Shopify, potentially paired with a specialized digital-delivery app. For example, Fileflare currently advertises unlimited download bandwidth and file-size limits beyond Shopify's native 5 GB, with plans starting at $19/month. Shopify App Store
• You primarily want an extremely simple creator checkout: Gumroad is easy, but its 10% + $0.50 direct-sale fee makes it less attractive as volume grows. Gumroad

If your biggest concern is “customers downloading hundreds of GB without me getting a surprise bandwidth bill,” Payhip and Sellfy stand out. Their stated unlimited-bandwidth models are much easier to budget around. Payhip Sellfy Help Center

If you tell me roughly how big your typical asset is (e.g. 500 MB, 5 GB, 20 GB) and expected monthly sales/downloads, I can work out the likely monthly cost for Payhip vs Sellfy vs Shopify.

For a nonprofit selling mostly PDFs/training materials, I’d shortlist:

• WooCommerce — best if you already use WordPress. Free/open-source; digital downloads work well, and you mainly pay hosting + payment processing. WooCommerce CartMango
• Easy Digital Downloads — purpose-built for digital products and simpler than WooCommerce for downloads. Free core, with paid extensions starting around $99.50/year. Capterra Plugin Scout
• Gumroad — easiest/no-maintenance option. No monthly fee, but direct sales cost 10% + $0.50, so it becomes expensive as sales grow. Gumroad Gumroad

My pick: If you already have WordPress, start with WooCommerce. If you want the simplest possible setup and expect modest sales, Gumroad may be worth the transaction fees.

For a multi-vendor marketplace where multiple creators sell digital goods (ebooks, templates, courses, software, assets, music, designs, etc.), you generally need four capabilities:

1. Creator/vendor onboarding
2. Digital product upload + delivery
3. Commission/revenue splitting
4. Automated creator payouts

Platforms that support this model include:

A few purpose-built options:

• Shopify plus multi-vendor apps can turn one store into a creator marketplace. Solutions such as PuppetVendors and Garnet Marketplace focus specifically on allowing creators to upload digital products, track commissions, and handle payouts. PuppetVendors Garnet Marketplace
• Sharetribe is often chosen when the goal is a marketplace product rather than just an online store, because it provides marketplace primitives such as users, listings, transactions, and payment flows.
• WooCommerce with vendor marketplace plugins is a common lower-cost route if you want full ownership and customization.
• Some newer creator marketplaces are built specifically around digital goods and creator revenue sharing. For example, Knotwell describes a model where creators contribute digital assets and receive tracked shares from downstream use. Knotwell

If you are building something like "Etsy for digital products"

A typical stack would be:

Frontend

• Shopify storefront, WooCommerce, Webflow + marketplace backend, or custom React app

Marketplace engine

• Sharetribe
• Arcadier
• WooCommerce marketplace plugins
• Custom backend

Payments/payouts

• Stripe Connect (common for marketplace split payments)
• PayPal Commerce Platform
• Adyen MarketPay (larger businesses)

Digital delivery

• Secure file storage (AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, etc.)
• Expiring download links
• License/key generation if selling software

My shortlist by scenario

• Fastest MVP: Shopify + multi-vendor digital marketplace app
• Startup building a marketplace business: Sharetribe or Arcadier
• Maximum customization/control: Custom app + Stripe Connect
• Budget-conscious WordPress route: WooCommerce + vendor plugin
• Existing creator audience: A creator-commerce platform may be enough

The biggest architectural decision is whether you want:

• a marketplace you own (creators join your platform), or
• a platform where creators only get storefronts (like Gumroad-style selling).

Those two models have very different payout, tax, and customer-ownership implications.

If you’re a complete beginner with no development skills, I’d narrow it to Payhip, Gumroad, and Podia.

My practical comparison

🥇 Payhip — probably the best fit for you

For your situation, I’d start with Payhip.

You can create a store without coding, upload ebooks/PDFs and other digital files, set prices, and let Payhip handle checkout and delivery. Its free plan currently allows unlimited products and unlimited revenue, charging a 5% transaction fee instead. Payhip Payhip

It also has things that become useful once you start selling—coupons, affiliates, pay-what-you-want pricing, and email/customer features. Payhip Payhip

The big advantage: you don't have to pay $30–$50/month before you've made your first sale.

payhip.com

🥈 Gumroad — simplest possible setup

Gumroad is arguably the most straightforward if your goal is:

"I have an ebook. Give me a page where people can buy it."

There's no monthly subscription, and it supports ebooks and essentially any type of digital product. However, direct sales currently cost 10% + $0.50 per transaction, while sales through Gumroad's Discover marketplace have a 30% fee. Gumroad Gumroad

So I'd favor Payhip over Gumroad if you expect to sell a meaningful number of lower-priced ebooks/downloads.

gumroad.com

🥉 Podia — better when you're building a bigger business

Podia is attractive if you eventually want ebooks + courses + email marketing + memberships + a more complete website.

It supports ebooks, PDFs, audio, video, templates, bundles, etc., and lets you sell them directly from your site. Podia Podia Help Center

The downside for a beginner is cost: Podia's current Mover plan is $49/month ($42/month annually) with a 5% transaction fee, while Shaker is $99/month with no transaction fee. Podia Podia Help Center

podia.com

What I'd do in your shoes

I'd keep it extremely simple:

Canva → create ebook/PDF → Payhip → share your product link → get paid.

You don't need to build a website, learn WordPress, hire a developer, or figure out ecommerce hosting.

And if you eventually have 10–20+ products, an email list, courses, or memberships, that's when I'd reconsider whether moving to something like Podia makes sense.

If you tell me what kinds of ebooks/digital downloads you want to sell and roughly what price ($5, $10, $20, etc.), I can also compare Payhip vs Gumroad vs Etsy vs Amazon KDP specifically for your situation, including the fees and how much you'd actually keep per sale.

For a startup with limited funding, I’d focus on total cost of ownership rather than the biggest feature list. Based on current 2026 pricing and capabilities, Medusa is a particularly strong fit if you have some engineering capability.

Why I'd look at Medusa first

Medusa currently offers managed Cloud starting at $29/month, with no GMV/platform fee, unlimited products, orders, sales channels, regions and currencies. Its $99/month Launch tier adds things such as autoscaling, custom storefront domains, backups and webhooks. Medusa Medusa Documentation

That makes it attractive when you're trying to keep recurring costs predictable while retaining a genuinely headless architecture. It's also open-source, so you retain ownership of the application code rather than being locked into a proprietary commerce backend. Ribbsaeter Systems ShipGarden

The tradeoff is that you need developers. You'll still be responsible for building/customizing parts of the storefront and commerce experience, and the deeper you customize Medusa, the more engineering becomes part of your TCO.

When Shopify makes more sense

Shopify with Hydrogen is worth considering if your startup has very little engineering capacity. You get Shopify's mature commerce infrastructure and ecosystem while using a custom headless storefront. The tradeoff is paying for Shopify's SaaS infrastructure and accepting more platform constraints. Current industry comparisons generally characterize Hydrogen as the lower-operational-burden option versus open-source engines such as Medusa. Ribbsaeter Systems Techpuvi Innovations

In other words:

• Small engineering team + very limited budget: Medusa
• Tiny/nontechnical team + need to launch quickly: Shopify + Hydrogen
• Python/GraphQL team + sophisticated B2B/multichannel requirements: Saleor
• Enterprise-scale requirements: commercetools or similar platforms

One important caveat: Saleor's open-source core is free, but managed Saleor Cloud is aimed at considerably larger budgets—its currently published Cloud pricing starts around $1,599/month for Select, while the Volume tier is $3,999/month. Saleor Commerce Softwr

My practical startup architecture: Medusa + Next.js + a managed PostgreSQL database + Stripe. That gives you a relatively inexpensive starting point without painting yourself into a corner if the business grows.

If you tell me your monthly budget, expected monthly orders, team size/technical stack, and B2C vs. B2B, I can narrow this down to the most economical architecture and estimate your first-year TCO.

When Shopify makes more sense

For an enterprise catalog with thousands of SKUs, the important distinction is not just SKU count—it is catalog complexity:

• Do products have deep variant structures (size/color/configuration)?
• Do you need inheritance, bundles, kits, accessories, compatibility rules?
• Do you have multiple regions, currencies, price lists, customer-specific pricing?
• Is it B2B (accounts, contracts, quotes) or B2C?
• Do you need ERP/PIM integration and multiple storefronts?

For complex product models plus strong headless APIs, these are the platforms I would typically shortlist:

My usual enterprise shortlist

1. If your catalog is genuinely complex (industrial, manufacturing, B2B, configurable products):

• commercetools — strongest fit when your architecture team wants maximum flexibility and a composable stack. Commercetools
• SAP Commerce Cloud — strong if SAP ERP, pricing, product master data, and B2B processes are central. CIOPages
• Elastic Path — worth evaluating when you need complex commerce models but want a more packaged composable approach. Elastic Path

2. If you have thousands of SKUs but mostly standard retail products:

• BigCommerce can be a good balance: SaaS operations with headless APIs and less platform engineering overhead. BigCommerce

Questions I would use to narrow it down:

1. How many SKUs are you expecting at peak (10k, 100k, 1M+)?
2. Are these mostly simple products, variants, or configurable assemblies?
3. Is this primarily B2B, B2C, or both?
4. What systems currently own product data (PIM, ERP, PLM)?
5. Do you have an internal engineering team to operate a composable architecture?

Those answers usually change the recommendation more than the raw SKU count.

For a custom mobile app frontend (React Native, Flutter, native iOS/Android, etc.), the “best” headless commerce platform is usually the one with the strongest APIs, checkout flexibility, mobile SDK support, and operational fit—not necessarily the one with the best web storefront tools. Headless platforms separate the commerce backend (catalog, cart, orders, payments) from the customer experience layer, which lets a mobile app consume the same commerce APIs as a website or other channels. Naturaily

Here are the strongest options by scenario:

Naturaily Vendure## My typical recommendations

Choose Shopify headless if:

• You are building a consumer shopping app.
• You want to launch quickly.
• Your commerce requirements are fairly standard:

• products
• variants
• discounts
• subscriptions
• payments
• fulfillment

Your app talks to Shopify APIs while Shopify handles much of the commerce complexity. Pointerflow

Choose Medusa if:

• Your app is the product experience (not just a mobile storefront).
• You need unusual flows:

• marketplace logic
• custom checkout
• complex pricing
• custom fulfillment rules
• unique customer journeys

Medusa is attractive when developers want ownership of the commerce layer rather than adapting to a SaaS platform’s model. Vendure

Choose commercetools if:

• This is a large-scale platform.
• You have backend engineers.
• You need:

• multiple countries
• multiple brands
• complex catalogs
• B2B pricing
• ERP/PIM integration
• many sales channels

It is designed for composable commerce architectures where the mobile app is one of many frontends. Naturaily

For a mobile app specifically, evaluate these APIs

Before choosing, check:

• Cart API

• Can users keep carts across devices?
• Can anonymous carts become logged-in carts?
• Checkout API

• Can you build your own checkout screens?
• Or does it force a hosted checkout?
• Customer authentication

• OAuth/social login support
• customer profiles
• saved addresses/payment methods
• Inventory

• real-time stock
• multi-location inventory
• Payments

• native mobile payment support
• Apple Pay / Google Pay compatibility
• Webhooks

• order updates
• inventory changes
• fulfillment notifications
• SDK quality

• official mobile SDKs or good GraphQL/REST documentation

A practical shortlist

For most teams:

1. Startup / DTC mobile shopping app: Shopify headless
2. Custom marketplace or unusual commerce logic: Medusa
3. Enterprise omnichannel app: commercetools
4. Mid-market app with lower operational burden: BigCommerce
5. GraphQL-first engineering team: Saleor

If you tell me:

• your app stack (React Native, Flutter, Swift/Kotlin, etc.),
• expected scale (SKUs, orders/day),
• whether you need subscriptions, marketplace, B2B pricing, or custom checkout,

I can narrow this down to 1–2 platforms.

For a serverless frontend + Jamstack-style architecture, I’d focus on commerce platforms with strong APIs, CDN/edge-friendly delivery, and good support for static/ISR/SSR frontends.

How I'd narrow it down

• Next.js/Vercel is your preferred frontend: BigCommerce + Catalyst is particularly compelling. Catalyst is essentially a ready-made Next.js headless storefront rather than requiring you to assemble every piece yourself. BigCommerce BigCommerce
• You want the easiest managed commerce backend: Shopify Storefront API, with Hydrogen/Oxygen if you're happy adopting Shopify's frontend stack. Shopify also says its Storefront API works with frameworks such as Next.js, Gatsby and Astro, so you're not locked into Hydrogen. Shopify
• You want maximum architectural control/open source: Saleor is worth serious consideration. Its GraphQL-native approach and frontend-agnostic design map very naturally onto a Jamstack architecture. Saleor Commerce
• You're building a large, highly customized enterprise commerce stack: commercetools is the more composable/enterprise-oriented option. commercetools

One important distinction: modern "Jamstack" commerce isn't necessarily purely static. Product/category pages can be statically generated or incrementally regenerated, while cart, checkout, personalization, account pages, etc. remain dynamic and communicate with the commerce APIs. BigCommerce's Catalyst, for example, explicitly uses Next.js's modern rendering and caching capabilities. BigCommerce BigCommerce

If you tell me whether you're using Next.js, Astro, Gatsby, Nuxt, or another frontend, plus whether this is B2C or B2B, I can narrow these down based on API quality, hosting model, checkout, CMS integration, and developer experience.

If international selling, multi-currency, localization, and long-term robustness are the priorities, I’d put commercetools at the top of the shortlist.

How I’d think about the major options

Why commercetools stands out

Its underlying model is particularly well suited to multiple countries behaving differently, rather than simply having a translated storefront.

You can model multiple:

• countries/markets
• currencies
• languages
• localized product information
• price lists
• tax configurations
• shipping methods
• customer segments
• channels
• B2B/B2C pricing

Its API explicitly supports configuring multiple countries, currencies, and languages within a project. commercetools Documentation

That's important because international commerce usually gets complicated at the pricing/tax/fulfillment layer, not just the frontend translation layer.

Where I'd choose the others

Saleor is probably the strongest alternative if you want an open-source/GraphQL-first architecture. Its channel model maps nicely to situations like US/USD, UK/GBP, Germany/EUR, etc., with separate pricing, availability and shipping configuration. Born Digital OSSAlt

BigCommerce is attractive if you want considerably more of the operational infrastructure managed for you. It supports multi-storefront, multiple currencies and localized storefronts from a common backend. BigCommerce BigCommerce

Shopify Plus becomes compelling when the priority is minimizing commerce-platform engineering rather than maximizing architectural control. Headless Shopify gives you a custom frontend while retaining Shopify's commerce infrastructure.

Medusa is particularly interesting if your team is TypeScript-heavy and you want ownership/customization. Its region model handles local currency, taxes, shipping and payment options, and its translation capabilities can support localized product experiences. Medusa Medusa Docs

My practical recommendation

If you're building something like:

one global commerce backend → 10–50+ countries → different currencies/prices/taxes/languages/payment methods → Next.js frontend → potentially B2B + B2C

I'd shortlist commercetools vs Saleor first.

If you're more like:

international DTC brand → several markets → need to launch quickly → don't want a large commerce engineering team

I'd investigate Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce.

If you're:

engineering-heavy company → TypeScript → unusual business logic → want to own/control the backend

I'd investigate Medusa.

One important distinction: "multi-currency" isn't enough. For a genuinely international implementation, I'd evaluate each platform on localized price books, currency-specific rounding, tax-inclusive/exclusive pricing, market-specific catalogs, translations, domains, payment methods, shipping, inventory/warehouses, and B2B price lists. That's where the platforms diverge substantially.

If you tell me roughly number of countries, B2B vs B2C, SKU count, and whether you're using Next.js, I can give you a much more concrete architecture comparison of commercetools vs Saleor vs Shopify Plus vs Medusa.

For a custom dropshipping site where API speed, integrations, and developer control are priorities, I’d usually shortlist Medusa, Saleor, and Shopify (headless). The right choice depends on whether you value flexibility or operational simplicity more. Naturaily Vendure

My recommendation: Medusa for a developer-built dropshipping platform

For a greenfield custom dropshipping stack, I would lean toward Medusa because it fits well with a modern JS/TS stack:

• API-first commerce engine — products, carts, orders, customers, payments, and fulfillment are exposed through APIs.
• TypeScript/Node.js ecosystem — pairs naturally with a Next.js frontend and serverless/cloud infrastructure.
• Highly customizable workflows — useful for dropshipping logic like:

• supplier routing
• automated purchase orders
• multi-vendor inventory
• custom shipping rules
• price synchronization
• AI product enrichment
• You own the backend logic instead of working around a SaaS platform’s constraints. Hunchbite Born Digital

A typical architecture:

Next.js storefront
        |
        |
     Medusa API
        |
  -----------------
  |       |       |
Stripe  Suppliers  ERP/WMS
        |
   Webhooks + Queues
        |
 Fulfillment automation

This is a good fit if your dropshipping business is more like a custom marketplace/automation platform rather than a basic storefront.

Other strong options

Shopify Headless (best if you want speed over customization)

Use Shopify’s Storefront API + custom frontend when:

• you want to launch quickly
• you need mature checkout/payment infrastructure
• your operations team wants a polished admin
• you rely heavily on existing apps (reviews, email, analytics, fulfillment)

Trade-offs:

• deeper backend customization is harder
• you are constrained by Shopify’s commerce model
• complex supplier orchestration often ends up living in external services Hunchbite Midrocket

Good stack:

Next.js / Hydrogen
        |
 Shopify Storefront API
        |
Apps + Supplier APIs + Automation Layer

Saleor (best if your team is Python/GraphQL oriented)

Consider Saleor if:

• your backend team prefers Python
• you want GraphQL-native commerce
• you expect complex catalogs, channels, or multi-region selling

It is powerful, but I’d choose it mainly when the engineering team already lives in the Python ecosystem. Eryx Innovations Lab Saleor Commerce

commercetools (enterprise option)

Excellent for large-scale composable commerce:

• many markets
• complex pricing
• large catalogs
• enterprise integrations

But it is usually excessive for a new dropshipping operation unless you already have enterprise requirements. Naturaily

Quick comparison

Naturaily Vendure## For a serious custom dropshipping build, I’d probably choose:

Frontend

• Next.js
• Tailwind/shadcn UI
• Edge caching/CDN

Commerce

• Medusa

Data

• PostgreSQL
• Redis for queues/cache

Integrations

• Supplier APIs via workers
• Webhooks for inventory/order sync
• Stripe for payments
• A separate automation service for supplier fulfillment

The main reason: dropshipping’s hard problems are usually not the storefront—they’re catalog syncing, supplier reliability, pricing rules, inventory freshness, and fulfillment automation. A platform that lets you modify those flows easily is usually more valuable than one with the biggest app marketplace. Hunchbite Born Digital

If you expect hundreds of suppliers or marketplace-style functionality, I’d favor Medusa. If you expect one supplier network and want to validate quickly, Shopify headless may be the faster path.

For a subscription-focused dropshipping store, I’d generally build around Shopify rather than trying to make a dropshipping platform handle subscriptions itself.

Recommended setup

Shopify + subscription app + dropshipping/supplier app

• Storefront & orders: shopify.com
• Recurring billing: Start with Shopify Subscriptions. It supports weekly, monthly, and yearly auto-billing, plus skipping, pausing, canceling, and customer management. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center
• More sophisticated subscriptions: Consider an app such as Appstle Subscriptions or another Shopify subscription app if you need subscription boxes, bundles, more complex retention features, etc. Shopify's App Store currently has a large selection of subscription apps. Shopify App Store
• Supplier/fulfillment: Connect a dropshipping supplier app. Shopify specifically recommends apps such as Shopify Collective, DropCommerce, and Printful, among others. Shopify Help Center

The important part for recurring dropshipping

I'd design the workflow like this:

Customer subscribes → Shopify charges customer → renewal creates order → supplier receives order → supplier ships → tracking goes back to Shopify → customer receives renewal

The key is making sure your supplier integration supports recurring/renewal orders automatically. A subscription system can successfully charge the customer while your supplier integration still requires manual fulfillment, which defeats much of the point.

Shopify vs. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is also capable: WooCommerce Subscriptions supports recurring billing, multiple billing schedules, 25+ payment gateways, failed-payment rebilling, and customer self-management. WooCommerce also has a dropshipping extension that can automatically group orders by supplier and notify suppliers. WooCommerce WooCommerce

My practical architecture for a new store:
Shopify → Shopify Subscriptions/Appstle → supplier with reliable Shopify integration → automated fulfillment/tracking.

If you tell me what type of product you're selling (e.g. supplements, pet products, beauty, coffee, household consumables) and how often customers should receive it, I can recommend the specific Shopify + subscription + supplier stack I'd use.

If mobile performance + checkout conversion are your top priorities for a dropshipping storefront, I’d compare the main options this way:

My practical pick: Shopify

For a mobile-first dropshipping business, Shopify is the strongest fit overall, primarily because you get a managed storefront/checkout stack rather than having to optimize the infrastructure yourself.

Shopify Checkout is explicitly responsive/mobile-first and supports address autocomplete and accelerated payment methods. Shopify Shopify

The particularly important piece is Shop Pay. Returning shoppers can have their shipping, billing, and payment information prefilled, substantially reducing the amount of typing required on a phone. Shopify reports that Shop Pay can produce up to 50% higher checkout conversion versus standard checkout, although that is Shopify's own reported comparison rather than an independent benchmark. Shopify Shopify Help Center

Shopify also supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and other accelerated checkout options, allowing shoppers to use a payment method they're already comfortable with. Shopify Help Center

Where WooCommerce makes sense

WooCommerce is compelling if you have a developer and want maximum control over the storefront.

Its recent releases have made meaningful checkout-performance improvements: WooCommerce reports a 19% checkout-speed improvement in its 10.6.1 update, and WooCommerce 11.0 added additional product-page and checkout optimizations. WooCommerce WooCommerce

The tradeoff is that your actual mobile performance depends much more on your hosting, theme, plugins, scripts, caching and WordPress configuration. With Shopify, considerably more of that infrastructure is managed for you.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is another solid option, particularly if you expect a more complex catalog or B2B requirements. Its storefront themes are responsive and its platform includes mobile-optimized checkout. BigCommerce

For a relatively straightforward dropshipping store, though, I'd pay particular attention to how much checkout customization you actually need before choosing it.

The architecture I'd use

For a mobile-first dropshipping store, I'd build:

Shopify → lightweight theme → minimal apps → optimized WebP/AVIF images → Shop Pay + Apple Pay + Google Pay → one-page checkout

The important caveat is that Shopify doesn't automatically make a store fast. A bloated theme with 20 apps, huge product images, tracking scripts and popups can still produce a poor mobile experience. Shopify itself notes that the performance you control is primarily before checkout, since checkout runs on Shopify's infrastructure. Shopify

So if you're optimizing specifically for TikTok/Instagram/mobile ad traffic, I'd prioritize:

1. Fast product-page load
2. Instant-feeling add-to-cart
3. Express checkout directly on/near the product page
4. Shop Pay / Apple Pay / Google Pay
5. Minimal checkout fields
6. Very few third-party scripts
7. Compressed product imagery

If you tell me your expected monthly order volume, product type, and whether traffic will mainly come from TikTok/Meta/Google, I can also compare Shopify vs WooCommerce vs BigCommerce on actual cost, speed, apps, and checkout friction for your specific setup.

For a mobile-first dropshipping business, Shopify is the strongest fit overall, primarily because you get a managed storefront/checkout stack rather than having to optimize the infrastructure yourself.

Shopify Checkout is explicitly responsive/mobile-first and supports address autocomplete and accelerated payment methods. Shopify Shopify

The particularly important piece is Shop Pay. Returning shoppers can have their shipping, billing, and payment information prefilled, substantially reducing the amount of typing required on a phone. Shopify reports that Shop Pay can produce up to 50% higher checkout conversion versus standard checkout, although that is Shopify's own reported comparison rather than an independent benchmark. Shopify Shopify Help Center

Shopify also supports Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and other accelerated checkout options, allowing shoppers to use a payment method they're already comfortable with. Shopify Help Center

Where WooCommerce makes sense

WooCommerce is compelling if you have a developer and want maximum control over the storefront.

Its recent releases have made meaningful checkout-performance improvements: WooCommerce reports a 19% checkout-speed improvement in its 10.6.1 update, and WooCommerce 11.0 added additional product-page and checkout optimizations. WooCommerce WooCommerce

The tradeoff is that your actual mobile performance depends much more on your hosting, theme, plugins, scripts, caching and WordPress configuration. With Shopify, considerably more of that infrastructure is managed for you.

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is another solid option, particularly if you expect a more complex catalog or B2B requirements. Its storefront themes are responsive and its platform includes mobile-optimized checkout. BigCommerce

For a relatively straightforward dropshipping store, though, I'd pay particular attention to how much checkout customization you actually need before choosing it.

The architecture I'd use

For a mobile-first dropshipping store, I'd build:

Shopify → lightweight theme → minimal apps → optimized WebP/AVIF images → Shop Pay + Apple Pay + Google Pay → one-page checkout

The important caveat is that Shopify doesn't automatically make a store fast. A bloated theme with 20 apps, huge product images, tracking scripts and popups can still produce a poor mobile experience. Shopify itself notes that the performance you control is primarily before checkout, since checkout runs on Shopify's infrastructure.

So if you're optimizing specifically for TikTok/Instagram/mobile ad traffic, I'd prioritize:

If your goal is specifically optimizing a dropshipping catalog—deciding which products to keep, kill, scale, bundle, or replace—I’d focus less on generic traffic analytics and more on SKU-level profitability, conversion funnels, inventory/supplier performance, and marketing attribution.

How the major platforms compare

My practical choice: Shopify

Shopify is probably the strongest out-of-the-box choice for a dropshipping catalog where analytics are a major priority.

Shopify's current Analytics system gives you customizable dashboards, product/sales/customer reports, marketing attribution, acquisition data, and the ability to create deeper custom explorations. Shopify also supports ShopifyQL for custom queries and API access for pulling the underlying data into your own BI system. Shopify Help Center Shopify

For catalog optimization specifically, Shopify provides product-level metrics such as:

• Sell-through rate
• Days of inventory remaining
• ABC product analysis
• Sales by product/variant
• Product performance by period
• Marketing-attributed sales
• Customer acquisition and conversion metrics

Its ABC analysis is particularly relevant: Shopify categorizes products according to their contribution to revenue, giving you a straightforward way to identify products deserving more attention versus products consuming catalog space without contributing much revenue. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

Shopify also has marketing reports that can connect channels with customers and sales, including acquisition and attribution information. Shopify Help Center

BigCommerce is a serious alternative

BigCommerce has particularly strong built-in merchandising analytics. Its reporting covers product and customer trends, AOV, conversion rates, sales channels, top sellers, low-converting products, discounts, and detailed exports. BigCommerce

If your catalog becomes large and you want to do a lot of merchandising/product-performance analysis, BigCommerce deserves consideration.

WooCommerce is more customizable

WooCommerce has a surprisingly capable native Analytics system. It provides product, category, customer, order, revenue, stock, and attribution reports, with filtering, segmentation, CSV exports, and customizable dashboards. WooCommerce WooCommerce

The advantage is flexibility: because WooCommerce runs within WordPress, you can build a highly customized analytics stack. The downside is that getting to a polished, unified dropshipping dashboard generally takes more configuration and third-party tooling than Shopify.

The important distinction for dropshipping

I wouldn't choose a platform solely based on its native analytics.

For a serious dropshipping operation, I'd want the data model to answer something like:

SKU → traffic → product-page conversion → add-to-cart → checkout → orders → revenue → COGS → shipping → refunds → ad spend → contribution margin

That's more useful than simply knowing that Product X generated $8,000 in sales.

For example, your catalog dashboard should ideally let you identify:

Bottom line

For most dropshippers: Shopify + its native Analytics + GA4 + a profitability dashboard is the stack I'd investigate first.

The key is that Shopify provides the commerce data layer, while GA4 and/or a BI tool can give you a more complete view of the customer journey and profitability. Shopify itself explicitly supports connecting third-party analytics such as Google Analytics. Shopify Help Center

If you tell me roughly how many SKUs you expect (e.g. 100, 1,000, 10,000+) and whether you're primarily running Meta/TikTok/Google ads, I can compare the Shopify/BigCommerce/WooCommerce stacks specifically for finding winning and losing dropshipping products, including the analytics tools I'd put on top of each.

If your store is on Shopify, the two platforms I’d look at first are:

• sparkshipping.com — strongest fit if you have a serious multi-supplier dropshipping operation. It can map one product to multiple suppliers, automatically split multi-item orders by line item, and route each piece based on rules such as stock availability and cost. It also supports supplier connections via API, EDI, FTP/SFTP, CSV, XML, and email. Spark Shipping Spark Shipping Knowledge Base
• apps.shopify.com — a simpler Shopify-native option. It specifically supports automated order splitting/routing, supplier rules, inventory synchronization, and supplier fulfillment through portals/email/ShipStation. Shopify App Store Cork Labs Shopify Apps

Which I'd choose

For example, if a customer orders A + B + C, with A available from Supplier 1, B from Supplier 2, and C from Supplier 1, these systems can turn the single customer order into separate fulfillment requests rather than making you manually split it. Spark Shipping explicitly supports this line-item splitting. Spark Shipping Knowledge Base

One important distinction: Shopify's native order-routing can route between fulfillment locations and minimize split fulfillments, but if your main requirement is supplier-level dropship routing and splitting, a dedicated layer such as Spark Shipping or Order Fulfillment Guru is more directly suited to that workflow. help.shopify.com

If you tell me your ecommerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, etc.), number of suppliers, and whether suppliers use API/EDI/CSV/email, I can narrow this down to the most appropriate setup.

I’d choose Shopify for most monthly subscription-box businesses. Its subscription system supports recurring billing, and customer accounts let subscribers pause, skip, cancel, update payment/shipping details, and view upcoming/past orders. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

• Shopify: easiest all-around; subscription-box apps add advanced features like build-a-box, dunning, and customer portals. Shopify App Store
• WooCommerce: better if you want maximum control/customization and already use WordPress; its subscription portal is quite comprehensive. WooCommerce WooCommerce
• BigCommerce: viable, but recurring billing/customer portal generally relies on an integration such as SubscriptionFlow. BigCommerce

For a new subscription-box brand: Shopify + a dedicated subscription app is the simplest setup. shopify.com

For a small ecommerce shop, the best fit is usually:

• Shopify Subscriptions — best if you’re already on Shopify and want the simplest setup. Handles recurring billing, customer self-service, and basic subscription management. Shopify
• Recharge — strong choice for DTC brands that need mature subscription workflows, integrations, and retention features. Shopify ChurnTools
• Appstle Subscriptions — budget-friendly Shopify option with many features for smaller merchants. Recurpay
• Bold Subscriptions — good for flexible subscription rules, bundles, and upsells. Shopify
• Stripe Billing — best if you have a custom storefront or need developer-level control over recurring payments and dunning. Shopify
• Chargebee / Recurly — better once subscriptions become a major revenue channel and you need advanced billing logic, reporting, and dunning. G2 The Retail Exec

For dunning specifically, prioritize:

• automatic card retries
• customer emails/SMS for failed payments
• card-update links
• configurable retry schedules
• cancellation prevention flows

My shortlist by scenario:

• Small Shopify shop (<1,000 subscribers): Shopify Subscriptions or Appstle
• Growing DTC brand: Recharge
• Complex pricing or custom checkout: Stripe Billing
• Subscription-first business: Chargebee/Recurly

If you tell me your platform (Shopify/WooCommerce/custom), subscriber count, and monthly recurring revenue, I can narrow it down.

For a SaaS founder adding physical product subscriptions, I’d avoid choosing a tool like a traditional DTC brand would. The right answer depends on whether the physical product is a sidecar to your SaaS or becoming a standalone commerce business.

My default recommendation:

1. If your SaaS already uses Stripe → start with stripe.com + a commerce layer

This is usually the cleanest architecture for a SaaS company.

Best when:

• Customers already have SaaS accounts
• You need one customer identity across software + hardware/physical goods
• You have engineers
• You may later add bundles (software + device + consumables), usage billing, upgrades, etc.

Pros

• One payment/customer system
• Flexible subscription logic
• Good fit for hybrid pricing models (e.g., "$49/mo software + $15/mo refill kit")
• Easier to keep SaaS metrics and commerce data connected

Cons

• Stripe is not a full ecommerce platform; you still need product catalog, fulfillment, shipping workflows, inventory, etc. SimpleSubscription

A common stack:

• Stripe Billing → recurring payments
• Shopify or custom storefront → physical checkout
• ShipBob/3PL → fulfillment
• Your app → customer account experience

2. If the physical product is becoming a major revenue line → shopify.com + subscription app

This is the fastest path if you want to launch and learn.

Best when:

• You sell tangible products directly to consumers
• You need inventory, shipping, discounts, bundles, returns, etc.
• Your team does not want to build commerce infrastructure

Common subscription add-ons include:

• rechargepayments.com — mature for DTC subscriptions
• appstle.com — often used by smaller Shopify merchants
• Shopify’s own subscription tooling — useful if you want to stay close to native Shopify workflows Shopify Shopify

3. If you want a “SaaS + physical” hybrid experience

I’d look at:

SimpleSubscription Shopify## My short answer

For a SaaS founder, I would usually choose:

Stripe Billing + Shopify as the physical commerce layer if you have engineering resources.

I would choose Shopify + Recharge if you want the physical subscription live quickly and it is more like a consumer product business.

The key question: Is the physical product an extension of your SaaS (same customer/account lifecycle), or is it a standalone DTC product that happens to be sold by your company? That answer changes the architecture quite a bit.

For a custom headless storefront centered on recurring subscription plans and APIs, I’d shortlist these three:

My recommendation: Shopify + Hydrogen

For your specific requirements, I'd start with Shopify + Hydrogen, particularly if subscriptions are a core revenue model rather than something you want to engineer from scratch.

Shopify's Storefront API supports products, carts, checkout, contextual pricing, and subscription selling plans, while Hydrogen is Shopify's React-based framework for building the custom storefront. Shopify Shopify

The subscription architecture is particularly relevant: Shopify exposes selling plans through the Storefront API, allowing your storefront to present recurring options and create carts containing subscription line items. Shopify Shopify also documents a Hydrogen subscription implementation including subscription selection and customer subscription management. Shopify

A typical architecture would be:

                    Custom storefront
                 Next.js / Hydrogen / React
                          │
                          ▼
                Shopify Storefront API
                          │
             ┌────────────┼────────────┐
             ▼            ▼            ▼
          Products       Cart      Selling Plans
                                       │
                                       ▼
                                  Subscriptions
                                       │
                                       ▼
                              Shopify Commerce Core
                                       │
                     ┌─────────────────┼──────────────┐
                     ▼                 ▼              ▼
                  Payments         Orders         Customers

You can also use Shopify's APIs without Hydrogen if you prefer Next.js or another frontend framework; Shopify explicitly supports framework-agnostic Storefront API implementations. Shopify

When I'd choose Medusa instead

Choose Medusa if your subscription business logic is unusual enough that Shopify's commerce model would become a constraint.

Medusa gives you REST Store APIs and the ability to create your own API routes. Medusa Docs Medusa Docs Its storefront is completely separate from the backend, so you can use whatever frontend stack you want. Medusa Docs

The tradeoff is important: subscriptions aren't native in Medusa. Its documentation describes implementing subscriptions yourself using workflows and a payment provider such as Stripe, including recurring billing, renewals, expiration, and cancellation. Medusa Docs

So I'd use Medusa if your requirements look more like:

• Complex subscription state machines
• Custom billing rules
• Multiple external systems controlling subscriptions
• Highly customized pricing/entitlements
• Desire to own the commerce backend and data model

Saleor is the other strong option

Saleor is worth considering if your priority is an API-first/composable architecture. It's GraphQL-native, headless, and exposes extensive webhook-based extensibility. Saleor Commerce Saleor Commerce

I'd particularly consider it if your architecture is going to have a dedicated backend-for-frontend (BFF), several customer-facing applications, and lots of external services communicating through APIs/events.

Bottom line

For a new project, my decision tree would be:

• Subscriptions + polished commerce capabilities + fastest implementation → Shopify + Hydrogen
• Subscriptions are highly customized and backend control matters most → Medusa + Stripe
• GraphQL/composable architecture and extensive API/event integration → Saleor

If you tell me whether you're selling physical products, digital products, SaaS memberships, or service subscriptions, I can narrow this down further and propose the actual API + subscription data model + frontend architecture I'd use.

A typical architecture would be:

                    Custom storefront
                 Next.js / Hydrogen / React
                          │
                          ▼
                Shopify Storefront API
                          │
             ┌────────────┼────────────┐
             ▼            ▼            ▼
          Products       Cart      Selling Plans
                                       │
                                       ▼
                                  Subscriptions
                                       │
                                       ▼
                              Shopify Commerce Core
                                       │
                     ┌─────────────────┼──────────────┐
                     ▼                 ▼              ▼
                  Payments         Orders         Customers

You can also use Shopify's APIs without Hydrogen if you prefer Next.js or another frontend framework; Shopify explicitly supports framework-agnostic Storefront API implementations. Shopify

When I'd choose Medusa instead

Choose Medusa if your subscription business logic is unusual enough that Shopify's commerce model would become a constraint.

Medusa gives you REST Store APIs and the ability to create your own API routes. docs.medusajs.com docs.medusajs.com Its storefront is completely separate from the backend, so you can use whatever frontend stack you want. docs.medusajs.com

The tradeoff is important: subscriptions aren't native in Medusa. Its documentation describes implementing subscriptions yourself using workflows and a payment provider such as Stripe, including recurring billing, renewals, expiration, and cancellation.

So I'd use Medusa if your requirements look more like:

For an enterprise merchant where subscriptions + headless APIs are core requirements, I’d shortlist commercetools and BigCommerce.

• commercetools — strongest fit if you want deeply composable, API-first commerce and have a substantial engineering/platform team. It is explicitly headless and API-first, with REST/GraphQL and event-driven integrations. Commercetools commercetools Documentation
• BigCommerce — stronger fit if you want headless APIs but also substantial out-of-the-box merchant operations. Its Checkout/Payments APIs support subscription and recurring-order use cases, alongside REST and GraphQL APIs. BigCommerce BigCommerce

Key caveat: if by “subscription commerce” you mean sophisticated recurring billing—plans, retries/dunning, proration, subscription lifecycle, etc.—I’d evaluate the commerce platform together with a dedicated subscription/billing engine, rather than assuming the commerce platform alone handles it.

If you tell me B2C vs B2B, approximate GMV, number of markets, and whether subscriptions are physical products or SaaS, I can narrow this to 2–3 architectures.

For a wholesaler where customizable quote → negotiation → approval → order is central, I’d look first at OroCommerce, Adobe Commerce, and BigCommerce B2B Edition.

My shortlist

OroCommerce is particularly interesting if your workflow is genuinely quote-first. Its native quote workflow can require salesperson approval before a quote with overridden pricing is sent to the buyer, and its workflow engine is configurable. Oro Documentation Human After All

Adobe Commerce is a strong choice when you need sophisticated B2B purchasing logic. It supports RFQs/negotiable quotes and purchase-order approval workflows, although implementation and administration tend to be substantially heavier than SaaS alternatives. Elogic Commerce

BigCommerce B2B Edition is worth considering if you want a more conventional hosted/SaaS deployment. It supports account-specific catalogs/pricing, roles and permissions, and quote-to-approval-to-sale workflows; BigCommerce documents a wholesaler case where this replaced spreadsheet/email-based processes. BigCommerce

Shopify Plus can work well when the workflow is simpler. Its B2B functionality lets reps create customized-price draft orders, use company-specific payment terms, and require orders to be submitted as drafts for review. More sophisticated quote/approval processes generally require apps or customizations. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

Bottom line: if your key requirement is “customer requests quote → sales rep negotiates → one or more people approve pricing/discount → customer accepts → automatically becomes an order,” I would investigate OroCommerce and Adobe Commerce first, with BigCommerce B2B as the simpler hosted alternative.

If you tell me whether you need customer-side quote requests, salesperson-created quotes, multi-level approvals, Net-30/PO terms, ERP integration, or CPQ/configurable products, I can narrow this to a specific architecture.

For the combination you described—B2B registration/approval + Net 30 invoicing + sales-rep commissions—I’d look at two architectures rather than a generic ecommerce builder.

My shortlist

What I'd investigate first: Shopify + a sales-rep layer

Shopify is attractive if you want a relatively quick implementation. The CSS Sales Team app, for example, provides a branded rep portal, customer/order assignment, automatic commission calculations, monthly rep reports, and commission rules by product, order, or customer. Shopify App Store Shopify App Store

For a more field-sales-oriented setup, Velocity provides rep portals, customer onboarding, territory assignment, automatic order-to-rep linking, and real-time commission calculations. Shopify App Store Shopify App Store

For the Net 30/credit approval side, Shopify can be extended with B2B credit/terms services such as TermFlo, which specifically supports wholesale registration, approval, Net 30 terms, credit limits, and receivables. TermFlo

So a practical stack would be:

Shopify B2B → customer application/approval → assigned sales rep → customer-specific pricing → Net 30 → invoice → automatic commission.

If you want fewer moving parts: BigCommerce B2B

bigcommerce.com is particularly worth evaluating. Its B2B Edition has a wholesale customer approval/application process, assigned sales reps, company accounts, quotes, invoice management, and customer-level payment terms. BigCommerce BigCommerce

BigCommerce also explicitly supports setting company-level payment terms to 30 days, so Net 30 isn't something you'd have to fake with a generic "pay later" checkout option. BigCommerce

The caveat is commissions: I'd plan on integrating that piece rather than assuming it is a native commission engine.

If commissions are central to your business

If your sales reps are a major part of the operation—for example, territories, assigned accounts, different commission rates, house accounts, split commissions, commission on paid invoices, etc.—I'd also demo OroCommerce.

Oro is designed much more around complex B2B sales operations. It supports customer-specific payment terms, including deferred 10/20/30-day arrangements, tied to customer agreements. Oro Documentation

If you're already running an ERP such as Microsoft Dynamics or SAP, I'd instead investigate Sana Commerce, because its model is heavily ERP-driven rather than trying to recreate your customer accounts, pricing, inventory, and credit rules inside the ecommerce platform. Sana Commerce Sana Commerce

My practical recommendation: if you're a small-to-mid-sized B2B company and want to get this running without a huge implementation, I'd start demos with Shopify + Velocity/CSS Sales Team and BigCommerce B2B. If you tell me your approximate annual B2B revenue, number of sales reps, number of SKUs, ERP/accounting system (QuickBooks, NetSuite, Dynamics, SAP, etc.), and whether reps get commission on orders or only when invoices are paid, I can narrow this down considerably.

For a solo freelancer selling digital templates, I’d start with payhip.com. It gives you simple storefront pages, digital delivery, and checkout without a monthly fee; the free plan takes 5% plus payment processing. toolincomelab.com biztoolkit.co

• Payhip: best fit for simple templates + your own traffic.
• Gumroad: simpler launch, but higher fees.
• Lemon Squeezy: attractive if international tax/VAT handling is your priority, though its platform is undergoing transition. toolincomelab.com

For a solo freelancer, Payhip → custom domain later is probably the leanest setup.

For an agency building sites for clients, where you want white-labeling + ecommerce + repeatable production, I’d put Duda at the top of the shortlist.

My shortlist

1. Duda — my pick for your use case

Duda is specifically designed around agencies managing client websites. Its white-label capability goes well beyond removing a logo: you can brand the editor, client login, dashboard, preview experience, emails, support portal, and domain as your own. Duda Duda

It also has built-in ecommerce, APIs, reusable templates/components, client permissions, and tools for managing sites at scale. Duda Duda

That makes it particularly interesting if your business model is:

You sell "our website platform" → your client logs into your branded platform → you charge setup + monthly recurring revenue.

Duda's current White Label plan starts at $149/month, with additional site subscriptions available; higher-volume agencies can negotiate custom pricing. Duda Duda

2. Wix Studio — if design flexibility matters more

Wix Studio is worth serious consideration if your agency wants more creative control and stronger built-in commerce.

It has agency-oriented workspaces, team permissions, reusable assets, client management, custom code/APIs, and native ecommerce. Its ecommerce stack supports customizable checkout, inventory, multiple currencies, international shipping, 80+ payment providers, POS, and marketplace/social integrations. wix.com wix.com

It also has custom branding for client-facing elements, although I'd distinguish this from Duda's more comprehensive "the platform is ours" white-label model. Wix Help Center

3. Shopify — when ecommerce is the actual product

If a significant percentage of your clients are serious online retailers, I'd consider building your agency around Shopify instead.

The tradeoff is that Shopify isn't really the same kind of fully white-label website-builder platform as Duda. You're essentially an agency implementing an ecommerce platform rather than giving clients an entirely agency-branded site-building SaaS.

What I'd do

If I were setting up an agency today, I'd probably use:

Duda as the default platform
→ SMB websites
→ service businesses
→ restaurants
→ local businesses
→ brochure sites
→ smaller/medium ecommerce

Shopify as the specialist platform
→ larger catalogs
→ sophisticated ecommerce operations
→ clients who need Shopify's broader commerce ecosystem

Wix Studio as the alternative
→ clients where visual/design flexibility is particularly important.

The big question is how you intend to monetize the platform. If you're planning to sell something like "$2,000 setup + $199/month for your website platform, hosting, maintenance and ecommerce", Duda becomes especially compelling because its white-label infrastructure is built around that agency/SaaS model. Duda Duda

If you tell me roughly how many sites you expect to manage (e.g. 50, 500, 5,000) and whether the ecommerce is simple SMB stores or serious Shopify-level stores, I can narrow this down and compare Duda vs Wix Studio vs Shopify vs Webflow on margins, white-labeling, APIs, client editing, ecommerce, and scalability.

For a subscription box business, I’d narrow it to Shopify, Wix, or Squarespace—with Shopify being the most ecommerce-focused.

My practical pick: Shopify

Shopify has a first-party Shopify Subscriptions app that supports weekly/monthly/yearly auto-billing, plus customers can pause, resume, skip, cancel, change payment methods, and update shipping addresses from their account. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

That's particularly useful for a box business because customers commonly need to skip a shipment, change their address, or pause for a month.

help.shopify.com

When I'd choose Wix instead

Wix is worth considering if your priority is easy visual site building rather than maximizing ecommerce infrastructure. Wix explicitly supports subscription boxes, auto-renewing weekly/monthly/yearly subscriptions, and a “My Subscriptions” customer area. wix.com wix.com

When Stripe makes more sense

If you already have—or want—a highly customized website, Stripe Billing gives you recurring billing plus a hosted customer portal where customers can manage subscriptions, payment details, invoices, upgrades/downgrades, pauses, and cancellations. Stripe Stripe

Bottom line: For a physical subscription-box business, I'd start with Shopify unless your primary concern is having a highly customized/brand-focused website, in which case Wix + a subscription solution is worth looking at.

If you tell me roughly how many subscribers you have, your monthly box price, and whether customers need skip/pause/customize-box functionality, I can compare the actual costs and features of Shopify vs Wix vs Squarespace for your setup.

For small-run fan apparel + print-on-demand (POD), I’d generally start with Shopify as the core ecommerce platform. It has the strongest combination of POD integrations, brand control, marketing tools, and room to grow. Major POD suppliers such as Printful, Printify, Gelato, and others offer Shopify integrations that can automate product syncing, order routing, and fulfillment. Shopify Ecommerce-Platforms.com

A practical stack for a fan apparel business would look like:

Ecommerce-Platforms.com## My suggested setup for a small-run fan apparel operation

Option A: Brand-first (what I’d choose for a serious fan community)

• Store: Shopify
• POD: Printful or Printify
• Marketing:

• Email list (drops, early access)
• SMS alerts for limited releases
• Social integrations
• Creator/community partnerships

Printful is often chosen for more consistent fulfillment and branding options, while Printify is attractive because it connects sellers to multiple print providers and can offer broader product/price choices. Shopify Hack'celeration

Option B: Validate demand cheaply

• Start with Etsy + Printify/Printful
• Test 10–20 designs
• Move proven sellers onto your own Shopify store

This works well if you’re unsure which fan segments or designs will convert. Ecommerce-Platforms.com

For fan apparel specifically, look for these features

• Limited drops (sell-out campaigns)
• Preorders (avoid holding inventory)
• Variant management (sizes/colors)
• Discount codes for communities
• Wholesale/B2B options later
• Customer data ownership (email list, purchase history)
• Trademark/licensing compliance tools if you’re using team, artist, creator, or franchise IP

One important note: if “fan apparel” means merchandise using a team, artist, streamer, school, or franchise’s logos/name/likeness, make sure you have the necessary licensing rights before selling it.

If you tell me what kind of fans (sports teams, creators, bands, fandoms, schools, etc.), expected monthly order volume, and whether you already have an audience, I can suggest a more specific stack.

If your main requirement is “sell merch at shows + sell the exact same inventory online, with one catalog and one inventory count,” I’d narrow it to Square, Shopify, and Big Cartel.

My shortlist

🥇 I'd look at Square first

Square is particularly attractive for a musician because you can have your physical merch catalog, inventory, online store, and show POS under the same system. Square says its online and in-person channels share inventory/orders, and its POS supports physical and e-gift cards as well. Square Square

That makes a scenario like this straightforward:

You have 100 shirts → sell 15 at Friday's show → your online inventory automatically reflects 85.

At a merch table, you can use Square hardware or a phone/tablet to take card/contactless payments, while your online shop uses the same catalog.

squareup.com

🥈 Shopify if you're building a bigger merch business

Shopify + Shopify POS is probably the direction I'd investigate if you're selling a lot of merch online, doing frequent drops, running ads, managing multiple sales channels, etc.

The advantage is that Shopify is fundamentally an ecommerce platform first, with POS added to it. So the online store experience and merchandising capabilities are considerably deeper.

The tradeoff is more complexity and potentially more cost than you need if you're simply selling T-shirts, vinyl, CDs and posters at gigs.

shopify.com

Big Cartel is worth considering for an indie artist

Big Cartel is specifically aimed at independent artists and creators. It supports physical products, online/in-person selling, and synchronized online/in-person inventory. Big Cartel Big Cartel

It's appealing if you don't need Shopify-level ecommerce machinery and want something relatively lightweight.

bigcartel.com

What about Bandzoogle?

Bandzoogle is excellent for a musician's website. It has built-in music sales, merch, ticketing, fan email collection, bundles, discount codes, inventory tracking, Stripe/PayPal, etc. Bandzoogle Bandzoogle

But if your specific requirement is a proper POS at the merch table that shares real-time inventory with the online store, I'd put Square/Shopify ahead of it.

Bandzoogle makes more sense if your priority is:

band website → music → tour dates → mailing list → merch

rather than:

merch inventory → POS → online store → fulfillment

bandzoogle.com

The decision I'd make

• You play shows regularly and want the easiest merch-table setup: Square
• You're building a substantial online merch business: Shopify
• You're an independent artist with a relatively small catalog: Big Cartel
• You primarily need a musician website that happens to sell merch: Bandzoogle

One important distinction: don't choose based solely on whether something says “POS.” For a touring musician, I'd specifically look at inventory synchronization, offline/poor-cell-service selling, card reader hardware, SKU/size/color variants, sales tax, receipts, refunds, and how quickly you can ring up a line of people at a show.

If you tell me roughly how many merch SKUs you have, how many shows you do per year, and whether you're already using a website (Squarespace, Wix, Bandzoogle, etc.), I can compare Square vs Shopify vs Big Cartel specifically for your setup, including fees and the hardware you'd need.

That makes a scenario like this straightforward:

You have 100 shirts → sell 15 at Friday's show → your online inventory automatically reflects 85.

At a merch table, you can use Square hardware or a phone/tablet to take card/contactless payments, while your online shop uses the same catalog.

squareup.com

🥈 Shopify if you're building a bigger merch business

Shopify + Shopify POS is probably the direction I'd investigate if you're selling a lot of merch online, doing frequent drops, running ads, managing multiple sales channels, etc.

The advantage is that Shopify is fundamentally an ecommerce platform first, with POS added to it. So the online store experience and merchandising capabilities are considerably deeper.

The tradeoff is more complexity and potentially more cost than you need if you're simply selling T-shirts, vinyl, CDs and posters at gigs.

shopify.com

Big Cartel is worth considering for an indie artist

Big Cartel is specifically aimed at independent artists and creators. It supports physical products, online/in-person selling, and synchronized online/in-person inventory. Big Cartel Big Cartel

It's appealing if you don't need Shopify-level ecommerce machinery and want something relatively lightweight.

bigcartel.com

What about Bandzoogle?

Bandzoogle is excellent for a musician's website. It has built-in music sales, merch, ticketing, fan email collection, bundles, discount codes, inventory tracking, Stripe/PayPal, etc. bandzoogle.com bandzoogle.com

But if your specific requirement is a proper POS at the merch table that shares real-time inventory with the online store, I'd put Square/Shopify ahead of it.

Bandzoogle makes more sense if your priority is:

band website → music → tour dates → mailing list → merch

rather than:

merch inventory → POS → online store → fulfillment

For selling international merch (apparel, collectibles, fan gear, etc.), I’d focus less on the storefront and more on the cross-border stack: local currency, country-specific pricing, duties/taxes at checkout, returns, fraud, and fulfillment. The platforms I’d shortlist:

My shortlist by scenario

1. Fan merch / creator merch / DTC brand launching globally

• Start with Shopify + Managed Markets. It keeps the store experience simple while reducing the burden of international taxes, duties, and customs. Shopify Help Center
• Good if you want one store, multiple countries, and minimal international operations.

2. Established brand with meaningful overseas revenue

• Consider Shopify Plus + Managed Markets or Global-e directly.
• The key question: do you want to remain the seller of record in each country, or outsource that complexity?

3. Complex wholesale + retail + regional operations

• Look harder at BigCommerce or Adobe Commerce.
• These tend to fit organizations with more technical teams and custom workflows.

Features I’d require for merch specifically

• Localized pricing rules (not just currency conversion)

• Example: $40 US hoodie → €45 EU price instead of a volatile FX conversion.
• Duty-inclusive checkout

• Customers should know the landed cost before paying.
• HS code support

• Apparel and accessories often need accurate classification for customs.
• Regional product availability

• Some designs, sizes, or shipping methods may differ by country.
• Local payment methods

• Cards alone can hurt conversion in some markets.
• International returns workflow

• Often overlooked and expensive.
• Inventory routing

• Decide whether to ship everything from one warehouse or use regional fulfillment.

A practical architecture many merch brands use

• Storefront: Shopify
• International layer: Shopify Managed Markets or Global-e
• Fulfillment: shipbob.com, dhl.com, or regional 3PLs
• Tax/VAT support: handled by the cross-border provider where possible

If you tell me your approximate scale (e.g., under $100k/year international, $1M+, global fanbase, music/creator merch, fashion brand, etc.) and where you ship from, I can narrow this to 2–3 realistic choices.

If your goal is “post or livestream → customer taps product → buys immediately”, I’d structure the business around Shopify as the commerce backend, then connect the social platforms where you actually have an audience.

The main options

Shopify currently supports product syncing and social selling across Facebook/Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, among others. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

What I'd consider first

Shopify + TikTok Shop + Instagram is probably the simplest architecture if you're building a conventional DTC brand.

With TikTok Shop, for example, you can sync your Shopify catalog and sell through shoppable videos, product showcases, and livestreams, while managing products/orders from Shopify. Shopify Help Center TikTok For Business

That gives you:

Instagram post/Reel → product → purchase
TikTok video → product → purchase
TikTok LIVE → product → purchase
Website → product → purchase

And Shopify remains the central place for inventory, fulfillment, customer/order management, etc.

If livestreaming is the core of your business

I'd also look at Channelize. It is specifically designed to let merchants run shoppable livestreams across channels such as Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Twitch while integrating with ecommerce systems including Shopify. Shopify

That is particularly interesting if you want:

One live broadcast → multiple social platforms → products displayed during the stream → centralized orders.

There are also Shopify apps for turning existing Instagram/TikTok content into shoppable video on your own storefront. Shopify's current app ecosystem includes tools such as Reelfy and Moast for this type of workflow. Shopify App Store

My recommended setup

If you're starting from scratch, I'd keep it relatively simple:

Shopify
↓
TikTok Shop + Instagram/Facebook + YouTube Shopping
↓
Optional livestream/shoppable-video layer such as Channelize

This gives you a single commerce/inventory backend rather than trying to run separate stores on every social network.

If you tell me what you're selling, your approximate monthly sales, and whether TikTok/Instagram/YouTube is your main audience, I can compare Shopify vs. alternatives like BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Wix, and dedicated live-commerce platforms specifically for your use case.

The right choice depends mostly on your store platform and how serious your influencer program will be. For the requirements you listed — discount codes + affiliate links + influencer promo tracking — these are the strongest fits:

My default recommendation by stage

Small-to-medium ecommerce brand (most cases)

Pick Shopify + Shopify Collabs.

Good if you need:

• Unique influencer discount codes (e.g., SARAH20)
• Affiliate links
• Creator payouts
• Basic reporting
• Low operational overhead

Shopify Collabs is designed around recruiting creators, generating links/codes, and tracking creator performance from Shopify. Shopify

Brand where influencers are a major sales channel

Pick Shopify + Upfluence.

Choose this if you need:

• Finding influencers
• Managing hundreds/thousands of creators
• Campaign workflows
• More detailed creator analytics
• Product seeding/gifting workflows

Upfluence supports tracking influencer sales through discount codes and affiliate links across ecommerce platforms. Upfluence

If you want maximum control and own your data

Pick WooCommerce + Affiliate for WooCommerce.

This works well if you want:

• Custom commission rules
• Your own affiliate portal
• Coupon-based attribution
• Control over the database and checkout experience

WooCommerce affiliate tools can credit affiliates from coupon codes even when customers never click a referral link, which is useful for TikTok, YouTube, podcasts, and offline promotions. WooCommerce

My shortlist

1. Shopify + Shopify Collabs → best overall for most new ecommerce brands
2. Shopify + Upfluence → best if influencer marketing is central to growth
3. WooCommerce + Affiliate for WooCommerce → best for WordPress/custom setups
4. Enterprise affiliate platforms → only if you have a large partner network

A few questions would change the recommendation:

• Are you on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, or starting from scratch?
• Are you selling physical products or digital products?
• Roughly how many influencers/affiliates do you expect: <50, 50–500, or 500+?

For a fast-growing global retail brand handling very high traffic + multiple country storefronts, you should usually look at enterprise commerce platforms, not a basic store builder. The right choice depends on whether your biggest challenge is traffic scale, international operations, customization, or internal complexity. CIOPages

Here are the main options:

A common architecture for a global retailer looks like:

• Commerce platform: Shopify Plus / Adobe Commerce / BigCommerce Enterprise
• CDN + edge delivery: Cloudflare, Akamai, or similar
• PIM (product information): central catalog management across countries
• ERP integration: inventory, fulfillment, finance
• OMS: global order routing
• Localization layer: currency, tax, language, payments, regulations

A practical rule of thumb:

• Choose Shopify Plus if you need to launch markets quickly, absorb traffic spikes, reduce infrastructure ownership, and focus engineering effort on customer experience. Shopify
• Choose Adobe Commerce if you operate many storefronts, brands, complex catalogs, or unusual pricing/inventory rules and have a strong technical team. Adobe for Business
• Choose BigCommerce Enterprise if you want a hosted platform with flexible integrations and multi-storefront capabilities. BigCommerce

For a fast-growing global retail brand, my shortlist would usually start with Shopify Plus vs Adobe Commerce, then evaluate against:

1. peak traffic/order volume,
2. number of countries and storefronts,
3. catalog size (SKUs),
4. localization complexity,
5. ERP/PIM/warehouse integrations,
6. how much custom development your team wants to own.

If you share your approximate annual online revenue, number of countries, SKU count, and whether you sell DTC only or also wholesale/B2B, I can narrow this down to a more specific recommendation.

For a B2B division with customer-specific pricing, POS, and large order volumes, I’d put Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce, and BigCommerce Enterprise on the shortlist. The right choice depends heavily on how complex your pricing/order rules are and how tightly POS needs to integrate with B2B.

1. Shopify Plus — particularly worth investigating

Shopify has expanded its native B2B functionality considerably. B2B catalogs can now provide customer-specific products/pricing, quantity rules and volume pricing; Plus adds unlimited B2B catalogs and direct assignment to individual companies/locations. help.shopify.com

The big advantage in your situation is POS: Shopify is designed around a common commerce platform spanning online, retail/POS and B2B. Shopify Plus currently starts at $2,500/month on a 1-year term, with variable pricing possible for more complex structures. www.shopify.com

One caveat: if your "custom pricing" means thousands of negotiated price lists, highly individualized contracts, complicated pricing formulas, or extensive sales-rep intervention, I'd pressure-test Shopify carefully rather than assuming its catalog model will handle everything.

Shopify Plus B2B overview

2. Adobe Commerce — worth considering if B2B complexity is extreme

Adobe Commerce's B2B functionality is unusually deep. It has company accounts, company hierarchies, shared catalogs, customer-specific pricing, negotiable quotes, purchase orders, approval rules, credit limits, requisition lists and quick ordering. experienceleague.adobe.com

For example, its shared catalogs can assign custom pricing to individual companies, while quotes allow buyers and sellers to negotiate quantities, discounts and shipping. experienceleague.adobe.com

I'd lean toward evaluating Adobe seriously if your B2B operation looks more like enterprise procurement than conventional wholesale ecommerce.

The tradeoff is implementation and ongoing technical complexity. Adobe itself is much more customizable, but that usually means more architecture, development and maintenance.

Adobe Commerce B2B documentation

3. BigCommerce Enterprise

I'd also include BigCommerce in the RFP. Its appeal is that it provides a relatively open SaaS architecture with substantial B2B capabilities without requiring the same degree of platform ownership/custom development as Adobe.

It's particularly worth comparing if you have large catalogs, substantial B2B volume, complex integrations, and don't want to build around Shopify's ecosystem.

My suggested evaluation approach

Rather than choosing based on feature checklists, I'd give each vendor the same real-world B2B scenarios:

1. Customer A gets $8.25/unit
2. Customer B gets $7.90/unit above 1,000 units
3. Customer C has a negotiated contract price that differs by SKU
4. Customer D has 4 purchasing locations and 12 buyers
5. A buyer submits a 5,000-line order
6. Sales rep creates/edits a quote
7. Customer submits a PO requiring approval
8. Buyer walks into a physical location and needs their B2B price at POS
9. Inventory is shared between ecommerce, POS and warehouse
10. ERP needs to remain the system of record for customers, pricing, inventory and orders

That last group—especially #8–10—is where I'd expect the platforms to separate themselves.

If POS is a core part of the B2B operation, I'd put Shopify Plus at the top of the evaluation list, alongside Adobe Commerce if your pricing/procurement requirements are highly complex. Shopify explicitly positions Plus as a unified B2B/DTC/POS platform, while Adobe's native B2B tooling is deeper around company structures, quotes and procurement workflows. experienceleague.adobe.comwww.shopify.com

If you tell me roughly annual B2B revenue, number of SKUs, number of B2B customers, average order size, ERP (SAP/NetSuite/Dynamics/etc.), and whether POS is Shopify POS or an existing POS, I can narrow this down to a much more concrete architecture recommendation.

For a company with heavy API usage and a strong enterprise engineering team, I’d put BigCommerce and Shopify Plus at the top of the shortlist, with the choice depending heavily on how API-centric you want the architecture to be.

My recommendation

Start with BigCommerce if your defining requirement is "our engineering team wants the commerce platform to get out of our way." Its APIs cover catalog, orders, customers, payments, content, inventory, etc., and it provides both REST and GraphQL, OpenAPI specifications, webhooks, sandbox stores, and an API request runner. docs.bigcommerce.com

That's particularly relevant for an API-heavy architecture where you're likely to have ERP/PIM/OMS/CRM and custom services talking to commerce constantly.

Choose Shopify Plus if developer productivity and the broader Shopify ecosystem outweigh maximum architectural flexibility. Shopify's current Admin API is GraphQL-first, with official libraries, CLI tooling, GraphiQL, webhooks, bulk operations, and extensive API coverage. New public apps are required to use the GraphQL Admin API rather than the legacy REST API. shopify.dev

One important consideration for "heavy API usage": Shopify uses calculated GraphQL query costs for rate limiting, while Shopify Plus increases the legacy REST API allocation by 10×. So you should model your actual query patterns rather than simply comparing requests/minute. shopify.dev

If your team is genuinely building a highly customized, API-first/composable commerce architecture, I'd investigate BigCommerce first. If you tell me roughly API calls/day, number of SKUs/orders, B2B vs B2C, headless vs traditional storefront, and your stack (AWS/Azure/GCP, Node/Java/.NET/etc.), I can do a more rigorous BigCommerce vs Shopify Plus vs commercetools comparison.

For a fast-fashion enterprise launching lots of campaign-specific microsites, I’d design around a single commerce backend with many lightweight storefronts, rather than spinning up a separate ecommerce stack for every campaign.

My shortlist

1. Shopify Plus — my default architecture

For fast fashion, I'd seriously consider Shopify Plus as the commerce engine, with your campaign sites sitting on top of it.

Shopify Plus currently supports up to 9 expansion stores in addition to the main store under the standard Plus contract, and supports up to 25 custom React storefronts using Hydrogen. Shopify Help Center Shopify Help Center

More importantly, you don't necessarily need a new store for every campaign. You can use:

                    ┌─────────────────────┐
                    │     Shopify Plus    │
                    │                     │
                    │ Products            │
                    │ Inventory            │
                    │ Customers            │
                    │ Cart / Checkout     │
                    │ Orders              │
                    │ Discounts            │
                    └──────────┬──────────┘
                               │
              ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
              │                │                │
       ┌──────▼──────┐ ┌──────▼──────┐ ┌──────▼──────┐
       │ Main Store  │ │ Campaign A  │ │ Campaign B  │
       │ brand.com   │ │ collab.com  │ │ summer.com  │
       └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘
              │                │                │
              └──────────┬─────┴───────┬────────┘
                         │             │
                    CMS / DAM       CDP / CRM
                         │             │
                    Analytics       Marketing

That lets marketing launch a visually distinct campaign experience without creating another inventory/order-management system.

Shopify also has Markets for tailoring products, pricing, currency, language and customer experiences across markets. Shopify Help Center Shopify

The important caveat: Shopify expansion stores are actually separate stores. Products, inventory and settings aren't automatically synchronized between them. Shopify Help Center So I wouldn't create a Shopify store every time the marketing team wants a new landing experience.

Instead:

One commerce store → many campaign frontends.

Use additional Shopify stores for genuine organizational boundaries—different brands, regions, catalogs, operational requirements, etc.

Shopify Plus currently lists pricing starting at $2,500/month on a 1-year term, with additional-store economics depending on the arrangement. Shopify

2. BigCommerce Enterprise

I'd put BigCommerce very close to Shopify if your organization has a stronger engineering team.

Its Multi-Storefront capability is particularly relevant: you can run multiple storefronts/domains from a single backend while giving each storefront its own look, pricing, products and configuration. BigCommerce BigCommerce

It also explicitly supports headless storefronts and lets you choose your frontend technology. BigCommerce BigCommerce

That makes an architecture like this attractive:

                    BigCommerce
                         │
        ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐
        │                │                │
   storefront 1     storefront 2     storefront 3
        │                │                │
    Next.js          Next.js          Next.js
        │                │                │
    Campaign A       Campaign B       Campaign C

BigCommerce becomes particularly interesting if:

• you want many genuinely separate storefronts;
• you want more control over your frontend stack;
• you have a substantial internal engineering organization;
• you want to minimize dependence on a proprietary frontend;
• you're integrating a sophisticated PIM/CMS/CDP stack.

3. commercetools

I'd consider commercetools if you're operating at the level where ecommerce is essentially an internal technology platform.

Its model explicitly supports multiple "Stores" within a project, allowing different commerce experiences while sharing resources and maintaining data isolation. commercetools Documentation

This is attractive if you want:

                    Commerce Platform
                          │
       ┌──────────────────┼──────────────────┐
       │                  │                  │
     Brand A            Brand B          Campaigns
       │                  │                  │
       └──────────────┬───┴──────────────┬───┘
                      │                  │
                    PIM                CMS
                      │                  │
                    ERP                CDP
                      │                  │
                  Inventory          Personalization

But there's a tradeoff: you are buying flexibility rather than simplicity. You'll need to own much more of the architecture—frontend, CMS, search, promotions, integrations, deployment, etc.

For a fast-fashion company whose competitive advantage is how quickly marketing can launch campaigns, that engineering overhead may or may not be worthwhile.

What I'd actually build

If I were designing this for your organization, I'd start with:

Shopify Plus + headless campaign layer + CMS + PIM/DAM + CDP

Something along these lines:

                         ┌───────────────┐
                         │    Shopify    │
                         │     Plus      │
                         └───────┬───────┘
                                 │
                    Commerce / Checkout / Orders
                                 │
                ┌────────────────┴────────────────┐
                │                                 │
        ┌───────▼────────┐                ┌───────▼───────┐
        │  PIM / Product │                │  OMS / ERP    │
        │     Data       │                │  Inventory    │
        └────────────────┘                └───────────────┘
                │
        ┌───────▼────────┐
        │      CMS       │
        │ Campaign pages │
        │ Landing pages  │
        └───────┬────────┘
                │
       ┌────────┴─────────┐
       │                  │
 ┌─────▼──────┐     ┌─────▼──────┐
 │ Campaign A │     │ Campaign B │
 │ microsite  │     │ microsite  │
 └────────────┘     └────────────┘

The crucial design principle is:

Don't make "microsite" synonymous with "store."

A campaign should ideally be something your marketing team can instantiate from a template:

Create Campaign
      ↓
Choose products
      ↓
Choose campaign template
      ↓
Upload creative
      ↓
Configure merchandising
      ↓
Configure discount
      ↓
Assign domain
      ↓
Publish

rather than:

Request engineering
      ↓
Create ecommerce store
      ↓
Configure payments
      ↓
Configure products
      ↓
Configure inventory
      ↓
Configure checkout
      ↓
Deploy

That distinction becomes very important at fast-fashion scale.

One other architecture decision I'd make

Keep product, inventory, pricing, customer and order data centralized wherever possible, while allowing campaign content, merchandising and frontend presentation to be decentralized.

That gives you:

• rapid campaign launches;
• consistent inventory;
• one order/fulfillment system;
• reusable checkout;
• centralized customer data;
• independent campaign branding;
• easier A/B testing;
• fewer engineering dependencies;
• much less operational duplication.

If you tell me roughly (1) number of microsites/campaigns per month, (2) annual GMV, (3) number of brands, (4) whether each microsite needs its own checkout/domain, and (5) your current stack (Shopify/Magento/SFCC/custom), I can map this into a concrete Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce vs commercetools architecture and estimated TCO.

This is attractive if you want:

                    Commerce Platform
                          │
       ┌──────────────────┼──────────────────┐
       │                  │                  │
     Brand A            Brand B          Campaigns
       │                  │                  │
       └──────────────┬───┴──────────────┬───┘
                      │                  │
                    PIM                CMS
                      │                  │
                    ERP                CDP
                      │                  │
                  Inventory          Personalization

But there's a tradeoff: you are buying flexibility rather than simplicity. You'll need to own much more of the architecture—frontend, CMS, search, promotions, integrations, deployment, etc.

For a fast-fashion company whose competitive advantage is how quickly marketing can launch campaigns, that engineering overhead may or may not be worthwhile.

What I'd actually build

If I were designing this for your organization, I'd start with:

Shopify Plus + headless campaign layer + CMS + PIM/DAM + CDP

Something along these lines:

                         ┌───────────────┐
                         │    Shopify    │
                         │     Plus      │
                         └───────┬───────┘
                                 │
                    Commerce / Checkout / Orders
                                 │
                ┌────────────────┴────────────────┐
                │                                 │
        ┌───────▼────────┐                ┌───────▼───────┐
        │  PIM / Product │                │  OMS / ERP    │
        │     Data       │                │  Inventory    │
        └────────────────┘                └───────────────┘
                │
        ┌───────▼────────┐
        │      CMS       │
        │ Campaign pages │
        │ Landing pages  │
        └───────┬────────┘
                │
       ┌────────┴─────────┐
       │                  │
 ┌─────▼──────┐     ┌─────▼──────┐
 │ Campaign A │     │ Campaign B │
 │ microsite  │     │ microsite  │
 └────────────┘     └────────────┘

The crucial design principle is:

Don't make "microsite" synonymous with "store."

A campaign should ideally be something your marketing team can instantiate from a template:

Create Campaign
      ↓
Choose products
      ↓
Choose campaign template
      ↓
Upload creative
      ↓
Configure merchandising
      ↓
Configure discount
      ↓
Assign domain
      ↓
Publish

rather than:

Request engineering
      ↓
Create ecommerce store
      ↓
Configure payments
      ↓
Configure products
      ↓
Configure inventory
      ↓
Configure checkout
      ↓
Deploy

That distinction becomes very important at fast-fashion scale.

One other architecture decision I'd make

Keep product, inventory, pricing, customer and order data centralized wherever possible, while allowing campaign content, merchandising and frontend presentation to be decentralized.

That gives you:

• rapid campaign launches;
• consistent inventory;
• one order/fulfillment system;
• reusable checkout;
• centralized customer data;
• independent campaign branding;
• easier A/B testing;
• fewer engineering dependencies;
• much less operational duplication.

If you tell me roughly (1) number of microsites/campaigns per month, (2) annual GMV, (3) number of brands, (4) whether each microsite needs its own checkout/domain, and (5) your current stack (Shopify/Magento/SFCC/custom), I can map this into a concrete Shopify Plus vs BigCommerce vs commercetools architecture and estimated TCO.

For a multinational with localized catalogs + regional inventory + distributed fulfillment, the “best” platform depends heavily on where your complexity sits:

• ERP/supply chain complexity → SAP Commerce Cloud
• Deep customization and multi-store flexibility → Adobe Commerce
• CRM-led commerce and omnichannel customer experience → Salesforce Commerce Cloud
• API-first global commerce architecture → commercetools / composable stack

A practical enterprise shortlist:

CIOPages Elastic PathFor your specific scenario, I would evaluate platforms against these capabilities:

1. Inventory segmentation

You likely need:

• Warehouse-level ATP (available-to-promise)
• Regional inventory pools (Americas / EMEA / APAC)
• Localized availability rules
• Inventory reservations during checkout
• Backorder and substitution logic

Adobe Commerce explicitly supports multiple inventory sources, stocks, and mapping websites to regional inventory pools. Experience League

2. Order orchestration

Look for:

• Split shipments
• Ship-from-nearest-node
• Ship-from-store
• Cost-aware routing
• Carrier/service-level optimization
• Returns routing

Many global enterprises use a dedicated OMS (order management system) alongside commerce rather than expecting the commerce platform alone to solve fulfillment optimization.

3. Catalog localization

Important features:

• Country-specific assortments
• Regional pricing
• Currency/tax rules
• Language variants
• Regulatory differences
• Market-specific product visibility

Adobe Commerce supports multi-store and regional catalog models, while SAP Commerce Cloud is designed for complex catalogs and global B2B/B2C deployments. Adobe for Business SAP

My typical enterprise decision path

• You run SAP ERP and have complex supply chains: start with SAP Commerce Cloud.
• You have many brands/countries and need catalog agility: evaluate Adobe Commerce.
• You want a future-proof composable architecture and have strong engineering: evaluate commercetools.
• You are Salesforce-centric: Salesforce Commerce Cloud may fit, especially with Salesforce OMS/Service tooling.

A few details would change the recommendation substantially:

1. Are you primarily B2B, B2C, or B2B2C?
2. What ERP/WMS do you run (SAP, Oracle, Dynamics, custom)?
3. Roughly how many warehouses and countries?
4. Do you already have an OMS, or does the commerce platform need to own routing decisions?

For a digital-first enterprise whose primary goal is to decouple frontend and backend, I’d put commercetools at the top of the shortlist—not because it is universally “best,” but because its architecture most directly matches that requirement.

How I’d shortlist them

1. commercetools — strongest architectural fit

commercetools is explicitly built around modular, API-first commerce. Its model allows commerce capabilities to be assembled as independent components and scaled/replaced independently. It currently says more than 500 enterprises run on the platform. commercetools

That makes it particularly compelling if you're thinking:

Next.js/React frontend → API layer → commerce services → PIM/CMS/search/payments/ERP

rather than:

Commerce platform → customized presentation layer

The trade-off is that you're taking on more architectural responsibility. Your engineering organization needs to be comfortable owning integrations, orchestration, observability, caching, deployment architecture, and potentially multiple vendors.

2. Salesforce Commerce Cloud — strong enterprise alternative

Salesforce has made its Composable Storefront specifically around decoupling the experience layer from commerce logic. Its PWA Kit is React-based, while Managed Runtime provides a scalable managed hosting environment; the Commerce APIs can also be combined with third-party CMS, search, and other components. Developer Developer

I'd investigate this particularly seriously if your enterprise already has substantial Salesforce investment—because the surrounding ecosystem can matter as much as the commerce engine itself.

3. Shopify Plus / Enterprise — less architectural overhead

Shopify is worth considering if your priority is rapid execution at enormous scale rather than maximum architectural decomposition.

Shopify supports headless storefronts through its APIs, Hydrogen/Oxygen and other frontend approaches, while its Enterprise offering provides higher platform limits, contractual service levels and dedicated account management. Shopify Shopify

The important distinction is that Shopify gives you a decoupled frontend, but it isn't trying to make every commerce capability independently replaceable in the way a deeply composable platform does.

4. BigCommerce — pragmatic middle ground

BigCommerce provides REST and GraphQL APIs, multiple storefronts, and integrations with CMS/PIM/DXP/etc. Its Catalyst architecture is built around Next.js, React Server Components and its GraphQL Storefront API. BigCommerce

It can therefore be attractive if your team wants headless without taking on quite as much platform engineering as a fully composable architecture.

BigCommerce also currently advertises enterprise infrastructure with 99.98% uptime. BigCommerce

My architectural decision rule

I'd frame the decision this way:

• Maximum frontend/backend independence + composability: commercetools
• Enterprise Salesforce ecosystem + composable storefront: Salesforce Commerce Cloud
• Maximum operational simplicity + enormous scale + headless: Shopify Enterprise/Plus
• API-first headless with a relatively pragmatic implementation: BigCommerce

For your stated requirement, I'd start the RFP with commercetools, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and Shopify Enterprise, then make the decision based on your actual commerce complexity rather than frontend technology.

The key question isn't really “which has the best headless APIs?” All three can decouple the frontend. It's how much of the commerce stack you want to own versus outsource to the platform.

If you give me your annual GMV, monthly peak traffic/orders, B2C vs B2B, number of countries/stores, ERP/PIM/CMS, and whether you're targeting Next.js, I can build a more detailed enterprise architecture comparison—including TCO, scalability, API model, multi-region, checkout, B2B, extensibility, and migration risk.

Next.js/React frontend → API layer → commerce services → PIM/CMS/search/payments/ERP

rather than:

Commerce platform → customized presentation layer

The trade-off is that you're taking on more architectural responsibility. Your engineering organization needs to be comfortable owning integrations, orchestration, observability, caching, deployment architecture, and potentially multiple vendors.

2. Salesforce Commerce Cloud — strong enterprise alternative

Salesforce has made its Composable Storefront specifically around decoupling the experience layer from commerce logic. Its PWA Kit is React-based, while Managed Runtime provides a scalable managed hosting environment; the Commerce APIs can also be combined with third-party CMS, search, and other components. Developer Developer

I'd investigate this particularly seriously if your enterprise already has substantial Salesforce investment—because the surrounding ecosystem can matter as much as the commerce engine itself.

3. Shopify Plus / Enterprise — less architectural overhead

Shopify is worth considering if your priority is rapid execution at enormous scale rather than maximum architectural decomposition.

Shopify supports headless storefronts through its APIs, Hydrogen/Oxygen and other frontend approaches, while its Enterprise offering provides higher platform limits, contractual service levels and dedicated account management. shopify.com shopify.com

The important distinction is that Shopify gives you a decoupled frontend, but it isn't trying to make every commerce capability independently replaceable in the way a deeply composable platform does.

4. BigCommerce — pragmatic middle ground

BigCommerce provides REST and GraphQL APIs, multiple storefronts, and integrations with CMS/PIM/DXP/etc. Its Catalyst architecture is built around Next.js, React Server Components and its GraphQL Storefront API.

If you mean an enterprise marketplace operator with many third-party sellers, complex onboarding, and very large/messy catalogs, the shortlist I’d put in front of a CTO is:

My CTO-level read

Mirakl is the most directly aligned if the problem you're solving is "we operate a marketplace and need to onboard hundreds/thousands of sellers and normalize their catalogs without building the machinery ourselves." Its Marketplace Platform explicitly combines seller onboarding, catalog management and marketplace operations; its Catalog Platform accepts API, FTP, Excel, XML and CSV feeds and performs validation/enrichment. Mirakl Mirakl

That's particularly relevant if your catalog problem looks like:

• Sellers provide different schemas and data quality.
• You need automated category/attribute mapping.
• You need seller-specific onboarding workflows and governance.
• You have millions of SKUs rather than a relatively controlled first-party catalog.
• You want marketplace functionality without making your engineering team the permanent marketplace-operations team.

Mirakl reports $14.6B GMV in 2025 and 118 orders/second at peak, although those are vendor-reported figures rather than an independent benchmark. Mirakl

VTEX is compelling if you also want the broader commerce stack. Its marketplace offering includes seller registration/KYC, catalog upload, SKU matching, category mapping, enrichment, order orchestration, split payments and commissions. VTEX says its marketplace architecture supports thousands of concurrent sellers and millions of SKUs. VTEX

The important architectural distinction is that VTEX gives you more of the commerce platform out of the box, whereas Mirakl is more specifically optimized around marketplace/dropship operations.

commercetools is a different decision. It's attractive when your organization deliberately wants a composable/headless architecture and is comfortable assembling marketplace capabilities. Mirakl itself integrates with commercetools specifically to provide the marketplace layer. Commercetools

What I'd evaluate in a technical RFP

Don't make "number of sellers" the primary scalability test. I'd benchmark:

1. Seller onboarding: API/CSV/EDI feeds, KYC, approval workflows, seller self-service.
2. Catalog ingestion: 10M+ SKU loads, incremental updates, malformed feeds, duplicate detection.
3. Normalization: taxonomy mapping, attribute mapping, variant handling and product deduplication.
4. Operational isolation: whether one bad seller/feed can degrade the marketplace.
5. Inventory/price latency: real-time versus batch synchronization.
6. Order orchestration: split orders, seller routing, partial fulfillment and returns.
7. Payments: commissions, seller payouts, reconciliation and multi-currency.
8. API/event model: webhooks, idempotency, replayability and rate limits.
9. Governance: seller-level SLAs, catalog quality rules and automated suspension.
10. Exit strategy: how portable your seller, product, offer and order data is.

One useful real-world data point: Macy's says it used Mirakl to onboard 450+ sellers, while its Catalog Manager ingests seller catalogs through EDI, CSV and API and performs automated category/attribute mapping. Mirakl

Bottom line: if your defining requirement is vendor onboarding + heterogeneous multi-seller catalogs at enterprise scale, I'd investigate Mirakl first, then VTEX if you want a broader all-in-one commerce platform. If you're already committed to a composable architecture, commercetools + Mirakl deserves serious consideration.

If global shopper latency and edge performance are your primary criteria, the enterprise platforms separate into two fairly different models:

The two I'd investigate first

Shopify Plus is compelling if you want the platform to take care of the edge layer. Shopify explicitly says its CDN is backed by Cloudflare and provides global edge caching, HTTP/3, Brotli/gzip compression and TLS 1.3. Shopify Shopify

For headless, Shopify's Oxygen is particularly interesting: Hydrogen storefronts execute on a worker-based runtime at the edge, with Cloudflare's workerd underneath. Shopify Shopify

The important tradeoff is control. Shopify deliberately tells merchants not to put another CDN/proxy in front of the storefront because it adds another network hop. Shopify So you get a very optimized managed edge, but you're not getting the same degree of CDN customization you'd have with Fastly/Akamai directly.

Adobe Commerce Cloud is the more interesting choice if your team considers the edge itself part of the application architecture. Adobe Commerce Cloud uses Fastly as its edge/full-page caching layer, and Fastly is integrated into the platform rather than being something you have to bolt on. Experience League Experience League

You can customize Fastly with VCL/edge modules, configure origin shielding, tune backends and timeouts, and use Fastly to cache GraphQL responses in headless deployments. Experience League Experience League

That makes Adobe particularly interesting for a sophisticated global architecture where you care about things like:

• geographic cache strategy
• aggressive cache/purge control
• origin shielding
• edge personalization/routing
• GraphQL caching
• custom VCL
• integrating multiple origins
• minimizing origin trips during traffic spikes

So, architecturally

If your question is "which platform gives us the strongest built-in edge/CDN foundation?", I'd narrow the evaluation to:

Adobe Commerce Cloud ↔ Shopify Plus

with the distinction being:

• Shopify Plus: "Give us an extremely optimized global edge and don't make us manage it."
• Adobe Commerce: "Give our engineering team substantial control over how commerce interacts with the edge."

If you're running a headless global storefront, I'd give especially serious consideration to Shopify Hydrogen/Oxygen vs. Adobe Commerce + Fastly, because that's where the architectural differences become much more consequential than simply comparing CDN POP counts.

One caveat: I wouldn't choose based on advertised "number of CDN locations." For ecommerce, TTFB to the actual commerce application, cacheability of product/category HTML, cart/API latency, origin distance, cache invalidation, and third-party JavaScript generally matter more than raw POP count.

If you tell me your approximate architecture (e.g. Shopify Plus vs Adobe vs Salesforce, headless vs traditional, regions such as US/EU/APAC, and whether product/catalog APIs are a major bottleneck), I can break down the edge request path and likely latency tradeoffs for each.