E-commerce engineering, beyond the off-the-shelf ceiling

Both, depending on what the brand is trying to do. For brands whose storefront is the bottleneck — performance, SEO, brand expression — we build a headless Hydrogen or Next.js storefront on top of Shopify, keeping their fulfilment and admin intact. For brands whose commerce backend is the bottleneck — B2B pricing, complex catalogs, marketplace dynamics — we move them to a flexible backend (Saleor, Medusa, Commerce Layer) and integrate the rest of the stack.

Custom builds make sense when off-the-shelf platforms create more friction than they remove. A Shopify Plus store with custom checkout, headless storefront and 5–10 integrations sits in the €60K–€180K range for the engineering layer. A B2B portal on top of a custom commerce backend with PunchOut, contract pricing and ERP integration is €120K–€350K. Marketplaces with multi-vendor onboarding and split payments are €150K–€400K. Off-the-shelf Shopify costs €30K–€80K for a strong launch — go that route unless something specific forces you off it.

Default architecture uses Stripe Payment Elements, Adyen Drop-in or Checkout Frames so the SCA challenge is hosted by the PSP, not your application. 3DS2 frictionless flows trigger when the issuer accepts the risk signals; challenges fall back to in-flow modals. We do not build SCA UX from scratch — the PSP teams have shipped through every issuer regression, and recreating it is a poor use of build budget.

For consumer storefronts: Stripe Tax or Avalara for global tax calculation, multi-currency on PSP-native rails (not roll-your-own FX), country-specific payment methods presented based on geolocation. For B2B: tax engines wired into the quote line item layer so quotes are tax-correct from generation, and tax-exempt customers are handled at the account level. Cross-border DDP vs DAP is configured per shipping lane.

Headless storefront on existing Shopify: 6–12 weeks. Custom B2B portal with 3–5 integrations: 14–22 weeks. Multi-vendor marketplace MVP: 18–28 weeks. Commerce replatforms (off Magento, off WooCommerce) are usually 24–40 weeks depending on data migration scope and number of legacy integrations to preserve.

Yes — we have shipped against NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, Akeneo, Pimcore, and a range of warehouse and OMS systems. The integration architecture matters more than the brand: we abstract the integration behind contracts so the e-commerce layer is not coupled to ERP-specific assumptions, which makes future ERP migrations a 3-month project instead of an 18-month one.