How and where to open an online store: dropshipping or traditional?

Wondering where or how to open your online store? This text will bring you closer to the answer. So it's decided, you are opening your online store Wondering where or how to open your online store? This text will bring you closer to the answer. So it's decided: you are opening your online store on dropshipping principles, or a traditional one with your own warehouse. So which platform should we choose for our online store? Any store will work for trading from your own warehouse or in the dropshipping model. I am almost sure that after reading this you will be set on choosing one of 3 paths.

Store platforms can be divided in 3 ways:

• Build your own online store based on a free CMS such as PrestaShop or WooCommerce. We can also commission this work from an agency or a freelancer.
• Order a SaaS (Software as a service) and rent the software, paying a monthly/yearly subscription and, more and more often, a commission on payments.
• Commission or write yourself, from scratch, an entire system - a so-called custom build.

In short, I will try to walk you through the 3 options above and list the pros and cons of each. Remember, there is no perfect service - well, OK, maybe there is, if we are sitting on a pile of gold and have a trusted programmer or team. I will try to steer you toward an answer to the question: where to open an online store.

A store based on the free CMS PrestaShop or WooCommerce.

Of course there are more free CMSs, but most stores in this category bet precisely on these two platforms. See below the advantages of choosing an open source script for your online store.

Advantages:

• Access to free or paid modules and extensions at a good price. Why a good price? The author of a module, creating it for Presta or Woo, can count on reselling it in the hundreds, even thousands of copies.
• Community help, e.g. internet forums and Facebook groups.
• Availability of specialists on the market. We can look for a person who works for 50-100 or even €46 per hour. Nobody imposes a rate on us up front, as is the case with many SaaS stores.
• Plenty of text and video tutorials.
• You can edit every file on the server. Useful when we hire an SEO agency that submits corrections to the code.
• The ability to make a copy of the store and keep it on your own server, or even on your own computer.
• We add and pay for the modules we need. Payment is one-time in 99% of cases.
• PrestaShop or Woo themes - really great ones can be bought for just a few dozen dollars.

Disadvantages of this choice:

• A person with little IT experience will often have trouble with the initial operation of an online store.
• A higher price at the start when choosing an agency. If we want to save time, it is worth devoting part of the budget. Read PrestaShop price for an online store. A store based on this platform usually costs us at least several years of a SaaS store subscription
• Open code also means possible security holes, but every report is patched in a short time with a new update.
• Before updating the script it is always better to make a backup first, or to have a specialist make it.
• A lack of knowledge in choosing hosting, modules or themes can cause a difficult start that will cost us a lot of nerves. We rely on 3 proven hosting providers that we wrote about in this post: Which hosting to choose for PrestaShop
• Out of the box, without modules, PrestaShop or Woo software is poor in its basic version compared to SaaS.

Download PrestaShop | WooCommerce website or commission the whole installation from us. PrestaShop installation or WooCommerce installation from just €46 net! We also build ready-made stores with full integrations. Surely, while looking for an answer to the question of where to open an online store, you have heard about the SaaS option? Of course, read below about this model of running an online store.

SaaS software (Software as a service)

This is a way to open a store for comfortable people with no experience in installing and setting up online stores. That is exactly why we get powerful software equipped with various "bells and whistles" from the start (which we often do not even use in the first months). We pay for everything monthly or yearly under the subscription we choose. Every Polish platform already has ready integrations, e.g. with Allegro, parcel lockers, Google Merchant, Facebook, and selected ones even with eBay or Amazon. With open source such as Presta or Woo, we have to pay for them once and install them on our store. In this model you rent the script, or CMS if you prefer, for a paid period.

Main advantages of choosing a so-called SaaS:

• A multitude of features and integrations from the start (Allegro, Facebook, Google Merchant, dropshipping wholesalers). You will surely find something for yourself.
• Support and technical assistance by phone or email.
• Automatic store updates.
• With selected SaaS providers we have a few themes to choose from at the start included in the price; for others we have to pay.
• A low market entry price. There are often promotions at the start, e.g. €6.87 per month for the first year.
• If you are wondering where to open a store for dropshipping, some companies will let you import the entire assortment from available wholesalers at the start and sell it on Allegro, eBay or Amazon.

Disadvantages

• The software is rented. What does that mean? We pay a monthly or yearly subscription. It is never ours, and as a result, when we stop paying, we lose our whole store. OK, a store on Presta or Woo is not entirely ours either (we do not hold the rights to the source code), but, for example, I can copy it onto a pendrive and hide it in a cupboard.
• A high rate for extended modules. While in the PrestaShop marketplace or for Woo we have a multitude of paid and free plugins, for extras we pay several times less than when commissioning them in a SaaS. Example: a client wants an extensive referral system for the store and partners on several levels, something like MLM. The cost of the module in the Presta marketplace: 100 dollars - the SaaS priced it at over €2,290.
• A high, fixed monthly or yearly fee. Often there is a promotional price for the first year. In the following years it may be much higher. Let's read every set of terms carefully.
• An added fee for using fast payments. I see SaaS software slowly adding an extra fee to fast payments. Suppose we have a 1.7% commission at Przelewy24 and the SaaS adds another 0.3% for itself - this trend of adding extra percentages is very visible in the West. We must be careful, because in dropshipping every percent counts.
• We must accept the terms of cooperation of the company providing the software. If in a year, two or even three they raise prices by 10-20%, we unfortunately have to pay.
• Long email response times

If the answer to your question of where to open an online store is SaaS, I can recommend 4 noteworthy companies

• Shoplo
• Sky Shop
• Redcart - here I have a special discount link -10% for the first 10 registered people (4 codes remain in the database). Just click and order for a 14-day trial period.
• Shoper - As authorized resellers we can offer an individual discount for new customers of the Shoper platform.

or maybe I'll open a store on a so-called custom build?

This is one of the most expensive routes to your own store. Of course, it is also the most labor-intensive, both for the contractor and for the client. In this way of opening an online store, a programmer or a team of specialists prepares the store to the guidelines you provide. You have to devote a lot of time to preparing the specification of your future store. What matters to you, what should be included; as a result, prices start from several dozen thousand zlotys and go up to even several hundred thousand. Really, when you have grown the store to thousands of parcels a day, and the models of running a store listed above no longer meet your requirements, then you will have to consider moving to a dedicated store. Of course, it is worth skipping the whole process and starting with a custom build when we have a no-limit budget. As with the open source option, we have to pay the company building the store for every add-on and commission its updates. If we have a store budget of up to €11,440, it is certainly better to choose the cheaper software listed above and spend the money saved on marketing.

So where to open an online store?

To sum up: every option has its advantages and disadvantages, and there is no single answer. Every project is different. The conclusion that also occurs to everyone is the budget. You will certainly notice that a low budget means SaaS, a medium budget Presta or Woo. A high budget is definitely a dedicated store. Of course, if you have any questions, write to me in a private message or in a comment.