Custom digital commerce software

Custom software is the right call when your model needs things the platform can't support without a fragile plugin stack. A few common triggers. You run a multi-vendor marketplace where seller management and commission logic live in a spreadsheet. Your B2B pricing involves buyer-specific agreements that force manual quote management. Your subscription model needs billing flexibility (pauses, skips, mid-cycle plan changes) that Shopify subscriptions can't handle. Or your catalogue is complex enough that variant management is causing SKU errors and overselling. If a platform configuration would work, we'll tell you. Custom development carries an ongoing maintenance cost that platforms absorb for you.

Yes. Most digital commerce projects involve integrating with existing operational systems rather than replacing everything at once. We integrate with major ERP systems (SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite), warehouse management systems, 3PL APIs, and accounting platforms (Xero, QuickBooks). We've also integrated custom commerce backends with Shopify and WooCommerce, so existing storefronts can sit on top of a more capable backend. The integration scope is defined during discovery because it's usually the most complex part of a commerce build and needs to be right-sized before development starts.

Digital commerce software touches two regulated areas: card payments and personal data. For payments, we keep card data off your servers. Checkout routes through a PCI-DSS compliant processor (Stripe, Adyen, or your existing gateway) using hosted fields or tokenisation. That keeps your platform in the lighter SAQ A scope instead of storing raw card numbers. For customer data, we build to GDPR and UK GDPR: a lawful basis for marketing consent, data export and deletion on request, and retention limits on order and profile records. If you sell to EU or UK shoppers, we treat those obligations as build requirements, not an afterthought.

A multi-vendor marketplace has four distinct system layers. Seller management: onboarding, verification, product listing controls, and policy enforcement. Catalogue management: unified product data across sellers with consistent taxonomy. Order management: routing orders to the correct seller, tracking fulfilment, and handling returns across vendors. Financial management: commission calculation, payout scheduling, and tax handling for each seller. We scope which layers you need and which existing tools can cover. For early-stage marketplaces, we build the core seller and order management layer first, then add depth as the business grows.

Cost depends on scope, and the figures below are for a validated v1 you can put in front of real customers, then grow. A headless storefront or B2B wholesale portal, connected to your existing commerce backend, typically runs $30,000 to $60,000. A subscription commerce platform with recurring billing, subscriber management, and churn tools runs $40,000 to $80,000. A multi-vendor marketplace with seller management, order routing, and payout automation runs $55,000 to $100,000. Most teams reach that first shippable v1 in 12 to 14 weeks. We scope and price every project before development starts, then quote a fixed cost against a clear scope.

Real-time inventory sync uses a single inventory source of truth, typically your warehouse management system or ERP, that all sales channels read from. When a sale is made on any channel, the available stock figure updates immediately and propagates to all other channels. We build the sync layer with optimistic locking to handle concurrent updates: if two channels receive simultaneous orders for the last unit, one processes and the other triggers an out-of-stock response rather than overselling. The specific architecture depends on your channel mix and order volume. High-traffic flash sales require a different concurrency model than steady B2B ordering. We define the sync architecture during discovery based on your actual channel configuration.