E-commerce platforms
- Shopify
- Shopify Plus
- WooCommerce
- Custom platforms
E-Commerce Development
Storefronts on Shopify and WooCommerce, or custom platforms where those do not fit.
Overview
An online store is only partly a website. The visible storefront sits on top of inventory, pricing, tax, payment, shipping, returns, and accounting — and most of the problems merchants actually experience come from those systems disagreeing with each other rather than from the store design.
SMC treats commerce work as an integration problem first. Before discussing themes, we establish where product data lives, how stock is tracked, which payment methods are required, how tax applies, and what happens to an order after checkout.
For most merchants, Shopify or WooCommerce is the right foundation, and the work is in customisation and integration rather than building from nothing. Shopify Plus makes sense at higher volume or with more complex operational requirements. We build fully custom platforms only where the standard ones genuinely cannot accommodate the business model — unusual pricing rules, B2B account structures, or deep coupling to an existing ERP.
What we deliver
The concrete outputs of an engagement in this area.
Platform recommendation
A direct assessment of whether Shopify, Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, or a custom build fits your catalogue and operations.
Storefront build
Theme development and customisation focused on product discovery and a checkout that does not lose people.
Payment gateway integration
Regional and international gateways integrated and tested, including failure and refund paths.
Catalogue and inventory
Product data structure, variants, and stock synchronisation between the store and wherever inventory is managed.
Order and fulfilment flow
Order routing, shipping integration, and status updates connected so fulfilment does not need manual re-entry.
ERP and back-office integration
Connections to ERP and accounting systems so orders, stock, and invoices stay consistent.
Performance and reliability
Page speed work and load handling so the store holds up during promotions and peak trading.
Technologies we use
The parts of our stack that apply to this work.
Frontend
- HTML5
- CSS3
- JavaScript
- jQuery
Integration
- Payment gateways
- ERP
- Third-party APIs
Cloud & infrastructure
- AWS
- Microsoft Azure
- Monitoring
Our process for this work
The seven phases applied specifically to e-commerce development engagements.
01
Requirement analysis
We map the business problem, the people affected by it, and the technical constraints before a line of code is written.
02
Solution architecture
We define the system structure, data model, integrations, and hosting approach so the build scales past its first release.
03
UI/UX design
Screens and flows are designed around how the work actually gets done, then reviewed with you before development starts.
04
Development
Engineering runs in short, reviewable increments so progress stays visible and changes stay cheap.
05
QA
Functional and integration testing, plus performance and security checks, run against every release candidate.
06
Deployment
Releases go out through a controlled process, with environments, rollback, and monitoring in place.
07
Support
After launch we maintain, monitor, and extend the application as the business changes.
- Clear business and technical requirements
- Scalable and maintainable architecture
- Security and data protection
- Quality assurance and testing
- Performance optimization
- Documentation and knowledge transfer
- Reliable post-deployment support
Industries we serve
Sectors where this work comes up most often.
- Retail & E-Commerce
- Hospitality & Travel
- SMEs and Corporate Enterprises
- Logistics & Transportation
Ready to scope this out?
Send over what you have — a brief, a spec, or just the problem — and we will come back with an approach.