A shop is the checkout. The catalogue is furniture.

Three facts have to sit on the product

If the buyer cannot finish on a phone in a car park in Pärnu, you do not have a shop. You have a brochure with a cart icon. Shipping cost, or a clear band. Whether the size is in the room. How they pay. Those three belong on the product, not in a FAQ two taps away. Hide any of them and you will watch the cart die in analytics you never open.

If the buyer cannot finish on a phone in a car park in Pärnu, you do not have a shop. You have a brochure with a cart icon.

The stack follows the catalogue

Shopify is often the honest shop when the catalogue is the product. WooCommerce is honest when WordPress is already home and the list is modest. A custom cart is honest when checkout itself is the product: unusual packing, a trade login, a warehouse that will not speak Shopify. We will not sell you a custom cart because it looks expensive in a case study.

Payments are not a plugin you try on Friday

Card, bank link, and the method your regulars already use have to work on the device they actually carry. Test the failure, not only the happy path. A pay button that dies on a mid-range Android in a warehouse is not a rare edge. It is Tuesday. If you cannot refund without a phone call, you do not own the till. The till owns you.

After pay is still the shop

The mail that says it left the building. The page that says it is late. The person who answers when the box arrives smashed. Those are part of checkout. Studios that stop at “order received” spend the next year in inboxes. Write the three states before you pick a theme.

Count the till

Measure paid orders, average ticket, and the step where people leave. Sessions on a lookbook are a hobby. If you cannot say which product paid for the photography last month, you do not have a shop. You have a gallery with a button.