The right platform
WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, SureCart or a Stripe checkout, chosen for how you sell and who will run the shop, not for what we prefer.
02 · Build · E-commerce
Online shops that sell, and keep selling
We design and build online shops on WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, SureCart and Stripe, and connect them to the stock, payments and tills a business already runs on. A shop on WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce or SureCart with a theme we design and build ourselves starts at £8,000 plus VAT. A fully bespoke shop, with its own basket and checkout connected to Stripe, starts at £16,000. We host the shop, keep it updated and secure, and look after it every month once it is trading.
from £8,000 +VATOur own theme on a shop platform. Fully bespoke shops from £16,000. Hosting and management are separate monthly lines.
In plain English
What does an e-commerce build from Marbl Codes include?
An e-commerce build from us is a shop designed for your products and your customers, built on the platform that suits how you sell. It includes the design, the catalogue, payments, delivery rules, the customer emails and testing with real orders. Once it is trading we host it and look after it every month.
We start by understanding the business behind the shop: how many products, how often they change, where the stock lives, who packs the orders and what happens when something sells out. Those answers decide the platform and the shape of the build, so they come before any design.
Which e-commerce platform should I use?
There is no single right answer, which is why we build on several.
WooCommerce runs inside WordPress. You own the whole shop, there is no platform fee on each sale, and it can be extended with custom features. It suits businesses who want control and a site that does more than sell.
Shopify and BigCommerce are hosted platforms. They take more of the running off your hands in exchange for a monthly plan. They suit shops that want a well-trodden path and a large app ecosystem.
SureCart and Stripe checkouts suit smaller catalogues, digital products, bookings and subscriptions, where a full shop platform would be more than the business needs.
On a platform, we design and build the theme ourselves rather than installing one someone else sells. A fully bespoke shop goes one step further: a website with its own basket and checkout, connected to Stripe and built on Astro or similar, with no shop platform underneath at all. It suits businesses who want the fastest possible shop and no platform plan to pay every month.
What makes an online shop actually sell?
Speed on a phone, clear product pages and a checkout with nothing in the way. Most shoppers arrive on a phone, often from a search or an advert, and leave the moment a page is slow or a form asks for more than it needs. We design the product page and the checkout first, test them on real phones, and keep the page weight down so they stay fast as the catalogue grows.
Good product data matters as much as design. Clear titles, honest descriptions, the right categories and structured data mean search engines and AI assistants can understand what you sell and show it to people looking for it.
What about the till, the stock and the rest of the business?
A shop is rarely just a website. For Battlefield Hobbies, a wargames shop in Daventry, we built a bespoke till that sells from the same stock as the website, so the counter and the online shop never disagree about what is on the shelf. For STV Machinery the job was making a used-machinery dealer’s stock searchable by a trade buyer.
If your business runs on other systems, such as accounting, a CRM or a delivery service, we connect the shop to them rather than asking you to copy data by hand.
What happens after launch?
A shop needs looking after more than most websites. Payment providers change, plugins update, and a small fault at checkout costs sales every hour it goes unnoticed. We host the shop, keep it updated and backed up, monitor it, and make the changes you send us, checked on the page before they go live.
What's included
Everything below is in the price
Designed to buy from
Product pages, filters, basket and checkout designed from a blank page and tested on a phone, where most of your customers will pay.
Stock and catalogue
Products imported, categorised and described properly, whether that is forty lines or thousands, with the stock kept in one place.
Payments and delivery
Card payments, delivery rules, VAT and the emails a customer receives, set up and tested with real orders before launch.
Tills and systems
Where a shop has a counter too, the online stock and the till can sell from the same place. Integrations with the systems you already use.
Kept trading
Updates, security, backups and monitoring every month, so a plugin update never breaks the checkout on a Saturday morning.
How it works
Three steps, no surprises
- 01
We talk
A conversation about what the business needs, not a form and a quote by email. We ask what you sell, who buys it and how they find you. You get a plain-English plan and a price before anything is built.
- 02
We build
Designed from a blank page and coded by us, on WordPress or Astro. You see it on a staging link as it takes shape, and nothing goes live until you have said so.
- 03
We look after it
Launch is the start. Hosting, updates, security, backups and the changes you send us, month to month, with a person who answers the same working day.
Questions people ask us
Straight answers
WooCommerce when you want to own the whole shop, keep monthly platform fees down and have room for custom features. Shopify when you want a hosted platform that handles more of the running for you and are comfortable with its monthly plan and transaction model. We build on both and will recommend one after understanding your products, your volume and who will run the shop day to day.
A shop on WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce or SureCart, with a theme we design and build for you, starts at £8,000 plus VAT. A fully bespoke shop, a website with its own basket and checkout connected to Stripe and built on Astro or similar, starts at £16,000 plus VAT. We never install a bought theme. The price for your shop is written down after a first conversation, before any work starts. Platform plans, premium extensions and payment fees are third-party costs, passed through at cost plus a 10% management fee and agreed first.
Yes. For Battlefield Hobbies we built a bespoke till that sells from the same stock as the website, so a product sold at the counter is no longer available online a moment later. Whether that is a bespoke build or an integration with an existing till depends on what you use now.
Yes. Products, customers and order history can usually be migrated, with redirects so the pages Google already knows keep their rankings. We plan the migration in writing and test it on a staging copy before switching over.
We do, month to month. Website maintenance starts at £80 a month, with hosting as its own line from £40 a month. On Marbl Studio and Marbl Stewardship the shop is covered as part of the plan.
Shall we talk?
No obligation, no jargon, no pressure
Tell us what you’re trying to do. We’ll tell you where to start.
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