You want to sell something online

A straightforward store with a modest catalogue usually lands in the mid four to low five figures, plus ongoing platform fees. Complex variants, subscriptions, or connecting to an existing stock system push it higher. The catalogue size matters far less than how complicated a single product is to describe and ship.

Shopify suits most retailers: it handles payments, tax and checkout properly out of the box and needs less maintenance. WordPress with WooCommerce makes sense when the store is secondary to a large content site, or when you need unusual logic that a hosted platform will not allow. For a business whose main job is selling, Shopify is usually the lower-risk answer.

Usually one of four things: the shipping cost appears too late, the checkout asks for too much, the product photography does not answer the buyer’s questions, or nothing on the page makes the business feel trustworthy. It is rarely the amount of traffic, which is why buying more of it seldom fixes it.

Yes, if the URLs are mapped and redirected properly. Migrations lose rankings when old product URLs are left to 404 rather than being pointed at their new equivalents. Plan the redirect map before the move, not after someone notices the traffic drop.