05 — E-commerce
Online stores that stay fast when the catalogue grows
An online shop is mostly a speed problem and a trust problem wearing a catalogue. We build stores where the product page loads immediately, the checkout does not lose people, and stock stays right without someone updating it by hand.
The problem
What usually goes wrong
Every extra field, every forced account creation, every unexpected delivery cost at the last step loses a share of buyers who had already decided to pay you.
A catalogue that was fine at 50 products crawls at 5,000. Category pages take seconds, search is unusable, and mobile is worst of all.
Someone keeps the website in step with the accounting system manually. It works until it does not, and then you sell something you do not have.
A percentage of every sale, plus per-app subscriptions, is comfortable at low volume and expensive once it works.
How we solve it
Our approach
- 01We start at the checkout and work backwards
The checkout is where the money is lost. Fewest possible fields, guest checkout, delivery costs shown early, and payment through a provider people recognise.
- 02Fast pages by construction
Images sized and compressed properly, catalogue queries that stay quick as rows are added, and pages that do not ship a megabyte of JavaScript to show a photograph and a price.
- 03Stock and catalogue kept in step automatically
Where your systems have an API, we connect them, so the website reflects reality without a person in the middle.
- 04We are honest about platforms
Sometimes Shopify is the right answer and building custom would be a waste of your money. We will say so. When your margins or your catalogue make the fees hurt, custom starts to pay for itself.
Every project runs through the same five steps — investigation, understanding the problem, development, testing, then launch and automation. See how we work.
What you get
Delivered at the end of the week
- A storefront with catalogue, cart and checkout
- Payments wired to a provider you choose
- A store that works properly on a phone
- Clear numbers on what it costs to run each month
Scope is agreed in writing before we start. If the work will not fit in a week, we say so before you pay anything.
Questions
Frequently asked
Should I use Shopify or build my own?
If you are starting out or your catalogue is small, Shopify is usually cheaper and faster. Custom makes sense when platform fees are material, when your product needs behaviour the platform will not do, or when you need to integrate deeply with your own systems.
Do you handle payments and PCI compliance?
We integrate providers like Stripe, which keeps card data off your servers. That is deliberate: it is safer for your customers and much simpler for you.
Can you migrate an existing store?
Yes, including products, customers and orders. Migration is quoted separately because the effort depends entirely on the state of the current data.
Contact
Tell us what you are trying to fix
Describe the process you want to improve and we will tell you what fits a week. We reply from info@nileapps.co.uk, usually within one business day.