When you decide to sell online, two options come up again and again: a platform like Shopify, or a custom online store built for you. Both can work well. The right choice depends on your budget, your products and how much control you want.
Shopify: quick to start, monthly to keep
- Fast to set up with ready themes.
- Large app store for extra features.
- Monthly subscription for as long as you use it, plus paid apps and themes.
- Transaction fees on some plans when you do not use their own payments.
- Arabic and local gateways need extra apps or setup.
Custom online store: built around you
- No platform subscription: you pay once to build it.
- Hosting can be free on Cloudflare for most small stores.
- Arabic and English with a proper right-to-left layout from the start.
- Local payments like Thawani, mada, KNET and BenefitPay, plus cash on delivery.
- You own the code, the data and the domain.
Cost over three years
A platform looks cheap in month one, but monthly fees, paid apps and themes add up year after year. A custom store costs more on day one but often much less over three years, because there is no subscription. With arafatbin.com custom stores start from OMR 25 with free domain, hosting and SSL.
Which one should you choose?
- Choose Shopify if you want to test an idea for a few months and do everything yourself.
- Choose a custom store if you want low running costs, Arabic and English, local payments and full ownership.
- For a catalogue of a few hundred products or less, a custom store is usually the better long-term value.
What about SEO?
Both can rank on Google. A custom store gives you full control of page speed, titles, product schema and clean URLs, which helps you compete in local search in Oman and the GCC.
Need help with this? Let us do it for you
arafatbin.com offers e-commerce website development for businesses in Oman and across the GCC, from OMR 25. Prices show in your local currency, you get a clear quote before we start, and support on WhatsApp.