Template e-commerce sites like Shopify and Big Cartel are brilliant for launching your business online. They’re low maintenance and easy to set-up, often costing very little money. Your platform site is likely to give you a helping hand with marketing too, as URLs containing certain platform site names frequently appear among the top listings of search engine results. 

However, choosing to use a template host site as a platform for your small business does come with significant pitfalls. One of the biggest downsides to choosing this route for your new business is that the individuality of your brand is at risk of getting lost. With host platforms offering a cheap and quick alternative to custom designing websites from scratch, it’s become one of the most popular ways for start-ups to get the ball rolling with e-commerce. You’re therefore at risk of losing business to similar brands who are also hosting via platform sites.

How can you avoid getting lost? Consider approaching a web designer for a custom web design upgrade to your e-commerce site. It won’t cost as much as having your own website built from scratch and it will ensure that your brand stands out as much as possible from your nearest rivals. Your web designer can make your template site work better for you and the needs of your business. What’s more - custom web design on e-commerce platforms have proven to yield an increase in site activity and number of transactions for some businesses. Definitely worth those extra pennies if you’re thinking long-term for your brand! 

The Kartogram team have extensive experience creating custom web designs of this kind for platform-based e-commerce websites. If you’d like to have a look at some of our projects in more detail, you’ll find our full portfolio here. 

Get in touch with us to chat about how Kartogram can help your e-commerce site produce better results. As always - we’d love to hear from you!