Online store build

A store you own, with no platform rent.

An online store built into your website. Stripe checkout, GST and shipping configured, and no percentage of your sales going to a platform.

Get your free plan Three sizes

The standard size takes: Four weeks
You own: The store, the customer data and the payment account
Runs monthly: Only if you choose to pay monthly

No figure appears on this page. Your free plan comes back with the price of every size, and with what the whole job costs together.

What it is

An online store built into your website. Stripe checkout, GST and shipping configured, and no percentage of your sales going to a platform.

Platform rent is a percentage of everything, forever: the monthly fee, the transaction cut, the paid apps that do what a real store should do anyway. A store you own keeps the margin, the customer relationship and the data, and it is built into the same website your search traffic already lands on.

Checkout is built on the webhook-as-truth pattern: an order exists because the payment provider confirms it was paid, not because a browser said so. That is the difference between a store and a form, and it is why reconciliation stops being a monthly argument.

This is for you if

A platform takes a slice of every sale you make
Your store looks like ten thousand other stores
You want the customer data, not just the order
Wholesale is coming and the platform cannot price per customer

One of these is usually enough. If none of them is true, this is not the first thing I would build for you, and the plan will say so.

Why it comes where it does

Marketplace and platform fees take a percentage of everything, forever. Your own store keeps the margin and the customer relationship.

Website design and build has to be in place before this is worth building. Your free plan brings that in for you when you pick this, so the order is right and nothing gets paid for twice.

Worth knowingBuilds into the website, so it needs that chapter first.

Three sizes, by scope

The sizes differ by how much is in them, not by how well it is done. Start at the size that matches the business today; moving up later is normal.

The Essentials

A small catalogue, sold properly.

Up to 20 products with variants and photos
Stripe checkout with webhooks as the source of truth
GST and shipping rules configured for NZ
Order confirmation and receipt emails

Two weeks

The usual choice

The Standard

The store most product businesses need.

Everything in the size before, plus:

Up to 200 products, with import from your current store
Discount codes and simple promotions
Stock hooks ready for inventory management
Abandoned checkout follow-up wired to your email system

Four weeks

The Works

The store as the growth engine.

Everything in the size before, plus:

Unlimited catalogue with structured product data for search
Wholesale-ready pricing structure built in
Subscriptions or repeat-order flows where they fit
A conversion review of the whole funnel after launch

Eight weeks

The figure for each of the three sizes is not published here, because it depends on what else you are building at the same time. Build your free plan and the figure for each size comes back with it, along with what the whole job costs together.

How it is built

01
The catalogue: products, variants, prices and what a customer needs to know before buying.
02
Payments, GST and shipping rules set up in your own accounts.
03
The build: product pages, cart and a checkout where the payment confirmation is the source of truth.
04
Your current products imported and checked, with photos and descriptions in place.
05
Test orders end to end, including a refund, before anything goes live.
06
Launch, then a review of the checkout once real orders have run through it.

Before you decide

Three things people get wrong.

They sayA platform is cheaper.

It is cheaper in month one. The monthly fee, the transaction slice and the paid apps that do what a store should do anyway keep growing with your sales, and none of it stops.

They sayA custom store cannot be as reliable as a platform.

Payment and card handling still run through the same payment provider a platform uses. What is built here is the store around it, on the rule that an order exists because the payment was confirmed.

They sayWe will be stuck if you disappear.

The code and the accounts are yours, in your name, documented. Any competent developer can pick it up, which is the opposite of a platform you cannot leave.

Your options

The alternatives, side by side.

Doing it yourself and hiring it out are both real answers. Here is how the three compare on the things that actually decide it.

Slide the table sideways to read every column.

Option	What it costs	What you own	Time	Outcome
Sell by invoice and email	Your time on every order, and the sales that never get made	Nothing new	Now	Ordering only during office hours
Rent a store platform	A monthly fee, a slice of every sale, plus paid apps	A shop inside somebody else's software	Days to open, then the template ceiling	Working quickly, at a cost that grows as you succeed
This build	One build, or a monthly fee	The store, the customer data and the payment account	Four weeks	No platform rent, no slice, no ceiling

In practice

Built like a system, not a form

Checkout is built on the webhook-as-truth pattern: the order exists because Stripe confirms it was paid, not because a browser said so. That is the difference between a store and a form.

Straight answers

Questions I get asked about this.

01Why not a store platform?

Platforms charge rent plus a slice of every sale, and the template ceiling arrives fast. If a platform genuinely fits your case better, I will say so plainly and point you there.

02Can it handle GST and New Zealand shipping?

Yes. GST and shipping rules are configured for NZ in every tier, and the store is wholesale-ready if you add the trade portal later.

03Can we move our existing products across?

Yes. Importing your current catalogue, with photos and descriptions, is part of the standard tier, and I check rather than assume the import came through clean.

04Who handles the card details?

The payment provider, never your site and never me. Card data does not touch the store, which is what keeps your obligations small.

Also in website and store

What sits next to this.

Website design and build

Custom designed and built for the AI era.

Analytics and tracking setup

Installed, then proven. Never assumed.

See all of website and store

The next move

Online store build, priced in context.

The free plan asks a few questions about the business, then comes back with this service at the size that fits, anything that has to come first, and the figure for each part and for the whole job. Nothing is charged and nothing is booked at the end of it.

Get your free plan stuart@sevenlens.co

Get your free plan