Custom ecommerce software for online retailers, subscription businesses, B2B sellers, and marketplace operators who need a platform built around their specific catalogue, checkout, and fulfilment model -- not a Shopify theme or a SaaS plan that covers 80% of the requirement.
When your product configuration, bundle logic, B2B pricing rules, subscription mechanics, or multi-vendor marketplace requirements can't be modelled without significant compromise on a standard platform, we build the system that fits the business rather than the other way around.
Custom ecommerce platforms with product catalogue, checkout, order management, and fulfilment workflows built for your specific inventory model
Multi-vendor marketplace development with seller onboarding, commission management, and payout automation
Headless commerce architecture decoupling your storefront from your backend so content teams and developers work independently
AI personalisation and recommendation engines that increase average order value and repeat purchase rate from your existing traffic
Summary
RaftLabs builds custom ecommerce software for online retailers, B2B sellers, marketplace operators, and subscription commerce businesses. We develop custom ecommerce platforms, multi-vendor marketplaces, headless commerce frontends, AI-powered personalisation and recommendation engines, subscription and recurring commerce platforms, and B2B ordering portals. Most ecommerce projects deliver in 10 to 16 weeks at a fixed, agreed cost.
What ecommerce businesses get when they work with us
20+Ecommerce and retail businesses served across 8+ markets
·10-16Week delivery for ecommerce platforms
·100+Software products shipped
·FixedCost delivery
When the platform becomes the ceiling
Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento cover standard ecommerce well. They handle product listings, a standard checkout, basic promotions, and a handful of payment gateways. The ceiling appears when the business model requires something the platform wasn't designed to support -- complex product configurations with dozens of interdependent attributes, B2B pricing tiers per account, multi-vendor marketplace logic with seller-specific fulfilment and split payouts, subscription mechanics with custom box curation, or a catalogue size that pushes the platform's performance and API rate limits. At that point, the choice is maintaining expensive developer workarounds that break on every platform update or building a system designed for the actual business model from the start.
We build ecommerce software for businesses at this decision point -- and for businesses that have already reached it after launching on a standard platform. We have built custom ecommerce platforms, multi-vendor marketplaces, headless commerce frontends, subscription commerce systems, and B2B ordering portals. We understand the operational requirements specific to ecommerce: catalogue attribute flexibility, checkout conversion, inventory accuracy across locations, payment processing reliability, and the integration landscape between the ecommerce platform, warehouse management, ERP, and 3PL systems. These are designed into the system from the start, not retrofitted later.
Our ecommerce software development services
Custom ecommerce platforms
What you get
Custom product catalogue with configurable attributes and variant logic
Checkout with your specific tax, shipping, and payment rules
Order management with warehouse and fulfilment integration
Customer account and order history
Promotions and discount engine
Admin for merchandising teams without developer involvement
Best for
Retailers whose product configuration or catalogue logic cannot be modelled in Shopify without apps
Businesses replacing WooCommerce or Magento with a maintainable custom platform
Brands with complex bundle or subscription mechanics that SaaS platforms can't support cleanly
Multi-vendor marketplace development
What you get
Seller onboarding and verification workflow
Product listing and catalogue management per seller
Commission and fee structure configuration
Order routing to the correct seller
Split payment and payout automation
Buyer and seller dispute management
Marketplace analytics for operators
Best for
Businesses building a marketplace where multiple sellers list and fulfil independently
Platforms adding a marketplace model to an existing ecommerce operation
Industry-specific marketplace operators who need category-specific catalogue structures
Headless commerce architecture
What you get
API-first backend (commerce engine, product catalogue, cart, checkout) decoupled from the frontend presentation layer
Custom storefront built in Next.js or another framework of your choice
Content management integration for marketing teams to update pages without code
Performance-optimised frontend with fast page loads and Core Web Vitals scores that support organic search
Best for
Brands with high design and performance requirements that SaaS storefronts cannot meet
Businesses running multiple storefronts (B2C and B2B, multiple regions) from a single commerce backend
Retailers whose SEO performance is constrained by their current platform's page speed
AI personalisation and recommendations
What you get
Product recommendation engine trained on purchase and browse history
Personalised homepage and category page product ranking
AI-powered search that handles natural language queries and returns relevant results
Dynamic pricing recommendations by customer segment and demand signal
Abandoned cart and browse abandonment recovery with personalised content
Best for
Ecommerce businesses with enough catalogue depth and traffic that personalised recommendations materially increase conversion
Retailers whose search returns poor results for non-exact queries
Businesses using generic email automation that sends the same content to every subscriber
Subscription and recurring commerce
What you get
Subscription plan management with fixed and build-your-own box options
Recurring billing with multiple payment methods and smart retry for failed payments
Subscriber portal for pause, skip, swap, and cancellation self-service
Churn intervention workflow triggered before a subscriber cancels
Subscription analytics covering churn rate, lifetime value, and cohort retention
Best for
Subscription box businesses with box customisation and curation workflows
DTC brands adding a subscription model alongside one-off purchases
Businesses with high reorder rates who want to convert repeat buyers into subscribers
B2B ecommerce portals
What you get
Account-based pricing with customer-specific price lists and discount tiers
Quote request and approval workflow for large or custom orders
Minimum order quantity and bulk discount configuration
Purchase order payment terms including net-30 and net-60
Multi-user account management with buyer roles and approval limits
Integration with ERP for inventory and order data
Best for
Manufacturers and distributors moving from phone and email ordering to a self-service portal
B2B brands with complex pricing tiers that consumer ecommerce platforms cannot configure
Businesses with large account customers who need their own pricing, terms, and approval workflows
Problems we solve in ecommerce
Product catalogue complexity forcing custom development work every time a new attribute or variant type is added
SaaS ecommerce platforms define a fixed catalogue structure with a standard set of product attributes and variant types. When the product range includes items with attributes that don't fit the standard structure -- configurable dimensions, interdependent options, custom engraving fields, or industry-specific classification data -- every new product type requires developer involvement to work around the platform's data model. A custom catalogue built around the actual product range removes that constraint and gives merchandising teams the flexibility to add new product types without developer effort.
Checkout abandonment from a checkout flow built for average buyers rather than your specific customer and order type
Standard checkout flows are designed for a single buyer purchasing a standard product with a standard delivery address and a standard payment method. When the actual customers are B2B buyers on account terms, subscription customers managing recurring orders, or buyers configuring complex products with multiple options, the standard checkout creates friction at the point of purchase. A checkout built for the actual buyer type and order model reduces abandonment and removes the step where the platform's assumptions about the customer don't match reality.
Inventory and order data split across the ecommerce platform, warehouse system, and ERP with no single source of truth
When an order placed on the ecommerce platform has to be manually entered into the warehouse management system, and the fulfilment status has to be manually synced back to the platform, and the financial data has to be reconciled against the ERP at the end of the month, the process is slow, error-prone, and produces a different version of the truth in each system. An integrated order management layer that connects the ecommerce platform, warehouse system, and ERP gives every team a single accurate view of stock, orders, and fulfilment status in real time.
B2B customers ordering by phone or email because the ecommerce platform cannot handle account pricing and approval workflows
When B2B customers have negotiated pricing, credit terms, minimum order quantities, and multi-user approval workflows, and the ecommerce platform cannot configure any of these per account, the sales team handles every B2B order manually by phone or email. A B2B ecommerce portal with account-specific pricing, purchase order terms, and buyer approval workflows moves the ordering process online without losing the account-level commercial relationship.
Personalisation limited to generic email sequences because there is no recommendation engine connected to browse and purchase data
When the ecommerce platform and the email marketing tool hold customer data separately, personalised product recommendations require manual segment building and static product lists. The result is every customer in the same segment receiving the same product recommendations regardless of what they've browsed, what they've bought, and what they've returned. A recommendation engine connected to both the product catalogue and the customer behaviour data surfaces relevant products at the right point in the purchase journey without manual curation.
Subscription churn managed reactively because there is no early warning system before a subscriber cancels
When the first signal that a subscriber is about to cancel is the cancellation itself, the retention window is already closed. The data that predicts cancellation -- declining order engagement, skipped boxes, reduced product ratings, failed payment attempts -- is in the system before the cancellation happens. A churn intervention workflow that monitors these signals and triggers a retention action before the cancellation request removes the reactive pattern and gives the retention team a manageable queue of at-risk subscribers to engage before the revenue is lost.
How we work with ecommerce clients
Map the product catalogue structure, the checkout and fulfilment requirements, the integration landscape (ERP, warehouse, 3PL, payment gateways), and the operational workflows that the platform needs to support. Identify where the current approach -- whether a SaaS platform with workarounds or manual processes -- creates the most friction. Agree scope and produce a fixed-price specification before development begins.
Design the data model around the actual product range and business model: the catalogue attribute structure, the order and fulfilment workflow, the pricing engine (including B2B account pricing if needed), the integration architecture between the ecommerce platform and connected systems, and the admin layer for non-technical teams. Performance requirements for catalogue search and checkout are factored in before code is written.
Two-week sprints with working software at each checkpoint. Core catalogue, checkout, and order management ships first. Marketplace seller flows, subscription mechanics, AI personalisation, and third-party integrations follow in subsequent sprints. The merchandising admin is built alongside the customer-facing product so both can be tested with real data.
Test against real catalogue data, real order flows, and real payment scenarios. Warehouse and ERP integrations verified end-to-end with actual inventory and order data. Payment gateway integrations tested for failure scenarios, retry logic, and reconciliation accuracy. Performance tested against peak traffic and catalogue size expectations.
Phased go-live starting with a controlled product range or customer cohort before full launch. Monitoring configured for checkout failures, payment errors, inventory sync issues, and order routing problems. Post-launch optimisation covers conversion rate, search relevance, recommendation performance, and integration reliability as order volume grows.
What to ask any ecommerce software team
Catalogue and checkout
Can the product catalogue support the specific attribute types and variant logic your product range requires without a workaround?
Can the checkout be configured for your specific tax rules, shipping logic, and payment methods without a plugin dependency?
Does the promotion engine support the discount structures and bundle rules your merchandising team needs?
Order management and fulfilment
Does the system integrate directly with your warehouse management system or 3PL so order status updates without manual entry?
Is inventory accurate across all locations and sales channels in real time?
Can the system route orders to the correct fulfilment location based on stock availability and delivery rules?
Delivery and ownership
Is the price fixed before development starts?
Do you own the source code and all data after delivery?
What does the post-launch support model look like for catalogue updates, integration changes, and platform improvements?
Ecommerce software development cost
Scope
Estimated range
Timeline
Custom ecommerce platform
Custom ecommerce platform
$40,000–$90,000
10–16 weeks
Multi-vendor marketplace
Multi-vendor marketplace
$60,000–$120,000
14–20 weeks
B2B ecommerce portal
B2B ecommerce portal
$35,000–$75,000
10–14 weeks
Full ecommerce platform with AI
Full ecommerce platform with AI
$100,000–$250,000+
5–12 months
The cost of platform limitations in ecommerce
23%average revenue increase from personalised product recommendations versus generic catalogue display
·68%of B2B buyers prefer to self-serve online -- but most B2B sellers cannot support account pricing online
·3xhigher customer lifetime value for subscription customers versus one-off buyers in comparable DTC categories
Frequently asked questions
Shopify and WooCommerce handle standard ecommerce well and are the right choice for most businesses launching a direct-to-consumer store with a standard product range. Custom software becomes the right choice when the product catalogue requires attribute types and variant logic the platform cannot model, when B2B pricing tiers and account terms cannot be configured per customer, when the business is building a multi-vendor marketplace with seller-specific fulfilment and commission structures, when subscription mechanics require box customisation the platform cannot support, or when the ecommerce platform's API rate limits and performance characteristics are constraining catalogue size or integration architecture. The decision usually comes at a specific complexity or volume threshold rather than at the start.
Yes. Multi-vendor marketplace development is one of our core ecommerce capabilities. We build the seller onboarding and verification workflow, the per-seller product catalogue and inventory management, the order routing logic that sends each order to the correct seller, and the split payment and payout automation that distributes buyer payments to sellers after commission deduction. We also build the operator admin layer for managing sellers, categories, commission structures, and disputes. The architecture is designed so sellers operate independently -- listing their own products, managing their own inventory, and fulfilling their own orders -- while the marketplace operator has a single view of the entire operation.
Headless commerce decouples the storefront presentation layer from the commerce backend. The frontend is a custom application -- typically built in Next.js -- that fetches product, cart, and checkout data from an API rather than rendering pages through Shopify's or another platform's templating system. The result is a storefront with full control over performance optimisation, page structure, and content management, which typically produces significantly better Core Web Vitals scores than a theme-based storefront. The cost premium over a Shopify theme depends on the scope -- a headless frontend on top of an existing Shopify backend typically runs $25,000 to $60,000 depending on the number of page types and content management requirements, while a full custom headless platform (backend and frontend) sits in the $40,000 to $90,000 range.
A B2B ecommerce portal with account pricing, quote workflow, and ERP integration typically runs $35,000 to $75,000. A custom ecommerce platform covering catalogue, checkout, order management, and fulfilment integration runs $40,000 to $90,000. A multi-vendor marketplace with seller onboarding, commission management, and payout automation runs $60,000 to $120,000. A full ecommerce platform with AI personalisation, recommendation engine, and subscription commerce runs $100,000 to $250,000 or more depending on catalogue size, integration complexity, and the depth of the personalisation layer. Fixed cost is agreed before development starts.
Tell us your current platform, the catalogue and checkout requirements it can't handle, and the revenue model you're building toward. We'll tell you what we'd build and how.
