Services → E-Commerce Website Build
We design and build online stores on Shopify for businesses selling to South African customers — set up for how people actually buy here, and built by the same team that works on being found. Builds run four to eight weeks, and we'll tell you where yours sits before you commit.
Where the growth is
Online retail is where South African retail growth is happening.
South African online retail grew 35% in 2024, reaching R96 billion — around 8% of everything the country spends at retail. Physical retail grew 2.5% over the same year. That gap is not a blip, and it is why an online store that works properly is now a serious business asset rather than a second channel.
The same study expects online retail to pass R130 billion by the end of 2025 and approach a tenth of national retail. Baskets are getting bigger too: over the six months it measured, R2,001-and-above became the largest spend bracket at 23.4%, while the smallest baskets shrank.
What that means for a business selling online is straightforward: the customers are already there, already searching, and already comparing. The question is whether they find you, and whether what they find earns the sale.
35%
Growth in 2024, the two channels side by side. Online is not taking a slice of the growth — it is most of it.
55.9%
Shoppers use more than one device, so these do not add up to 100%. This is why the store is built for phones first, not adapted to them afterwards.
The gap
An online store nobody finds is a catalogue, not a shopfront.
An online store can look immaculate and still sell almost nothing, because it was built as a design project and visibility was left until after launch. The opposite is just as costly: real budget, real traffic, and a path to checkout that quietly loses people along the way.
Both are the same problem seen from different ends: the build and the demand were treated as separate jobs, usually by separate people. We do both, so they are designed together — the online store structured for the searches that matter, and the path to purchase built to hold the people who arrive.
What's included
- 01
Discovery and how your online store is organised
Your product range, how customers actually shop it, and the structure that follows from that — categories, navigation, and the path from landing to checkout.
- 02
Design and build on Shopify
An online storefront that carries your brand properly, built for phones first.
- 03
Your products, loaded and organised
Every product added with its description, images, price and options — sizes, colours, whatever applies — and grouped into collections so customers can find what they're looking for.
- 04
South African payments, shipping and tax
The payment methods your customers already trust, shipping rules that match how you actually deliver, and VAT configured correctly.
- 05
Search foundations, built in from the start
Page structure, titles, descriptions, image alt text and technical setup done during the build rather than retrofitted after launch.
- 06
Handover and training
Your online store, run by you — with the training to do it, and us on hand through the first weeks after launch.
Beyond a standard build
Some online stores need more than a standard build.
Builds follow a familiar shape. Some don't. Moving from another system, like WooCommerce or Wix, means carrying years of search visibility across deliberately, rather than hoping it survives the move. A wholesale side of the business needs its own prices, its own login and its own rules. And an online store that already gets visitors but few orders usually needs the path to purchase rebuilt, not the whole site replaced.
- Moving from another platform
- Wholesale and trade ordering
- Improving an existing online store
Each is a defined piece of work, scoped and quoted on what it actually involves rather than added to a build — a move from another platform especially, where the size of the job follows how many products you sell.
How it's tracked: items added to the basket, payments completed, orders and revenue — set up in your own Shopify and analytics accounts, so the online store is judged on what it sells rather than on how many people visited.
Common questions
How much does an online store cost in South Africa?
It depends on how many products you sell and what the store needs to do, so we quote per project after scoping it rather than publishing a package price. You'll get a real figure once we understand what you're actually building.
How long does a build take?
A build runs four to eight weeks. The biggest variable is how ready your product information, descriptions and images are when we start — a big product range with descriptions still to write takes longer than a small one that's ready to load.
Shopify or WooCommerce — which is right for us?
For most product businesses we recommend Shopify, because it keeps the site online, keeps it secure, and handles card payments safely, so none of that becomes your problem. WooCommerce still earns its place where a business needs unusual features or a great deal of written content, and if that's you, we'll say so.
Can you move our existing online store to Shopify?
Yes — from WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace or a custom build. Worth knowing up front that Shopify uses its own URL structure, so your page addresses change even when your product names don't, which is why the redirect work matters and why a migration is scoped separately from a new build.
Will the new online store keep our search rankings?
Rankings attach to URLs rather than to businesses, so when addresses change the rankings only follow if Google is told properly. Before launch we map every existing URL to its new one and set a permanent redirect, and those redirects stay in place for at least a year, which is Google's own guidance. Titles, descriptions and image alt text come across with the products. Google is also clear that some ranking movement is normal during any site move, and that it can take weeks to settle — longer for bigger product ranges. So done properly this is a transfer rather than a reset, and anyone who guarantees you won't move isn't being straight with you.
Which South African payment methods can we accept?
The payment methods South African shoppers already use and trust are set up during the build, along with the shipping rules and courier setup that match how you actually deliver.
Will our current site stay live while the new one is built?
Yes. The new online store is built separately and privately, and your existing site keeps trading right up until we switch over.
Do we need a Shopify plan before you start?
No. As a Shopify Partner we build your store on a development store first, so you're not paying a subscription while it's being built. You choose your plan when it's ready to go live.
Can we manage the online store ourselves afterwards?
Yes, and that's the intention. You get training on your own store, and the day-to-day work — adding products, changing prices, updating the homepage, writing a blog post — is yours to do without needing a developer.
Do you handle the marketing too, or only the build?
Both, and they work better together. An online store nobody finds doesn't sell, and paying to send people to a store that loses them is money wasted — which is why the build and the visibility work are designed as one piece rather than handed between two suppliers.