Straight answers on building online shops.
These guides are written from 29 years of building ecommerce websites in the UK. Not marketing copy. Not platform comparison pages designed to steer you toward a subscription. Just the actual answers to the questions people ask most often - written by someone who's been solving these problems since before Shopify existed.
Costs & budgeting
What does an online shop actually cost?
A complete breakdown - domain registration, design and build, hosting, payment processing, ongoing maintenance - so you understand the full commitment before you start.
Platform choice
Shopify vs bespoke: which is right for you?
An honest comparison. Monthly fees versus fixed cost. Template constraints versus custom design. When each approach actually makes commercial sense.
Getting started
How to choose an online shop builder
The questions to ask before signing up, the red flags to watch for, and the things that look identical on paper but produce very different results.
Payments
What is a payment gateway?
Plain-English explainer of how online payments actually work, which provider you might need, and what the transaction fees look like in practice.
Security
Ecommerce malware: why platform sites get hacked and bespoke ones don't
Why WordPress and WooCommerce shops are targeted by automated attacks - and why a bespoke-built shop has a fundamentally smaller attack surface.
Platform choice
WooCommerce vs bespoke: which is right for your shop?
WooCommerce is the world's most widely-used ecommerce platform - and the most frequently hacked. An honest comparison for UK businesses weighing up their options.
Operations
How long does it take to build an online shop?
Realistic timelines, what the client needs to have ready, and why most project delays have nothing to do with the designer.
Design
Bespoke vs template: do you need a custom shop?
When a template genuinely works for an online shop - and when the constraints only become visible after you've launched.
Getting started
How to brief a web designer
What to have ready before you pick up the phone - and how better preparation leads to a more accurate quote and a better result.
Infrastructure
Ecommerce hosting explained
What hosting actually means for an online shop, why cheap hosting costs more in the long run, and what to look for.
Marketing
SEO for online shops
What actually affects search rankings for ecommerce - technical foundations, product pages, and what to ignore from the agencies.
The guides answer the questions. Futurestore builds the shop.
IDX and Futurestore are the same studio. If reading these guides has brought you closer to a decision, the next step is a conversation with Lawrence at online shop designers Futurestore.
Visit futurestore.co.uk →"I started IDX because I could see small businesses were going to need a way to sell online. Most of the tools didn't exist yet, so we built them."