Ecommerce & online retail web design 
51 five-star reviews
51 five-star reviewsEcommerce Website Design
I’m Spencer, a freelance web designer in Brighton. I design and build online shops for retailers, makers and product businesses across Sussex and the UK — stores that load fast, take payment cleanly on a phone, and are simple enough to run yourself.
One person, start to finish: design, catalogue, payment gateways, shipping rules, search setup. No account managers, no monthly platform rent.
Stripe PayPal Apple Pay Google Pay Klarna Royal Mail Click & Drop Xero
100+WordPress websites built
55+Businesses worked with directly
51Five-star reviews
10+Years working with WordPress
Three products or three thousand, the job is the same: make it obvious what you sell, effortless to buy, findable on Google. Need a brochure site instead? My general web design service fits better.
Talk it through → Why it matters
What an online shop has to get right
An ecommerce website isn’t a brochure with a buy button bolted on. It’s machinery with a lot of moving parts — catalogue, variants, stock, tax, delivery, payment — and a customer who abandons the lot if one of them feels awkward.
Most shops I’m asked to rescue don’t have a design problem. They have a checkout that asks for an account before a card, a delivery cost sprung at the final screen, and product pages Google was never given a reason to rank.
A checkout that works with one thumb on a phone
Delivery cost and date shown early, not at the end
Product pages built to rank, with schema Google can read
Stock that stays accurate, so you never oversell
A recovery email for the carts abandoned anyway
A back end you can run yourself
Platform choice
WooCommerce or Shopify — which is right for you?
The first question worth answering — and the honest answer isn’t always the one that suits me.
When WooCommerce makes sense
Most businesses I work with. It sits on WordPress, so shop and content live in one place, all editable by you. It handles awkward products — bundles, wholesale tiers, subscriptions, made-to-order — with nothing you have to rent.
When Shopify makes sense
If you’re shifting very high volumes, want hosting, PCI compliance and updates handled for you, and your catalogue is simple, Shopify earns its fee. I’d rather say so at the quote stage than build the wrong thing.
The ownership argument
A hosted platform is rented. Stop paying and the shop goes dark, along with the design you paid for. A WordPress and WooCommerce store is yours — files, database, customer list, theme — to move or hand on as you like.
What it costs over three years
Hosted platforms charge a monthly plan fee, often plus a slice of every sale unless you use their own processor. WooCommerce has no platform fee at all — just hosting and card processing. Over three years that gap usually beats the build cost.
Design freedom
On a hosted platform you work inside a theme’s assumptions, solving the awkward bits with another paid app. On WordPress the product page is whatever the product needs — size guides, finance calculators, delivery estimators.
You’re not locked in either way
Products, customers and orders all export. I move stores off Shopify, Wix, Squarespace and Magento regularly and the data arrives intact, so this is a decision you can revisit.
Settled on WooCommerce? There’s a full page on it: WooCommerce development.
Get a free quote Pricing
How much does an ecommerce website cost?
Builds start from £800 and most projects land between £800 and £3,000. Shops sit at the upper end — there’s more to build — so expect £2,000 to £5,000+ for a larger store.
Small catalogue From £800
A straightforward shop with a modest range.
- Custom design, mobile first
- Catalogue and categories set up
- Cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay
- Flat-rate or weight-based shipping
- VAT configured correctly
- SSL and secure checkout
- Training so you can run it
Growing store £2,000 – £5,000
The usual shape of an ecommerce project: real catalogue, variants, marketing built in.
- Everything in the small catalogue
- Product variants, options and bundles
- Stock and low-stock alerts
- Abandoned cart recovery emails
- Product schema and category SEO
- Discount codes and sale scheduling
- Speed work for a large catalogue
Complex build Quoted
Unusual requirements, or a shop that has to move across cleanly.
- Migration from Shopify, Wix or Magento
- Redirect mapping so rankings hold
- Subscriptions, memberships or trade pricing
- Accounting and CRM integrations
- Multi-currency or overseas shipping
- Custom functionality built to spec
Two separate optional extras: hosting from £10/month, and support and care plans from £30/month. SEO retainers start at £250/month.
What’s included
Ecommerce web design services
The parts that decide whether a shop earns anything — set up at build time, not patched in later.
Payment processing
Customers pay the way they already want to:
- Apple Pay and Google Pay — one-tap checkout on mobile
- Stripe — cards, saved methods, Strong Customer Authentication
- PayPal — including Pay in 3 where eligible
- Klarna or Clearpay if buy-now-pay-later suits you
Guest checkout stays available — forcing account creation before payment loses sales.
Product catalogue and variants
Structure decided early is what stops a shop becoming unmanageable at 200 products: categories and filterable attributes that match how customers search, and variants carrying their own price, image, SKU and stock. Bundles and made-to-order items are modelled properly, not fudged.
Shipping and tax configuration
Delivery is where carts die. Rates that reflect what postage really costs you, surfaced early:
- Flat, weight or price banded, free over a threshold, click and collect
- UK, Highlands and Islands and overseas zones priced separately
- VAT set correctly, including zero-rated and reduced-rate goods
- Royal Mail Click & Drop or courier labels from the order
Stock management
Tracked at variant level, with backorder rules you choose, low-stock alerts and automatic out-of-stock handling, so nothing sells that you can’t ship. If you sell in a shop or at markets, the site can talk to your till.
Abandoned cart recovery
Most people who add to a basket don’t buy on that visit. If they left an email address, that’s a delayed sale rather than a lost one. I set up an automated sequence that chases a stalled cart, links back to the filled basket, and can carry a discount code.
Product page SEO and schema
Product and category pages are where ecommerce search traffic lands, so they’re built to compete rather than left as a grid of thumbnails: unique titles, real category copy, clean URLs, internal linking, alt text.
On top of that, product schema — the structured data that lets Google show price, availability and review stars. Want it pushed harder after launch? That’s my SEO service.
Speed on a large catalogue
Shops get slow for predictable reasons: uncompressed photography, plugins loading everywhere whether needed or not, and cart fragments that defeat caching. I deal with all three — images sized at upload, scripts loaded only where used, caching that respects the basket, queries kept sane on big category pages.
Built on WordPress, owned by you
Every store runs on WordPress with WooCommerce. No monthly platform fee, no revenue share, no feature behind an upgrade prompt — you pay for hosting and card processing, that’s it. Hosting and care plans are there if you want them; the store is yours either way.
One person builds it. One person answers the phone.
Get a free quote → Replatforming
Moving an existing shop without losing your rankings
The fear that keeps people on a platform they’ve outgrown is losing search traffic they spent years earning. Badly handled migrations do exactly that. It’s avoidable.
What goes wrong
The new store uses a different URL structure, nobody maps the old addresses to the new ones, and every indexed product page returns a 404.
How I handle it
Talk to me about moving your store →I crawl the existing shop, record every indexed URL, and build the redirect map before the new site goes near live. The old store stays up until the new one is signed off.
What a migration includes
- Products, variants, images, categories, customers and orders brought across
- A 301 redirect for every old URL, so earned authority carries over
- Payment gateways and shipping rules rebuilt and test-ordered
- Sitemap resubmitted and Search Console watched after launch
The process
How an ecommerce project runs
Four stages, from first call to a shop you can run without me.
First
Discovery call
What you sell, how many lines, how it ships, and whether anything unusual needs modelling. That decides platform and price.
Then
Quote and mockup
A fixed quote for the whole build, plus a free mockup of the homepage and a product page — the design and the number before you commit.
After that
Build and test
Design, catalogue, payments, shipping, tax and SEO setup — then real test orders through every payment method and delivery option.
Finally
Launch and training
Go-live, then a walkthrough of adding products, processing orders, refunds and sales. The store is yours outright.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
Still unsure? Ask me directly — I answer every enquiry myself.
Get a free quoteHow much does ecommerce website design cost?
Builds start from £800 and most projects land between £800 and £3,000. Shops sit at the upper end because there’s more to build, so a larger or more complex store is typically £2,000 to £5,000+ — quoted as a fixed price before work starts.
Should I use WooCommerce or Shopify?
For most businesses I work with, WooCommerce — no monthly platform fee, no limit on how product pages are designed, and you own it outright. Shopify earns its subscription at very high volumes with a simple catalogue. I’ll say which fits at the quote stage.
Which payment methods can I accept?
Cards via Stripe with 3D Secure handled properly, PayPal, and the express wallets — Apple Pay and Google Pay — which lift mobile conversion because nobody types a card number. Klarna or Clearpay can be added if buy-now-pay-later suits you.
Can you move my shop over without losing my Google rankings?
Yes, and it’s the part of a migration I spend most time on. Before anything goes live I crawl the existing store, record every URL Google has indexed, and build a 301 redirect map from old address to new. Products, images, customers and orders come across.
How many products can the site handle?
No practical ceiling — WooCommerce runs shops with tens of thousands of lines. What matters is how it’s built: proper category structure, filterable attributes, images that don’t send 4MB photographs to a phone, and caching that understands the basket.
Can I add products and manage orders myself?
That’s the whole point. You get an admin login and training covering adding and editing products, setting variants and stock, processing and refunding orders, printing labels and running a discount code. None of it needs me.
Do you set up shipping and VAT?
Both. Shipping is configured to match what postage really costs you — flat rate, weight or price banded, free over a threshold, click and collect, with separate zones for the Highlands, Islands and overseas. VAT is set correctly, zero-rated goods included.
How long does an ecommerce website take to build?
A small shop usually takes three to four weeks from sign-off. Larger builds, migrations and custom functionality run longer, and you’ll get a realistic timeline with the quote. The biggest variable is product data — photography, descriptions, prices.
What happens after launch?
You own the store and can walk away with it. If you’d rather not manage the technical side, hosting starts at £10/month and support and care plans at £30/month — two separate things, so take either, both or neither.
Do you only work with retailers in Brighton and Sussex?
No. I’m based in Brighton and do plenty of web design across Sussex, but ecommerce clients come from all over the UK and the process runs fine over calls and email. I’ve built over 100 WordPress websites and worked directly with more than 55 businesses — see my portfolio or book a call.
Recent work
Websites I’ve built
A few of the projects in my portfolio. Every one is a custom WordPress build, owned outright by the client.
Website design
Belmont Designs
Website design
Carbon Neutral America
Website design
Merson Digital
Website design
BS Lift Services
Website design
Binnington Mortgages
Website design
Connect Mortgage Services
Trusted by businesses across Sussex
How can I help?
Whether you’re looking for website advice, planning a new website project, need graphic design support or want to discuss branding services, I’m here to help. From WordPress development and website redesigns to logo design and complete brand identity projects, Podium Design offers comprehensive digital solutions for businesses across Sussex.
Please feel free to book a call using the calendar or fill in your details using the contact form to discuss your website project requirements, and I’ll be in touch as soon as possible. I’d love to hear about your web design goals, branding needs, or any graphic design projects you have in mind.
Get a free quote
I reply personally within one working day.
Sectors
Industries I work with
Whether you’re a startup, small business or multinational company, I build websites for businesses of all sizes across Sussex.
Accountants Architects B2B / Corporate Bakeries Builders Cafes / Coffee Shops Care Homes & Home Care Charities Chiropractors Coaching Construction Consultants Cosmetic Surgery Dentists Driving Instructors Electricians Estate Agents Financial Advisors Flooring Florists Golf Clubs Gyms / Fitness Hotels & B&Bs Insurance Brokers Interior Designers Kitchens Landscapers Law Firms Mechanics / Garages Medical Professionals Mortgage Advisors Nurseries / Childcare Nutritionists & Dietitians Photographers Physiotherapists Plumbers Podiatrists / Chiropodists Pubs & Bars Recruitment Agencies Renewables & Solar Restaurants / Hospitality Roofers Salons / Spas / Beauty Schools & Education Sports Clubs Therapists Tree Surgeons Vets Weddings / Events