Stores that ship.

WooCommerce or custom storefronts for South African businesses. Built to convert, configured for SARS, paired with a care plan so checkout doesn't break six months after launch.

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What's in an e-commerce project

An e-commerce project is what you commission when you need to sell online without your checkout breaking the first time a SARS-compliant invoice fails to render. This is what you actually buy: a scoped catalogue, a working gateway, a checkout flow tested on real devices, and a handover that lets your team add products without calling us. No discovery theatre, no strategic alignment sessions — concrete deliverables you can list on an invoice.

  • Discovery + product taxonomy planning (1–2 weeks)

    Working sessions, product catalogue review, category/attribute/variation model, integration list, and a written scope. Output: a fixed-fee quote you can put next to alternative agencies and compare line for line.

  • WooCommerce or custom — decision criterion

    Catalogues under ~500 SKUs with standard product types: WooCommerce + curated plugins ships fast and cheap (from R25k). Complex variations, contract pricing, B2B portals, marketplace listings: custom build (R400k–R1.2M typical). We tell you which during scoping with the reasoning, not the preference.

  • Payment gateway integration

    PayFast, Yoco, or Stripe — whichever fits your buyer and chargeback profile. Sandbox testing through to SARS-compliant production. Each gateway is one integration line; a failover between two gateways is its own piece of work, scoped separately.

  • SARS / VAT configuration

    Tax codes per product category, VAT-inclusive pricing on the storefront (the SA buyer expectation), Tax Invoice PDFs compliant with the SA Tax Invoice format, South African shipping zones with per-courier rates. Not a checkbox — an architecture decision baked in from day one.

  • Conversion-optimised checkout flow

    Guest checkout, autofill-friendly fields, address validation, real-time shipping calc, payment-method selection, single-page or 3-step depending on catalogue scale. We test the actual flow on at least 3 device sizes before the store goes live.

  • Post-launch handoff + 30-day support window

    Admin training session, a written runbook (15–25 pages — adding products, refunds, dispute handling, customer-data exports), and 30 days of fixes/adjustments included. After that a Site Care plan picks up (R1,250/mo entry for WooCommerce; more for custom) or an ad-hoc quote.

Pricing context

E-commerce builds are quoted per project. WooCommerce stores start from R25k and ship in 6–10 weeks; custom storefronts run R400k–R1.2M and ship in 3–5 months. The pricing tiers below are the ongoing-care plans that keep the store healthy after launch — WooCommerce specifically needs Digital Care or higher, because checkout breakage costs revenue the moment it happens.

Site Care plans

Site Care

R1,250 / month

  • Hosting monitored 24/7
  • Daily core + plugin updates
  • Monthly off-site backups
  • Security patching

Digital Care

R2,300 / month

  • Everything in Site Care
  • Daily off-site backups
  • Performance tuning
  • Monthly content updates (1 hr)
  • Quarterly site review

Operational Care

R4,500 / month

  • Everything in Digital Care
  • 4 hours of dev time / month
  • Quarterly strategy call
  • Priority support

All prices exclude VAT (15%).

Common questions about e-commerce

WooCommerce or custom — when does each make sense?
WooCommerce for catalogues under ~500 SKUs, standard product types, and common payment flows — fast and cheap, usually 6–10 weeks. Custom for complex variations (think mining supply where each part has 12–15 specs), unusual pricing logic (volume discounts, contract pricing, B2B portals), marketplace listings with multiple vendors, or scale (50k+ SKUs). We make the call during scoping with reasoning, not preference.
What payment gateways do you set up?
PayFast (the most common for SA), Yoco (good for small businesses bridging in-store and online), Stripe (international plus recurring billing). Each is a single integration line; we recommend one based on your chargeback profile and customer geography. Running two gateways with failover is its own piece of work, quoted separately.
How does SARS VAT integration actually work?
Tax codes per product category, VAT-inclusive prices on the storefront (the SA buyer expectation), Tax Invoice PDFs with VAT number and country/region in the header, compliant with the SA Tax Invoice format. We've been through SARS audits with client stores twice — it's not a plugin toggle, it's an architecture decision you make at the beginning.
What's included at launch versus ongoing care?
Launch includes the build plus 30 days of fixes. Ongoing care (Digital Care at R2,300/mo or higher for WooCommerce) covers plugin updates with regression testing, security patching, daily backups, and performance monitoring. WooCommerce specifically needs Digital Care minimum because plugin updates can break checkout in ways the basic Site Care tier isn't scoped to catch — and a broken checkout costs revenue in real time.
Do you handle product photography?
No. We recommend a local product photographer (we can name two or three in Randburg / Johannesburg). What we do is integrate the photos into the storefront — WebP conversion, lazy-load, structured-data product images that surface in Google Shopping. The photography stays with the photographer; the integration stays with us.
How long for a typical small store?
6–10 weeks for WooCommerce with around 50–200 SKUs and 2–3 product types. Custom storefronts: 3–5 months depending on integration depth. Faster (4–6 weeks) is possible if you already have product photos, copy, and a clear taxonomy decided before kickoff. We name the band during scoping, not after.

WooCommerce stores in production for 5+ years, still upgraded weekly, never lost a checkout to a plugin regression. Custom storefronts for B2B mining suppliers with 12-spec part variations and contract pricing baked in. Two SARS audits navigated end to end. The trust signal isn't the pitch deck — it's that the stores are still standing, still upgraded, and still taking orders six years on.

Need a care plan after launch? See WordPress Care plans →

Ready to start selling?

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