As the EC market expands rapidly, more and more companies are considering building their own EC site. In reality, many people in charge struggle with everything from basic questions like "What is an ASP?" and "What's the difference between a package and full-scratch development?" to strategic decisions such as "Which method best fits our budget and growth plans?"
This article thoroughly compares the three mainstream methods for building an EC site — ASP, package, and full-scratch — by cost, difficulty, and customizability. With diagrams and data, we'll help you find the best option with an eye on future growth.
There Are Three Main Ways to Build an EC Site
When a company builds its own EC site, there are broadly three approaches.
Let's look at each in detail.
ASP
A provider that offers an application for building an EC site over the internet is called an ASP. The biggest advantage is that once you register as a member, you can launch an EC site right away even without IT knowledge.
While simplicity and low setup cost are its hallmarks, customizability was once limited. In recent years, however, some ASPs have achieved advanced customization by integrating with external applications.
For recommended ASPs, please refer to the blog article below.
Package
Downloading a program with EC functionality and customizing it to fit your company's EC business is called a package. Compared to an ASP, which comes with a certain template already built, a package only downloads the framework, and the finer details are customized specifically for your company.
Compared to an ASP, setup cost and site build time tend to be longer.
Full-Scratch
Building an EC site completely from zero, fully in-house, is called full-scratch development. While it allows for complete customization, it requires enormous cost and time, so it is mainly adopted by large enterprises. ZOZOTOWN and UNIQLO's online store are examples of full-scratch builds.
How to Choose the Right EC Site Creation Method for Your Company
Choosing by Cost and Difficulty
If you're wondering which method your company should use to build an EC site, consider the cost involved and the difficulty of building the site for each option.
Of the three, ASP is by far the cheapest and easiest way to build an EC site.
Among ASPs, there is a wide range of options from free to paid plans, allowing you to choose a service that fits your budget and business.
Among ASPs, there is a wide range of options from free to paid plans, allowing you to choose a service that fits your budget and business.
On the other hand, packages and full-scratch development involve significant upfront costs and require in-house site development, meaning you'll need to secure production time and IT talent (or outsource the work).
However, the advantage is that you can achieve customization optimized down to the smallest detail for your company.
Is ASP Really Lacking in Customizability?
ASPs tend to be cheap and simple but historically had lower customizability. However, some recent ASPs achieve customizability close to that of packages or full-scratch development by integrating with external applications.
Even features that an ASP doesn't have on its own can be added by integrating with external applications, allowing you to build the EC site best suited to your business.
Points to Consider When Choosing an ASP
After deciding to launch an EC site using an ASP, many people in charge face the next challenge: choosing the best service from among the many ASPs available.
First, consider whether to use a free plan or a paid plan.
About Cost
Some ASP providers offer both no initial cost and no monthly fee. However, with free plans, the payment processing fee charged when a product sells is always higher, so caution is needed.
If your sales volume is high, a paid plan with no or relatively low payment processing fees may actually keep your total costs lower.
About Custom Domains
A domain is the URL that serves as your EC site's address. With a free plan, you operate your site by borrowing a domain (part of the URL) provided by the ASP, and you cannot acquire your own custom domain.
This is fine as long as you keep using the free ASP, but if you decide to "switch to a paid ASP," the borrowed free domain can no longer be used, and you'll need to newly acquire your own URL.
Companies that want to expand their EC site in the future should consider adopting a paid plan that allows a custom domain from the start.
About Customizability
Free ASPs have fixed site templates, so customization features are limited. Paid plans, on the other hand, often let you build your own site design using HTML and CSS, or expand functionality by integrating with external features.
Support tends to be more robust with paid plans as well, so if you're serious about running an EC site, a paid plan is recommended.
Shopify Is Recommended for Functionality and Customizability
Shopify is an ASP that offers functionality and customizability comparable to full-scratch or package development, while still allowing you to build an EC site relatively cheaply and easily.
With a rich set of integrations with external applications, you can build a highly functional EC site by adopting the applications that fit the characteristics of your EC business.
Benefits of Shopify
- High functionality and customizability
- Can integrate with external applications
- Easy inventory integration and strong shipping/fulfillment support
- Makes it easy to try selling overseas
If you'd like to learn more about Shopify, please refer to the article below.
If you'd like to learn more about Shopify's pricing plans, please refer to the article below.
Points to Consider When Choosing a Package
There are both free, open-source packages and paid packages.
Free packages involve customizing code that is published and offered free of charge to build your EC site, whereas paid packages involve customizing an already-built program.
Both require a high level of IT knowledge to build an EC site.
About Cost
Free packages have no initial cost and no monthly usage fee. Paid packages, on the other hand, require an initial cost of over 1 million yen, with a monthly usage fee of several hundred thousand yen.
About Security and Support
Free packages use publicly available code, so they tend to carry higher security risk. Paid packages typically use programs whose source code is not public, so they tend to be more secure and come with solid support.
About Updates
EC site trends change rapidly, and a system can become outdated in as little as three years. To keep a site easy for users to use, you need to update the system in line with the times.
Since free packages only provide the code, you must handle system updates in-house, incurring rework costs each time.
Paid packages, by contrast, have the provider regularly update the system, so you always have access to the latest version.
* Cloud-based paid packages are now the mainstream, as opposed to on-premise (self-hosted server) installations.
Points to Consider When Choosing Full-Scratch Development
Full-scratch development is the method of building an EC site completely from zero. While it requires enormous cost and effort, its biggest advantage is that it can be fully customized to your company's specifications.
However, as the functionality of ASPs and packages has improved significantly in recent years, the benefits of full-scratch development for small and medium-sized businesses have diminished, and fewer companies are adopting this method every year.
In Closing
Building an EC site is an important decision in a company's digital strategy. Whichever of ASP, package, or full-scratch development you choose, what matters is making the decision after understanding your company's current sales scale, management goals, and available IT talent, with an eye toward mid-term business growth (two to three years out).
Use the comparison tables and diagrams in this article not just to choose what's "best right now," but to choose a platform with "built-in scalability for the future."
Modern ASPs like Shopify, with rich integration capabilities, are also a strong option in terms of the balance between customizability and cost. Adopt the right platform to boost sales and accelerate your online business.
