Tried a free turn-key e-commerce site, when should I budget for an agency?

Being stuck on a subdomain means the 6 months of SEO work you put in is basically wasted. When you migrate tomorrow, all the search rankings you built up will stay with the old platform's domain. The sooner you move to an independent platform on your own custom domain, the better.

Run these numbers before making a decision: 1) Current commission: 50,000 x 6% = 3,000 TL/mo. 2) Cost of a standard paid plan: ~1,500 TL/mo. 3) Manual shipping workload: at least 8 hours lost per month for 40 orders. Switching to a paid turn-key package on your own is an immediate net gain.

I was in a similar spot, stuck with a free admin panel, and paid 24,000 TL in commissions over 6 months. Then I paid 14,000 TL for an annual professional plan and switched over; my virtual POS commission dropped to 2.4% too. The very first month, once shipping barcodes started printing automatically, my order prep time was cut in half.

An agency asking 2,500 TL a month for maintenance is completely absurd. What technical maintenance is there to do every single month on a standard site pulling 40 orders? The platform providers handle things like server crashes and security patches automatically behind the scenes anyway, don't tie yourself to an agency.

that's the whole trap with free sites right when things start taking off they lock u down with fees. honestly don't bother with an agency, just grab a standard annual plan and set it up yourself in two days.

Export your customer emails, phone numbers, and order history from the current platform to an Excel sheet right away. Some free setups block you from exporting your customer list when you try to leave, so secure your data first.

I was actually thinking about opening a boutique too, don't we fully own the domain on free platforms? Would I lose my existing customers if I move to my own site down the line?

The takeaway is pretty clear: That 6% fee and the manual workload on the free tier are actively hurting your bottom line. The fix isn't handing 30,000 TL to an agency, it's migrating to a turn-key e-commerce platform in the 15-20k TL/year range and automating your shipping and POS.

There is something to watch out for. Taking notes for two weeks yields better results than a six-month estimate.

If scope grows, either time or budget must grow. There is no third option. That's all, sorry if I went on too long.

thanks this was very helpful. anyway the system lives on after delivery; maintenance is a separate line item.

of course, it varies if your situation is different.

I felt relieved reading this answer, so it's not just me. Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's right.

Just leaving this note, it might be useful.

I'd appreciate it if you shared the outcome.

We got stuck at the same point for a while. Processes without records never improve, because you don't know what to fix.

If you post the result here, it will help others too.

The answer above hits the nail on the head. Every "we'll look at it later" in a meeting means unbilled work.

If you post the result here, it will help others too.

Noted thanks. Everyone rushing into free turn-key e-commerce site gets stuck at the same point.

The harder it is to reverse a decision the slower you should make it. anyway this is my opinion I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

Three different views emerged, they all complement each other. If you get three different answers on a topic, the question was asked wrong.

I think differently. The harder it is to reverse a decision, the slower you should make it.

If you post the result here, it will help others too.

I went through the same thing.