Shopify, WooCommerce or a custom store?
Shopify is a hosted platform: reliable, secure and easy for staff to run, with a large app ecosystem and a monthly subscription. It suits most retailers and product brands. WooCommerce runs on WordPress and gives you more control and no platform subscription, but you take on hosting, security and plugin upkeep. A custom build makes sense for complex B2B pricing, product configurators, quote-based ordering or integrations that off-the-shelf platforms handle poorly. The right answer comes from your catalogue size, how you sell and who will run the store day to day.
How should GST, HST and PST be handled online?
Canadian sales tax depends on where the buyer is, not where you are. Ontario uses HST, some provinces use GST plus a provincial sales tax, others use GST alone, and rates differ. Your store needs to charge the right combination for each province, display it clearly and report it in a way your accountant can use. Shopify and WooCommerce both support Canadian tax settings, but they have to be configured correctly for your registrations. We set them up and test checkout from different provinces before launch, and leave tax advice to your accountant.
What makes product and category pages rank?
Search engines rank category pages for broad searches and product pages for specific ones. Categories need a clear structure that matches how buyers search, a short introduction and filters that do not create thousands of duplicate URLs. Product pages need unique descriptions rather than manufacturer copy, good photos with descriptive alt text, specifications buyers compare, and product structured data from schema.org so price and availability can appear in results. Fast loading on mobile matters for every page. Most underperforming stores fail on duplicate content and thin product copy rather than anything exotic.
How do shipping and fulfilment connect to the store?
Unexpected shipping costs are one of the most common reasons buyers abandon a cart, so rates should be clear early and accurate at checkout. Stores can connect to Canada Post and other carriers for live rates and label printing, use flat or free shipping thresholds, offer local pickup from a physical location, or hand orders to a third-party warehouse automatically. Inventory should sync between the store, any physical shop and marketplaces so you never sell something you do not have. These connections are planned before the build, not added afterwards.
What do Canadian stores need for payments and privacy?
Buyers expect cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and many Canadian shoppers look for Interac or PayPal options. If you sell into the United States, decide whether to show prices in US dollars and how you handle duties. Customer data is covered by federal privacy law, PIPEDA, so the store needs a clear privacy policy and sensible data handling. Marketing emails to customers fall under Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, which means collecting consent properly at checkout. Selling into Quebec brings French-language expectations worth planning for.
How is an ecommerce store measured?
By revenue and margin, not traffic. That means conversion tracking that records purchases with their value in Google Analytics, Google Ads and Meta, so you can see which campaigns and searches produced sales. Useful store metrics include conversion rate, average order value, cart abandonment, returning customer rate and revenue by channel. Product feeds connect the catalogue to Google Shopping and Meta catalogues for ads. With that in place, decisions about which products to promote and which ads to cut are based on sales rather than clicks.
