Custom Software & Tools

Custom E-commerce Tools: Purpose-Built Software for Operations That Outgrow Off-the-Shelf

Every growing e-commerce business eventually hits the same wall. The platform you started with works well enough for standard operations, but your workflows have evolved. You are managing multiple sales channels, coordinating with dozens of suppliers, handling complex pricing rules, or syncing inventory across systems that were never designed to talk to each other. At some point, the patchwork of plugins, spreadsheets, and manual workarounds becomes the bottleneck — not the business itself.

Custom e-commerce tools exist to solve precisely this problem. Rather than forcing your operations into the constraints of generic software, bespoke e-commerce software is designed around how your team actually works. The result is fewer errors, faster processes, and operational workflows that scale with your business instead of against it.

At Duxly, we specialise in building custom integration development solutions for European e-commerce businesses. From middleware that routes data between your ERP and webshop, to internal dashboards that give your team real-time visibility into operations, we build the exact tooling your business needs — nothing more, nothing less.

When Custom Software Makes Sense

Not every problem requires custom software. Off-the-shelf tools are often the right choice — they are faster to deploy, come with documentation, and have established user communities. The decision to build custom should be deliberate and grounded in clear business logic.

Signs You Have Outgrown Standard Tools

Custom development typically becomes the right path when you recognise one or more of these situations:

• Multiple workarounds stacked on top of each other. If your team uses three tools, two spreadsheets, and a manual copy-paste step to complete a single workflow, the total cost of those workarounds (in time, errors, and training) often exceeds the cost of a purpose-built solution.

• Your workflow is genuinely unique. Businesses with non-standard pricing models, complex multi-warehouse fulfilment, or industry-specific compliance requirements often cannot find tools that fit without heavy customisation — at which point you are paying for custom development anyway, just within someone else’s constraints.

• Integration gaps between systems. When your webshop, ERP, PIM, and logistics systems need to exchange data in ways that no existing connector supports, custom e-commerce middleware becomes the bridge. This is especially common with older ERP systems or niche platforms that lack modern APIs.

• Commercial tools cost more than building. Some SaaS products charge per-transaction or per-user fees that become prohibitive at scale. A one-time investment in custom tooling with predictable hosting costs can deliver better long-term economics.

• You need operational visibility that does not exist. If the data you need lives across four systems and no single dashboard gives you the view your team requires, a custom dashboard development project may be the fastest path to informed decision-making.

When Custom Is Not the Answer

To be clear: we advise against custom development when a well-established tool solves the problem cleanly, when the workflow is likely to change significantly in the near term, or when the team lacks the capacity to participate in a development process. In those cases, we help clients find and configure the right existing solution instead.

Types of Custom E-commerce Tools

The term “custom software” covers a wide range of solutions. Here are the most common categories of e-commerce operations tooling we build for clients:

Middleware and Integration Layers

E-commerce middleware sits between your systems and handles the translation, routing, and orchestration of data. Unlike point-to-point integrations that break when either side changes, well-architected middleware creates a stable middle layer that absorbs complexity.

Common middleware functions include:

• Order routing — directing orders to the correct warehouse, supplier, or fulfilment centre based on product type, stock levels, or geography
• Product data transformation — converting supplier feeds into the format your webshop expects, including attribute mapping, image processing, and category assignment
• Inventory synchronisation — maintaining accurate stock levels across multiple sales channels and warehouses in near real-time
• Price calculation engines — applying tiered pricing, currency conversion, customer-group discounts, or margin rules before pushing prices to channels

Middleware is often the first custom tool a scaling e-commerce business needs. For more on how we approach system connections, see our integration and automation services.

Custom Dashboards and Reporting Tools

Standard analytics platforms provide general-purpose metrics. But e-commerce operations teams typically need specific, actionable views that combine data from multiple sources into a single interface.

Custom dashboard development projects we have delivered include:

• Order operations dashboards showing real-time order status, fulfilment bottlenecks, and exception queues across all channels
• Supplier performance monitors tracking delivery times, error rates, and catalogue completeness per supplier
• Financial reconciliation views matching webshop transactions against ERP bookings and payment provider settlements
• Inventory health dashboards highlighting slow movers, stockout risks, and reorder triggers across warehouses

These dashboards pull data from APIs, databases, and event streams to present a unified operational picture. They are often the tool your team opens first thing in the morning. For deeper analytics capabilities, explore our analytics and optimisation service.

Supplier and Partner Portals

Managing relationships with dozens or hundreds of suppliers often requires tooling that goes beyond email and spreadsheets. Custom portals give external partners a controlled interface to interact with your systems.

Typical portal features include:

• Product data submission — suppliers upload catalogue data in their preferred format; the portal validates, transforms, and routes it to your PIM or webshop
• Stock and availability updates — partners update inventory levels directly, with validation rules preventing common errors
• Order visibility — suppliers see relevant orders, confirm shipments, and upload tracking information
• Onboarding workflows — guided processes for new suppliers to provide required information, sign agreements, and set up data feeds

Bulk Data Editors and Product Tooling

E-commerce catalogues grow complex. When your team needs to update hundreds of products, manage variant matrices, or apply changes across categories, standard admin interfaces become painfully slow.

Custom bulk editors provide:

• Spreadsheet-like interfaces for rapid multi-product editing with validation
• Bulk attribute assignment using rules and filters
• Image management tools for batch upload, cropping, and assignment
• Product enrichment workflows combining AI-generated descriptions with human review
• Preview and staging capabilities to verify changes before publishing

Workflow Automation Tools

Some processes are too complex for simple automation rules but too repetitive for manual execution. Custom workflow tools encode your business logic into guided processes.

Examples include:

• Returns processing tools that guide warehouse staff through condition assessment, refund decisions, and restocking
• Product launch checklists ensuring all channels, translations, images, and prices are configured before go-live
• Exception handlers that surface integration errors with context, suggest fixes, and allow one-click resolution
• Approval workflows for price changes, content updates, or new supplier activations

Technology Stack and Architecture

The technology choices behind custom e-commerce tools matter enormously for long-term maintainability, cost, and reliability. We build with a consistent, proven stack optimised for e-commerce workloads.

Serverless Infrastructure on AWS

We build almost exclusively on AWS serverless services. This architecture eliminates server management, scales automatically with load, and keeps costs proportional to actual usage — which is ideal for e-commerce tools that may see traffic spikes during sales periods.

Core services we use:

• AWS Lambda — event-driven compute for API endpoints, data processing, and scheduled jobs
• DynamoDB — fast, scalable NoSQL database for operational data
• S3 — object storage for files, images, exports, and static assets
• API Gateway — managed API layer with authentication and rate limiting
• SQS / EventBridge — message queuing and event routing for reliable async processing
• CloudWatch — monitoring, alerting, and operational visibility

Backend: Python and Node.js

Our backend code is written primarily in Python and Node.js, chosen for their extensive library ecosystems, strong AWS SDK support, and the practical advantage that most e-commerce integrations involve JSON APIs, data transformation, and orchestration — tasks these languages handle exceptionally well.

• Python — preferred for data processing, ETL pipelines, and integrations with ERPs and financial systems
• Node.js — preferred for real-time APIs, webhook handlers, and applications where JavaScript throughout the stack simplifies development

Frontend: React with Modern Frameworks

For custom UIs — dashboards, portals, editors — we build with React using frameworks like Next.js or Astro depending on the requirements.

• React — component-based UI architecture with a massive ecosystem
• Tailwind CSS — utility-first styling for consistent, maintainable interfaces
• Authentication — AWS Cognito for user management, supporting SSO and multi-factor authentication where required

Why This Stack

This is not a trendy choice; it is a deliberate one. Serverless on AWS means:

• No servers to patch or maintain
• Automatic scaling from zero to thousands of concurrent requests
• Pay-per-use pricing (many of our tools cost less than EUR 10/month to run)
• Built-in redundancy and high availability
• Straightforward compliance with EU data residency requirements (all data stays in eu-central-1)

The Development Process

Building custom e-commerce software successfully requires a structured process that balances speed with thoroughness. We follow a four-phase approach refined across dozens of projects.

Phase 1: Discovery (1-2 Weeks)

Before writing any code, we invest time in understanding the problem deeply. This phase involves:

• Workflow mapping — documenting the current process step-by-step, including pain points, edge cases, and failure modes
• Data audit — identifying what data exists, where it lives, what format it takes, and what APIs are available
• Stakeholder interviews — talking to the people who will actually use the tool daily
• Constraint identification — understanding security requirements, compliance needs, performance expectations, and budget boundaries
• Success metrics — defining what “working” looks like in measurable terms

The output is a clear specification that both sides agree on before development begins.

Phase 2: Prototype (1-2 Weeks)

Rather than building the full solution and hoping it works, we start with a focused prototype that validates the core approach. This might be:

• A working integration between two key systems, proving data can flow correctly
• A basic UI showing the most critical view, confirming it answers the right questions
• A processing pipeline handling a sample dataset, verifying performance and accuracy

The prototype is not throwaway code — it becomes the foundation for the full build. But it is deliberately scoped to test assumptions early, before significant investment.

Phase 3: Build (3-8 Weeks)

With the approach validated, we build the full solution iteratively. This phase typically includes:

• Core logic implementation — the business rules, data transformations, and integrations
• Error handling and resilience — retry logic, dead-letter queues, graceful degradation
• User interface development — if applicable, building out the full UI with all required views
• Testing — automated tests for critical paths, integration tests for system boundaries
• Documentation — technical documentation for maintenance, user guides for operators
• Deployment automation — infrastructure as code, CI/CD pipelines, environment management

We deliver incrementally, with working features available for review every one to two weeks.

Phase 4: Iterate (Ongoing)

Software is never truly finished. After launch, real usage reveals opportunities for improvement:

• Usage analytics — understanding which features get used, where users get stuck
• Performance tuning — optimising based on actual load patterns
• Feature additions — extending capabilities based on evolving needs
• Integration expansion — connecting additional systems as the business grows

This phase often continues for months or years as the tool becomes embedded in daily operations.

Build vs Buy: A Decision Framework

The build-vs-buy decision is one of the most consequential choices a growing e-commerce business makes. Here is a practical framework for evaluating the options.

Favour Buying When:

• A mature product exists that covers 80%+ of your requirements
• Your workflow is relatively standard for your industry
• You need a solution running within days, not weeks
• The vendor’s pricing works at your scale for the foreseeable future
• You lack internal capacity to participate in a development process
• The problem domain changes rapidly and you benefit from the vendor’s R&D

Favour Building When:

• No existing tool covers more than 50% of your requirements without heavy customisation
• Your competitive advantage depends on proprietary operational workflows
• You have already outgrown one or more commercial tools
• Per-unit vendor pricing becomes prohibitive at your transaction volume
• You need deep integration with systems that lack standard connectors
• Data sovereignty or compliance requirements rule out third-party SaaS
• The total cost of multiple point solutions exceeds the cost of one integrated custom tool

The Hybrid Approach

Often the best answer is neither pure build nor pure buy, but a combination. Use best-in-class SaaS for commodity functions (email, payments, shipping rates) and build custom only for the unique operational logic that differentiates your business. Custom middleware then connects these components into a cohesive system.

Maintenance and Ongoing Support

Custom software requires ongoing attention. Unlike SaaS products where the vendor handles updates, custom tools need a maintenance strategy. Here is how we approach long-term support.

Monitoring and Alerting

Every tool we build includes:

• Health checks — automated verification that all components are functioning
• Error tracking — immediate alerts when integrations fail or processing errors occur
• Performance monitoring — tracking response times, queue depths, and resource utilisation
• Cost monitoring — ensuring infrastructure costs remain within expected bounds

Regular Maintenance

On a scheduled basis, we handle:

• Dependency updates — keeping libraries and runtimes current for security and compatibility
• API version management — adapting when connected systems release new API versions
• Performance reviews — quarterly assessment of system performance and cost efficiency
• Security patching — applying updates to address vulnerabilities

Feature Evolution

As your business grows, your tools should grow with it. We structure engagements to support:

• Feature requests — prioritised backlog of improvements based on team feedback
• Integration additions — connecting new systems as you add channels or suppliers
• Scale adjustments — architectural changes when transaction volumes cross thresholds
• User experience improvements — refining interfaces based on usage patterns

Security and Scalability Considerations

E-commerce tools handle sensitive data — customer information, financial records, supplier contracts. Security is not an afterthought; it is designed in from the start.

Security Practices

• Least-privilege access — every component has only the permissions it strictly requires
• Encryption at rest and in transit — all data encrypted using AWS-managed keys
• Authentication and authorisation — role-based access control with multi-factor authentication
• Audit logging — comprehensive logs of who accessed what and when
• Secret management — credentials stored in AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store, never in code
• Network isolation — VPC configurations limiting exposure, no public endpoints for internal tools
• GDPR compliance — data processing within EU regions, with clear data retention and deletion policies

Scalability Patterns

Serverless architecture provides inherent scalability, but application design must support it:

• Stateless processing — no server-side sessions, all state in managed databases
• Asynchronous workflows — queue-based processing for operations that do not require immediate response
• Idempotent operations — safe retry behaviour for all critical processes
• Caching strategies — reducing API calls and database reads where data changes infrequently
• Graceful degradation — systems continue functioning (potentially with reduced capability) when external dependencies are unavailable

Real-World Examples and Outcomes

The following examples illustrate the kind of custom e-commerce tooling we build and the business outcomes they deliver.

Multi-Channel Inventory Middleware

A European retailer selling through their own webshop, two marketplaces, and a B2B portal needed real-time inventory synchronisation across all channels. No existing connector supported their specific combination of Lightspeed eCom, a legacy ERP, and marketplace APIs.

We built custom middleware that:

• Processes stock updates from the ERP every 60 seconds
• Distributes available inventory across channels based on configurable allocation rules
• Handles marketplace-specific quantity buffers and minimum stock thresholds
• Provides a dashboard showing real-time stock positions across all channels

Outcome: Overselling incidents dropped by 95%, and the team eliminated 2 hours of daily manual stock management.

Supplier Product Onboarding Portal

A B2B distributor working with 40+ suppliers needed to streamline product data collection. Previously, suppliers sent data via email in inconsistent formats, requiring hours of manual cleanup before catalogue updates.

The custom portal we built:

• Provides suppliers with a structured data entry interface matching the distributor’s requirements
• Validates data in real-time, flagging errors before submission
• Automatically transforms and enriches product data (image resizing, category mapping, attribute normalisation)
• Routes completed submissions to the PIM system for review and publication

Outcome: Supplier onboarding time reduced from 2 weeks to 3 days. Data quality errors reduced by 80%.

Financial Reconciliation Dashboard

An e-commerce business processing thousands of orders daily through multiple payment providers needed to match transactions between their webshop, payment service providers, and accounting software. The manual process took their finance team an entire day each week.

We built a reconciliation tool that:

• Automatically matches orders across systems using transaction references
• Highlights discrepancies (amount mismatches, missing transactions, timing differences)
• Provides drill-down views for investigating exceptions
• Generates reconciliation reports for the accounting team

Outcome: Weekly reconciliation time reduced from 8 hours to 30 minutes, with higher accuracy and earlier detection of payment issues.

Product Enrichment Workflow Tool

A retailer with a catalogue of 15,000+ SKUs needed to enrich product descriptions for SEO and conversion optimisation. The manual approach was too slow; pure AI generation produced inconsistent quality.

The custom tool we built:

• Generates initial product descriptions using AI, informed by existing product data and category-specific templates
• Presents generated content in a review interface with editing capabilities
• Tracks enrichment progress across the catalogue with priority queuing
• Publishes approved content directly to the webshop via API

Outcome: Product enrichment velocity increased 10x while maintaining quality standards. The team enriched their entire catalogue in 6 weeks instead of the estimated 18 months.

For more examples of our work, visit our case studies.

Who This Is For

Custom e-commerce tools are not for every business. They make the most sense for:

• Mid-market and enterprise e-commerce businesses processing hundreds or thousands of orders daily
• Multi-channel retailers managing inventory and orders across several platforms
• B2B distributors with complex pricing, customer-specific catalogues, or supplier networks
• E-commerce teams that have outgrown their current tools and are spending too much time on workarounds
• Businesses migrating between systems that need bridge tooling during transition — see our data migration services for more on this

Start With a Conversation

If you recognise your business in the scenarios above, the next step is a focused conversation about your specific situation. We start every engagement with a discovery call to understand:

• What systems you currently use and how they connect (or fail to connect)
• Where your team spends time on repetitive, error-prone, or frustrating manual work
• What data you wish you had visibility into but currently do not
• What your growth plans mean for operational capacity

From there, we can advise whether custom development is the right path, and if so, scope a realistic project with clear deliverables and timeline.

Get in touch to discuss your custom tooling needs. No commitment, no sales pitch — just a practical conversation about whether we can help.