Custom e-commerce development agency
Custom e-commerce development agency in Athens.
TWENTYONE is a custom e-commerce development agency in Athens. We design and build online stores for one brand at a time — the storefront, the checkout, the integrations and the move from the old platform — on NEXTCOMMERCE, the commerce engine we write and run ourselves.
The problem
Most stores are a theme and thirty plugins
A typical Greek e-shop is a rented platform or an open-source one, a bought theme, and a plugin for every local requirement: myDATA, invoices, instalments, cash on delivery, courier vouchers, the Skroutz feed. Each plugin has its own author and its own update cycle, and the store works until two of them disagree.
Custom e-commerce development starts from the other end. The checkout, the stock and the integrations are designed for how this business sells, and the Greek requirements are part of the engine rather than add-ons to it.
What we deliver
Custom e-commerce development, from catalogue to checkout
- A storefront of your own
- Designed for one brand in React and Next.js, fast on a phone, with category, brand and filter pages built from the catalogue itself.
- The checkout
- As few steps as the payment requires, on your own domain: cards, wallets, instalments, bank transfer and cash on delivery, with the invoice details asked for only when a customer wants an invoice.
- The Greek layer
- myDATA and invoicing, courier integrations and marketplace feeds as features of the platform, maintained by the same team that maintains the engine.
- Retail and wholesale
- Trade price lists, approved reseller accounts and campaign rules your team runs from the dashboard, without a developer for every promotion.
- Migration
- Products, photographs, customers and past orders moved from OpenCart, WooCommerce or another platform, with the old addresses redirected so search rankings carry over.
The engine
Bespoke on the outside, maintained underneath
Every store we build runs on NEXTCOMMERCE. The storefront is designed for one brand alone; the engine underneath — catalogue, stock, checkout, orders and integrations — is written in Node.js and PostgreSQL and shared by every store on it. A fix or a new feature lands for every store at once, so a custom store does not decay after launch day.
The same API serves the website, the dashboard and the store's own mobile app, so a new channel is a new client of one platform rather than a second platform.
The record
Stores we have moved and built
Topharmakeio.gr, the online pharmacy of three pharmacies in southern Athens, moved from OpenCart with 9,804 products, 12,509 customers and 5,125 past orders under their original order numbers, and 3,175 old addresses redirected.
Rellas Jewellery, a Patras jeweller since 1935, moved with 1,629 products and around 4,600 landing pages generated from product specifications. SIDEMILE, an importer of rider technology, sells to riders, partner shops and wholesale from one catalogue.
How we work
How a custom e-commerce development project runs
- Briefing
- You tell us what you are building, what exists already and what is in the way. We reply within two working days — with questions, or with the honest answer that you do not need us.
- Blueprint
- Scope, architecture, the stack and a fixed plan, agreed before a line of code is written. You know what is being built, in what order and why.
- Build
- The store is built on a staging address with your real catalogue, so you test orders, prices and invoices before a customer does. Working software every week or two, on a staging address you can open, rather than a reveal at the end.
- Launch and after
- Release, monitoring and a named team that stays. The code, the design files and the data are yours.
When not to
When a rented platform is the better answer
With a small catalogue, no ERP and one courier, a rented platform usually wins the arithmetic, and we will say so rather than quote you. Custom e-commerce development pays off when the store has become an operation — a moving catalogue, several channels, a warehouse and accounts that have to agree with it.
We have been building for 19 years, for brands including COSMOTE, Piraeus, Avène, MARKET IN, SCORPIOS, TRVL AIR and NEXTCOMMERCE. Design, engineering, product photography and film are under one roof, so the store and the images in it are made by the same people.
Common questions
- What does a custom e-commerce development agency do?
- It designs and builds an online store for one business instead of installing a theme: the storefront, the checkout, the integrations with stock, invoicing and couriers, and the migration from the old platform. TWENTYONE, in Athens, does all of it in-house on NEXTCOMMERCE, its own commerce engine.
- Can you move our store from OpenCart or WooCommerce?
- Yes. Products, photographs, customers and past orders are moved, and the old addresses are redirected so that search rankings carry over. Topharmakeio.gr and Rellas Jewellery both moved from OpenCart this way.
- Does the store handle myDATA, instalments and Greek couriers?
- Yes. On NEXTCOMMERCE, myDATA and invoicing, instalments, cash on delivery, courier integrations and marketplace feeds are features of the platform rather than third-party plugins.
- Who owns the store?
- The storefront, the design, the content and the data are yours. The NEXTCOMMERCE engine is licensed as a service that we host, patch and back up, and leaving takes one month's written notice with a complete export.
- Is custom e-commerce worth it for a small shop?
- Often not. With a small catalogue, no ERP and one courier, a rented platform is usually cheaper, and TWENTYONE will say so. Custom e-commerce pays off when the catalogue moves, there are several sales channels and the store has to agree with a warehouse and the accounts.
Also from the studio
Further reading
Initiate the blueprint
Tell us what you are building.
The stack, the timeline, the thing that is currently in the way. We reply to every briefing within two working days.