Why it matters
Everything near the transaction is high-stakes plumbing: payments, fraud, tax rules, checkout reliability. On Shopify that's their problem, permanently. The trade is less freedom on deep customisation, which is usually a trade worth making until you're big enough to staff the alternative.
How it works
Shopify hosts the store, the catalogue and the checkout; themes control the look; apps extend the behaviour. Your team manages products and orders in the admin, and the platform quietly handles the parts that would otherwise wake your developers at 2am.
What to do about it
If you sell products: start here, keep the app list short, and invest the saved engineering in brand, content and merchandising, the parts platforms can't do for you.
