A Hybrid Shopify Store enables you to have multiple suppliers, deliver at a later time like on your customer’s birthday or sell at wholesale.
When most businesses start, they usually don't need these types of setups. But as you grow and scale, your business also outgrows those basic tools and standard packages. You need to start adding or removing features from your website till it suits your business the exact way it runs.
Most websites are usually one of two things:
A turnkey solution
A custom solution.
A turnkey solution is where most small businesses start from, only enterprises or large businesses start with a custom solution.
A turnkey solution is when something already exists. As the phrase implies, all you need to do is turn the key and it's ready for immediate use. Someone (or a community) has built it, improved it, and made it available for others to use. Many of these are open source, meaning you can take what exists, tweak it, and adapt it to your needs.
Think about platforms like WordPress. The moment you install it, you can almost immediately start blogging and using it instantly. The heavy lifting has already been done, so you are just building on top.
On the other hand, a custom solution is different. You are not relying on existing systems (except maybe a few libraries or tools). You are building something specifically for your business from the ground up.
But the reality is most things are not purely one or the other. That’s where hybrid builds come in.
A hybrid setup is simply this:
You take an existing platform and customize or extend it to fit your exact needs.
Example: Your WordPress website can be customized to fit needs specific to your business.
A hybrid setup builds what you need in the way that’s unique to your operations. It can handle delivery, even go further to send delivery updates if that is something you notice would improve your customers’ experience.
So, what is the right choice: turnkey, custom build, or a hybrid?
This can only be answered by you considering 3 major factors:
You have data from your business and customers telling you exactly what they need. (if your data doesn’t start showing needs that the standard setup can’t meet, don’t switch and stick to your turnkey solution.)
You know exactly how your customers buy from you. (you can adopt custom here if your customers need to interact with your product or you would have a lot of custom orders like bags, or cakes)
You know what the problems in your operations are. (Hybrid works well here if your storefront is fine but fulfillment, delivery or inventory is broken. Connecting them to Shopify gives you a hybrid system.)
In conclusion, before you make that big website upgrade, consider what your business actually needs. And what do your customers need?
