[throwarayes]

I’m going to be the contrarian here :)

I would just pay $29/month for Shopify basic plan. Is the $20 difference worth self hosting and tweaking a custom thing? You’ll quickly lose that $20 in time better spent running your business. I’d rather have reliable hosting...

Not to bash a cool side project. Just want to say it’s not a panacea.

[berkes]

I've ran and helped with very low volume shopify websites[0]. With such, reliability is less of an issue, yet the yearly $240 is the difference making the profitability.

I do see a niche for tinystore, but, like you, I also see that anyone making some real money off their store will gladly pay some extra's for more reliability and less fuss.

-- [0] the ones now often reaching to woocommerce or equivalents. A hobby-, bootstrapping, "try this idea, see if it sticks".

[quickthrower2]

Then the way to go is offer a 9$ a month store with stripe integration and cut out the shopify. Even cheaper and easier!

[twalling]

I was wondering this too. The price difference is actually $16 not $20. Shopify Lite ($9) + TinyStore ($5). It seems like a pretty narrow niche and easily killed should Shopify address the narrow gap there. I would also wonder if Shopify already has the data to be able to make the judgement call that this narrow price range doesn't have the demand.

[giarc]

>I would also wonder if Shopify already has the data to be able to make the judgement call that this narrow price range doesn't have the demand.

They have obviously made the decision that it doesn't make sense for a $134b company to solve this problem. But it probably makes sense for a guy solving his wife's problem to create this solution.

[hapiben]

Some small businesses don't require a full online store. I'm putting my wife as an example. I agree that $15/month savings is not a big deal, but overtime, it will be. I also noticed that most customers don't care about how the site looks, as long as it's functional and they can do their purchase.

$15/month savings can be spent in FB/Instagram ads or something that can drive more customers. In 3 months, you save $45 or $180/year.

I'm also planning allow users to add multiple stores. The site is hosted in DO and can scale up easily.

[vira28]

actually savings is only $15.