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Hosted or Self-Hosted Online Store? Weighing the Tradeoffs

Published

3 days ago

October 26, 2026

When a business decides to sell online, one of the first decisions is where the store will live. Broadly, there are two approaches: a hosted e-commerce platform, where a company runs the software and servers for you, and a self-hosted store, where you run e-commerce software on your own hosting, often as part of a content-managed website. Both can work well. The right choice depends on your products, your team and how much control you want.

How hosted platforms work

A hosted platform provides the store software, hosting, security and updates as a subscription service. You sign up, choose a theme, add products and connect payments. The platform handles the servers, applies software updates and maintains much of the payment security environment.

Strengths:

Quick to set up, with fewer technical decisions.
Updates, hosting and scaling are handled for you.
Integrated tools for payments, shipping, taxes and point of sale.
Support from the platform when something goes wrong.

Tradeoffs:

Ongoing subscription fees, and sometimes transaction fees or paid apps for extra features.
Customization is limited to what the platform allows.
Moving away later can take real effort, since your store is built on their system.

How self-hosted stores work

A self-hosted store uses e-commerce software installed on hosting that you control. A common example is adding a store plugin to a content-managed website. You choose the host, the software and the extensions.

Strengths:

Greater flexibility and control over design, features and data.
The store can live seamlessly within an existing website.
A wide range of extensions and integrations.
Easier to move between hosting providers.

Tradeoffs:

You are responsible for updates, security, backups and performance, either yourself or through a maintenance partner.
Hosting must be sized and configured for e-commerce.
Costs can be harder to predict, as extensions, hosting and maintenance add up.

Questions that help you decide

How many products will you sell, and how complex are they?
Do you need features like subscriptions, bookings, wholesale pricing or custom product builders?
Do you also sell in person and need a point-of-sale system that shares inventory?
Who will handle updates and troubleshooting?
Is the store the center of the business, or one part of a larger content website?
How important is it to be able to move your store elsewhere in the future?

Making the decision

There is no universally right answer. A business that wants to start selling quickly with minimal technical upkeep often leans toward a hosted platform. A business with an established content site, specialized needs or a strong preference for control often leans toward self-hosted. Whichever you choose, make sure the accounts are in the business’s name, export your product and customer data periodically, and compare current pricing and terms directly from each provider before committing.

The post Hosted or Self-Hosted Online Store? Weighing the Tradeoffs appeared first on Fenway Web.

Service

Five Native Apps, One Studio: How We Built the App Family

Published

7 hours ago

October 29, 2026

Nathan Strickland

This week we shipped the biggest project in Fenway Web’s history: five native apps for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, built for five very different brands. They are Boston Made, Paxton, GrandStrand, Spot Check and BOSSTOX. Here is how we approached it, and what it means if you are thinking about an app of your own.

One foundation, five personalities

Each brand already had a strong website, so the first rule was that every app had to look and feel like its site. A reader moving between the GrandStrand website and the GrandStrand app should never feel a seam. Under the hood, the five apps share a single Swift foundation for feeds, offline saving, article rendering and layout. On top of that, each app gets its own colors, typography, navigation and native features.

That shared core is why we could build five apps at once without cutting corners. A fix or improvement to the reader, the image pipeline or the offline cache lands in all five at the same time.

Native where it counts

iPhone: fast native feeds, a clean reader view and saved stories that work offline.
iPad: real iPad layouts, not stretched phone screens. Magazine grids for Boston Made, side-by-side research for Paxton and big maps for Spot Check and GrandStrand.
Apple Watch: a companion app for every brand, from GrandStrand’s Coast Now weather and tides to BOSSTOX research at a glance.
Privacy: none of the five apps collects personal data. There are no accounts, no tracking and nothing to sign up for.

Submitted to the App Store · Launching soon

Five apps. Every screen.

Real screens from the Boston Made app family, on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and the iPhone Duo.

Coming soon

Built for iPhone Duo.

Every app in the family is coming to Apple’s new foldable. Open it, and each app spreads into a two-pane layout: the feed on one side, the story on the other.

Version 1.0 · Submitted to the App Store · Launching soon

The five apps

Real screenshots from every app on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

Boston Made

The whole Boston Made family in one calm feed.

Today’s stories from across the network, saved for offline reading, with a shop of thousands of products on the way.

iPhone
iPad
Apple Watch
Free

Get Boston Made

Paxton

Healthcare insight, analyzed.

Healthcare deals, markets and policy in plain English, with a healthcare marketplace on the way.

iPhone
iPad
Apple Watch
Free

Get Paxton

BOSSTOX

Markets and the AI build-out.

Live market quotes, plain-English BOSSTOX research and headlines, with in-app stock trading on the way.

iPhone
iPad
Apple Watch
Free

Get BOSSTOX

GrandStrand

The coast, connected.

Live Myrtle Beach weather and tides, a map of the whole Grand Strand and what’s happening today, with local restaurants, venues and real-estate partners joining soon.

iPhone
iPad
Apple Watch
Free

Get GrandStrand

Spot Check

Every spot has a story.

Parking near you, local parking guides and saved spots, with thousands of LAZ Parking spaces coming to the app.

iPhone
iPad
Apple Watch
Free

Get Spot Check

Up next in the family

The Lumo appLive gold and silver prices, plain-English guides and a modern way to buy and sell precious metals.Coming soon · iPhone, iPad & Apple Watch

The PUPWEAR® appCollars, QR tags, jackets and gear for your dog, inspired by Boston the GoldenDoodle.Coming soon · iPhone, iPad & Apple Watch

Built to grow

A launch is a starting line. The apps are built to take on new features: a healthcare marketplace in Paxton, in-app trading in BOSSTOX, thousands of LAZ Parking spaces in Spot Check, a shop in Boston Made and local partners in GrandStrand. Lumo and PUPWEAR® are next on our bench.

Thinking about an app?

If your business has a website people love, it can have an app people keep. We design and build native apps for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch that match your brand, and we stay on to maintain them. Talk to us about an app.

The post Five Native Apps, One Studio: How We Built the App Family appeared first on Fenway Web.

Boston Made family Boston Made Foundation The philanthropic arm of the Boston Made family. Visit site →

Service

WordPress 7.0 Put AI in Your Dashboard. What Small Businesses Should Actually Turn On.

Published

1 day ago

October 28, 2026

Nathan Strickland

WordPress 7.0, codenamed “Armstrong,” shipped on May 20, 2026. It is the first release to build AI directly into the core software, and the first full admin redesign since 2013. Five months on, here is a practical read for business owners.

What changed

AI connectors (opt-in). A new Settings → Connectors screen links your site to AI providers, with Anthropic, Google and OpenAI as defaults. Nothing turns on unless you enable it.
A new admin. A modern color scheme, a command palette for jumping anywhere in the dashboard, and a Fonts screen under Appearance.
Visual Revisions. Compare saved versions of a page side by side before you restore one.
Better Notes. Email notifications for mentions and a suggestions mode, useful when an agency and a client edit together.
New blocks. Breadcrumbs, Icon and a gallery lightbox, plus showing or hiding blocks by device.

What got cut

Real-time co-editing, the most hyped feature, was pulled 12 days before launch over stability concerns. Tabs, slider and table-of-contents blocks also missed the release.

Our recommendations

Turn on: Visual Revisions and breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs help visitors and search engines understand your site.
Try carefully: AI drafting for product descriptions or image alt text. Always have a person review it, since copy that sounds like everyone else won’t help you stand out in search.
Leave off for now: giving AI tools broad permission to publish or change settings without review.
Check first: 7.0 needs a newer server, and PHP 8.2 loses security support on Dec. 31, so plan that upgrade alongside it.

Not sure what your site runs on? Fenway Web will check your server version, plugins and backups for free and tell you exactly what needs to change. Request a site check →

Sources: DreamHost · WordPress Make Core. Written by the Ecosystem Intelligence Desk.

The post WordPress 7.0 Put AI in Your Dashboard. What Small Businesses Should Actually Turn On. appeared first on Fenway Web.

Kingswell Lumo Precious-metals education and a two-sided gold exchange with a live gold price. Visit site →

Service

Building a Store FAQ Page That Cuts Down Support Emails

Published

2 days ago

October 27, 2026

Nathan Strickland

The lit marquee of a restored historic movie palace

Every online store hears the same questions again and again. When will my order ship? Do you offer gift wrapping? Can I change my order? A good FAQ page answers those questions once, clearly, in a place customers can find. It saves your team time and gives shoppers confidence, especially during the busy season when inboxes fill quickly.

Start with real questions

The best FAQ pages are built from the questions customers actually ask, not the ones a business imagines. Gather them from:

Your email inbox and contact form submissions.
Chat transcripts, if you offer live chat.
Phone calls and in-store conversations, as remembered by staff.
Comments and messages on social media.
Product reviews, which often reveal confusion.

Keep a running list for a few weeks and note how often each question comes up. The most frequent ones belong at the top.

Organize by topic

A long, unsorted list of questions is hard to scan. Group questions into clear categories, such as:

Orders: changing or canceling an order, order status, payment methods.
Shipping: processing times, costs, destinations, tracking.
Returns and exchanges: eligibility, process, refund timing.
Products: sizing, materials, care, availability.
Gifts: gift cards, wrapping, sending directly to a recipient.
Accounts: creating an account, resetting a password.

On longer pages, a short list of category links at the top helps people jump to the right section. Expandable question-and-answer sections can keep the page compact, as long as they work with a keyboard and screen readers and the text remains searchable.

Write short, direct answers

Each answer should lead with the direct response, then add detail. If the answer to whether you ship internationally is yes, to certain countries, say that in the first sentence. Use the same plain language as your customers. Avoid hedging and legal phrasing unless it is genuinely needed.

When a full policy exists, such as returns or shipping, give a concise answer and link to the policy page for details. Make sure the FAQ and the policy pages say the same thing. Contradictions create more questions, not fewer.

Put answers where questions arise

An FAQ page works best as part of a broader approach. Link to it from the footer, the contact page and order confirmation emails. Repeat the most relevant answers where people are deciding, such as sizing notes on product pages and shipping details in the cart. The goal is to answer questions at the moment they occur.

Keep it current

FAQ pages go stale as policies, products and seasons change. Review the page before busy periods, add seasonal answers such as holiday shipping cutoffs and remove them afterward. When a new question starts arriving repeatedly, add it. Always include a clear way to contact a real person for anything the page does not cover. An FAQ should make help easier to find, never harder.

The post Building a Store FAQ Page That Cuts Down Support Emails appeared first on Fenway Web.