A custom webshop, fast enough to sell.
Custom web design for your online store: it loads in a blink, checks out in one go and gets found in Google and ChatGPT. No pile of plugins, and no platform taking a cut of your sales.
The short answer
Forwarddd builds premium custom webshops and websites. Not a theme with plugins, but your own store on modern technology: very fast on phones, a fully custom integration with Stripe or Mollie (iDEAL included), a checkout built for conversion and links with your accounting. A small webshop with up to 100 products costs €1,950 one-off plus €149 a month. A complete webshop with up to 500 products starts at €4,950. You never pay a percentage of your sales, and the webshop is yours.
- From
- €1,950 one-off
- Per month
- from €149
- Cut of your sales
- 0%
- Owner
- You
The same order, two checkouts
On average, 70.22% of online shopping carts are never checked out. That’s the average of 50 studies collected by Baymard Institute1Baymard Institute, 202550 Cart Abandonment Rate StatisticsOpen the source. Some of those visitors are just browsing. But people who do want to buy often drop out in the checkout itself. Switch between a typical checkout and the way we build it, and count the fields yourself.
- Fields to fill in
- 4
- Steps
- 1
- Account required
- No, guest checkout
- Shipping costs
- Shown up front
What a good webshop needs in 2026
People buy online all the time. The question is whether they buy from you.
€35.7bn
spent online by Dutch consumers in 2025, across 347 million purchases2Betaalvereniging Nederland (Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor, NielsenIQ), 2026More online product purchases, less spending on travel and events in 2025Open the source.
45%
of online purchases in the Netherlands in the first half of 2026 were made on a smartphone, more than on a laptop or desktop3Betaalvereniging Nederland (Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor, NielsenIQ), 2026Cross-border online purchases continue to grow: now one in sevenOpen the source.
73%
of Dutch online purchases were paid with iDEAL, now iDEAL | Wero3Betaalvereniging Nederland (Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor, NielsenIQ), 2026Cross-border online purchases continue to grow: now one in sevenOpen the source.
Buying online has become completely normal: 80% of Dutch people aged 12 and over bought something online in the three months before the CBS survey4CBS, 2026ICT-gebruik personen (Digitalisering en kenniseconomie 2025)Open the source. That also means buyers compare more. A webshop that is slow, awkward to check out or hard to find loses the customer to a competitor who gets it right. This is what a webshop needs now:
- Fast on a phone. In the Netherlands, 65% of web traffic comes from mobile5Statcounter Global Stats, 2026Desktop vs Mobile vs Tablet Market Share NetherlandsOpen the source. A webshop that is slow there loses most of its visitors.
- Checkout in one go. On one page, as a guest, with shipping costs shown up front. See the two checkouts above.
- iDEAL first, ready for Wero. In the Netherlands, iDEAL is moving step by step to Wero. The switch is due to be complete by the end of 20276European Payments Initiative (EPI), 2026Successful first phase marks major next steps in iDEAL to Wero migrationOpen the source.
- Found in Google, Shopping and AI. With the right product data, Google can show more with your products7Google Search Central, 2025Intro to Product Structured Data on GoogleOpen the source, and they can appear in Google Shopping for free8Google Merchant Center Help, 2026Free listings for productsOpen the source.
- Linked to the rest of your business. Stock, shipping and accounting follow every order, with nothing typed over by hand.
- Accessible to everyone. For many webshops in the EU, that has been a legal requirement since 28 June 20259Rijksoverheid, 2025Producten en diensten toegankelijker voor mensen met beperkingOpen the source.
- Yours. Your domain, your customer data and your ad accounts are in your name.
Speed is revenue
Every tenth of a second counts. Literally.
+8.4%
more retail conversions from a mobile site that is 0.1 seconds faster (Deloitte, commissioned by Google)10web.dev, 2020Milliseconds make millionsOpen the source.
+8%
more sales at Vodafone after the main content appeared 31% faster11web.dev, 2021Vodafone: A 31% improvement in LCP increased sales by 8%Open the source.
+33%
higher conversion at Rakuten 24 on a page improved for Core Web Vitals12web.dev, 2022How Rakuten 24's investment in Core Web Vitals increased revenue per visitor by 53.37% and conversion rate by 33.13%Open the source.
Google also weighs speed in its search results. The advice: main content on screen within 2.5 seconds, a response to every tap within 200 milliseconds, and a page that doesn’t jump while it loads13Google Search Central, 2025Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search resultsOpen the source. Many webshops don’t make it. Of WordPress sites on mobile, only 45% pass all three Core Web Vitals14HTTP Archive, 2026CMS | 2025 | The Web Almanac by HTTP Archive (Chapter 12)Open the source.
We build your webshop without a theme or plugins and serve it from Cloudflare’s network, with servers in more than 330 cities15Cloudflare, 2026500 Tbps of capacity: 16 years of scaling our global network; Cloudflare Global NetworkOpen the source. Curious how fast your current webshop is? The Future-Proof Website Scan shows you in half a minute, measured with Google’s own test.
Shopify, WooCommerce or a custom webshop?
All three are fine. For a different kind of business.
WooCommerce and Shopify are the best-known webshop platforms in the Netherlands. Which one is used most depends on who is counting. BuiltWith finds Shopify on 83,457 Dutch sites and WooCommerce on 37,85116BuiltWith, 2026eCommerce Web Usage Distribution in the NetherlandsOpen the source. Store Leads, on the other hand, counts 103,445 WooCommerce stores in the Netherlands against 68,385 on Shopify17Store Leads, 2026WooCommerce stores reportOpen the source18Store Leads, 2026Top Shopify stores in the NetherlandsOpen the source. The third route is a webshop built entirely for you.
| Shopify | WooCommerce | Custom (Forwarddd) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start | Quick to set up yourself with a theme | A theme and plugins on WordPress | Designed and built for your store, from €1,950 |
| Fixed costs | €24 to €289 a month (yearly plan), plus paid apps | Hosting, premium plugins and maintenance | One monthly fee including hosting and maintenance, from €149 |
| Per order | 2% + €0.25 per card payment through Shopify Payments (Basic), or an extra 2% with another payment provider | Only your payment provider’s fees | Only your payment provider’s fees |
| Extra features | Often an app per feature, each with its own monthly price | A plugin per feature, which you keep up to date | What you need is built in |
| Customizing later | Within what the platform and its apps allow | Possible, but every change is another plugin or piece of code to maintain | Built for the future: any new feature, integration or change can be added |
| Speed | Good, until the theme and apps add up | Often slow on mobile | Built to load in a blink |
| Ownership | You rent the platform | Yours, and so is the maintenance | Yours, and we do the maintenance |
Shopify is ideal for testing quickly and cheaply whether your product sells. You do pay every month, for apps and per order, and your store stays on their platform. WooCommerce is flexible, but every plugin is an update to keep up with and a door left open: of the 11,334 new vulnerabilities in WordPress in 2025, 91% were in plugins20Patchstack, 2026State of WordPress Security in 2026Open the source. Custom is the choice when you want to grow, stand out, or link your webshop to the rest of your business.
And Magento or Shopware? Powerful for thousands of products and complex B2B pricing, but heavy to build and maintain. Still torn between a platform and a custom build? Take the short quiz in WordPress or custom?
What does a custom webshop cost?
Fixed prices up front. Never a share of your sales.
| One-off | Per month | Fits | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small webshop | €1,950 | €149 | Up to 100 products and 500 orders a month |
| Commerce | €4,950 up to 200 products, €6,950 up to 500 | from €249 | Up to 1,500 orders a month, with stock, discount codes, customer accounts and a Google Shopping feed |
| Custom | usually from €9,500 | usually from €495 | More than 500 products or 1,500 orders a month, links with bol.com, your warehouse or ERP |
On top of that, budget for your payment provider’s fee per payment, and time or money for good product photos and descriptions. And a webshop needs visitors: through SEO, Google Shopping or ads. You can arrange that yourself, or in one of our marketing packages.
What do you want built?
Indications, November 2026, excl. VAT
- ForwardddCustom built, one fixed fee€1,950+ €149 a month€7,314The only one scoring 6 out of 6
Cheap template
Over 3 years
€1,720 – €3,420
€700 – €900 one-off + €20 – €45 a month, plus licences
- Fast on mobile: noTheme and plugins slow it down
- Built to be found: partlyOnly the basics
- Maintenance taken care of: noYour job after launch
- No credits, apps or cut of sales: partlyYearly plugin licences
- Fully yours: yesYes
- You talk to the maker: partlyUntil launch
Your timeUpdates, backups and outages
Cheap to start. After that you pay with your time, and with visitors who leave a slow site.
Forwarddd
Over 3 years
€7,314
€1,950 one-off + €149 a month
- Fast on mobile: yesLoads in a blink
- Built to be found: yesSEO and GEO built in
- Maintenance taken care of: yesHosting, updates, support included
- No credits, apps or cut of sales: yesOne fixed monthly fee
- Fully yours: yesCode, domain and data
- You talk to the maker: yesYou call the builder
Your timeOne conversation. We do the rest.
The craft of an agency for a fixed price. No credits, no apps, no surprises.
Want to know what goes into the price of a website or webshop, and what to look for in a quote? Read what a website costs in 2026. All packages are on pricing.
Found in Google, Google Shopping and ChatGPT
A webshop without visitors is a shop window down a back alley.
With product data in the code, structured data, Google can show your products in richer ways in search results, Google Images and Lens, including shipping and returns information7Google Search Central, 2025Intro to Product Structured Data on GoogleOpen the source. Through Google Merchant Center, your products can also appear for free in Google Search, the Shopping tab, Maps, YouTube and Gemini8Google Merchant Center Help, 2026Free listings for productsOpen the source. Your webshop has to supply the right data for that. We build it in from the start.
- Product data in the code, so Google can show price, stock and shipping costs.
- A product feed for Google Shopping, straight from your webshop.
- Category pages with real explanations, answering what people search for.
- Fast, mobile pages, because Google takes that into account.
- Open to AI search engines, so ChatGPT and Perplexity can read and mention your products.
How to end up in AI answers is explained in get found in ChatGPT. Want us to keep on top of it? See SEO and GEO.
Integrations: your webshop does the work
Every order you type over by hand is time you don’t spend on customers.
- Payments: iDEAL, cards, Apple Pay and more, through a payment provider such as Mollie or Stripe. The payment status sits right next to each order.
- Accounting: every order and invoice straight into Moneybird or Exact.
- Shipping: shipping labels and track-and-trace without copying and pasting.
- Stock: one stock level for your webshop, your shop and marketplaces like bol.com.
- Emails that send themselves: order confirmation, shipping update, a reminder for an abandoned cart and a review request.
More examples of what you can automate are on automations.
Accessible and within the rules
Since 28 June 2025, an accessible webshop is required for many businesses in the EU.
The European accessibility rules also apply to webshops. Only businesses with fewer than 10 employees and at most €2 million in annual turnover are exempt9Rijksoverheid, 2025Producten en diensten toegankelijker voor mensen met beperkingOpen the source. Yet it still often goes wrong: WebAIM found accessibility errors on 95.9% of the top one million home pages, with low contrast the most common25WebAIM, 2026The WebAIM Million – The 2026 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pagesOpen the source.
We build with accessibility as a starting point: enough contrast, labelled fields, everything usable with a keyboard, and images with a description. That helps you sell, too: a form that is clear to everyone gets finished more often.
Web design and webshops from Rotterdam
Local if you like, online when that’s easier.
Looking for web design close by? Forwarddd is based in Rotterdam and builds custom webshops and websites for businesses across the Netherlands and on Aruba. We can meet in the Rotterdam area or online. You always talk to the maker, with no account manager in between. Need a custom website without a shop? See web design in Rotterdam.
How we build your webshop
Getting to know you
What do you sell, to whom, and what needs to be linked? You get a fixed price and a schedule.
Design, mobile first
Good web design for a webshop starts on the phone. You click through the home page, a category, a product page and the checkout before anything is built.
Build and fill
We set up your products, variants, shipping rules and payment methods. Already have a webshop? We move your products over and redirect old addresses, so you keep your positions in Google.
Testing
Real test orders, every email, the speed and the accessibility. We only go live when it all works.
Live and growing
We keep everything up to date and improve it based on real data. If you like, we bring in the visitors too.
Further reading
Frequently asked questions
At Forwarddd, a small webshop with up to 100 products costs €1,950 one-off plus €149 a month. A complete webshop starts at €4,950 for up to 200 products and €6,950 for up to 500, plus from €249 a month. Large custom webshops usually start at €9,500. The monthly fee covers hosting, maintenance and support, and you never pay a percentage of your sales.
Mostly that depends on your products: how many there are, and whether the photos and descriptions are ready. A regular website is often live within a week with us. For a webshop, we agree a fixed launch date after the first conversation.
No. You pay a fixed monthly fee and your payment provider’s fee per payment. On Shopify’s Basic plan you pay 2% plus €0.25 per card payment through Shopify Payments, or an extra 2% if you use another payment provider19Shopify, 2026Shopify pricing (Belgium)Open the source.
If you want to test quickly and cheaply whether your product sells, Shopify is fine. If you already have a WordPress site and few products, WooCommerce can work. If you want to grow, stand out, link with your other systems and not pay more every month, a custom build is the best choice.
Yes. You get your own admin area to manage products, prices, stock, discount codes and orders. No technical knowledge needed.
iDEAL, cards, Apple Pay and more, through a payment provider such as Mollie or Stripe. In the Netherlands, iDEAL is moving step by step to Wero: Dutch banks have been connecting since October 2026, and the switch is due to be complete by the end of 20276European Payments Initiative (EPI), 2026Successful first phase marks major next steps in iDEAL to Wero migrationOpen the source. Your webshop simply moves along with it.
That’s what we build it for. Every product page gets the data Google needs to show price and stock in search results, and from Commerce up there’s a Google Shopping feed. The pages are fast and open to AI search engines. To really reach the top, ongoing SEO helps.
Yes. We move your products and, where possible, your customers and orders. Old addresses are redirected to the new pages, so visitors and Google keep finding you.
For most businesses, yes. Since 28 June 2025, the European accessibility rules also apply to webshops. Only businesses with fewer than 10 employees and at most €2 million in annual turnover are exempt9Rijksoverheid, 2025Producten en diensten toegankelijker voor mensen met beperkingOpen the source. We build every webshop to be accessible, even if it isn’t required for you yet.
Yes. Once paid, your webshop and domain are yours. Your customer data and ad accounts are always in your name.
For testing an idea, that’s fine. Usually you get a theme with plugins, and keeping it up to date is up to you. If you want to grow, you often end up paying later anyway: for speed, for security and eventually for a new webshop.
Sources
- 1Baymard Institute, 202550 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics
- 2Betaalvereniging Nederland (Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor, NielsenIQ), 2026More online product purchases, less spending on travel and events in 2025
- 3Betaalvereniging Nederland (Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor, NielsenIQ), 2026Cross-border online purchases continue to grow: now one in seven
- 4CBS, 2026ICT-gebruik personen (Digitalisering en kenniseconomie 2025)
- 5Statcounter Global Stats, 2026Desktop vs Mobile vs Tablet Market Share Netherlands
- 6European Payments Initiative (EPI), 2026Successful first phase marks major next steps in iDEAL to Wero migration
- 7Google Search Central, 2025Intro to Product Structured Data on Google
- 8Google Merchant Center Help, 2026Free listings for products
- 9Rijksoverheid, 2025Producten en diensten toegankelijker voor mensen met beperking
- 10web.dev, 2020Milliseconds make millions
- 11web.dev, 2021Vodafone: A 31% improvement in LCP increased sales by 8%
- 12web.dev, 2022How Rakuten 24's investment in Core Web Vitals increased revenue per visitor by 53.37% and conversion rate by 33.13%
- 13Google Search Central, 2025Understanding Core Web Vitals and Google search results
- 14HTTP Archive, 2026CMS | 2025 | The Web Almanac by HTTP Archive (Chapter 12)
- 15Cloudflare, 2026500 Tbps of capacity: 16 years of scaling our global network; Cloudflare Global Network
- 16BuiltWith, 2026eCommerce Web Usage Distribution in the Netherlands
- 17Store Leads, 2026WooCommerce stores report
- 18Store Leads, 2026Top Shopify stores in the Netherlands
- 19Shopify, 2026Shopify pricing (Belgium)
- 20Patchstack, 2026State of WordPress Security in 2026
- 21Wix.com, 2026Wix premium plans (Wix Blog)
- 22Squarespace, 2026Squarespace pricing (machine-readable pricing file)
- 23Freelance.nl, 2025Wat betalen opdrachtgevers écht: een analyse van 40.000 opdrachten (Uurtarieven Update 2025)
- 24Knab, 2026Wat verdient een software developer (zzp)? Bekijk uurtarief en winst in 2026
- 25WebAIM, 2026The WebAIM Million – The 2026 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages