Do it yourself
How many things on your store did you build yourself because the app was $8 a month?
It started with "I'll just tweak the code." Then "I'll just ask the AI." Then "I'll just watch the 40-minute video." Then it's 1am and you have a banner that looks perfect on your laptop and eats the entire screen on a phone, which is where your customers are. In bed. Not reading it.
"Do it yourself." Nobody ever says who yourself is. The ad said anyone could build a store, and the ad was right. It never said when. Yourself is the same person who does the orders, the returns, the product photos, the tax, the chat, and the reply to the customer who wants to know if the blue one comes in green. That person is now also a developer. Unpaid. Nights.
Nobody bills you for the evening. It doesn't show up on any invoice, which is why it gets spent first.
The apps promising growth and a "customer journey" can wait. The dull ones can't. A dull app does one thing you were doing by hand, so you stop doing it by hand. It's a chore that moved out.
You can run the whole store alone. You can't run it alone and have a Sunday.