Should e-commerce owners learn to modify their online store’s code themselves?

E-commerce owners do not need to treat modifying their online store’s code themselves as an essential business skill. According to the advice in the supplied iThome article, being able to modify code can certainly help implement needed features, but whether it is worth the effort depends on how much time is available and how this work ranks against products, content, and marketing. If learning about code is crowding out more important business tasks, using existing resources, getting help, or outsourcing are alternatives worth considering.

The value of modifying code yourself lies in meeting your needs, not guaranteeing sales

Being able to modify plugins or code allows you to add functionality yourself and bring your website closer to what you envision. That is a practical use for programming skills. However, being able to build the features you want does not necessarily translate into better business performance.

The iThome article’s author observes that, among the merchants they had served, some were skilled at modifying code themselves but did not have particularly outstanding business results. Others had good sales without knowing much about code modification. These are observations from the author’s work with clients, not research sufficient to establish that programming skills are useless. Nor do they support the conclusion that outsourcing is necessarily better.

A better starting point, then, is to ask: What functionality is actually missing right now? Is it worth investing your own time to build it? If your goal is simply to make every detail of the website match your ideal, you still need to weigh whether that will delay other work.

When time is limited, identify the work that needs the owner’s close involvement

The article prioritizes product competitiveness, product presentation, and reaching potential customers. This is the author’s proposed order of business priorities, not a fixed rule every merchant must follow, but it offers concrete guidance for weighing trade-offs:

• Product competitiveness: Improve product sourcing and selection, raw materials, or production processes, or give products distinctive features.
• Product presentation: Improve packaging, copy, photos, and videos to communicate product features and advantages.
• Reaching potential customers: Learn how to run ads and analyze their effectiveness, and explore suitable marketing partnership channels.

The author argues that merchants should remain closely involved in these areas even when they get help, because outside providers may not be familiar with their products, industry, or customer base. For example, if product photos and copy still fail to explain what makes a product distinctive, yet time keeps going into unfamiliar website modifications, it is worth reviewing the order of priorities. This does not mean website functionality is unimportant. Rather, when time is limited, you need to consider not only whether you can complete the work yourself, but also what you will do less of as a result.

First, distinguish between managing content and actually changing code

Routine website updates do not always require code changes. Another iThome article, discussing SEO-focused websites, recommends an easy-to-use admin interface that enables quick content updates and supports the necessary SEO settings, so that non-specialists do not have to insert code directly. It also lists features such as multilingual management and 301 redirects.

These are CMS recommendations for SEO-focused websites, not a checklist of requirements that can be applied directly to every online store. Still, they offer merchants a useful reminder: if the need is to update content or use settings already available in the admin interface, first check whether existing tools can handle it before deciding whether to learn to modify code or seek technical help.