SAAS eCommerce solutions vs. Self-hosted ones?

I have always built my own ecommerce solutions to sell digital products. It has been a tremendous amount of work. Now that I want to expand my horizon and sell more and better, I think it may be time to take the next step.

I had some experience with Magento, but it seems too sophisticated to me and it always seem to take an arm and a leg to get things right. Though it definitely enables the power of customization for your online shop if you have the expertise and the time to tune it.

And then there's the SAAS eCommerce solutions such as shopify and so forth. It's easier to use and seem elegant but my concern is it doesn't seem right for a large online store once you get big. This kind of solutions always make you seem like a small merchant. Or am I right on this?

I'm afraid of getting locked in once I get big and need more customization powers than the SAAS solutions. So are there any merchants that have gone through this? Started and grown from an SAAS ecommerce service to the point with so many customers and more demanding requirements that had to move the site to a self-hosted environment?

Or is it just fine with SAAS providers such as shopify? Even after you have grown very very big?

 

We are helping a client of ours to integrate their magento with our cloud based CRM application. Come to realize how much problem they have had managing their online ecommerce using magento. My suggestion: if you do not have much suppliers to worry about and you are mostly selling items that you are creating, I highly suggest going with those ready saas solutions. I know it will cost you a little, but the time that you save, will make up for it. Plus, you can leverage their billing system, which is pretty hard to do, if you were managing your own platform.