Ask HN: What's the best way to make an ecommerce site from scratch?

I've been wanting to make a few ecommerce sites for some friends/family of mine, but I haven't seen any affordable solutions for developers. A few developers have asked this question and people normally suggest to go with Shopify. Shopify's basic plan is $40/month though, which is too expensive for the people I've talked to. I have no experience with Wordpress as well, which seems to be an other option. As a new software engineer, making an entire platform like Shopify seems too daunting. Are there any affordable solutions for a developer who wants to make an ecommerce site? Or would I just have to make my own with something like React + Node + Stripe for payments? Thank you!