Edge cases, single-species fly-only shop vs full-range fishing-tackle DTC?

Two ends of the fishing-tackle spectrum and the platform fit is different.

Single-species fly-only shop (e.g. a regional Orvis-authorized fly shop, sub-1,500 SKUs):

• Magento is usually overkill. Shopify Standard or Shopify Plus handles it cleanly, product catalog is small, B2B share is low, no complex seasonal flipping, brand portals are 1-2 (Orvis, Sage, Hardy).
• Migrate to Magento only if you add B2B wholesale to fly shops, subscription (fly-of-the-month), tournament/destination-trip content, or grow above ~3,000 SKUs with regional sub-filters.
• Honest answer: I’ll recommend Shopify for the fly-only shop in 70% of cases and not lose sleep.

Full-range fishing-tackle DTC (Tackle Warehouse, FishUSA, Karl’s Bait pattern, 5k+ SKUs across species):

• Magento + Hyvä is almost always the right answer. Species filter at scale, brand-portal MAP enforcement across 6+ dealer agreements, seasonal calendar, B2B/LTS wholesale, subscription, tournament content, every one of these scales on Magento and breaks down on Shopify above $5M GMV.
• The migration trigger is typically: 100-variant Shopify ceiling hit (e.g. trying to model a fly-line product with 8 weights × 3 colors × 4 sponge densities), or app-fee accumulation passing ~$2.5k/mo, or B2B/LTS share creeping above 15%.