My 2 cents, start hosted and get sales moving and work within the confines of a hosted solution. If/when sales are moving at a good clip and they can justify t

My 2 cents, start hosted and get sales moving and work within the confines of a hosted solution. If/when sales are moving at a good clip and they can justify the expense then you can talk about using either a e-commerce framework or a custom solution. As for frameworks/systems: there are lots of options other than Magento, it depends on the stack you want to sit on and they all have pros/cons. I almost always recommend small clients (or new ecomm shops) start off with a hosted solution, then graduate to a framework solution and only when all else fails going to a fully custom ecommerce solution. The costs of developing, managing and scaling a custom solution is just a high barrier to entry so that is why it is the last idea to me. There are always exceptions but I have seen this recipe work well for people.