A little product preview

If you’ve been following the journey for over a month now, I’d like to reiterate…You do not have to follow this step-by-step (ooooo baby). This is to serve as a guideline on building an e-commerce biz from scratch. And it’s the actual steps my wife, and I are taking.

This week – the website. It’s your store front, your moneymaker, and your driver of profits. It’s one of the most important parts of your e-commerce biz. That’s why it’s taken some time for my wife, and I to get this going. We’ve trial tested a couple different platforms from Bigcommerce to Shopify (you can find a good breakdown here). We’ve also spoken with a couple web designers to see if building a site from scratch was an option.

The site really comes down to whether or not you want proprietary control over your platforms, and algorithms. To develop something like this is very expensive, but you own it. You can make it do whatever you want, and you have full-on control. One of the downsides (aside from upfront cost) is the ability to evolve. When you’ve developed your e-commerce platform from scratch, you’re pretty much stuck with it. You can try, and evolve, but it can be quite complicated. We’re starting to see this with some of the e-commerce companies we’ve researched. At the time, their technology was cutting edge…now it’s old, and tired, and difficult to change.

That’s why my wife, and I have decided to go the ‘plug-and-play’ route. The technology can evolve as new algorithms, tech, etc… come to market, and the expense isn’t too much to evolve, and to start up. We’re giving up control for something that can grow with the business. Having said that, we understand we may need to develop something on our own if we outgrow the Shopify option we’ve chosen.

Shopify

The one thing my wife, and I really like about Shopify is the customizable themes. You can also pay to have one developed for you. Every site comes with a monthly fee depending on what options you want to have available to you. We’ve chosen the most expensive route, which gives us the most options. It also helps that Shopify is Canadian (although you have to pay in US dollars), and their customer service is phenomenal.

You can secure a domain through Shopify or you might have to find it somewhere else. For our store – we had to go through a GoDaddy auction to secure the domain we wanted (it’s a somewhat simple process to link your URL to your Shopify store, and Shopify gives you step-by-step directions on how to do this). My wife, and I also secured a couple other names similar to ours, so we can point those URL’s to our store.

I could go on and on about the options of Shopify, and other e-commerce sites, but it’s best if you go, and explore on your own. Most e-commerce sites give you free trials, so you can experiment. I highly advise you do this. As I mentioned before – this is your store front, and your money maker. Take time to invest in the different options available to you. Reach out to the customer service folks at these companies, and speak with web developers. You owe it to yourself, and your business.

Love you,

Jordan ‘The Guy with the Bow Tie’ Rycroft

PS. The design, and template through Shopify cost a couple hundred bucks, plus the $100+ US monthly fee. With this expense we’ve spent close to $2500 including some product.