Setting up a site

I had a go at setting up my own store, and it got a bit away from me.

Most people arrive here by the same road. You've got something worth selling, you watched a tutorial (or six), you signed up to Shopify or Wix or Squarespace with great enthusiasm — and a few weeks later there's a half-built shop, a domain you're not entirely sure is pointed anywhere, and a nagging feeling you've missed something important. That's not a failing on your part. Getting something visible is pretty easy. Setting up a store properly is hundreds of small, fiddly decisions nobody warns you about, and it's not like you're overflowing with extra time — you've also got an actual business to run.

We pick up wherever you got to. Half-finished, nearly there, or a brilliant idea, a blank page and a lot of nerves — we'll take it from there.

Sound familiar?

• Your store is "mostly" set up, and there's a list of things you keep meaning to get to.
• You're not sure your payments, shipping and tax settings are right — and you're a bit afraid to test them. Or you maybe don't know where they are in the interface.
• You picked a platform quickly and now wonder if it's the right one for what you sell.
• The products are in, but the whole thing looks a bit homemade, and you can't quite say why.
• You've been "about to launch" for longer than you'd like to admit.

What's usually going on

• Time. Nobody has a spare fortnight. A store set up in stolen evenings gets finished in the order that was easiest, not the order that matters.
• The invisible stuff. Domain and email, payment providers, shipping rules, tax, the legal pages, tracking — none of it is glamorous and all of it has to be right before the first real customer turns up.
• Too many choices, too early. Themes, apps, plugins, fonts. It's very easy to spend a month on a logo and forget the returns policy.
• The Pareto Principle. Classic challenge for any product or project. The Pareto Principle says that you get 80% of the way to complete with 20% effort. But that last 20% of the project? That takes 80% of the effort. The innumerable little things are what can grind you down.

How we'd tackle it

1. Look at what you've got. We walk through the store as it stands (no judgement) and work out what's solid and what needs redoing.
2. Agree the shortest sensible path to launch. What genuinely has to be right on day one, and what can wait until there's a sale or two behind it.
3. Build it, test it, hand it over. We place a real test order, check the plumbing, and walk you through where everything lives so it never feels like someone else's machine.

We can't promise your first month's sales — nobody can if they're being even halfway honest — but we can promise a store that's set up properly, so that when customers do turn up, nothing's in their way.

Where we'd start

Usually that's one of our launch packages, sized to what you've got: a lighter one if you've a handful of products and a clear idea, a fuller one if there's a bigger catalogue, email and product feeds to sort. Not sure which fits? Tell us what you've built so far and we'll tell you which, and why.

The honest bit

If you've picked the wrong platform, we'll say so — even if that means starting again. And if your half-built store is actually fine, we'll say that too, and charge you for a lot less.

Tell us where you've got to — a screenshot and a couple of lines is plenty. Get in touch

Related challenges: Optimising a site · Getting people onto site