Online Store Setup
We almost exclusively work with only one technology platform to develop online stores: Shopify. It is a fantastic platform for businesses of all types and size. What we love the most about it is its minimal technology debt. This means, you don’t need to worry about hiring developers, maintaining the platform or worrying about security. Shopify takes care of everything, so that you can focus on only one thing that matters: growing your business.
Here’s the process we follow to setup an online store:
1. Business analysis
We start by sitting down with you to understand your business and its operations, for example:
- How you get your customers
- Which channels you use for selling
- What types of products and services you are selling
- Information about your staff and their responsibilities
The idea is to get a full picture of your business and create a mental model of different processes. During these diagnostic phase, most clients identify gaps in processes and amend them.
2. Process mapping
After understanding your business operations, we articulate your business processes. Everyone takes a look at our articulation and reviews the details. If we got any part incorrect or incomplete, we adjust it based on your feedback.
This step also helps you see any gaps or find opportunities for improvement in your operations. The faster we seize these opportunities, the better. Because they will influence the store design.
3. Content gathering
After understanding your processes, we begin collecting information about your products, services, specifications, pricing, variations and all other parameters. You also provide high quality product photos and media for the store. Professional-grade media is crucial for the success of your store, we can’t overstate its importance.
4. Content organization
We review everything that we’ve gathered from you and organize them in our structured formats. This is an important part of store setup preparation. If you’ve opted for product description and page content services, we create and refine them during this phase.
5. Store setup
Next, we setup a bare-minimum version of your store. This step helps us understand your aesthetic preference and design language. Once we agree on the specifics, we go ahead for full-fledged store setup.
During this stage, we work on one group of elements, instead of simultaneously working on many elements. For example, we complete product cataloguing first, instead of simultaneously setting up payment methods.
This way, after each iteration we will have something that works than many things that don’t work. (Well-articulated by Ryan Singer in Shape Up)
6. Handover
Once the store is setup and you have used it to your satisfaction, we begin the handover process. Our work follows the philosophy of customer empowerment. Which means we aim to reduce client’s dependency on us after our engagement is over. This philosophy drives our decisions about choice of technology and design of our work.
Want us to setup online store for you? Apply here and we’ll be in touch with the next steps in a business day:
This service is governed by our terms and conditions, you may want to have a look at them.
Do you still have questions? That’s understandable. Write to us!Click to copy email Thanks for all the support, have a great day!
PS: Not looking for a full online store setup? See our Navigator Services instead, they might be more useful to you.