There is a pleasant fiction in the marketplace that anyone can build an e-commerce store with a super intuitive editor that uses beautiful designs, and if you build it, your customers will come flocking. But what we often find is that, while the website might look great, it doesn't actually convert. So, while we work to ensure a stylish user-friendly design, we are also focused on generating sales. We understand it isn’t as simple as "build it and they will come", and we guide you through each aspect of the build to produce the best e-commerce website for your budget.

We always start our e-commerce projects with an in-depth discovery session where we learn everything there is to know about your products. What problems do they solve? Who is the target audience? What are the key features your audience truly cares about and why? What is the best way to show these features? Photos, video, 3D rendering, schematic, etc. Something as simple as having all product photos taken at the exact same angle and in the same light could mean the difference between selling and not selling your products.  

 We also spend an equal amount of time in our discovery on understanding your business. What are your company goals? What are your timelines for these goals? What are the current challenges you are facing? What are your current procedures for product fulfilment and shipping? How can we integrate the e-commerce store with those systems? 

Beyond fulfilment and shipping, what about accounting? What does your account require? How will refunds be handled? Are there any special tax rules for your product and is the company registered to collect sales tax in all provinces and territories? Are you currently working with a financing company and if so how do we connect with their services? 

As you can see there are a lot of things to consider when building your e-commerce site if you want to ensure its success. Let's take a close look at each of these.

What is your customer’s journey? How can we make that seamless and intuitive on the website? We create wireframes to determine content placement and mimic a user’s flow through the site. We work with you to refine this not only for the initial website build but also after launch once we see your customer traffic flowing through the site.

Once we have an understanding of your products and business system, we look at the best ways to tie this all together and get your products out to the public. Depending on your budget this could be choosing a Shopify theme or creating a custom design for the look of the site. It could also mean putting more budget towards photography and copywriting to create the best base site to build off of. Videos and animations are always a plus, but depends on whether or not it makes sense for your budget.

We build what you need now, not what you need 3 years down the road. Why spend thousands of dollars on a problem that isn’t there. If your business is ready for more robust systems and integrations then we work with your team members to make that happen. 

If you have confidence in making updates to product text or photos and understand how orders are handled, then there is no stopping you. This is why we provide training to your and each of your team members that are responsible for the different areas of your website. Fulfillment, shipping, customer service, etc.  

We all know it isn’t as simple as build it and they will come. There needs to be a launch strategy that capitalizes on where the intended audience is and what truly resonates with them to bring them into your website. This could be a social strategy or google ads. 

Our most successful clients are those who take ownership in projects. This is why we work closely with each and every client throughout each step of the process. You have insights about your customers and products that we just don’t have. Together with our experience and knowledge, we create an e-commerce website that truly resonates with your customer base and at the end of the day actually converts to sales. 

We often have clients come to us with grandiose ideas that when all put together could probably launch the space shuttle. We suggest you start with the basics and build that right. Then, take a step back, and watch and listen to your customers. Let them guide the next features. More often than not, your customers will be requesting things that you never really put thought towards. Things like, instructional videos. These aren’t the sexy fun pieces of the website, but they are what keep existing customers coming back and also draw in customers that are looking to solve a problem. 

This may all sound daunting and to be honest, it does take quite a bit of work to create an effective e-commerce store. However, using our experience, we guide you every step of the way to ensure the process is an exciting one, just as it should be. I mean come on; you have this amazing product that the world needs to know about!