Online stores

Who it’s for

You have something to sell, and you want people to buy it straight from your own website. It might be one product. It might be a handful. It might be a whole shop’s worth.

You don’t need to know how online payments work. That part is my job.

What I build

The right store depends on how much you sell.

A few products. I usually use Stripe payment links. The buyer clicks Buy and pays on a checkout page that Stripe runs. There’s no cart to manage and no account to create. I built a one-book store for a debut novel this way. The buyer picks how many copies, sees the total and pays. A discount kicks in on its own at three or more copies.

A full catalog. If you carry a lot of products and need to keep track of stock, Shopify is usually the better fit. You can add products and change prices yourself, from a computer or from the Shopify app on your phone.

Either way, a few things hold:

• Card numbers stay off your website. Stripe or Shopify runs the checkout and handles the card details.
• Buyers know what happens next. Shipping, returns and common questions are answered in plain words before anyone pays.
• It works on a phone. The Buy button is easy to tap, and the total is clear before you pay.

I’ve also built a small shop into a bigger site. A therapy practice sells its own tools from its WordPress site, next to everything else the site does.

How the work goes

1. We talk. You tell me what you sell, how many products you have and how you ship. That tells me which kind of store fits.
2. You get a preview you can click. I build the store at a private link. Open it on your phone and go through it the way a customer would.
3. It goes live. When the store looks right to you, it goes live at your web address.
4. I keep looking after it. Products and prices change, and the store has to keep up.

After launch

On Shopify, you can change products and prices yourself whenever you want. On a small store with payment links, you send me the change and I take care of it.

The rest of the site works like any site I look after. With a care plan, you tell me what needs to change in plain words. I show you a preview, and it goes live when you approve it.

Not sure which kind of store you need? Tell me what you sell, and I’ll tell you which setup I’d use and why.