What setup covers
- Choosing the platform with you, and opening the accounts in your name
- Theme and layout: home page, collection pages, product pages, cart and checkout styled to your brand
- Loading products with their options, stock counts, weights and photos
- Payments through the processor you pick, with the payout account in your name
- Shipping rates and zones built from your rules
- Order, shipping and refund emails rewritten in your voice
- Test orders from start to finish, including a refund
Choosing a platform
| Option | Fits | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Hosted shop builder | Most small shops that want the platform to handle hosting, security and checkout | Monthly fees, and paid apps for features you might expect to be included |
| Shop plugin on a general website system | Shops with a lot of writing, or an existing site on that system | Updates and hosting are your job, or a care plan's |
| Buy buttons on your current site | A handful of products next to a service business or a portfolio | Limited collection pages and search once the range grows |
| A marketplace storefront alongside your own shop | Reaching shoppers who already browse that marketplace | Their fees and rules apply, and the customer list stays with them |
If you already run a shop, we can work on the platform you have. Moving platforms is a bigger job, so we only suggest it when the current one is holding you back.
Products, options and stock
Product data is the slow part of most setups. We send you a spreadsheet template with a row per product and a column per detail: title, price, options, weight, stock and photo file names. You fill in what you know, and we load it, tidy the names and ask about the gaps. Options deserve care. A mug in three glazes is simple. A shirt in five sizes and four colors is twenty variants, each with its own stock count, and it should show only the combinations you actually make.
Payments, tax and shipping rates
You choose a payment processor and open the account yourself, so payouts go straight to you. We connect it and turn on the payment methods you want. For sales tax, we switch on the platform's tax tools and set them as your accountant advises; we don't give tax advice. Shipping rates come from your rules: flat rates, rates by weight, live carrier rates, free shipping over an amount, or local pickup.
Test orders
Before launch we place real test orders on a phone and a computer: a single item, a cart with several, a discount code, a pickup order if you offer one, and a refund. We check every email that goes out and every number on the receipt. You get the list of what we tested, and the shop opens once you've placed one order yourself.
Questions
How many products can you load?
As many as your quote covers. Small ranges we load by hand; larger ones we import from your spreadsheet and then check by sample.
Who owns the shop accounts?
You do. Platform, payment and domain accounts are opened in your name, and we work through access you can remove at any time.
Have products and no shop yet, or a shop that leaks orders? Tell us what you sell, how many products you have and where you ship.
Request a quote