Services · Online Stores
Online Stores, Shopify and Stripe
Shopify and Stripe do the hard parts of selling online better than anything I would write, so that is the foundation and I am not going to rebuild it. The decision is how far it goes on top, and that depends on what you sell and who you sell it to.
How far it goes
- Set up on the defaultsShopify and Stripe configured properly the first time: catalogue and variants, shipping zones, Canadian tax, payouts, and a good theme lightly dressed. The cheapest thing on this page, and often the right one.
- The storefront reshapedThe theme made to fit your catalogue rather than the other way round: trade pricing, bundles, minimums, B2B accounts, and the collections your buyers actually shop by.
- The checkout and the flowTaken past the settings screen where it needs to be: a quote before a price, an approval step, a deposit, different terms per account.
- The parts no app coversThe pricing rule, the integration, the back-office job that is genuinely yours. Built only after checking that nobody already sells it, because usually somebody does.
- Someone to run it, if you want oneProducts, prices, promotions and app updates handled monthly, so the store does not quietly rot between launches.
When this is the right call
- You are starting out and want it set up correctly the first time, without a year of tinkering.
- You are on Shopify and the theme fights you on pricing, variants, minimums or trade accounts.
- Trade and retail customers need different prices, terms or catalogues.
- The store works, but nobody has time to run it and the catalogue and prices have drifted.
- Orders are re-keyed by hand into accounting or fulfilment once they arrive.
And when it is not
If your customers do not buy online, a store will not make them. Trades who phone the order in, buyers on account, anyone who wants a quote before a price: fix the ordering path they actually use rather than building a checkout nobody reaches.
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