People often talk about how much work goes into building an ecommerce website, but just how much work is it?

It depends, of course. But we talked to two recent Logojoy customers about how they launched online stores in just two weeks, including their biggest challenges and top tips. (Note: This doesn’t include sourcing or making products.)

Denise, Owner, TypeByMe

TypeByMe creates wall prints for homes and offices, including graphic shapes, inspiring quotes for entrepreneurs, and more.

“We built the website over a weekend, but had prepared all the content and done research on products for two weeks leading up to it during our evenings and weekends.

We used Wix and it’s great — highly effective and easy to use. A lot of the hard work is done for you with their templates. You then just have to make it your own and follow the guidelines they give.

The most challenging part was creating beautiful content. High-quality photos are what sells. Our product photos are all digital — they look like photos, but doing it digitally meant pristine images and consistency every time. We used Adobe PhotoShop and Illustrator.

My biggest tip when creating products: Spend time on the first product getting all the text, attributes, costs, and categories set. Once the first is done, clone and repeat for your other products.

For pricing, we did market research and plonked ourselves in the middle price bracket. We then trialled offers. We had a look what others were doing and then mimicked to see what worked for us — it’s all a learning curve.

We’re still working on promoting our website. But because our products are visual, Instagram has been a good tool. Plus, targeting our own friends and family circle initially to build traction has helped.”

It’s hard to get your website 100% perfect first time. So don’t. Get it 60-80% right and then release! Get it live! You can make amends along the way.

Jessica, Owner, Cubs Clothing Co.

Cubs Clothing Co. sells kids’ clothing, shoes, and accessories.

“The website took two weeks of full-time work, Monday to Sunday, to build and launch. I used Shopify and would recommend it, especially for people with no coding experience and low startup costs.

The biggest challenge was importing all the products and having to edit all the content and photos. The suppliers I work with provide photos, but they aren’t always modelled. My tip would be to remove the branding on photos! I used the cropping tool on Shopify, or I’d copy the image to Paint and edit it there.

I want people to get excited when they see my prices, so I charge according to what I think is fair for a product. I offer a discount on exit intent — there’s a free plugin called Privy that allows you to use pop-ups for signups or discounts. I also offer free shipping on orders over $70AUD.

I’m still working on promoting the website through Instagram (it can be difficult), and I’m going to be using Facebook in the near future.”

Be patient! It’s very easy to give up when you don’t see the results you’re after, especially after all the work put in.

Want more tips? Read expert advice about the dos and don’ts of website design.

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