Designing for customers and the people running the shop
I have built many Shopify stores from scratch and completed moves from Ruby on Rails to Shopify. Across those projects, the work has had two closely connected aims: make buying straightforward and make the shop easier to manage.
A customer needs to understand the products and find their way to an order. The team needs to manage those products, handle orders and make everyday changes. Decisions about the design and structure of a shop affect both experiences.
Bringing the content and build together
My work covered design and development alongside copy, product data, integrations, SEO and launch. Handling those areas together let me consider the products and their content while shaping the pages that would present them.
It also meant considering how the finished store would be maintained. A design choice could affect how products were organised, what information the team needed to prepare and how easily they could update it later. Those were part of the build decisions from the outset.
A new store and a migration have different starting points
For a new shop, I brought the products, content and business systems together into a store ready to trade. The work ran from the first design decisions through to launch.
An existing shop needed a different starting point: understanding how it worked, then deciding what needed to move and what needed to change. I carried that work through completed migrations from Ruby on Rails to Shopify, with the buying experience and the daily work of running the shop considered together.
The decisions behind the build
Buying
Give customers a clear way to understand the products and place an order.
Running the shop
Consider product management, connected systems and everyday updates alongside the design.
Getting to launch
Bring a new store together or work through the move from an existing platform.
Easier ordering and less admin
Across these builds and migrations, the work has helped more visitors become customers and made ordering easier. It has also reduced admin and made everyday updates easier for the people running the stores.
The value of the finished shop continued after launch: customers had an easier route to buying, and the team had a more manageable store to work with.