Background: I agreed to design and launch a customized e-commerce store for a luxury menswear brand in just 3 days. My adorable client landed some very high profile press and wanted to maximize the exposure and get the cash register ringing. I’ve built many, many e-commerce sites and I prefer custom builds over hosted e-commerce because the hosted services are horrid time-sucking trolls (yes, I’m looking at you Yahoo! Stores). 3 days, however, is not enough time to get a custom build out the door nor is it enough time to get a merchant account and gateway processor installed. So… hosted e-commerce was the best solution and I decided to take Shopify out for a spin.

What I like about Shopify:

• Using CSS to control the design made the customization quick
• Simple admin tool with drag and drop ajax features makes administering quick and pleasant
• Ability to customize interactions like confirmation screens, store logic, and various customer emails
• Payment gateway documentation and support is great
• Easy Google Analytics integration (web analytics)
• Easy Campaign Monitor integration (email newsletters)
• Custom packing slips
• Slick order processing workflow
• Offline designer tool for customizing the store theme

What I really don’t like about Shopify:

• All 4 images (thumbnail, small, medium and large) for a product are scaled versions of the original so you’re stuck with the same aspect ratio for everything in the layout unless you do some (crappy) CSS workarounds.
• No relationship between the product variants and the image so when adding the green sweater to your cart, you see which ever thumbnail is the default image for the product . The support forums make it clear that the developers think this is absolutely fine and they have no intention of changing it.
• You have to upgrade to a hefty monthly plan to be able to offer coupons/discounts
• No free shipping option in the coupon tool which is a HUGE oversight
• Anything above basic CSS styling requires a working knowledge of Ruby, which is fine for me but not so much for someone without a geek badge.
• Checkout flow isn’t connected to the store template by default, requires lots more work

What I somewhat dislike about Shopify:

• Inventory management: no single-page data entry view for updating product on hand. This means 10 products with 10 variants (colors) = 300 clicks to open – edit – save if you need to do a mass update and are afraid of the spreadsheet uploader (typical clients are scared) or worried about the uploader’s lackluster documentation. Ugh.
• Out of inventory workflow should offer a ‘notify me’ option; I did a quick hack with a bit of logic and a call to a special Campaign Monitor mailing list but it’s not ideal.
• Directions for updating DNS so you don’t have shopname.myshopify.com as your store URL are wonky, so beginners will definitely struggle with this and I would bet more than a few kill their email routing in the process.
• Fee structure; you pay monthly for the store hosting (doesn’t include email hosting) and then a % of sales which is separate from the % of sale and transaction fee you’ll pay with the credit card processor. It adds up quickly!
• Coupon management is tedious – repetitive tasks like this should be streamlined for control via spreadsheet/csv uploads

Conclusion:

Shopify is a decent solution if you have low expectations and intermediate technology skills. You’ll pay a premium for the turn-key e-commerce but it’s a good starting point for those with low budgets and tight timelines. I would consider it a quick-launch starter option that’s far superior to other products but definitely not a long-term platform recommendation.

Interesting idea. Great demonstration of using flash for good rather than evil.

My tip: instructions are sparse – hit the forum for the most helpful information.

Two recommendations here… The first is to read his article. The second is to read others in the journal that published him: Information Research. The journal isn’t pretty, but it’s a good read.

*Official citation: Bruce, H. (2005). “Personal, anticipated information need” Information Research, 10(3) paper 232 [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/10-3/paper232.html]

If you find this kind of information fascinating, you should take a look at Marketing Sherpa’s Landing Page Handbook ($247). The heatmap studies alone were worth the price; you can improve your landing page conversions in just a few days (or however long it takes you to read 190 pages).

1. What are you trying to say?

The best designs come from a solid understanding of what needs to be said. Design is not just pretty for the sake of being pretty – design is communication. Don’t start with color, shape, or style— start with your message and let the ideas flow.

2. Avoid the “Amazon syndrome”. Over and over again clients say “I want to be like Amazon”.

You are not Amazon. You will not be Amazon. Don’t ask for a site like Amazon (or someone else’s) but in a different color. Take the time to think through your real needs… Your real brand goals, not just a rehash of someone else’s site.

3. Feelings.

Tell your designer what message and feeling you want to convey, and then give them the freedom to convey it in a fresh, new way. Their outside perspective on your project is valuable, and you need to step back long enough to let them do their job.

4. Share the big picture.

Be sure you are sharing the big picture with your design team. If today’s web site is going to blossom into a network of mini-sites, they need to know that up front. This tip will keep your designer happy and save you money in the long run. It will also keep your “add ons” from looking like “add ons”.

5. Cows can’t make milk faster, neither can creatives.

Resist the temptation to cut back on the planning stage of your design projects. It’s an important part of the process. A creative director at Hallmark tells a ditty about the creative process that goes something like this… Just because the farmer stands at the edge of his field, waves his fist and says “make milk faster” doesn’t mean it works. The same applies to the creative process. We need to chew our creative cud, lounge in the grass, moo a little. When we’re ready, the milk will come rushing forth, or at least when we give the teat a good pull it’s there to serve.

6. If you don’t have content, you’re not ready to design.

If you have not worked through your sitemap, rough content, site organization, feature list and related exercises you are not ready to design. Site design is fundamentally about communication and without content, a designer has nothing to work from. Resist the urge to rush things until you have truly done your homework.

7. It’s NOT about you.

It’s not about you, your friends or your colleagues. No one cares if you hate drop down menus and your boss loves them. What matters is what your customers think, want and feel. YOUR job is to get that information to your designer so they can do what needs to be done. Comfort yourself with the piles of money you’ll make from happy customers.

8. You are entitled to an opinion but you have to back it up.

You are allowed to have a voice in the creative process. It’s a welcome addition to any project, but you must have something meaningful to say. “I don’t like it” won’t make your project successful, but “I don’t like it because _________” has much more potential.

Don’t just say, “I don’t like green.” That says nothing of real value. If you say “I’m concerned that the color looks depressing and we need cheerful and youthful,” then you are giving great feedback because you’re talking about message rather than telling them how to design.

9. You only need one decision maker.

No good design was ever created by a committee. The more people who have a voice in the process, the more muddy and diluted it gets. Others will often give conflicting advice, have biases of their own and even ulterior motives. Take input, it can be highly valuable along the way, but YOU decide what the final decisions are. Make a decision and stick to it.

10. Remember that you’re not the designer.

If you were doing the creative work yourself, I bet you could make something yellow, but could you make it feel upbeat and friendly? Probably not – that’s what you hire designers for. So think in terms of emotions & feelings. At the initial planning stage, show your designer sites that appeal to you for this project, but dig deeper and figure out why. Resist the temptation to become the designer.

10 1/2. You can’t please everyone.

Bill Cosby said “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” If you want a sure-fire way to have a boring site with no personality, try and build a site that pleases the whole world.
Go back to #1: Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

This diagram comes from a research study by Michael Bernard which many of you will find interesting.

Michael studied various components of web sites and where users expected to find them. From search boxes to merchandise links, Michael’s research offers some valuable insight.

Enjoy!

Everyday I am asked to look at some struggling project or web site to see if I have ideas for making it better. And after hundreds, if not thousands, of these requests I’ve found that one thing unifies them all: no creative brief.

If you know me at all, you know that I harp on this issue all of the time. Creative Briefs are the best way to make sure that the outcome of your project is what you intended it to be. It gives the team a clear picture of what you’re trying to build, who you’re talking to and what they need to accomplish. You would never, never, never build a house without a blueprint – and you should never, never, never build a site without a creative brief.

But what happens when you’re not confident enough to write that initial brief? Or you don’t know what words to use? Or you’re working with a team on the other side of the world and you want to make sure they understand what you mean when you say rustic-elegance?

First, you should know that you’re not alone. Sometimes I am in those shoes myself. Despite the savantness you often tease me about, or as my friend Keith calls it “the encyclopedia brown gene”, I don’t always have the answer. Sometimes I get stuck, frustrated, and utterly unmotivated to face the big blank sheet of paper titled “creative brief”.

So here’s what I do… I get out my scissors and glue sticks and a sheet of tag board and a big stack of magazines, books, catalogs, newspapers, junk mail, anything that grabs my fancy. Then I start cutting out, or photocopying, things that match the vibe I am going for.

Maybe things someone who would buy my product might also buy.
Places they might live.
Things they might read.
Or ads, products or designs that match the mood or style I am after.
Even things I definintely DON’T want can be added to the mix.

I create an inspiration board that helps me to clarify my own ideas about the direction. This process starts to spark ideas, and provides visuals that can help me better communicate my ideas & goals.

You can also do this online – copying images and urls into a Word document.

Bottom line – it gets the creative energy flowing. Keeps me from staring at a blank sheet of paper and helps me to process my gut ideas. It’s just one of the techniques available to you when you’re stuck. And it works!

Let’s take rustic cabin for example. What do you think of when I say that?

This kind of rustic?

or this kind of rustic?

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nulla in neque. Duis ultricies, nulla non hendrerit feugiat, nunc odio consequat sapien, id vestibulum orci lectus eget wisi. Donec porttitor tempor mauris. Sed massa purus, fringilla et, vestibulum ut, blandit eu, eros…

Look familiar? Lorem Ipsum, or Lipsum for short, is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

Need some Lipsum for your project? Generate your own or read about its history here:  http://www.lipsum.com/