Big Cartel http://www.bigcartel.com/
For a new startup indie jewellery label.
Why:
- Low entry level cost $9.99p/m
- Simplicity; of options, of admin, and conveyed through thoughtful interface design throughout their offering
- I don't have to host it
- Has a 'store directory' for promotion within the community
- Has a sizable community / forums
- Allows a custom domain
- No commissions, just flat store fee, paid monthly no contacts
- Paypal only, no mucking about with merchant stuff, eg. no liasing to make this happen
- The client had already signed up for a free store and seemed comfortable with the admin section, so this was a good sign it would be pain free for them (me).
Result?
I'm pleased with this shop solution, it was up and running at signup, and customising the 'Sexy' theme with basic CSS to personalise it and match the clients website was done and browser tested in under a day. I havn't tried more intense theme customisations / filters as there is no budget, and no need I can see for now.
The non-technical client was able to use the BigCartel admin without instructions to add images and pages, colour options, descriptions, prices, categories etc etc.
The only caveats was explaining how to crop / resize photos in Photoshop properly... as there is no inbuilt crop / resize app in the CMS. (Photoshops better anyway).
It check it here: (Still under construction in terms of content)
http://www.yinjoux.bigcartel.com/
or here when the domains been setup
http://www.shop.yinjoux.com/
Not sure how it goes with SEO etc, but for this sort of client main traffic will come from design blog referrers, online mags and the like, so its no biggie at this stage, and they have a Wordpress main site which can be customised for the SEO goodness.
Shopify's affiliate options are enticing though, I'll keep them in mind for future, larger volume shop clients with a larger budget.
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