When you have an idea that’s going to involve an eCommerce element, there’s a lot to consider: Which platform to choose, payments and shipping, the shopping experience, the after-sales experience, level of customization, inventory management, reviews, who to work with, how much to spend…

And that’s before you’ve launched.

Having worked at a social enterprise that sold handbags online (as well as to international wholesale partners), helped build South Africa’s leading online store, and within the marketing team at WooCommerce for five years – I have my eye in when it comes to eCommerce.

I’ve also built two stores myself – so while I’m not a designer or developer, I’ve got practical experience and a working understanding that helps me greatly in making recommendations.

If you’re looking to move into eCommerce, I can come alongside you to:

• Sanity-check your idea and business plan – including competitor analysis, simple market sizing and research.
• Talk you through the platform options – Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Squarespace, Wix – and help you get a sense of which one will be the best fit. As well as whether to engage a freelancer or agency.
• Help you articulate your vision for the store both in design, experience and level of complexity and translate this into a tight brief or request for proposal. It’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few vendors for comparison.
• Review proposals and quotes for value and comprehensiveness
• Manage the build process – taking on as much or as little of this as you’d like me to.
• Make sure you think of things like Instagram product tagging, auto-requesting reviews, transactional emails, remarketing, etc.
• Help you plan the launch of your store – no matter how big or small you’d like it to be: from emails to ads to content and PR.
• Make sure you have adequate reports and analytics set up to easily understand what you need to about your store’s activity.
• Support you from launch to first sale to building loyal repeat customers and then optimizing your store into the future.

If you can’t tell, I love selling things online.