Ecommerce websites
Good ecommerce website design is mostly about the moments that lose sales: the slow product page, the confusing basket, the shipping surprise at checkout. I have built and managed a lot of online shops, and every one is designed around removing those moments.
It is rarely the products.
Most online shops lose the sale somewhere between the product page and the thank-you page. Pages that take four seconds to load on a phone, photos that do not show the thing properly, a basket that needs an account, a delivery cost that only appears at the last step. Each one sends a share of buyers away, and the shares compound.
The fix is not a prettier theme; it is a shop designed around how people actually buy: fast on a phone, clear about price and delivery from the first page, a checkout that asks for the minimum, and products described well enough to be found and bought. That is what I build, on whichever platform fits your business.
Everything a shop needs to launch and trade properly.
Two good options. I will tell you which fits.
My usual recommendation
WordPress with WooCommerce gives you a shop you own outright, that costs less over five years and that bends to how you sell: configured products, trade pricing, bookings and subscriptions, custom plugins when the standard ones run out. Built lean, it is as fast as anything on the web.
WooCommerce developmentFor the simplest day-to-day
Hosted, secure and very easy to run from a phone. The right choice for standard products and a team that never wants to think about updates, with a custom theme so it looks like your business rather than a template.
Shopify web designHow products are grouped, what varies (size, colour, pack), what the customer needs to know before buying and how orders get fulfilled are decided first. A well-structured catalogue is what makes a shop easy to browse and easy to rank.
Category page, product page, basket, checkout: each is designed on a phone first and tested with real products. Delivery cost and time are visible before the basket, because the checkout is where most shops leak.
Redirects from any old shop, payments switched to live, and a quiet launch with the old site as fallback. After that, the shop needs looking after: platform updates, security, backups and the search work that brings buyers month after month.
For a shop around the bay, what a Torbay shop needs from its website is the place to start. The platform decision is the one most shop owners agonise over, so I have written it up honestly in WordPress or Shopify for a Torbay shop? Once the shop is live, ecommerce SEO is where the traffic comes from, and custom plugins are the answer when a shop needs one thing no off-the-shelf extension quite does.
Technical, local and content SEO that moves you up Google and Bing for the searches that matter.
Learn more about search engine optimisationLogos, identity and the visual rules that make a business look like one.
Learn more about brand design & strategyWords that explain what you do, answer what customers ask and give pages a reason to rank.
Learn more about copywritingPlugins for WordPress, WooCommerce and Shopify built for exactly what your site needs.
Learn more about custom pluginsEither can run a successful shop, and I build and look after both. My default recommendation is WooCommerce, because you own everything, it costs less over five years and it handles unusual selling (configured products, trade pricing, bookings alongside products) without fighting the platform. Shopify is the right call when you want the simplest possible day-to-day and never want to think about updates. The WooCommerce and Shopify pages explain each in detail.
More than a brochure site, because there is more to build: the catalogue, the checkout, payments, shipping and tax rules, product copy and photography, and the search work that brings buyers. The price depends on how many products, how unusual the selling is and what you already have. After one conversation you get a fixed price in writing; the pricing page explains how it is worked out.
Yes. Products, customers, orders and reviews are migrated, every old product and category address is redirected so nothing is lost from Google, and the old shop stays live until the new one is proven. I have moved shops in both directions between WooCommerce and Shopify.
That is the point. Adding products, changing prices, running offers, processing orders and printing labels are all things you do from your phone or laptop without me, and I show you how at launch. A care arrangement covers the technical side so you never have to.
Being found for what you sell. Every shop I build has the search foundations in from the start, and ecommerce SEO is the ongoing work that wins the category and product searches. For a Torbay shop, local search matters too: “gift shop Brixham” brings people to the door as well as the checkout.
All set up properly: card payments through Stripe or Shopify Payments, PayPal and Apple Pay, shipping rules by weight, zone or class, Royal Mail and courier integration where you want it, and VAT handled correctly for UK and overseas orders. You see a test order go through before launch.
Tell me what you sell, the rough size of the range and whether anything is online already. I’ll say which platform I would use and what ecommerce website design for your business would involve, with a fixed price in writing.
Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. The person who answers is the person who builds.