3 things you need before you build your Shopify store

We all know it is very hard to start an Ecommerce business alone. The best way to kick things off is to combine your unique skills as a founder with partners that can complement them. If you do that you can achieve amazing results very fast.

Let's say you are a Creative Director during the day and a candle maker during the night. If you are looking to launch a Wellness Brand you already have an amazing brand identity and a great product. That is an impressive combo, but once you start digging into creating your business a lot of questions will come in:

• How does distribution work?
• What is the best platform for me to start selling?
• How do I advertise my product and engage with my target audience?
• How may a create an online store that invites people to learn about what I do?

All of those questions can be answered, but do you have the time to learn and actually implement it all alone? 98% of the times, the answer is no. Your attention should be aimed at your strengths as a founder while delegating the rest of the tasks to trusted people to help you grow. Without this there is a high chance your business will never leave the ground or will fail.

When working with an agency or freelancer to build your Ecommerce store, you will need to have a few things before they can do their job effectively. There are a couple of things that are important to have before working with a new partner for your Ecommerce build project. I'll be covering them below:

1. Your Brand Identity

The first essential item that you need to provide to your agency is the brand identity of your business. This is the visual and communication guides of how your brand is represented online. This will help your agency partner understand your brand and how you want to communicate with your customers. Once you have that well defined, those guides will be useful both online and offline for your business. Here is what you should provide to your agency:

• Logo
• Color Palette
• Typography
• Target Audience
• Competitors
• Influences & References

This is the minimum amount of information necessary for a good Agency to do their job well. There are some agencies that can do both webdesign and brand identity work, making this process way easier but if that is not the case, make sure you have those before starting the Ecommerce build.

2. Selected Products

That seems like a no brainer but we had many clients coming to us looking for recommendations on which products are the bests to sell. Unfortunately most web development and marketing agencies we are not equipped to assist with product recommendations since it requires extensive research and expertise they might not have.

If your brand has multiple products, understand how will you organize them and which are a priority in order for the consumer to see. Defining your hero products helps create better strategies on page, as for example you can customize your product recommendations on the product page to target your most sold itens and upsell those itens increasing your AOV.

3. Photography

Through our experience working with hundreds of clients, we see that a major factor for a successful launch is the quality of their assets. When building an Ecommerce store, most clients think that they need to create a very customized user journey to connect with their customer. While that is important, the truth is that all you need is a very consistent structure and beautiful imagery. Good photography will capture customer’s attention and build trust, so having lifetime photography is essential so that customers can experience the feeling of owning the product.

If you have those items, you have enough resources to start working with an agency to build your website. If you need help, get in touch to learn how Colored Byte can help you launch your business.

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