The Playbook · HIRING
How to choose who builds your e-commerce store
Choose an e-commerce developer by buying something from a store they built. Not by looking at it. By buying, on your phone, with a real card. That one test tells you more than a portfolio ever will. Five more checks below, in the order I would run them if I were putting my own catalog online.
Can you buy something from a store they built?
Do it on cellular, on a phone, as a stranger. Find a product, read enough to decide, add it, check out as a guest. Count the taps and note every moment you hesitated. If the shipping cost appeared only at the last step, or an account was forced on you, they shipped a store that leaks, and yours will leak the same way. The store mistakes play lists the leaks by name.
Who owns the store when you leave?
The platform account, the domain, the payment processor, the product photos, the customer list. All of it should be in your name from day one. Ask what happens if you cancel. The right answer is that the store keeps running and you keep the logins. If the answer is a transfer fee or a pause, you are renting.
Do they ask about your margins?
A store is built around what one order earns, not around what looks nice. A builder who never asks your product cost, your shipping cost or your return rate is designing a brochure with a cart on it. The e-commerce service page says it plainly: product pages, carts and checkouts built around your catalog, your margins and your customers.
The question I ask first
What is an order worth to you after the product and the processor's cut? That number decides how much store you should buy, and I would rather say so before the quote than after.
What happens on order one hundred?
The first ten orders are exciting. The hundredth is a Tuesday, and by then the receipts, the inventory count and the shipping labels should happen without you touching them. Ask what is automated after the sale and what still needs a human. A builder who wires order automation from the start is saving you the hire you would otherwise make in year two.
What is in the quote?
Scope, price, date, what happens after launch, and who owns what. My floors are public, Signature builds from $2,500 and Flagship from $5,000, with a store sitting above a brochure site of the same size. Care after launch is separate and month to month on the plans page. If any of the five lines is missing from a quote, ask before you sign; the nine questions play gives the answers that mean hang up.
What should you do tonight?
Buy something from your own store, if you have one, the way a stranger would. Then buy something from a store built by anyone you are considering. The builder whose store made the purchase feel like nothing is the one to call. If that turns out to be me, the person answering is the person who wires the checkout.
What else do owners ask?
Should I hire a Shopify expert or a general web developer?
Hire whoever can show you a store you can buy from today and will personally maintain it. The platform matters less than the person, and the person should know your margins before they know your colours.
How much should an e-commerce quote include?
The build, the platform fee, the processor's cut, and the care after launch. A quote that names one of the four is a quarter of a quote. The store cost play walks through all four.
What if I already have a store that does not sell?
Send it through the free audit on the tools page. Most stores that do not sell have the same three leaks, and most of the fixes are an afternoon, not a rebuild.
Your move. Call or text (847) 387-0244, or price your build in six taps and I call you with the exact number.
← All plays · Free tools: cost calculator, busywork calculator & site audit · Price my build
Your move