Transcript Document

Building E-Commerce Sites
With Shopify
Lance Ball
[email protected]
Who is Lance?
• Software developer - 15 years
• Web designer - when required
• Asheville resident - 6 years
A sometime entrepreneur, I started Locomotivity coworking, and
Shovelpunks, Inc., a web development company. Now I'm with
Red Hat building apps in the cloud.
What is Shopify?
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Hosted ecommerce
Written in Rails
Top-notch development team
Fully customizable
Uses Liquid templates
Many excellent features
Some Features
• Integration with shipping providers such as UPS, FedEx and
USPS
• Inventory management
• Custom domains
• Blogs and Pages
• SSL
• Discount Codes
• Flexible categories and product variants
• Nice integration with Google Products, AdWords and
Website Optimizer
• Integration with multiple fulfillment services
Pros and Cons
Pros
• Templates are simple
• Never have to worry about
server maintenance and
upgrades
• Full featured
• Professional phone support
• Excellent SEO & usability
• Administration interface is
easy to use
• Hosted in the cloud
• Lots of templates and 3rd
party applications available
Cons
• Potentially expensive
• Digital products require 3rd
party add-on
• Some rigidity with shipping
and taxes
• Design constraints during
checkout
• You don't "own" the server
(but who wants to!?)
Two Examples
Tupelo Honey Cafe
http://shop.tupelohoneycafe.com
Arts of Asheville
http://www.artsofasheville.com
What does it cost?