I thought, why not create a site similar to Scriptandstyle.com and Nettuts.com.  Keep in mind, this site does not come close to either of those sites, but that it takes the philosophy from both.  Attempting to expand the wealth of knowledge in a willing community.  The main difference being the site focuses on singular product and what I believe to be a superior product in e-commerce.

The site will not solely focus on Shopify, of course, it will broaden to all sorts of relevant applications, especially those that integrate directly with Shopify.  Blog posts and articles related to Shopify are always welcome, as opinion and dialogue are often needed on techniques, strategies and services to determine what is and what is not.

Fortunately, we have had success with Shopify in this situation in the recent past. It was a great opportunity to test the ease and success of a Shopify e-commerce website.

The site was designed to be very minimalist, easy to use and complement the products well. We decided not to use heavy colors or graphics and focus more on the products and words. Sometimes e-commerce sites focus too much on how fancy they look. We sought not to replicate typical garden sites with plush graphics but to emulate sites like Dell or Macy’s, with very little graphics and heavy use of CSS design.

Shopify also has a useful blogging section that would help discuss new and existing proucts with the public. The Shopify system also gave Adirondack Iron great search engine exposure since it was built with SEO in mind.

UPDATE: Adirondack Iron decided to merge their two e-commerce sites since maintaining two sites, both with low sales volumes, was financially unsound.

I occasionally post on Ebay, just less often and more to drive traffic and keep a reputation on the community.  Most of my inventory is on my website, not Ebay.  Plus, I love Shopify much better.  It’s easier to use than Ebay, and I get equal SEO with it, as I rank at or above many items.

Don’t believe me? Well, I don’t have the time to prove it to you. But just go searching something about coins, and I might come up.

Their original site was horrific, to say the least. It was made up of sliced images presented in a table.  It was pretty bad, and the designer is still in business making websites like this… still!  I ditched the site completely and started from scratch.

The site began initially to promote 4 basic features the pharmacy wanted to offer it’s customers.  Then it expanded into many other things as the owner realized how much could be done.  This was a classic example of scope creep.  One of the best kind of project, because you’re constantly being asked for me.  So long as you get paid, it’s the best thing that can happen to a web designer starting out.

It’s amazing how easy a catalog is to manually enter when the wholesale has provided a spreadsheet for you!  The project was a breeze for this reason since the catalog included hundreds of products.