today at last i finally hit the “go live” button on my webshop that’s been almost a year in the making. it won’t look like it took a year to make – it’s pretty basic and doesn’t have a ton of stuff in it yet – but since i chose to more or less do it myself it took me that long, in fits and starts, to get it to where it is right now. i tried a few other platforms before coming back to woo commerce, and had to install a new theme that was compatible because the old one broke when i first added woo. so that took a little while, too, to get up to speed on. and then because woo commerce is infinitely customizable, it just took me a while to determine what i wanted and then how to do it.
i want to give a shout out to steven adger, a web developer who i crossed paths with decades ago when he bought a recycled vinyl record clock from me, who offered to help me with woo commerce and my site. i was not the best student and i’ve dragged this on for a year but i really appreciate his patience and time and his insights did help me cross the finish line eventually.
i will of course continue to tweak how the shop looks and functions as it gets used and hopefully there’s not any glaring mistakes out the gate. please please please give me feedback as you use it – whether purchasing or just poking around – so i can continue to make it more user friendly.
you’ll notice the main landing page of my site looks a little different than it used to. it’s no longer a long list of blog entries and only text-based; now there’s a little intro with my smiling face and several images below which represent the last 6 blog entries. i feel like it gives the landing page a cleaner, more dynamic and interesting look than just a long list of words. i’ll get better over time picking photos for my posts.
the main navigation menu is across the top right and will take you to all the pages of the site, including the shop and your shopping cart if you’ve started to add things and lose track of it. there’s even a search function though i’m unclear how well that works.
i will eventually add a formal artist bio and cv to the about me drop down menu, but i’m still working on those. for now there’s just a basic intro to who i am on that page. and then you can get more of my story by viewing all the past work pages from that drop down menu. it might be a little overkill but i’ve made so many different things in my life and many folks coming across me now have no idea of my past so i just wanted to give a fuller picture of who i am as an artist, that i’ve been making a wide variety of things since college.
for the shop, you can view by category or all the items in the shop at once by using the drop down menu. right now there’s only 2 pages to scroll through if you use the main shop view but i anticipate continuing to add much more and thought that once i get several pages worth of items it might be nice to have the ability to narrow down the focus. some folks might only be interested in t-shirts or stickers; others might only be interested in original art or prints.
which brings me to the biggest issue around my shop that i want to make you aware of – shipping. first of all, i am only using this shop to ship within the US using USPS, at this time. no international orders. if you live outside the US and want to order something, just email me and we’ll work it out. it’s just too complicated right now until i fine tune everything so international compatibility will have to come later. thanks for understanding.
for those of you in the US, when you add things to your cart, you’ll have the choice of paying for shipping or getting free local pickup, for those in the new orleans area. i’m always happy to facilitate that. in terms of shipping, some things have a shipping charge associated with them (t-shirts and prints, currently) and other things don’t and are marked “free shipping” (like stickers and paintings). because i don’t really standardize how i ship – i like to use a lot of recycled materials which often means different sized packaging – it’s hard to use the actual weight system to determine shipping. so i’ve tried to set flat rates for the things i know weights for and have standardized packaging for (one t-shirt will be around $6 to ship, two will be $7, etc.) but the other things i’ve just left as “free” and have adjusted the prices of the items to add some for shipping. paintings in particular are difficult to estimate as they require so much extra packaging to ensure their safe delivery. i’ve tried to err on the side of not overcharging you while also not undercharging for me, but i guess we’ll see how it goes. perhaps as i get back into the shipping game (i used to mail out a lot more art so i was familiar with the rates and weights better so could estimate well) i will be able to set flat rate shipping for the paintings as well.
(if you end up purchasing multiple items in the shop – t-shirts plus paintings plus prints, let’s say – it might end up adding several different shipping charges and therefore overcharging you and if that ends up being the case, i will refund you the overcharge when i actually calculate what it will be to box it all up together.)
all of this is to say… this is a work in progress and i could and probably will keep tweaking this forever, but i wanted to go ahead and make it live so you can start shopping and i can figure out what more i have to fix to make it function smoothly.
i thank you in advance for your patience and your support. having this shop where i can upload my latest creations and manage inventory easier will make my life a lot simpler and hopefully also start bringing me some more consistent art income as i try to transition further away from the pet business and focus more on my creativity.
thanks y’all!