Has anyone worked with BlazeKey Media for building an ecommerce store?

[Tonysan0767]

I am trying to find out if anyone has done business with BlazeKey Media, Llc, having them build a ecommerce, drop shipping store. 

[StephensWorld]

It's very unlikely that you'll find someone on these forums that sees this post, and has also worked with them (that's not a dig at their company, but for any company or Shopify Expert/Partner, it'll be hard to find a past client by simply posting on the ecommerce forums). 

I don't see them listed in the official Partner directory (https://www.shopify.com/partners/directory). However, they do have a very nice site (https://blazekeymedia.com/), so I wouldn't be surprised if they're legit and can build dropshipping stores. 

I'd probably recommend sticking to working with partners from the official directory though, if you have any doubts about whether BlazeKey Media is legit or not. 

[Tonysan0767]

Stephen,

I can’t thank you enough for your reply as it gives me some sense of comfort that I get a response that wasn’t all doom and gloom. This is my first attempt at starting an e-commerce business, and I can say without a doubt I’m not what you would consider savvy when it comes to the digital age as I’ve been a construction manager for the last 25 years, and when I started as a framer reading plans everything was paper.

Any advice you can give me on the right person to use to help generate a solid website, reasonable ad buys, And creative waste to bring business to my drop shipping ecom store.

Appreciative and respectfully,

T.

[StephensWorld · Accepted solution]

I mean, if you're looking to hire someone to help build out a Shopify store, that is a service that I offer! 😉

https://stephens.world

Before hiring anyone though, you should have a good idea of what you're looking to sell. Don't just 'make a store' to 'have a store'. You need to have a game-plan in mind, before hiring someone, otherwise you'll end up with something you're not passionate about, and that's the quickest way to lose motivation in the ecommerce world. 

Anyone who claims to be able to build you an 'overnight success' of a store isn't being honest. If that's what you're looking for, then you should think about purchasing an established business and just take over something that's already working. Beyond having high-quality products, at a reasonable price, with a decent-looking website -- you'll need to put in a lot of work (and potentially money) into marketing to have a successful online store. Simply building a beautiful website isn't going to generate you sales, if you don't have a plan for how to get 'the word out' about your new store. 

A lot of people use Google Keyword Trends (https://trends.google.com/trends/) to try and find things that are 'on the rise' in terms of popularity (based on what people have been searching for on Google). 

As far as running ads go -- I always recommend to my clients that you have someone in-house who learns how to do them. They'll probably not be successful (or profitable) right out the gate, but it's better to burn money learning how to do them yourself, than hiring an ad agency to do the same thing at a premium. Instead, if you want to spend some extra money right away, then hire some graphic designers or video editors/creators, to create the content that you use for the ads. That'll be better bang-for-your-buck.

Once you find an ad campaign that's successful, that's when you should think about reaching out to an ad agency, so that they can help optimize things. This is just my 2-cents worth though -- there are definitely folks who disagree with me, and decide to hire an ad agency right from the start. If you can afford it, then sure -- but if you're trying to make every dollar count, then it's best to do the 'experimenting' yourself, so that you're not paying a premium for it. 

When you go to hire someone to help build the site, it also helps if you have a few stores/websites that you can link the person to, that you really like, so that they can get a better idea of how you want things to look/work. I wouldn't recommend paying for any 'site mockups' (a lot of folks do 'figma' designs, and then try to hire people to match the designs/mockups). It's better to hire an Expert who has a portfolio of sites you find nice/professional-looking, and have them work with a theme from the Shopify theme store that's as close to what you want, so that you can avoid spending a small fortune on custom-coding edits. Working with what's available is 10x easier for whichever Expert/Partner that you hire, than trying to match something super-custom, from a graphic artist who didn't even have Shopify in mind when they made the designs. 

TLDR: 

• Figure out what you want to sell.
• Source the products before you even start building the site (ie. know where you're going to get your products from). 
• Plan out your content (logo, banners, text for your various pages, product pricing, etc.).
• Hire an official Shopify Expert/Partner to build the site, using a theme from the Shopify theme store.
• Pay a graphic designer or video editor to create some nice content to use for your ads. 
• Learn and run the first few sets of ads yourself. 
• Once you find ad campaigns that works, think about hiring an ad agency to take you to the next level. 

Good luck! 🙂

[Charzard]

I hired these guys and I've spoken to several other people. They scammed all of us out of more than $4k each. They set up a terrible store with terrible products, "ran" it for 3 months, and then racked up almost $4k in charges on Shopify, cut off all communications, and ran off with all our money. A group of victims are currently banding together to go after these guys, sue them, and put them out of business. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM! They are total scammers.