After getting laid off from my job a year ago, I set off to start over as an entrepreneur and began creating a shop allowing customers to create keepsakes of the meaningful stories in their lives. This included “wiring in” a custom-coded photo upload design tool along with a custom Shopify customer experience flow through a series of purchase steps.
It took several months but even with NO prior website design or coding experience, this was possible to do together with the great Horizon Theme, App communities, Shopify Community Forums, and some help from AI along the way. This proves, a more intricate shop is possible to do for those that need this for their business.
As my wife and I only launched 2 weeks ago, we remain wide open for feedback and suggestions but we are already so inspired from the customer stories behind their custom creations.
If anyone is interested what is possible in terms of Shopify customizations (without coding experience) or just wants to provide some general critique, feel free to check out our new store: www.afterglohe.com
Thank you for sharing your story. The site looks good, and it is noticeable how much effort you have put in. That is important and a sign that you are on a good path. As there are a lot of merchants that give minimal effort, open a dropshipping store that looks like 1000 others. You have a good idea, and it is presented in a good way.
And as you asked for some critique, here are a few things I noticed.
First, why afterglohe? ( guess afterglow ?) you could explain if it has some interesting story.
Home page is good, very nice images, enough text, and an explanation about products. But for me, it is missing a bit of personal touch; the text of our story in the footer is not that emphasised. You could use some video, but also some images with people in them, enjoying your products. I think that makes a better connection with customers. In the second section, Halo and Halo Grande do not have links.
Your custom-coded upload tool is great, probably took a lot of time to make. I noticed it is on a custom domain, but I hope customers will not have issues with that. Some could get scared, though, uploading personal images on a “sketchy” URL. So think of making that page similar to the rest of the site or somehow embed it on a custom page on the Shopify side. An idea for the future. So maybe add a similar header and footer, some section with privacy consideration, step 2 title…
For a product page, I checked “HOLZ” it has enough text and good images, but it could use more sections, customer reassurance, and some review app. Also, you can add a bundle there, but maybe you already have that as the main product.
I always check to find contact information, but besides email, there is not much there on your store. Full business information, address, and phone are good trust signals for customers.
“SECTION 21 - GOVERNING LAW
These Terms of Service and any separate agreements whereby we provide you Services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the federal and state or territorial courts in the jurisdiction where afterglohe is headquartered. You and afterglohe consent to venue and personal jurisdiction in such courts.” this is maybe a default but to me that does not say anything useful
I think you should edit checkout to match the rest of the site as colours are different.
Anyway, good luck with the sales and keep working on your store.
Hi Laza. Thank you so much for the very useful feedback! I just corrected the 2 links that were not working properly - thank you for pointing that out! All of the other points will definitely give me great areas for improving. Your feedback is exactly what I am looking for - we (my wife and I) have the base now - at least enough to open our first store, but now we want to make it a better overall experience for our customers! Your feedback is all great in this effort!
Oh - I forgot to answer one of your questions - “afterglohe” vs “afterglow”. Maybe I’m licking my wounds a bit here but the “afterglow.com” domain is already owned so we changed it up a bit. We are hoping with the “he” at the end, it is a bit more memorable and unique.
Hi Paul. I’m kind of new to the forum world but your suggestion is a great idea. How can I make that type of request? Sorry for being a bit clueless on this!
I think the product idea is cute and has potential so here’s some notes domains that might help you get ahead longterm. personally not a big fan that’s it’s plastic though? or maybe the 3D print messaging isn’t clear?'.
It’s never a good sign to base a business on hope, come up with plan and be aggressive it about domain name can literally be make or break regardless of product potential.
You need strong branding for a mispell to stick like that or your always going to lose traffic/reputation to mis-correct-spellings;
it’s almost a form of reverse typo-squatting for domains but in this case the other domain is a live domain but also kinda of not legit and kinda of suspect domain squatter.
And that can add a type of illegimaticy to your site just as a bystander casualty.
You should probably do the homework through something like namecheap’s domain search to find alternatives .com is the strongest but there are other options like .art (make sure you understand who the actual registrar business is for tradeoffs; don’t want to get problems like with the .io domains due to geopolitical noise) .
There’s also hypothetically the trademark route through which to take a domain from squatters but you’d need to talk to a lawyer about the feasibility of this and be ready for a financial drain IF it’s even possible at some point in the future IF a proper foundation is built over time.
I’d never recommend going all in , yet IF this offering is something with traction and real revenue you should probably at least in explore a yes/no with a lawyer and at minimum get trademarks regardless of the domain situation; * then/or PR company to workshop a claimable/defendable name*.
Hi Paul. Thank you for the insights! I appreciate the time you are investing into our work/business. Good food for thought above that we will definitely consider!
( guess afterglow ?) you could explain if it has some interesting story.
at minimum get trademarks regardless of the domain situation; * then/or PR company to workshop a claimable/defendable name*.