If you’re a small business in Cornwall thinking about setting up an online shop — or you’ve already got one built from a template and it’s just not pulling its weight — this one’s for you.
We see the same story a lot: a business owner spent a weekend setting up a store on a template, popped in some stock photos, and started running ads to it. The ads work. People click through. And then they leave, almost immediately, without buying anything.
It’s not usually the products. It’s the site.
Before we design a single page, we sit down with a client and talk about their products, their competitors, and — most importantly — why a customer should choose them over anyone else. That “why” becomes the backbone of the whole site. Every USP, every bit of messaging, every call-to-action traces back to it.
We’ll also have a proper look at what your current audience is doing on your site (if you have one), and what your competitors are getting right. It sounds obvious, but a huge number of e-commerce sites get built without either of those things ever being looked at properly.
Templates have their place — they’re a quick, cheap way to get a business online. But they’re generic by design, which means your brand personality gets flattened into whatever the template allows. Stock imagery that doesn’t match your brand, layouts that look like everyone else’s — it all adds up to a site that doesn’t feel trustworthy, even if the products are great.
We had a client come to us in exactly this position. Template site, mismatched stock photography, and a decent ad spend — but visitors were bouncing almost the moment they landed, because the homepage simply didn’t look professional. We’re not in the business of criticising what clients did before us — nobody knows what they don’t know, and that’s exactly why they come to us. We started with the homepage, moved on to the product pages, and then rebuilt the checkout flow. Sales improved significantly. Same products, same ad spend — just a site that actually did its job.
Your product photography needs to sell the product on its own — it’s often doing more work than any of your copy. And your checkout needs to be seamless. This sounds like a small thing until you remember that people will simply go to a competitor’s site if yours makes buying difficult. That’s it. No second chances, no benefit of the doubt.
One thing we always push clients on, because it’s so often missed: put your return policy, shipping timelines, and payment security badges right next to your “Add to Cart” button. Not buried in a footer link — right there, in the moment someone is deciding whether to trust you with their money. It’s small, and it’s underrated, and it works.
We design mobile-first, which for e-commerce means the product pages and cart need to work brilliantly on a phone, not just “look okay.” Clear imagery, a checkout flow that doesn’t ask someone to pinch and zoom their way to payment — that’s non-negotiable.
We don’t have a house platform we push on every client. WooCommerce tends to suit businesses that need a lot of bespoke, brochure-style content alongside their store — it’s flexible. Shopify is more rigid, but it’s robust and the cart/checkout experience is genuinely excellent. The right answer depends entirely on what you actually need, not what’s trendy.
AI is a useful tool — great for wireframing, great for chipping away at to-do lists. But it has limits. It can’t replace a designer who understands user experience, and a huge number of AI-influenced sites are starting to look the same: generic, interchangeable, forgettable. If your brand has personality, your website should be one of the places it shows up loudest — especially when you’re asking people to spend money with you.
It’s tempting to go heavy on “Buy Now,” discount banners, and urgency messaging everywhere. We’d argue for the opposite: lead with a strong, clear USP and let well-placed CTAs do quieter, steadier work throughout the site. Customers respond better to confidence than pressure.
If your site was a quick template fix that’s since outgrown its usefulness — or you’re setting up your first online shop and want to do it properly the first time — get in touch and see how we can help.
