We looked into the various internet technology options available for creating and selling a bespoke shirt. All the available options did not cater for the various steps required to create a fully bespoke piece of clothing. Made to measure is easy to sell with existing ecommerce technology since the choices are very limited. With a bespoke product such as ours the choices are endless and we needed the ecommerce technology that would be flexible to add options in the future. The choice was obvious after all we make bespokeproducts so bespoke ecommerce technology is fully warranted!
We found 10 different technology providers with a spectrum of expertise where some were so cheap and tempting to one that quoted us a £200,000 to build a bespoke solution with body scanners and every thing you could imagine!
Next who did we choose
28 February 2009
19 February 2009
The Journey - Creating Bespoke Shirts Online
Building a bespoke tailoring website
Domain Name - This was an easy choice for us since http://www.greenandjacks.com/ was available
Hosting - If you will believe it we have moved around a bit after we first migrated from the software companies web hosting. We started with a hosting that was recommended by the software company which we subsequently found that it did not have some of the components which were required to make our site work. We then moved to a UK hosting company which was the right thing to do for SEO and capturing UK related traffic. After experiencing intermittent service quality we decided to move to hostgator in the USA who seem to be brilliant at what they do. This also shows that we were prepared to forgo and work harder at the SEO to get a quality service. To date I have no regrets on this since we were not prepared to take a low quality service to me its the same as the raw materials we purchase we were not prepared to compromise on quality for an easier way! The other piece of advice is to always have two hosting accounts with the same provider a live and a test site so that you do not play with technology that your customer may be using at the time.
Technology - We went for the LAMP architecture. LAMP stands for Linux, Appache, My SQL, PHP, For the fellow technophobes out there I may sound clever but I did not know about this till I started working on http://www.greenandjacks.com/. As far as I know there are two popular routes for building database driven websites. .Net and LAMP. LAMP is the open source version and .NET is the Microsoft equivalent. We decided to go for LAMP since there were lots of companies and freelancers available to program with this technology.
Requirements - We had so many changes in requirements since what we started with was an offline process and by the time we finished we realised that we had over engineered some requirements and not thought about quite a few items. So my lesson was to choose a provider who will be flexible and will not charge a lot more to change a few a the requirements.
What next?
Choosing the technology provider
Bye for now
Jack @ Green and Jacks - Bespoke Shirtmaker
Hosting - If you will believe it we have moved around a bit after we first migrated from the software companies web hosting. We started with a hosting that was recommended by the software company which we subsequently found that it did not have some of the components which were required to make our site work. We then moved to a UK hosting company which was the right thing to do for SEO and capturing UK related traffic. After experiencing intermittent service quality we decided to move to hostgator in the USA who seem to be brilliant at what they do. This also shows that we were prepared to forgo and work harder at the SEO to get a quality service. To date I have no regrets on this since we were not prepared to take a low quality service to me its the same as the raw materials we purchase we were not prepared to compromise on quality for an easier way! The other piece of advice is to always have two hosting accounts with the same provider a live and a test site so that you do not play with technology that your customer may be using at the time.
Technology - We went for the LAMP architecture. LAMP stands for Linux, Appache, My SQL, PHP, For the fellow technophobes out there I may sound clever but I did not know about this till I started working on http://www.greenandjacks.com/. As far as I know there are two popular routes for building database driven websites. .Net and LAMP. LAMP is the open source version and .NET is the Microsoft equivalent. We decided to go for LAMP since there were lots of companies and freelancers available to program with this technology.
Requirements - We had so many changes in requirements since what we started with was an offline process and by the time we finished we realised that we had over engineered some requirements and not thought about quite a few items. So my lesson was to choose a provider who will be flexible and will not charge a lot more to change a few a the requirements.
What next?
Choosing the technology provider
Bye for now
Jack @ Green and Jacks - Bespoke Shirtmaker
Green and Jack's Bespoke Shirt Maker
I will use this first post to explain who we are and the purpose of this blog. I am new to this and would welcome feedback on how to use all the features on blogger! Atleast the intention as it stands is to keep posting every week and be actively involved.
Bespoke Tailoring
We are a tailoring business creating bespoke shirts and selling men's accessories. In 2007 we took Green and Jack's online and captured the first few steps of the tailoring process traditionally carried out at the bespoke tailoring outlet on to http://www.greenandjacks.com/. This has sometimes been a bumpy ride working with technologists to first build the site then trying to use SEO people to get visitors to the site but we have learned a lot in the process.
We had many reservations on going online especially since there was many other sites selling products described as bespoke for throw away prices but neverthless we decided to do this mainly due to the compulsion of some of our existing customers. ( I can discuss about my journey to getting where we are now on another post!)
Some general rules we apply to our products:
Fully bespoke clothing - clothes are cut to individual patterns and we store these patterns for future use
Fabrics - 2 Ply fabrics unless mentioned otherwise - We understood early on that when you sell clothes online you need to exceed the clients expecations with regard to the feel of the fabric and this can only be achieved by choosing only 2 ply cotton fabrics with good counts.
Risk - Internet shopping brings a variety of risks eg security, misrepresentation of goods etc. All risks except for ones relating to the goods expecially for tailored products tend to have been resolved with most vedors by use of ssl and various technologies. Hence we decided that we provide what we call a perfect fit guarantee which means that if the bespoke clothing does not fit we alter it or remake it.
Men's Accessories - This is not designed by us but desigined by some of the best in the industry and for some of the items we even contribute to the design process.
One of my main concerns of writing a blog for our company was that this was going to become some sort of sales machine that would constantly induce people to buy products. I will attempt to use this blog purely to share my knowledge in fashion and tailoring so that this adds value to its readers.
Over the coming weeks, months, years ....... I will be sharing my knowledge on starting a business online, to work with, tailoring, fashion and style
Bye for now, I will write about our journey to creating http://www.greenandjacks.com/ soon!
Jack @ Green and Jack's bespoke shirt maker
We had many reservations on going online especially since there was many other sites selling products described as bespoke for throw away prices but neverthless we decided to do this mainly due to the compulsion of some of our existing customers. ( I can discuss about my journey to getting where we are now on another post!)
Some general rules we apply to our products:
Fully bespoke clothing - clothes are cut to individual patterns and we store these patterns for future use
Fabrics - 2 Ply fabrics unless mentioned otherwise - We understood early on that when you sell clothes online you need to exceed the clients expecations with regard to the feel of the fabric and this can only be achieved by choosing only 2 ply cotton fabrics with good counts.
Risk - Internet shopping brings a variety of risks eg security, misrepresentation of goods etc. All risks except for ones relating to the goods expecially for tailored products tend to have been resolved with most vedors by use of ssl and various technologies. Hence we decided that we provide what we call a perfect fit guarantee which means that if the bespoke clothing does not fit we alter it or remake it.
Men's Accessories - This is not designed by us but desigined by some of the best in the industry and for some of the items we even contribute to the design process.
One of my main concerns of writing a blog for our company was that this was going to become some sort of sales machine that would constantly induce people to buy products. I will attempt to use this blog purely to share my knowledge in fashion and tailoring so that this adds value to its readers.
Over the coming weeks, months, years ....... I will be sharing my knowledge on starting a business online, to work with, tailoring, fashion and style
Bye for now, I will write about our journey to creating http://www.greenandjacks.com/ soon!
Jack @ Green and Jack's bespoke shirt maker
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