Building the Perfect DTC Storefront
We talk about how important a craft producer’s website is all the time. We even created this UX guide that illustrates how to convey a great online experience. Your website is the digital version of your tasting room. A great website showcases the brand and communicates a unique and compelling story.
Craft producers need to transport customers through time and space and remind them what it was like to step into their establishment, breathe in the air, and taste the fruits of your labor. A website that embodies your brand with an intuitive experience is sure to inspire lasting relationships, more members, and more sales.
Today we are focusing on one of the most important aspects of your website, the eCommerce store, also called the storefront. Think of the storefront as your digital shelves and product display for your beverages. Do you have the right tools to create a great online store?
Hosted Storefront vs Custom Storefront... and Everything In Between
eCommerce stores have many moving parts. There are different categories, product pages, shopping cart, the checkout process, order tracking, and more. What is the best way to build shopping into your website?
Craft producers have a few options when it comes to creating an eCommerce storefront. They can:
1) use a predefined template (we call this a hosted storefront)
2) build it from the ground up (enables lots of customization)
3) or try a hybrid approach (a mix of predefined and customized)
All are good options depending on your business’ needs.
Hosted Storefront
A hosted eCommerce storefront is a type of software as a service (SaaS) platform that hosts online stores. Generally, they come with eCommerce-specific features that relate specifically to web-based DTC transactions. Anyone can use them, with no development experience necessary. Hosted storefronts are ideal for small to medium-sized businesses that have limited eCommerce development experience and want to be able to get their store up and running without outside help.
Full Customization
Self-hosted storefronts offer the online seller more customization. They require a bit of elbow grease in the development area but the sky's the limit. Custom storefronts are ideal for businesses that want a fully customizable eCommerce store and are able to invest in development.
Hybrid of Both
For those who want the convenience of the hosted storefront functionality but want complete control over the look and feel of store and product pages, a hybrid of both is a great option. Businesses will still need a developer to help execute the customizations, but things like the cart, checkout, and account pages can be part of the hosted storefront. This is the perfect option for any sized business that wants enhanced customization but doesn’t want to bite off more than they can chew with development.
VineSpring supports all of these options.
The All-New Hosted Storefront
The all-new VineSpring hosted storefront (HSF) in V3 has everything you need to set up a user-friendly eCommerce store. The HSF was designed to make things as simple and as easy as possible for the craft producer and the online customer.
VineSpring’s HSF is easy to get up and running quickly. It’s mobile-responsive and lightning-fast. You can trust that VineSpring hosting is secure and stable.
The VineSpring HSF is built on VineSpring’s Software Developers Kit (SDK) to simplify the backend equation. Whenever VineSpring releases updates for the SDK, those updates will also be available in the hosted storefront. For example, the HSF now features a slideout cart when a shopper adds an item and a one-page checkout process.
While you aren’t creating the storefront from scratch, there are still plenty of ways you can personalize the store for your brand:
Styling: Craft producers get to personalize the logo, favicon, colors, header, and footer so that it blends into the rest of the site.
Checkout: Manage the shipping policy text, order success, and required fields displayed during checkout.
Account Area: The heading, body text, and visibility of club and allocation membership information on the customer-facing account can be edited.
Registration: Manage the text and required fields displayed to customers when they create an account.
Club Signup: Craft producers can manage the text and required fields displayed to the customers when they sign up to be a member.
Check out a few examples of VineSpring HSF sites:
Full Customization Using SDK
VineSpring’s SDK allows craft producers to create a completely seamless experience for customers as they navigate between the website and the VineSpring storefront pages.
The VineSpring JavaScript SDK is a library that allows you to build commerce into any website. It enables craft producers to create a seamless brand experience for their users, or create custom commerce interactions on any website.
While the styling updates in the HSF allow you to model your storefront after your website aesthetic, it won’t be the exact same. But by building it with the SDK, the look and feel of the VineSpring pages can be fully customizable down to the last detail. Have a specific font you want to use throughout? No problem! Want to have a completely different layout for your products? You can do that too.
Using the SDK requires a skilled developer—one who is familiar with javascript and API calls. Feel free to reach out to us for recommendations—we have several development partners that we know and trust.
Want to see examples of fully integrated/customized sites using the SDK? Check out these VineSpring clients:
Want to see the SDK in action? Watch a recorded webinar where we show you how it works along with examples from clients like DuMOL, Merry Edwards, and Melka.
The Hybrid Approach
Some businesses want a custom look and feel, but don’t want to take on the responsibility of rebuilding all of the other VineSpring related functionality, like the shopping cart or account pages. Using a hybrid of the HSF and customizing the “store” page on your own domain website is an excellent option. That way there are pages that are built specifically for the business but they link out to the HSF for things like checkout.
Want to see what a hybrid looks like? Check out these examples:
Get Started with VineSpring’s HSF or SDK
For craft producers looking to sell DTC online, the storefront is a pivotal piece of the process. Luckily, there are great options for every level of customization. If you’d like to learn more about VineSpring HSF or SDK, reach out and we can talk about what option is best for you.
