Store design: storefront only or a fully set-up store?
When you ask for store design, two very different jobs can hide behind the same words. One is the storefront only: how the store looks. The other is a fully set-up store, ready to take its first order. Knowing which one you are being offered saves you from a store that looks finished but cannot sell yet.
What does a storefront-only job include?
It covers the visual side: the home page, the product page layout, the category pages, the header and footer, colours, fonts and banners, all matched to your brand. On Salla or Shopify it often means designing or customising the theme. You receive a store that looks right, but the products, payments and shipping may still be empty.
What does a fully set-up store add?
Everything needed to sell: products with their options, categories, payment methods, shipping rules, policy pages, notification messages and a test order from start to finish. The store is handed over working, and your first real order can arrive the day you announce it, without a second round of setup.
When is storefront design enough?
When you already run a store and only the look is holding it back, or when you have a team that will add products and connect payments. It also suits owners who enjoy setting things up themselves and only want a professional face. In that case, make sure the theme stays easy to edit after the designer has finished.
When should you ask for the full setup?
When it is your first store, when you have many products with sizes or colours, or when your time is better spent on suppliers and marketing. Setup has many small steps that are easy to miss, such as policy pages or shipping zones, and each missing step can stop an order at the last moment.
What should you prepare in both cases?
Your logo and colours, clear product photos, product names and descriptions, and your policies on returns and delivery. For a full setup, also prepare the product list with its options in one sheet. The more of this you hand over at the start, the faster the store moves from design to launch.
How I handle it
I build stores on Salla, Shopify and WooCommerce. Every store is designed in Figma first, and you approve the design before the build starts. You get the dashboard and manage products, prices and posts yourself, and 180 days of support start from launch. Stores are priced after the brief, because the work depends on what you need. Tell me about your products and your platform.
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