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Tomato Tomato Creative

Creative genius Kelly Affleck needed an online home that offered her flexibility that was easy to update. Whether it was to sell stickers as a subscription, or to spread the word about her next craft show, or to sell tickets for her next craft workshop, Kelly needed a website that worked with her creative chameleon nature, not against it.

In this Shopify website case study, you'll see the Ecommerce Arcade approach to designing and strategizing a website that was built for flexibility for a burgeoning creative business.

Kelly Affleck never had the issue of a shortage of ideas.

She's managed to harness her brilliant brain into a career into graphic design, where it's allowed her to experiment and play, even with things like outdoor signage design or product design for Ugly Baby or Monster, two stores in Seattle owned by our mutual friend Rosalie Gale, to sharing her incredible treasure trove of crafting prowess, either as a teacher for creative kids or as reigning Iron Craft Ventura champion (an epic event at Craftcation that I created and host).

But what Kelly did have was a shortage on time.

And a shortage on time can affect many things- it can cause a savvy graphic designer to see all the steps involved in creating a new website and all that they would need to figure out, and go, "NOPE!"

That's when Kelly pinged me to see if I could take one of the many spinning plates, uh, off her plate (sigh. I'll let myself out).

Kelly's current website was on Squarespace.

Tomato Tomato Creative Website - before
BEFORE: Tomato Tomato Creative's website Home Page 

"Hey, what's wrong with Squarespace?!" you might ask, your hackles raising a bit.

Nothing!

But.

Squarespace's strength is giving folks the ability to create gorgeous, responsive (that means it shrinks and still looks good on smaller screen sizes) websites without having to know how to code, or go down a month's worth of rabbit holes just to figure out how to configure the darn thing.

But when it comes to products?

Shopify clobbers Squarespace when it comes to products as if it was a Pokemon battle between Ash and friends causing Jesse, James, and Meowth to blast off again.

pokemon team rocket blasts off again

Kelly already had a product line that knocked the socks off of every person in her target market (parents with kids, and also kids with a thirst for creativity and learning), and her Squarespace website wasn't doing her any favors to show her brilliance.

Kelly was also looking to do some in-person shows once the pandemic died down, and using Shopify POS in tandem with a Shopify website just happens to make things much easier.

Home Page design

Product Page on mobile

Mockup of Tomato Tomato's Subscription page on website on a tablet device

Kelly had an existing Patreon community, but she wanted to be able to offer products and crafting kits on an ongoing basis without the fees of the Patreon platform.

One of the perks of using Shopify are all the apps and integrations available, and a Subscription/recurring charge app helped Kelly continue to be an idea machine, but also share her creative genius with her subscribers.

Even though Kelly had had some of her products in various stores, she had moments of "building the airplane while in the air" when it came to mapping out her product line and all the things that come with that: product photography, copywriting, pricing, inventory, etc.

Soo alll the things.

All those things have a tendency to make many folks just stop, turn around, and run the other way (especially if there's a puppy there).

But that's not how I roll. By breaking down her project, bit by bit, we not only got her website designed and built, but we also added some accountability and guidance over the more messy parts that have a tendency to stop people in their tracks.

We even added an Accountability Day to her project scope, so that once we were veryclose to the finish line and the overwhelm was knocking on our door, we stood arm in arm and got things done together during an entire day of coworking.

"Every time I do something successful on my website I squeal "Eeeee! I did it, Holly!!!" And it's your calm voice that guides me through it."

-Kelly Affleck

Mockups of many mobile devices with Tomato Tomato Creative's website on the mobile devices

Post-Launch Update

Kelly's website launched, and now she could share her creative genius with the world! By having her website up and running, it helped unlock opportunities like being selected for competitive juried craft shows like Crafty Wonderland, and it opened the door to sell wholesale at amazing retailers like Powell's Books.

Kelly is currently exploring a brick-and-mortar presence so she can do the work that she's ridiculously good at andexcites her: teaching kids how to bring out the creative genius within themsleves.